S.M.M business are now emerging all over the place nowadays and they are informing anybody that will listen about how exceptionally important social media like Facebook twitter and YouTube are to your organisation but, for the average little to medium sized service, does marketing to socials media really live up to all the hype? Is investing a little fortune on employing a SMM business actually worth it? And has anybody actually done their research study on this before they hired someone to set up there Facebook business page? Some SMM companies are setting up things like Facebook organisation pages (which are complimentary) for $600 to $1,000 or more and informing their customers that they do not need a website since Facebook is the most significant social network in the world and everybody has a Facebook account. Now while it might be true that Facebook is the largest social media worldwide and yes, Facebook's members are prospective customers, the genuine concern is are they really buying? Social media marketing companies are all too pleased to point out the positives of social media like the number of people use Facebook or how many tweets were sent out last year and the number of people see YouTube videos etc. but are you getting the full picture? I when sat beside a SMM "professional" at a service workshop who was spruiking to anybody who came within earshot about the remarkable benefits of setting up a Facebook business page for small company (with him obviously) and selling on Facebook. Intrigued by the abovementioned "experts" suggestions I looked him up on Facebook just to discover he had only 11 Facebook friends (not a good start). So being the research study nut that I am, I chose to take a good look into SMM in regard to offering to see if it in fact worked, who did it work for and if it did why did Social Media Marketing work for them? And should business rely so greatly on socials media for sales?
As a web developer I was continuously (and now progressively) confronted with numerous social networking obstacles when prospective clients would say that having a website sounds great but they had a Facebook organisation page and had actually been told by various sources (the ever present yet confidential "they") that social networks were the thing to do, however after discussing their needs it became quite clear that those potential customers didn't really know why they required social networks or SMM to produce online sales, They just desired it. Well it's easy really due to the fact that social media is Social Media, and social Networks are Social Networks they are not company media and organisation networks (that would be more like LinkedIn). In a current study done by the IBM Institute for Organisation Value around 55% of all social media users specified that they do not engage with brand names over social media at all and only around 23% actually actively use social media to engage with brands.
How do you utilize social media marketing? And is it even worth doing?
Well firstly I would say that having a well optimized site is still going to bring you much more company that social media in most cases particularly if you are a little to medium sized regional service because far more individuals are going to type in "hair stylist Port Macquarie" into a search engine like Google, Yahoo and Bing than they ever will on any Social Media Website and if you do not have a website you're losing out on all of that possible service. Despite all the (not so good) data I still believe it is still an excellent idea for organisation to use social media simply not in the exact same method that a lot of SMM professionals are today, Why? Since it's clearly not operating in the method they claim it does. Generally SMM Companies and Organisation as a whole looked at socials media like Facebook as a fresh market ripe for the picking when Facebook started getting users determined by the millions PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel invested US$ 500,000 for 7% of the company (in June 2004) and considering that them a few equity capital firms have actually made investments into Facebook and in October 2007, Microsoft revealed that it had acquired a 1.6% share of Facebook for $240 million. However given that Facebook's simple starts up until now (2012) both SMM Business and Business have actually failed to really capitalise on the substantial number of Facebook users online. The fact is numbers does not equal purchasers. Is it in a Social Media Marketing company's best interest to talk socials media up? Absolutely. Is it in a Social Media like Facebook's benefits for people to believe that business can sell en masse by marketing and advertising with them? Naturally it is. In early 2012, Facebook disclosed that its revenues had leapt 65% to $1 billion in the previous year as its income which is primarily from SEO Agency marketing had jumped nearly 90% to $3.71 billion so plainly the idea of SMM is exercising for them but it is working out for you? Well ... statistically no, however that does not necessarily imply that it never ever will.
One of the biggest issues company face with social networks and SMM is understanding. The main factor many individuals provide for communicating with brand names or service on social media is to receive discount rates, yet the brand names and service themselves believe the main reason people communicate with them on social media is to discover about new items. The majority of businesses believe social media will increase advocacy, however just 38 % of customers concur.
If they want to see some sort of outcome from it, companies require to find more innovative methods to link with social media. There were some excellent initiatives displayed in the IBM study of business that had actually gotten some sort of a handle on how to use social media to their benefit, bearing in mind that when asked exactly what they do when they interact with businesses or brands by means of social media, customers list "getting discount rates or coupons" and "acquiring products and services" as the leading two activities, respectively an USA ice cream company called Cold Stone Creamery offered discounts on their items on their Facebook page. Alternatively there is a terrific program launched by Finest Purchases in the U.S called Twelpforce where staff members can respond to consumer's concerns through Twitter. With both Cold Stone Creamery and Twelpforce the benefit is clearly in the favour of the excellent trick & the prospective customer to social media marketing is to offer without attempting to offer (or looking like your selling) sadly most social media marketing is focused the wrong way.
Building a tangible purchaser to customer relationship by means of social media is difficult and most likely the most benefit to service' using social media to boost their sites Google rankings. But business' have to understand that you can't simply setup a Facebook company page and hope for the very best. SMM requires effort and possible clients need to see value in exactly what you have to use through your social media efforts give them something worth their social interaction and time then you might get better outcomes.
Now just as a footnote Facebook shares have actually dropped to under $20 per share, that's half their original price ... and the claims are flying
As a web developer I was constantly (and now significantly) faced with several social networking obstacles when prospective clients would state that having a website sounds good however they had a Facebook company page and had actually been informed by various sources (the ever present yet confidential "they") that social networks were the thing to do, however after discussing their needs it ended up being quite clear that those potential customers didn't really know why they required social networks or SMM to produce online sales, They simply wanted it. Well it's simple actually because social media is Social Media, and social Networks are Social Networks they are not business media and service networks (that would be more like LinkedIn). In a current study done by the IBM Institute for Service Value around 55% of all social media users specified that they do not engage with brands over social media at all and just around 23% really actively use social media to interact with brand names. Well first of all I would state that having a well optimized site is still going to bring you far more service that social media in most cases specifically if you are a little to medium sized local organisation since far more individuals are going to type in "hairdresser Port Macquarie" into a search engine like Google, Yahoo and Bing than they ever will on any Social Media Website and if you don't have a site you're missing out on all of that potential service. The primary factor a lot of people offer for communicating with brand names or company on social media is to get discounts, yet the brands and business themselves believe the primary reason individuals communicate with them on social media is to find out about new items.
