Social media marketing has become more valuable than ever. Not only is it relatively low cost and much more measurable than traditional media, but the direct and targeted communication with consumers that it allows is extremely valuable. Unfortunately, if companies and brands do not approach this new-found tactic strategically, it can go terribly wrong. An article on mashable.com discusses the fatal flaws that are often committed with three major social media sites - facebook, Groupon, and Pintrest - and provides suggestions on how to use these platforms more effectively.
I was particularly interested in the article's comments about using facebook as a marketing platform. The author suggested that spending significant dollars on facebook ads only to have them viewed by millions of people is not a successful strategy. Instead, marketing through facebook requires a significant amount of patience, consistent outreach, and quality value-add material in order to build a meaningful relationship with consumers. From my own experience, I find this to be completely true. Having worked in entertainment marketing in a movie studio that had branded fan pages with millions of fans, it was easy to simply post ad-hoc messages promoting and linking to a certain product. Even though these messages would receive millions of impressions, it was extremely difficult to encourage significant fan interaction, let alone actually convert a meaningful number of clicks to sales. The most successful social media campaigns were those with the longest lead times that allowed us to build a story and conduct outreach that served to engage relevant consumers with material they found valuable, which in turn significantly increased their interaction with the content that ultimately resulted in more sales. This is also relevant to one of the key points that the article makes - that trust is incredibly important with social media marketing. This is especially true since most people use sites like facebook for their own personal self expression. If they ever feel that their space is being infiltrated by an untrustworthy source such as a brand, or if a brand's communication becomes ever so slightly irritating, it is very simple for the consumer to click a brand page's "unlike" button.
Click here to read the full article: http://mashable.com/2012/05/24/3-deadly-sins-social-media/
I was particularly interested in the article's comments about using facebook as a marketing platform. The author suggested that spending significant dollars on facebook ads only to have them viewed by millions of people is not a successful strategy. Instead, marketing through facebook requires a significant amount of patience, consistent outreach, and quality value-add material in order to build a meaningful relationship with consumers. From my own experience, I find this to be completely true. Having worked in entertainment marketing in a movie studio that had branded fan pages with millions of fans, it was easy to simply post ad-hoc messages promoting and linking to a certain product. Even though these messages would receive millions of impressions, it was extremely difficult to encourage significant fan interaction, let alone actually convert a meaningful number of clicks to sales. The most successful social media campaigns were those with the longest lead times that allowed us to build a story and conduct outreach that served to engage relevant consumers with material they found valuable, which in turn significantly increased their interaction with the content that ultimately resulted in more sales. This is also relevant to one of the key points that the article makes - that trust is incredibly important with social media marketing. This is especially true since most people use sites like facebook for their own personal self expression. If they ever feel that their space is being infiltrated by an untrustworthy source such as a brand, or if a brand's communication becomes ever so slightly irritating, it is very simple for the consumer to click a brand page's "unlike" button.
Click here to read the full article: http://mashable.com/2012/05/24/3-deadly-sins-social-media/
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