Social Media Internet marketing, Actuality together with Lays

Social Media Marketing appears to be the latest buzz word proper looking to increase 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 springing up all around the place these days and they are telling anyone that will listen about how exactly incredibly important social media like Facebook twitter and YouTube are to your company but, for the common small to mid-sized business, does marketing to social networks really live up to all of the hype? Is spending a tiny fortune on hiring a SMM company worthy of it? And has anyone really done their research on this before they hired someone to create there Facebook business page? Some SMM companies are creating such things as Facebook business pages (which are free) for $600 to $1,000 or more and telling their clients that they don’t need a website because Facebook is the greatest social network on earth and everybody features a Facebook account.

Now while it may be true that Facebook is the largest social network on earth and yes, Facebook’s members are potential consumers, the actual question is are they actually buying? Social media marketing marketing companies are all too happy to point out the positives of social media like how many individuals use Facebook or just how many tweets were sent out a year ago and how many individuals watch YouTube videos etc. but have you been getting the entire picture? I once sat alongside a SMM “expert” at a company seminar who was spruiking to anybody who came within earshot in regards to the amazing great things about creating a Facebook business page for small company (with him of course) and selling on Facebook. So, intrigued by the aforementioned “experts” advice I looked him on Facebook only to get he’d only 11 Facebook friends (not an excellent start). So being the research nut that I am, I decided to take a good explore SMM in regards to selling to see if it really worked, who made it happen benefit and when it did why did Social Media Marketing benefit them? And should business rely so heavily on social networks for sales?

As a net developer I was constantly (and now increasingly) confronted with several social networking challenges when potential clients would say 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, best smm panel They just wanted it. For small and mid-sized business I recommended developing a quality website over any type of 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 more like LinkedIn). I know that sounds simple but it’s true and the statistics back it up.

The fact is that social media marketing fails to inform you that Facebook is a social network not a search engine and despite the number 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 search engine like Google (which has around half the search engine market), Yahoo and Bing to find business or products. They use it to keep touching family and friends or 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 interact with brands. Now out of all of the individuals who do use social media and who do interact with brands whether purposefully or not, most (66%) say they need to feel a company is communicating honestly before they will interact.

So how will you use social media marketing? And can it be even worth doing?

Well first of all I’d say that having a well optimized website remains going to create you a lot more business that social media typically particularly if you certainly are a small to mid-sized local business because far more folks will key in “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 missing out on all of that potential business. However despite all of the (not so good) statistics I still believe it is still a good idea for business to utilize social media just not in exactly the same way that a lot of SMM professionals are today, Why? Because it’s clearly not employed in the direction they claim it does. Basically SMM Companies and Business as a whole looked at social networks like Facebook as a 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 company (in June 2004) and since them several 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 to now (2012) both SMM Companies and Business have failed to truly capitalise on the huge amount of Facebook users online. The simple truth is numbers doesn’t 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 people to trust that companies can sell en masse by advertising and marketing with them? Of course it is. In early 2012, Facebook disclosed that its profits had jumped 65% to $1 billion in the previous year as its revenue which will be mainly from advertising had jumped almost 90% to $3.71 billion so clearly the concept of SMM is working out for them but it’s working out for you personally? Well… statistically no, but that will not necessarily show that it never will.

I think the major difference between social networks and search engines is intent. Those who use Google are deliberately looking for something so should they do a search for hairdressers that’s what they are searching for at that one time. With something such as 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 may be monetized in exactly the same way that search (Search Engines) did… In three years from we have now to figure out what the optimum model is. But that is not our primary focus today” ;.One of many biggest problems business face with social networks and SMM is perception. Based on the IBM Institute for Business Value study there have been “significant gaps between what businesses think consumers value and what consumers say they need from their social media interactions with companies.” For instance 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 it, so the old adage “what’s inside for me personally?” makes play. So the principal reason most people give for getting together with brands or business on social media is for discounts, the brands and business themselves think the primary reason people interact with them on social media is to master about new products. For brands and business receiving discounts only ranks 12th on their listing of explanations why people interact with them. Most businesses believe social media increases advocacy, but only 38 % of consumers agree.

Companies need to get more innovative ways for connecting with social media if they want to see some type of derive from it. There were good quality initiatives shown in the IBM study of companies that had gotten some type of a handle on how best to use social media with their advantage, bearing in mind that whenever asked what they do when they interact with businesses or brands via social media, 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 good 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 power is obviously in the favour of the potential customer & the truly amazing trick to social media marketing is to sell without attempting to sell (or looking like your selling) unfortunately most social media marketing is focused the incorrect way.