| By :
Julie Burmeister
How pleased are you with your social marketing efforts? Has it performed brilliantly as you expected? Or have you been left tired and frustrated? You're not alone if you're one of the many marketers out there who believes they need social marketing, but don't know what to do. The first thing to ask yourself is what you are trying to accomplish. Social marketing is like all other marketing tools. Not every tool is right for every task. And if you're counting on social marketing to generate business and reduce your media expenditures, it might work for you or you might be greatly disappointed. For instance, our advertising agency created a blog with two specific goals -- help with our SEO, and let folks know a little bit more about how we think. If you're entering the social marketing arena, you need to be just as clear about your goals. That way, you won't waste time (and lots of it) on marketing that doesn't generate results. And you'll know how to measure the results you do receive. After all, Facebook is a wonderful tool for restaurants and retailers to offer happy hour specials and Saturday-only coupons. Consumers "like" them because they receive specials to their favorite places. And the retailers can get the word out without the expense of a newspaper ad. But if you're a bank or an insurance company, for instance, what can you offer that will make people want to "like" you? What financial or emotional benefit can you provide on an ongoing basis? It becomes much more difficult. Many of you have created a Facebook page, asked your employees to invite their friends, and in the end, you have perhaps 400 people on your Facebook page. A year later, you've spent an enormous amount of time posting, and you don't know if you've even generated one new account. Sound familiar? The problem is that you jumped in without a goal. You wouldn't run a newspaper ad without knowing what you wanted it to achieve. You should look at your social marketing plans the same way. You need to ask yourself whether you're looking to generate new business, solidify current customer relationships, cross-sell products, build your brand, etc. Social marketing may be a great answer to one of those goals, but not to all of them. When clients ask us to help with social marketing, we always start by defining the objective. Facebook can't fulfill all goals, the same way that a billboard can't fulfill all of your goals. If you begin with an objective for social marketing, you and your advertising agency can then determine whether it's achievable. If it is, then the next step is to determine what the most creative solution might be. Our job has always been to outline our client's goals, and help them generate the greatest results for their dollars and efforts. If you simply look at social marketing as another tool in the toolbox, with its own strengths and weaknesses, you can find ways to make it another success story.
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