If your company is considering a social media marketing initiative, please read this. It could save you a lot of time and energy.

Twitter is not a strategy. Companies often confuse tactics for strategy. Companies who don’t understand the new tools of social marketing – Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube – often think the only thing they need to do is to start a Facebook page, or a Twitter feed, or post a few videos to YouTube. Why? What do you want to do? What do you want to accomplish? What is the marketing strategy that you will use to create awareness for your brand and products, and how can social media marketing help you reach those goals? What are the sales goals? What’s the grand idea? Without a strategy, you are just mindlessly executing tactics.

“You can’t measure results with social marketing.” Sound strategy always includes solid measurement. How will you know if you’ve reached your goal? How will you know if you are successful? For example, if your goal is to create awareness, the measurement might be the number of “likes” to your Facebook page, and followers on Twitter. If the goal is to increase sales, set conversion goals for your Facebook fan page and create compelling offers to encourage your fans to purchase your product. No goals or measurement = lazy marketing. Not acceptable.

Social media is free. I hear this a lot, and nothing is farther from the truth. Companies need to invest time, people, and yes . . . money. Whether it is readership on their blog, fans on the Facebook page, of followers to their Twitter feed, companies need to invest in these resources to build their social networks. Nothing is free. But, if the strategy is sound, and clear goals are set, the return-on-investment is easy to calculate.

“I don’t have time for social media.” Really? I usually hear this from CEO’s and senior executives. My response is usually, “So, you are saying that you don’t want to talk to your customers?” As the CEO, you have perspectives about your product, your company, and your brand that no one else in your company has. I don’t expect you to answer customer service inquiries (although that would probably be a good idea!). But, with mobile and other desktop tools (TwitterBerry, Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, etc.), getting engaged in the social media efforts of your company is pretty easy. And, it is something that can be accomplished in just a few minutes a day. You’re the CEO and you don’t want to talk to your customers? Shame on you. CEO non-engagement in social media = out-of-touch CEO. And that probably means you have a company that is out of touch with its’ customers too.

“Let’s give the project to the intern.” Companies will often make the mistake of assigning social media projects to experienced or junior staff. There is a misconception that only people under 25-years of age understand social media. Nothing is farther from the truth. Anybody can master the tools; posting to Facebook or Twitter. That’s the easiest part, even for people who have a hard time programming their DVRs at home. But tactics without strategy is just a waste of effort. This gets back to the falsehood that social media is free. Successful social media campaigns are founded on strategy, they can be measured, and they have the active support and involvement of senior management. There are many talented 25-year olds out there. They deserve the support of their chief executive and senior management. They deserve solid strategy and a grand idea. And, they deserve your attention. After all, they are talking to your customers!

This is just a short list of common social media mistakes companies make. More to come! Thoughts anyone?

Topics: "campaign strategy", "common social marketing mistakes", "marketing strategy", "social media marketing", campaigns