How CMOs Can Avoid The Common Social Media Mistakes

In discussions with social media pioneers, it’s apparent that there are some common pitfalls that marketers make as they begin leveraging social media.  As a follow-up to an earlier postregarding social media, I’ll address three common mistakes many CMOs are making: 1) failure to understand how social media links to the broader business strategies, 2) failure to develop a really strong content plan, and 3) failure to seed a discussion and instead focusing solely on self promotion.

3 Common Social Media Mistakes:

    1.  Failing to Link Social Media Tactics to Broader Business Objectives

The first mistake is self explanatory.  Social media is a tactic that needs to link to the broader strategic plan. Rick Thompson, co-founder of Snapshot Social Media, a social media management application, shared an example of a successful social media campaign that effectively achieved broader business objectives.

A local ice cream store owner had seen a long-term drop in mid-week traffic.  His objective was to drive overall business performance via mid-week traffic building efforts.  He then decided to use Twitter as a tactical tool to motivate immediate response.  First, he focused on his primary target, college students, and incented them to follow him on Twitter. The owner then sent out specific promotions via Twitter on certain days of the week.  The results – it worked as the owner is achieving record traffic and revenue levels after having been in business for 18 years.  Read More