This is an awesome article that really speaks to the heart of social media – it can be great if you have a plan, just doing Facebook, Twitter, blogging bc you think you should won’t get your company anywhere. Credit to James Fry of Earthwatch for forwarding me this.
–
Right now, there are a lot of blinking lights and distracting excitement surrounding social media. Businesses are throwing ad and management dollars into social with the broad hope that customers will come stampeding through their doors. For most businesses, this just isn’t happening.
Social media isn’t a magical way to gain new business with a few ads and aggressive networking (e.g., posting on your wall, tweeting about your business). Remember in the late 1990s when the Internet became widely adopted and businesses threw big money into hollow online ventures with no revenue model? The same will occur in social media without a true marketing plan.
If you don’t have a true marketing process attached to your business’s social environment, save yourself some time, money and headache and move your investment somewhere else. Why?
Social networks such as Facebook are platforms for people to connect with one another based off of their common interests, location, connections, and other personal attributes. Nobody I know goes to Facebook to see what ads are showing on their wall – they go there to connect with their friends and share their lives with other people they care about. I don’t log on and say, “I wonder what Ford Motor Company is talking about today.” I log on to see what new photos my family has uploaded or what movie my sister is recommending I see this weekend.
With the sheer number of marketing messages the average person is bombarded with each day, it is becoming progressively more difficult to capture someone’s attention long enough to effectively present your brand, especially when they are not focused on seeking out your brand in the first place.
When a business does capture a Facebook user’s attention, shouldn’t there be a process to draw them in and engage them in a way that moves them closer to becoming a customer? Shouldn’t it be fun, easy, and casual for the user? Yes. And yes.
I see many businesses on Facebook today making a major mistake. They spend ad dollars to drive potential customers to their wall, get them to like their page and then expect the conversational nature of Facebook to take over and provide free nurture marketing all the way to checkout. The number of fans you have doesn’t mean a thing unless it’s attached to a solid marketing environment – one that moves each fan closer to a sale.
Read the full article here:
http://mysupermarketer.com/index.php/blog/entry/dont-waste-your-marketing-dollars-on-social-media-1
Posted by Alexia 
