6 Misconceptions with Social Media Marketing in 2009

So this year, I have been involved with numerous social media marketing campaigns ranged from small company (50 employees) to a large corporation (3500+). Some were very successful and some campaigns didn't even get to launch because of the internal problems. Here are the six misconceptions and mistakes I have witnessed in year 2009.

1. Social media marketing is Free
People often believe that social media marketing is free. Facebook is free and twitter is free, thus, social media marketing should be free, they claim. Platforms might be free, but you still have to pay for the ideas and the labor for the content generation. Some researches have to be done prior to launching a campaign: listening program, environment research, and user researches. But I have to admit that SMM is much cheaper than the traditional marketing campaign.

2. Social media marketing is guerrilla marketing

Many clients have asked to create 'buzz' using SMM. They want to see quick measurable ROI, and determine if they should invest more money and time. While the results are measurable using various online tracking tools, You will often fail if you believe that there is higher chance for the campaign to get viral if social media is involved.

3. We need a big launch date
Nothing really starts that big in SMM. It could be a part of the main campaign that has the big launch date. Starting SMM from the scratch, I recommend to build a network by providing value instead of spending too much time executing cute SMM campaigns.

4. We need strong social media policies and procedures
Don't look around to hire an agency to build your social media policies.
Build your own. Check out all the possible touch points on different social networks and see where you are going to participate. Predict some scenarios and assign responsibilities to trained employees who will be representing your company on the social media touch points.

5. People will come and interact

This is the same misconception that people had with the website. Many had thought that people will come and find the website once it's built. Without proper content and interaction strategies, there is no reason for people o interact with your brand.

6. The social network will grow overtime
Yes it will, however, you need to make sure to invest time on each social network.

All these sounds little too obvious, but even I had fallen in same traps quite few times. We have gotten smarter over time with website development and interactive marketing last few years. I predict that similar learning curve will be resulted in social media marketing in next couple years. Share

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