Tonight, I'm wondering why you engage in social media marketing - is it personal, on behalf of your company (or clients), or some combination of the two? Why do you have social media accounts? What do you use them for? Note that you can choose multiple answers:
And, while I've got you here - a quick poll about which services you currently use more than once each week:
I hope to follow up with some analysis and personal opinions on the subject later in the week.
I'd answer the second poll differently if I knew what "used" means - used as a viewer or as a user of the services.
e.g. is a YouTube user someone who uploads a video or someone who watches other people videos?
I wonder if others had this quandary.
Given that I operate in the personal finance/taxation realm, Tip'd has been my social media site of choice.
Great "Tip" Mike - I've been looking for something like this.
Mike,
I'm the founder of Tip'd, and I'm mighty glad to hear Tip'd is your favorite. We try to make submitting worth the trouble for finance & business webmasters, by ensuring that stories that go hot, get:
a) 1-300 referrals [we format stories to encourage clickthtrough to the source rather than the Tip'd comment thread]
b) link juice: stories that go hot don't get link condoms.
I can't help but chuckle when I see other social news site struggle--and meanwhile they're screwing the webmasters & bloggers via link condoms, framing the pages, discouraging comments at the source, etc.
Yeah, you guys have been fantastic for buliding my ObliviousInvestor blog. :)
Why isn't None of the Above an option on the poll? I would think the lack of Social Media Marketing would be relevent to any survey. Out of 100 users...12 use "A", 13 use "B" and 15 use "none" would put things in perspective. Or are you assuming that everyone is using at least one?
@archshrk
Well said! I'm with you on this one.
While that didn't apply to me, I agree that "none of the above" would have helped to round off the numbers.
I really look forward to see the results you are going to come out with!
I like to provide as much information and as accurate as possible to my readers, and this kind of survey you are doing with the traffic you are getting will be just awesome!
Thanks again for makin this kind of work public.
To be honest I dont actually have a real "goal" for social media sites.
I use FB to just keep all my personal info available to people who know me so that I dont have to keep answering the inevitable "what have you been up to..." when you meet people.
Twitter is my conduit to all the people I like talking to and sharing views with. It acts like a reccomended RSS feed, a chat room, a discussion forum, a problem solving site, etc etc.
It's funny, I ticked almost all replies in the first poll...
Outside of brand and commerciality, another reason I would engage on a social media site is to obtain product information. If I have for example, a new client dedicated to Active Holidays, I would join the appropriate fan pages, groups etc to learn about that particular product and its market.
This is a great topic! This is becoming a big part of creating awareness about anything online. People want a good experience with companies and services, so they do research and check out who/what their friends and colleagues are recommending or using, and I think creating a presence in social sites, and learning what people are asking about that pertains to your business or service, and then filling in the blanks with info of some kind is going to be a way to create a more personal experience between businesses and consumers.
It almost feels like bringing the care and personal service of a mom and pop shop to the internet; using social network sites to listen to customers and potential customers and to use the information to refine your internet presence so that you continue to reach your specified audience with the most useful and relevent information possible.
There was some initial confusion for me about how to go about this, but I think a business has it's own social network profile, and then gets attention and 'votes' from the personal and professional profiles of its employees, and they can spread the word through their personal and professional networks.
This is much less about gaming the system or figuring out how to make the internet 'work for you' and more about good business practice in an information age. Businesses SHOULD know and be concerned with the wants and needs of their target audience. They SHOULD be making themselves available to hear what people have to say, and most people want to find businesses to work with through recommendations from others. Using social media just makes sense.
"Empathy" has become more and more important in our search engine marketing efforts, as visibility, traffic, clicks etc. are only a part of the overall picture. At some point the priority becomes an issue of personal connection with the human being (or consumer/client/customer/user/carbon mass - whatever you want to label them), and social media seems able to place that relationship on more equal footing.
As of this writing, the most encouraging statistic from both polls is that people are using social media sites (Twitter in particular), less and less to whore for social news votes.
I've noticed that trend on my own follower base. Then again, the moment I see someone say "Check this out" and it's a Digg or Sphinn link - adios! So, that may have something to do with it.
