Por Que Social Media

Social media marketing. Can you afford not to?

The rapid growth of social media has added another string to the bow of many marketing campaigns. Here we take a look at how social media can be beneficial to a B2B marketing campaign and the issues surrounding that all important return on investment. Pretty much every survey you read on social media marketing cites the 'big three' as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, so for the purposes of this article we'll focus on those three.

Many people use various social media sites for personal use – catching up with friends, sharing news and keeping up to date with happenings in our own areas of interest – but how does that translate in a business environment?

Many B2C companies use social media to increase sales, build brand awareness and launch new products and services. Using social media for marketing in a B2B environment is an entirely different ball game from either B2C marketing or personal use.

ROI is notoriously difficult to calculate where social media is concerned. Until you know what you are trying to achieve it is impossible to know whether or not you are going in the right direction. When integrating social media into your overall marketing strategy perhaps the question should not only be 'what do I want to gain?' but also “what can I gain?”. There is little use in having unrealistic expectations. Know what is possible, then work out how you can gain from it.

If you want to launch a new product, Facebook may not be the best platform. If you want to improve your customer service offering, however, Facebook and Twitter should be top of your list. For networking and business recommendations, an up to date, active LinkedIn profile should be your social media priority.

Whatever you decide to use social media for, make sure it aligns with goals across the business and integrates with your overall marketing strategy.

If you're looking into whether or not to invest time and money in social media marketing, maybe the question shouldn't be 'can we afford to'? but 'can we afford not to?'. What is the cost in lost sales of being invisible in the social media world?