Rules and best practices are good to have in some ways, but some rules are meant to be broken.
As you look to start your online marketing efforts you should break the following rules.
Just because some will say you have to do these things you should actually do the opposite and find your own path to success.
1. You Have To Be On Facebook And Twitter
There is no point in spending time on Twitter if your customer is 60 years old and used to getting catalogs TV advertisements. Go where your customers are online for the most success.
2. You Have To Respond To Every Social Media Message
Nope. Some people are crazy. You don’t have to deal with them. Avoid arguing and other comments that don’t lead to benefits for your business.
3. Build Links
Links are good, but link building is dangerous. Focus on the type of content your customers will want to read, watch and share. That will lead to more links, but if you focus on links first you can get into SEO trouble.
4. Use Keyword Certain Number Of Times
This one is like #3. It can be dangerous. Focus on what would make your content most valuable for your customer.
5. Be Engaging
Watch out for this one. You don’t have to be fun and engaging if that’s not who you are. Be useful, entertaining, educational and enlightening. You can be any of those things.
6. Focus On Keeping Customers Instead Of Getting New Ones – It’s Cheaper
Of course it’s cheaper to keep your existing customers, but without new customers you’ll never grow. Invest in getting new customers with each online marketing effort.
7. Unique Content For All Channels
Re-purposing content is completely acceptable. There is no reason you can’t turn your best blog posts into videos.
8. You Need Giveaways And Promotions
There are a lot of giveaways and promotions in online marketing. It’s dangerous. Companies do it for the quick response they get from customers. You don’t need these for success. It may take longer to build an audience without them, but you’re better off in the long run.
9. It’s About Your Customer
This one is dangerous. If everything was about your customer you would go out of business. Your business is the most important and the customer comes second. They don’t always like to hear that, but your best customers will understand as long as you’re being fair and reasonable with them.
If customers get out of line on social media you can ignore them and do what is best for your company.
10. People Don’t Buy When They’re Social
Socializing is one of the very early stages of the buying cycle. It is true that you don’t want to splash ads all over social media with your updates. Treat social media like you would if you were meeting a potential customer for the very first time. Think about the things you would share at that point in the relationship.
People do buy when they’re social. You don’t want to lose sight of your goal, which is to earn new customers and increase sales.
Conclusion
These are some of the rules of social media, SEO and online marketing. Some are not too bad, but they can be dangerous if you misinterpret them. And I’ve seen them misinterpreted. It can lead to a lot of lost time and money.
Image: JD Hancock