Social media marketing was the buzzword of 2010 for small businesses, musicians, large corporations…you name it. Chances are, your business jumped on the social media bandwagon and has been feverishly Tweeting, posting Facebook status updates, uploading YouTube videos, connecting with clients on LinkedIn, blogging, and making your presence felt in any other social media space you can find.

But did you know there’s such a thing as too much social media marketing? There’s effective use of social media for building your brand, and then there’s overkill. And that happens when you spread yourself too thin across the social media landscape.

How can you make sure you’re not spreading yourself too thin?

• Have clearly defined goals—What do you want to get from your social media marketing campaign? More sales? More leads? Better customer loyalty? Improved brand perception? Identify your goals and make sure that everything you do is designed to help you reach them.
• Only go where your audience goes—It’s doubtful that the core of your audience maintains a strong active presence on more than a few social media sites. Identify the handful of sites where your target audience is most active and focus only on those. Everything else is a waste of your time and energy.
• Track your results—At the end of the day, the only way to determine if your social media marketing efforts are paying off is to track your results. One thing you can do is look at your website’s analytics to see where you’re getting the highest quality traffic from. You can also pay attention to which social media platforms are giving you the highest level of engagement with your audience and the most useful information. Any social media space that isn’t providing results should be dropped.

Be honest. Are you spread too thin on social media?

With the social media marketing bandwagon plowing full speed ahead, I think it’s important to slow down every once in a while and put things in perspective. Too many businesses are blindly hopping on Twitter (and Facebook, their blog, etc.) with visions of grandeur, but the truth is that most of them will get little to no significant results.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I do believe Twitter can be an excellent tool for connecting with customers, improving your reputation, gaining new customers, increasing brand recognition, and much more. But at the same time, there are a lot of myths out there about Twitter marketing that need some debunking.

Myth #1: The more followers you have, the better

If you’re only focused on building up the number of people following you, you’ll end up with a bunch of low quality followers who don’t pay attention to a thing you Tweet. I’d rather have several hundred followers who are engaged, interact with me, and ReTweet my content than tens of thousands of followers who don’t do anything for me.

So, instead of measuring your social media marketing campaign’s success by the number of followers you have, focus on the actual level of engagement you’re creating. That’s what will yield results that benefit your business.

Myth #2: Using Twitter to promote your business is easy

We all love to hear the stories of overnight sensations. You’ve heard more than a few cases of businesses going viral on Twitter or finding a creative way to leverage Twitter to promote their brand. The truth? These are the exceptions, not the rule.

Twitter marketing takes time. You have to actually spend time interacting with your followers and building those relationships. There are no shortcuts to long-term success.

Myth #3: Regular Tweeting makes you a thought leader

Twitter can be a good tool for establishing you as an authority in your industry. But this isn’t something that’s guaranteed to happen. You have to consistently deliver useful, innovative content that your followers can benefit from on a daily basis. Tweet about the latest industry trends, look toward the future, bring new perspective to old topics, and take part in relevant discussions.

Myth #4: Every business should be on Twitter

No. No. No. Look, there are a lot of businesses out there that can benefit from being on Twitter, but you’ll never be able to convince me that, for example, a company that manufactures metal alloys for industrial welding applications should spend a lot of time and energy building a Twitter presence. Being successful on Twitter requires finding a creative or useful angle for your account, having an audience of interested followers, and taking the time day in and day out to interact with your audience. This isn’t the best fit for all businesses.

Myth #5: If you have a great message, people will find it

Just because you’re Tweeting smart, insightful content doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be successful. You have to push the content out to the masses. That’s why I recommend networking with influencers who can help spread your Tweets to a wider audience.

What do you think? Do you disagree with any of my Twitter myths? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

By now, you’ve probably seen a commercial or an online ad for TGI Friday’s new social media campaign. If you haven’t, let me give you a rundown. The idea of the campaign is that Woody is TGI Friday’s #1 Fan. If he can get 500,000 fans on Facebook by the end of the month, everyone who registers to follow him gets a free burger. I think it’s a pretty good idea, and I’ll tell you why.

First, the basic idea behind this campaign has been used successfully before. Just last month, Starbucks gave away free ice cream coupons to those who joined their fan page. The campaign generated a lot of buzz, it was purely social, and it was a great way for Starbucks to begin extending its brand into ice cream.

Although the TGI Friday’s campaign is just a few days old, it’s already picking up some steam. As of the time of me writing this post, Woody has over 254,000 fans on Facebook. More importantly, a simple Twitter search for related terms (i.e. TGI Friday’s, Woody TGI Friday’s, free burger, etc.) shows that the campaign is starting to catch on. People are sending out Tweets telling their friends to fan Woody on Facebook. I wouldn’t say it’s gone viral yet, but it’s still early, and I think it has the potential to. As it gets closer to that September 30th deadline, I think the word of mouth will really start to pick up.

The other thing I like about this campaign is that if it’s successful, it will actually bring a lot of foot traffic into their business. See, too many social media campaigns suffer from not finding a way to bridge the social aspect to actual physical business. In theory, if this campaign goes according to plan, 500,000 people will be going into a TGI Friday’s to claim their free burger. Not only will many of these people probably order appetizers, desserts, drinks since the burger is free, but if they have a good experience, they could bring repeat business for years to come.

