Is Social Media a Marketing Scam?

No, not really.

But there are plenty of scam artists out there.

More often than not, the retailers that are having difficulty using Social Media as a marketing tool, just don't know how to use it effectively.

Social Media can be a powerful tool, like a 747 is a powerful jetliner.

There is some training needed to fly a plane. And there should be some training available to use Social Media effectively as a marketing tool.

Pat McGraw has more on this subject:

Social Media is Failing Retailers

How many of your customers use social media today? What do they use and how do they use it? If you were to start actively participating in social media, what would your customers expect from you?

And does all this lead to your ability to achieve your goals and objectives?

Pretty simple questions – but many businesses failed to ask/answer them prior to jumping into social media – and some recent reports regarding the retail consumer and social media makes one wonder if the investment was worth it.

Social Networks are not popularly used as a resource for shoppers online. According to a recent survey (source: Compete.com), a majority of consumers do not visit retailer pages on Facebook or Twitter. When consumers do follow or ‘friend’ brands or companies, it is to mostly to stay informed of exclusive deals or offers (source: Razorfish).

Social media provides you with more options for you to reach your audience – so figure out how many you will reach, at what cost, and if the channel will help you achieve your goals. If not, why invest your limited resources in it? (Have you identified a developing trend that you want to get ahead of in order to be a leader? Great – but have you developed a plan that minimizes risk or, now that the decision has been made, are you going ahead regardless of possible changes in the market?)

Remember, you will have to invest your (limited) resources into social media – so is it worth the investment? And if it isn’t, why would you spend the time, effort, money…

Sales increases: The promise of reaching new customers has not yet been fulfilled. The Dell example of prompting potential purchasers with offers is well known, but if more retailers attempt the same route, can backlash follow? That would be logical considering a greater awareness of online privacy. So far it seems retailers have simply reached their existing customers only. Source: http://bit.ly/dg6jK7

For many, reaching new customers hasn’t been fulfilled because there hasn’t been enough time to move the prospect through to a sale OR there is no linkage between social media and the lead process. It’s the second issue that concerns me most – either your web form asks for too much and you chase away individuals, or you ask too little and hand the name/email to sales and they elect not to follow up because it lacks enough information to determine if it is a qualified lead or not.

Have you rethought your lead management process to address a potentially longer sales cycle because you are reaching prospects earlier in their process? Are you tracking new contacts via social media to [ex] qualified buyer to sales ready buyer?

Post from: patmcgraw

Social Media is Failing Retailers

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