4 Misconceptions About Social Media That All Small Business Owners Should Avoid

Every business should have a social media presence to succeed and reach a wider audience. Social media is particularly effective for small businesses because it’s a great way to connect with your customers, engage in conversations, and promote your brand globally. Depending on your social media marketing strategy, it can be a great tool for increasing sales and establishing your brand and client base.

However, with the idea of marketing your business on social media, there are so many ways to go wrong and lots of pitfalls that people fall into. There are a lot of alleged facts and best practices out there that, if applied, can harm you. Investing time, money, and resources in a social media campaign without a plan could end up costing you and yielding a very poor return on investment. Here are four common misconceptions about social media that all small business owners should avoid.

1. Having Business Accounts on All Social Media Platforms

Today, many well-known social media platforms are known for having a large user base. As a small business owner, it is natural to see these platforms as an opportunity. It’s common for business owners to believe that they should utilize all major social media platforms to promote their business online. However, managing and expanding accounts on multiple social media platforms is not only time-consuming and, of course, exhausting, but it’s also very difficult to see results with your focus spread thinly across so many platforms.

The hard truth is that you need to only be present on social media platforms where your ideal customers are. Build a buyer persona, understand your ideal customer, and know the social media channels they use most frequently. Try creating a thorough buyer persona that describes the characteristics, buying patterns, needs, and objectives of your ideal customers. That way, choosing which social media platforms to focus on for your business will be much easier, and your social media marketing efforts will be more effective.

2. Utilizing Social Media to Hard Sell

Given that there are billions of social media users worldwide, it is typical for business owners to believe that it is always acceptable to hard sell and that numerous users will quickly purchase your products and services. However, according to Forbes,

“Social media users don’t like the hard sell. As a matter of fact, many use social media to escape commercialism. Don’t try too hard to sell your products and services; there will be a backlash. Again, social media is social. The best path to generating sales is to build relationships with your social media community, and then introduce the idea of doing business together.”

But it doesn’t mean you will not use social media for sales; failing to try and sell through your social media marketing is also a grave error. Depending on what you’re selling and to whom, you just need to do it as effectively as you can. Again, selling online is all about relationships. Since many potential customers may not be ready to buy right away, it’s important to stay in touch with them and build a connection.

3. Being Active on Social Media and Posting Multiple Times a Day

When considering the potential of social media, it is easy to believe that, to gain recognition and a large following, many business owners must exhaust themselves by posting as frequently as they can each day to appear active and engaged. Small business owners often sacrifice their time or the health of their business in an effort to uphold the false narrative that they should post on social media multiple times per day.

Focusing on followers and exhausting all of your time and energy in your social media marketing is a misleading strategy. Sales typically don’t correlate with the number of followers. Instead of feeling worried about posting numerous times per day, choose a frequency that you can keep up in the long term. In other words, be consistent; start by posting a few times a week on social media, being helpful to your ideal customers, and providing them with first-rate service. You’ll be surprised at how smoothly everything flows.

4. Focusing Social Media Efforts To Generate Leads

Social media has so many users that it is simple to assume that you should concentrate your social media marketing efforts on generating leads. Because of this, a lot of business owners use social media to generate leads and concentrate their efforts on posting frequently each day to draw in new clients. However, this is not the case. Anyone who claims that lead generation is the ultimate goal of social media marketing is lying to you. Indeed, social media can be a fantastic tool for generating leads, but the marketing plan must also be the right one.

It’s extremely uncommon to bring in a brand-new customer for your business through an organic social media post, regardless of the social media platform you use. Successful social media marketing involves establishing trustworthy relationships with potential customers and other audiences. Those connections may eventually result in sales, but you won’t be successful if you lack the persistence to do it properly.

Bottom Line

As a business owner, it is normal for you to consider how social media can help your small business from a logical standpoint. However, using social media incorrectly could do more harm than good. The logic of these misconceptions is there; all it takes is a well-thought-out strategy and planning to make your desired outcome a reality. The best way to achieve what you want through social media is by working with a full-service digital agency that specializes in social media marketing.

Hierographx is a top-ranked full-service digital company that can provide you with the best social media marketing solutions. You can direct your focus and effort toward the areas where greater results are possible. Instead of wasting your time and energy, an experienced, professional marketing team can help you achieve greater success.