Mythbusting Social Media

In my work here at a social media agency, I’ve been noticing recurring trends in false perceptions and misconceptions of social media and social media marketing from new prospects and clients alike.

As a result, I decided to clear things up with some good ol’ fashioned myth undebatable to me. If anything - social media has shown huge ROI through increased search engine optimization alone - for Ignite this has resulted in higher organic search results. What has this translated to? A quantifiable number of new business leads, in addition to brand positioning that lets us into the conversations of our target audience. 5. “Social Media is for Tweens, Teens, and Twenty-Somethings”

- False. Contrary to the perception that social media is for the “kids”, older demographics are evolving into this space rapidly. Take a look at this past year - LinkedIn made a storm through corporate America, niche networking sites like BusinessWeek, Facebook’s 35-and-up crowd now accounts for more than 41 percent of all Facebook visitors (after all, if Jim is getting friends his own age). 6. “Social networking will replace networking”

- False. As my new Twitter friend skeptical about . In fact, many are hesitating to expend resources or budgets in what appears to be another fad. But yet, social media is obviously more than this, when it is understood. It is a fundamental shift in communication - it isn’t just new “tools”, but new ways of networking, communicating, organizing, and living. It is becoming intertwined in lifestyles - which means it is here to stay. 9. “Blogging is too scary.”

- False. Many companies are scared to death of blogging for fear of negative reactions or simply “messing up”. They are quite surprised when I tell them that 1) Comments can be monitored to filter out spam and trash from the “valuable” negative comments and can be a helpful way to hear customer feedback; and 2) the social media community is open, honest, and more forgiving than they think. Even companies that have bellyflopped into social media (ex. Dell) have recovered by admitting mistakes and moving on. 10. “Social Media Marketing is placing Ads on Facebook.”

- False. I can’t stress this enough - but placing banner ads on Facebook is not equivalent to social media marketing. It’s advertising and it always will be.

Can you think of any more social media or social media marketing myths out there that need to be cleared up? I’d love to hear them!