The Current State of Social Media Marketing? Everybody Plays Guitar

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The Current State of Social Media Marketing? Everybody Plays Guitar

As social media marketers, we’re struggling with how many people do social media in ways that will NEVER garner results. Literally. Never.

And we see it every day.

When onboarding new clients to our agency, we create a social media strategy, which includes an audit of the client’s social presence and those of their competitors. We do this in all kinds of business categories, and we’re always fascinated to see how some companies approach their social media marketing.

What do we frequently find?

Social Media Marketing Gone Bad

Companies are failing miserably at their social media in just about every category we’ve covered, from healthcare to hospitality. How can we tell? Let us count the ways …

1. Putting the exact same content, hashtags, and all, on all channels. Yikes! Don’t they know that each channel has its own algorithm, audience preferences, and hashtag optimization? Guess not.

2. Posting every few months or so. Man, this one is tough. Why would a company waste such valuable marketing real estate by NOT having a consistent and effective social media effort? Not sure about this one, but it hurts our hearts, all that wasted marketing opportunity.

3. Posting 100% pure promotion. This is the worst! People don’t go to social media channels to look at advertising. They go to be entertained, to socialize, or to find new information. In reality, it’s essential to stand out by fitting in. Provide social content that entertains, helps people be social, or discover something new. THEN, you’ve earned the right to promote.

4. Same stuff, different day. Many businesses feel that social media is only about sharing new employees, events, awards, and other boring announcements. There’s no fun, nothing entertaining, nothing interesting to look at. Yawn.

5. Not including a call-to-action and a link in their copy. If someone wants to know more about your business, why not make it easy for them to click a link and learn more? It’s so basic that we can’t believe many people miss it. And no, you can’t put clickable links in Instagram posts, but we have a solution for that, too.

6. Using ugly or unexciting images. With so many wonderful options for creating appealing imagery, purchasing images, or even free stock photos, it’s disheartening to see so many companies missing out on the increased engagement and click-throughs that attractive content garners.

As social media enthusiasts, the current situation is upsetting, but we also understand this problem since we’ve been steeping in social media for a few years.

You see, social media people experience what social influencer SippinSocialTea calls “the ‘guitar effect.’ Everyone knows how to string a few chords together, but very few are really guitar players, and for social media professionals, that means we get looked down at because ‘how hard is it to post? I do that all the time on my personal page.’ Yeah, well, you can play the C chord, but you’re not Eddie Van Halen.”

So what should you do instead? Hire a professional. Seriously, it doesn’t have to be us. Just hire someone who knows social media AND marketing, not just social media. That’s the only way to learn the truth about social media marketing. It works.

Want to hear more? Get in touch with us here.