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what is social media marketing

Is Social Media Marketing a Waste of Time?

social media marketing a waste of timeSocial Media Marketing is a relatively new phenomenon but is it a waste of time? Gone are the days of simply giving out business cards, or posting leaflets. Social Media Marketing is the new Word of Mouth promotional tool.

I have however, noticed that too many businesses put too much effort and emphasis on promoting through Social Media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, only to see little return. Worse, many businesses don’t even monitor if their efforts have increased business.

Social Media Marketing campaigns can be utterly time consuming, so it’s important to get it right, otherwise your time could well be spent promoting your business with a marketing campaign that better suits your business, industry or promotion.

Is Social Media Marketing Right for My Business?

To answer this question, it’s important to understand what marketing actually is, and what makes it successful:

Marketing is putting the right PRODUCT in the right PLACE, at the right PRICE, at the right time, with perhaps the right PROMOTION.

You can find out more about the 4 P’s of marketing here. Please have a quick read, as it’s important to understand.

Ultimately for a marketing campaign to be successful you need to send the right message, to the right target market, through the right media channel.

Social Media can be a fantastic marketing tool if used in the correct way. Social Media is the modern day word of mouth / networking style marketing. Have you ever been to a party or met up with a group of friends, one of which has been bitten by the next big multi-level marketing business. We all know how annoying it is when that person tries to pimp their business at every possible opportunity. “Try these health pills they are amazing”, “These beauty products are the next best thing, come to me for a consultation”. It’s a constant sales pitch, when all you would like to do is catch up on the latest news and gossip from your social circle.

Well, Social Media, is similar. If you over promote your business, pimping at every opportunity, people switch off, certainly if they are the wrong people for your message. Whatsmore, unlike being trapped at a social gathering, it’s easier to escape the sales pitch by simply removing yourself from a page, or blocking notifications on social media.

On the other hand, get it right, promote carefully, subtly, to the right people, at the right time and Social Media can be the best tool for the marketing campaign, with far less investment in time.

Social Media Marketing is secondary to building your own marketing tools such as websites, blogs, email lists etc. Use Social Media platforms to drive traffic to your own tools!

Problems with Social Media Marketing

It’s ridiculously time consuming

It’s important to be disciplined with your use of social media. Feeling like you have to respond to every comment can be draining and fruitless.

You don’t own the media platform

I come across clients who invest so much time in Facebook pages and Twitter, building up a large following, maybe even successfully promoting their business and gathering clients. They have never invested in a website which they will own! Your social media page and profile is actually the property of the social network. So spending huge amounts of time and money building up a profile and audience on these networks ends up building up their business rather than your own. Furthermore, what happens if that site (although unlikely) finishes, closes down, decides you are breaching their terms and conditions and closes your page? Yup, you lose everything!

Recently Facebook have limited audiences of posts on pages. You get far little views on your posts. They are driving people to pay for a market. Facebook now charge to reach larger audiences. Many businesses have noticed this, suddenly interactions on their page drop and paid campaigns are required to have the same impact as those that were once free. Makes sense right? After all Facebook are a business too, they saw the opportunity to make money and took it!

Is Social Media Marketing a Waste of Your Time?

With any marketing campaign it’s crucially important to find out where your customers are and use the appropriate media to get your message to them. Social media may or may not be one of those places.

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