Tag Archives: social media marketing

Why SMBs should focus on Search Rather Than Social Media Marketing?

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Social media is definitely a magnificent platform for businesses to establish their brands but when it comes to acquisition of new customers from small and medium businesses (SMB), it’s not that effective. Let’s see what makes searches a better option that social media marketing.

Search Takes SMBs to Those Customers Who Don’t Know Much About It- Not all the SMBs has enough resources to invest a great deal of money in brand establishment campaigns. Moreover, such campaigns take long time to pay back. The main purpose of SEO campaigns of any SMB is to acquire new customers. Search makes it possible. It takes the company or its brand to those who are currently not aware about the products and services offered by it.

Searchers Usually Convert into Customers- Obviously, social media is for socialization and searches are for finding something. Online searches are made by those who are looking for products and services offered by the company. So, it’s pretty obvious that people interested in the products are more likely to be turned into customers.

Searches Convey Contact Details- Search engines are very efficient platforms to convey the contact details of your business like phone number, address, email id etc. It will make proposed customers of your business to find your business and communicate with you easily. And as you know, interaction is the first step of any deal.

Social Media Marketing isn’t Everyone’s Cup of Tea- Most people think that social media marketing is very easy and low-cost but actually it isn’t. A good campaign of this type requires utmost concentration. It becomes even more difficult when you have to acquire new customers. A company which uses Twitter to tell its follower about the new year celebration at the office, no new customers are going to be impressed by that.

Search is the Most Effective Tool for Customer Acquisition- It’s been proven that searches are way more effective in creating new customer bases. Popularity of laptops, tablets and Smartphones has enhanced its effectiveness to a much broader extent. So it should be the foremost thing to be focused by SMBs. Usually these businesses don’t have much funds for marketing, in such a situation it would be better to invest in a proven tool.

Any SMB which is planning an SEO campaign must consider the above points! Don’t be left behind with an outdated strategy.

What causes consumers to search online?

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The one thing that makes social media marketing so attractive lies in four words: word-of-mouth marketing. This is one of the most effective and credible forms of marketing a product or service and is the reason why so many companies feel the need to have a presence on many social networking sites. However, these social media users prefer a different type of interaction to help them inspire or prompt an online search…

According to a recent survey, conducted by BIGresearch for the Retail Advertising & Marketing Association (RAMA), they found that in-person, face-to-face communication was a social media users’ top reason to start an online search for a specific product or service.

The study revealed that social media users were even more influenced by face-to-face word-of-mouth than an average adult’ opinion found online.

This preference of face-to-face communication held across all age groups within the survey, and the only difference among any age group was that 18- to 34-year-olds were more likely to search online because of something they had seen on cable television, which was a smaller force among older users.

The study also demonstrated that online communities, such as MySpace and Facebook, influenced less than one-quarter of social media users to search for a product or service which is still a notable percentage. When it came to gender differences, men were marginally more likely than women to report such an influence from a social networking site and age had an even larger effect. Among the 18-to-34 group, nearly three in 10 searched because of social networks, compared with less than 20% of 35- to 54-year-olds and 15.3% of those 55 and older.

More than 71% of the respondents communicated about a service, product or brand in person after an online search, compared with only 21.6% who spread the word via sites such as MySpace or Facebook. Not all digital communication was shunned, however; about one-half used e-mail to tell others what they had found.

Social media users are particularly attractive to marketers because they are more likely to both look for and give purchase advice than the general population. Word-of-moth marketing continues to be one of the most valuable marketing tools available to companies so they should be focusing a lot, but not all of, of time in the online arena, especially in social media.

Information Provided By: eMarketer
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders

When should you outsource your Social Media Marketing to an Agency?

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Social Media Networking as a tool for marketing purposes is absolutely booming. Sites like MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other types of social networking sites are receiving the highest numbers of web traffic and are harvesting the attention of companies with big budgets to spend on publicity and advertising online.

Many of these social networking sites are offering great marketing channels and services for those large companies to reach their target audiences, in mass quantities of course. MySpace Bulletin Postings is a service offered by MySpace that allows companies to purchase MySpace Bulletins, Craigslist postings, and opportunities for seeding message boards to send out fabricated “bulletins” about their company or products. MySpace will then post these “bulletins” on the pages of consumers in their target market.

MySpace describes how they’ve “created a network of account holders who, between them have thousands and millions of friends. By having these multiple account holders place your bulletin, it looks like genuine and organic buzz. Whether you’re a brand looking to drive traffic to a jump site, or a band establishing a following, our bulletin program is a way to spread authentic buzz to a large group of people.”

