Business Misuse of Social Media Marketing
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Tonight was a great night at The Bean Cup. We had quite a number of folks show up for the Southside Smoosier Technology Club and Indy Tweetup. We had representatives from web design, e-commerce, Indianapolis, local universities, mobile marketing, data centers, branding… and I’m forgetting a few more!
Some of the conversation turned to, of course, business use of social media. We spoke about some of the fantastic examples of its implementation and other terribly poor implementations.
The majority agreed that each medium and technology has its strengths and weaknesses - and those who do it poor, more often than not, tend to misalign the goal from the technology. It’s a lot like trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. After the campaigns are long over, the marketers scratch their heads and wonder how they could have failed.
Social Media Mediums and Example Uses
- Social Networking - networking, viral applications.
- Blogging - building authority, trust, audience
- Micro-blogging - communication, chronicling, presence, promotion
- Mobile Marketing - time-based marketing, alerts, instant communication, 1:1 permission marketing
- Wikis - collaboration, sharing, self-help
- Video - personalization, humor, viral, explanation
- Social Bookmarking - promotion, sharing, crowd-sharing
- Forums - self-help, debate, conversation
- Events - coordination, scheduling, RSVPs
- Virtual worlds - entertainment, companionship
I realize that you can build some fairly complex social media campaigns that incorporate uses and mediums in ways that don’t match my options above. I’m just throwing out some general uses of each of the mediums to provide some insight into how they can be used differently.
Many marketers tend to gravitate towards the coolest medium or the one that they’re most comfortable with. This is an accident waiting to happen because they aren’t leveraging or combining the mediums to their fullest potential.
Social Networks versus Search Engines
One of the largest misconceptions of Social Media Marketing is that, if you wish to sell your product to more people, you should go do it on a social network. Social network is synonymous with people, right? Perhaps… let’s look at it a little differently:
- The intent of people joining social networks is not to buy your product or service. In fact, your advertisement, or worse - your spam, is simply going to turn them off.
- 4% of Internet activities incorporate social networks.
On the other hand:
- The intent of a search engine user who types in the product or service you offer - or the problem you solve - is to research and/or purchase your product (if you’re there to be found).
- Over 90% of Internet activities start incorporate search in the process.
If you really want to utilize social media to acquire new customers, then you need to review which mediums will garner the most attention by search engines, not advertise in a room full of folks who aren’t the least bit interested.
