There’s Absolutely no dearth of these so called “Social Media Experts” !
I find it absolutely imperative to talk about these as they can dampen your social media branding in the long run .I want to throw light upon some Social-Media Myths and Truths prevalent in the e-commerce world. Also provide some relevant facts to counter-attack and revamp your marketing strategy.
.Lets find out some of them right now–
Myth No 1 : Focus on FacebookOnly …
Fact : ….or Linked-In … or Twitter … or social network XYZ.
Yes you definitely need to establish a social media platform for your e-commerce store. But none of these single sites are the Holy Grail !
I would say do some R & D with a few sites to start with. It is far more important to understand where your target audience hangs out and try to fit your marketing strategies around them.
Myth No 2 : Use a tool that auto-publishes your posts to all social networks at once … to save time.
Fact : Yah ! We pay a huge amount of money to some of these amazing auto-bots or robots to get us through the grind easily.
Your audience, just like you , gets bored of these monotonous robotic updates!
But I would say said it’s okay to automate ‘some’ of your content sharing.
The reason being that different social media sites favor different types and frequencies of content.
For example, On Facebook, images perform fantastically well!
On the contrary , you can post much more frequently to Twitter than to Facebook than to Linked-In!
Sooner or Later you will have people who are following you on all three of these networks. How Obvious would your auto-post be when they see the same updates across all sites?
Myth No 3 : Social media is the new SEO
Fact : This is such a popular disbelief!
Social Media does create the buzz for your brand.But in terms of Function and Strategy , it cannot replace SEO ! It is just is that – 2 marketing strategies working better when they are together!
You can’t convert followers into leads without landing pages and compelling offers.
SEO is a tool which will drive more people to your social networking platforms.
Myth No 4: Email is Redundant !
Fact: I have been on Facebook for the Past 7 years , 4 years on Twitter and Say about 3 on Linkedin and On and off 1/2 on Google Plus. None of this has ever stopped me from using my email accounts. Infact all email accounts are integrated on my smartphone and are always being checked , Ofcourse by me!
So, not 100% of your target clientele are using Social Media sites!
Some people still prefer the use of emails for communications . /
For e.g. Newsletter or exlcusive discounts cant always be revelead over Twitter!
Myth No 5 : You can’t simply ask people to comment, follow, or retweet you.
Fact : Its not at all criminal to ask someone who is already reading your blog, or tweet or status updates to share it with the someone else.Adding a little- Please Share or Please Retweet only encourages the credible buyer to spread the word to his friends.
Myth No 6 : Agile Marketers Fail Bigtime!
Fact : Have you ever been told that you can’t publish a blog post until an editor, SEO specialist, and lawyer approve it? Great – you shall get it out just in time for the Mayan Apocalypse.
Agile marketers publish more content and get more work done.Social Media is not a Machinery! It certainly needs more human interaction and Go-Getter Attitude.
So Dont be afraid to be Market your Store with a Little bit of agility.
I don’t want to talk only about all the Gloom Doom !
I will leave you a few tips which are easy to use and maintain .
QuickWins on Facebook:
- Post tons of photos — they get the most likes and shares.
- Photos also get a lot of comments, but text updates get slightly more.
- Posts that are either very short, or very long have a higher percentage of likes.
- Long posts also tend to have more shares — the sweet spot is between 400 and 500 characters.
- Posts published on Saturdays and Sundays receive a higher percentage of likes than those posted during the business week
QuickWins on Twitter :
- Write tweets between 120 and 130 characters for the most click-throughs.
- Place links 25% of the way through your tweet for the best click-through rate.
- Tweets with the words “via,” “@,” “rt,” “please,” and “check” have higher click-through rates than those without.
- Write tweets with more action verbs, and fewer nouns to get more clicks.
- Tweet on friday, Saturday, and Sunday for the best click-through rate, and later in the day instead of the morning
Have you heard any other terrible social media advice?
Share it in the comments only as fair warning to your fellow social media marketers!
Kalpana .Dogra.
Marketing and Communications @ AvactisNext
[email protected]
