For the last ten years or so, social media has seemed like a dream come true for companies trying to build an audience of new customers. Especially for smaller companies who can't afford the costs of traditional print/radio/TV advertising, what could be better? You set up a simple Facebook or Twitter page, and you post news, and the customers come flocking to hang on your every word, and it's all free, right?
No.
Here's the reality. Almost without exception, social media is designed for one thing only: to be profitable for the owners of the social media platform through advertising and data mining. For the moment, disregard all the good things that can come from social media, like allowing democratic interaction between people in totalitarian societies (sometimes). Here's what you need to keep in mind: each time you make a post to your social nets for your business, you potentially benefit your competition as well as yourself. Let's look at the most obvious and blatant example: Facebook.
As you know well if you've ever purchased advertising on Facebook, you are given the ability to hone in on a very specific description of the people to who your ad is served. Let's say there's a company called Bob's Plumbing, and Bob has loyal customers who call him regularly. But guess who just moved into town? Mr. McFee's Plumbing! And Mr. McFee needs to grow his customer base. What Mr. McFee can do, pretty cheaply, is to tell Facebook to serve his ad to people who live within a 25-mile radius of his business, or who state that their toilet overflowed, or (and here's the one that matters) who "like" the page for Bob's Plumbing. In other words, your customers can be directly poached simply via having your Facebook page up, thereby defeating the reason you put it up in the first place.
It Gets Worse
So, you've put up your Facebook page and a bunch of people have "liked" your page, and you're happily going to send your marketing messages to all of them, all the time, right? No, you're not. Facebook limits the amount of people that your message can reach organically. Why? Because they are a business, and part of their business model is selling you advertising. To reach more than a small percentage of your customers, Facebook will require you to pay to promote the post... even if this means reaching the customers who have proactively said they want to hear from you.
So, My Business Shouldn't Use Social Media?
Of course you should. You want customers to connect with you in the places where they "hang out", and we know that over a billion (current 1.23 billion) people use Facebook alone. not to mention millions and millions more on other social nets. Ignoring that potential market would be short-sighted indeed, and there are a few companies out there who've abandoned social media and ended up chopping off their noses to spite their collective faces. All you have to do is be smart about it. Here's how:
DO use a variety of social media vehicles to get your message out there.
DON'T put all your eggs in one basket. Use online tools that you can control, like your own web site, and build a community that you can address without worrying about serving your competition or missing a good portion of your customer base.
DO partner with influencers in your industry who can help share/re-post your messages.
DON'T assume that just because you've posted something, all of you customers have seen it (or care).
DO use social media as a portal to bring customers back to your web site... don't spill everything there and leave no reason for customers to come to you.
DON'T overuse social media to the point that you become an annoyance to your customer who will quickly unlike/unfollow your pages if they feel like they're being spammed too often.
DO create fun, compelling content that people are likely to enjoy and share, but...
DON'T turn to obvious "clickbait" methods just to raise your number of likes and shares (or re-posts, or whatever the case may be). Those tend to not really end up serving your business.
There's More
JKC has been helping our clients maximize their social media effectiveness since social media became a thing. Contact us today and let us know how we can assist your brand in making the most of your social media presence!
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