9 Social Media Myths Unraveled

Think you know how your customers interact and engage with your brand on social media? Or that you know everything there is to know about social media? Get ready to be surprised! We uncovered some new details that you actually might not have guessed about today’s social media landscape, but, nonetheless, will help you improve your social media marketing. Take a look!

Myth 1: Most content sharing activities happen over social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Fact: In actuality, most of the sharing (over 72%) comes from simple copying and pasting URLs, with a majority of copying and pasting on mobile coming from iOS devices. (Source: PO.ST)

Myth 2: Facebook is losing its power as a traffic referral site. 

Fact: In a report released by Shopaholic last month, Facebook was said to have grown its referral traffic share the most compared with other big name social media sites. While both Facebook (37% increase) and Pinterest grew (48% increase), Twitter stayed flat and YouTube and LinkedIn actually lost.

Myth 3: Instagram is just for sharing pictures.

Fact: Many brands (especially e-commerce brands) can and have benefitted from sharing products on this platform, which sees the highest engagement of all social media sites, according to Forrester Research.

Myth 4: Social is just for the young, mostly just millennials.

Fact: It should have been obvious when Grandma joined Facebook! Users ages 55-64 engage with brands’ content the most, regardless of using iOS, Android, or a desktop computer. This age group was actually the reason why Facebook was the most dominant social network in 2013.

• Baby boomers are more likely to engage with sharing (41%) compared with millennials (19%), regardless of gender.
• Millennials are actually the generational group that is least likely to engage with a brand or its content (Source: PO.ST)

Myth 5: Google+ is a ghost town that really doesn’t matter.

Fact: Since Google is the king of search world, Google+ plays a crucial part for a business to be found. Keeping an active Google+ page will not only help a business promote its content, but will improve a brand’s search ranking as well.

Myth 6: Content and brand engagement happens the most on the weekends, where people have more free time.

Fact: People engage with content 49% more on weekdays. Sports content is clicked on four times more on Mondays & Tuesdays than any other day of the week. Users are also ten times more likely to click on food content on Thursdays and Saturdays. (Source: PO.ST)

Myth 7: Brands need to be on every social media network or suffer the consequences.

Fact: Brands must choose which ones they feel they could keep an active presence on as well as one that coincides with their business or industry. This allows them to reach and impact the right target audience for them.

Myth 8: Facebook hashtags help improve viral reach of your content.

Fact: Because of Facebook users’ stringent privacy settings, hashtags aren’t that effective for generating additional exposure for content. (Source: Social Times)

Myth 9: Searchers only use traditional search engines to find what they’re looking for.

Fact: The second largest search engine is actually YouTube and it’s bigger than Bing, Yahoo, Ask, and AOL combined. (Source: Mushroom Networks)