5 common myths about social media marketing debunked

In the last few years, social media has become a very important part of the marketing strategy for any company. It is not surprising that it has become an inevitable part of one’s business. Businesses have gone online due to the pandemic and are reaching more people with the help of social media.

While everyone is trying to grow on social media, there are a lot of tips and best practices shared by people online. However, they all may not be right.

Some myths surround social media marketing and it is time to debunk them. They are usually a result of misunderstanding or lack of knowledge about how to use social media effectively.

Myth 1: Marketing on social media is free.

This is one of the most common misconceptions about social media marketing. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc are indeed free for you to use, but marketing on these platforms requires time and effort. One needs to spend time creating quality content and engaging with their audience.

Social media marketing is not free but a cost-effective way to promote your business by using the channels that are most relevant to your target audience.

Myth 2: Ignore negative comments on social media

You're scrolling through your social media feed and you see a negative comment on one of your posts. Do you:

A) Ignore it

B) Respond to it

C) Delete it

If you answered A or C, you're not alone. A lot of businesses make the mistake of thinking that the best way to deal with negative comments is to delete or ignore them and pretend they never happened. This may turn out to be more harmful than good to your business.

A negative comment can be a complaint, a bad review, or anything else. A customer giving a negative comment seeks an answer. When you delete or ignore negative comments, you're telling your customers that you don't care about their opinions. If this happens, you’ll lose your customers.

To make sure your customer is valued, always try to respond to negative comments, even if it's just to say that you're sorry they had a bad experience. This shows that you're willing to listen to feedback, even when it's not positive. It may turn into a positive experience for the customer just because you responded.

Myth 3: Only influencers with a large following are effective

A lot of people think that influencers with a huge social media following bring conversions. While it’s true that influencers with a large following can help you reach more people but influencers with a small following can also be effective.

How? It all comes down to engagement. The key is to find influencers who are engaged with their audience and who have a niche focus. These influencers may not have a huge following, but they will have a highly engaged audience that is interested in what they have to say.

There are factors other than following and engagement that affect the choice of influencers for a business’s influencer marketing campaign. Some of them are:

• Relevance

• Location

• Audience

Myth 4: You need to post multiple times a day on social media to grow

If you're like most people, you probably think that you need to post multiple times a day on social media to grow your following. But the truth is, you don't need to post that often to see results. In fact, posting multiple times a day can actually be counterproductive.

Here's the thing: people are busy. They don't have time to scroll through their feed and see your post every time you publish something. And if you're constantly bombarding their feeds with content, your content may get lost in a sea of content.

So what's the sweet spot? How often should you be posting on social media?

The answer varies depending on the social media platform, social media goals and your content creation capacity. Of course, you can always experiment to see what works best for you and your audience.

The key is to stay consistent in posting, whether you post every 2 days, 3 days, or daily.

Myth 5: Social media marketing doesn't help in SEO

Although social media is not one of the search engine ranking factors, it can indirectly affect your search engine ranking.

The users visiting the website from social media channels increase the website traffic. This helps boost the rating of the website, which in turn helps in improving the search engine ranking.

Even if you don’t have a website, your social media profiles can appear in the search engine results when a user searches for your brand. This implies that search engines may also rank your social media profiles.

Conclusion

There are many myths about social media marketing which people believe to be true. We’ve debunked a few of them. However, if done right, social media marketing can be an effective way to reach and engage your customers and grow your business.

If you want to learn more about social media marketing, check out the Social Media Bootcamp course. Now available at a special price of ₹999*. Sign up now to avail the offer.

*Terms and conditions apply.

P.S. - Don’t forget to follow us on YouTube for marketing tips, updates and more!