Social Media Marketing company Wildfire Interactive surveyed 700 marketers across the globe and found that 97% not surprisingly said that social media was of benefit to their business and 75% intended to increase spending on this form of marketing over the coming year.
(source: Biz Report 20th Jan 2012)
This of course begs the question about how you and your business will choose to engage with this kind of marketing platform.
Are you already using social media?
How do you use it?
Is it part of your marketing strategy?
These are important questions.
In many business areas there is the need to position yourself as being ‘expert’ or ‘knowledgeable’ in your particular domain. ‘Blogs and other forms of social media will allow you to do this.
Brand Awareness is also part and parcel of any marketing strategy.
How do you get your ‘values’ and ‘solutions’ in front of prospective customers.
Perhaps the worst example of using social media is any attempt to ‘direct market’ your products and special offers. Of course this way of reaching customers may have an ‘immediate short term’ response – but after a while it could actually result in your audience ignoring your ‘posts’ or simply ‘deleting you’ from their contacts.
The BEST example of using social media is to engage ‘socially’ with your ‘followers’. As Seth Godin suggests, Build a Tribe, that are interested in the information you are freely sharing.
So, over to you …
How are you using social media?
If you’re not yet part of that movement, have you really investigated the potentials and pitfalls of becoming a social media marketed business?
Alan
Related articles
- What are the Benefits from Social Media Marketing? [Lawrence Perry] (ecademy.com)
- 3 Fatal Social Media Mistakes and How to Avoid Them (nancyloderick.com)
- What’s The Deal With Social Media? (kevinwmccarthy.com)
- Is It Possible For A Business To Survive Without Using Social Media? (superdoodadsblog.wordpress.com)
- Marketing And Social Media (alanjonesuk.com)
Great post and great insights. I agree with eptrty much everything you’ve said: your four points provide fantastic advice to eptrty much anyone pitching anything to any key stakeholder or client.One thing I did want to pick up on, however, was in relation to the HBR charts and article. The reference cited by the person who posted the charts in their blog actually misrepresented the accompanying message in the HBR article. The piece actually makes many of the same points that you’ve raised. Interestingly, the authors don’t make any distinction between a before and after state; they merely say that for a long time marketers assumed (incorrectly) that reality was represented by the funnel model depicted.a0The concept the loyalty loop portrays only speaks to the fact that the more one interacts with a brand, the better ones experiences are with that brand, the more loyal one feels towards it the model happens to work well in a context where social media plays a part.a0The HBR authors acknowledge that the reality is invariably more complicated than the model represents. What the HBR article does conclude is much the same as you have: what’s fundamentally changed is that there are an ever-increasing number of touch-points and media that consumers interact with as part of their own, unique journeys. In order to be successful, brands have to consider the relevance of those interaction points in those journeys and devote appropriate resources to them.One last point that I couldn’t agree more with you on: if you have to explain social media to anyone who controls a marketing budget, they probably shouldn’t be controlling that budget in the first place.
You could definitely see your expertise in the work you write.
The sector hopes for more passionate writers like you who are not
afraid to say how they believe. At all times go after your heart.