One major challenge that faces marketers in today’s social media landscape is, of course, choosing the appropriate site to market on. At one time all that we needed to be familiar with was Facebook, but now in the evolving social media world we have a growing number of sites to choose from. With that being said, there exist some basic problems to confront, such as understanding and knowing how and when to adjust your strategy in social media in order to accommodate growth. Simply put, you basically have an inability to scale.
Another challenge is maintain control and security; you have to have an ability to manage this across large numbers of people. With update statuses and Tweets going out instantly to millions of consumers, how to you correct an error? If you Tweet out the wrong date for a sale or the incorrect price for merchandise, what happens next?
Another huge concern/challenge is consistency. As you navigate through various social media sites as a marketer, you will want to strive for consistency. Based on the differences of the social platforms this can be challenging. A comment that may be appropriate for one social media platform may be way off for another. Do you have time to evaluate and read the waters of each one?
Finally, there needs to be a centralized base of operation, and how you manage this could present challenges. Providing training to in-house staff can be overwhelming and time consuming, while outsourcing all of your needs may leave you out of the social media loop. This is a tremendous opportunity to hire a social media marketing company who specializes in performance, while simultaneously preparing you to take over the reins. You want to find a company that gets you involved and stays active. No one knows your company the way you do, so you need to be a regular contributor to the script of your social media.
Without a doubt, the greatest advantage of social media marketing outweighs the risks involved. Remember when (before technological advances) to reach thousands of potential consumers you had to make thousands of phone calls? With the social media, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc., millions of potential customers are just a click away.
It is also a tremendous benefit to stay in touch with your customers, exposing them to your policies and providing them with useful updated information can be invaluable in customer retention. Contacts made through these outlets can show how much your customer is valued and allow new promotions to be had instantly by millions. In this way, you are not only going down the road to new customers, but also maintaining the road of your current customers.
Of course, your information is now available to your competitors. Even though that risk is there, you need to balance that against the fact that it is reciprocal and, remember, staying out of social media marketing is really no longer an option.
Ethical issues facing those marketing in social media domain include privacy issues and concerns. Remember you are participating as part of a community and should be respectful of the privacy of others. Information gathering, surveys and the likes being used as a deceitful method to sell also are not ethical. One must be careful how information is gathered is used. Just be careful in those “shades of gray” areas of ethics when marketing in social media.
To properly traverse the social media waters, you should consult with a company who prides themselves on knowledge, impeccable service and results. Find out what The Go! Agency can do for you by filling in the form below!
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