For a small and upcoming startup I mean :).
It just realistically takes a long time to create a following of 100-200 followers that follow your product, and the user engagement still is in the low percentages.
It’s so much easier to gather and maintain a mailing list, and the user engagement levels are higher as well. I’m just wondering, is it really worth all the effort for a small startup to allocate resources to social media?
What’re your thoughts?
Thanks!
Donny
It depends how you go about it.
How do you define “building a mailing list” as easy? By buying a list? By having people register? etc.
This is something very specific to your business and audience. For example, people in a younger audience will generally sign up for something with Facebook, etc. rather quickly, but are quite suspicious of giving out their email directly.
In a word, yes.
Stop thinking about social media as a marketing tactic. It’s not.
Small or big, your customers will talk about you. People will seek out your reputation before deciding to pay/ join your business. The network effect of word of mouth is unlike anything else. Social is about how you approach your business and not doing it is not an option if you want to be viable. Especially when you’re new.
How do you build social media really? Just getting a bunch of facebook followers doesn’t seem to do much.
Nor should it… that’s not social, it’s collecting people on a social site.
As strange as this sounds I really encourage you all to stop thinking about how you build some marketing machine with social media. It’s the wrong approach and will never net the results you want.
Instead think about what you are trying to deliver your customer. That’s your experience. By taking a transparent approach to it, learning from your customers, giving them a sense of where you are going letting them validate your position, you can build something much more significant that they will grow for you. In the middle you’ll need to add the right links, build profiles and post updates but that’s tactics and come after your strategy.
It’s no different than building a car. You wouldn’t start with the tires but you certainly can’t drive without them either.
To me, social media is a place to build rapport, connect and interact with our customers/clients. When the relationship is built, it escalate our sales more or less. Whether to have a dedicated person to do it, up to what you are doing. There is a company said, 20% of their revenue come from Social Media. So, you judge for it.
There is a company said, 20% of their revenue come from Social Media
That’s direct revenue. Another stat I saw this week indicated that that about half purchases now use the web for research and a large, large portion of that comes in the form of reviews [the opinion of others being the #1 factor on a sale these days]. It’s time to stop thinking what can social ADD and start thinking what do i LOSE by not being there. It’s not A or B; social supports all of the other campaigns you already run.
nowadays social media becomes one of the medium for marketing…using it doesnt mean immediate success, it needs good ideas, strategy and work…you can get followers or group of people who can like your page but the main question is “do they really take time to read and checkout each post”
Nope.
On Twitter posts fly by giving the average tweet a shelf life of minutes to hours depending on the user and Facebook suppresses a good number of posts from ever showing depending on the user’s individual engagement levels, history and your brand’s overall success on their platform.
I think it is, I have a small business and the most work I have been offered has been from twitter - from clients and agencies scouting me. Its definitely worth it, but you need to brand yourself and engage with people. You also need to tweet about interesting stuff and not just sell yourself!
I think that if you have a business and you want it to be successful, you to utilize things for promotion. Be it on Twitter, Facebook, or any other social media sites, you have to take the opportunity to promote your business.
Its why most big companies give a bigger percent of their finances to PR/Marketing department.
YES!!! 1,000 times YES!!! Say you have just 200 followers. And of those 200 followers, 40 talk about your product to their friends with 100 followers each. Thats over 4,000 potential customers with such a small number of followers. Social Media is like the perfect mail list, but people on your mailing list share with others! Definitely do this. There are plenty of resources on how.
IT is worth the effort… You have to make the best use (target), split test, optimize and be professional…
You are right about mailing list.
It’s always better because user gets complete attention in his/her Inbox. On the other side in social networks there are lot of other distractions also.
But if we target the right audience then Social media can be really helpful in a big way.
i think better to go for adwords
Honestly, maintaining a strong social media presence requires very little investment compared to other forms of marketing. If you are selling B2C, it can be a great way to get people talking and also to communicate with your customers.
I tried myself to build a social media but I didn’t get the results that I was expected. So from my point of view only if you want to have results in the future start social media, if you need fast result is not the correct solution. As for adwords I tried a few times and some campaigns and get wonderful results for my website, so I encourage you to do it !
Yes, Social media is a wonderful tool for getting relevant client but please stop considering it a marketing place. Show your presence regularly and teach them something new, so they always keep in touch with you. But, yes you have to be very tactful. One more thing, keep an eye on your rival. Best of luck
Once you have built up a reputation with a few good social media campaigns, it is easy to continue to send messages to your loyals. You can announce new products, promotions and special offers, sales, contests, etc.
hi,
A lot of hype has been generated lately in marketing circles regarding social media and its ability to serve as an effective advertising tool. Everywhere ads and sales pitches are popping up promising to teach the “secrets” to exploiting this great new marketing opportunity,