If you’ve read my previous blogs you’re aware of the fact that there are 7 billion people in the world and 2 billion of them have active social media accounts. 1.35 billion people worldwide have Facebook accounts. Even more staggering is the fact that almost 1.7 billion of the globe’s entire population are active mobile social media users!
Ruminate on that for a moment. Do you know of another marketing vehicle where you can reach almost one third of the world’s population so efficiently, inexpensively and so closely targeted? This, my friends, is a marketer’s dream and a golden opportunity for your company to dominate your market segment.
Yet, regardless of the opportunity, marketers are often told by prospective clients that they’ve tried social media and that “social media is not working for my company.”
Read on for the 5 obstacles that stand in the way of explosive revenue growth so that your company can have social media work wonders for your brand and business.
1. Facebook forces you to pay to play.
With 1.35 billion users overall and 890 million daily users, Facebook is the largest social media platform. Once its CEO Mr. Zuckerberg took the company public, there was immediate pressure to generate significant revenue and there were shareholders to answer to. When company execs go to their business Facebook page, they may notice that while they may have built a large fan base, any outbound messaging only reaches a very small percentage of their actual following. The way Facebook makes money ($12.5 billion in 2014, almost exclusively from ad revenue) is by charging businesses to reach their existing & prospective fans. The “secret sauce” to successfully using Facebook is to invest by deploying programs and strategic content that will drive traffic to your page and generate new fans that ultimately result in new customer acquisition and sales revenues. The good news is that you don’t need a large budget to achieve results. There is no media known to be as cost efficient as Facebook advertising, if used correctly. And for a modest investment in consultative services to benefit from a wealth of knowledge on how to best leverage some of the many hidden opportunities with social media, your return on investment can be truly remarkable.
2. It’s not all about you!
Many businesses make the mistake of talking, post after post, about their products and urging consumers to BUY NOW! If your target demographic is following your page, they know who you are, like what you do and are interested in keeping in touch. It’s called social media for a reason. At that point you’ll be far more successful behaving as a “lifestyle” magazine to your followers where 80% of the time your content is about areas of interest to your followers and 20% of the time about your products and driving revenue. Any business must understand that once someone has decided to follow you, you own their interest and loyalty…unless you give them a reason to stop following.
3. Pull, don’t push.
Appeal to your customers, don’t scream at them. Offering valuable content such as an informative e-book that would be of interest to your demographic is a great way to reinforce your brand while not being pushy. It gets a conversation started with your customer as they can ask questions. You will also be perceived as helpful and a thought leader to your valued client base and you’ll be surprised to find that consumers who’ve read your e-book will then hire you to execute the service you’ve described in your e-book or buy the products mentioned.
4. Do one thing right.
Too often businesses see the many social media platforms and want to be on all of them. Soon thereafter they realize they don’t have the time to properly maintain them. Through consultation with your favourite social media strategist, they can create a proposal specifically to meet your business needs and properly leverage the sites your customers frequent. They will also create killer content that will highlight your business in a positive way by offering information of interest to your community. Do it right or don’t do it at all!
5. Get real!
Authenticity is a key component when building a social media community. Building a relationship with your community is an integral element of your company’s success when leveraging social media. Consumers do business with those whom they trust, know and like. Take the time to think about information that will be of interest to your followers. Informative content based on the interests of your followers that is also within your sector will increase interactive engagement and allow you to maintain an ongoing relationship throughout the purchasing lifecycle.
At the end of the day, realize that it may not be the media that’s broken but the way you’ve been executing your social media initiative. Click here to get in touch to discuss your social media program!