5 Social Media Lies You Must Not Believe

Just like any other industry, the marketing world has its fair share of dishonest people & wannabes who don’t really know what they’re talking about and use deceptive practices that try to lure honest, hardworking business owners into services that aren’t worth a penny with ridiculous social media lies.

New stats seem to be released on a daily basis showing the astronomical rise in social networking use while marketers relentlessly exploit this data for their own benefit.

5 Social Media Lies You Should Never Believe

1. You need a presence on every social network

This one is hilarious. I can’t help but imagine some poor solopreneur hunched over their computer until midnight just trying to post on every social network and never actually getting any work done for his or her business.

You’ve got to be realistic with everything in business and let’s be serious – this is not realistic for anyone. I think it’s wise to have a profile on many of major social network (if the site is relevant to your target market) and any others that might cater to a specific niche within your industry but it’s unreasonable to strive for complete saturation on all networks.

Once you’ve identified your target market, research which social networks are most popular with them and focus your time there. Pick 2 or 3 to start with, it’s better to do a couple well then spread yourself too thin and get no results at all!

Related: Why Your IT Department Shouldn’t Be Doing Your Social Media

 2. It’s all about engagement

Anyone who’s read a few blogs on social media has been assaulted with terms like “content is king” and “engage, engage, engage” but the community has leveled up since the days when these buzzwords were still cool.

Although there is truth to this statement, it’s too hollow in it’s current form to provide a solid foundation to tangible results. Yes, content is important but it can’t be fluff or a sales pitch.

Think about how you will be enriching the lives of your target market with your content and you can help to solve the problems they yearn to fix. Every Google search is a problem seeking a solution. Be that solution.

3. It’s just a bunch of Justin Bieber fans tweeting their lunch

I think many people have figured out this isn’t true, but there is certainly a few out there that might still be in the denial phase of Bieber fever. The one thing most people aren’t considering is that when people continue to share these seemingly bland and irrelevant details, they begin to reveal themselves as particular target markets.

For example, in my recent blog on Twitter’s Advanced Search, if someone tweets about being hungry or how much they love fettuccine alfredo, there’s a local restaurant somewhere nearby that has their potential customer screaming out to them. The unfortunate thing is, most companies aren’t listening and losing out on many opportunities.

4. You’ve already missed the boat

This is one of the most ridiculous social media lies out there. Social media would have to be a pretty big boat to sail with over a billion passengers. All joking aside, the only time this lie becomes true is the second you start to believe it.

If you aren’t on social media yet then you are losing presence where others are rapidly gaining. It’s not too late to get on board and I agree that you shouldn’t wait, but there is a still lot of opportunity available for you.

5. Likes + Tweets = Success

This is another one of those pesky social media lies that dives back into the whole ROI of social media argument. I have to agree that likes and tweets are not the prime indicators of social media success as there are far more important metrics to keep track of.

How much referral traffic is your website generating from social networking sites? Have you setup a separate page where people can give you their name and email address to gain a special report or some other free valuable resource from you? Are you promoting it on the social networks and if so how many opt-ins are you getting?

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These are only a few examples of some really important metrics to follow but the main thing is understanding how social media fits in with your overall sales funnel and supports it as best as possible.

One last thing I would like to add to this article, is be very cautious of the people you take advice from. Just because your teenage son knows how to navigate around social media sites does not mean he understands how to use it for business. This is even true with many of the social media trainers out there, they understand how to set up pages but many of them are struggling to get clients themselves, so how exactly can they help you.  One quick way to tell, is examine all of their social media profiles against other experts and see where they stack up!

What social media lies do you notice holding great businesses back online?

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