The Top Five Misconceptions About Social Media
In the years that I’ve been involved in social media, I have heard so many misconceptions and myths about social media that I am certain this article is long overdue. Here is a list of the top five misconceptions regarding social media:
1) Misconception #1: Social Media is only right for certain brands – Often time people ask me: ” Is social media only right for web services or for “cool” products? The answer is no. Social media is right for every brand as long as the brand is able to find its target audience within a certain platform and converse/interact with it in an effective manner. Of course it may be exciting to do a marketing campaign for Apple than for Charles Schwab but for either one of those brands a targeted social media campaign within social networks and the blogosphere can bring amazing results as far as: Brand awareness, Overall buzz around the brand, traffic, customer loyalty and ultimately revenue.
In fact often time it is the “duller” brands that experience the most growth out of social media campaigns because they experience a more substantial change in popularity between their starting point A and their ending point B than the “cooler” brands. Take for example Mint which is an online personal finance service and was just bought by Intuit for $170 Million. Not the most exciting of startups perhaps and yet Mint is a fine example of a company that did a great job in using social media to maximize the buzz around its brand, making its blog magazine-like with articles about tips for young parents and other interesting content. Mint made their content so interesting in fact that users/blog readers promote the brand on their own.
2) Misconception #2: Social Media is all about getting traffic and quickly – Social media marketing is a long term process that takes time. Once a brand enters any network such as Facebook or MySpace, it takes time to build that brand’s community. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is a community on Facebook. If you want to do social media marketing right and not just spam the hell out of people, you must use conversational marketing to engage them. Conversational marketing is all about conversing with your community. Learning more about their likes and dislikes, listening before speaking and reacting based upon the customers’ feedback.
Whoever thinks that he will open a Facebook page and reach tens of thousands of site visitors on the first day, is dead wrong. Brands that use social media to promote themselves will see a steady growth in traffic to their sites over time as their brand names become more and more viral within the networks – due to the increase in number of fans, number of tweets, exposure in blogs, etc.
Sure there are different ways which will increase the rate of a brand’s virality on the Web. For example, creating strong social incentives for people on your site which will increase their urge to promote your brand is definitely a factor which will heighten the public’s awareness. You can read more about social incentives in this post I had written last year. However, don’t expect to get thousands of visitors to your site before you’ve been able to build 1) A strong loyal online community 2) A strong incentives system to increase brand awareness. Both these goals take time to achieve. From my experience, it usually takes about three months to start seeing effective results when using social media tools.
3) Misconception #3: “By using social media we will lose control of our Brand’s Image” – Executives (especially in big companies) often think that their employees will go wild and start telling every horror story imaginable regarding their brand because the company will open a Facebook page. So here’s the scoop: People will talk about your brand whether you like it or not. Opening a Facebook page is not going to change it and not opening a Facebook page is not going to make it go away. The question is: Do you want to be a part of that conversation or not? By having a presence in social networks and blogs, you as a brand show your customers and employees that you care about their feedback and that you are there to listen and satisfy their needs.
I’ll give you a real time example: My hosting company is Network Solutions. For a few days my blog wasn’t uploading and I started to get very pissed off. I tweeted “Network Solutions Sucks” and specifically addressed @Shashib – the guy who handles Network Solutions’ social media efforts. A few moments later I received a tweet back from Shashib. He wanted to hear what’s wrong and help me resolve the problem. He promised a Network Solutions agent would call me soon. Within a few moments I received a phone call from an agent who helped me fix the situation and upload my site. At that moment, Network Solutions won my customer loyalty forever (or until the next time they screw up 
). Real time customer care is something that brands can utilize social media tools for (specifically twitter) like no other marketing tools they have had till now. We’ve already seen amazing examples of customer care from Zappos and Dell. Brands should not be afraid of engaging in honest and transparent conversations with their clients online but rather they should be very afraid of ignoring their customers’ complaints and pretending that everything’s fine when it’s not.
4) Misconception #4: Social Media Is Just a Fad – I often hear people who say that social networks are just a passing fad. This is what I have to say to them: Social media is an inevitable digital evolution of our desire as humans to communicate with one another. It is a desire that we always had and will always continue to have as long as we are human. I had written about this topic in the past. To say that social media is just a fad is to say that communication is just a fad. Here are a few stats that might help to change the mind of those who are still apprehensive:
1) 2/3 of the global internet population visit social networks and time spent on social networks is growing at 3x the overall internet rate, accounting for ~10% of all internet time.
2) Visiting social sites is now the 4th most popular online activity – ahead of personal email!
Care to change your mind?
5) Misconception #5: “I don’t need a professional to do social media for me” – Many executives think that they don’t need a professional to help them with their social media activities. They’ll just take a student who has a few hours a week and get him to sit on the social networks and play with their company’s branding. It’s inconceivable to me how on one hand companies can be so cautious regarding beginning to use social media and on the other hand they’ll give the work to a mere student who could ruin their branding in a few hours just to save a few bucks. In order to engage in social media campaigns that are effective and successful, companies should use social media expert services at least in the first few months just to understand the specific rules of each community. One must remember that Facebook, twitter, Mixx, Bebo are all communities with their own set of rules and it is crucial for brands to respect the community’s rules in order to survive. Just like a company wouldn’t take on its PR on its own without consulting with a PR expert first, a company should not delve into social media without consulting with a social media expert. After a few months of training, I believe brands can take the work upon themselves, but they must not forgo the training period as they could do more damage than good for their branding.
