Client Expectations
Gary Vaynerchuk is one the smartest entrepreneur’s who use social media correctly. The reason I like him so much is he runs real business using social media as one of his major marketing methods, so he walks his talk. Not the case with most folks who teach social media marketing.
My thoughts on whether social media marketing is for everyone really varies from company to company and product to product. I don’t believe social media marketing is for everyone. The big reason, is because it takes a ton of time and commitment and I haven’t met many (small) businesses willing to pour the money nor resources necessary to really use social media as a real marketing strategy.
If you are passionate like Gary Vaynerchuk (above) and willing to participate every day, every hour, every minute in social media activities then sure maybe this channel of marketing is for you. But if your not, don’t waste you time nor money on social media marketing.
Now you can use social media sites as a SEO tactic (hint, hint – borrow authority to get secondary rankings in the Search Engine Results Pages) which is how I use it for most of my clients. However, don’t register a Twitter account and tweek once a week thinking it’s going to produces sales, awareness, etc about your company. Just not going to happen.
Client expectations are changing and it’s worth while looking at how you can integrate social media activities for your local business and be able to met this new client expectation that are forming. If you do decide you want your business to become more active socially online then I suggest maybe start with one medium and really commit to that medium and then maybe re-purpose that content back out to the other social sites. Pick from Facebook, Twitter, and/or YouTube – those are the 800 pound gorillas in the room. My personal suggestion is choose video whenever possible. It’s much more affordable then folks think.
That’s my 2 cents for today. Share your comments below on your thoughts about social media and small business and client expectations of today’s marketplace.