Also, amazing how in such a short period of time, Twitter has (according to this survey), equaled facebook in frequency of use. I guess that underscores our rapacious need for a "quickie".
If the only metric a client wants to talk about is revenue, I tell them point-blank that social media may not be for them.
The goal should be visibility and responsivity (and money), not (just) money. Not because "it's not authentic," but because drawing a clear line between earnings and social media is not that possible unless you're Amazon or Dell. Social media can be great for generating traffic, focusing it at a specific landing page, etc. Unfortunately, social media is capturing people at every stage of the shopping cycle, which means that fewer of the visitors are naturally going to end up converting. Sure, people are going to your site that wouldn't normally click on your listing on the SERPs driven wholly by social proof in the best case scenari, but it's a double edged sword. The best metric for success is trends in referring traffic and mentions online. You can even justify measuring direct traffic if you can tie bumps in it to good social media days.
Again though, I think this goes back to what Jim is saying about it working for particular companies or products. Most businesses we work with aren't really suitable for social media since they are not providing products or services that the majority of social media users are talking/concerned/looking for information about while using the sites, therefore, even from a branding perspective, it is an inappropriate use of effort better expended elsewhere.
It looks a bit pathetic if your Facebook group for your business is populated only by employee's who avoid utilising it, probably causes more damage for your image than benefits.
I do agree though that it is a more difficult measurable, but for that same reason I think thats what turns many people off implementing any social media marketing on these sites since there are numerous other online marketing methods available that can provide very specific and trackable metrics - more easily.
If the only metric a client wants to talk about is revenue, I tell them point-blank that social media may not be for them.
I think that can be said for just about any form of marketing. That's why they call is marketing instead fo selling. Bottom line is that there is very little that provides a greater bang for the buck than a solid, well thought out and executed social media campaign, except maybe the same in email marketing.
I'm not sure about the U.S. but here in the UK (more specifically, Scotland), I haven't seen social media websites like facebook and myspace really work for driving business. Sure there was Tim (or Tom) the printer who managed to raise enough money to save his business through the Facebook group "Save Tim (or Tom?) from bankruptcy" or something of a similar vein.
Still, that is a bit of an exceptional case I'm sure you will agree. Therefore, I am very interested in seeing the results of this poll to find out if people actually do derive much value from sites such as that.
LinkedIn and sites of a similar style obviously work a little differently and have a value, but these social profile sites, designed primarily for kids and students to keep in touch, well I'm not so sure about them. Would love to hear someone prove me completely wrong (with serious evidence) on this but my gut instinct is they don't return value enough to warrant the effort put in.
Andrew, I am based in Scotland too and am beginning to hear of couple of companies who have successfully used social networking to drive their businesses. Checkout the things White and Mackay are doing with Twitter at https://twitter.com/whytemackayhunt. Also see https://twitter.com/showerguys who are having great fun promoting their Edinburgh Shower Instalation business using Twitter. Now thats main stream.
I would also slightly disagree with your view that social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook are designed primarily for kids. I am involved with a number of SEO, Web Analytics, Usability Groups on both these sites and there are some well connected industry people contributing. I know facebook in particular has a repurtation for being more about partying than business but I think this is incorrect.
Social media appears to be a great way to keep up to date with the latest issues and trends, get quality link popularity (in a meaningful way) and bulk out your position in SERPs. Using all your digital assets to add images, maps, video to your search engine results stops you being crowded out on Google by non traditional content.
In fact you might be interested in attend a forthcoming Web Analytics Wedneday event which we are running on the 29th of April 2009 in Glasgow details at https://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/wednesday/index.asp?event_id=2766 Should be lots of discussion of measuring the effectiveness of social media.
I don't think linkedin is for kids but for facebook, I'm less convinced. I saw the Whyte and Mckay thing a week or two ago, I'll admitt, I was impressed but at the same time it seemed like a lot of effort for a promotion that seems to benefit the bars in Glasgow/London rather than the brand (from what I understood of it).
Will check out the event and try to head along, think I had seen it in an email already but thanks for the reminder.
Orkut? ..... It has "Brazillions" of users! :P
I think if Rand was going to list every social networking website it would be a very long poll.
great little modules, seems that you are still testing how you can best use some of your new blog features.
