Social Media Marketing is apparently the most recent buzz word for anyone looking to boost their online presence and sales, but is Social Media Marketing (SMM) all it's cracked around be?
S.M.M companies are now actually springing up all over the place nowadays and they are telling anyone which will listen about how incredibly important social media like Facebook twitter and YouTube are to your organization but, for the typical small to medium-sized business, does marketing to social networks really surpass all the hype? Is spending a small fortune on hiring a SMM company worthy of it? And has anyone really done their research on this before they hired someone to setup there Facebook business page? Some SMM companies are establishing things like Facebook business pages (which are free) for $600 to $1,000 or more and telling their clients which they don't need a website because Facebook is the largest social network on earth and everybody has a Facebook account. Now while it might be true that Facebook is the biggest social network on earth and yes, Facebook's members are potential consumers, the true question is are they really buying? Social networking marketing companies are all too happy to indicate the positives of social media like how lots of people use Facebook or just how many tweets were delivered this past year and how lots of people watch YouTube videos etc. but are you getting the full picture? I once sat alongside a SMM "expert" at a business seminar who had been spruiking to anybody who came within earshot concerning the amazing benefits of establishing a Facebook business page for small business (with him of course) and selling on Facebook. شراء مشتركين يوتيوب So, intrigued by the aforementioned "experts" advice I looked him through to Facebook only to find he had only 11 Facebook friends (not an excellent start). So being the study nut that I am, I chose to take a good look into SMM regarding selling to see if it really worked, who made it happen work for and when it did why did Social Media Marketing work for them? And should business rely so heavily on social networks for sales?
As a web developer I was constantly (and now increasingly) confronted by several social networking challenges when potential clients would claim that having a website sounds good but they had a Facebook business page and have been told by various sources (the ever present yet anonymous "they") that social networks were the action to take, but after discussing their needs it became quite clear that those potential clients didn't actually know why they needed social networks or SMM to generate online sales, They only wanted it. For small and medium-sized business I always recommended building a quality website over almost any social network, why? Well it's simple really because social media is Social Media, and social Networks are Social Networks they are not business media and business networks (that would be a lot more like LinkedIn). I realize that sounds simple but it's true and the statistics back it up. The truth is that social media marketing fails to tell you that Facebook is a social network not a search engine and despite the number of Facebook users and Google users being around the exact same, people don't use Facebook in the exact same way which they make use of a search engine like Google (which has around half the search engine market), Yahoo and Bing to find business or products. They utilize it to keep in touch with family and friends and for news and entertainment. In a recently available study done by the IBM Institute for Business Value around 55% of all social media users stated that they cannot engage with brands over social media at all and only around 23% actually purposefully use social media to talk with brands. Now out of all the those who do use social media and who do talk with brands whether purposefully or not, the majority (66%) say they have to feel a business is communicating honestly before they will interact.
So how will you use social media marketing? And can it be even worth doing?
Well to start with I would claim that having a well optimized website is still going to create you a lot more business that social media in most cases especially if you really are a small to medium-sized local business because far more people will enter "hairdresser Port Macquarie" into a search engine like Google, Yahoo and Bing than they ever will on any Social Media Site and in the event that you don't have a website you're passing up on all of the potential business. However despite all the (not so good) statistics I still believe it is still recommended for business to make use of social media simply not in the exact same way that many of SMM professionals are today, Why? Because it's clearly not working in the way they claim it does. Basically SMM Companies and Business all together viewed social networks like Facebook as a fresh 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 several venture capital firms have made investments into Facebook and in October 2007, Microsoft announced so 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 genuinely capitalise on the huge quantity of Facebook users online. The reality is numbers does not equal buyers. Could it be in a Social Media Marketing company's best interest to talk social networks up? Absolutely. Could it be in a Social Network like Facebook's best interests for folks to trust that companies can sell en masse by advertising and marketing using them? Obviously it is. In early 2012, Facebook disclosed that its profits had jumped 65% to $1 billion in the last year as its revenue that is mainly from advertising had jumped almost 90% to $3.71 billion so clearly the idea of SMM is exercising for them but it's exercising for you? Well... statistically no, but that will not necessarily mean that it never will.
I think the major difference between social networks and search engines is intent. Individuals who use Google are deliberately looking for something so if they do a seek out hairdressers that's what they are seeking at that one time. With something like Facebook the principal intent is normally for connecting with friends and family. In October 2008, Mark Zuckerberg himself said "I don't think social networks can be monetized in the exact same way that search (Search Engines) did... In three years from we now 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 networks and SMM is perception. In line with the IBM Institute for Business Value study there were "significant gaps between what businesses think consumers value and what consumers say they desire from their social media interactions with companies." As an example in today's society people aren't just going handy you over there recommendations, Facebook likes, comments or details without getting something back for it, therefore the old adage "what's inside for me personally?" has play. So the principal reason most people give for getting together with brands or business on social media is to receive discounts, yet the brands and business themselves think the main reason people talk with them on social media is to learn about new products. For brands and business receiving discounts only ranks 12th on their listing of explanations why people talk with them. Most businesses believe social media increase advocacy, but only 38 % of consumers agree.