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Social media is the be-all and end-all of online marketing right? After all, EVERYONE is on at least one social media networking site and Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other sites of this nature are sure to help you make your fortune, as long as the marketing process is done right. Alas, mankind has managed to mess up bigger and better things than social media marketing so it’s no surprise that marketers are getting the whole thing hideously wrong according to various experts.
The fact that everyone is using social media for marketing means that there are quite a large proportion of failed marketing attempts. Marketing is no longer performed solely by experts and the result is an increasing number of amateur marketers arriving on the scene and completely forgetting the basics of good practice. Below are 5 ways in which marketing has been ruined by social media.
1 - Too Focused On Making A Sale
Whatever happened to gaining a level of understanding and trust with consumers? Professional marketers know that you can’t expect someone to purchase goods or services without establishing trust first. This comes through various levels of contact, none of which tell the person to ‘BUY NOW!’ As social media has so many users, amateur marketers are trying to make sales to everyone in the hope that a few people will bite.
They assume that gaining new customers on social media is like shooting fish in a barrel when it’s a lot more difficult and complicated than that. Just because it’s easier than ever before to reach customers doesn’t mean you can abandon the principles of successful marketing. You still need to establish a rapport with the customer and gently explain how a product/service benefits them. Your goal should be to establish long-term relationships and trying to force people to buy your goods and services straight off the bat is a bad start.
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2 - Misinformation
The problem with having such a profound information superhighway is that when mistakes are made, they can really cause problems. An incredible number of companies have misleading or incorrect information on social media pages and listings such as Yelp! Seemingly simple mistakes such as having the wrong address, phone number or email address can really hurt a business.
Imagine a customer wants to contact you only to hear that annoying phone tone that occurs when you dial an unrecognised number, find that your location is wrong or wait patiently for a reply to their email that is sent to the wrong address. Do you think that customer will give you a second chance when they have so many options? Rather than concentrating on making sales only, focus on getting basic information right to improve the customer experience.
3 - Too Much Mouth, Not Enough Ears
This basically means that your social media page is a one-way communication stream with your company constantly posting updates about the business. Companies guilty of this marketing crime soon discover to their cost that customers like having a say in things. Why should consumers bother to check out your page when it’s nothing but a poor ode to advertising? Why should they take time off from their busy schedules when they have no say in anything?
Great marketers know the value of customer engagement and successful online companies allow conversations to take place on their social media sites. They pose questions for their fans and followers and appear genuinely interested in what people have to say. Besides, the essence of marketing is finding out what people want and giving it to them. View social media as an extension of your customer service and you’ll go a long way.
4 - Social Media Is On The Slide
This seems remarkable when you consider the fact that Facebook is closing in on 1 billion users for example. Facebook was floated on the stock market in May 2012 at $38 a share. Within 2 months, the share price fell by an incredible $10. Experts say Facebook’s value has fallen by billions so perhaps putting all your eggs into the social media marketing basket is not altogether wise. All you need to do is look at the sudden demise of MySpace to realise that even the largest social media sites are not completely safe. Better to concentrate your marketing efforts on something that offers greater stability in the long term.
5 - It Can Be Misleading
If your fan page has thousands of ‘likes’ and ‘fans’ you probably think that major sales are just around the corner. Yet this is not the case at all. Inexperienced marketers may see such activity as a sure-fire success and pump unnecessarily large amounts of money into a doomed campaign. Social media users ‘like’ posts all the time, it doesn’t mean they are that interested in your company and they certainly aren’t willing to part with cash. Many of your fan page members may be in the wrong demographic or geographical location and offer little chance of a sale.
Perhaps it is wrong to criticise social media as a marketing platform. Maybe it’s just a case of it being misused. This is certainly an issue as everyone tries to get in on the social media act. However, it may also be the case where social media just isn’t that good for marketing purposes. While you can use it as part of your campaign, you may be better served spending the bulk of your budget on tried and trusted methods.
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