What Is Important in Social Media?

Twits, posts, blogs, followers, friends can make you head spin with working in the confines of Social Media. As a marketer working in this channel you already know you can’t ignore inbound marketing. The latest stats show that 980% of consumers are using some kind of social media that as we go along the time spent on those channels such as twitter, LinkIn, MySpace and Facebook is growing.


As this grass roots channel develops we have 3 angels of the triangle working to take advantage of it.


1st is the channels themselves, the Twitters, Facebook, MySpace, LinkIn, MerchantCircle, Nings. Now the Ning people have already shot themselves in the foot with the changes they made this year. I know I ended my companies Ning site this summer as well as countless other nings. As for the others… they are trying to figure out who they are, and what the countless people involved in them are there for. I wonder it Twitter and Facebook really understand what they have and what, we the user want out of them. Then there are the companies themselves. There are ones like me with my little fan club http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans

with only 47 fans in it. As if they should care compared to ones like Walgreens, Craftsman and Duncan Donuts with thousands upon thousands of fans.


As a business I have with each approach from the sites, and yes I even said this directly to a Yelp sales representative, I don’t relate to the kind of company that American Express (she was quoting me statistics from what they did for American Express, as if my company can even start to act like they do), if Yelp can get me 1, just 1 new customer I will put some marketing money in your direction, but until I can get an actual paying customer out of the site the const from me and my company will continue to only be my time, which is costly enough.

Impressions, visits, reach, followers are important statistics but they are not a very important business metrics. For social media to really be taken in by your business as a viable channel yet needs to demonstrate how it responds and how it is relevant to the bottom line. Yes, social media should be judged on not awareness metrics but it must be measured as to what it is doing for your bottom line. If there is no follower/friend conversion to a sale, no matter how filled up you might think your sales pipeline is because of it, it is a total waste of time, effort and if you do spend any dollars on it, money.


Larson Notes & Satire: If you are tracking, you can evaluate the real effectiveness of all the channels you are involved in.


It still comes down to the bottom line, friends and followers are good and nice but you need a pay back of some kind.


That payback can be sales, and I would rate that the number 1 payback but it can also be in the form of information of creating an online board of directors or experts for your business, a way to test new product or service ideas, to find new employees, open new markets.
The more you engage in conversations and build relationships will be the key to unlocking Social Media doors. Are you knocking on the “right” door?


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate


P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.


P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.