Why Facebook, Twitter and Local Marketing Must be in Your Budget

I have watched a trend over the last few months as clients come to me and request “social media campaigns” … almost all of them have no idea how to have a successful campaign, most of them see social media as a waste of marketing dollars and nearly all of them will choose Facebook over Twitter if they don’t have the budget to pay for a professional to manage both.

Successful Campaign

Now, there are thousands of people out there saying they are “Social Media Managers” but the problem is that social media is more about psychology than it is marketing. Yes, anyone can post something on a social media account daily, but only someone trained in marketing (and yes, marketing gurus know a little about psychology) can think through a campaign and see what the customers will see, understand how the consumer mind will perceive it and change the campaign to get the targeted response. You won’t get that from an inexperienced social media manager and you won’t get that from someone who has never studied marketing.

There is more to social media than posting every day. It’s about strategy. It’s about engaging the viewer and it’s about building a following of hard core fans.

Waste of Marketing Dollars… Bah!

So many businesses are still wrapped up in traditional media that they overlook or limit the budget of their new media campaigns to the point that they set them up to fail. The fact of the matter is that more of your target market is hanging out on Facebook and Twitter than are reading anything in print. All of those phones you see in peoples hands instantly become a mobile marketing device. People are finding places to eat, reading friends check-ins and posts regarding your service and more. If you aren’t there to communicate with them, how will you grow your business? The answer is simple. You won’t.

Facebook, but not Twitter and Forget Local Search Marketing? Seriously?

Conversations with clients on social media or new media marketing always seem to go like this….

Me:

“So you want to begin promoting your business with Facebook and Twitter”

Them:

“Yes, what kind of fee are we looking at?”

Me:

“Let’s talk about your campaign and we’ll be able to determine what kind of price you are looking at…”

Them:

“Yikes! I don’t have that in my budget. We are running a newspaper ad this week (YIKES!) and….”

they continue….

“How much for just Facebook?”

See what I mean here… they don’t even consider that people are using their smartphones to stay connected. They look at the price and don’t see it as a marketing tool. Most businesses don’t realize that many potential customers or clients will search for your business on facebook and twitter before they ever do business with you and the facts are pointing to one truth: no updates = no business.

Now, consider how much a business pays for PPC advertising. If you are a local business such as a restaurant or doctors office you understand what it means to show up first for “Newark Dentist” or “Columbus Restaurant”. People are searching for these terms everyday and if you don’t even show up, your competition that is working on showing up just took  your business.

When it comes to facebook and twitter is it possible to use these social accounts to help you rank for these keywords. You will also see that when someone searches for “Company XYZ” (that’s you) , that your social media accounts will come up on the first page of google.

The same goes with local search marketing. If you don’t have someone helping your promote your business with local search marketing, you are losing out on a swarm of potential clients. Did you know that there are geolocation apps for Droids and iPhones that will tell potential customers how close they are to you and show your average rating? If you aren’t searchable or marketing using these tools you will be overlooked every time.

Sadly, most of my clients seem to choose just Facebook and forget Twitter and local search.

For those of you that do pay for advertising on traditional or pay per click advertising, how much do you pay per impression… per person looking at your ad?

I know that newspapers and other social media companies are showing you numbers hoping you won’t understand what you are seeing, so here’s my latest stats from a twitter party I hosted last week.

See that 1.6 million number? Yeah… those 195,000 people actually viewed our conversation 1.6 million times. The rule in marketing is that you need to have your brand seen 7x before people will remember it. How about 8.55 times? That’s right people. Effective marketing at it’s finest!

I will post more this week about new and social media, feel free to contact us with any questions you may have.