February 3, 2010 - Posted by Shama
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Everybody always talks about why social media marketing is so important. I agree. But, I also think there are reasons against social media marketing. Here are 10 reasons NOT to partake in social media marketing.
1) You don’t have the basics right. Your business model is non-existent. (Call Joe). You don’t have a tested product. You don’t have a goal. Your website hasn’t been updated since 2002. Social media marketi
ng comes last.
2) Your boss isn’t on board. I’ve seen this happen, and it never ends well. No matter how much you LOVE social media and think it could turn your business around, it doesn’t matter unless your boss is on board. Even if you are able to get some traction, your boss will pull the plug if he or she wasn’t sold on the idea from the beginning.
3) Your employees aren’t on board. I sat through a wonderful lunch the other day where a boss was ready to make things happen with social media. His manager on the other hand was not. The manager was clearly too busy handling operations, and didn’t think he could handle one more of his boss’ ideas. If you think social media is for your company, make sure your employees see the value first.
4) You want a short term solution. I am sorry guys but no one is going to say “ooh look! a business consultant on twitter. I want to hire you!” Social media is NOT a short term solution. It is, more or less, a lifetime (at least business-wise) commitment.
5) You want to see a direct impact on ROI. Will it impact your ROI? Yes. Will it directly impact your ROI? No. The bigger the sale, the more touch points a business needs. This is how must people buy from us: Someone refers them to our website or they find us on (gasp!) a social media site. They sign up for our newsletter. Six months later, they hear me speak somewhere. They continue to follow me on Twitter. Another month goes by. They decide they need their website optimized or their facebook fan page customized or to entirely outsource marketing. They call. They are ready to buy. Did social media impact our ROI? Not directly. But, did it create a channel for us to keep in touch until they were ready? Absolutely.
6) You don’t want to build content. Somewhere out there, Newt and Joe are vigorously nodding their heads. Social media is a channel. It is a medium. It is two tin cups with a wire in the middle. It is NOT a substitute for the message. When you mistake the medium for the message, you get inane status updates like “just had a PB&J.” Seriously? Just because you now have a megaphone does NOT mean you no longer have to have something valid to say while using the megaphone.
7) You have a zero budget. Social media marketing is not free. The tools are free, but the tools are no good without a strategy. Just ask B.L. Ochman. If I handed you a hammer, nails, and a few boards – could you build a shelter? Yes? Okay. How long would the shelter last? If it collapses on you, it can cause more harm than good.
You don’t have time. Social media takes time. It doesn’t have to be your personal time, but it does take SOMEBODY’S time. And, it takes quality time.
9) You don’t want to work within a changing landscape. Social media yesterday was blogging. Today it is video. Tomorrow may be location based social networking. If you are truly interested, you have to keep up. Or, you have to assign someone to keep up for you.
10) You don’t believe in giving it away. True story. A couple of months ago, I am sitting in the boardroom of a leading accounting firm. I am explaining the concept of blogging, and the head partner asks me: “Why would I give away what I know?” I explained I wasn’t talking about trade secrets or anything of that sort. But, instead, I was talking about content that would build their expertise as a firm. He scrunched up his brow and said “for FREE?!” This isn’t a social media problem. This is a mindset challenge.
Photo Credit: @Vlauria on Flickr
January 22, 2010 - Posted by Shama
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According to a study by The Neilsen Company, consumers spent 5.5 hours on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter in December 2009. Just three years ago, the average consumer spent 3.
Key points from the study -
- The most popular online categories, in order of popularity, are: Social networks, blogs, online games, instant messaging.
- Growth from Facebook (200%) and Twitter (368%) trumped overall social networking growth.
- Time spent on social media sites by an average US consumer went up 143% in a year.
- US has the largest population of social media users (142.1 million), followed by Japan (46.6 million).
December 29, 2009 - Posted by Shama
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From years of executing SEO and SEM campaigns, I am now more than ever seeing the parallels of social media and SEO/SEM as well as how they all work together. Ten years ago, business owners thought their only option to improve their SEO was stuffing their meta tags and submitting their site to 1,000 search engines. Similar to SEO and SEM, business owners now realize it’s not enough to just plug the social media hole because they read in some business magazine it was needed. A new phrase has joined the lexicon of business buzz words, and rightfully so, showing a more sophisticated marketer: Social Media Optimization. You should not have a social media campaign for your business just because everyone else is doing. CEOs, marketers, entrepreneurs are now seeking solutions to optimizing their social media marketing campaigns. What do I mean by Social Media Optimization?
I’m not Shama. I didn’t write the book on social media and I’m not a social media speaker. My name is Neil and although I have been blogging since 2001 and have been learning online marketing since 2005, my main area of expertise is SEM/SEO. The reason I say this is I don’t claim to have all the answers in social media marketing. In the world of Internet Marketing, over the years I’ve seen techniques and tactics expand, evolve, diversify and sometimes disappear. I know social media is not going anywhere but up in usage, regardless the fortunate truth is, marketing techniques and tactics change, but their principles do not. Below are ten points on social media optimaiton, or getting the most out or your social media efforts.
For almost five years, Neil Lemons has worked behind-the-scenes to help create exposure, traffic, leads, and sales through major search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. Calling upon his diverse background in copywriting, advertising, marketing, and sales, he has been learning traditional SEO and SEM tactics since 2004 and implementing since 2005. He is the lead SEM Strategist at MarketingZen.com, a Dallas website design company. For more information on Internet Marketing, SEM & SEO contact The Marketing Zen Group for a free site evaluation.
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