Why your business shouldn’t be on social media

13 June 2014Leah Nosal, Research

Consultant

Social media has revolutionized how companies communicate with current and prospective customers.

Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others can help your business increase brand awareness, cultivate meaningful relationships with customers, and drive sales.

Given apparently obvious benefits, the use of social media is rarely questioned by companies large and small.

However, so long as your company’s social media consumes time and energy, it is a business expense and should be evaluated as such.

Without proper evaluation, too many businesses will damage their brand and lose potential customers as a result of poor social media strategy.

Consider these five reasons why your business shouldn’t be on social media:

1. You do not know your clients

Without a reliable understanding of who your customers are, you will not know how to communicate with them most effectively.

Understanding your customer–their age, gender, income, values, interests, and lifestyle–will help you decide what to say and do on social media.

Most importantly, you need to know where your target market is active on social media channels. You want to meet them where they are already engaged.

For example: Reddit is used heavily by 18-24 year old males The ratio of women to men on Pinterest is 4:1 LinkedIn and Slideshare have the greatest

proportion of business professionals with graduate degrees and higher incomes

2. You don’t know what platform makes sense for your business

Too many companies subscribe to social media channels that are inappropriate for their business.

Social media is not a one-size-fits-all model–every channel has a unique value proposition and should be evaluated accordingly. For example:

Facebook’s widespread adoption across nearly all age brackets makes it a valuable opportunity for almost any business

Facebook pages are easy to customize based on the kind of content you are sharing (e.g. photos, videos, articles and text)

Business pages should be focused on letting customers get to know your business in a friendly, sociable manner

Unfortunately, it can be harder to distinguish oneself on Facebook due to the sheer volume of traffic and information on users’ news feeds

YouTube is exceeded only by Facebook in terms of engagement reach

Ideally suited for companies and brands with video content, whether as advertisements or how-to content

To stand out amongst other videos, companies need to feature their product, service or story in an unforgettable way

Twitter is a tool for real-time conversation and customer engagement

Ideal for people or businesses that want to reach out and are prepared to respond accordingly

Companies can share breaking news, updates, and questions for followers

Everyone can use it (e.g. individuals or large corporations)

Requires multiple posts per day and active online monitoring

Visual channels such as Instagram and Pinterest are ideal for companies with a visual culture to their brand, e.g., fashion, food, design, travel, DIY

Note that Visual channels such as these lean heavily towards female users

3. You’re using social media to advertise

While increasing sales may be the ultimate objective of marketing activities, social media should not be used strictly as an advertising tool.

Social media is about building relationships – i.e., being social.

These relationships will contribute to sales growth in the long term.

Effective social media engagement allows users to personally connect to you and your brand as part of a conversation.

As a company, social media should be used to share, but also to listen.

When in doubt, try the 80/20 rule:

80% of social media content should be original content* for users to enjoy, and only 20% should be promotional material

*content

The creation and sharing of original media – e.g. blogs, photos, videos, infographics, articles, how-to guides – that reflect your brand and address customer needs.

4. You don’t have time for it

Setting up social media accounts is not enough.

Every platform needs to be managed effectively.

Unlike traditional advertising activities, social media engagement requires ongoing attention.

While several free tools exist to manage different social media platforms – Hootsuite, for example – daily attention is needed to push out material and respond feedback and engagement.

Not sure what you can manage?

Start small. Pick the most appropriate channel for your customers and your business, and commit time every day to growing your following.

Instead of a sub-par presence on several channels, be extraordinary on a few!

Remember: having no accounts at all is better than having poorly managed ones, featuring out-of-date postings and bursts of activity.

5. There’s no strategy behind it

Each of the challenges we have discussed – e.g. getting to know your customers, picking the proper channel, designing unique content, etc. – are part of an effective social media strategy.

A social media strategy includes the goals of your online engagement, how you will engage customers, what kind of content you will produce, and how you will measure progress.

Without a clear roadmap, tactics, and key performance indicators, you will not know if social media is a sound investment for your business.

Effective social media doesn’t happen by accident.