Social Media icons

Everyone is using social media now and not simply for social reasons, in fact it now accounts for almost 10 percent of Internet time.  Social media is gaining more acceptance in both the business world — both as a tool to connect with customers and for co-workers to connect with each other. Social Media is got all the Buzz – but is it necessary? First of all let’s see what defines “Social Media”.

Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures, video, rating and bookmarking. Trying to cover so many areas and being active promoting with social media takes time. Expecting overnight results from any marketing campaign is not realistic. 

Marketing

Your website is a great place to measure the effectiveness of your social media campaign and your in-bound marketing plan.  Sep 30, 2009 Event report says – “Twitter – The best marketing tool since Google, or is it a faddish distraction for lazy marketers?”

Social media gives companies actionable strategies by bringing consumer insight to social media marketing, allowing marketers to engage, communicate and track the effectiveness of social campaigns, Social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and others, are here to stay and PR and marketing firms need to recognize that fact.

Advertising

Advertising, as we know it, will remain an important way to build brand and drive sales.  Because the top social media sites can deliver high reach and frequency against target segments at a low cost, it appears that some advertisers are eager to use social networking sites as a new advertising delivery vehicle. Social media marketing techniques work, and can position your information in front of your customers at a fraction of what conventional advertising costs.

Part of that is a function of social media’s communication’s role — advertising has typically performed poorly in chat and e-mail. Finally, a new marketing study confirms exactly what I’ve been saying about social media all along: if you want to conduct a successful public relations and advertising campaign, then you had better understand and use online social media.  Based on that thought, agencies are now rushing onto Social Media ignoring the fact that, most of the time, people don’t want their advertising in whatever form.

Community

In terms of social media, the prospects that draw toward you but have not yet become your customers are called your community.  If your website visitor is part of your community, however, you have a much better chance of getting them to return. Flavor your web site with demo videos and you will have followers ready to watch the next big thing you came up with.

Take YouTube for instance – this is a community hub with a set of tools allowing all three legs of social media (contribution, participation, information generation). You probably noticed that more and more videos are popping up much faster in Google searches. Can you ignore YouTube? I think not.

Facebook is another one – 86% of the brands and merchants who responded to the “Community and Social Media Study” poll said they now use a Facebook fan page.  While 2/3 of the global online population already accesses member community sites, their vigorous adoption and the migration of time show no signs of slowing. 

Value

While social media are complex and often misunderstood, they have a value beyond traditional marketing campaigns.  According to a recent survey conducted by MarketingProfs of over 200 Twitter users, Twitter ranks behind only blogs as the social media tool that delivers the most value. 

As we look to economic recovery, it’s critical to continue to retain customers and maximize their lifetime value.  Remember that the true value of social media lies in the ability to really listen to your customers versus telling your story.

Tapping into all the ways an effective social media agency can deliver value to marketers, will set apart this new breed of agency.  For example, I don’t think you can successfully define social media without at least some reference to the underlying values of authenticity, transparency, and openness. 

Before you ask about what is the ROI, ask yourself how have you measured the value of communications before Social Media existed.  The difference today is now you can measure the efficiency and effectiveness of communications down to whom, what, when and its value moment by moment.

Conclusion

Because social media is so interactive, it constantly shifts and changes; therefore, a savvy marketer needs to be extremely familiar with the community and know how each social media website audience is different from the next in order to bring real value. 

As long as you contribute meaningfully to the community and gain the level of trust they need to allow you to seed your own messages or pitch your own products or services, and you don’t violate their trust, you’re marketing via social media successfully.

 Claudiu Geanta is a serial entrepreneur and founder of Design by Satori Inc. & Satori CG Inc.. He helps businesses promote their presence on and off line. He is also an accomplished web designer, book writer and photographer. You can follow him on Twitter.
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