Do you know the best practices to use social media in favor of your company? Maybe some of them are myths. Find it out!

Nowadays, companies that do not use social networks as a Digital Marketing strategy are very rare. After all, how many people out there question: “who isn’t on social media today?” .

Given the popularity of these channels, it is quite common that there are many studies on the subject. Likewise, it is quite common that many untrue facts about the use of social networks within a Digital Marketing strategy spread and, in many cases, become “truths” for many people.

To demystify these fallacies, in this post we’ve gathered 8 myths about social networks that you need to know to reap better results in these channels.

Myth #1: Number of fans is the main metric of social media

It’s perhaps the most popular metric on social media, but it’s not by far the most important. Not that it’s not important, it’s just not the main one.

The number of fans or followers you have is social proof that your company is socially engaged and can influence decisions. But are these fans all influencers? Are they potential consumers? Are they qualified as potential ambassadors for your brand?

Define who will be the persona who will follow your brand on social media and work to make your publications reach them. Having the wrong audience on the radar can cost more in the end.

Myth #2: Use as many hashtags as possible

The use of hashtags (#) is an important practice in social networks. It works both to engage the exact audience and to reach people who are not yet following your page. However, they must be used with caution.

Posts with more than 10 hashtags (or even less) look terrible and are often not taken seriously by people as they are easily mistaken for spam.

Myth #3: My customers aren’t on social media

Let’s go to the numbers of users present on social media to unravel this myth:

• Facebook: 1 billion +
• YouTube: 1 billion+
• Instagram: 400 million+
• LinkedIn: 400 million+
• Twitter: 300 million+
• Pinterest: 100 million +

With so many active users on social media, are your customers really not on social media? It’s easier for you not to find them than for them not to be present in the media.

Myth #4: I need to be on all social media

It is important to know that the way your company uses one social media will not necessarily work, if used in the same way, in another.

Each social media has simple differences like average age group, purpose and predominant media type shared by users. The way your company uses Facebook should not be the same as how it uses Twitter, for example.

Furthermore, when creating pages on several different social networks, keep in mind that you will need time to manage each of the strategies. It’s no use maintaining pages on various social media if you don’t have the time/staff to manage them.

Myth #5: Only works for those who drive publications

It’s true that a driven post (when you pay to show it to more fans) reaches more people. But imagine if you had to push all publications to get results. It would be a rather expensive price, wouldn’t it?

A smart social media strategy envisions two metrics to measure: paid reach and organic reach.

If there is an offer behind a publication that can generate Leads or even a direct sale, a paid and well-targeted publication can bring ROI to the company.

Now, if the publication is just a blog post or any other post that does not contain an offer, the amount paid in boosting will not be an investment, but an expense.

Therefore, know how to dose both fronts. Boost publications that can generate returns for your business, but don’t ignore organic reach. It is possible to generate a lot of engagement by publishing posts without investment.

On the Results Digitais blog, we have several tips on how you can generate good results organically on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Myth #6: The more content you share, the better

This is a very common mistake that happens to many companies that are starting to work with social media.

It may seem that the more content you share, the more people you will reach. It turns out that there are two types of news feeds on social media: one is updated by recent posts (Twitter, Instagram) and the other is updated by relevant posts (Facebook).

In the first case, posting too much content might upset fans. Just because they like your brand doesn’t mean they will consume all the information you publish. It is necessary to manner and focus on quality so that posts are not published without generating results.

In the second case, it’s no use publishing very often if the foundation used to appear in the users’ timeline is relevance. On Facebook, for example, posts appear on the timeline according to user preferences. The more you like the posts on a page, the more likely you are to receive its next updates.

In short: for best results, focus on quality rather than quantity.

Myth #7: I need to delete negative comments to keep my image

The ideal is always to do everything to not receive negative comments. However, we know that incidents happen. And when they do, be prepared to respond accordingly.

On social media, news spreads at an invaluable speed. And, depending on what it is, deleting a comment can cause even greater repercussions.

There is no shortage of examples of immature companies on social media that opted for this bad practice and ended up sinking even further. Remember that everything posted on your page has public visibility. Deleting a negative comment may anger the user, who will comment once more and, in some cases, post a screenshot of the deleted comment.

If you want your brand to maintain a good reputation on social media, learn to deal with negative feedback. Don’t ignore it and, above all, don’t exclude it.

Myth #8: I can’t generate leads with social media

If you still think that social media are not channels that can generate Leads for your business, update yourself and review your concepts.

The proof of this is that many of the Leads generated by Resultados Digital come from social media. And that’s true for both ads and organic publications.

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ and Instagram are some examples of social media that can generate Leads for your company.

Conclusion

There are certainly many other myths out there. The intention of this post was to show some of the main points that generate many doubts among marketing analysts.

Being present on social media is nothing new. Probably all your competitors are. Therefore, it is necessary to use the best tactics to stand out from other companies and ensure the attention of your audience.

A compilation of 63 myths about social media, SEO, Marketing Automation, CRO, Inbound Sales, content production, paid media and Email Marketing.

And in your opinion: which myth was missing?