Social Media is REQUIRED for Your Business Survival
More often than not, most small business and entrepreneurs throw their hands in the air. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter? I don’t have time for that!
The statistics of Facebook are staggering. There are over 400 million active users on Facebook and 60 million post status updates every day. There are more than 1.5 million active local business pages, and more than 20 million people become fans of those business pages every day.
The shift from outbound marketing (sending post cards, direct mail, buying billboards) towards inbound marketing has happened rapidly in the last 4 or 5 years. A few years ago, most marketers generated leads through trade shows, seminar series, email blasts to purchased lists, internal cold calling, outsourced telemarketing, and advertising. These outbound marketing practices throw a company’s message out far and wide hoping that it resonates with that needle in the haystack – hoping somebody, somewhere is listening.
Outbound marketing techniques are proving less and less effective over time for two reasons. First, your average human today is inundated with over 2000 outbound marketing interruptions per day and is figuring out more and more creative ways to block them out, including caller id, spam filtering, Tivo, and Sirius satellite radio. Second, the cost of coordination around learning about something new or shopping for something new using the internet (search engines, blogs, and social media sites) is now much lower than going to a seminar at the Marriott or flying to a trade show in Las Vegas.
Outbound marketing generates a considerable amount of environmental damage and a large carbon footprint. Inbound marketing is a more sustainable marketing solution where you help yourself "get found" by people already learning about and shopping in your industry.
In order to do this, you need to set your website up like a "hub" for your industry that attracts visitors naturally through the search engines, through the blogosphere, and through the social media sites.
You must get your business online – and properly – for your own survival. Properly? Yes. There is a proper way to utilize Facebook and social media – which is most effective as a tool to launch a dialogue. Most businesses, even if you are on Facebook, do nothing more than put hyperlinks to someone else’s brand or business. Would you send a postcard advertising another company? I think not. Most companies throw up these random links and then watch as the links build up with nobody commenting. Where is YOUR dialogue?
If you don't know what you don't know about marketing online, make sure you partner with, and advertise with someone who does. Pay a few dollars to bank off of the expertise of a partner company.
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