Michelle's E-Marketing Blog

With the prevalence of social media today, it only makes sense that more and more firms are jumping on the bandwagon and getting themselves Twitter and Facebook accounts. It’s virtually free, not considering employee time, and is what you’re “supposed to do”. According to PR firm Burson-Marsteller 25% of companies worldwide are using all four major social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs and 84% are on at least one platform.

As companies are becoming more active on these sites, it is important to consider the following:

• Integrating social media with other corporate activities is fundamental to long-term success.
• Social media should be assessed in the early planning stages of planning rather than tagged on at the end.
• At least TRY to measure ROI. Nearly all companies who have used some form of social media report it as successful; however, if they are not monitoring their ROI they likely do not fully understand the impact of their social media marketing programs.

As a consumer who actively uses all four major social media platforms I have many opinions regarding the matter. My main beef is with companies on Twitter. I find that the majority of firms either tweet too little or WAY too much. Sure you might have thousands of followers on your Twitter account but if you tweet once every 2 weeks what good does having all those followers do? Maybe you don’t have much to announce. In that case try retweeting, responding to tweets, and even just tweeting random fun facts/findings to mix things up a bit. On the other end of the spectrum are the businesses that tweet way too often and usually result in a swift click of the “unfollow”. Yes, you have lots to say and so many promotions but do you really need to tweet 10 times per hour? Filter! Equally as bad are those who post countless tweets of the same type with no variety. The article 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business has lots of great tips for avoiding the pitfalls of Twitter and mastering the art of the tweet.

Reference: Marketers Spending More on Social Media for All the Wrong Reasons