Social Media has become a preoccupation of many people in the past few years. Some have success with social media marketing (SMM), while others do not. Why?
It depends on the generation using it and the business vertical it applies to monetary return on investment. So if you are expecting paying customers to come stampeding to your business via social media, you may be disappointed. The technical aspects of SMM are for algorithm recognition which affects page rank display. This means you are doing it for better computer program approval on being relevant. So if customers are searching for you and see your organic page results higher due to SMM sharing or liking, then that is your reward but not until you have had significant energy spent on creating interesting content.
What is interesting content? It is subjective based on the audience. For some in the pediatric vertical it may be an article on how to get your baby to stop crying. This may get you alot of likes and shares because mommies talk about tricks for raising kids. But if you are posting content about technical items that only tight-lipped introverts will be reading, then it may be next to impossible to get a share from an electrical engineer unless a magical unicorn social engineer has stumbled upon your content during a search.
Yes, some people do not share information for the benefit of others. I have lived the aerospace culture of intelligence hoarding of technical information and you only get the golden secrets from doing years of work, not from reading tidbits from talkative PhDs. Yes, managers would want to cut down on labor variances in fab and assembly but for the rest of us there is no sharing of information to save our lives. No sharing? Did I just say that? Yes I did. I know engineers who would rather run the business into the ground than share information that would help others. No wonder so many rockets crash during testing and development. Imaging if they could share valuable information about thrust control systems via social media with others. Then we would have saved millions on space development. Like hospitals, oh no, must not share valuable information. Sharing bad. Let patients suffer.
Do I sound jaded? Yes I am. I have saved hundreds of jobs going the extra mile to do what nobody else wanted to do because they did not want to share information. Do I spend hours and hours trying to give discounts to potential customers in the field of electronics and computer systems? I sure do. But do they share it on social media and buy from the website? No they do not, sorry. I wish they did. Even with the coupon code, you have to beat customers over the head to buy something they need. I am guilty of the same behavior of waiting to buy.
So if you are running specials on your products, sending email campaigns, posting to facebook, tweeting up a storm, and still no paying customers, it is not you. It is customer behavior. Just think of the last time you should have changed the oil on your car and waited another month to do it. Did it matter that the auto shop was running a special on oil changes? No, because your budget was not ready for the expenditure. Did you get a coupon in your email that was priced well? Yes you did, but that did not get you off the couch to spend money. If you want motivation there are countless examples of 78% off on monthly specials in electronics, but if the customer is not ready to buy then you have to wait. Sorry. No social media will make a horse drink water. Drink horsey! Drink!
The algorithm will be happy that your website has relevant information because you are being liked and shared by the occasional communicator social type person. But if you are looking for tons of paying customers from social media, you will be disappointed. If by chance you are lucky and have a business that gets customers from facebook like restaurants, then great, but they cannot order a steak via facebook. Customers review Yelp accounts daily and then decide to spend money but they cannot buy directly from social media. Yelp deals do exist but beware of customers that get angry because they have the wrong impression of the discount as it applies to their transaction. It is a double edged sword.
Twitter SMM
You may track them on analytics from where they see your coupons. This may help you justify the money you spend on social media marketing, and may make you happy as a business owner. But those stats will only make you happy if you have a really diligent financial analyst taking notes on all transactions from coupon sales. There are ways to track social media impact on sales receipts and Allied Virtual Media knows how to do that.