Social media marketing now holds a prominent place in promotional efforts, with 87 percent of small businesses reporting that social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook have proven incredibly helpful in generating customers, according to an oft-cited study from Vocus. Unfortunately, although they’re acknowledged as a necessity in today’s marketing environment, social media experts struggle under the burden of never-ending stereotypes regarding their professionalism, their manners, and even their intelligence. Social media marketers may boast great influence in today’s business world, but their path to greatness is rarely easy!
Hashtag Conversations
You might be a proponent of the carefully-placed hashtag, but that doesn’t mean you share the common teenage fascination with inserting hashtags into colloquial language. As Uproxx reports, partners in comedy Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake recently mocked this #obsession, using hashtags to describe everything from cookies to the guilty pleasure of watching “Barney the Dinosaur” as an adult. But as social media marketers know, hashtags are not supposed to serve as conversational filler — the word “like” already does a great job of fulfilling that duty, thank you very much. The hashtag simply serves as a form of categorization in the often unorganized world of social media. But good luck getting your friends and acquaintances to understand this; they’ll be too busy comparing your subtle use of hashtag in professional circles to the teenage obsession with connecting hashtags to, well, #everything.
You’ll Never Beat The Meme
Successful social media marketers abide by the old cliche “If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em.” No matter how concerted your efforts at generating buzz are, if those hot Macy’s promotions go viral, your campaign will immediately fall to the wayside. If you fail to create a viral sensation of your own, learn to attach yourself to an already successful meme. The key here is timing, as your participation will do you no good if the viral picture, video or concept has already grown stale, as Search Engine Journal points out.
Everyone Thinks You Lack Originality
Hopping on a social media trend can indeed be useful, but do it too often, and you’ll come across as unoriginal and uninspired. Unfortunately, an all-too-common reliance on others’ ideas forms the basis of one of the most unfortunate social media stereotypes, in which naysayers claim that social media marketers are, by nature, unoriginal. A TED-style parody from “The Onion” takes this concept to the extreme, with the subject claiming that any teenager could accomplish the allegedly uninspired task of social media promotions. Unfortunately, this “Onion” satire hits on a common misconception and makes it all the more likely that you’ll hear those dreaded “When are you going to get a real job?” queries come Thanksgiving.
Drumming Up Excitement For Boring Concepts
Next time someone accuses you of lacking originality, be sure to mention that accounting firm you recently promoted with a series of hilarious tweets. As a social media marketer, you have to make the most yawn-worthy topic interesting — not an easy task when you’re faced with printer cartridge producers and tax experts! It takes a special talent to spark a social media frenzy based on a snoozer of a concept — don’t ever take that ability for granted!
About the author: Annie Delgado has successfully crowdfunded 3 mobile apps with more on the way soon.
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