Guest Column: Six Myths About Social Media

Photo: Growbizmedia.com

Myth #1: Social media is a different kind of marketing
Social media helps you promote your website and your travel agency, offer specials to customers, and raise awareness of your business. Sounds like marketing to me. Social media is an effective, cost-efficient way to market. That’s why it’s a must for you to create a social media plan as part of your marketing strategy.

Myth # 2: Social media can be handled by an intern
Oh no it can’t. Just think about all the times you’ve heard about a company running into trouble because of an errant social media post.

Social media responsibilities should ideally be assigned to someone with marketing skills and sensibilities. It should be integrated into your overall marketing strategy—and no smart business owner gives an intern that kind of responsibility.

Myth #3:  If we have a social presence people will say bad things about my company
No business can please 100% of its customers. In all honesty, some people are already saying bad things about you—they’re doing it on their own social platforms. If you’re not on social media, you don’t know what’s being said, and you can’t address it and set the record straight.

Myth # 4: Nobody cares what I had for lunch
I hear this one all the time. Businesses on social platforms aren’t sharing what’s for lunch—unless they’re restaurants. Social media is an easy and affordable way to find new customers and cement relationships with your exiting client base. It’s essentially word-of-mouth on steroids.

Myth #5: Social media is a fad
Facebook has over one billion users. One billion. That’s not a fad.

Myth #6: Social media is a time suck
This isn’t a myth. It’s true. But it’s necessary for your business growth. You don’t have to work every platform (but register your business name on all the major ones). The key is to find out where your customers are—and which social platforms your competitors use—and commit your social efforts there. Travel is very visual, so I suspect you would have a lot of success using the visual platforms (Instagram and Pinterest) in addition to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Lesonsky is CEO and founder of GrowBiz Media, a custom content creation company focusing on small business and entrepreneurship; her current clients include AT&T Small Business, Microsoft, Intuit, Pitney Bowes, SCORE, Small Business Trends, American Express OPEN Forum and Success Magazine. She also served as editor and in other capacities for Entrepreneur magazine for more than 24 years.