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More Social Media Marketing Mistakes that Companies Make
April 8, 2013 |Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Interesting factoid: People seem to respond better to my “myths and mistakes” columns than they do to my instructional ones, which are really just two sides of the same coin. I think it’s because when people read the myths and mistakes columns they can see themselves (“uh-oh, I didn’t realize that was the wrong way”). So today, here’s a whole mess of social media marketing (SMM) mistakes I see companies make. See if you recognize your company in here somewhere.
Using Too Many Social Networks at Once
Many companies start too aggressively, at a pace they can’t reasonably keep up. Social media is counter-intuitive (patience required, low-key approach) to the way most sales people were taught. And learning on two, three, or more networks at once is daunting (though “crazy” may also apply). This is like building a small office building. You build a foundation, then you add a first floor and a second floor, etc. You try and build five floors at the same time and bad things happen.
Losing Drive and Fading Away
This often happens after you use too many social networks at the same time. It is also a direct result of impatience. Companies don’t see results right away so they lose interest and their postings and participation fade. Using regular sales techniques versus using social media is like hunting versus growing crops. With hunting you can catch something today. With crops it takes a while...but you get a lot when the crops come in.
Taking on a Different Personae
Your SMM should be a reflection of your company. In other words, don’t go getting pompous and don’t try to be perfect. All of my columns are 90% when I submit them. I could spend another three hours on each on, tightening, reworking, finding better words...but then I couldn’t write one every week. Make the trade-offs where you need to.
Losing Focus and Wandering Off
This is different from losing drive. Losing focus means wandering away from what you should be doing. A series of posts on quality shouldn’t wander off into manufacturability. Be like the old public speaking instructions: Tell your audience what you’re going to talk about. Deliver your posts or content on that subject. Wrap them up by telling everyone what you just talked about. Thank ’em and get outta Dodge.
Being Negative
If the only thing that makes you good is that your competitors are even worse than you are, you have a problem.
Passing Off Product or Service Info as Content
Never pitch your product. It turns people off in social media. They just react badly to it. No one wants to be sold to. Content is also new and fresh. Your website that hasn’t changed in two years is neither “new” nor “fresh.”
Posting Anything That’s About You and Not Your Customer
There is a distinction here and it’s an important one: Bragging about how you vacuum pack your product to protect it from the open air is all about you. Writing a post about how the customer can better control the humidity in his warehouse to protect his supplies is all about the customer. The first is perceived as you pushing product. The second is perceived as you helping to solve a problem. Guess which one goes over better?
Watering down your content so you have lots of it
High quality always wins. One of my best columns was the one with Judy Warner of Transline Technology. The column was about a real world situation with a real person. It was a terrific success story with lots of great quotes. But I had a problem. The column was around 1200 words. Most of my columns are between 700 and 900. I knew this would be a great column (such as I am capable of writing great columns) and get big readership. If I could just pad it by a couple hundred words, I could split it in two and have two great columns. But I couldn’t. When I tried that, the column lost all impact. What read smoothly and organically became disjointed when padded and split into two parts. So I left it as it was in one piece. It made more work for me (gotta write another column!), but it was the right decision to make. One memorable piece will linger in your customers’ minds far longer than 20 mediocre ones.This is Easy
Easy to be mediocre maybe. But time and thought consuming to do well. And if your goal is to be the thought leader in your niche - and it should be - it sure won’t be easy. But it will be worth the effort.
This Will be Quick--The Sales Will Come Pouring In
No it won’t. You get lucky sometimes and congratulations if you do. But recognize your good fortune for what it is: An anomaly. This will take time. But once you’ve put your solid time and effort in, you’ll have a steady stream of interested prospects, resulting in profitable sales (because that’s what us thought leaders get).
To quote the noted philosopher George Costanza:“If everything I do is wrong, then doing the opposite would have to be right.” These companies need to start doing the opposite, soon.Bruce Johnston is a sales consultant specializing in social media. He has over 25 years' experience in high-tech sales and management, most recently as general manager of a PCB manufacturer. He can be reached through his website www.practicalsmm.com or through his profile on LinkedIn.