7 Deadly Sins of Social Media Marketing

I like Marketoonist Tom Fishburne's latest bit of genuis on "The 7 Deadly Sins of Social Media Marketing": see below.

There are several important actions coming out of Tom's cartoon.

First, most of us have a limited amount of time/energy to "engage" with brands in social media; the clue is in the name social media. Its primarily about your social circle of friends and family, not brands.

Second, be realistic about how much "social engagement time" your brand has the right to take up.  On most brand Facebook pages c. 99% of followers are not interacting at all, simply because the brand is not interesting enough. This doesn't mean the brand is not a useful, relevant one. Its just that we don't want to "have a conversation with it"; we just want it to get on and do its bloody job.

Third, think about the most relevant social media channel, as Unilever have done, as covered in this post:

Magnum: mobile works best, the approach can vary based on weather/temperature and vicinity to a store

Knorr: online recipe search

Marmite and Ben & Jerry's: Facebook is effective as the brands are more about entertainment

In conclusion, I think Tom is right when he says that "Many people are sick of how advertisers act in social media."  Being clearer on how relevant your brand really is in peoples' social lives is a good start to fixing this.