It wouldn't be an exaggeration at all to say that social media is everywhere. From the world of politics and business to the glamorous halls of the entertainment industry, social media has changed how things work. Businesses are no longer siloed to their corners of the world. Instead, they are reaching new customers around the globe by leveraging social media. Furthermore, by generating thoughtful content for various social media platforms, brands are organically forging lasting relationships with their customers. These relationships often translate into good leads and, eventually, into great sales, which is music to any marketer's ears.
Simply put, social media is a great tool for businesses.
However, like most great things, social media has its own myths and misconceptions. It is difficult for people outside certain circles to truly understand how much work goes into building a strong social media presence. So, to set the record straight once and for all, Hubilo decided to bring Gloria Zhu (Director of Demand Gen at Hubilo), Amanda Harrison (Social Media Manager at Hubilo), and Sneha Garg (Community Manager at Hubilo) together for this month's webinar: Organic Social Myths Busted + Tips for Hyper-Growth.
In this blog post, we cover the key highlights from their conversation. If you want to watch the entire webinar, click here.
Building a social strategy is a challenging task. From branding to target demographics, countless things are taken into consideration while devising a social media plan. That’s why lumping various social media marketing activities together is counterproductive. You can't dominate different social media platforms with a single strategy. Each platform has a different algorithm, and thus needs a separate social media plan.
Furthermore, different social media activities require dedicated resources. From community management to influencer management, every social media activity deals with troves of data and decisions. The data must be studied, insights must be derived, and the plans must be built based on evidence. One single person can't deal with so many things and meet the lofty goals of a business. Therefore, breaking your social media strategy into different responsibilities and handing them over to dedicated resources is the best way to ensure better ROI from your social media efforts.
Social media management and marketing are complex processes. From making platform-oriented content to fine-tuning it for particular audiences, a lot of thought and meticulous planning go into social media management. And yet, social media managers and marketers are often overlooked. Instead, people often think interns or low-level employees are running their favorite social media accounts, but this can't be farther from the truth.
Social media strategies are built by experienced people who spend years deciphering the algorithms of various social media platforms. Every single thing that big brands do on their social media accounts is deliberate and happens after a lot of planning. That’s why these brands can grow their social media dominance to such extreme levels. Social media managers might have interns working under them. But the actual strategy work is done by industry experts with infallible instincts.
Buying followers is tempting for brands trying to build a social media presence. However, it can be very damaging to your brand reputation. One of the hardest things for a business to do on social media platforms is building legitimacy with its user base. People are smart enough to tell when you've bought fake followers and likes — all they have to do is simply compare your engagement stats with the number of followers.
Fake followers are a big red flag for potential customers and influencers. Instead of making you look like a legitimate business, fake followers make your brand, and your product or service, look subpar.
That’s why building your social media presence organically is the more intelligent move. It might be a slow process, but if done right, it’ll create a great marketing channel for your business and serve as a foundation for your online community.
With her vast wealth of experience and social media knowledge, Amanda gave us the following key tips during the webinar for organic social hyper-growth: