Digital Marketing is as fragile as much as it is versatile. And when it comes to creativity, everyone wants to pitch in and share their opinion. Honestly, ideas and suggestions are fine by me! But some may go to an extent to give you unasked advice (unintentionally). I ask for advice most of the time. So, it’s hard to tell which I asked and which one I didn’t. I welcome all kind of opinions with a big smile and genuinely consider them and work on it.
It is an as tiring job as charming it sounds.
I have listed the five worst advice I received on Digital Marketing. You might receive them too. They may seem reasonable to try, but only on the later stage, you find them not working/it’s too late.
1. Sign up and build a profile on as many social media platforms as you can –
When it comes to SEO, the idea is to be everywhere. Right? Wrong. It is more important to know where most of your audience is. Start with that channel and do a great job at engagement, then you can slowly and strategically try out other social media platforms when you have the bandwidth.
There is no point in have many social media profiles and end up being active on only one.
2. Create and share content that relates to all genders and ages –
What you’ll share on Social Media, strongly corresponds to your content marketing strategy. If you currently don’t have a content marketing strategy, then I strongly recommend you to go and create one. While social media plays a vital role in shaping the content and driving in the engagement, there is no point in wasting time with people who fall out of your target audience.
Also, experts (myself included :)) suggest focussing on only social media channels that work. I had one client for whom I was handling social media. Since the client is in a B2C business, the end-users directly consumed their products. The client wanted me to start the LinkedIn page for them as well, as it was in the plan and suggested by their previous Social Media Consultant. Creating a Linkedin Page is something I firmly opposed to, and it took 10 mins to explain to him why LinkedIn is not really where his company needs to be right now.
Remember it’s better not to have a social media profile at all, then having created one and not being active.
3. Use exact keywords as many times as possible in the body of your page, or you won’t rank on search
Focusing on keyword density was suggested by my mentor once, and then we both did the research and found he was wrong (Glad! that he accepted his mistake and worked on it, and things didn’t go south). Yes, let’s talk SEO again, folks. The website is said to be search engine optimized when it gets organic (strictly non-paid) visits and has a low bounce rate. The keywords are used to direct the SEO of the website; that’s it! Rest it all about what user experiences on your website.
Stuffing keywords as many times as possible in a website is worst for your website and domain’s future rankings. It will be the first one to be penalized.
4. It doesn’t matter what you write about, post as much content as possible
Sharing too often is where everyone goes wrong. One needs to understand Google, and other search engines are not looking for quantity; instead, they crave for quality.
Simple boss! If your website has quality content, it will be appreciated, shared, liked, and ranked.
I was responsible for SEO for this one client from a technology background. He said, “Sagar, I need you to write more and more blogs, then only we will rank! You can choose the topic and write and post daily.” I was shocked by what he said.
It is more valuable to optimize the old blog for SEO than to write a new one. Best Part? You don’t have to think about what you will be writing the next day.
5. Figure out what works, and keep doing that –
It seems like legit advice. If it works for you, then you won a race, follow it, and you will reach success. Now what? You will probably reach the target, best case, even cross it. You will feel triumphed and tell the manager about it. He will appreciate you and then will overestimate you and increase your target.
It will be insane; if you think you will work harder with the old strategy and reach the new target, you will fail for sure. Sometimes it is required to go out of the way to get that one magical factor that will boost your campaign. I always dare myself to try out new platforms, channels, and strategies. How bad can it be anyway?
Conclusion:
In a nutshell, improving a brand’s digital media outreach is hard work. There’s no ideal solution for every brand, and best-in-class advertisers certainly don’t play by the rules. Avoid taking the easy way to improve digital media strategies.
Hit me up! If you have ever got such advice or want me to add something else to this article.
