Social media has changed the online marketing world for advertisers and users. It primarily started as a place for family & friends to connect, but over time has become a vital space for businesses to market their products or services. As of 2023, approximately 4.9 billion people use social media worldwide and it is expected to reach 5.85 billion users by 2027. With such a vast number of audiences on these platforms, it becomes vital for online marketers to leverage these platforms to increase website traffic, increase online sales, etc.
According to a survey by HubSpot, 90% of social media marketers believe that creating a vibrant online community is essential for a successful social media strategy in 2023. The image below from Insider Intelligence forecasts social network users worldwide by platform. With the rapid and vast adoption of changing marketing trends, social media marketing is the buzzword among online marketers. Having gained wide popularity among netizens, social media marketing has accumulated some myths that could be detrimental to your marketing efforts. To ensure that these social media marketing myths do not negatively impact the success of your marketing efforts, it is essential to avoid some of the social media marketing myths at the earliest.
Social media: build communities and boost conversions
Social media platforms encourage brands to express themselves in a personalized way to connect with the target audiences. The brands can use images, videos, carousels, collections, engaging posts, news feeds, stories, etc., to drive website traffic. These can be used to build communities and engage with the users. Be it running e-commerce PPC ads, content marketing, etc., it provides multiple options to convey messages to the users by asking them to follow their posts, like their page, comment on their posts, ask for ratings and reviews, etc. During the global pandemic - Coronavirus, brands used social media to connect with users. Between 2019 to 2021, the number of social media users increased by 11%. The number of users roughly rose from 3.4 billion in 2019 to 3.78 billion in 2021. With the effect of the lockdown, digital marketing during Coronavirus played a crucial role and saw a 5% jump in global users. With a proper plan & strategy, businesses can capitalize on the conversion rate and increase online sales.
Myths regarding social media marketing
1. Social media is too time consuming - One of the myths regarding social media marketing is that it is time-consuming. Social media platforms have a large number of users and to target these users to reach the landing page is a challenging task. As these online platforms have users of all ages so, targeting these users requires a proper plan & strategy to ensure that they choose your profile for relevant appearances.
When working on a social media plan to achieve the desired goals, it becomes crucial to have a marketing strategy to achieve the desired goals. When running PPC ads, marketers commonly discuss that pay-per-click campaigns yield desired results in less time. However, this is not always true. To do so, there are multiple factors that need to be concentrated upon by PPC specialists, like optimizing ad copies, writing engaging descriptions, etc. You need to track the landing page URL path to determine whether these are working or not. This gives clarity that when the users click on the ad, they are redirected to the relevant website page. As these are paid ads, you need to ensure that there are no 3xx errors or 4xx errors present, as this affects the conversion path of the visitor turning to the customer.
Whether you are using search engine optimization techniques to optimize SEO campaigns, running email marketing campaigns, etc., any specific duration for achieving the desired goals cannot be established. The social media platforms cannot be utilized fully by integrating PPC, SEO and content marketing. However, running all these is unnecessary as it may not be feasible for all businesses. With white label social media marketing services, you can get in touch with social media marketing experts so that they can assist with social media marketing tips. They can handle the best social media campaigns related to your business's products or services. With the help of these social media marketing tips, your brand awareness on social media platforms increases. Although they also can guarantee a specific time, but it won't take too long to see the desired results.
2. Every social media platform is essential - Another myth regarding social media marketing is that marketers need to be active on every social media platform. Being active on multiple social media platforms is not possible for all businesses. It is because not all have the dedicated amount of budget to utilize these platforms to their full potential.
Whether it is running SEO campaigns or paid ad campaigns like Facebook Ads, YouTube Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Instagram Ads, Twitter Ads, etc., social media platforms are becoming a place to pay and have fun. Though with SEO campaigns, you do not have to pay for SEO campaigns, but it requires a lot of effort to achieve the desired goals only for one platform. So, for more than one social media platform, optimizing the campaign performance would take much more effort.
