People are always looking for great online marketing advice. They read blogs and newsletters, they go to seminars, they look to marketing gurus for hot tips and million-dollar insights. But not all advice is good advice. Some of it is actually really terrible and counterproductive. Here are some bits of bad advice about online marketing that you should definitely not follow.
Use #Tons of #Hashtags on #Twitter Lets #Everyone Know You’re #Cool
Nothing says “I’m new here” like adding a hashtag to every single word of your Twitter post. The point of hashtags is to jump on to trending topics so your post will be seen by more people. If you’re not familiar with how the whole hashtag deal works, don’t just fly blind. Brush up on your hashtag etiquette before tweeting recklessly. Adding too many hashtags really just strangles your poor little post into irrelevance.
Automate It & Forget It
Automation is the future, right? We have self-driving cars. Even cat litter boxes can empty themselves. Shouldn’t we just hand our content marketing over to a team of robots? Or, until that’s actually possible, automate everything from email responses to Facebook posts?
Nope. Because, like a robot, canned responses come across as cold and soulless. While automated marketing campaigns, done properly, can definitely benefit the rest of your online marketing strategy, you absolutely still have to engage with your audience in a real, organic way.
If Your Content is Awesome Enough, Nothing Else Matters
Quality content can only get you so far. You could be the Charles Dickens of the internet and still have exactly zero people reading your stuff. It doesn’t matter how gloriously clever and unbelievably informative your content is if nobody can find it. Just because you publish something doesn’t mean that anyone will even see it, let alone stick around and read it. It takes a lot of work to get people to actually read what you post.
Established Companies Don’t Need to Bother with Social Media
The idea that established companies don’t benefit from social media marketing is flat out wrong. Not only does having an active social media presence boost your online visibility, anyone today who isn’t active on social looks completely behind the times. With over 1 billion users on Facebook, chances are your clients are all hanging out on social media too. Oh and hey, so are your competitors. Time to hop in and start swimming.