Posted by Patrick Murphy on Tue, May 04, 2010
We all hear about the benefits of social media but what are the myths of social media? Social media Marketing has great advantages over traditional marketing, whether for improving internal collaboration, communication and social learning, or for building and enhancing trust through more responsive communications with key stakeholders and clients. At SiliconCloud we work with many companies and brands on social media strategies, so over time we hear a lot of perceptions and views about social media. The following is only a selection of some of the myths of social media that I hear most often and my views on them.
First myth of social media: It is Free. This really can depend on your level of engagement in social media but regardless of how little or how much you engagement there is one thing element that social media does cost and that is time. The true hidden cost of social media is human resources.
Second myth of social media: It is easy. Part of social media can be easy, you may think it is a matter of joining twitter and away you go. But like most things in life you need a strategy of what is it you want to achieve from social media. Without any social media strategy it does make it very easy to deliver no results.
Third myth of social media: Can't be measured. Used correctly your social media impact can be measured but where some companies are struggling is trying to measure the impact of social media. To measure the success of your social media strategy look for an analytics package with social media integration, or figure out how to use your current analytics package to capture leads and conversions from social media.
Fourth myth of social media: It replaces your website. Social media is a great way to increase your brand awareness or make people aware of new products or content but it is not a replacement for your website. View social media as a means to direct people to your website as you still need a place to capture leads and draw attention to your company's products or services.
Last myth of social media: Is only for talking. Starting out and treating social media as a one-way communication channel is an approach that sets you up to fail. Check in with your fans and followers by asking for feedback, responding to questions and comments, and being personable to build relationships with your customers. Social media has moved traditional marketing away from a monologue into a dialogue, so be prepared to listen also.
These are you my myths of social media, what are yours?
This week SiliconCloud are running a free webinar on Pay Per Click and should lift any myths that surround PPC. Paid search marketing provides an unsurpassed opportunity to advertise to prospects when they are in research or buy-mode so join our webinar and learn how to make the most of your investment. Register here: Convert with PPC
Posted by Patrick Murphy on Fri, Mar 26, 2010
We read and hear about Social Media but what is the value of Social Media? Let's look at the extent of social media marketing being carried out by companies, the tactics they are using and what business objectives they are trying to implement through social media related activity. Social media marketing can include the use of social networking sites and on-site activity including blogging, user-generated content, ratings and reviews. So what is the value of social media?
Luckily enough we have the Value of Social Media Report from eConsultancy that is based on a survey of 400 companies between Dec 2009 and Jan 2010. The first finding is based around what is the most used social media network. Facebook came up as the most used in Social Media with 85% of companies using facebook as part of their marketing strategy. Next was Twitter with 77%, then Linkedin at 58% and not far behind was YouTube at 49% of companies using as part of their social media and marketing strategy. So does this mean that they see the value in social media?
I like to look at the value of social media by how much companies are willing to invest in social media. Last year 67% of companies polled increased their investment in social media with 81% of companies expecting to increase their investment again in social media during 2010. Generally if companies are willing to invest in Social Media there must be some value attached it.
When we talk about the value of social media, naturally ROI always comes up. But the majority of companies (61%) are poor at measuring the ROI of social media. But what do companies that invest in social media see at the value of social media.
Companies see the main goal of social media is an increase of traffic to their website. With 74% of companies saying that they use social media as a means of increasing traffic. Following an increase in traffic 64% of companies see that brand recognition is the second most important business objective in terms of the impact of social media. So is there a value to social media?
Many companies may try to view the value of social media is an increase in sales but only 56% of companies polled say that they try to increase sales though social media activity. However it should be noted that only 24% of companies actually use sales a metric for measuring social media success.
So is what is the value of social media, it seems that is may be still too early to tell but it appears that companies see benefits in social media and are willing to invest more in the coming year.
PS: Two things to check out over the weekend:
PS: Two things to check out over the weekend:
Ad Tech Event
London Blog Club
Posted by Patrick Murphy on Mon, Mar 08, 2010
Why Social media sounds like such a simple and straight question to ask. But it is a very relevant question and should be asked and answered by someone. When people first think of social media they do think of the main social media networks such a twitter, facebook, LinkedIn etc but there are many more out that go way past that list. So much so they can be broken out into, Blogging tools and sites, wikis, video sharing, picture sharing, link sharing, music sharing, slideshow sharing, forums, instant messaging, social networks and so on. The list goes on. So we can see that there is the appetite for social media but still does not answer the question of why social media.
So why social media, as we have discovered there is the appetite but why do it? One reason that does come to mind is that it is free. Ok leaving out the time it takes to ping, tweet, blog etc social media is free and open to everyone and anyone. Taking out the time it takes social media is a free resource to market your website, your products or anything you so wish. If you adjust for the time it takes and compare that against any traditional marketing social media should bring back a better return for your investment. Where else have you come across a marketing medium that is completely 100% free which only requires your time and does deliver results?
So why social media is it because it is free and can deliver results. It that the reason? May I suggest that you try it for yourself and see what results you can deliver from social media? A few weeks ago I preformed a test to compare PPC against Social Media. For the test I picked a well know social media networking platform and ran PPC adverts and at the same time engaging in social media. After a week I looked at the conversion rates while PPC had a conversion rate of just below 4% the social media engagement had a higher conversion rate of 12%. So there you go, if is free and it works!
Remember Social Media may bring the traffic but you need your website to do the rest. That is why SiliconCloud are running a free webinar this week on what you can learn from Google to grow your business. Check it out at: Learn from Google.
Any other reason why social media?