When I present to an audience interested in using Social Media as part of their marketing strategy I see realisation dawn on their faces about half way through the presentation. That’s at the part where I talk about the variety of strategies that can be adopted by businesses that don’t include Facebook!

People have definite opinions about social media marketing and about the tools used to execute a social media strategy. I started writing some of them down so that I could, as now, address them in an article to debunk some of the myths or preconceived ideas about social media as a whole. Enjoy!

To succeed you have to be on the four main applications

This generally means Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and a blog. The tools you use to engage your audience vary greatly according to what business you are involved in. There are times when I’d recommend a client to make more use of Foursquare and article distribution Geld verdienen met Instagram on Wiki than Facebook. What I would say, in every case, is that social media application begins with a blog. All other tools used depend on that hub and ideally, none of them stand alone. As in traditional marketing, social media tools need support, even Twitter!

Social Media costs nothing

All media activity costs. Whether it’s in terms of time, resource, people or actual media costs there is an investment made by the user. Yes, a lot of the applications can be accessed for free i.e. costing only your time, however if you don’t know how to use them properly they will cost you more than time in the end. I advise clients with small budgets to learn how to use each application (which can be done in hours) but it is very difficult for anyone with little or no marketing experience to understand each application in the overall marketing picture and that’s when mistakes are made.

You wouldn’t try to develop your own traditional media campaign would you? You’d generally employ are marketing consultant or an advertising agency to ensure that you get the most ‘bang’ for your ‘buck’. Whilst few people can claim to be social media experts there is a definite advantage to using a social media consultant with good writing skills and a history in advertising and marketing.

If you really want to utilise the tools of social media yourself then you need to be trained to get the most out of them on a daily basis, to see the bigger picture and you need to ensure that you have the time to use them.

Writing Articles is easy

I always giggle when I hear a client say they’ll write their own articles for online distribution. Not because I doubt their writing ability but because online writing differs from the usual hard copy writing. There’s a different tone used and the layout has to be just so. Keyword density comes into it as do parent headers and sub headers. The angle taken to promote a business because you can’t blatantly promote yourself if you want publishers to use your article, what degree to niche your topic, embedding links and resources – it’s becoming rather technical.

Then there’s how to use your article online. It won’t work if it’s not distributed for online use by online publishers!

Setting objectives for your Social Media Campaign

It’s not just about registering with all the social media tools and waiting for your sales to soar. Social Media tools are used as part of a marketing campaign whether it’s on or offline and objectives to measure it by are important. Each business has their own objectives but sometimes it’s difficult to apply those objectives to social media activity as the tools are not always measurable. A good social media consultant will help you set realistic goals and attain them.

All campaigns begin with Facebook

Not at all! Facebook is a great social networking tool and does allow you to have a business page too but it’s not the mainstay of a social media campaign, a blog is. If you are going to use Facebook as a marketing tool and start a business/fan page you need to have a reason for doing so. Like all s.m. tools it’s no good starting on Facebook if you’re going to abandon it after a few weeks.

If however, you have a need to develop a community in the consumer market, then Facebook would be one of the tools I’d recommend.

It doesn’t work for business to business organisations

I hear this one a lot as everyone thinks in terms of consumerism and Facebook. Social Media marketing works just as well for B2B as it does for B2C. You just need to use the right tools. LinkedIn offers many variations between contacts and allows you to leverage contacts through your own community.