Social Media Marketing seems to be the latest word for anyone who wants to increase their online presence and marketing, but is Social Media Marketing (SMM) just perfect?
SMM companies are now growing everywhere these days and telling anyone who will listen how important social media platforms such as Facebook twitter and YouTube are to your business but, for a medium to small business, do social media marketing. networks live in harmony with all the hype? Is spending a small amount of money on hiring a SMM company really worth it? And did anyone really do their research on this before hiring someone to set up a Facebook business page? Some SMM companies do things like Facebook business pages (free) for $ 600 to $ 1,000 or more and tell their customers that they do not need a website because Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world and everyone has an account -Facebook. . Now while it may be true that Facebook is the largest social network in the world and yes, Facebook members are potential buyers, the real question is do they really buy? Advertising companies on social media are very happy to post positive comments on social media such as how many people use Facebook or how many tweets were posted last year and how many people are watching YouTube videos etc. but do you get the full picture? I once sat next to an SMM “expert” at a trade conference who spoke to anyone who came to hear about the amazing benefits of setting up a Facebook business small business page (and so on) and marketing on Facebook. So, impressed by the “expert” advice mentioned above I looked at him on Facebook and found that he had only 11 Facebook friends (not a good start). So as a research journal, I have decided to take a closer look at SMM marketing to see if it really works, for whom it works and if so why does Social Media Marketing work for them? And should a business rely heavily on social media to sell?
As a web developer I have always (and now increasingly) encountered a few social media challenges where potential customers say having a website sounds good but they have a Facebook business page and have been told by various sources (regular but anonymous “they” that social media was something to do, but after discussion with their needs it became very clear that those potential customers actually did not know why they needed social media platforms or SMMs to generate online sales, they just wanted. In small and medium-sized businesses I always recommend building a quality website over any kind of social network, why? Well, it’s really easy because social media is Social Media, and social media is Social Networks and not business media and business networks (like LinkedIn). I know that sounds simple but true and the statistics support it. The fact is that social media marketing fails to tell you that Facebook is a social network that is not a search engine and apart from the number of Facebook users and Google users alike, people do not use Facebook in the same way that they use a search engine like Google (which has a market share search), Yahoo and Bing to search for business or products. They use it to connect with family and friends or to news and entertainment. In a recent study conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value about 55% of all social media users indicated that they do not engage in products on social media at all and that only 23% use social media to communicate with products. Now for all people who use the social media platform and who interact with products intentionally or not, the majority (66%) say they need to hear that the company communicates honestly before they can communicate.