Understanding Social Media
Recently Brand Advance was referred to a growing author and successful business man to generate buzz and awareness for his upcoming book and tour. After several interactions with him it was clear that he was viewing social media as traditional “push” marketing. The points below were articulated to him in an email…specific aspects of the email relative to his business were stripped away for this post, however I thought it would still be beneficial to share this information as it may help others better understand social media and how it can help grow their business.
- Social media is not sales
- Word of mouth marketing is the most powerful form of marketing
- Growing Awareness & Respectability is Key
- Build a community
- Social Media ROI
Social media creates an environment for sales to happen, but social media 
itself is not sales. If you go into a social setting and “sell” it is frowned upon. Selling in social media is like pushing your products in church…People go to church, just like social sites, for a purpose and it’s very interrupting to “Sell” and push a message at them…It’s better to engage with them and participate in conversations. This doesn’t mean that you won’t meet and start your relationship with your best and most profitable customers at church.
When people make a purchasing decision they often ask others what their experience has been with that brand or person through a social interaction. Think of social media as Word of mouth on steroids. There are over 400 million people on facebook and millions on twitter…talking with friends, associates and family members. Crafting a solid social media campaign with a little oomph can spread this Word of mouth of your brand virally throughout each person’s social circle.
The key to social media is connecting with people through content and meaningful interactions and revealing your expertise and thought leadership in the process. Once people know and respect you as an expert in what you do increased business and sales will follow. Think about Donald Trump, his personal brand is synonymous with business success (even though he has failed many times, as most successful people have). But the key is when Donald Trump puts out a book, tie or anything else with his name attached sales will often follow because people are aware of his his brand.
Which brings me to my next point….
People often buy from people or brands they have a relationship with. Building up a community of loyal and engaged advocates will never hurt. It’s called herd marketing….Once you have a herd (engaged audience) you can lead them where you see fit. Part of this is building your communication touch points and customer contact information….Facebook, twitter and email addresses.
If people are engaging with your brand and spreading the word through their social circle you’re getting far more value from a well crafted social media campaign then “traditional advertising”. Social media is also not measured like typical advertising…We can measure it on a profit and loss statement…but as mentioned social media is not sales, it creates an environment for sales to happen and helps you connect with your current and potential customers to break through the clutter. You measure ROI for social media over time on the overall company profit and loss statement, because it’s difficult to measure where a specific sale generated from word of mouth actually came from. In social media you measure the word of mouth, communication with the brand, shares, web traffic and other key performance indicators.
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If you have any additional ways that you feel help people to better understand social media feel free to leave a comment below.
If you’re interested in learning more about how you can take advantage of social media to help grow your business feel free to give us a call. Our team offers a free initial consultation and would be happy to assist you in finding success through social media.
David
I’ve seen no other comments brought into any of the blogs I’m managing that have come from other discussion sites. I haven’t really troubleshot it yet, but I figured that as a new feature that perhaps it was just still under development.
Social Media is really a conversation, its just that different people want to derive different sort of benefits from these conversations..
social media optimization features could be YouTube, Ning.com, any forums, and blogging communities. The advantages of using these are that you draw more traffic to your website. More traffic to your website may lead to more affiliate sales for you.
I signed up for the breakfast, but had to cancel at the last minute. People have told me it was the best one so far! So I’m trying to catch up and I will now be an avid reader of your blog (love it). With every communications plan, campaign or website I begin with trying to understand the User Experience and go from there. Your insights will help me a lot.
I think these are five accurate and straightforward suggestions that can be used to encourage clients to adopt social media strategies. All too often, business 😛
Social media describes the online tools, platforms and practices that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with each other.
I believe social media is a way to get your brand out there and see how others react to it. It gives you the capability to get feedback directly form your target market. It also keeps you connected with them as well. It offers you a platform so to speak.
Social media is a best way to reach your potential and existing customers with full transparency. If done correctly it can do wonders.
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Thanks so much for coming down! I think you got us all thinking about how we can strengthen our understanding of the ’social’. So much great info to digest!
I need to show that in person, and most likely without a computer. I have a few ideas that I’ve started, but want to see if anyone has any creative suggestions or advice?
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The appeal of Social Media is also clear; it is a venue for ideas, information, and values, formed by people who also want to share their knowledge through text.
Hi nice sharing social media is today very developed in internet marketing all is very impressive thanks for lovely sharing.
Hi Colleen, well you’ve definitely hit some of the big names. I recommend them all, actually. I would also encourage that you read something crazy, like The Question Concerning Technology and other essays by Heidegger.
Thanks so much for coming down! I think you got us all thinking about how we can strengthen our understanding of the ’social’. So much great info to digest!
A point very well made Josh. Social media sites are meant for you to socialize and build a network. Spamming them only harms your credibility which is what you were trying to build up in the first place.
Well there are some good and bad sites about this, but haven’t decided if i like it or not yet 🙂
Interesting article! I quite agree with you that “Building and designing a successful social media campaign can be a lot like designing and building a skyscraper”…. it does requires constant maintainance.
