DISQUS

fabeetle · 3 months ago

This was well written though I am not sure it answered the question of "...is it worth your dollars...". Brant did a great job of explaining segments, speaking about adoption and usage, and the intricacies of such vehicles but is it worth your money and more importantly your time?

This misconception with social media is that you sign up for Facebook, LinkedIn or twitter and something magical happens and you never have to look for a customer again. Not the case obviously. As Brant mentions that social media is simply and extension and digital reflection of something that is core to our being. The desire to connect and share. Social media helps on better visualize how customers are connected, where they build communities, what they do, and more importantly how they talk about your product. Whether that be remote control cars or financial planning. So how does that relate to your marketing dollars?

First when you spend money, on say a Facebook, advertisement, you are getting a couple of things that are to your advantage over traditional media.

1. The clients are populating the database with information. As opposed to traditional lists, survey's, etc. that you pay for. When you are using Facebook's tool you are targeting your dollars towards a better quality list. A list that people voluntary update daily. No assumptions, no motivations, no "chance to win a TV if they fill out a quick survey." Per dollar this increases your impact and per unit of time you win because you are not arguing with your list provider or spending time exchanging leads.

2. You can control your expenditures more by setting budgets and monitoring it daily. With traditional media methods you often incur your expense up front and evaluate at the end of the campaign if it was successful. With Facebook or say Google you can set budgets, wade into the waters, look at your effectiveness on the fly and decide to invest more or hit eject.

3. Seth Godin speaks of Permission Marketing which is what we are all seeing with these networks. Past communication channels have not offered the level of control that today's channels do. Your email can be sent and sold all over the world, but on Facebook you have to let someone into your "circle of trust" as Dinero would say. Social Media allows you to speak to a customer that is more open to hearing your message because it is at their convenience. Take the same prospect that you may be pursuing. Send them and introductory email at 10am to their office email and it will be sent straight to the trash by their executive assistant that checks their email. Imagine you were able to send that same message to their Facebook mail where they could check in when they are ready to see it. Effectiveness goes up. If you are not their "friend" you can't but you can put it in an add right next to their inbox. Getting closer.

The above examples speaks to if you are actually committed to spending marketing dollars on social media type advertising. The truth is you can do a lot with free tools as well. Many small business are significantly increasing their reach, image, and customer base by simply combining Facebook, Twitter, a Blog and their website. This can practically be done for free (depending on the website variable). In this case, is it worth your dollars? Absolutely. Is it worth your time? That is a more specific question as it has to do with your product and your customer. If you are selling knitting needles to a 85+ yr old target market...probably not worth your time. You get my point.

I think to answer the question that was posed in the article, yes, it is "worth" your dollars because for those dollars, if you know what you are doing, you will get higher quality message delivery than other methods. That said, and as I mentioned before, these efforts need to be part of an integrated plan that consistently represents a brand online and off. The consumer still needs to receive your message a couple of times before and a couple of times after a purchase. Social media gives you another, more impactful, more transparent, and more controllable tool to do this.

Jodi Gibson · 3 months ago

Great article. You hit on some really important points. A lot of business owners hop on board the twitter or facebook trains without really knowing why or what they are doing. Be clear of your objective, know your target market and know how to engage and connect, then the benefits will be seen.

RichardTreadway · 3 months ago

I enjoyed reading your very clear and concise article. . I have been helping companies define their segments for years and your definition "..people, who share a common interest, who look to one another as a trusted reference and who have access to each other" is exactly right.

businesssocialnetwork · 3 months ago

There are social networks being made that businesses can use to market without spending money. Business social networks, such as www.incompany.com, I feel are more tailored to the needs of businesses that are looking for an effective way to reach prospective customers. I still remain skeptical of business marketing on platforms such as facebook and twitter where the majority of users are not looking to be advertised to.

brettharding · 3 months ago

Great article - answers many questions for first-timers that can get caught up in the whole whirlwind of social media.

Puneesh Lamba · 3 months ago

I tend to agree with you on the point that while social media like twitter, facebook, linkedin or orkut are growiing like crazy but they for sure are not yet ready to pay you dividends for your efforts. These are good marketing tools but still need to eveolve to build interactive accountability with in their framework to make this lucrative for marketers and customers both. Let me share some sobering twitter statistics here, that I read somewhere:

94% of Twitter users have under 100 followers

90% of tweeting is done by 10% of Twitter users

60% of new Twitter users fail to return the following month

50% of Twitter accounts are inactive (haven't tweeted in the past week)

40% of tweets are "pointless babble"

35% of Twitter users have 10 or fewer followers

21% of Twitter accounts are empty placeholders

11% of Twitter users interact with brands on Twitter

9% of Twitter users don't follow anyone at all

3% of followers click on links tweeted