What Could Go Wrong: Common Misconceptions about Social Media
You have a small business and you’re interested in widening your reach and attracting more customers.
Study what you’re getting into before launching and investing on a sales or marketing campaign. If you’re not equipped with enough knowledge, your strategy might backfire on you and turn you against trying for it again. This is the same situation that you must face when you venture into social media. Social networking can either turn out to be a huge profit or loss for you. The result of your efforts depends on how to approach this dynamic Internet entity. Here are some misconceptions that small businesses usually have when they start going into social media sites:
1. You have to establish online presence on as many social networks as possible.
Every social site is different from each other and caters to diverse audiences. When trying out social media for the first time, study which site is best for your purposes. (For differences between major social networks, click here). It might be better for you if you set up a page in one network first to fully understand the social media rules first. Once you’ve mastered how the basics, then you can think of setting up another account.
2. When you have a huge number of followers or fans, you’ve got it made.
Before you celebrate in finally achieving one thousand fans in your page, check your analytics first and see whether everyone regularly checks into your page and goes through the content. If they do, then congratulations! But if not, maybe you need to spice up your content more or enrich your reputation with customers. One way you can make your business famous is to always serve high-quality products or services. If you do so every time, then customers will more likely leave positive reviews in your page that will encourage more interaction between you and your fans.
3. When you have social media accounts, you can expect new customers to start calling.
Social media takes time to grow and gain followers. You won’t be able to quickly garner fans and new customers unless you have a very popular brand in your community. This won’t work at all if you have a small business. What you can do to generate calls is to spread news to your loyal customers that you have a Facebook page or Twitter account that they can go to. Persuade them to refer people they know who could use your products and services. You can also connect with influencers with a huge social clout to get the word out on a new business in town that provides such wonderful work, so on and so forth.
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