The realities of social media for businesses are often much harsher than our clients realise when they first get started.

While social media is an ever-growing format to promote your business and interact with your customers, there are still quite a few misconceptions that we’d like to clear up.

The examples below provide a glimpse into some common expectations that marketers and consumers have about social media, and the reality of those assumptions…

Expectation:

You can publish the exact same social messages on every single platform.

Reality:

People use different social media platforms for different reasons.

Innovation is needed when using social media as consumers don’t want to keep seeing the same content over and over again. While you should be posting regularly across all of your social media accounts, your content needs to be specialised to match the purpose of each platform. This is the best way to engage with your followers. 

Expectation:

Boosting posts isn’t needed.

Reality:

Our ethos at The Creative Collective is that ‘you need to pay to play’. This means that boosting is not just useful, but necessary.

Boosting social media posts can bring greater visibility, brand awareness and engagement for your brand depending on your boosting specifications and amount spent. We recommend boosting the best performing post of each week to consistently achieve quality results. Boosting works best when you boost something meaningful, entertaining or useful that has no expiry date. 

Expectation:

It doesn’t matter what I post, as long as I post often.

Reality:

Audiences are looking for quality not quantity.

Showing up in your audience’s news feed is important, but capturing their attention when you do appear is critical. More than half of consumers will increase their spending with your brand if you’re posting content they can relate and connect to. As the demand for connections grows stronger, it is important that you focus on building genuine relationships with target audiences. You also don’t want to annoy them with too much content or they will unfollow you!

Expectation:

Posting on Facebook is enough.

Reality:

Whilst posting on your business Facebook page is great, posting in local interest groups can acquire more attention and broaden your reach.

If you’re looking to establish your brand and promote your business to a large number of people, posting on Facebook pages is a great start. As a business looking to establish a presence, joining and posting in groups can be helpful. If your Facebook page isn’t giving you the engagement you’d expected, consider setting up your own group where you can reach members individually and create a personal connection with them.

Expectation:

Using paid social ads means that you’ll have more conversions

Reality:

Paid social advertising simply provides access to more people, it doesn’t change the quality of your post.

If you aren’t targeting your ideal customers, nothing will come from it. No matter how much you spend!

Here are a few steps on how to find and target your audience:

1. Using social media analytics can help you determine who engages with your most on social media.
2. Research which social channels your audience users.
3. Always keep an eye on your competition.
4. Understand what your target audience wants from your social media channels.

 

Engaging in social media has become the expected norm for businesses of all types. It is vital to ensure you understand the intricacies of these platforms and have clear expectations.

While we understand it is extremely overwhelming  to understand the realities of social media for businesses, it is really important to use your time and money wisely. 

That’s why our expert social media team at The Creative Collective would love to help you. If you would like to shed the stress, you can feel at ease knowing we will take care of all the intricacies of each social media platform.

If you are interested in engaging in any of our social media services, visit our pages on social media management, social media outreach and social media training courses.

View social media training options from our sister company, The Training Collective, here.