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Posts Tagged ‘social media marketing’

Social Media Doesn’t Stack Up for Small Business

October 13th, 2010 by Erin Posted in Business, Twitter | No Comments »

Social media marketing for business is sinking.

Tweets on Twitter are being ignored. Facebook updates are getting buried – and businesses are taking note. The ROI is simply not there.

A September 2010 survey by Econsultancy, sponsored by digital marketing agency bigmouthmedia, found nearly half of companies worldwide felt they were not able to measure the return on their social media investment — even to put a value on it relative to their other marketing activities.

Econsultancy’s report also suggested integration with many other marketing channels was lacking. While the vast majority of companies had managed to integrate email and social media, search engine optimization was the only other marketing channel that came close in integration efforts.

What’s more, a Wired story released via CNN this week indicated – quite bluntly – that Twitter is a waste of time. Toronto-based social media analytics company Sysomos scanned 1.2 billion messages that were sent in August and September 2009 and found that 71% of tweets get absolutely no response. Seven in ten tweets are ignored!

This is tough to swallow – even for me. But it was inevitable. Social media’s swan song appears to be over.

Now what?

 Tags: facebook updates, marketing for business, ROI, social media investment, social media marketing, tweets are ignored, tweets on twitter

Small Business Blogs, LinkedIn Generate Leads

August 7th, 2009 by Erin Posted in LinkedIn, Small Business, Twitter | 1 Comment »

Here’s more proof that social media CAN work for small business.

According to a new DemandGen Report of business-to-business marketers, business professionals claim social networks are a powerful source for driving leads.

So which are the top social media channels?

Leading the pack was, of course, LinkedIn (58%), followed by company blogs (36%). Surprisingly, Twitter came in third at 31%.

Sites like Facebook (17%) were found to be basically useless – and MySpace wasn’t even on the radar.

More nitty-gritty:

- Small business users say they’ve generated 10 to 15% new leads using social media
- Other small business departments joining the social network fray include: Sales – 41%; Product Management – 21%; Engineering – 13%.
- Top 3 most useful social media tactics: Joining industry groups – 25%; Starting conversation threads – 25%; Answer questions, participating in forums – 23%.

If you have the time, and a little know-how, social media can help ramp up a small business.

Look into lead generation on LinkedIn.

Send out some tweets.

Post to a blog.

It’s all about sharing your brand and spreading the word – just make sure to leave out the sales pitch.

No one wants to read that.  No one.

 Tags: business to business marketing, small business blogs, small business linkedin, small business twitter, social media marketing