3 Persistent Myths About Social Media

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Just when you think it’s safe to encourage clients to connect with customers and their community via social media…

Here are 3 persistent myths I’m still hearing about social media over and over.

1. It’s for young people.

This is also said this way:

“My teenagers loves Facebook and all that but I don’t get it.”

In fact, this is a true myth. It’s JUST NOT TRUE. John Gerzema wrote a column for Inc. Magazine titled “The Geeks Are Graying.” This is the first paragraph:

Ninety percent of technology marketing targets 10 percent of the population: the young, the cool, the perceived digerati. A few niche companies address the senior market with products so simplified your cat could use them. What almost everyone misses is how the growth of mobile, social, and local applications is colliding with two decades of Internet acumen to create a new social phenomenon: the long tooth of technology.

It’s a great point. Let’s face it, those of us using social media can hardly call ourselves part of the youth demographic anymore. Can we just move on?

2. Our customers don’t use it.

One of my favorites! Who, exactly, are your customers? And, what exactly, do you think is social media?

Customers, clients, employees, vendors…call them what you will but they’re all PEOPLE. And people, it turns out, like social media. We like blogs. We like Twitter. We like to find “How To” videos on You Tube. So unless you are serving a community of cave-dwelling technophobes, your customers are interacting with social media in some way. Help them interact with you and your company.

3. It’s just for marketing.

“We don’t have anything like a contest to promote, and that’s what it’s for, so we don’t need it.”

Anyone else feel like screaming? Yes, it CAN be used for marketing. I preach from my soap box (as most people know) about customer experience. Social media has bridged the gap between customer and company in ways that have transformed the overall experience. This, my friends, is what it’s about!

There are more myths out there (like the one about how social media is dead) but these are my current favorites. How about you?

Photo Credit: Julia Freeman-Woolpert

Republished with author's permission from original post.

Jeannie Walters, CCXP
Jeannie Walters is a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP,) a charter member of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA,) a globally recognized speaker, a LinkedIn Learning and Lynda.com instructor, and a Tedx speaker. She’s a very active writer and blogger, contributing to leading publications from Forbes to Pearson college textbooks. Her mission is “To Create Fewer Ruined Days for Customers.”

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