@rand congratulations on following an extra 5 people on twitter:)
i agree with @rishil about a lack of goals for social media, as i outlined to a recent twitter friend who wanted to be a facebook friend.
I have 3 seperate areas of my life, ranked by engagement
Linkedin - Business networks
Twitter - brand building for my agency/marketing/tech news
Facebook - meet in person, drunk random updates, poor quality of judgement, bad photos, poor politicial correct statements, random thoughts, lack of judgement and overall good times
Yah this is good stuff! Very interested to hear your comments on Social Media....and Twitter? I must be missing something about it, just not seeing its greatness....thanks for sharing all the great info that you do!
When I voted for the 1st poll, the last option (connecting with friends) was leading over the others. Interesting :)
My two main reasons for being an active member of social network websites are traffic and knowledge. I work in the the field of finance and finance related social networks like fwisp are really helpful when it comes to finding niche- specific information. Second, when trying to promote a blog it has proven really helfpful to share links on various social websites for the benefits of real, targeted traffic.
Good to see Facebook and Twitter are top on the list.
Many brands are using Social Media for branding and engaging with the audience.
Check a live campaign here in Dubai, by a Hotel brand using twitter;
https://www.eyeofdubai.com/v1/news/newsdetail-29853.htm
Ta,
@smarketer
I am using above all social media sites. And my goal for using Social media sites are:
Rand,
I think effective use of social media is both... professional and personal.. some people may like the drama, "monster shouters" (stephen king reference.. anyone?) but <i>positive</i> people that are profesional yet personal tend to be more genuine and engaging... and if it's social media it should be genuine and engaging, no? but no one wants to watch a bunch of debbie downers or whiny williams on twitter.. actually some do.. (see sphinn)
Thanks for that survey.
I have two problems with polls like this:
1. the difficulty (which may simply be me) of deciding between personal and company when my sites are incorporated. They are simultaneously personal and corporate sites, just not employer sites. Plus branding is strictly 'my' corporate identities as I do not market my personal skills. Perhaps my literal programmer background is to blame.
2. Every business model, influenced by niche, is going to weight social media sites differently. Even when a SM site is leveraged it might well not be approached the same way. From others comments I know my use of FaceBook is unusual. And competitive deviant behaviour is a very private matter. So saying I frequent my FB account is true but ambiguous.
Re your request for additional frequented SM sites: some shall remain unmentioned to retain niche privacy; however, that still leaves deviantArt, Flickr, and Second Life.
@iamlost -
Sorry - I went overboard. Plus, I forgot to add the smiley face at the end of my comment. It was definitely tongue in cheek. I think I'll go ahead and climb back into bed and get on the other side.
Thanks for the correction Rand. You're right.
Sean - while your quiz is definitely amusing, we're trying to cultivate a bit more of a professional and less personal/conflict-oriented culture here on the blog (maybe try Sphinn for that?). So, it's not that I don't like the chuckle, and certainly appreciate the sarcastic humor, but iamlost does have some valid points, and we should try to be as accepting as possible. :-)
Thanks for the edit, Sean! If it was meant totally in jest, my apologies - I've been extra careful around this issue lately, so I might be taking it too far as well.
iamlost - I do agree that there's a lot of trouble separating personal/professional for lots of folks. The multiple answers do let you choose both, but perhaps an interesting question for another poll would be "which is your primary purpose?".
Second Life? I might move in different circles but it's probably been a year since I used to hear that name frequently and then absolutely nothing until this post.
Has its time come and gone?
trainSEM - for most web marketers Second Life is indeed a flop that they've long left behind. Heck, many web marketers don't actually make a dime of actual revenue from FaceBook, Twitter, et al. Did I just jump up and down on an anthill? :)
Too many simply jump on the latest SM fad without actually making a business case for doing so. When everyone uses much the same leverage methodology, as reiterated by every other blog, it's value dilutes, at best.
Yes, I do well with SL. On the other hand, I do not Twitter. For iamlost. :)
I would also be very interested to hear about specific cases where social networking sites such as mySpace or Facebook have worked as tools to generate business to business value.
