Accidentally landed on our Hawaii Marketing Tips blog while searching for Team Vision Marketing? Please visit our homepage, creative portfolio or client video testimonials. If you’re interested in learning more about the truth behind common social media myths, please continue reading below.

Busting Social Media Myths #1

Social media marketing has been around for years now, but some businesses still believe in old misconceptions surrounding it. Thus, they miss out on having a presence on social media or go about it the wrong way. As a leader in this field, we’d like to take this opportunity to dispel some common myths around social media marketing and help steer your business in the right direction.  

Myth: Social Media only reaches Millennials and Gen Z

Source: Pew Research Center

Total myth! Although there are more Gen X, Millenials and Gen Z on social media, older generations are adapting to using technology and becoming more proactive on social media. In fact, their usage on social media is on the rise, as you can see in the graphs above provided by Pew Research Center.

By looking at the table above, provided by Pew Research Center, you can see that there is a strong social media presence in the 50-64 and 65+ age groups, especially on Facebook.

Myth: I have to be on all Social Media networks

Not true at all. Although it may sound smart to cover all your bases, you should really only use the networks that work for your brand’s needs. This is because not every platform is equal attracts the same type of audience. For example, Facebook is more community based, while Twitter is more known for its breaking news content. It is very important to first define your social media marketing objectives and then pick the right social media channels and content strategy to help you achieve them.

Myth: Any young person who is good at social media can successfully run my business accounts

Age and popularity on personal social media accounts doesn’t necessarily translate into a person having the expertise to manage a brand on business accounts.  Whoever manages your brand’s accounts has to not only “get” how to work the apps, but, among other things, be able to build and maintain a brand on them in engaging ways. Your best option is to work with a company that has a strong background in marketing, building brands, and that has managed social media accounts for some major brands in your market. They should also have access to a team of social media managers, copywriters, and graphic designers.

Myth: Social Media is Free Marketing for Businesses

This is only partially true. Setting up a profile and posting content is free, but this isn’t enough to have a successful social media presence. Most successful business on social media either have an experienced in-house social media manager, or hire a social media marketing agency to oversee their accounts, develop engaging content, field customer questions, and continuously engage in posting, liking and commenting on other social media profiles related to the business’s brand.

You will likely need to invest money and/or spend a lot of your own time building and maintaining quality social media channels. And let’s face it, time is money, so managing your own social media channels means you are pulling yourself away from your core business responsibilities. This is especially true now that the algorithms of social media feeds are favoring friends over businesses. This means that your business posts are less likely to appear on your Followers’ feeds and your organic reach is going to decrease as a result. After Facebook’s algorithm update in 2016, organic reach on posts dropped 52%. According to HootSuite, Instagram’s non-chronological algorithm update makes users miss 70% of the content in their feeds.  Social media channels are pushing harder than ever on paid reach, which means you have to buy ads or boost posts in order for them to reach a substantial audience. If you have a current Facebook page, chances are you have seen your Reach and Likes per post drop substantially over the past couple years. It’s becoming a “pay to play” game.

We also recommend hiring a creative team to design graphics that capture the true essence of your brand or promotion, like the Instagram ads below, which we created for Honua Kai Resort & Spa’s Suite Summer Escape promotion. Having an aesthetic feed is vital for attracting new followers, likes, and link clicks.

You should also consider investing in analytic tools to gain insightful information about your customer profile and to track important data.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed trying to keep up with the management of your businesses social media accounts, give Team Vision Marketing a call and let us help you out.   In the meantime, check out some of our social media programs and promotions on our web site portfolio at www.www.teamvision.com/portfolio/#social-media.

Web: www.www.teamvision.com

Phone: (808) 536-0416

Email: info@www.teamvision.com

Hear from Dolly Moreno, Director of Sales & Marketing at Honua Kai Resort & Spa Maui, on her experience working with Team Vision Marketing.

Sources:

https://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-algorithm/

https://sproutsocial.com/insights/facebook-organic-reach/

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/02/millennials-stand-out-for-their-technology-use-but-older-generations-also-embrace-digital-life/

http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/social-media/