You won’t believe this one trick that got me a million followers!
If only social media was that easy to master, right?
When social media first took the world by storm, it was filled with hype, promises, potential, and a decent amount of mystery. If we fast forward more than 15 years later, not much has changed.
While many people (and businesses) view social media platforms—like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn—as the holy grail of marketing that will magically fix all of their problems, it is important to remember the distinction between promise and performance.
You see, social media certainly has (and makes) a lot of promises. Whether it’s the promise of new customers, increased sales, or going viral, it’s all possible on social media. However, just because something is possible, it doesn’t mean it’s easy, and it definitely doesn’t mean everyone can do it. Well, at least, not right away.
Social media is not some magic fix. It isn’t going to change your business overnight. What it can do, however, is provide you with the tools and platforms you need to improve your business, reach new customers, and make the kinds of connections that aren’t possible anywhere else.
Promise vs performance
One of the most common mistakes that new businesses make is buying into the hype of social media, without possessing the necessary experience to know which roads to avoid and which ones to travel down. Social media platforms offer a host of powerful tools, features, and marketing opportunities, but you need to know how to use them, where to focus your efforts, and where to spend your marketing dollars.
It is all too easy to simply throw money at a platform like Facebook, with the expectation of immediate results. Facebook is actually a great example to look at here. If you have a business page on Facebook, you’ve no doubt received messages about boosting posts or increasing your ad spend with the promise of reaching a wider audience. This seems like a simple and easy-to-follow idea for the inexperienced – more money spent = more reach. But what’s the true value of that reach?
Reaching more people is a tantalising carrot that Facebook often dangles in front of inexperienced businesses dipping their toes into the social media marketing waters. More, however, isn’t always better. It’s promise vs performance. Just because your ad may have reached more people’s newsfeeds, it doesn’t mean it was successful.
When it comes to social media, especially in terms of marketing, it’s crucial that you know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Before you spend a single cent of your marketing budget, ask yourself one question, as a starting point: what do we want this ad to achieve? Once you’ve answered that seemingly simple question, work your way backwards. How do we want to achieve it? What tools will help us reach this goal? Which platform should we use? What audience are we trying to reach? What’s our message?
The social media hype is (sometimes) real, but you should know what you’re buying before you buy into it.
