Social Media Promotional, Point and additionally Dependes

Social Media Marketing seems to be the latest buzz word proper looking to improve their online presence and sales, but is Social Media Marketing (SMM) all it’s cracked as much as be?

S.M.M companies are now actually springing up all around the place today and they’re telling anyone that may listen about how precisely incredibly important social networking like Facebook twitter and YouTube are to your organization but, for the typical small to medium sized business, does marketing to social support systems really meet all the hype? Is spending a tiny fortune on hiring a SMM company worthy of it? And has anyone really done their research with this before they hired someone to create there Facebook business page? Some SMM companies are creating things like Facebook business pages (which are free) for $600 to $1,000 or even more and telling their clients that they don’t need an internet site because Facebook is the biggest social network in the world and everybody includes a Facebook account.

Now while it could be true that Facebook is the greatest social network in the world and yes, Facebook’s members are potential consumers, the true question is are they actually buying? Social media marketing marketing companies are typical too happy to indicate the positives of social networking like how many individuals use Facebook or just how many tweets were sent out last year and how many individuals watch YouTube videos etc. but are you currently getting the full picture? I once sat alongside a SMM “expert” at a company seminar who was simply spruiking to anybody who came within earshot in regards to the amazing advantages of creating a Facebook business page for small business (with him of course) and selling on Facebook. So, intrigued by these “experts” advice I looked him up on Facebook only to get he had only 11 Facebook friends (not an excellent start). So being the study nut that I’m, I decided to have a good look into SMM regarding selling to see if it actually worked, who achieved it benefit and if it did why did Social Media Marketing benefit them? And should business rely so heavily on social support systems for sales?

As a website developer I was constantly (and now increasingly) confronted by several social networking challenges when potential clients would claim that having an internet site sounds good but they had a Facebook business page and had been told by various sources (the ever present yet anonymous “they”) that social support systems were the thing to do, but after discussing their needs it became quite clear that those potential clients didn’t actually know why they needed social support systems or SMM to generate online sales, They only wanted it. For small and medium sized business I recommended developing a quality website over any type of social network, why? Well it’s simple really because social networking is Social Media, and social Networks are Social Networks they’re not business media and business networks (that will be a lot more like LinkedIn). I know that sounds simple but it’s true and the statistics back it up. The truth is that social networking marketing fails to share with you that Facebook is a social network not a research engine and despite the amount of Facebook users and Google users being around exactly the same, people don’t use Facebook in exactly the same way that they work with a se like Google (which has around half the se market), Yahoo and Bing to look for business or products. They utilize it to keep in touch with family and friends and for news and entertainment. In a recent study done by the IBM Institute for Business Value around 55% of all social networking users stated that they do not engage with brands over social networking at all and only around 23% actually purposefully use social networking to talk with brands. Now out of all the those who do use social networking and who do talk with brands whether purposefully or not, the majority (66%) say they should feel a company is communicating honestly before they will interact.

So how do you use social networking marketing? And could it be even worth doing?

Well to start with I would claim that having a well optimized website remains going to bring you a lot more business that social networking generally particularly if you are a small to medium sized local business because far more folks will key in “hairdresser Port Macquarie” into a research engine like Google, Yahoo and Bing than they ever will on any Social Media Site and in the event that you don’t have an internet site you’re missing out on all of that potential business. However despite all the (not so good) statistics I still believe that it is still a good idea for business to use social networking just not in exactly the same way that many of SMM professionals are today, Why? Because it’s clearly not employed in how they claim it does. Basically SMM Companies and Business in general looked over social support systems like Facebook as a brand new market ripe for the picking and when Facebook started getting users measured by the millions PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel invested US$500,000 for 7% of the organization (in June 2004) and since them a couple of venture capital firms have made investments into Facebook and in October 2007, Microsoft announced that it had purchased a 1.6% share of Facebook for $240 million. However since Facebook’s humble beginnings up until now (2012) both SMM Companies and Business have failed to truly capitalise on the huge quantity of Facebook users online. The fact remains numbers does not equal buyers. Is it in a Social Media Marketing company’s best interest to talk social support systems up? Absolutely. Is it in a Social Network like acheter des likes  Facebook’s best interests for individuals to think that companies can sell en masse by advertising and marketing with them? Needless to say it is. In early 2012, Facebook disclosed that its profits had jumped 65% to $1 billion in the earlier year as its revenue that will be mainly from advertising had jumped almost 90% to $3.71 billion so clearly the idea of SMM is working out for them but it’s working out for you? Well… statistically no, but that does not necessarily mean that it never will.

I think the major difference between social support systems and search engines is intent. Individuals who use Google are deliberately looking for something so if they do a search for hairdressers that’s what they are seeking at that specific time. With something similar to Facebook the principal intent is generally to connect with friends and family. In October 2008, Mark Zuckerberg himself said “I don’t think social support systems can be monetized in exactly the same way that search (Search Engines) did… In 36 months from now we have to figure out what the optimum model is. But that’s not our primary focus today” ;.Among the biggest problems business face with social support systems and SMM is perception. According to the IBM Institute for Business Value study there have been “significant gaps between what businesses think consumers worry about and what consumers say they desire from their social networking interactions with companies.

Like in today’s society people aren’t just going to hand you over there recommendations, Facebook likes, comments or details without getting something back for this, so the old adage “what’s inside for me?” comes into play. So the principal reason a lot of people give for interacting with brands or business on social networking is to receive discounts, the brands and business themselves think the key reason people talk with them on social networking is to master about new products. For brands and business receiving discounts only ranks 12th on their list of reasoned explanations why people talk with them. Most businesses believe social networking increases advocacy, but only 38 % of consumers agree.

Companies need to get more innovative ways to connect with social networking if they would like to see some type of result from it. There have been the right initiatives shown in the IBM study of firms that had gotten some type of a handle on how to use social networking for their advantage, remember that when asked what they do if they talk with businesses or brands via social networking, consumers list “getting discounts or coupons” and “purchasing products and services” as the very best two activities, respectively a U.S ice cream company called Cold Stone Creamery offered discounts on their products on their Facebook page. Alternatively there is a superb program launched by Best Buys in the U.S called Twelpforce where employees can react to customer’s questions via Twitter. With both Cold Stone Creamery and Twelpforce the advantage is clearly in the favour of the potential customer & the truly amazing trick to social networking marketing is to sell without selling (or looking like your selling) unfortunately most social networking marketing is focused the incorrect way.

Building a concrete buyer to consumer relationship via social networking is difficult and the absolute most benefit to business’ using social networking to enhance their websites Google rankings. But business’ need to understand that you can’t just setup a Facebook business page and a cure for the best. SMM requires effort and potential customers need to see value in everything you have to offer via your social networking efforts let them have something worth their social interaction and time and then you may get better results.