These are the top five misconceptions I’ve heard regarding social media although I’ve heard many more. I would be delighted if you guys shared in the comments section some of the misconceptions that you’ve heard.
Photo credit: Gary Hayes and Laurel Papworth
Tags: brand awareness, Branding, brands, Community, conversational marketing, misconceptions, social incentives, Social Media, social media tools, Social Networks
September 29th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Love this post Blonde2.0, so accurate and spot on. Especially Misconception #2, Twitter marketers should be reading this one .. 5/5 WooHoos
September 30th, 2009 at 4:46 am
Good Post. However, I think you should give a little legitimacy to some of the misconceptions too. Here's what I mean. With the fad misconception, everything you said is right, but what I would have liked to have seen is why that fad exists. That companies are trying to jump into Social Media because “It's the in thing to do and everyone is doing it” because the Internet specialist on CNN said so, and that as a result there are a multitude of people claiming to be “social media experts” that are failing at social media and hence pushing the misconception that it's a fad that will die out because things that don't work usually do.
You know what I think is the biggest misconception? That Social Media can't be tracked. It can, but it isn't
If you prove that one, then all 5 misconceptions above become redundant. Really. How's that for follow-up statement to our Twitter conversation?
September 30th, 2009 at 8:32 am
Very nice post. It's great too read posts from other Social Media advocates – that understand the landscape. It's our responsibility to intimately understand these misconceptions and try to dispel them through education and conversation.
September 30th, 2009 at 8:40 am
Thanks very much Ramon
Olivier, social media campaigns are tracked. We track every single action from the increase in Facebook page fans to the number of interactions we have on each platform to the # of blog posts we receive to the # of RSS subscribers we have to the company's blog, to the # of times the company's name is tweeted each day, and the list goes on and on….
September 30th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Great post. I like your emphasis on “conversational marketing.” Companies are still using traditional interruption style outbound marketing techniques on social media platforms which were designed for permission style inbound marketing techniques. I follow the 80/20 rule when it comes to marketing online: 80% of your interactions should be conversations with your current/potential customers, and 20% of the time you are allowed to talk about the products/services you offer.
Also, re: Misconception #5 – “I don't need a professional.” When social media was in its infancy, companies could get away with hiring college students whose total professional experience with social media was growing up on Facebook. However, now that social media is at the toddler stage, the rules have become much more complex. Each platform (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg) and technique (e.g. social media, blogging, SEO, lead nurturing) has it's own set of rules that need to be followed. And, not all platforms and techniques are appropriate for every business, so a professional is needed to select the 20% of tactics that will contribute to 80% of a business's results (you can tell I'm big on the 80/20 rule
).
October 1st, 2009 at 12:50 pm
From Ed Strnad's FB page: I'm afraid some people don't understand what FaceBook is really for. It is for finding your old flames without your spouse finding out. It's for posting 10-20 year old pictures of yourself to impress said old flames. It's the internet equivalent of a high-school reunion. It is for people to leave the lamest or snarkiest comments about your posts or pictures. It's not eBay for friends. Hope this clears things up!
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October 7th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
[...] The Top Five Misconceptions About Social Media – Difficult to add something. Another outstanding post by Ayelet. [...]
December 26th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
This is a great article and I agree with every single thing you've written—especially about the sad brands who think they can control, well, anything.
But there is one sentence, not about social marketing that is not true:
“Just like a company wouldn’t take on its PR on its own without consulting with a PR expert first, a company should not delve into social media without consulting with a social media expert.”
MANY companies do PR with great great success without consulting a PR expert or having one on staff. I agree with your point about social networks and working with an expert. But there are companies that do fine in PR without a PR firm or expert. (I wouldn't, but they do exist, many of them.)
Great article with thanks MERRY CHRISTMAS
December 27th, 2009 at 2:59 am
Hi Walter:
Thanks for the nice words.
Regarding the social media expert point, I must say that from my experience, many companies that try to use social media tools on their own for branding purposes without consulting with a professional first, often time fail because they don't know how to engage with users correctly within the social networks and they are ignorant to the rules of each network and cause their brand more damage than good in the end. There are of course exceptions to every rule, but most companies I've encountered have needed some assistance, at least in the beginning stages.
Thanks againand happy holidays to you as well!
December 27th, 2009 at 7:59 am
Hi Walter:
Thanks for the nice words.
Regarding the social media expert point, I must say that from my experience, many companies that try to use social media tools on their own for branding purposes without consulting with a professional first, often time fail because they don't know how to engage with users correctly within the social networks and they are ignorant to the rules of each network and cause their brand more damage than good in the end. There are of course exceptions to every rule, but most companies I've encountered have needed some assistance, at least in the beginning stages.
Thanks again and happy holidays to you as well!
August 5th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
[...] recently read an article written by a friend, Ayelet Noff, entitled “The Top Five Misconceptions about Social Media” and it got me thinking about my experiences. Here is a list of five common myths and [...]