COMMENTS
Interesting article. Findings mirror what I've been seeing with my efforts.
Honestly I think all businesses already know an email contact is worth more than a social media contact. Social media will always be a quicker means of providing information online without having the invasive feel of email. Having all 3 of the channels you've described is the best way to go, choosing the amount of resources allocated to each is a different story.
A lot of people spam on tweeter.
Dan-
1. I think it's also quality vs. quantity on any platform.
2. You can tweet, blog etc all day long, but if you are not engaging and most importantly, don't have a strategy you will not see any ROI with social media.
Not A Great Example:
We will be at X gas station giving away X - come visit!
Good Example:
Free X for our XYZplatform followers: text swag to 12345. come p/u at x gas station today!
One more way to reach and it's all opt-in, measurable & can be viral if it is good.
Just a thought.
-jen
@jenHarris09
This is a great article, we are just starting to really market our website and had to really pay attention to what was and what was not working. I felt for a few weeks we were spinning our wheels but am feeling now a little more confident in our efforts. Thanks for the read.
"If you aren’t seeing results in six months using a tool, then you might want to rethink your strategy, and how much manpower you put behind the tool."
Too true! It is important to look at available resources and talent, as well as the hard facts that an email newsletter may be much more effective than other facets, such as social media.
Finally, someone says what we've all known deep down--That lots of businesses waste a tremendous amount of time on social media, with nebulous results and no clear-cut strategy. Good post.
Dan, thank you for an excellent post. We have to remember that social media was NOT designed for marketing but for social interaction. We cannot blame it when it fails for being what it is not. Thanks great post.
Thanks for laying this out in dollars and cents. I too have found that e-mail still is the best way to get to you contacts. Social media has been an added bonus but not essential.
Impressive article, time wasting is a big and common problem,social media is friendly,it's interesting however at end of the day ROI still the only thing make sense to business, i believe in terms of followers loyalty,email > blog> social media. What is the best practice to engage on social media through one to one communication?
I agree with this article. It seems like most people that follow my account on twitter are also following thousands of other accounts. I gain more from reading other peoples posts about the industry I'm in, than I do from spending time speaking to a crowd of people that aren't going to listen.
It follows that if each of my followers on Twitter is worth $3.50 as you state, then I should be able to sell them to you, therefore, you may deposit $15K in my Paypal account, and you can have them all....
As a web developer I fully agree with this post, but regardless of the facts there is another driving force: 'what the client wants'. To deliver a modern blog engine without social media hooks is unthinkable, they want their FB, their Twitter, their little row of colorful buttons!
The development best practice we follow at Daylight Websites is to insist on blogging and automate the feeds into FB and Twitter. The key as always is client-side education.
Email is important but filters and the sheer volume that goes out impacts converversion rates. Creative use of blogs and landing pages with very specific regional and product goals works well.
I absolutely agree with this post.
Build Your List!!!
First spend some time making a strong relationship with this list, before you introduce them to products you know they will like.
Most website owners are too desperate to make money immediately. They do not understand the importance of the the relationship with their visitor.
Imagine you went to a car showroom or any other store and the sales executive comes immediately to your face and screams 'buy, buy, buy!. You would leave, and you should!
The same is the case with a web business. This is a store, but only only online.
Why should it be different to any other OFFLINE store?
Offer a valuable gift to your visitors so that they have a reason to join your list! Communicate with them!
Yes it does take more work but when you introduce a related product to sell, they will be a lot more responsive!
Bob:
You hit it on the head. It is all about baking a cake - read social media marketing informing a boarder integrated marketing program. But don't EVER forget the key role of social media - active listening and learning. Every sales person knows that the most important part of a sales call is understanding where your prospect is coming from.
The lead and sales flow from there.
Have a great weekend folks!
Howie
Enjoyed the article. Thanks for laying it out plain and simple. I agree tweets and post get lost quickly and valuable time can end up wasted. You have convinced me to go back to the old school and focus more on my emails.
Nice honest post, what I got from this is, not that social media is a waist of time but how it is integrated to the target output. If your target output is social media then your strategy is ineffective.
I am in total agreement with the points that you make, and I'd like to add more.
Your social media contacts are"owned" by the platform that you use to make them. At any moment the rules of engagement could change, (As Facebook has repeatedly shown us) and you may find yourself either unable to reach your contacts, or worse, stuck with using a platform that retsricts what you can do with them.
It's far better to own your list, and an email list is yours to use forever more.
You're not saying anything that's impossible to disagree with in isolation but I feel your take on social media is one that simply doesn't understand its inherent value.
I don't necessarily think that social media is a flat out lead generation tool, therefore comparing it to email seems stilted. In the same way, a call-in lead is likely more valuable than an email but it could be the email that drove the call-in, right? Rather than isolate channels I think it's wiser to analyze the relationships within channels to see how one influences the other. Otherwise, we'll be stuck in a vortex. Fundamentally, I agree with @Bob and @Howie on this one. The cake-baking analogy is bang on.
I think your points are social media are a little bit too disconnected. Social media is part of a larger marketing strategy for many businesses. Alot of companies are trying to get leads or advertise only on Twitter, which makes these stats ring true; if social media were a tactic in a grander strategy, it
will be more effective, I guarantee you.
http://networkedblogs.com/4fqw1
Its all trial and error in any form of marketing. If you dont evaluate what works and what is a waste of time then you will continue to spin your wheels. Generating a lead takes multple approaches.
I’m confused?!? One of your links seems to refute your premise. I’m referring to the line in “3. Social Networks” that says, “... it is reported that a social network contact is worth a mere $3.50.”
