Social networking and overnight explosive growth are gaining increasing cynicism from the online community as a result of fly by night companies promising shortcuts that replace hard and smart work. Remember back in the '90's when everyone was going crazy saying that "eyeballs", "hits", and "click-throughs" were the new business model and everything we knew was to be thrown out the window? After a couple years that hyper pace of progress busted as people realized that mass exposure didn't in most cases mean massive sales. Social networking has lots of pluses but from a sales growth point of view be weary of those that promise the world on your doorstep overnight.
Here are some points to consider when creating a social networking marketing plan:
1. Be clear on what role your social networking plays for your business and what you want to get out of it.
These goodwill exercises that create highly visibility on mass social networks are excellent for creating traffic and helping to boost your search engine rankings but often have very little impact on boosting sales. Marketers are clear about whether they want to generate buzz, publicity, or differentiate from competitors, when they go about brand building and and use the tools that get the best results accordingly. Social networks can be a great vehicle as an extended, and even main PR tool for achieving this.
2. Know how you want social networking to generate new business. Go to where your target market hangs out and looks for information to help their buying decision or go where they are seeking service/product providers. As humans we are still conditioned to a large degree to buy from a credible retailer through fairly traditional channels.
For example, you wouldn't expect to buy your groceries in a book store, nor would you be shopping for new sun glasses in a pet shop. When you go to a shopping mall, you either have the intent to browse or buy specific things but you've chosen a shopping mall versus a walk through social center such as a community exercise club. So, in the same way, when you want your social networking to give you growth results become very active creating profiles, bogging, and advertise in places where people will specifically look for that service or group of services for the sake of taking action and buying.
3. There is no magic for reaching the masses. Time and continuous effort is a trade-off that replace substantial cash spend. Consider the following equation which has been in place for decades for offline marketing: the better your creative, your offer, your delivery, your targeting, the better your return on spend for reaching customers and achieving sales growth.
As you continue to gain experience in social networking you will see how the magic works for smart and well engineered blogs which can allow you to reach masses for brief periods (usually hours or days) with far less cash outlay than traditional offline media. The reason why the reach time is fairly short is due to pure information overload. On a daily basis millions of new pieces of information are released with a fraction becoming the new hot thing like your story. It takes time and continuous effort to build and become part of a social network and have a following which converts into sales leads
Be wary of any online marketer who claims they can defy the rules that time, effort, and cost mandate for building success. Chances are you will be making the service provider successful by parting with your money rather then becoming successful yourself by trying to take shortcuts.
Remember The Dot Com Boom and Bust?
Back in the late 90's and early 2000 we saw the dot com bubble boom and bust. It rose on the promise that all the old rules of business didn't apply and that the "eyeballs" and "hits" and "click throughs" somehow magically would create great investor value which would turn into cash "just because of visibility". Eventually, online businesses found that many of the offline rules of marketing and consumer behavior applied equally well to online marketing.
Yes, there are many new behaviors which we are being learned about and technically speaking there are very powerful ways to leverage the Internet to help promote sales... but be careful if anything appears to promise success overnight. 98% of people who succeed will tell you it took work, smarts, persistence, and constant refinement to achieve their success. Succeeding at the online social networking arena is not much different.
4. Consider mass visibility the same things as brand building and brand awareness. Tapping into a lot of friends online is great and social networks can help you increase visibility significantly. However, consider this exercise as the same strategic techniques marketers use for reaching the masses offline. By communicating to a large social network who are not in a buying mode, you create a valuable impression which gives you added credibility for when they are ready to buy. As a result you will be more highly considered then an offer they have never seen before.
Article by Andrew Ballenthin, President of Sol Solutions. When you need to stand apart from your competition talk to Sol Solutions for your marketing, strategic planning, and operations streamlining needs. http://www.solsolutions.ca - Passionate About Connecting Pieces. For more information on our blog go to http://www.communitymarketing.typepad.com
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