My personal feelings are that the extent to which social media sites like Facebook & mySpace are effective depends on the target demographic of the company being marketed. For example, a company making an energy drink or sports sunglasses would most likely be able to build a better presence on social media due to their target demographic (roughly 16-30yrs old), and the perception of those products as "cool". However, I would be very interested in hearing about successful social media marketing for companies like accounting firms or engineering firms.
It can be difficult for many business sectors. How does a local real estate company get friends on Facebook? I (as a consumer) would look at them like, yeah I used you 5 years ago but I don't really plan on using you again for another 20 years if ever so I don't really want to be bothered with any updates or news you might have.
Or how about a local small bank? My bank is decent but I'm never gonna add/promote them in social media.
My car dealership? I might add them if I happen to ever see them but they wouldn't be something I'd go out of my way looking for. They give me lifetime oil changes and wash/clean my car and provide pretty good service.
Maybe some "average" businesses will just never make it in social media.
I have to disagree. Your car dealership can use their social media profile to remind you about oil changes, regular maiantenance, and special deals on service. If you have a friend that tells you they are ini the market for a new car you would recommend the dealership you trust, and possibly the salesman you prefer to work with.
The same goes for banks - they can keep you updated on rates, and specials, give valuable info about protecting identity, and poll customers to find out how they are doing, and how they can improve. This is a valuable way to remove the expensive research firms that companies might use to gage the current economic climate specific to their business.
Real Estate agents can also provide valuable info in choosing a home, have info on school districts, and neighborhoods. Info to build expertise and credibility with clients, and ongoing help with tips for whatever problems homeowners have after the sale has been closed. There's a foothold here that any business with ingenuity and imagination can take ahold of. Like some many other things, it will take time to build the relationships, but the effects ovre time should result it referral business.
The thinking that any company can toss its product into Facebook and attract an audience is almost always flawed. Why do people want their Facebooking interrupted by your product anymore than their favorite TV show?
What companies need to realize first is that engaing with customers via social media is "social" and so there must be a discussion other than "look at my used cars". What does that company stand for? What do they support or feel passionate about? Those things make up a brand and can work in social media.
For example, my company manufactures rugs. Does that interest you? Maybe not but do you care about recycling, global warming? We manufacture sustainable rugs and support many initiatives which support the environment and sustainable products. In there is the stuff to get the passionate community with. Then if they want a rug so be it.
I agree completely. Social media isn't about marketing a product, it's about reaching people on a deeper level.
Well said Deftone5.
By the way, real estate companies, local banks and used car dealerships can certainly stand for something with broader appeal than their own product. If they don't then their social media failure is a marketing and branding failure.
BTW - If I didn't list a social media site where you frequently contribute OR a motivation for social media participation, feel free to tell us about it in the comments.
I'd love to provide some early analysis (and my hypotheses), but don't want to potentially influence the organic voting just yet :-)
This would be a very interesting topic. I have yet to really figure out social media sites. I have been able to drive some traffic, but I have not gotten much and I have not really figured anything else out. I know some people have great success (so they claim), but I have not had that much.
To Drive Traffic to My Employer/Company's Website(s) ? Do you mean direct traffic from social media source or the indirect effect such as people linking to your sites because of your social media presence?
I think either (or both) would qualify as part of that answer.
As a vendor with over 100 clients, I have maybe 10% or less that have legitimate uses right now for "social media". I think that for regionally sized clients that their money is usually better spent on more traditional marketing and seo tactics.
if you want something intersting about clients not having a legitimate use for social media, try amazonfail or see how with a little bit of testing i can get several hundred visitors and organic search results in hours not days with my view of how amazon fail got burnt at the stake.
Im sure once this dust settles and the witch hunt stops, a few more companies might atleast be interested in getting an account setup and organise some basic social monitoring package with your firm.
Lets see if it works both ways...
Amazon calls mistake 'embarrassing and ham-fisted'
myspace...facebook....what about bebo :P
my goal is to generate targetted ibl's from 'trusted' sources. what i personally find is social media allows you to pile on the link building of low quality links (to start) which grow in value quickly
got a page 1 result for several competative terms on a new domain in just 4 months using this technique and i aint even rolled my sleeves up yet.
currently evaluating these: