**
(image: https://www.superdream.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Myths1.png alt: )
**
**1. ****You have to join all the most popular social networks**
– You don’t need to join every network, you don’t even need to join the most popular ones, there may be a site which is more suitable and where you audience live. Surprisingly your audience might not actually be on Facebook and Twitter.
**2. ****The more you post the better**
– Posting needs to be considered and fine tuned, as a social media for business user, content should not be overly promotional and should not spam users. Social networks have algorithms to stop this from happening. When posting, quality is far more important than quantity.
– It is very easy to undo all the hard work and the position of your social media activities by poor posting strategy. The networks learn your behaviour and react accordingly, whether that is increasing your reach because your audience are lapping up your posts or because your posts are irrelevant to your audience needs therefore not endorsed.
**3. ****Your fans are a direct measure of how good your social media strategy is**
– This is every social media professional’s worst nightmare. Different businesses will measure social media success via different metrics and this should be decided as early on as possible when developing a social media marketing strategy.
– You will rarely find that a successful brand will measure social media success via the number of fans and followers they have. In actual fact organic reach and engagement are often the best measure of social media success and the best way to inform strategy. This is why fine tuning your content strategy is essential.
**4. ****You can’t measure Return on Investment (ROI)**
– It is possible to measure ROI and what to measure will often be decided upon when developing the social media strategy; ordinarily this will be organic reach and engagement.
– For many businesses and especially retailers, social media activity affects the bottom line just like any other marketing activity, so ROI can often be measured via website click through and direct sales via those conversions.
**5. ****It doesn’t involve paid media**
– A strong social media plan usually involves paid media whether online or offline to raise awareness. Examples of this are online display advertising, sponsored blog posts, PPC and Facebook advertising to name a few.
– People need to be made aware of your activity, that doesn’t happen simply organically.
**6. ****Social media is free**
– By now you will probably understand why social media shouldn’t be considered free. The Platform is but not much else is. It is time intensive, which costs money. There are also content costs, such as photos, videos, hosting a promotion and so on. In order for your content to look professional and be worthwhile promoting, it needs to have time and money behind it
– Effective marketing costs money and social media should be no different.