Nowadays everyone one is looking to get their word out without spending a fortune. Who blames them, times are tough. But when the economy is rough, it’s time to invest in marketing, not pull back. You may have read my article a few months ago. Studies show that companies that increase their marketing efforts during tough economic times, do better over the long-run than companies that cut back.
But instead of talking about investing more money, let’s talk about investing more time. After all, if sales are down, you should have more time available to market your business.
Social media is quickly becoming an effective way to dialogue with potential customers. And guess what? It’s not expensive and it’s a great small business tool! In fact, reports show that this is one area where small business is ahead of the big guys.
So, what exactly is Social Media?
Here’s what Wikipedia says (a great social media tool by the way). Social media is Internet-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences.
Some of the most common social-networking sites that you’ve probably heard of are MySpace,eBay, and YouTube. About one in three adults visits each of these sites.
Social Media—we’re talking mainstream now
More than two-thirds (68 percent) of online Americans say they visit online blogs, communities, or social networks. One-third engage in product research online to help make purchase decisions. Furthermore, the frequency of social media visits also is on the rise, with 42% of adults saying they visit these sites more now than they did six months ago.1
Think it’s only for young people? Think again.
Today, social media is created and consumed by millions of people worldwide from virtually every socio-economic background. On MySpace alone, more than 60% of the people are older than 25, and 49% have a household income greater than $60,000.
So why invest your time in social media initiatives?
Drive High Quality Traffic to Your Website
Depending on your industry, social media and networking sites can send quality traffic to your site. Some companies are using YouTube to attract and drive traffic to their website. Cysco decided to reach their mostly male, professional audience using humor when launching a new router. Besides building uber-user website, they posted their uber-user videos on You Tube (for free), probably making it one of their most successful launches yet.
A good strategy is to select sites that are somehow specific to your industry and then let the creative juices flow. Just as millions of people are using search engines every day, millions of people are now using social media and networking sites as well.
Links to Your Website
Websites essentially need three things if they are to experience good visibility in the search engines – 1) good content 2) good SEO and 3) good links. There are two ways to get links from other sites: naturally or pay for them. Buying links of course is easier, but due to Google’s recent war on paid links, they may not bear fruit. So, natural links are better.
One way to obtain natural links is to link back to your original web site within the social media sites you set up. Many social media sites will allow you to include a blurb about yourself and your company and add links back to your site. Once you get your social media profiles indexed, they will count as inbound links to your main web site. So bottom line, the social media profiles you set up create opportunities for natural links back to your site. Best of all, they’re free!
Branding
With social media sites popping up everywhere, it’s important to incorporate them into the branding of your company or product. By developing good content that features your brand, you will become the expert in the eyes of your potential customers. This is especially true on sites where people come to you for your advice and knowledge (i.e., blogs or microblogs like twitter). As people read your chatter, a trust will begin and they will become more familiar with your brand and more likely to buy your products. Facebook and MySpace are also a great for this and can help you build an online community that you can easily send news out to such as, special offers, coupons, upcoming events.
Customer feedback
Social media is used by many consumers as a way to easily conduct research on products they wish to purchase. In fact, affluent visitors ($75k or greater in annual income) are most likely to research products online before buying (43%). This may come as a surprise to many of you non-believers, but Baby Boomers visitors are significantly more likely than other groups to read or post comments about products and services on these sites (37%).
Forty-seven percent of all respondents say that blogs, communities, and social networks have influenced their decision to purchase particular brands or services to at least some extent.
Insight into what drives consumers to buy, how to tailor content to different target groups, and even how to better engage with targeted buyers in these influential online forums, will all have a significant impact on the competitiveness of a today’s small business.
Go Find Your Customer
Blogging is an easy way for a business to more easily go meet their target audience where they begin most online searches that lead to their website—Google. A lot of website traffic originates on Google, so it only makes sense to continue efforts to get better placement in the search results. Blogging on your site is a very solid way to optimize content for search engines—especially if you’re updating often and using the right methods.
Get started now. Social Media works. Here’s 6 Must Do’s.
Start a blog. Try Wordpress.com. It’s free!
Comment on other blogs. That’s free too!
Get active on Yahoo Answers. Yep. Free.
Make and share videos on YouTube. Ask your kids. It’s free.
Create a Facebook or MySpace Page. Of course it’s free.
Participate in LinkedIn. Professionals have now caught on to--you guessed it—it’s free.
1 Statistics sourced in this article are from MarketTools, Market Charts August/September issue. MarketTools Insight Reports are regular reports of findings on topical, national issues of interest. Data is based on feedback from 1,000 online US respondents age 18+, drawn from ZoomPanel, MarketTools' proprietary online sample source.
Michelle Lanter Smith is Chief Executive Officer of Hi-Impact Marketing & Sales Solutions, Inc.ing & Sales Solutions, Inc.
