What questions are you asking about social media marketing? We have found a useful list below but, in our view, there is still some confusion about the difference between engaging in social media for relationship management and Social Media Marketing.
Michael Stelzner
A report — How Marketers Are Using Social Media to Grow Their Businesses — was recently commissioned from Michael Stelzner, author of the book “Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged”.
The report concentrates on business-to-business marketing and business development: in our view, the use of Social Media Marketing in consumer markets is significantly different.
However, here are ten typical questions about social media marketing featured in that report:
- What are the best tactics to use?
- How do I measure the effectiveness of social media?
- Where do I start?
- How do I manage the social balance?
- What are the best sites and tools out there?
- How do I make the most of my available time?
- How do I find and focus my efforts on my target audience?
- How do I convert my social media marketing efforts into tangible results?
- How do I cohesively tie different social media efforts together?
- Does social media marketing work, and if so, how effective is it?
One Comment
It seems like everyone just jumpbs into social media and tries it out…to see if they can swim. It is good to do that to find out how each of the mediums really work.
Once you begin to understand their different strength, it is a good idea to consider a marketing test to see how to drive traffic from one to the other.
Then, in my direct marketing world, our clients want the most important answer: what is our conversion rate. How many sales did we drive, and at what cost to us.
People who “play” in social media don’t really count their time as a cost, but of course it really is. What would you be doing if you weren’t on Twitter? Would you be making cold calls to prospects, and maybe 20% of those would convert to real business?
I’ve worked for corporate clients most of my career. They put a discipline to all of these kinds of things, and the most important one is to have a Plan.
Without a Plan and measurable objectives, it is hard to know your success. So, I encourage many of the groups I train in social media to put together a Plan, even a simple one, so you can figure out your success along the way.
Target your best customers, give them a great offer, continue the relationship with them as they begin to buy from you, and then measure your results. Evaluate them, and then look for more people like your best customers. Good luck. Let meknow what happens!