Let's Talk About Social Media

I've spent the last few months preparing and presenting web marketing strategies to some of our clients - a few of which are pretty big brands with even bigger budgets. But virtually all of them, even the experienced ad folks, are all confused and conflicted when it comes to allocating resources to social media.

Now keep in mind that every one of these folks will have to answer to the same metric at the end of the year - sales. These big budget guys can throw a lot of dollars and bodies at chasing Facebook pages, posting tweets, and making clips for YouTube. The small business are pretty much too busy handle anything outside of their own website, let alone all of the new tasks of dealing with TripAdvisor or Yelp critics. But at the end of the day, these businesses large and small are going to count up the sales gathered through their social media channels and make the determination on whether the effort was worth it.

Social Reservations

I recently met with a group of sales staff from Facebook and spent some time in one of their big-brand presentation. Part of their presentation - to a large group of hotel owners - was to tout the millions of website visitors (think sales leads) that Facebook has sent to their websites in the past year. The number on the screen looked impressive - like they were the biggest referrer with infinite growth on the horizon. The audience was enthralled with the promise of a whole new sales channel - one they'd not yet begun to tap.

Interesting. Enjoying direct access to this company's web metrics, I ran a few quick reports during the break. The reported millions were reduced to less than 10-thousand referrals in the past year. For a site group that collectively hosts a million sessions a day, Facebook has yet to break into the top 100+ referrers. Yet if you look at the advertising and creative dollars being allocated to this one website, by this company with deep pockets, you'd swear that something was wrong with your yardstick.

I actually think the little guys, with not enough time to even figure out a Facebook business page, are by default doing the right thing by delaying their jump into the social abyss. And at the end of the year, when metrics are reviewed by the big guys, I've got to believe that there will be a few WTF moments around the conference table.

Now do I think Facebook has no value in marketing - of course not. I just think it needs to be kept in perspective. Facebook is likely a permanent factor in our interaction on the web - at least for the foreseeable future. The value of Facebook to a business I think depends on the "personality" of the business. Facebook is, after all, a social site where friends connect with friends. Businesses have been somewhat scabbed onto Facebook - presumably for ad dollar potential - and unless a business shares personality traits of, or is, an actual person (e.g. Elvis Costello), then finding relevance on Facebook may prove a real challenge.

New Website? Leverage Facebook.
Probably the best value on Facebook is for businesses with new websites. Heaven knows that the world doesn't need a new website. But Google is indexing more than 100,000 new sites every week. A new site debuts to abysmal visitation, starting with the business owners, the designer and everyone's family. Paid search sponsorship ads can help kick-start the traffic, but not everyone can afford the keywords necessary to gain quality traffic. Enter Facebook. A simple FB business page shared with friends, along with a little prompting, can give a site much needed visitation. Consider that as of August 2011, the average Facebook user in North America has 235 friends, a simple "like" and sharing campaign with the business owners' friends and early customers can build up some solid traffic numbers in a short time.

Will the numbers be huge? Not likely. But they are better than nothing. Does Facebook "likes" help your search position? Debatable. Google says no. Yahoo/Bing remains uncommitted (they hint at yes, but results show otherwise). But traffic and awareness is real no matter what the source. And at the start of a new site, traffic is what jump starts visibility.

Established Site? Tweet.

So what about sites that are well indexed and already getting a nice share of daily traffic? First of all, it seems silly to me to have a business website that is just then duplicated (usually badly) on Facebook. Of course the Facebook page can have more personality and foster a real conversation (as it should) with customers and friends - but that's not reality for most businesses looking at Facebook.

Let's say you've got a popular restaurant with a solid customer base. You want to use the web to share specials to prop up slow nights. You've decided on a wine special on Wednesdays (thanks Bono's in Long Beach). You put the special on the website, but few people outside of those needing directions visit. So you put up a Facebook page. Makes sense, the restaurant has a "personality" and the regulars love and want to share it. You post on your wall that tonight is half-price wine night - and your 235 friends see the message just before they've decided where to eat in Belmont Shore tonight.

Trouble is, today only a fraction of Facebook users are checking their pages daily. The bloom is a bit off the rose. So your 235 just dropped to about 40. Not bad. We only need a few extra patrons anyway. In the end, you grab an extra couple of covers and evaluate the time and energy (posting, pricing, training, staffing) on the medium.

Enter Twitter. That little annoying website and app that shares Aston Kutcher's every thought. In the right hands and for the right audience, Twitter can cut through and build some good business with little effort.

Let me back up a bit. You know that Twitter is simply a mass-text messaging tool that broadcasts short messages to whomever is following a particular "feed". Twitter's "tweets" can be sent directly to Facebook - so that part's covered. Tweets can also be easily displayed on the company's website - keeping everything in sync.

So now you want to promote cheap wines on Wednesday and you've got a couple-hundred followers on your restaurant's Twitter feed:

Beautiful evening. Great wine list. All half-price tonight. Join us. #alfresco

Your Facebook page gets the message as a status update. Your website carries the message (hopefully your webmasters is on board) and you just sent text messages to your followers list. Easy. Effective and friendly.

We'll discuss the nuances of Twitter at a later time, but you get the idea. Now it's up to our expert marketing panel to share some ideas and thoughts. Scott.