Social media is a powerful technology but it’s also often misunderstood. In its simplest form, social media is a way to connect with old friends from childhood or college and a way to share pieces of your daily life. In its more complex form, social media is a unique way to market your business and products to the world in a fairly short amount of time. While you can take months or years to study the ins and outs of social media and craft corresponding business strategies, there are three common myths about social media that solopreneurs can dispel today.
Myth #1: You must use every single social media platform.
Expanding your reach is certainly a goal for solopreneurs as that generally gets more sales, which should equal increased profit. However, a question to ask before signing up and using every platform is: where is my ideal customer? Using Facebook just because it has over 1 billion users doesn’t mean those 1 billion users will find you and start purchasing. Identify your ideal customer and find out where they hang out. Those are the platforms you should use.
Myth #2: Aim for every post to go viral.
It’s fun to see a post go viral as they are usually entertaining or thought provoking but of the viral campaigns you’ve noticed recently, could you say what company sponsored them? I can’t either. Aim to provide value in your posts mixed in with some of your personality as opposed to aiming for shock or entertainment value. Your ideal customer wants to learn from you so your valuable lesson will be heard and remembered long after the latest viral video fades away.
Myth #3: Having a large number of followers equals increased profits.
It can be an ego boost to see a large number of social media followers but are these followers interacting with you? Are they liking or sharing your posts? Are they leaving comments? If not, then chances are they aren’t your ideal customer and chances are they will never purchase anything from you. Evaluate your own posts; it’s quite possible they’re boring and that’s the reason for no response. Be more creative with your posts and watch for audience interaction. You’re not appealing to everyone; you’re appealing to a small fraction of the world’s population. Pay attention to finding that demographic and the number of engaged audience members will follow, as will the profits.
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