Archive for October, 2009

All forms of Marketing require a certain level of persistence. Consumers do not see your first advertisement and remember your company name for life. Large companies spend millions and millions of dollars annually to make sure consumers are aware of their product or service. Although small businesses can’t afford to take this budget on, there are tools that have evolved over the past few years that should be used to market a company no matter the size.

Social Media Marketing is a tool that can be used to help businesses market their product or service. This new trend is rapidly growing among consumer use. Over three hundred million people in the world’s population are members of at least one social media site. And this number is growing by the day.

There are four main reasons social media can be successful for businesses looking to use it as a tool to grow their business. Determining goals, developing a strategy, implementing the strategy patiently and being consistent makes social media marketing successful for business.

Determining a company’s goals for using social media is crucial for the success of a social media marketing campaign. The next step is taking those goals and turning them into a successful strategy that will work for the type of industry a company is in. Taking this strategy and implementing this strategy effectively can be the hardest part when deciding to participate in a social media marketing campaign.

A lot of companies see the need for using social media to grow their business, however many companies begin using these sites by creating their pages and profiles and then tend to get bored with it, can’t find the time to manage every site or they simply don’t see measurable results right away and so they quit within the first few months.

Consistency is key, when choosing to participate in social media as a business. Consistency with a company’s message and consistency with continuing to update and manage each site that is created; quitting to early can be more harmful to a company then not using social media at all.

The fundamentals of business don’t change, what changes are the tools we use.

Marketing in general is a way to extend a company’s reach and increase awareness about their brand. Marketing has been around for a number of years in ways people can’t even imagine. According to research the number one way to market a business is through Word of Mouth Marketing.

When people learned that this could be so effective for business growth, they started forming groups that would allow them to connect with other professionals to spread the word about their company, product or service.

With the invention of the Internet, people found that it was much easier to extend their reach by putting up a website, so people could search and find their company. But things have changed immensely since the beginning of the Web. Now more is needed than a website alone. There are millions of websites, actually larger than millions of websites circulating the web today.

With all of the websites out there, it is hard to ensure your company will come up when a particular topic is searched unless you are taking the proper measures to bring you company to the front of the web.

Search engine optimization companies are striving to stay on top of market trends and some charge an extensive amount of money to help you get to the top of the search based on key words. But what some people don’t know yet, is that there are other ways to increase your search engine rankings, that also work on connecting with your targeted audience.

Social Media Marketing is one of those ways. As with any form of a Marketing campaign, it shouldn’t be the only thing you rely on, but with the proper techniques it can be used to grow business and reach a larger variety of prospects.

There are many ways to participate in Social Media Marketing:

Business Blogging: A great way to extend your reach, not to mention search engines absolutely love fresh content, so creating and updating a blog page regularly can really help you boost your rankings and drive traffic to your website.

Facebook: Over 300,000,000 users on Facebook and half of these users log onto their account on a daily basis. This is a great way to personally connect with people and build a relationship through the web.

LinkedIn: Another great source for networking. It is full of business professionals who are looking to connect with other business professionals.

Twitter: Great brand management site. Really, it’s a way for you to brand yourself over the Internet through tweets. You gotta be creative though!

The fact of the matter is Social Media Marketing is very similar to word of mouth marketing and networking, it is just applied to the Internet, where people are always connected.

Many business owners do not yet realize the effectiveness of social media on their business. They feel they do not need an internet presence through social media and that having a website is good enough to attract new clients and gain new business. But they are sadly mistaken. Just in the last three days alone, I have talked to several people who are using these social media channels to attract new business and from two people I have heard, “I gained new business from my Facebook account just this week”. I asked these business owners how long they had been using social media tools for their business.

One answered four months and the other answered close to a year. People ask me all the time, how do I measure the results and when can I expect to see these results come in?

Quite simple it seems to me, the results are measured in a number of ways, but directly gaining a new client from Facebook is a perfect way to measure the results of this type of Marketing campaign.

Gaining new clients from using business blogging, Facebook pages, twitter or LinkedIn could take a few months or it could take a year. At the end of the day does it really matter the length of time it takes as opposed to the fact that it works and if you are not effectively using it, you could be missing out on the opportunity to gain new business.

Social Media Marketing is not just an idea or a thing you do once and then step away. Business blogging builds over time. You lay a foundation in the first 2-4 months and then build upon it by continuing to build your audience. Facebook is a place where you go to socially interact on both a personal level and a professional level. It takes time to gain people’s trust and build relationships, but it works! Twitter is a place where people of all types gather to interact and talk about their daily activity. LinkedIn is a great place for business professionals to network and meet each other.

The Internet is the Future of the world, the reach you gain with the internet is much larger than any other form of marketing. The effect of Social Media however has taken that to a whole new level. Consumers love interacting through blogs and social media outlets like Facebook and LinkedIn where they are directly united to be free and open to each other about the products, services and experiences.

Are you connecting?

The paradigm shift has occurred and some are saying it’s the biggest thing to happen since the industrial revolution. Some skeptics still claim, social media is just a fad and will fade out over the next couple of years, but statistics are showing results much differently.

Social media is not a thing of the future, it is something that has already arrived and those companies who are using it to expand their reach are the companies who are still surviving. If you think social media is going to fade out, think about this… Facebook reached 100 million users in just 9 months of launching. It is still rapidly growing and the fastest growing population on Facebook is people between the ages of 55 and 65.

There are over 1.7 billion users on the Internet, world wide. These are people, who search the internet everyday looking for products and services, company reviews and education and information. YouTube is the second largest search engine on the Internet, and videos that are posted on YouTube receive the most viewings per day over any other form of video postings. Not to mention the postings of video’s on the web help to drive traffic and increase search engine rankings.

Business blogging is another growing trend that is allowing companies world wide to speak directly to their targeted clients. Business blogging is a way for a company to educate the market about what is happening in their industry. The second great thing is about blogging is that it allows people to interact with each other and with the company who is posting blog articles. By activating comments, people can ask questions, give their opinion and share their experiences. Where else can you get this much interaction from your clients, without spending time to meet with them?

Other social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter, allows companies to be more personal while also sharing their information. LinkedIn is a great tool for business professionals to meet and discuss their ideas and opportunities.

To say that social media is a fad, is a little contradictory of the statistics that are continuing to grow daily. The sooner companies learn how to use social media marketing for business growth, the sooner they will have the opportunity to extend their reach and gain a competitive advantage within their industry.