All posts tagged Social Media

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The Top 3 Lies About Social Media

By admin on July 26, 2010 in Marketing with No Comments

The wave of social media websites taking over our attention and spare time are too numerous to count. There are a lot of eyeballs being pulled away from traditional print media and moving toward online social media for entertainment, education and shopping. Savvy marketers know that they must “fish where the fish are”, and they are targeting this new media with a vengeance.

With all the excitement surrounding the shift to online marketing, especially in social media, there are a lot of people that will promise you the moon and exaggerate the results that social media marketing can provide. Here are three “un-truths” that I have heard recently in client meetings.

By using social media, everyone will be an online success.

Social media is only as powerful as the user.

If someone dropped the greatest nail gun and power saw into my lap for free, I still couldn’t build you a house, even if my life depended on it. These tools, just like social media, require a skilled user to squeeze out their utmost potential.

Just because you have a blog and facebook account, it doesn’t always mean that you are an interesting writer. Just because you have a YouTube account, it doesn’t mean that you have the charisma and creativity to make appealing videos. This is not a bad thing. You just need to recognize where your strengths lie, and partner up with people that can help in the areas where you could use assistance.

Be flexible. Be teachable. Constantly work on your communication skills and always be on the look out for other skilled marketers that can help you get your message across.

If I’m good at social media, I’ll be able to sell ANY product or service.

Good social media marketing has the potential to put your product or service in front of thousands of potential customers, but the great marketing in the world can’t replace a bad product or service. Do amazing work and social media will spread the word like wildfire. Do mediocre work and you get the same result.

I’ll just delete comments from unhappy customers and no one will ever know.

Put on another pot of coffee – Your customer service department is going to be working overtime. Ignoring or avoiding customer service issues will come back to bite you. Treat every customer’s complaint as an opportunity to shine. Be transparent and honest and you will come off as a hero, try to dodge them and someone might make a music video on YouTube about how bad your service was.

Be passionate about what you do. Constantly work on improving your communication online, and be open to hire help when the need arises. Social media is biggest thing since this industrial revolution, but the rules are being defined by the users, not by Madison Avenue executives or corporate CEOs. Learn to play by the rules and social media can become your most powerful marketing tool.

(photo by Katie Tegtmeyer)

Is Social Media Just A Fad? Or Is It The Biggest Shift Since The Industrial Revolution?

By admin on May 4, 2010 in Business, Marketing with 1 Comment

Still think social media is just a fad? The following video might help put things into perspective.

Businesses are jumping on the social media bandwagon in droves, but are they doing it correctly? The corporate world has used broadcast media to get their message out for decades, but treating social media like broadcast is the biggest mistake many businesses will make with thier SMM (social media marketing) campaigns.

Today’s social media audience doesn’t care about your sales and product announcements. They want to interact – They want useful information – And they want to know that they are communicating with a real HUMAN.

Tone down the sales pitch and start asking questions and interacting. Show that you are interested in what other people have to offer, and consider giving away some useful information for free in return. Social media marketing is not a spectator sport – You have to dive in and contribute to the information superhighway if you want anyone to notice you.

What does your social media campaign contribute?

Rice University Study: Small Business Rewarded by Having Facebook Fans

By admin on February 20, 2010 in Business, Marketing with 1 Comment

Small-business owners who are skeptical about Facebook as a marketing tool might want to check out a forthcoming case study from Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business. Last year, professors from the school teamed with a local restaurant chain to see whether having a presence on the social network would have any practical impact on business. The results strongly suggest that it did, though only with a select group of people.

The school’s partner in the experiment was Dessert Gallery, a bakery and café chain in Houston that had no previous social media presence. Before launching the store’s Facebook page, the school surveyed nearly 700 of the chain’s regular customers. Those same customers were invited to become fans of Dessert Gallery on Facebook once the page was created. Seventy-five of those respondents accepted.

Dessert Gallery wasn’t shy about using its fan page once it was launched. The store updated the page several times a week with everything from pictures of its baked goods to contests to playful promotions.

After three months, the school once again surveyed the respondents. It turned out that Facebook did have an appreciable impact on their behavior. Dessert Gallery’s Facebook fans visited the stores 20 percent more often than non-fans and spent 33 percent more overall. They didn’t spend more money per visit than non-fans, but they did spend 45 percent more of their dining-out budgets at Dessert Gallery.

The fan page seemed to yield intangible benefits, too. Dessert Gallery fans reported a greater emotional attachment to the brand: 3.4 on a four-point scale, compared with 3.0 for non-fans.

Read the rest of these amazing social media marketing results written by Douglas Quenqua over on ClickZ….