Is Social Media Marketing Worth It?

Dorien Morin-van Dam

Have You Ever Questioned the Value of Your Social Media Presence?

Are you wondering if social media marketing is still worth it for your and your business? Here’s why you shouldn’t give up on your Social Media Marketing even if your stats are down. You might need to re-focus and adjust but never stop having an active social presence for your business, big or small. It would be like stopping maintenance work in your shop because they don’t seem to change anything. Would you wait for that pipe to burst? If you do, you’d incur in repair works that you could have avoided.

In your marketing, how can you avoid ‘repair work’? One way is to remain active on Social Media in order to have a STRONG system in place.

Just like with any maintenance task, here are some factors that make it challenging to perceive your Social Media Marketing’s worth:

Online Noise – everyone in your line of business seems to be creating awesome content and adding to the noise. It might have become overwhelming for you to compete with them.

Tired Audience – your current and potential customers are tired of the noise and seem indifferent to Social Media posts.

Lack of time – you rather spend the time needed to create an effective social media strategy on other business tasks.

Sounds familiar? Can you relate? The good news is that for each of the above, there is an answer and a solution:

• Focus on YOUR goals and in having a relevant content marketing strategy and don’t get sucked into the rabbit hole by looking at what others are doing. Their inspirational quotes might be popular but they have nothing to do with marketing success. Brooke Ballard of B Squared Media wrote a recent article on how NOT to waste time on Social Media and what you should be doing and looking at instead.
  
• Your Audience might not be responding but they are watching FOR SURE! Here’s proof that Facebook is full of lurkers.
  
• Outsource some or all of your Social Media marketing to an agency. As you can see from this article on Entrepreneur, there are tools involved and technicalities that require time and knowledge for an efficient Social Media strategy. You’re not expected to be able to do it yourself.

You still might not be convinced that remaining on Social Media is your best option.

Let’s look at what some of the experts are saying, backed by numbers and facts:

1. Consumers will only search for a business like yours online when they’re ready to buy. When they do, they “expect brands to be on almost 3.5 different social platforms”. However, they only “follow brands on just over 1.5 social platforms.” These important facts and others about expectations are highlighted by Jay Baer in his Convince and Convert blog. Jay highlights the very different ways in which brands and consumers expect their online relationship to work. This might be what you need to understand in order to look at your social marketing efforts in a different way.
   
2. Facebook is HUGE and it isn’t going anywhere (for now). Mark W. Schaefer gives 6 reasons why this is so in his {grow} blog. If Facebook is working for you, or if Instagram can be added to the ‘Combo’, then remain there and optimize your strategy.

Let’s also consider these general principles underlying Social Media marketing:

3. Your most loyal online followers are not necessarily your biggest customers BUT they’re connected to other people and can help you reach further.
   
4. Active social profiles are more likely to be updated on regular basis and there would be no need to rush in creating new ones when creating campaigns during peak consumer seasons.

Hopefully, you’re now convinced of the value of keeping and improving or adjusting your current social media marketing efforts.

In closing, this is what Nick Rojas has to say about the Benefits of Social Media marketing in an article at the Tabsite blog:

“While hard numbers are important, there are some more abstract concepts that are more difficult to measure but are vital for any social media strategy. A strategic and powerful social media presence has immense value for small businesses in particular. In today’s Internet-fueled world, customers expect businesses to be where they hang out – and in many cases that’s social media networks. Social media profiles make it easy for businesses to engage with customers and build genuine relationships with them.”

Your Turn:

Are you disappointed with your Social Media marketing ‘results’? Is it because you’re looking at the wrong Stats? Maybe you should concentrate on your current followers and nurture them, do a Social Audit like Dorien suggested earlier this year and improve your strategy. If you have any comments, I’d love to read them below.

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