Social Media Integration
A new adjunct to online marketing has over the last several years mushroomed into a full blown blitz. Seems like every superstar or media mavin has a Twitter account and a Facebook page. Their fans are mesmerized when they receive their updates. That being said, should a business try to expand their marketing efforts into this type of media? The answer: perhaps not so much.
Web sites have over the last decade or so been the major gateway for business marketing their company, services and goods. The digital footprint has moved quickly, replacing the once dominate Yellow Pages, direct mail, even telemarketing. The web site is gobbling up increasingly larger portions of the marketing dollar.
Large corporations spend thousands of dollars developing web sites, tracking visitors, analyzing traffic patterns, landing pages just to get a better picture of what is happening almost in real time with their internet presence. The large companies also have a staff devoted to maintaining their social footprint as well. Social media has become the hyper complaint department, yellow pages ad, and marketing campaign all wrapped up into a single package. This tells us of the importance of the media, but also the extreme power social media wields. Be careful! Social media has become such a buzz word, many businesses are increasingly throwing caution to the wind and jumping into this phenomena. As we see it, there are several factors that need to be considered before opening yourself up to the social media.
Know thy customer
What are your customers doing? Are they Facebook, Google+ or Twitter fans? This will give you an insight in what you should be doing with social media. If your customers are all over social media, then it would be wise for you to be there as well. If the customer base is not, then is it worth the effort at going after a market segment you have yet to crack? Invest your time Be prepared: social media integration requires time-- lots of time.
