Why Social Media is important, part 69395

[Nuno]

 

[steved45]

Social media allows you to build trust quickly by connecting you with people and having them connect with your brand.

 

[james@alpha]

By removing google ad words our site dropped its traffic by 40%, I then hit social media and we are now double the hits whilst google ad words was in place!! that's £500 a month saved and double the traffic for free apart from my time! Social Media is a key for business today

 

[avecSys]

Couldn't agree more with the comments!

 

[Nuno]

One example can always be countered by another so in a discussion about the use of SM personal experience is pretty useless.
There are uses for SM, yes, and I have seen them. There are also places where it is a complete waste of time. Not as much a waste of time as the parrots with their 'build trust, strengthen brand' mantra though.
Still, above all that, I put the OP in TIME OUT because it is a JOKE. There are lots of boring threads about SM in the main forums, so if you want to discuss the pros and cons why not play over there?

 

[avecSys]

One would not consider himself to ''play'' anywhere in these forums

 

[Banksbroo]

Ah the old "hits" metrics. Doubled your hits, nice, but - have you doubled your sales? Have you doubled your profit?

I accept it can work for some companies, but doubt it works for all companies. There is also the question of the skills and aptitude for SM within the company.

Most of my sales come through my web site, and business has never been better. I don't use FB, LinkedIn or Twitter. I don't want to use any of these SM platforms. My time is better spent elsewhere, and my skills and aptitude are better spend in other areas of marketing and client engagement.

I think there is a bubble of fear approach to social media where companies feel they >must< use social media, and thus the bubble grows. It may be "free", but the cost of lost productive time is never accounted for!

 

[Excel Expert]

As usual there is no way to claim yes it works or no it doesn't. It is just one of many marketing channels out there - some are better suited for your business some are not.

When I hit the social media hard it actually works against me, I get swamped with requests to fix formulas. I get very little business from it and I end up a busy fool. If I was selling a local service (for example) it would probably work very well.

Having said that, no one should ever convert all of their marketing to just social media. Putting all your eggs in to one social media channel is dodgy. Who knows when a particular social media channel will become the next mySpace?

 

[clickforseo]

I am viewing comments here from businesses who clearly have not tested SM channels yet. LinkedIn has brought more success to myself and clients for a while; it's ability to match B2B contacts with each other is fantastic. FB is growing as a place for business and not just chat, but only those who have dipped their feet into Pages and Groups will be aware of that. Twitter works but not as well as the aforementioned unless time is spent linking up with targeted followers. Pinterest picked up recently. Google+ is showing more engagement possibilities.

Whether these are around tomorrow or gone next year is besides the point. It is right now an extra marketing artillery resource for targeting your prospects and engaging with them on related subject matter. For example, it took me about a minute to send out a FB post and get it in front of almost 800 people bringing over 50 clicks and 15 clicked the web site link shared. How many of those can you do in a day?? That was for a HTML5 services firm btw, a business needing to be found.

On another note, do you really think with the steps towards PPC on SM networks that any will be gone - anytime like soon. No way chaps.

 

[RodriVLR]

Absolutely agree with your comments.

 

[Nuno]

I am viewing comments here from businesses who clearly have not tested SM channels yet. LinkedIn has brought more success to myself and clients for a while; it's ability to match B2B contacts with each other is fantastic. FB is growing as a place for business and not just chat, but only those who have dipped their feet into Pages and Groups will be aware of that. Twitter works but not as well as the aforementioned unless time is spent linking up with targeted followers. Pinterest picked up recently. Google+ is showing more engagement possibilities.

Why don't you also view the comments from people who have tested SM channels and found them wanting? Only want your views reinforced?

The rest are either personal experience which (as explained before, you probably didn't read it) is not of much use as a basis for general advice, or just claims. Do you have figures for 'Pinterest picked up'? Do you have a reason? Maybe all of Etsy and Folksy joined up which represents a niche demographic; good for knitted donkey makers less so for yacht chandlers.

Do you have any global conversion figures for each of the SM channels?

And I'm sorry but what does "Google+ is showing more engagement possibilities" mean? Can you explain for a simple old man?

 

[fisicx]

For example, it took me about a minute to send out a FB post and get it in front of almost 800 people bringing over 50 clicks and 15 clicked the web site link shared.

And how much new business did this generate?

 

[Nuno]

Social Media fans updating..