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SearchDarren
07-14-2009, 01:58 PM
Social Media Marketing: Is it really worth the effort? – An argument for and against using Social Media for your business.

News Flash: Social Media is huge. Today, Facebook has over 300 million subscribers and Twitter is the new Associated Press. In the world of digital marketing, social media marketing (SMM) is the subject de jour and the interest seems to be doubling on a daily basis. Last week a google search on “The benefits of social marketing” returned 124 million results, today, that number is 181 million – a growth of over 8 million pages per day.

There is no question that there is significant hype surrounding this subject and how it can be leveraged in the world of business. With that said, there are also some convincing arguments why social marketing may not be such a great marketing tool for your business.

Here is a list of 4 reasons for and against you and your company adding social media marketing into the mix. Read, consider & decide.

REASONS FOR SOCIAL MEDIA: -

1. It’s free! – Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networks require no funding. In contrast, almost all other forms of advertising and marketing efforts require some kind of fee.

2. Simple & convenient to set-up and maintain – Regardless of your level of web-savvyness, social networks make it very quick and simple to set-up, customize, manage & maintain your profile. This profile lists crucial information about your business. Providing you have access to a computer, you can be a part of social media.

3. Buzz! – Unlike outbound marketing efforts such as traditional advertising, social networks not only allow customers to provide feedback to organizations, they actively encourage it. Interaction, engagement and sharing are all parts of social media, which if utilized in the correct way can lead to viral exposure, trust, customer loyalty, free market research and brand growth.

4. Volume – As mentioned at the top of this article, Facebook has over 300 million active users globally and still growing face. Other Social networks can also boast extreme levels of popularity, with Twitter unique user levels growing by over 700% in 2008. Only Myspace is showing any signs of a decline in numbers.

REASONS AGAINST SOCIAL MEDIA: -


1. Infancy of medium – Social media is still very much the baby of marketing platforms. Despite the theories and the buzz, where are the actual case studies? Most of us have heard recently that Dell Computers have generated $3 million of revenue through twitter. That’s great, but there don’t seem to be too many others. Some big brands such as Adidas, Starbucks, Pringles and Coca-cola are often sited as shining examples of the use of social media, but really, how many pairs of sneakers have Adidas actually shifted as of a result of having a popular fan page on Facebook? How many bums are Twitter really putting on Jet Blue’s seats? How many additional cans of soda are flying off the shelf because Coke has 3.5 million Facebook fans?

Another worrying statistic for social media marketers is a recent report from Consumer information company, Knowledge Networks, saying that while 83% of the Internet population (ages 13 - 54) participates in some way with “social media”, less than 5% turn to social sites for advice pertaining to a purchase decision.

By no means am I suggesting that social media cannot have a positive impact on your business, there is just very little proof that it does.

2. Blog’s don’t write themselves – Social Media Marketing requires resources. Resources that many smaller companies simply do not have. It takes time and time is money. Like SEO, there is no media cost attached to SMM which makes the prospect very appealing, but frequently creating content for your blog, maintaining your Facebook fan page or group, sending out tweets, participating in discussions on LinkedIn and recording videos for You Tube all very labor intensive activities.

3. Social networks hate spam – Social media is a place where brands have conversations. It’s a place where a company can build trust and relationships with existing and potential customers. The problem is that as networks become increasingly popular, spammers and commercially aggressive marketers are becoming rife and unavoidable. The big problem with this is that unless Facebook, Twitter and other popular networks address the issue, users will leave just as soon as they arrived. The other problem is that those that just see social networks as a free advertising platform are tarnishing the reputation of others that are genuinely adding value and engaging with customers.

4. Live by the Sword, Die by the Sword - In late 2004, blogger Jeff Jarvis purchased a new laptop from Dell Computers. After a series of very negative experiences with Dell’s customer service department, Jarvis decided to publish his complaints on the infamous blog, “Dell Hell”. Jarvis’ posts soon caught the attention of others who also began to add their own negative experiences with Dell’s customer service. Before long “Dell Hell” caught the attention of the mainstream media. As a result of the bad press and Dell Inc.’s failure to respond on the issue, the computer giant’s sales and stellar reputation started to freefall.

The point is this; Buzz is not always positive and unless you continuously monitor response and engage in damage limitation, before you know it you can be face-to-face with a monster that will be hard to beat!

To conclude, social media is a great tool for businesses to market themselves, but only if done right. Before you go down the social road, it’s crucial to figure out a coherent strategy and stick to it. It’s important to consider exactly who you’re looking to target, how you’re going to target them, what you’re hoping to achieve and how you will measure success. If you don’t do this, marketing through social networks will become an overwhelming and impossible task where you will fail to make a significant footprint or provide a valuable offering to potential customers. It’s true, Social Media Marketing is extremely labor intensive, and therefore you need to consider what resources you have available and how much time you can give to your social efforts without adversely effecting productivity. You may also have to consider if this marketing effort is best kept in-house or outsource to an agency with some expertise in this field.

It’s true that there are very few examples of how social media has positively impacted the bottom-line of businesses, however, I am convinced that given a little time, these case studies will begin to emerge.

The final point to take away is that social network is not meant to compensate for a poor product or an inept customer service. If there is an issue with your product or service, be careful because social media will slap you right in the face.