The advantage of using a service like this is the reach potential that sites like MySpace and Craigslist contain. The numbers of consumers that can be targeted are outrageously large and are very effective in reaching a mass market in one’s target market. Also, since these social networking sites are based on peer-to-peer communication, word of mouth and viral marketing are almost guaranteed to take place.

There is one major disadvantage to using this service. Many think this form of marketing will only work for certain types of promotions. For example if you want to advertise an upcoming gig for your band, one can see how using a MySpace “blast” to thousands of accounts would appear reasonably real since the site is often used as a central site for bands. However, for a company that was trying to promote breast enhancement pills, there is much doubt any company could make a “bulletin” about that seem like a real bulletin rather than an advertisement.

So, depending on the form of business you are running, social media networking may or may-not be a good form of advertising to use online. If your company could benefit from one of these major sites, paying for these services could help you increase your reach.

Information Provided By: Entreprenuers-Journey.com
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders

Are You Skipping Through Ads on TV and Radio?

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Studies show that people are skipping through more ads in 2009 than in 2008.

The Synovate company took a worldwide survey for “IN:FACT global study on media and advertising” showing that consumers were not too ad-friendly. When it comes to TV, about two thirds of the population surveyed thought that there were too many ads, and 39% said the same for the Internet.

Some people seek out ads to share or discuss with their friends and family, but when it comes to North Americans, they are trying harder to avoid advertisements. Over four in ten US consumers said they were skipping over the ads on TV and radio. People in this region are also avoiding Websites with intrusive ads more in 2009 than in previous years.

According to the company’s results, “When asked about positive ad-related activities, such as searching for advertisements online, sharing and discussing ads with friends, or following brands on Facebook and Twitter, responses were in the single digits. Most consumers reported never doing any such activities.”

Behavioral marketing seems like an appropriate answer. In fact, when Synovate asked about targeted television and Internet ads, 42% responded positively.

“But the majority of those who were up for receiving behaviorially targeted ads insisted that the information collected not be personally identifying. Respondents in the US and Canada were among those most concerned about privacy issues, and most likely to reject behavioral targeting on that basis.”

Information provided by: eMarketer.com
Written by: Samantha J. Stephan

Creating Demand Online: The Newest of Marketing Trends

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How do you reach your potential customers online? Many would say that they are focusing their attention on SEO or social networking campaigns which are effective online marketing strategies. However, you have to wait for customers to click on your site and search for your products to generate sales which can be time consuming and very costly.

You do not have to wait for customers to find you anymore with a new online marketing trend that has just started to become very popular. Creating demand online, rather than fulfilling it, presents a plethora of opportunities for marketers. Here, you can focus your online marketing tactics to reach potential customers through the information customers share on their social networking profiles and then advertise to them directly before they have a need for the demand of your products.

For example, CM Photographics, a photography studio located within Minnesota, recently tried Facebook Ads to generate new leads for their wedding photography sector. They created a series of ads targeted to women ages 24–30 that listed themselves as “engaged” on their profiles. Even though CM Photographics didn’t know anything about those users and in what stage they were in planning their weddings, Facebook Ad tools estimated the number of users that fit within that target market and allowed the ads to run on their profiles.

During the 12 months of their campaign, CM Photographics was able to generate $66 for every dollar spent in revenue on the online campaign and had a 60% conversion rate of their unique visitors to their website!

Ultimately, by finding social media networks that offer an opportunity to make a targeted marketing campaign for its users, you should stop waiting for customers to find you and create your own demand!

Information provided by Visibility Magazine.
Post written by –Kent Seiders

The Social Media Revolution…

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Social Media is no joke…Check out this great video with statistics that will amaze you. Also, check out http://www.webitmd.com/social-media-marketing.html

Soical Media Marketing….Is your company doing it?

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SEO Search Engine Optimization is great….PPC works as well…Link Building is an immaculate strategy…but is your company also performing Social Media Optimization as part of your Internet Marketing Campaign.

The answer by most traditional marketing departments and newly entered online marketing departments is NO!

Social Media Marketing and Optimization helps businesses generate buzz and publicity via web-based social communities and online networks.

Blogs are a new popular method used by companies for users of the web to find you and read about your upcoming products/services. WebitMD specializes in installing and managing your blog for your company’s website and helping your ranking as a result of the blog implementation.

Videos are also an emergent avenue of Social Media Marketing becoming more prevalent. Having an online video about your company with relevant tags pointing back to your website will help tremendously. WebitMD can help your company create the needed videos and upload them to all major video website portals.

Contact WebitMD and speak with one of our Online Marketing Consultants about what we can do for your business.