Photo by Jade Gordon
An interesting article in eMarketer highlighted the most successful marketing tactics businesses are using with social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. The data is from a 2009 MarketingProfs survey of B2B and B2C businesses. After looking at the data, I came away with a different conclusion than eMarketer — but more on that below.
According to the Survey, the most successful Facebook marketing tactic for B2C businesses was creating a Facebook application around a brand with 41.9% reporting success. The most successful B2B tactic and second most successful B2C tactic was creating surveys of fans with 37.1% and 37.9% reporting success respectively. Not surprisingly, the least successful marketing tactic was buying cost per click ads of Facebook for both B2B and B2C businesses.
For Twitter, the Survey data indicates that the most successful B2B and B2C tactics were related to responding quickly to PR problems and negative word of mouth on the Web. The least successful tactic for both groups of businesses was driving sales by Tweeting links to promotional webpages.
A couple of takeaways from the article. First, it’s probably not an effective use of your marketing resources and time to advertise on social media sites. I’ve talked to lots of small business owners who are looking for ways to replace the advertising that used to be successful in newpapers and the Yellow Pages. They know about the increasing use of social media, and they assume that the ads that worked ten years ago will work again in the new social media venue. The Survey shows that is not the case — people don’t visit social media websites to view ads and they usually ignore the ads that do appear there. People do visit social media sites to engage and interact with other people and with businesses they like, so if you’re willing to engage with your customers, then social media offers a new way to build business word of mouth.
My second takeaway is that none of the Survey data showed that a majority of businesses found any one marketing tactic to be effective. No marketing tactic was reported as successful by more than 46.9% of businesses. I suspect that this is because social media relates to much more than marketing and that surveys by marketers of marketers might miss this point. In fact, the most effective tactic — monitoring Twitter for PR problems — is as much a customer service issue as a marketing one. If businesses look at social media as a pure marketing play, they are missing the potential uses of social media in customer service and retention and in using customer feedback for product and service development and innovation. Look beyond just the marketing and apply social media to improve your business and engage with your customers.
Related articles
- Does e-commerce vary from B2B to B2C? (marketing.yell.com)
- How to develop a social media strategy (marketing.yell.com)
- Businesses to Fully Embrace Social Media In 2012 (socialmediaexaminer.com)
- Social Media and Customer Service [Infographic] (anisesmithmarketing.com)
About Paul Sherland
Another aspect one should take into view is that 90% of WoM-conversations about brands happens offline, while 10% happens online. Of the 10% that happens online, less than 2% takes place via blogs, chatrooms or social networking sites. The remainder of online WoM is people sending e-mails to each other.Source: Keller Fay "Talk Track" report (2009)For me the most important with regards to WoM-Marketing (which for me includes customer service) is to put the effort in working with evangelists offline. And then use the internet as a tool for the evangelists to spread their words for my company or product.According to Ed Keller, "social media is not going to be the pathway to WoM success for most brands. It's a pillar, an avenue for conversation. The role of social media for consumers is, for now at least, more about connections with other people than connections with brands." I guess these words should make WoM Marketers think twice.
Roy, thank you very much for your comment. As you point out, those consumer connections with other people, made easier by social media, can be so important for developing a "tribe" around a shared interest — hopefully related to the brand. The smart business will develop ties to tribe from a range of departments including customer service and product development.