Did you hire a professional web dev team to build you a web presence and now that the site is up you haven’t noticed any difference in online or in-store sales? More often than not a website alone will not increase traffic in brick and mortar stores, or those who participate in both on-site and Internet sales. Enter the world of social media and content marketing.
Social media makes use of platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google+, blogging and an array of other tools and techniques, to achieve a higher presence in our digital world. Let’s look at some fundamental statistics.
Your brand new website might not be pulling in the customers, but you can bet the farm your employees are using these platforms at work and at home. Just so you know why social media is so important, let’s delve into some intriguing figures from year-end 2011. Pardon all the extra zeros but it seems to have a better effect once folks see it in black and white:
Facebook – 750,000,000 people and companies have a Facebook account. Of this amazing number at least 100,000,000 logon to Facebook at least once a day and that’s not counting how many are accessing the site via their Smartphones.
Twitter – 200,000,000 followers and followed, and not all of them are following Charlie Sheen either – I have a few of my own! Since its inception in 2006, it’s estimated there have been approximately 1.5 billion sent tweets, and around 3 million tweets sent each minute. You can see here why Twitter, as silly as the name sounds, is no laughing matter. It is a very powerful outlet for broadcasting your message, once you have a following.
LinkedIn – 100,000,000 people are actively connecting to other professionals similar to their own. According to LinkedIn’s Press Room, they claim to currently have 150 million members. While LinkedIn is aggravating to some, it’s still creating a large presence in the social media world. It is playing an increasingly large part in the world of professional networking, personal filtration services and correspondence.
Google+ – 20,000,000 strong and rapidly growing in popularity, Google+ is relatively new compared to other social media platforms. According to statistics, singer Brittany Spears has 1,873,869 folks in her circles and Snoop Dog lands second with 1,686,689. These astonishing numbers should tell you why you need to be on Google+ right now. I guess I need to get to work too!
… And what about YouTube? The statistics for this video sharing phenomenon are so large I thought I’d save them for a separate section.
Get “Tubed”
According to Mashable, “More video content is uploaded to YouTube in a 60 day period than the three major U.S. television networks created in 60 years.” Wow! I used to be in the automotive sales business and have owned several dealerships to date, and the number of dealers uploading informative and funny videos is vast – that’s just one industry taking advantage of putting their prettiest faces on the Web to sell something, and it works.
Mashable also points out that as of February 2011, “YouTube has 490 million unique users worldwide per month” and this translates to an “estimated 92 billion page views each month.” Another stat? The average person spends approximately 15 to 25 minutes on YouTube per day. It sure has become a valued source for anything you missed, and for leveraging your brand or image. Didn’t see the entire State of the Union address? It’s posted on YouTube. Looking more for the macabre? You can find all sorts of videos showing celebrity meltdowns (or worse). Then there are those funny videos everyone tweets about like the awesome “Charlie Bit My Finger.” If you think a video of one brother biting another brother’s finger is, well, stupid, apparently 12 million folks disagree with you – that’s how many views it has as of this writing. By way of another example, our own Simon Hill, in his weekly tech roundup, pointed us to the current viral YouTube video of a father shooting his daughter’s laptop in response to her Facebook activities. 23 million views and counting. Talk about the power of social media when harnessed with a topical point of interest!
Need More Convincing?
Cast your eyes over the following list of the “World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies.” It includes some of the names you've read about above.
Facebook, Google and Twitter all made to the top ten. Why? It’s because Facebook has changed its “face” by adding timelines and other features, Google has expanded its product line with even broader social reach and Twitter creates global conversations, 140 characters at a time.
These companies are innovative because they’ve all realize their power in the social media marketing world.
The Problem with Your Social Media Marketing Is You!
Your business needs to utilize social media! When considering which tools will work best, you must think of whom you want to reach based on cultures, needs and business goals. YouTube does appear to have the most visitors but is more of an entertainment or “I missed that information” sort of experience. Facebook and Google+ are great ways to initiate viral campaigns and LinkedIn will help you connect with peer professionals. Making the decision on which of these avenues to take may mean utilizing one or a combination to reach your target audience.
However, all of these statistics come with a caveat, and that caveat is you, the business owner. When an entrepreneur wants to utilize the Internet to sell, upload a video or gain customers using social media tools, they often turn to internal staff that either lack the requisite skills or don’t have the bandwidth to scale an effective digital media strategy. Usually these folks are responsible for “Internet Sales.” They may be great sales people, but handling sales and marketing on the Internet is not the same as developing a social media campaign. Unfortunately, many businesses make this mistake over and over again and then complain when their social media efforts go nowhere.
Beyond that, if you assign a salesperson who is supposed to be focusing on Internet sales, when do you expect them to find the time to develop and maintain your campaign? They can’t – it’s that simple.
If you’re ready to break into social media marketing and all of the exciting tools you can use to increase sales and get noticed, you need to hire a content marketing company with social media expertise. Don’t rely on an employee who knows nothing about this highly dynamic and increasingly important part of your business.
On the other hand, if you think you’re doing fine with just an Internet salesperson dedicated to creating and maintaining your web presence, I have one thing to say to you? Why can’t I find your website?
Special thanks to the following websites for providing helpful statistics:
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