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Social Media Marketing: Too Difficult to Manage?
Social media is attractive for a number of reasons. "The size of competitor is not a barrier," Balegno says. "Social media levels the playing field."
The question is: "How much time should a company invest in social media initiatives?"
Time is Your Investment
"In a social media campaign, your time is your investment," says Scott Moody, PR account supervisor with Hollywood, Fla.-based Marketing Matters. "A simple answer to the 'how often should I post' question is to do as much as you feel necessary."
Balegno says there is a perception that the ROI on social media campaigns is difficult to measure. In a recent MarketingSherpa survey of business leaders, 43 percent of those not using social media cited the ROI challenge as a major hold up. "Management resistance in general was also cited, at 32 percent," he says.
When it comes to measuring the success of a social media campaign, Moody says there are two ways of looking at things: qualitatively and quantitatively.
"Qualitative data could include how often your company or business is mentioned in social media networks," he says. "You could also choose to measure how people are talking about your brand — negatively or positively." He warns that qualitative analysis can take a bit more of a time investment to manage.
Quantitative measurements, on the other hand, use clear-cut metrics. "The goal of your campaign could range from increasing traffic to your Web site to increasing online sales of a specific product," Moody explains.
To determine the effect your campaign is having on your goals, Moody recommends setting up measureables that are unique to your campaign. "If your goal is to increase traffic to your Web site," he says, "develop a unique landing page for your Web site that will be shared only through your social media networks."
Social Media is Cost-Effective
Social media campaigns are cost-effective. Balegno reports that 83 percent of the respondents of his company's survey reported plans to decrease their radio and TV ad marketing, "but 48 percent are increasing their social media budget."
What social media campaigns take is time, sometimes lots of it.
Moody warns business owners not to be turned off by the seemingly large commitment. Moody says the general perception that businesses need to spend multiple hours a day on a campaign is not necessarily true. Some media campaigns can take just minutes a day.
"Updates on message boards, like Twitter, Facebook, etc., can be done in seconds from any computer," Moody says. "There are countless applications for virtually every social media network available on just about any cell phone."
While it is true that social media campaigns require consistency and regular attention, Moody insists such campaigns are manageable. "I've found that once a business or individual takes the time to understand how to be more effective in social media, management becomes a non-issue," he says.
If a business is new to social media, but wants to start a marketing campaign, Moody suggests picking one type of social media and learning as much as possible about its services. "Don't worry about getting involved in every network," he says.
Social Media 101
 | Social Media Marketing: How Much Time Does it Require? Social media campaigns take a lot of time to manage - or do they? How Social Media Can Help Business This overview will help determine which social media site is best for your business. 13 Social Media Web Sites to Bookmark Here a few of the many online marketing opportunities your company can employ. | |
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9 Comments (displayed in order by date/time)
I have been thinking about this topic lately. The cool thing about Social Media is that you can reach entire online communities by simply setting up a free account. For a company who can afford it.. Having someone full time to manage Social Media marketing seems like a great idea.
A few product demos on youtube, a twitter account thats being used properly 
is a great way to offer updates about you and your product. Facebook is a great place to have interaction with your audience.
I have not used flickr because i host my own images but it can be a valuable tool. Someone searching for “Home theater installation” photos may find themselves in your portfolio. It would be lovely to have your contact details there so they can get in touch with you. It might be a good idea to keep your personal account separate from your portfolio pics.
Quality not quanitity<—- keep that in mind. If your churning out 25 tweets per day about nothing people will stop following you. I would rather see one valuable tweet per week.
39cent
Good point on the fallacy of numbers, a great deal of PR talk on Social Media centers on the building a following on twitter that provides a significant ranking. If you have 10,000 followers but only 12 actually listen, respond, and engage you -what good are the other 9,000 plus?
We tend to tweet about 10-15 times a day - (excluding back and forth conversations). Our average count has gone up because we now feed from our Facebook account as well as from tweetdeck/bit.ly.
Companies such as Twice and Endgadget who pump out 4,5, 6 messages at a time four times a day annoy the heck outta me but is partly a result of their wide subject coverage. I still follow them as the information is relevant. I do visit but will not follow sites such as PRnews who simply blast out 20- 30 tweets an hour.
My involvement is on a ‘part-time’ basis though i have a wish list of things I would be doing on SM if I was dedicated full time. The point being that it does not take a great deal of time, just daily attention.
oh, and loving the PS stuff you do… awesome.
How do you think this could be used by a smaller service business—we are a veterinary hospital with 11 doctors (so we are not really small in the veterinary world), and presently people find us by various means: word-of-mouth-referrals are our biggest source of new clients, generating 50% of our new clients annually. We also get about 15% of our new clients via our website, and about 15% from direct mail advertising. The remaining 20% come in because of various less productive means: yellow pages, public events that we participate in, drive-by’s who see our practice, etc.
