Nov 23, 2012
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Why Social Media
Why would you consider something like social media for your business? Many seasoned business owners have asked themselves this question over the past few years. The social space seems to be filled with primarily two groups. The small startup business that is doing social media because they can’t afford to pay for anything else for marketing, and the very large, fortune 500 types that have marketing money to burn and can afford any and all avenues.
Who’s Not Using Social
So where do the established middle category businesses (100 – 1000 employees) fit into the social space? As recently as June of 2012, IBM surveyed CEOs in that category and found that only 15% had a corporate sponsored social strategy. Likely, that number is rising every day by how quickly the social media services industry is growing, however it’s still a startling statistic when it comes to taking advantage of the marketing opportunities social media brings. Why then is the leadership of mid sized companies slow to board the social media ship? I think its a matter of expectations.
Social Media Expectations
From my experience, most companies measure marketing efforts by how quickly they translate into a sale. We both know that ultimately business is about selling product or services to new customers, and getting existing customers to buy again and again. This is why marketing so often gets a bad reputation. “It’s too hard to quantify” or “What’s the ROI”. Most marketers hate these questions. Especially if they are stuck in the world of traditional marketing and haven’t embraced internet marketing. However, marketing is covers far more than getting the quick sale. Reputation management, public relations, customer service, customer loyalty, the list goes on and on. Social media falls into this category if approached correctly.
The typical social media “experts” proposal might say something like: “We’ll get you x amount of likes, or x amount of followers and your business will explode!”. The problem with this type of thinking is that its only a small part of the strategy (and often not part of the effective strategy at all). Social media fills the gap that’s been missing from business from the dawn of time. The ability to emotionally connect with customers and future customers on their schedule. It’s pull marketing instead of push. If done correctly, it can define your business and lead to strong sales and increase customer loyalty. When I’m speaking to a client about social media strategy I use the 10-45-45 model. 10% of your effort should be focused solely on lead generation, 45% should be branding and traffic, and 45% should be customer service and speaking to your fan base. In my opinion, these categories are non mutually exclusive. They ALL need to be part of the strategy in order to find success.
The typical social media “experts” proposal might say something like: “We’ll get you x amount of likes, or x amount of followers and your business will explode!”. The problem with this type of thinking is that its only a small part of the strategy (and often not part of the effective strategy at all). Social media fills the gap that’s been missing from business from the dawn of time. The ability to emotionally connect with customers and future customers on their schedule. It’s pull marketing instead of push. If done correctly, it can define your business and lead to strong sales and increase customer loyalty. When I’m speaking to a client about social media strategy I use the 10-45-45 model. 10% of your effort should be focused solely on lead generation, 45% should be branding and traffic, and 45% should be customer service and speaking to your fan base. In my opinion, these categories are non mutually exclusive. They ALL need to be part of the strategy in order to find success.
When you back up and think about this strategy, it makes social media far more relevant for every size of business.
Article written by Mike Green