I was just reading this article by Jason Falls about the rise and fall of social media, and even though social media purists like me hate to read or hear it, he is right. The first thing that I learned when I started venturing out to find my own clients for social media marketing and consulting was that the bottom line is the bottom line. Ultimately, businesses will only invest time and money into a new marketing strategy if they think it’s going to bring people in the door or sell more product on their website. They don’t care about all of the intangibles that you think of as the ten commandments for social media. They ultimately just want results. And if they don’t get results, they don’t want you.
We live in a results driven society, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Could you imagine what this country would be like if we didn’t care about the end result? Our quality of life would be drastically less than it is now. Here are a few things that I’ve learned in my first year of bidding on social media marketing work.
Brand Awareness Is Not the Goal
Building brand awareness is important, and as a purist, I think that engaging with your customers on a personal level and getting viral exposure on Facebook and Twitter are great ways to build your brand awareness, but small businesses aren’t interested in social media marketing for brand awareness. It’s a nice side dish, but it’s not the main course. They want to know if it’s going to help them increase sales.
Small Businesses Want To Reduce Marketing Costs
They are interested in social media marketing because they think it will reduce marketing costs. I’ve had a harsh reality check with myself about what my service are worth, because ultimately the marketplace will dictate what I am worth to a company. Social media can and will reduce marketing costs if it’s done right. You still need to invest some money in the beginning to gain exposure and gain a large following. I always recommend Facebook ads to beef up fan count, because it’s relatively cheap and highly targeted if done right.
Brand Preservation is Important
I have found that many franchisees of large brands are interested in social media marketing and the franchisor gives them the flexibility to engage in this type of marketing, but they still need to preserve certain aspects of the brand. When helping a business with a mature brand, it’s important to respect the brand and make sure their social media presence complements their overall branding strategy.
Having said all of this, social media marketing won’t work unless you believe in the its core principles. It must be a conversation, it must be engaging, it must be interesting and interactive, and it must bring value to your customers, or they won’t care about it. It’ll be no different than a billboard to them. But that is why a small business owner hires someone like me. They know that I know how to do it right, they just don’t want to hear about all of the fairy tales and butterflies of social media. They want to know the bottom line, and social media can and does deliver the bottom line if you do it right.