We have excellent client loyalty, so I don’t feel that social networking would help us there. Our “no-shows” for appointments are virtually zero, so it wouldn’t help our clients keep their appointments with us better than they already do. And I can’t quite see how social networking would benefit us in generating new business—if someone knows about us and would refer their friends, I can understand that the referral might occur on Facebook, etc., but I don’t know how we can actually recruit new clients this way. We are a very geographically limited business (compared to manufacturing and distribution businesses).
We are worried that we are missing a huge opportunity with social media, and are looking to make maximize its potential for us, but I have a hard time seeing how to apply it.
All thoughts are appreciated.
Frank Utchen, DVM
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Veterinarians are GREAT candidates for e-mail newsletters, too. You have such a wealth of information for pet owners.
Essentially, what you would do is design and write a simple HTML newsletter that contains short stories about caring for pets. Your newsletter recipients will pass those e-mails along to other pet owners in need of such information (dietary, behavioral, etc.). The newsletter links to relevant pages of your Web site, assuming you have one, and that piques interest in you as their family vet.
Maintaining a blog is a great way to have content on hand each week or each month for your newsletter. Write about issues related to the cases you take on each week. For example, do surgery on a dog that’s swallowed a golf ball, and write a blog about the dangers of allowing your pet to chew objects. Then, tell your clients to read your blog (post links to it on Twitter and Facebook). Use the content to populate the e-mail newsletter, which might also contain a “Get 10% off your next visit if a new client mentions having been referred by you” coupon.
BTW, the same process I outline above for Frank could also work for CE pros. A couple hours a week can provide a very simple networking resource.
Of course, social media marketing campaigns—- like any marketing campaign—- can always be taken to the next level, as George is suggesting.
Frank
Geoff has some great ideas which are well worth considering.
My comments:
Just having a Facebook Fan page where your clients can leave messages about the good work you do and can congregate is valuable. It also can become a place where your clients can develop networks for dog walking, pet sitting, or any other pet related activities. (I do not presume to know what people are looking for, but I bet you and your partners do!). This helps build a community around, not just about, you. I may go to a site advertising audio video gear to find a specific product and price, but I will go to, return and participate on a page which offers the opportunity to have conversations and build relationships.
You can post articles on annual shots, article links, prevention and what to do briefs-(how to treat an animal with a broken leg-(to stabilize and get to vet), swallowed a foreign object.. etc.
Build it, let them know, post it in your office, on flyers -(you must give out flyers at worm season, no?)-and they will come. Encourage more participation by commenting at least once every few days. Don’t just advertise but inform.
One thing I would strongly recommend you NOT do is to subscribe to any service which ‘guarantees you 100 followers/fans a day! While they may not all be scams, they will not give you the quality followers you want. If you only have 300 followers but they are active, they are far more valuable than 2000 who do not.
I hope these suggestions are helpful.
Geoff- whoops-we covered some of the same points. I only read your post on my BB then posted on the page.
Thanks for writing this article.
I agree with George’s comments, but I still stand steadfast that I don’t want the, “tire kickers,” that social networking attracts. I can understand the need for it for a new business trying to establish themselves…
However, IMO, a well established business, (no matter what the size), only needs referrals from its clientele to bring in the new business.
Geoff;
It is great to see the AV industry take note of the communication revolution taking place all around it, but what I too often see are companies making the same presumptions advertisers made about the internet 20 years ago. Participants in social media are not just another set of eyeballs to push your marketing message out to, we are human beings and our reach exceeds your grasp.
The focus of the article appears to treat social media participants as a herd, to be directed this way or that toward the goal of driving up traffic numbers to a product or webpage. This is a fools proposition as the internet dislikes being told what to do and will find you out in short order. Concocted platitudes and marketing campaigns masked as actual human concern will fall flat on their own petard.
While there are legitimate reasons to be able to measure the impact a specific company’s participation is having, the purpose of a social media outreach is to be available to those who want a conversation with your company. Social media is an opportunity to listen, to hear what your clients, partners and end users are saying. The conversation is to understand that people want to be heard, to get answers, to feel as if their voice has been recognized and that the company cares. The conversation will happen with you or without you, best that you be part of it.
Talking in a human voice is not something that can be taught or learned from a one day online seminar from some self appointed guru of Social Media Architecture – or other nonsensical marketing quackery. My participation in social media is part of my job responsibilities but I brought it with me from technical support, where the goal is to solve problems not make sales.
My job title includes the marketing division of the company I work for and the end result of my social media participation for this company is a positive brand identity for it. I consider the positive results a plus to the engagement not the purpose for, much like a hydrogen car outputs not toxins but oxygen.
So PR guru’s can shout from tree stumps about ROI, driving up numbers and viable reach all they want – it’s not what your clients are looking for, nor should you. Talk, be yourself, be honest, be sincere.