• Myth 1: “Social marketing is great because it’s free.”

  Social media marketing, when executed properly, requires a significant daily resource investment in terms of time and motivated personnel. “Set it and forget it” does not apply here – proper social media marketing requires careful regular maintenance.

• Myth 2: “Everyone’s doing it, so I have to.”

  You only have to participate in the social media conversation if you have the resources and know-how to do so (see Myth #1). Poorly-handled marketing in this space can do you far more harm than not participating at all. Google “Nestle Facebook fiasco” for proof.

• Myth 3: “I can just post our press releases on Twitter. No problem.”

  People will go to your corporate site for your press releases. The social environment is not another soapbox for you to spread your tired company-speak; it’s a place to take part in a conversation, and provide useful information to your readers.

• Myth 4: “I need to be everywhere: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs…”

  You only need to be where your users are. Considering the resources required (there’s that “resources” word again), you’ll be better off giving your all on the one or two sites your audience frequents the most, rather than trying to spread yourself too thin across a greater number of channels.

Myth 5: “Twitter is a tool for egomaniacs.

CEOs tweet to give their company a more “human” face. Jobseekers use Twitter to see who’s hiring and get a better idea of the “personality” behind the corporation. Twitter helps turn your corporation into a living entity for prospects to connect with.

• Myth 6: Kids use Facebook.

  Without Twitter’s 140-character limit, Facebook provides the same benefits described above, but with a bit more room to elaborate. It also allows you to enhance that “human” feeling with photos, longer notes, and a more centralized communication hub to initiate discussions with your customers.

• Myth 7: “Our Director of Marketing can do it.”

  Your social media maven should have enough time in their schedule to dedicate 1-2 hours a day to actively participating in the conversations being conducted and creating valuable new content to share. If your Marketing Director has a thousand other initiatives up in the air and tweeting is just another “thing” dumped on her plate, she won’t be able to effectively maintain your social presence.

• Myth 8: “We can’t join! People might say bad things about us!”

  People are already saying whatever they want about you. Wouldn’t you rather be a part of the conversation so you can tactfully defend yourself and respond quickly to any concerns that are raised? Being where the discussion is allows you to address existing problems and discover brewing issues before they get out of hand.

• Myth 9: “This thing’s useless – I tried it for a month and it didn’t work.”

  Social marketing doesn’t give you the instant, measurable results of an e-mail blast or targeted landing page campaign; it will take time for people to find you, warm up to you, and start adding to your conversations.

• Myth 10: “Our customers don’t use social media sites.”

  Search Twitter or Facebook for “investment banking.” Now try “supply chain management” or “solar wafers.” Industry is irrelevant in the social environment; the audience is there and they’re going to have their conversations with or without you.

• Myth 1: “Social marketing is great because it’s free.”
  Social media marketing, when executed properly, requires a significant daily resource investment in terms of time and motivated personnel. “Set it and forget it” does not apply here – proper social media marketing requires careful regular maintenance.

  Here’s a link to a great social media policy paper that touches on the investment required from a human resource perspective. A great start if you have to write a social media policy.

• Myth 2: “Everyone’s doing it, so I have to.”
  You only have to participate in the social media conversation if you have the resources and know-how to do so (see Myth #1). Poorly-handled marketing in this space can do you far more harm than not participating at all. Google “Nestle Facebook fiasco” for proof.
• Myth 3: “I can just post our press releases on Twitter. No problem.”
  People will go to your corporate site for your press releases. The social environment is not another soapbox for you to spread your tired company-speak; it’s a place to take part in a conversation, and provide useful information to your readers.
• Myth 4: “I need to be everywhere: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs…”
  You only need to be where key conversation are taking place. Considering the resources required (there’s that “resources” word again), you’ll be better off giving your all on the one or two sites your audience frequents the most, rather than trying to spread yourself too thin across a greater number of channels.
• Myth 5: “Twitter is a tool for egomaniacs to tell people what they had for breakfast.”

  CEOs tweet to give their company a more “human” face. Jobseekers use Twitter to see who’s hiring and get a better idea of the “personality” behind the corporation. Twitter helps turn your corporation into a living entity for prospects to connect with. When the CEO of Twitter was asked by Floodgate’s Mike Maples what business twitter was in, Dick Costolo said “the news” and we couldn’t agree more.

• Myth 6: “My kids use Facebook to talk to friends – we’re a legitimate business.”
  Without Twitter’s 140-character limit, Facebook provides the same benefits described above, but with a bit more room to elaborate. It also allows you to enhance that “human” feeling with photos, longer notes, and a more centralized communication hub to initiate discussions with your customers.
• Myth 7: “Our Director of Marketing can do it.”
  Your social media maven should have enough time in their schedule to dedicate 1-2 hours a day to actively participating in the conversations being conducted and creating valuable new content to share. If your Marketing Director has a thousand other initiatives up in the air and tweeting is just another “thing” dumped on her plate, she won’t be able to effectively maintain your social presence.
• Myth 8: “We can’t join! People might say bad things about us!”
  People are already saying whatever they want about you. Wouldn’t you rather be a part of the conversation so you can tactfully defend yourself and respond quickly to any concerns that are raised? Being where the discussion is allows you to address existing problems and discover brewing issues before they get out of hand.
• Myth 9: “This thing’s useless – I tried it for a month and it didn’t work.”
  Social marketing doesn’t give you the instant, measurable results of an e-mail blast or targeted landing page campaign; it will take time for people to find you, warm up to you, and start adding to your conversations.
  The lesson here is make friends, not spam.
• Myth 10: “Our customers don’t use social media sites.”
  Search Twitter or Facebook for “investment banking.” Now try “supply chain management” or “solar wafers.” Industry is irrelevant in the social environment; the audience is there and they’re going to have their conversations with or without you.

After you have decided on a Facebook application to add, click on the link and you will be taken to its Facebook page. This page contains information about the application, user reviews and how many of your friends currently have it on their pages. To add an app, click the “go to application link, found underneath the applications profile picture. At this point, you are asked for permission to allow the application to access your profile and Facebook information. Clicking the “allow button will add the application to your account.
A note on privacy: Be wary of applications that require too much information œ no Facebook application should require extra details entered before it can proceed. Ensure that your personal details are well protected and are not available to the public domain. By doing so, your Facebook application will only be able to access your account, but not your personal information. Protecting your details will deter fraud and identity theft.

You can create an extra tab on your Facebook profile to display your new application on, or you can allow the application to post results, updates or news on your wall. You can also add the application as a box displayed on your profile page. To add a box to your profile, simply click on the ‘add to profile’ button, and a box will be created for you. You can then go to your profile and move the box around on your page.

Whenever you use your application and receive news or gain a high score, a pop up box will ask you if you would like to publish this information to your wall. This ensures that updates are habitually made on your page and to your friends pages.

Facebook applications are the little touches that dress up your Facebook account. They take the form of games, quizzes or activities. There are myriad applications being developed, and adding them to your page is intuitive and easy.

Have Fun.