social media misconceptions Archives

Social media has been proven to be a powerhouse for many people’s business strategies. Social media is the primary way to grow your blog’s traffic, connect with customers, and interact with others. However, not everyone is getting the desired amount of traffic from their social networks. While some people get hundreds of daily visitors from their social networks, others struggle to get five daily visitors from their social networks. What’s the difference? Chances are the people who are not getting as many traffic and customer connections on social media are going by these four misconceptions.

Do everything you can to be like a celebrity. When people think of a celebrity, they think of someone with over 1 million followers who is only following 100 people. However, there are only two reasons these celebrities have reached that point. Either the entire world knew about the celebrity before Twitter or these people bought fake followers. In fact, most celebrities with millions of real followers also bought millions of fake followers to make themselves look bigger than they really are. Chances are you won’t get this status. It is a status rewarded to a select few with a lot of popularity. I wanted to get the celebrity status but quickly found myself stuck at 1,667 followers. After deciding to follow other people, my follower number, blog traffic, and sales soared. It’s okay to follow other people even if that means following thousands of other people. Some of the people you follow may become your next customers.
Send out a random number of posts at random times every day. By sending out a random number of posts at random times every day, the responses you get from those posts will also be random. You may send out a post at 7 pm, but your followers may be logged in at 6 pm. That means you lost people by sending the post at the wrong time. I always schedule tweets with HootSuite so I am able to tweet once every 20 minutes. Some social media platforms work differently, but on Twitter, I am able to send out one tweet every 20 minutes without annoying people. If you are not ready to send out one post every 20 minutes, what you need to do is schedule your posts when most of your followers are on the social network. Facebook Insights allows you to see when most of your fans are on Facebook, and Tweriod allows you to see when most of your followers are on Twitter.
Not posting about yourself enough. There are numerous articles on the web that suggest only tweeting about your blog 20% of the time. However, that is not nearly enough times to get more visibility. If your blog posts are valuable, then your followers will not care about whether you only tweet about or only share links on Facebook that go to your blog posts. If your blog posts are valuable, and your followers are the targeted people who would enjoy reading those blog posts, you can share them more often. I share my blog posts on Twitter about 90% of the time.
Automating all of your posts. Some of the people who schedule their social media posts do that just so they don’t have to log into the social network. However, automating all of your posts prevents you from interacting with your followers. Asking a question at the moment is an easy way to get more feedback. One of the answers may teach you something new. In addition to asking questions, you can thank people for sharing your blog posts or buying your products. There are plenty of ways to interact with your social media followers, but regardless of how you interact, interaction is essential towards your success on social media.

Were you deceived by the misconceptions? Please share your thoughts below.

In the big, complex world of social media, there are now thousands of social media experts. Some social media experts are very popular while others are finding their way. With thousands of people sharing advice on the same topic, there will be perspectives and methods that contradict each other. As a result, some people hear poor advice and end up implementing the wrong methods, or they implement the right methods in the wrong way.

This results in frustration because people are not getting the results they expected to get. Instead of having to guess whether certain methods are good or bad, I am going to provide for you a list of five of the worst social media tips you will ever hear. By knowing the mistakes now, you won’t make them later.

Only be on one social network. If you are only on one social network, then you are not able to utilize the advantages of the other social networks. 80% of pins on Pinterest are repins which means you can take advantage of how easy it is to spread on Pinterest. You can use Twitter to take advantage of concise conversations that allow you to build stronger connections with your followers every day. Then there’s YouTube which allow you to take the advantage of being able to upload your own videos. Relying on one social network to grow your social media audience is no longer an option. You can have your best social network (for me, that would be Twitter), but do not just rely on one social network.
Be omnipresent on all of the social networks. I plead guilty to using this tip. Omnipresent means being active on every social network including Kik, Yelp, and all of the other ones. Instead, that should be rephrased to be omnipresent on all of the big players. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, and GooglePlus are some of the big players.
Don’t post too much. I used to reluctantly tweet every hour because I thought people would not like that I post too much. I thought I was going to get more unfollows and see my follower count spiral downward. However, after trying it out, I ended up gaining followers. On Twitter, I now tweet once every 20 minutes. Not only do I get more followers, but I also get more engagement.
Respond to everyone. No matter how valuable your content is or how remarkable your story is, you will get two kinds of people: the haters and the spammers. Some people will be jealous of your success and be quick to shoot you down. These people will say things like “Your blog post was the worst thing I have ever read!” In addition, spammers are very common on any social network. Here is the typical example of a spammer on Twitter, “CLICK here to learn how I gain 550 FOLLOWERS every day,” and most people who tweet that have well under 1,000 followers. There is no reason to respond to these people because you will not be able to build the type of conversation with these people that evolves into a strong connection and potential sales.
Do not follow many people. People do not know about you unless they hear about you. Clicking the follow button and following other people is a way for them to hear about you. If you want to be one of those people with 1 million followers who is only following a few of your best friends, the chances of that happening are unlikely. I’m not saying it’s impossible (some people have already done this), but you need to be famous in order to get that kind of attention without having to follow a lot of people. There was a point when I was following 12 people and had 1,667 followers. The problem with that was I did not get past 1,700 followers for about three months. Think about that. It took me 3 months to get 33 new followers. That’s horrible, and that primarily happens because I did not follow anyone within that span of time.

Now that you know the five worst social media tips, you know what you need to avoid. I did not make all five of these mistakes simultaneously, but I have made them all throughout my career. Identifying these mistakes allowed me to go on a better path and get better results for the time I put into social media. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional mistakes that you would like to mention? Please share your thoughts and advice below.