The Big Social Media Marketing No-No You’re Probably Doing

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Here’s the deal: I’m going to let you all in on a big digital marketing secret.

The big social media marketing for business no-no that you’re probably all doing and you should all stop immediately (or at least rethink) – no matter what business, industry or market you’re in.

Here it goes.

Are you ready?

STOP JUST TRYING TO SELL stuff on social media.

What does that mean? Well, it’s pretty simple. The strategies that worked in the newspaper, through direct mailers and on the TV – they do not work on social media. Period.

Social media marketing is a form of inbound marketing. Cue the buzzwords.

Inbound marketing, according to HubSpot, is a marketing “approach focused on attracting customers through content and interactions that are relevant and helpful — not interruptive.”

What does that mean?

It means that people don’t want you to sell them things in the traditional way that we as marketers and humans want to sell things! There’s too much clutter and too many messages being delivered every second of every day. Screaming, “buy my product!!!” is not. going. to. work.

Here are some Google-able statistics to help prove my point:

Facebook kicked off 2017 with more than 65 MILLION FACEBOOK BUSINESS PAGES.

65 MILLION – and that was 8 months ago!

On top of that, over 1 million businesses are actively using Instagram. Then there’s Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Snapchat, all competing for the time and energy of our coveted target audiences.

So, what do we do?

Here are some guidelines to help you steer clear of my big social media marketing no-no and focus on building a brand and marketing strategy that people will care about:

  • Be authentic and tell your story. If you say you’re different, BE different and tell everyone why. Don’t just say, “we’re the best” – SHOW the world why you’re truly the best and have the stats or information to back that up. It’s not enough just to tell people what they want to hear, you need to walk the walk if you talk the talk. (Hint: use video).
  • Give your audience something they need and want. Help them solve a problem, be informative, entertaining and thorough. This is something that Google has been striving for through its SEO algorithm updates and frankly, I’m glad. Gone are the days of overbearing messages, spammy sales language and crappy marketing strategies. BE BETTER THAN THAT (and please stop keyword stuffing, it makes me sad).
  • Incorporate visuals with every post – EVERY post. I’m serious, do not post on Facebook ever again without a video, link or photo. Ever. Again.
  • Be real. Behind every product is a company and people care more about supporting companies than they do about buying things. Tell your story. If you don’t know how, check out literally anything by Seth Godin or Simon Sinek.

When all else fails – analyze data. 

Not sure if what you’re doing is working? If you’re doing anything at all – you should be monitoring some sort of metric. Whether it be Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, etc., if you’re not looking at the data to see if your strategy is working, you might as well go throw a bunch of spaghetti into a swimming pool because you are going to have no idea if anything is working at all.

Interested in how we tackle social strategy? Shoot an email to marketing@meetotm.com and one of our marketing experts will be in touch.

Back to All Insights