Overtaken By Social Media

Social media is taking the world by storm. Are you prepared to take full advantage?
There is no doubt that social media is becoming more and more relevant in the marketing world. It’s hard to find a business anymore that doesn’t have a Facebook and Twitter account. And why wouldn’t your business be connected to every social media network available? Facebook has over 1.23 billion monthly active users, Twitter has over 271 million monthly active users and Instagram has over 200 million monthly users.
Many business owners look at these astonishing numbers and think that they can get away with using Facebook as their primary form of advertising. Big mistake. Social media is not advertising. Social media is an entertainment outlet, a social channel. Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest are perfect for getting your clients to communicate among themselves.
Social media is unstable. We can look at MySpace as an example. 10 years ago, MySpace looked like a successful social media platform that connected friends and family. No one would have predicted that MySpace would crash so hard. Lo and behold, within a couple of short years, MySpace became almost non-existent. Facebook completely took over and left MySpace in the dust. What’s to say that this couldn’t happen with Facebook or Twitter?
Granted these newer social media platforms seem to be much more professional, but it is no secret that Facebook is slowly declining. In fact, over 34% of Facebook users say that they spend less time on the site than they did six months ago. Many users are complaining that their feed is boring, obnoxious and filled with useless information. Many of these users are spending much more time browsing Instagram which gives you the ability to look solely at pictures, avoiding all the other irrelevant nonsense that shows up on Facebook.
Marketing is difficult for many small business owners. Marketing and advertising require practice and years of experience. I worked with Eric Schulz, a marketing professor at the Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University, to come up with a guide for small and large business owners to use social media as an advantage:

• The right way. Your messages on social media must be timely, relevant and actionable. If the messages you’re sending don’t meet at least two of the three criteria, don’t send it! Just because you have a social media manager doesn’t mean that you need to send out 15 messages a day. Every single post should have a reason behind it. Is your post going to to make your customer act? Is it going to relate to your customer? Is it the right timing?
• Does your customer really like you? Just because you get a like, it doesn’t mean that this potential customer wants to know every little detail about your business. In fact, only 50% of Facebook users say that a “like” means that they want you to market to them. Really what these “likers” want is access to sales and great deals!
• Frequency. How often you post is crucial. The vast majority of users only want to hear from the businesses they follow once a week. In this same study, not a single user said they wanted to hear from brands multiple times a day. Remember: timely, relevant, actionable. You won’t lose many followers if you don’t post enough, but you will lose followers if you post too much.
• Contests and giveaways Professor Schulz explained that social media is most successful when you want to give things away. He shared the following story:

“My first experience came one afternoon in 2009 when I was speaking to a sports marketing class at a local university. I had a handful of tickets to an NBA game, and my plan was to give every student a pair of tickets to the upcoming game. After distributing the tickets, I still had about 100 extra tickets. Since we were having a hard time selling tickets to the game anyway, I decided to see if we could get rid of them via our social network.
I called my social media manager and asked him to use three social media channels – Facebook, Twitter, and Text-Messaging – to send out a message that said, “Utah Jazz guy is sitting in the Brick Oven Restaurant with free tickets to tomorrow night’s game. Available now until they are gone!”Exactly three minutes and 20 seconds later, the first fan arrived to claim her tickets.
Within 20 minutes all of them were gone, and fans were still streaming into the restaurant. I could have easily given away 100 more — all from one post to Facebook, a tweet and a text message.”

• Social Media isn’t for everyone. Social media is perfect for restaurants, fast food chains and retail stores. Small businesses can make their name known outside their geographical area by posting relevant information on social media sites. Any kind of industry that has disappearing inventory such as sports tickets, concert tickets, etc. can benefit greatly. If a ticket is going to go to waste, why not throw a quick deal on Twitter? If your product isn’t something that people are going to be talking about, social media might not be the marketing niche you’re looking for.

Some examples of companies that are really mastering social media on Instagram are Nike, GoPro and Starbucks. Nike, for example, has 8,970,154 followers. Imagine that: every time Nike posts a picture, almost 9 million people see it. Starbucks has been hashtagged 17,321,158 times. Over 17 million people have posted pictures of themselves either at Starbucks or holding their pumpkin latte! Now that is marketing at its finest!
Yes, it would be easier to get a substantial number of followers if you were working as a social media expert for a brand name like Nike or Adidas. The difference, however,  is that Nike doesn’t abuse this power. They post timely, relevant and actionable posts on their social media.
For small businesses, it’s best to focus on promotions. If you have a good deal for your customers, let it be known. Remember, they’re probably following your social media platforms because they expect some kind of deal or exclusive offer.
Don’t fall into social media traps. If you believe that your business can truly benefit from social media, follow Professor Schulz’s advice and keep your posts timely, relevant and actionable. Social media can become a large part of your marketing; however, keep in mind that you’re creating social networks, not just using “free advertising”.
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