Take a cross-section of SMEs,
go to the top of the office, and ask a general question about the use of social
media in their business. Chances are a
fair percentage will look slightly blank and then put on a brave face and stumble
through the buzz words of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and the like but probe a
little deeper and not many would be able to tell you how their companies use
these tools and exactly what information is displayed and, even more
worryingly, what their ROI is. The
Marketing lead may have convinced the Board that they must invest in these
channels or be “left behind” their competitors in the race to develop and hold
new customers. Panic for the MD and
magic words for the Marketing Director to squeeze cash out of the Board and
invest in their favourite hobby and using the company’s time and money.
The compulsion to have a
Facebook or Twitter presence is overwhelming and once done Sales Managers can
bask in a satisfied glow that they are truly in the modern world. But how much good does it bring to the bottom
line – sales? Little work has been done
in this area precisely because it is so difficult to measure, like a lot of
Marketing the Financial Director might say, looking for overheads to squeeze;
(no, let’s not get into the debate as to whether Marketing is an
overhead!) Ultimately any, yes any,
marketing activity must have indicators to demonstrate success, if not in
direct sales then at least in building awareness of the product or service and,
to use the old cliché, “creating a climate in which a sale can be made”. Expecting people to trawl Facebook and
instantly click to buy is naïve in the extreme but the power of social
media cannot be denied and persistent brand awareness, even if subliminal,
should be pursued even if it’s the potentially irritating advertising banner
running down the side of your favourite web page.
Social layering and brand
reinforcement is comforting to the customer supporting the decision to buy and
confirming they have made the right choice.
All Marketers will be aware of the convincing research showing that
given the choice on the supermarket shelves of either choosing a brand they
recognise form the television or some unknown packaging they, will
overwhelmingly reach for the former.
Don’t forget LinkedIn in your
strategy, lovingly known as Facebook for people who work. This is an increasingly important network for
the business community and adds a whole different set of users to that of other
social media sites and therefore maybe needs a separate strategy or marketing
style.
So what is to
be done? Ensure your company has a
strategy or time-bound plan for engaging with social media channels and this
means measurable objectives, (not necessarily direct sales), with budgets and
time-lines. Monitor progress through
customer and market research, look for the correlation between investment
through social media and the sales figures, use the relatively cheap technology
of tracking click-throughs from social media sites to your web site, and ask
the difficult questions of your Marketing Director. If they are competent they
will be one step ahead of you and doing this without prompting, providing the
data, and more importantly, the analysis.
Attributed
to James Barnett Managing Editor of Oceanic Business
.jpg)