Different social media platforms have different target users. E.g., Facebook is used mainly by friends & family, and LinkedIn mostly by corporates, business owners, students & job seekers. As different businesses have different target goals, choosing the relevant online platform to match the users' search intent becomes essential. If the user behavior & search intent matches, then you may need to choose more than one platform. E.g., Facebook is widely used by all age ranges, Instagram between 18-29 years old, and older audiences. So, you need to decide whether you need to run ad campaigns on both platforms. By performing an SEO audit as you get to know where your website traffic is coming from, identify link-building opportunities, find and fix thin content, analyze page speed, identify the title tag character limit, check for meat description, etc. Based on the survey done by Pew Research Centre, the table below provides information about the audiences of Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
34% of consumers utilize social media platforms to understand business offerings better. So, the stat indicates that a larger portion of the audience on these platforms may not help you achieve the desired goals. Even if there are users that reach the website, there are chances that they may not navigate through different sections on the website. They would just do window shopping and increase the website bounce rate.
3. Scheduling posts during the workweek - The next social media marketing myth is that social media posts need to be scheduled during the workweek. As digital marketing trends keep evolving, marketers must have social media posts that convey the updated message to the users. To do so, it is vital to keep updating the posts in sync with the latest marketing trends.
As in a PPC ad campaign, you focus on ad scheduling, demographic targeting, etc., so that the relevant users click on your ad at the right time. In the same way, you can schedule posts on social media platforms. This way, your posts can appear to the target audience at the right time.
43% of Gen Z consumers made a purchase from social media platforms. So, targeting users at their specific time is essential to increase online sales. As you run Facebook remarketing campaigns, Google remarketing campaigns, etc., so that the users that did not convert due to one reason or other take the desired action. In the same way, you need to focus on scheduling posts on social media platforms so that the users see the relevant posts at their specific time. When the users see the ads or posts at their specific time, they indulge more with the content and take the desired action. Although different social media posts have different times to post, the study from HubSpot shows the best timings for some of the popular social media posts.
a. Facebook - Facebook is the largest social media platform to date and it becomes crucial to analyze which time would be best on this platform. With Facebook marketing, you can analyze what works best for businesses to achieve their desired goals. Facebook has nearly 1.56 billion daily active users, which is still climbing. The stats from HubSpot shows that, on average, the best day to post on Facebook is on friday and saturday between 6 and 9 PM and 12 PM - 3 PM. While on sunday, it may not help in achieving the desired goals. You need to focus on Facebook marketing and advertising strategies to have a higher conversion rate for your website.
b. YouTube - 82% of U.S. adults use YouTube and the data is growing. The research from HubSpot shows that the best time to post on YouTube is between 6 PM and 9 PM (23%), 3 PM to 6 PM (22%), and noon to 3 PM. It is recommended to post on fridays, while 16% say saturday is the best day to post.
4. Social media performance cannot be tracked & measured - With a wide range of audiences present on social media platforms, this myth is common that social media performance cannot be tracked. But in reality, social media marketing is a part of digital marketing so that it can be tracked and the data can be measured. The PPC ad campaign data can be tracked with the help of a PPC audit. It highlights the performance of the essential PPC metrics so that you can analyze the PPC KPIs, like cost per click, keyword bids, competitive metrics, etc., and then optimize the PPC campaign performance.
SEO professionals can track and measure the performance of the essential SEO KPIs. Even with SEO campaigns, email marketing campaigns, content marketing campaigns, etc. With the help of social media, some of the essential KPIs that you can track are listed below.
a. Impression shares for your social media posts.
b. Analyze the increase or decrease in engagement rate.
c. The click-through rate on your social media posts.
d. Figure the bounce rate.
e. Average time on page.
f. Referral traffic.
5. Hashtags are essential for every post - The next myth regarding social media marketing is that marketers think that hashtags are essential for every social media post. Having hashtags are essential for every business as it helps to increase branded search traffic to the website. The brand identity grows with the help of hashtags on social media posts. The more the brand identity, the better the chances of an increase in website traffic.
When you focus on including hashtags for every post, you may miss out on the essential points to the product descriptions. For small businesses or the ones that have just started, including hashtags, becomes essential as the users get to know more about the brand name. For established brands, it is not so vital as they have dwelled a lot on building reputation and managing it to ensure the users' trust in the business is engaged. Hashtags take up a lot of space and brands can leverage these to describe more of their product offerings. They can use these spaces to mention the following points.
a. Mention any special product features.
b. Quote any discounts & offers, e.g., holiday ads.
c. Broaden discoverability among followers.
d. Quote trending topics.
