Is Social Media all hype, or is it really delivering on the promise?
We keep hearing about Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. We even hear about big Social Media phenomenon: The Facebook Group set up to get “Rage against the Machine” to number one in the music charts, the spoiler to stop X-Factor winner Joe McElderry being the Christmas Number One. Dave Carroll’s song on You Tube viewed nearly 7,000,000 times that tells the tale about how United Airlines broke his guitar (Search for United Airlines on YouTube and Dave Carroll’s song comes top every time). Millions of people everyday use some form of Social Media every day; we hear of big company campaigns on Social Media, but does it have a commercial impact for local businesses? The short answer is Yes, very much so.
To understand what is happening online, we just need to understand how people buy off line or what we did before the internet.
People select a shop, bar or restaurant based on many criteria.
- Advertising
- Price Comparison
- Reviews
- Recommendation
- Location
Online, it is very much the same, except information and contact networks are so much quicker.
This is why many companies are developing their social media presence ie to extend their brand reach by joining the conversation with their customers. Some essential elements of a social media campaign could include:
- Blogging
- Article writing
- Questions and Answers
- Social Bookmarking
- Forums
- Monitoring
More advanced campaigns could include Facebook and IPhone Applications, designed to engage and interact with the consumer.
Blogging
A Blog (weB- log) is a series of entries, records, thoughts and ideas on a website. Google appears to love Blogs, websites that have up-to-date blogs have made some commitment to adding and updating content on their website and are therefore contributing positively to the internet. Google rewards good relevant content with high search positions. It is possible to get 1st page results on Google and even top positions on Google in under 5 minutes.
Good blogging practice means writing a blog on a regular basis, daily if possible, but weekly can be sufficient. Other tips may include:
- Being informative
- Not being sales oriented
- Linking to other resources both on your site as well as off site.
- Getting your blog followed by linking into social networks, social book marking sites and article sites
So as a blog grows it increases the number of pages in your website, as the readership increases, then so the authority of your site will increase. The effect of this is that it can increase the number of search terms that a website can be found on.
Article Writing
Writing Articles on other websites is a great way to improve your reputation as an expert to your customers. Articles on other good reputable websites linking to your site can also build your “reputation” with Google.
Facebook, Twitter and other Social Network Websites
Many Social Network sites have started out as online meeting points for friends and people with common interests. However, 2009 saw more and more companies using social network sites to engage with their customers, often by creating a more personal face of the company and by deploying targeted content and offers to specific demographs.
Measuring Results
Like so much of internet marketing, it is measurable, with many websites getting over 25% of their traffic from Blogs and visitors from social network sites and blogs being 3 times more likely to buy. Why? because all of the offsite activity is targeted to specific groups, so that the social media marketing has been increasing brand recognition and trust off site; when consumers visit websites, they have already researched the products & services, received recommendations, interacted with the free content, making the final buying decision easier.
Stephen Harvey-Franklin wrote this article that was published in the Harrogate Advertiser’s Business Pink Pages.
Steve is a Social Media and SEO Consultant and Trainer with Ripley Training and a Digital Marketing Consultant for WSI Yorkshire, based in Huddersfield West Yorkshire. Steve also speaks at events on Internet Marketing and Social Media Strategy
