Social Media Marketing has taken over, there’s no arguing that. But with such a heavily saturated medium it can be easy for myths and falsities regarding best practices to spread. With this blog we’re aiming to clear up some of the most common myths and misconceptions surrounding the world of social media marketing.

Social Post Have to Be Selling Something

That doesn’t mean that you ignore your sales efforts altogether, it means finding more creative ways to presents your followers with the product(s) and or services. Many brands find success by promoting a lifestyle that they closely identify with, doing so promotes a better sense of community drawing a more loyal customer base.

If your profile is just sales pitch after sales pitch, your posts are just going to turn into white noise that your followers will scroll right past. Your followers use social media for interesting content, socialization, and a sense of community not to scroll through sales presentations.

Your goal should be to provide your followers with value. Whether that’s through funny/quirky videos, relevant industry news, or helpful instructional videos giving your followers something in return is the most effective way to create a larger impact with your social media efforts.

Eldorado Country Club just down the road from us in McKinney, Texas does an excellent job of creating short videos to keep their members informed on the Club’s upcoming events. These short, easy to make videos go far beyond simply providing their members with a list of events creating a more memorable post.

You Need To Be On Every Platform

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Youtube, Tumblr, Tik Tok… the list goes on and on.

But do you really need to be on every social media platform that you can find?

Of course not.

But you do need to be on the platforms that your target audience is on.

So start by setting up a profile on the various platforms that you feel your target audience is most active on and work from there. Keep a close eye on how much the platform is performing by looking at the analytics.

If you feel that one platform is just not giving enough in return, then it may not be the right social media channel for your audience.

Social Media is Only For Young People

This myth is simply not true.

Base on analytics published by Sprout Social earlier this year: 

Facebook:

84% of 18-19 year-olds

72%of 30-49 year-olds

62% of 50-64 year-olds

Instagram: 

64% of 18-29 year-olds

40% of 30-49 year-olds

21% of 50 -64 year-olds  

While the younger demographics definitely have a larger presence on these platforms, the amount of older users on social media is far from negligible.

More Is Always Better

With the nearly constant barrage of content being posted from every corner of the world, it can be easy to feel like you need to keep pace.

 The truth is there is such thing as posting too much. Similar to over posting content directly related to the products or services you provide, simply posting too often can lessen the impact that your posts have.

 Most experts say that posting 1-2 times per day is a solid place to start with minimums floating around 3-4 time per week per platform. Of course these are just general guidelines and if you’re finding success with your own schedule or have information you need to get out to your followers that can take priority.

Social Media Marketing is Free

We’ve all heard the saying “You get what you pay for”, meaning there’s typically a strong correlation between the cost of a product or service and the quality your receive in return.

Social media marketing definitely falls into this category.

While simply having a social profile and posting to it is free of cost, there are several resources available to you the can not only make you social marketing efforts easy but also more affective. Softwares such at Digital Range provide features like Range SOCIAL that take a lot of the leg work out of social marketing. Post schedulers, analytic reports, and content finders are all useful tools to have in your social marketing tool bag.