Social Media plays a huge role in our daily lives. From tracking your friends’ whereabouts to keeping up with your favorite celebrities, all the way to lurking your crush’s cousin’s new wife, social media is a portal to discovery. Most importantly, from a marketing standpoint, it is another tool for introducing products and services to potential customers.

With social media becoming second nature in our day to day, why isn’t every company taking advantage of it? As we continue to build relationships with our clients and manage more social media accounts, we have come to realize that “social media” does not have a great reputation amongst many business owners. Fortunately, we are here to debunk some of the most common social media myths that we have come across with our clients and we will discuss how we have combated them to help our clients succeed.  

Many of our clients will shut down the idea of joining social media because they do not think their target market is active on the platforms. Pop culture has led people to believe that there are only 17-year-olds on social media. However, there are a lot more people active on social media than our clients realize, and they aren’t all 17 years old.

According to Hootesuite.com, 83% of Americans are on social media and 46.7% of social media users are over the age of 35. Once these statistics are presented to our clients, they begin to understand the value that they are missing out on if they are not present on social media. Our job is then to learn about the company and their target market to create content that pertains to the desired audience.

Pro Tip: Present your clients with quality statistics that combat the misconception at hand.  

Many of our clients are hesitant to join social media because they don’t want to come off as unauthentic. They are under the impression that businesses on social media only push products down people’s throats and that customers will get annoyed. We are the first, however, to inform them that social media isn’t explicitly about product. If done right, social media is an opportunity to give your brand a voice and create a connection with potential customers, which then puts you in their brand consideration.

As a third party managing another business’ social media account, it is important that you really understand your client’s brand personality and quirks that make their business unique. We make it a point to meet with each social media client to learn everything about their company – this includes things like: what makes the product unique, who the owner is and what passions drive their business and even the surroundings of the physical location of the business. By taking a holistic snapshot of the company, we have the information we need to create content and engage with users that fit their brand.

To take it even a step further, we are not posting only to post, but rather engaging with users to grow a loyal following for that company. Too often we have come across businesses with thousands of social media followers but with no return on investment – basically, their followers aren’t converting to customers. Granted there is no one formula for this. Each company is unique and requires varying degrees of attention, but if you invest the time to learn about the business it can help you immensely.

Pro Tip: Sit down with your clients and actually get to know them and their business. This might take time, but stay persistent and learn everything and anything you can even if it does not seem relevant at the moment – it will help you in the long run!

As technology keeps moving forward, your clients will always be questioning what your plan is for their company in regards to social media and beyond. This is a good thing, their curiosity will help you learn more about your industry and help you be better at your job, whether that is creating content, managing email newsletters, building websites and everything in between. What are some common myths you have heard in your industry and how did you deal with them? Let us know in the comments or contact us, we love hearing from you!