I’m interested to see how this plays out for TGI Friday’s. If all goes well, you can rest assured you’ll see even more businesses jumping on the social media bandwagon.

What do you think of TGI Friday’s social media campaign?

While social media marketing has opened up an abundance of new ways to promote your content and your business, it’s also paved the way for some of the biggest pains in the butt since telemarketers. We’ve all come across the bothersome social media marketer, and we all hate him.

So, what can you do to avoid becoming that guy? It’s really not that hard.

Step #1—Get to know your connections

Look, it’s called “social media” for a reason. The key word here is “social.” In light of this, you should focus on actually building relationships with your connections. The more you get to know each other, the likelier it is that they’ll be willing to go the extra mile to help you push your content.
If you don’t ever take the time to get to know the people in your network, you’ll come off as a selfish pest who only messages whenever he needs a Digg. It’s like that “friend” we all have who only calls whenever he needs some cash to get him out of a tough situation. If you want to reap the benefits of having a strong network, you need to put the time into cultivating your relationships.

Step #2—Don’t just Tweet your own content

I’m all for people using Twitter however they see fit, but if you only Tweet your own content, everyone will see you for the shameless self-promoter that you are. Very quickly, they’ll begin ignoring your Tweets, and eventually, they’ll stop following you. There’s nothing wrong with Tweeting links to your own content, but for it to be effective, you need to also drop links to other useful content. Think of it as enhancing the user-experience for your followers.

Step #3—Don’t message people with a busy status asking for a Digg

I get instant messages all day from various friends who are social media promoters. If I have the time, I’ll always help them out. However, what really irks me is when I have my messenger set to busy status, and I still get messages from people trying to get me to upvote their content. Aside from being annoying, I find it to be disrespectful as it shows the person obviously doesn’t care if I’m busy or not. Now, I realize this message is coming from someone who is probably mass messaging everyone on his list, but that just underscores how being impersonal can damage the effectiveness of your social media marketing.

Step #4—Give if you want to receive

As I said earlier, I always help my friends promote their content when I have the time. In return, I expect the same from them. You can’t be successful at promoting through social media if you never give and only expect to receive. In fact, I’d go as far as to say it’s equally proportionate to each other—you have to give as much as you expect to receive. So, if you’re constantly sending out messages asking for votes, you’d better be constantly helping others vote up their content as well.

Step #5—Realize that not every post is worthy of hitting the front page

As nice as it’d be to have every piece of content I write go viral, I know that’s just not realistic. I wish some of my social media marketing friends realized this too. NOT EVERY POST YOU WRITE IS WORTHY OF HITTING THE FRONT PAGE OF DIGG, REDDIT, MIXX, ETC. So, don’t promote every piece you write that aggressively. Otherwise, when the time comes that you really do have a good piece on linkbait on your hands, your connections won’t help you out because they’ve already tuned you out. Save your big guns for when you really need them.

We hear them all the time. And most of the time, we don’t bother challenging them. They’re the common internet marketing myths that get tossed around by people whose internet marketing education stopped about 10 years ago. While I know there are way more than 5 common myths, I thought it best to focus on the ones I hear most often.

1. The Ideal Keyword Density- I still hear this one regularly, and every time I can’t believe it. Many people are still convinced there is a secret perfect keyword density that will propel you to the top of the SERPs. Really? Do you honestly believe Google and Yahoo are stupid enough to have their results manipulated by people hitting a certain keyword density? Keyword density is a terrible measure of relevancy, and it ends up breeding unreadable content that’s obviously written for the search engines.

1. Amount of Traffic is Top Priority- Garry Conn touched on this issue in a recent post about website traffic. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked to companies whose only concern is the volume of traffic coming to their site. Look, everyone wants people to visit their site, but quantity means nothing if it’s not accompanied by quality. And this is why so many companies get ripped off. Their SEO people get them the traffic they desire, but it’s meaningless because the traffic fails to convert. Focus on quality!

1. SEO is a One Time Process- A lot of people believe that once their site is optimized, they can just sit back and let it take care of itself. Look, just because somebody did some light SEO on your site a few years ago doesn’t mean all the hard work is done. SEO is a continuous process that requires a long-term commitment. You need to always be adding new, relevant content, and you should always be doing keyword research to ensure you’re hitting all the latest trends. If not, you’ll get left behind.

1. Link Bait has to be Controversial- Link bait continues to be a popular buzz phrase in internet marketing circles. Unfortunately, over time, link bait has become synonymous with “controversy.” This has led to the rise of flame bait where people are being controversial just for the sake of getting attention. Sure, it might pay off occasionally, but to me the best link bait is something that truly adds value to the user experience.

1. Social Media is a Fad- This is the phrase I’ve heard most over the past year or so. A lot of people still aren’t sold on the idea of social media, and they’re getting left behind. Forget all that talk about how social media marketing might be the way of the future; it’s time is now. You think social media is a fad? Ask the bankrupt newspapers who are getting driven out of business by blogs and sites like Digg. The internet is an inherently social medium, and it always will be. Sure, the face of social media will evolve, but the concepts will remain the same.

Which myths are you tired of hearing? Tell me about them in the replies!