Social media is a vital part of your marketing strategy and every company needs to jump in and get involved with the ever-growing social media age.
1. Social media is only for the younger audience
Don’t think that the only people using Social Media are a young audience that is not interested in your service or product, there is an increasingly older audience and other business connections, that you can use to your advantage in your social media strategy.
According to ‘Digital 22’ “51% of adults between 55-64 regularly use social media and 23% of over 65’s use social media compared to only 15% in 2015.”
These stats were from 2016, however, they will have since increased again.
2. Negative comments are too risky on social media
You are likely to receive some negative comments about your business on your social media pages. However, this can be turned into a positive, as you can learn from these negative comments and try to pre-empt similar reactions in the future, should a similar scenario arise. For example, if your delivery service is constantly getting negative comments, you can reply and say something along the lines of “Thank you for your feedback, we are reviewing the current service and we aim to put in improvements very soon.”
Make sure you are not ignoring the negative comments and just concentrating on the positive ones! Negative comments can be a vital tool in helping your company grow and improve year on year.
3. All social media platforms are the same
No, no, no! All social media platforms are unique in their own right and using different content on each platform is vital for your social media strategy. For example, users don’t want to see the same content on Instagram as you would put on Facebook. Instagram is more for grabbing people’s attention with more of a personal approach to marketing. Whereas, Facebook is a platform for more business orientated content and news about your company as a whole.
4. Social media is only for attracting new customers
One of the main reasons for introducing social media into your marketing strategy is, of course, to attract new customers to use your services or buy your products. However, retaining your loyal customers will continually help your company grow, as they will already be open to receiving marketing messages and may look out for offers communicated via social media. These types of customers can also become brand advocates, liking, sharing and engaging with your social media posts, which in turn grows the reach of how many people will see them.”
Social media can also be used to your advantage when you are looking for new employees to join your team. The best social media platform for this is LinkedIn, where you can post jobs and contact the candidates directly and see more about them on their profiles
5. There isn’t enough content to share on social media
There is always something to post on social media, from other companies in your industry to friends and family. Sit down and analyse what kind of content your customers like to see by looking back on your social media insights. You may even want to consider using more of a personal approach, meaning what kind of things do you like to see on social media? Be it, your favourite quotes, a picture of you eating a nice big chocolate bar at your desk or anything else you may like on a personal level. Any of these ideas can come in very handy when you have writer’s block.
6. Social media takes too much time to continually update
Some people may believe that social media takes too much time out of their day which means they can’t do other tasks that need to be prioritised. Well, social media is vitally important in any company’s marketing strategy so don’t be thinking like that!
One great tip for you to help with updating your social media is to use a Social Media Scheduling Tool such as Hootsuite or Buffer to help with keeping content flowing on your social media platforms.
7. I can’t measure the impact of social media
The main four social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn all have their own built-in insight tools that you can use to measure every single bit of content that has been posted. These can really help to review your social media performance so that you can identify areas that will help you improve your social media strategy for next time.
8. Social media is used just for marketing purposes
Although the main bulk of social media is used for your marketing as a company it can also be used for many different ways, including; customer service, product development, recruiting/human resources and many more; the opportunities on social media are endless!
9. I have no idea what social media platforms to use
It can be a long and demanding task finding out which social media platforms work for you as a company. However, it is extremely important for your social media marketing strategy to make sure you are using the correct platforms. Honestly, just use a bit of trial and error, you have nothing to lose with doing this, only something to gain from all your hard work.
10. Social media doesn’t drive traffic to my website
It is a common misconception that companies don’t believe social media drives traffic to their website like other marketing channels do, such as Google or print marketing. This is a massive misconception as social media marketing can rapidly increase your click-through rate to your website and can in many cases be the top driver of traffic.
Make sure you are popping your website link on every post on social media, ideally linking to the most relevant page that a user could click through to.
We can help you with all of your social media needs
The Ideal Marketing Company are able to help you to answer all of these social media concerns. There is no single answer, of course, as every company will have its own set of priorities, but as part of a planned marketing mix, it can be an extremely effective way of attracting new customers and generating new leads.
For more information about how to make Social Media vital to the success of your marketing business strategy feel free to get in touch. Call 01858 374 170 or email me directly at tim@idealmarketingcompany.com