The link at “$3.50” refers to a 4/13/2010 article in Adweek: “Value of a ‘Fan’ on Social Media: $3.60” http://ht.ly/1UbK3 In turn, the author of that article got the $3.60 from a study done by a company described as, “ Social media specialist Vitrue, which aids brands in building their customer bases on social networks...” The Adweek article claims: “...the figures don’t include perhaps the most powerful incentive for brands building fan bases: social customer-relationship management. Marketers often use their Facebook hubs to inform fans of new products, services and promotions.”
It is very easy to “waste” time getting overly involved in the Social Media PROCESS to the detriment of RESULTS. Social Media is rapidly evolving and any analysis of its value must be viewed through that lens.
Why is this post titled "stop wasting time with social media?" Are you serious? Do you honestly think that emailing me with no opportunity to connect to your brand on social media where I can get to know you and listen to what others are saying about you will win my business? Are you kidding me? You're not only overlooking the value of relationship building in social media, but you're also overlooking the value of creating a broad footprint with your content in social media. That broad footprint helps you build your brand and ultimately helps you win new business.
I understand that email reaches people in mass. But, most of us get too much email as it is. I argue that if you had emailed me this article, I wouldn't have opened it. I read it because I visited one of my favorite blogs to catch up on the articles of the past week. I won't click the option to receive email responses to this blog post because the last thing I need or want is another email...
For the last year, I've been summarizing the issue for my readers, particularly small business ones as follows:
If you cannot find other things besides social media on which to spend time to make your business, succeed, give up now and get a regular job!
I think this article does not count what people want! I have quit receiving newsletters from 2006. I am 14 years on internet and I am receiving 100 emails per day. I just don't want to have more emails. If your company is talking in people that are afraid to give their email is going to be a failure to close your "time consuming social media". And before to ask the email of a customer is better to just have him connected via a social media. And what I see that I have much more traffic from facebook page than from email newsletter
Dell sold 3 million us dollars last year through twitter contacts!!!
So whilst I agree with the article its factually incorrect.using twitter for marketing when you know how is highly profitable.Social media when used probably far out weighs plain old email
for more on twitter see my dvd
Twitter Marketing Secrets
I'd be more convinced about #3 if it talked about more than just Twitter. For instance, I include LinkedIn as a type of social media, and I've made a number of profitable connections through that site. One could almost include forums as a type of social media, and if that's the case then at least 25% of my income from last year came as a result of social media overall. I'm not thinking that's small potatoes.
As for Twitter, I'm not directly sure how it translated into money, but it's definitely translated into more people visiting my blog and my website, which helps it move up on the SERPs, and who can be mad at that?
I somewhat agree with these comments. It is true that we have to think differently of social media channels. Those might not be great in generating leads but how about as a news channel? Take for example the volcanic ash issue in Europe. Some Aviation companies such as Finair reported that facebook was their best and most followed channel in informing their customers in real time.
I agree that an email list is more lucrative and certainly more permanent, but blogs and social media two critical tools for building that list in the first place. Without my weekly blog drawing in thousands of visitors each day, I doubt I would have much of an email list.
Dan, it makes sense but when I put it down on paper it doesn't feel 100% accurate. I guess everyone has a different story to tell. In my case, LinkedIn has been a significant source of business that email marketing hasn't given me yet. What I would say though is that email is still extremely important (many people forgot about it with the growth of some SM networks).
In my case, I'd go with LinkedIn first, email second and blog third in terms on business opportunities
If you have the right tools, social media can work wonders. Many say that most Tweeter's are spammers, however how many times do our emails land up in spam folders of others? Today's business world is a world full of social media, which will continue to grow.
The numbers I have indicate social media, ON AVERAGE and generally speaking doesn't work for almost all small businesses. Of course each platform is different. For example if you've been on Twitter for 12 months odds are that 80% of people following you are "gone". Of the remainder, many won't see your message, and of those most won't read it, less will take an action. So if you have 1000 followers, probably 1 or two people will read each tweet.
Typical numbers for conversions are bad. That's not surprising because people go to the various socmedia places for reasons unrelated to your business.
SOME businesses are better suited, and if you are a marketer marketing to other marketers you're in luck!
Seriously, at this point, just like in 1999, successes are rare, costly in creating, and largely a result of "hype and hope"
It's the integration of the different media that make social media marketing work. I agree that if you are relying on Twitter or Facebook, you've missed the point. Email, Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, et al, working together help make an effective marketing presence. Great post.
I agree with Ty, but here's the problem. The startup costs to generate followings are huge. Integration can help, and it will depend on niche/target, but generally speaking it's a serious #fail (on average) with some highly repeated success stories (but not that many).
Dan, this post made me so thoughtful. What IS a good use of company's time with social media marketing? Took me a whole post to reply - even did a hand drawing of a graphic to demonstrate what we've found works! What we have definitely found doesn't work - dogged determination or strained force. In and out with new content has been the most effective use of social media time for us. Thanks again.
http://www.handshake20.com/2010/06/time-spent-on-social-media.html
I had one more comment on this - just popped into my head and that is that if it's practical to build relationships one by one through interaction with people via social media, than it will work. The problem, from a business perspective is most of us can't do that and survive because it eats up time we don't really have.
It doesn't scale and that's my sense with social media. More here: http://socialmediabust.com/social-media-metrics-and-evaluation/20-social-media-sustainability/57-good-advice-for-using-social-mediaexcept-it-doesnt-scale.html
..or maybe this is better: http://bit.ly/aaHvr2