February 3, 2011
7 Reasons Why Social Media Isn’t a Waste of Time
BY John Paul Narowski IN Sales and Marketing 0 Comment
As social media’s popularity explodes, more businesses are throwing their hat into the social marketing ring. Unfortunately, there is a misconception that all you have to do is set up a Twitter account and Facebook page, post about your daily activities and a tsunami of traffic will slam through your virtual doors, begging you to take their money. When this doesn’t happen, the social media hype hangover kicks in and businesses write off the whole experience as a waste of time. With billions of people using social media around the world, this is a mistake no business can afford to make. Here’s seven reasons why social media is not a waste of time:
- Building Lasting Relationships: While you might not make a sale on that first visit, your social media profiles are giving you a chance to build a lasting relationship with visitors. Use your posts, profiles, comments and other interactions to turn visitors into readers and readers into customers.
- Creating Touches: While the number varies, most studies on sales show that you have to have multiple interactions or “touches” with potential clients before they buy from you. The more times you get in front of your potential customers, the more likely they are to buy from you down the line.
- Adding a Personal Side: People like to buy things and services from people they know and like. They will often pay more, go out of their way and even accept lesser quality products if they like you. Social media marketing gives you the ability to become more than an anonymous collection of 1’s and 0’s.
- Content Distribution Opportunities: The different social media platforms you use give you more outlets for your best content, link bait, recommendations, reviews and so on.
- Customer Service: If you don’t want to or can’t spring for a full-fledged customer service department or employee, then you can use social media to handle those duties.
- Low Cost: Social media marketing is relatively cheap compared to other forms of advertising and branding. As long as you have an Internet connection and an email address, you can start. Even tools that help you automate or amplify your social media marketing aren’t that expensive. If you run a larger enterprise a full time social media employee can reap huge rewards for relative little investment.
- Little Risk, Huge Rewards: With such a low cost to start and virtually no barriers to entry, there is little risk to starting up a social media campaign. Done correctly, and in conjunction with other marketing efforts, huge benefits can be reaped.
Social media is just another tool available for your marketing arsenal; it’s not a miracle cure or the Holy Grail of marketing. Like any tool, if you know how to use it correctly, then you’ll get the results you’re looking for.
