As we continue to discover the endless secrets of social media marketing, we stumbled upon an article by Get Response’s Kerry Butters, which provides 10 really great tips particularly applicable to small businesses with skin in the game. In 10 Social Media Marketing Myths and Lies Debunked!, Butters puts social into perspective. Here’s a brief excerpt.
1. Whether it’s a blog, website or top of the range ecommerce online storefront, with literally millions and billions of blogs posted, page views and purchases made online everyday, without a meaningful strategy in place to market and share your content across social media channels, no one is going to be able to find your site at all. Put simply, it’s not enough to simply produce content anymore, you have to actively promote it.
2. Social media is 24/7/365. … To ensure that your marketing campaigns make a meaningful impact in the world of social media, you can never, ever switch off. And that means utilising plenty of scheduling tools…
3. Reposting the same articles and links over and over again does nothing but irritate your following. …Mix your content up and keep it interesting. Use different mediums such as images and video.
4. Any blog posts that have anything at all of interest to say are going to be at least 800 words long – that’s just the nature of article writing. And it’s only blogs that have decent content and useful information that ever get indexed by Google.
5. Some people think that the best way to avoid any public negativity is to keep away from the social side of things altogether. This is nonsense. The best way to avoid bad feedback is not to be a bad business – and that means getting on social media and promoting yourself.
6. The bigger the following, the more valuable it is -Not always. If you follow this fallacy to the letter then you will end spending a fortune on those ridiculous Twitter posts that say something like: “Buy 10,000 followers for just $5!!” If you do this, then you may very well end up suddenly with a few thousand extra followers, but they will almost definitely be from dead accounts…
7. Whatever you do, do not simply dismiss social media marketing as a means only of getting your business discovered. …it’s an unparalleled channel for customer service, not to mention crowd-sourcing, traffic building, customer relations, sales, business intelligence and identifying brand ambassadors and key influencers.
8. Social media marketing is one of the most important jobs in your business. A marketer is the portrayer, guarder and enhancer of a company’s reputation and personality. Don’t underestimate its importance.
9. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn hold the top spots, true, but don’t ever forget Instagram, Pinterest or Google+. Your following is everywhere on the internet. Go to them before your competitors do.
10. Sharing your competitors’ content does a number of things. Firstly, it shows your own followers that you are determined to deliver them the very best information – even if it doesn’t come from you. Secondly, you will probably find that your competitors start sharing your content in return – after all, just like them, you are an expert in their industry’s niche.
We readily admit that this post is less than the recommended 800-word minimum, but for many small businesses it has plenty of meaning. For those disappointed by the word count, we welcome your feedback and additional tips to make the grade. Feel free to share in the comments section of this post.
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Photo credit: giuliomarziale [www.maurizioagelli.com] / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND