There are a few truths in our 2010 lives: The world is round, Justin Bieber Fever is in full swing, and social media is the number one activity on the web.
While I’d love to discuss Justin Bieber’s popularity (truly!), let’s focus on the last point.
We all know that social media isn’t going away. And that we need to use it. Somehow. In some way. To some extent. But that’s where we all get caught up, how much should we be using social media given all our other marketing efforts?
I’m going to cop out and give you the worst answer possible: it depends. But let me follow that up with: a lot more than you are, and most likely a lot more than the rest of your marketing efforts.
Before you throw McCarthy’s Basic Marketing out the window and burn your MBA, consider that social media uses the same marketing principles we all know and love – just in different ways. Sequoia Capital’s Mark Kvamme discussed this very concept at OMMA Global last week, asking marketers to revisit the classic elements of promotion for a social media.
Before social media became the prom queen of marketing, we all optimized our communications for an integrated promotional approach using advertising, word of mouth, public relations, and point-of-sale.
That process doesn’t change.
You should still advertise where your audience is. Odds are, your audience is spending a whole host of time on social media – and it’s not just the young folk. The fastest growing demographic isn’t Gen X or Gen Y, it’s baby boomers.
And you still need to get your message across to the largest number of people for the cheapest amount possible – the core principle of advertising, PR, and word-of-mouth marketing.
The largest number of people is almost certainly online. Collectively we’re all spending seven hours a month on Facebook, 77 percent of us read blogs, and Youtube has over 100 million unique visitors a month and growing.
The reason your audience visits each of these sites is wide ranging -- from connecting via Facebook, collaborating via Twitter, generating content via Youtube. Which means you have a whole host of ways to reach, influence, and convert them: simply spread awareness, engage and get to know them, learn from their own content, learn how they react to yours, etc.
Yet, only nine percent of small and medium-sized businesses are currently using social media to market. Especially for smaller business with limited budgets, social media is the ultimate ROI, as we’ve already learned from Moonfruit and Blendtec.
While it may take some time to optimize your social media efforts within the rest of your marketing mix, be creative, focus on reaching your audience in specific ways through each channel, and your company just might be the one to knock Justin Bieber off his King of Social Media throne.
This post is the eighth in a series called That’s Debatable: Social Media Edition – posts designed around oft-debated topics in our community, meant to spark conversation and gather different perspectives. Learn more about That’s Debatable, and take our social media survey, and join the debate on brandchannel.