By keeping focus on your objectives and considering the points laid out in this article, it’s not only possible to survive in social media marketing, it’s likely that you will thrive.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

vangogh
07-14-2009, 02:28 PM
I'm in the social media is worth the effort camp. I think the problem most people have with it is they try to force it to be something it's not or look at it solely as a source of quick and cheap traffic.

The points for you mention far outweigh the points against. Infancy of the medium just means those of us getting in now will have more opportunity down the road as it matures. The fact that something like blogging is hard isn't an excuse not to blog. Running a business is hard work. Most things worthwhile in life are hard. Social networks hate spam because people hate spam. Spam shouldn't be the basis for marketing your business in the first place.

The last against point is going to happen whether you like it or not. I started a thread a few days ago called Your Customer's Control The Message (http://www.small-business-forum.net/internet-marketing/1679-your-customers-control-message.html), which is about this point. Dell could like or dislike social media and they could choose to participate or not. No matter what they do their customers are still going to use it and communicate and spread messages about Dell. For most of us smaller businesses this may not be a big issue, but you do want to monitor what's being said about you so you can respond when necessary.

As for your points for, being free and being able to reach a wider group of people are pretty self explanatory. An individual can now reach more people than they could ever afford to reach in the past. I will point out that while social media is generally easy to set up and get involved with, it's more difficult and takes time to use it well. You can't jump in and expect great results overnight. You might be better served to wade in slowly. Pick a site and a community and learn what they're all about. Then expand from there.

Also know that you don't need to participate in every site and community mentioned. You'll find you like some more than others and some will naturally have people you relate better to. Just go into each with the goal of contributing to the community instead of trying to extract from the community. The more you give to social media, the more you'll ultimately get back.

SearchDarren
07-14-2009, 02:35 PM
I agree with all of your points. The positives far outweigh the negatives. In fact, the article was written solely as means for businesses to consider the potential pitfalls before wasting too much much.

Like most forms of digital marketing, social media can be very overwhelming and confusing, but by considering the negatives, and applying set objectives you have the opportunity to make the most of this very exciting medium.

vangogh
07-14-2009, 02:51 PM
It can definitely be confusing, especially to the uninitiated. When I first started hearing about all the social media sites I didn't get them. Most seemed stupid to me and many still do. But you can only hear about the same site so many times before getting curious and wanting to at least take a look.

For me it began with Delicious since it's a site I could easily wrap my mind around. Delicious is less on the networking, but at the time my browser was getting overwhelmed with bookmarks that I couldn't find. I started bookmarking and tagging things at Delicious and now it's become my own personal search engine of sorts. I can easily go back and find the content I've come across that I thought I might want to read again or content I didn't need to read when I came across it, but knew I would want to at a later point.

From there I explored other sites and now there are a few I used regularly. I like Twitter for the instant communication and there are a few social voting sites I'll participate in.

At each site you do come in contact with many of the same people and to me the networking happens across all the sites. It's not just about networking with someone via Twitter, but rather networking with them across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, etc. You don't need to be on every site, but by being on a few you can form connections and build relationships with people you wouldn't otherwise have known.

SearchDarren
07-14-2009, 03:39 PM
A successful Social Media Marketing campaign requires you to find out exactly where your customers live online and then coming up with creative and innovative ways in which to engage them. All Social networks must be considered, but not all should be used.

Once you have established your objective and your execution strategy, you need to figure out how to measure the success, and this can be a difficult science to master.

Social Media IS important as a marketing tool, but it is not the only one. The key is for any marketer to run it as efficiently as possible so that you still have plenty of time to focus on other marketing tools such as PPC, SEO and offline.

huggytree
07-15-2009, 08:58 PM
I have had success with Linked In

i met a Pres. of a local Condo association...I repair the plumbing....pretty much 1 or 2 calls a month....they just replaced all their sump pumps $1,500 and are considering adding battery backups $10,000...it also lead to me getting my electrician friend in...

Ive also made contact w/ a ex-customer...he's now talking about coming back to me..

limited success, but success...that condo thing could be 20 years of work

vangogh
07-16-2009, 12:36 AM
Still success even if limited. And how much time did you really have to put in.

The networking works best when you start connecting with people on more than one site. If you also connected with your ex-customer on say Facebook and Twitter he'd be more likely to come back to you. It's like when you run into a person at the coffee shop and then later run into them at a restaurant and then later at a movie. The more you run into each other the closer you naturally become.

lauraspring
07-16-2009, 02:59 AM
I'm definitely going to give it a whirl, too. Since I already spend a lot of time on a few Social Media sites, why not make the best of it, and connect to potential and current clients?
For a small business, I don't see how you can go wrong.

SpotZero
07-20-2009, 10:55 PM
As with everyone else I agree that the good definitely outweighs the bad when it comes to social media. Certainly it takes time and dedication, but what worth doing isn't? Social media at its core is basically word-of-mouth, which is the best marketing any company can get. If your good friend simply tweeted "The Dell laptop I just got is the best investment I've made in a long time," chances are you'd consider that laptop when you're in the market for one. But that type of result is indeed hard to measure, but effectiveness in unmatched.

Best,
-SpotZero

vangogh
07-21-2009, 12:11 AM
And the time you spend is really up to you. Obviously the more you put in, the more you'll get back, but you can spend as little as a few minutes a day and still get some benefit. More and more tools are coming out that will let you connect with multiple social sites. You can leave one tool open on your desktop and be participating on and off all day without it being too much of a time sink.