6. Its hard to share or promote content - Another myth regarding social media marketing is that sharing or promoting content on social media platforms is hard. When you focus on just presenting the content related to your business offerings, then there are chances that you may not have desired website traffic. This may give you the impression that you are not able to promote your content. As there are myths regarding PPC ad campaigns, SEO campaigns, etc., in the same way, the myth regarding social media marketing that it is hard to share or promote content is prevalent.
In today’s digital era and with the increase in the number of users on social media users, it is vital to share and promote content on social media platforms. This can be done by writing engaging content that best presents the business offerings. As these are social platforms so it provides the liberty to express your offerings in a more personalized way freely. When running PPC ad campaigns, you perform a PPC audit to determine which platforms you need to target, perform keyword research that helps in audience targeting, etc., and then focus on ad personalization to write ad copies accordingly. Some of the social media marketing tips that you need to focus on to promote your content are listed below.
• Add your branded hashtags.
• Use unique brand icons.
• Focus on updating social media content regularly.
• Ask users to like, share & subscribe to your channels so that they receive notifications when you post anything.
7. Social media does not drive quality leads - Another myth regarding social media marketing is that it does not drive quality leads. This myth is popular among marketers as they feel that since the users mostly follow news feeds, like images & videos of their near and dear ones, etc. there are chances that they will not engage with the social media posts. When working on a social media marketing plan, it is essential to drive quality leads to the website. The better the webpage traffic, the higher the chances of the user taking the desired action.
As per the data from WordStream, the myths regarding lead generation changed. The stats show that social media counted for 33% of all digital ad spending in 2022. There is no denying that Google Ads and Microsoft Ads are the users' first choices when they buy products or services. So, PPC advertisers focus on running paid ad campaigns on these platforms. However, in today's digital era, it becomes vital to include social media marketing platforms to run pay-per-click ads. The advantage of social media is that if the users are satisfied with your business offerings, then they may promote your brand name to their close ones. This helps in peer-to-peer marketing and helps in lead generation and the social media marketing company can work on converting the visitors to consumers. You can also avail of white label social media services to drive quality leads to your website.
8. Not having a content marketing strategy - The next mistake that is found among SEO marketers is that they do not follow a content marketing strategy. Social media platforms yield the best return on investment when the message is conveyed effectively to the target audience. When you focus on writing the social media post and not ensuring that it needs to grab the users' attention to make them reach the landing page, the results may not be as desired. So, it becomes essential to have a relevant content marketing strategy so that the users are engaged with the brand.
Whether you are running paid ad campaigns, email marketing campaigns, content marketing campaigns, using search engine optimization techniques to optimize SEO campaign performance, etc.; content plays a crucial role. ‘Content is king’ is an age-old saying and will continue to dominate in the years ahead. This can well be understood with the launch of AI content writing tools like ChatGPT, Jasper AI, etc. it was assumed that brands would be using these tools to write content. However, in reality, these tools are used by brands, but they also hire content specialists to optimize the content. This is done to ensure that the website content is unique so that your website traffic does not drop. Also, when performing -crawling & indexing, the search engines do not value duplicate content for the keywords or terms entered by the user. This means when you have content written by AI tools, then the chances of the website ranking on the SERPs go down. As you work on social media marketing strategy, similarly, it becomes essential to work on content marketing strategies to lure the target audience into taking the desired action on the landing page.
Conclusion
There are myths about every online marketing technique and social media is not prone to it. It is essential to avoid these mistakes as if the myths stay for long, then it becomes a misconception and not only can it be counterproductive and squander long-term efforts. Having discussed some of the most common misconceptions regarding social media marketing, adjusting your approach to maximize the returns from marketing on these platforms is essential. With the advancement of technology, social media marketing will continue to grow even more. As you connect Google Ads with Google Analytics to know the performance of the PPC ad campaign, similarly, you can track the performance of social media marketing with the help of multiple SEO tools like Ahref tool, Semrush tool, etc. To maximize the return on investment, you can get in touch with a digital marketing company and outsource social media marketing services. The white label social media marketing agency has PPC experts who have mastered running video ads, search ads, display ads, PPC keyword research, etc. They even provide white label SEO services and provide you with SEO reports, link building, backlink analysis, etc. You can also avail of content marketing services and hire content specialists to write your business's best social media posts. They assist with social media marketing tips to run the best social media campaigns.
References:
• 20 Social media marketing myths to leave behind in 2022
• Tackling four of the popular myths of social media marketing
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