Cup of Joe: Is Social Media Marketing Dying?

Joe, you raise a question that’s been bouncing around in my head for about a year. I think for larger companies, social media marketing is alive in some way/shape/form.

But for small business, social media marketing never really came to life for many. The lack of resources (human, technology) never let social media marketing get off the ground.

When I speak with business owners and senior-level executives, they might start off with a question related to social media – but the reason they are asking the question is because they want to increase the quantity and quality of leads, increase conversion rates, average order size and order frequency.

Once those underlying reasons have been identified, social media tends to come in a distant 2nd to improving processes for lead generation, nurturing and conversion activities. It becomes a conversation on ‘how to fix what we do’ rather than ‘how can we add something else to the mix.’

This is a great companion to your “How I Became a Postmodern SEO” piece (http://raventools.com/blog/postmodern-seo-joe-hall/) – very thought-provoking.

There certainly is more to this social thing than just doing what everyone else is doing. There is a lot of work involved in finding out where your audience is, seeing how they interact with each other and figuring out how they will interact with you. While there are best practices, there is no magic formula which will guarantee success. I agree that for some businesses, there may be no need to be on social all the time.

That’s not to say, though, that they should totally ignore social. Monitoring is very important, because you never know when people may start talking about you and may want to interact with you. Claiming your space and your name is important, too, because it’s good to be prepared for when the time to interact comes.

Lastly, I always preach “Strategy, Strategy, Strategy” to the folks I talk to. SEO isn’t the only thing, neither is social participation. Everything stems from your product/service and goes from there with the bottom line always in mind.

I agree with Elmer. It’s difficult to “figure” Social Media out and determine what the real effect it has on (1) getting new clients (2) keeping old clients. The considerably lower cost of maintaining a Social Site compared to traditional methods of mail campaigns or newsletters makes it viable from a cost standpoint. The real problem lies in how to drive traffic to your site, convert that traffic to clients and then establish the on-going personal relationship that will let you retain that client.

Thomas Carlyle once said “”Weak eyes are fondest of glittering objects.” Social Media consultancy is now a newly created career path, helping businesses retain the “glitter” and their clients.

We recently signed on a few new ongoing SEO projects. After a few months of doing the usual SEO stuff and increasing their search traffic, the clients are clamoring for us to start building them up on the social networks! We were going to do that anyways as part of strengthening their site quality etc., but they want real social media activity.

What’s even more interesting about this is that we’ve had a really hard time signing on pure social media clients. But once it’s in the context of SEO, it seems to become more attractive.

@miriam I really believe that SEO and Social work hand in hand. Companies that don’t use their keywords in their social media and/or they don’t leverage social to build SEO strength are missing out.

I also so a lot of businesses buying into the social media buzz but not realizing that it does take a lot of time and effort. They end up not putting enough effort into it and don’t understand why it didn’t work. Then they end up blaming social media saying that it is just a fad and isn’t worth anything. Bottom line, it’s like anything else in business.. you need a strategy and the resources to enact the plan.

I believe that Social Media are nothing more than more tools in your marketing and communications tool chest. I think the big issue is that small businesses (and to some extent large orgs) thought that this could be that magic bullet that would slay all of their marketing demons. Marketing, communications, brand building, etc all takes time. So, as usual, you need to assess your business needs and determine what will work, what you have resources for and what your goals are. Thanks for bringing the honest conversation!

Social Media are tools for spreading content; the results that you get depend entirely upon how you use them. Social Networking, just like traditional Networking, takes a lot of time. I own a Social Media Marketing Company, so you know my stance is in favor of Social Media having a long shelf-life, and I am often surprised at how many people treat Social Media/Networking as a “Magic Bullet” that will solve all of their marketing woes. Honestly, each business is unique and requires a unique marketing strategy. For most businesses Social Media should be a PART of that strategy. How much time and money invested should be a careful consideration. For entrepreneurs with more time than money a do-it-yourself social media program can help get the ball rolling. For those with more money than time, hiring outside help is a better option, and traditional marketing (such as direct mail or radio commercials) may be in your comprehensive marketing plan. I have helped my clients to have great success using social media, but that is because we are clear in setting what goals will be achieved, set clear and reasonable expectations, and have viable timelines in place; we are not promising overnight super-stardom, but we do promise an executable plan to bring you closer to your business goals.