Social networks... How much this word has merged for our hearts, how much it has responded to.

And every year their popularity is only growing. But at the same time, the number of tall tales related to SMM is growing exponentially. We will try to debunk the most common, stupid and funny myths in this article.

Myth one. Social networks are created only for communication

That's right. But that was the case back in 2006-2009, when we used to buy a Ranetka card to surf the Internet for an hour, and a three-minute song would take a good half hour to download. Back then, VK was just gaining popularity, and Mail.ru replies were in demand. To be honest, I was very proud of myself when I received the title of "Guru" in the 11th grade. =) But those days are long gone.

Of course, social networks are still doing an excellent job of communicating (although numerous messengers have somewhat replaced them) - we continue to communicate with our loved ones, send each other funny memes and gifs, and like cute cats. However, social media has managed to reach a new level - it has become a good business platform for sales.

Myth two. On Instagram, only an aesthetic photo is important, no one reads the text under it

They read it, and they do. Moreover, they forward it to their friends, giggle at spelling mistakes and sincerely wonder why a post about the meaning of life would be posted under a photo of a woman's buttocks. Very often, it is unnecessary texts and philosophy that cause unsubscribes.

There is a way out - develop your copywriting talent. =) If you have a funny caption, a life story, or an inspirational quote under a beautiful photo, your post will be priceless. Subscribers will notice it too, you'll see!

Myth three. Even a hedgehog, a ten-year-old child, can master SMM

Given that children at such a tender age are already registering on social networks and are active users, there is a reason for this statement. But SMM is not just about filling a page with content. And intuition, stock photos, and hype songs will not be enough to create interesting posts.

First and foremost, SMM is a strategy. When promoting an account or community, you need to calculate possible risks ten moves ahead, predict the outcome, and not be afraid to test different tools. In general, a competent specialist is an analyst, copywriter, and marketer in one person with good artistic taste and excellent communication skills. And finding such a jack of all trades is not easy.

Myth number four. The more hashtags you use, the higher the sales will be

The hashtag function works like a charm on all major networks. Words marked with # (grid) automatically become markup links, which can be clicked on to generate a feed of posts marked with the corresponding tag. In theory, hashtags are the same as keywords, so you need to be smart about their selection.

When using high-frequency hashtags, the chance that your post will get to the top and be seen by users is negligible. Therefore, keep two things in mind: a) rely on medium- and low-frequency tags; b) imagine yourself in the shoes of your potential customers/users/readers and think about what search query people would choose.

As for the number of "lattice keywords," it has no effect on sales and promotion. But most often, users perceive posts with a large number of hashtags as spam - visually, it looks unnatural, unaesthetic, and unreadable. So don't overdo it!

Myth five. Only pensioners are on Odnoklassniki, and schoolchildren are on VKontakte

Even if your photos on OK are liked by relatives who are three times over 18, you shouldn't believe in age prejudice. Of course, there are many people on Odnoklassniki who have celebrated their fortieth birthday, but the majority of the audience is 20-35 years old. Schoolchildren also live there. Don't believe me? Take a look at the official groups of young stars, you will definitely find comments from loyal young fans.

The stereotype that VKontakte is used by schoolchildren is also time to send back the slogans "Durov, return the wall". According to the latest statistics, 23,000,000 users of the social network are over 35 years old, 12 million of them are between the ages of 45 and 65. They probably go to night school. =)

Myth six. SMM marketing is free marketing

It would be great, but in our world, you can't do anything without money. Ordinary users, of course, do not pay a penny for registering and staying on the social network, but if you decide to promote your account or community, you will have to pay up.

Let's assume that the services of a professional SMM specialist are not cheap, and let's assume that you work on the page yourself, watching useful videos and reading articles. But promotion requires financial investment - without paid advertising campaigns, sweepstakes, contests, and targeting, you will be gathering an audience for years. And it's not a given that you will.

Myth number seven. The more subscribers you have, the more often you flash in the feed

In SMM, the concept of quality is much more valuable than quantity. What good is having a lot of friends or subscribers if no one is interested in your posts? An experienced professional will definitely choose the latter between a large audience and an active one.

Analyze your content without unnecessary emotions - find out which posts are most responsive to your followers and which ones get only a couple of likes. Build on the results and keep your audience interested, and your content will quickly spread beyond the community.

Myth number eight. For a commercial account, 2-5 posts per month are enough

Of course, if you want to be forgotten, the smart feed algorithm on social media works like clockwork. But you don't have to go the opposite way: flood your subscribers' feed by publishing 5 posts a day. Your activity will quickly bore users, and they will simply unsubscribe. The optimal number of posts per day is no more than two.

If you're just starting to promote your community, analyze your competitors' groups and use Popsters to identify the most active days and hours. After a month, you will be able to track the statistics of your community and create a new posting plan. The main thing in SMM is consistency, and it is desirable that the intervals between posts are the same.

Myth nine. If you pay for one social network, the others are free

We think that this SMM myth has been encountered by specialists more than once, and they are now sympathetically heaving a sigh of relief. About once a quarter, at least one of our clients sincerely wonders why we are working on one social network. "Isn't it difficult for you?" the naive client exclaims, "Just duplicate the content and that's it, you can even use the same photos.

Of course, it's not difficult for us, but the settings of popular social networks differ from each other. For example, UTM tags placed on a VK page cannot be used on Facebook. What can we say about the analytics system? As you can imagine, without tracking the results, SMM is worthless. So, you will have to pay extra for the promotion of a group on another social network. And statistics will help you understand that the work is done well and the indicators are growing.

Myth number ten. There are no clients of mine among Instagram users

So you won't be able to find customers among 14,000,000 people? We didn't take this figure off the top of our heads, but based on Forbes statistics. And this number is growing every day. So do not doubt that your potential customers live in this social network, the only question is how to catch them.)