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Let me start off by saying that having many friends on Facebook, Twitter, and/or LinkedIn is important. I am on all three of these sites and use them very actively for different reasons. When you have an audience, chances are greater that your message will be heard.
The problem with this philosophy is also that without properly considering your audience and hand-selecting who you are engaging with, you may also be wasting your resources - let me explain.
Say you work for a retail establishment. Your primary focus is bringing customers in-store to make a purchase. The website may only be a supporting agent to this objective.
By performing a social outreach campaign you attempt to reach out to anyone that will listen. By the end of your endeavors you may even have a formidible friend list.
Yet when looking at your analytic data you see less than 1% are converting. In looking back you may have even targeted the proper demographic audience. In this particular instance, if you did not geo-target this campaign you are likely wasting your energy.
Of course this is an example and it seems so plainly obvious. Yet why are many marketers still considering a successful campaign by have 1,000+ friends on Facebook or Twitter when an extremely miniscule amount of in-store traffic is resulting from these efforts?Labels: common sense, social media marketing, web analytics
I simply wanted to create a quick post to point out the differences between Social Marketing and Social Media Marketing as I have been hearing them used interchangeably. They couldn't be farther apart.
Social Marketing - Relates entirely to bringing change to cultural or behavioral attitudes/beliefs. These may include environmental initiatives, or no smoking campaigns.
Social Marketing - Social media marketing is the type of marketing that deals with Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, Wordpress. By very definition it deals with user-defined media. It relates entirely to the conversation and community of like-minded individuals.
Someone posted a great summary online. Social marketing is defined by objectives. Social media marketing is defined by tools.
Labels: social media marketing
I came across a question the other day that made me really scratch my head.
"What is more important: 5 million Impressions or 5 Relationships?"
This question was apparently posed by Joe Marchese, President of SocialVibe at the OMMA Social Conference in New York. After reading a recap of the conversation it became clear Mr. Marchese is slanted towards the belief that relationships are more important. And let me preface my post by saying that as a marketer I tend to agree with his rationale. However it is also clear to me that there is another side to this story that shouldn't be ignored.
In all of my experience with social media marketing we have been ingrained to believe that relationships are key. After all, relationships breed other relationships and so on and so forth.
While 5 million impressions will likely establish awareness, they will not necessarily create any sort of direct and long-term relationship with with a brand. Through establishing a relationship, a given brand can establish loyalty. Through loyalty a purchase is more likely to occur. I keep this notion close to me when working with a client - in other words is this client going to engage with me as a "partner or a paycheck?"
That being said, I want to present the other side of the coin. Let me give you a hypothetical:
Imagine 5M impressions of a given campaign resulted in an average 1% conversion rate (or 50,000). The conversion (or goal) in this example is simply a driver to a given website. Of this hypothetical 1% (50,000) let's also reasonably assume that 3% (1,500) are driven to pick up the phone or purchase directly from this website. These hypothetical 1,500 individuals then receive a product/service.
You can see it now that it would be easy for a marketer to spin this campaign as a success; after all 1,500 people made a purchase. (1,500 is certainly greater than 5, correct?) Despite the fact that 1,500 made a purchase, it would however be ignorant to believe that these individuals have formed a relationship with a given company.
Statistics have shown that these hypothetical 1,500 may never be driven by the same impulse to purchase again. Despite the fact that the product/service was even satisfactory.
This is not the case with relationships. Since I have already indicated that relationships usually result in loyalty, a repeat purchase is highly likely and often times offsets the costs that were incurred through a campaign of 5M impressions. Let's face it, people talk to their friends and their friends tend to listen.
Marketers are continually facing the reality that people are turned off by advertising. People do not believe what marketers tell them. They DO NOT want to be sold something. They are already super-saturated with branded messages being shoved down their throats.
However these same people continue to be passionate about their brands and will even attempt to share their experiences with a given brand to others. This is not necessarily in an effort to promote the brand but rather in an effort to help out their friend/colleague.
With regards to the initial question posed, "What is more important: 5 million Impressions or 5 Relationships" I want to stress that any success metrics will vary by client. However you need to ask yourself, as a marketer, is the purpose of the campaign to form a lasting relationship or a simply get a quick sale?Labels: social media marketing
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