Are you wondering why you should use social media management in your business?

Let’s say you’ve developed a great idea and expended time and energy creating a business to bring your idea to the market. Congratulations! I’ll bet you’ve even thought about how you’re going to market your fledgling business.

Well, let’s look at some of those marketing methods.

There’s the tried and true “Yellow Pages” Directory. That’s worked for decades, right? Yes, but we have become a society seeking instant gratification. Most people choose not to plan ahead and simply let the moment take them to whatever they want at that time.

So, you’re out in your car and you decide to see a movie. You have several theaters to choose from and need to know what’s playing and movie times at each. You could stop at a pay phone and look them up in the Yellow Pages. Wait! When is the last time you even saw a pay phone, much less one that had a phone book available?

We’ve now moved into an era of smartphones and iPads. So, just send out a “tweet” (Twitter message) asking what your “tweeps” (Twitter friends) recommend. Then check the closest theaters on Google Maps and find the show times on the theater’s local website.

Okay, so Yellow Page advertising may not be the king anymore, but what about the radio?

Sure, radio advertising can be effective, IF you get several spots during peak drive time and you have a truly memorable URL (website address) that you can direct people to check out. For all intents and purposes, I don’t know anyone who is going to stop their car to write down a phone number. So, you see, you need to have an exceptional internet and social media management plan to take full advantage of radio advertising. Additionally, radio advertising is very expensive when you want to buy time during peak driving time.

Well, there’s always Television. Wow! Talk about expensive… Do you know that most advertisers lose money (sometimes several dollars per new customer) up front, on the first sale, trusting that they will make up the losses on the back end and upsells? Can most start-up businesses afford to lose money up front?

Did you know that Pepsi pulled all of their ads  from the 2010 SuperBowl, the most expensive and coveted advertising airtime of the year, and re-allocated those funds to social media marketing? Does that tell you something about how valuable Pepsi believes social media marketing to be?

Okay, I get it… I need to advertise on the internet. So, I’ll use Google AdWords and other Pay-Per-Click marketing. You can certainly do that. However, be aware that you are then paying for every time someone clicks on your links in an ad, whether they become a buyer or not.

Let’s say you are paying $1 per click (which is very low in many market niches today) and you get 100 clicks on your links today. That’s $100 dollars you are paying to get those 100 people to look at your site. Now, if your site converts browsers to buyers at a 5% rate (which would be exceptional) you would have paid $100 in advertising to gain 5 new customers, meaning you are paying $20 per sale in advertising dollars. If you are selling a $17 e-book, you are then losing money every time you make a sale. Yikes!

So, here’s a Marketing 101 principle… What is the very best type of advertising for your business?

WORD OF MOUTH

Word of mouth advertising is about Sally buying your product and loving it, so she tells Joe and several other friends. Joe trusts Sally so he tries it and tells Randy, and some others, how great it is. And the “buzz” about your product begins to snowball and grow without a bunch of hype and expense on your part.

Remember, though, word of mouth works both ways. If something is wrong with your product Sally will tell Joe and every other friend she has. They will all tell their friends. Now you have a nightmare on your hands. What will stop this kind of talk?

Word of mouth marketing is what social media marketing is all about. You have profiles on several networks where customers can interact with you and each other. You may have some instructional videos on YouTube of cool things to do with your product. Perhaps you have a blog where you talk about new updates in your field or to your product. You can get to know your customers and let them see who you are as a person. Living in such a digital age, people crave a more personal touch again.

But what about the times when something goes wrong with your product? Well, if you are effectively using social media management, you will be able to respond quickly and appropriately to your customers. When something goes awry, most customers just really want to know that you hear their issue and are correcting it.

Effective social media management allows you to respond, not only to the person with the issue, but to all your customers and potential customers at the same time. When customers see you as a real person (or caring company) and sees you interact during good times and bad, they build trust and confidence in you and your products. When they buy something, they will look to buy from those they trust and social media management has done it’s job.

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