Myths I've heard in social media

Before I tell someone that I work in the social media space, I frequently will ask them: What do you think about social media? The responses I’ve received from that question have now turned into a little psychological experiment that I’ve written up as a blog post. These are just the few that I’d like to debunk.

“Social Media seems pretty easy.”

Or variations of this. I love these people. I’ll admit - I don’t think I’d catch any of my friends saying this. If it was easy, I’m pretty sure everyone would be a super famous influencer. Social media is a difficult thing to understand and upkeep. The best of the best have teams, strategists, and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and hours on perfecting a brand’s look on social media. You’ve got to treat it like a baby that needs constant care and attempt. Yup, I’ve just called compared it to a baby. Moving on…

“My brand needs to be on every platform.”

Very common misconception. If you read our first blog post, you potentially will roll your eyes when you see me say Instagram. But, depending on your company…you don’t need to be on every platform. LinkedIn might be a more useful platform than Twitter or Facebook. Maybe YouTube is where you’ll get your biggest reach, depending on if you have the capabilities to pump out video content. It truly depends on 1. What is your target demographic? 2. What content do you foresee being the best representation for your brand? Of course, if you need help with that second question, we’re here to help.

“It doesn’t matter when I post, as long as I’m posting once a day”

Don’t get me wrong, it’s very important to consistently post — but there is strategy to WHEN you actually post. I’ll give a little secret out that I once told an influencer. We’re on the west coast in LA, and if he/she had a football thought late at night about, let’s say, the New York Jets, they should schedule it or post it first thing in the morning. It does matter when people are on social media. If your direct market is in LA, tailor the schedule of your content around that. I’ll give you one tip, because the rest are reserved for our clients: Super late at night posts should be a no-no. Unless you’ve got news to break the internet.

“I don’t need a website. I’ve got social media instead.”

Nope. The keyword here is “instead.” Social media is NOT a substitute for a website and information about your brand. Social media is a way to get in touch with your fans on a personal level, engage with them, and hear what they have to say. The website is place that can entirely be your own, to house your long-form story telling, and to purchase merchandise. Even though both do serve as a form of credibility, social media shouldn’t replace your website completely.

“Everyone is on social media.”

As much as I’d love to say this is true, it’s not. I will say, I have NO idea what people do if they’re not on social. If you’re one of them and are somehow reading this, please reach out to me. I would LOVE to chat. Per Statista.com, 79% of the U.S. population is on social media and the number of worldwide social media users is at 2.34 billion. The real important number that people should be paying attention to is active users and time spent per app. For example, there’s 2.38 billion monthly active users on Facebook. GlobalWebIndex says that the average person spends 2 hours and 22 minutes per day on social media. And that trend will only start to increase. So no, technically not everyone is on social media. But the people that are there, are potentially new life-long fans of your brand or new friends you’ve never met.