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Re: Social Media?

Mongoose — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 11:59:10 GMT

@intechspecial (Mike)-- true that the majority of users are high school and college age.
However, you can target by age-- for example, advertise on Facebook for folks 30+ or whatever your client base is.
Sometimes, actually buying advertising is the most effective means. It doesn't cost but a few dollars to test it.

Re: Social Media?

Mongoose — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 11:57:43 GMT

Jordan,

Good note, One thing to be cautious of is that even though you can get "free" traffic by posting to Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, your wordpress blog, and elsewhere--
there is a ROI on your time. Some people I know spend so much time twittering-- if you know what that is-- where they could have spent that time growing their business via other means.
Not saying that social media won't work- you have to test it-- we've seen examples of both success and massive waste.

Re: Social Media?

intechspecial — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:40:16 GMT

I am not sure if this is exactly what they were trying to say Lighthouse, but thank you for your point of view, even if it is good, bad, and indifferent.

Re: Social Media?

Lighthouse24 — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:25:17 GMT

1,092 Americans who were on-line and willing to respond to a survey -- that would skew things a bit. Thank you for the clarification, MarketSmarter.

Re: Social Media?

intechspecial — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:16:40 GMT

Also, the majority of hours spent online are by users in the age range of 14-25, as they have more drive and obsession with it then any other age group.

So you might not be offering a service or product that is what this age group is looking for. 5-10 years you might be EXACTLY what they are looking for.

Draw interest now, and it will help. Draw the attention and amusement of this age group now and it is guaranteed to help if you are still in business 5 years from now.

Re: Social Media?

intechspecial — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:12:58 GMT

With the millions of visitors these websites get every day, or every hour, why would you not want to market your business through these companies?

This website loves free, and it doesn't get any better then potentially increasing your traffic by the hundreds or thousands, at the cost of a digital video or a blog entry.

Re: Social Media?

MarketSmarter — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:03:14 GMT

The study was conducted online with 1,092 americans, 18+, so to your point it does skew the data towards an online audience.

Re: Social Media?

Lighthouse24 — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:56:27 GMT

It seems amazing that "93% of Americans believe a company should have a presence through social media" (all but 7 percent) -- when 26 percent of Americans have still never accessed or used the Internet for any purpose. I'm wondering if that was 93 percent of a specific demographic.

Re: Social Media?

MarketSmarter — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:49:22 GMT

A recent CONE study stated that 93% of Americans believe a company should have a presence through social media and 80% feel they should be able to interact with that company via social media. When done right consumers have a stronger connection with that company and are thus more brand loyal.

So, yes, you should have a social media strategy. But you should also be able to measure its ROI and ViTrue (I don't work for them) has a social media index which allows you to measure your presence in social media. It is currently in BETA form, but it is an interesting tool.

Lastly, when developing your social media strategy, make sure you know where your audience wants to be communicated with and how they want to be communicated with. Using online surveys can help you accomplish this.

That said, I use it for a few reasons. I use the micro-blogging feature on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Plurk to let people know when I update my blog - smartermarketing.wordpress.com. And I have a Facebook pages for two entities to communicate with customers and prospects about upcoming events, webinars, new products, etc. I would consider all of these ventures successful in their ability to drive traffic to my site and drive my business.

If you want to discuss your strategy further, I can be contacted at a_abend@MIsForMarketing.com.

Re: Social Media?

mikanui — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:46:04 GMT

Hey BlitzJordan,

Yes. There are many that use Social Media sites to promote their business. I wrote a bit on a blog at http://mikanui.wordpress.com. There are actually a LOT of discussions right now going on regardingusing Social Networking to promote your business. One ofthe nice things about them is it costs as much time as it takes to set up a page and start "networking" to gain new relationships with potentially new clients.

There's a bit of advice on that one and I invite anyone's input or perspective on what they believe to be beneficial or not.

I use it to basically gain exposure and create interest in the brands that I work with right now. Later I will set pages for other products or services as we bring them on.

Thanks