When companies first began to realise how valuable social media sites were for marketing purposes, the first mistake they made was to treat it as any other marketing opportunity. Although we have all come a long way since then, it’s amazing how many businesses make some very elementary mistakes when approaching social media marketing.

Perhaps part of the fault lies with the label ‘social media marketing’. Marketing is a very sophisticated art these days, with a lot of techniques requiring incredible subtlety, but the word still calls up images of blunt-speaking salespeople. When it comes to social media networks, traditional marketing techniques are definitely out.

The first ‘not’, therefore, is do not enter the network as a brand. Social media networks work on a human level. Confronting the community as your brand will have much the same effect as wearing a sandwich board advertisement at a party. Even entering social media sites using a mascot has dubious effect. Human contact requires… well, human contact.

Social media marketing also works best using one person to represent the company on the site. To use the party metaphor again, a company can’t socialise as a single unit. As the main point of social media marketing is to develop relationships, using a number of people to represent the company has less benefit that choosing one representative for each social network.

Businesses that use social media sites as one-way communication of their ideas are seen as missing the point of the exercise. Social media networks are built on reciprocation. This means that using social media sites to make announcements and updates is a definite ‘not’ – it’s one step above spam and will get you nowhere. When you first start your social media marketing campaign, you need to spend quite a bit of time giving your attention to others in the community. People are more interested in people who are interested in them. Start out by joining discussions and asking questions.

Another mistake companies make is to focus their content on themselves right from the start. Don’t make it all about you. When you first enter a social media network, very few people will be interested in you. Not only will your business news fall on deaf ears, it will turn people away.

Even when you have developed a presence within a network, keep your focus outward. Just as with any regular content posted to your site, what you post on a social media site should be interesting and relevant to your readers. There are still plenty of great ways to draw traffic to your site through social media networks. Contact SEO Consult to work social media marketing into your optimisation strategy.

It’s important to remember that blogs are social media as well. Blogging is much like other social aspects of the net, and requires a little reciprocation, particularly when you are just starting out. Commenting on other, relevant blogs is a good way to draw people to your new blog. Other bloggers may link to your blog if they find your content useful. As with any form of content, it is essential that your articles feature interesting, easy to read and relevant information.

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