WHY DIY ISN’T ALWAYS THE BEST OPTION WHEN IT COMES TO SOCIAL MEDIA
There are things in life that you can DIY – light bulb replacement, lawn mowing, birthday card making (handmade is just so much more personal, don’t you think) and closet organising for instance. While it is of course possible to outsource these jobs, you could very well do it yourself without causing any kind of incident. Granted, you could mislay a pair of Spanx, but frankly that is also not the worst thing that could happen to a person.
Then there are those jobs for which you need to call in the professionals. Cutting a fringe, knocking out a wall, installing a water feature, covering a cake in fondant – these are all things that seem simple enough at the outset, but once you get to the middle of it you quickly realise why there are so many people who get paid top dollar to take care of these finicky jobs.
Here are a few common mistakes that trip up the best-laid DIY social media plans:
Weak & unfocused content:
The same messaging rules that apply to classic public relations and branding apply to social media. Self-serving promotion will get you nowhere – you need to create strong, smart content that adds value.
Stagnant social media efforts:
Gone are the days when companies could put up a website that sat on the screen like an electronic business card. Social media is about maintaining a dynamic conversation between your customers and yourself. Your content should be slick, multi-faceted and ready to work on multiple platforms at once.
A one-size-fits-all approach:
Your target audience is a unique beast – it has likes, dislikes, wants and needs that differ vastly from those of other audiences. As such you can’t simply copy a likely social media approach and hope that it falls on fertile ground. You need to do the legwork and find out what your customers want – what works for early adopters who gobble up every new bit of technology won’t necessarily do the trick for technology-phobes who prefer that you mail them their statements.
Winging it:
There is a time and place to wing it (mainly in your twenties at pool parties), but social media is not the platform for it. Don’t start pod-casting, blogging, tweeting, posting on Facebook or airing YouTube videos until you know what your messages are, who will manage each platform, who your audience is, and how they will benefit from the content.
Do you think your business could benefit from professional social media management? We think it could and we are ready to whip out some mind-boggling stats and back up our claims with tangible analytics data. Get in touch today for an obligation-free discussion on how we can help you to harness the infinite potential of this lucrative marketing channel.