I found a great article discussing how companies misuse Facebook and often have to pay for it. Brad Smith, from Social Media Today, discusses the 3 worst ways companies waste in social media and I found that he made some very good points.
Smith's first point was that companies do a poor job promoting their social media pages offline. Whether it is a sticker on the front door or a television ad with a Facebook logo in the corner, Smith feels that these tactics are not the correct way to promote the social media pages. People are not likely to be swayed by a Facebook logo in the corner of a TV ad and they really have no reason to. Smith says that a better tactic would involve the company providing some sort of incentive to visit their page as well as more specific instructions on how to reach the page.
Smith's second point was that large companies have, on average, 178 social media accounts. This requires a lot of management. And research has shown that when someone is offered numerous choices of social media, they can freeze up and choose none of them. It would be wiser for these companies to downsize the number of sites they use and increase the focus they put into social media as a whole.
The third point Smith made was that Facebook is now "double-taxing" the companies who use it. They charge extra for the companies to be able to reach more of their followers. Smith says this is not an efficient way to promote your company and it would be wiser for any business to track page visits instead of just the number of likes they have. Smith also says that to find repeat customers, its wiser to use email marketing instead of Facebook.
I feel Smith makes some great points, and I definitely agree with his points about how people are not phased by the Facebook logo in commercials. I see social media logos on TV all the time, but I rarely visit the sites that are promoted. It would make more sense for these companies to have someone state in the commercial to visit the Facebook or Twitter page.
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