Really good post Jennifer. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head really – having a social media presence ‘just for the sake of it’ can be really harmful to a business.
I couldn’t agree more with this post. We rely heavily on our employees to be attracting, engaging, and recruiting good candidates. They do this via social media and it has helped us win the talent war time after time.
Thanks so much for coming down! I think you got us all thinking about how we can strengthen our understanding of the ’social’. So much great info to digest!
Social media is definitely hard to master depending on what side you are on. For the user, its easy to understand, but for the marketer, it might be a little bit harder to understand, and for the PR media person…. well… that’s a toss up, lol as some of them don’t seem to know what they are doing, while others excel at leveraging social media.
Till then,
Jean
Agree with “E Michelson” that those measures are quite ambiguous. If we can find a method to measure purchase intention and consumer intention behavior, it would serve as a better measurement gauge.
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I need to write an essay on the topic of “Social Media” but i need some help in completely understanding in detail the positves of these social mediums.
I think that Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media use web-based technologies to transform and broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues.
How does social media help in measuring the return of investment of a company?
Social Media is an important tool to have now. I took a college course last semester that focused on social media and the internet as the ultimate media for information.
I would also encourage that you read something crazy, like The Question Concerning Technology and other essays by Heidegger. Or On The Internet by Hubert Dreyfuss. They don’t at first seem relevant, but I guarantee they will a) blow your mind and b) inspire you! Too bad you missed it! Maybe next time.
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Social media has become so important these days you can’t ignore it anymore. It isn’t just for kids anymore either.
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Social media has become the part and parcel of our daily lives. But one thing that you pointed in here that social media is not an advertising tool, and businesses should understand that
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Social media is good for aggregating informaton, publishing information, and filtering information.
Social media’s integration into the workplace is an exponentially growing trend yet many businesses are choosing to block social networking sites to employees.
Very good article and good introduction about SMO. But, is there any optimization for social media that we post? As we have something like SEO where real optimization techniques are discussed, it will be really good if you can give us light on some Optimization techniques for Social Media.
Social media is the great platform to promote your circle and share the knowledge together….
We have been working on Developing SMM products for the last three years and arrived at similar results. The Brand recall is highest when you have friends interacting with a brand..
One characteristic shared by both social media and industrial media is the capability to reach small or large audiences; for example, either a blog post or a television show may reach zero people or millions of people.
I have never really been influenced by the ads on facebook and have asked many of my FB friends if they have and I got the same answer. I these ads are ignored by a huge portion of social media users. We are so overloaded with ads we tune them out.
What are some ways to use Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites to spread the word about my business?
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I’m a primary admin on the Social Media Club – Cleveland and will be sharing on our Facebook ‘Fan’ page (somehow ‘like’ page is just… wrong). Love your website, too, and will share it as well and gather you into my RSS Feed.
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They don’t at first seem relevant, but I guarantee they will a) blow your mind and b) inspire you! Too bad you missed it! Maybe next time.thanks..
With social media being a prominent mode to gain popularity, companies streamline their efforts to build an entire presence through twitter, facebook & other popular social media outlets.
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We’ve heard from countless brand marketers about the need for guidance when it comes to measuring the value of social media advertising.
How does social media help in measuring the return of investment of a company?
Wonder if Social Media can really be stretched to such an extent, the consumers may not like it and most already avoid ads, care needed!
In social media you measure the word of mouth, communication with the brand, shares, web traffic and other key performance indicators.
Social media is a great way to get more traffic but unless the traffic tends to be low quality traffic which does not convert and has a high bounce rate.
It gives you the capability to get feedback directly form your target market. It also keeps you connected with them as well. It offers you a platform so to speak.
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I thought it would still be beneficial to share this information as it may help others better understand social media and how it can help grow their business.
Social media is a best service for internet marketing. It changed that. It’s pushed us a step back when we consider tracking and analytics.
The capability to reach small or large audiences; for example, either a blog post or a television show may reach zero people or millions of people.
Social Media can really be stretched to such an extent, the consumers may not like it and most already avoid ads, care needed!!
We continually use testing and metric tools to see if the words/ actions coincide. Real people moving people is true, but it’s not always due to product use and experience.
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With social media being a prominent mode to gain popularity, companies streamline their efforts to build an entire presence through twitter, facebook & other popular social media outlets
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It gives you the capability to get feedback directly form your target market. It also keeps you connected with them as well. It offers you a platform so to speak.
How did you dominate your market using Social Media ?
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Hi, I am also doing social media. i am learned a lot from your article.
Social media is tough because it’s difficult to get a true read on the ROI. A “like” on Facebook doesn’t mean much if they’re never going to buy your product.
You would really get a headache in doing Social Media… Up to now I still have a hard time understanding it but thanks to this blog it help me…
A lot of people confuse social media with “spam media” – ie just blast people on twitter with your “deals” 24/7 and you will get someone to notice. Such a waste of resources and such a shame.
Thanks for this article David.
Public networking is challenging because it’s challenging to get a real study on the ROI. A “like” on Facebook or myspace does not mean much if they are never going to buy your item.