How can companies attract attention through social media?

As I mentioned in my previous post, many marketers are guided by hypes. Under the marketers are a lot of trendsetters but especially a lot of followers. Nowadays followers presume the opportunities in social media after the success stories about Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook. The multichannel internet strategy is supposed the best way for online success for organizations. In this strategy social websites have a limited function. To develop a successful campaign are marketing research, a considerable budget and patience essential.

Social media is mostly used to stay in touch with family and friends. A much smaller proportion of the social media users uses social media to orientate themselves on new products. This narrow interest has to deal with the way on which people are approached by companies. Social media is a personal matter in which people are centralized. The classical advertisements do not gain profit because users are surfing around in their social network with other purposes. Therefore, companies have to make sure that they become part of the social network of their target group.

Social media is focused on sharing information. Many users surf around in their own network to read the ‘facts and gossips’ about their friends. A company has to behave with a same entry on social media sites. Thus, advertisements on pages are not profitable but designing a company profile and behave like a regular user. Sharing pictures, giving advice and linking trough videos are examples of the behavior of a regular user. If a company is interesting enough for users, then they will get more friends and goodwill will grow. A lot of goodwill in social media means that your sales through other channels increase, for example trough the company’s website.

Social Media Activities as Commercial Tool will Double!

I was nosing around on the Internet and I ended up on the news item ´2010: Extreme much marketing in social media´. The news claimed that two to three marketers reserve a larger proportion of the marketing budget for social media activities. This is according to the research by the American marketing company Alterian. Alterion questioned marketers in the world to their plans in the area of marketing strategies. Almost 40% of the respondents who want to invest in social media said that they dedicate around 20% of the traditional budget for activities on social media. These figures are remarkable because only 16% of the consumers indicate to be influenced by commerce into social networking, as you can see in my earlier post (28 februari 2010).
The marketing activities on social media in 2010 will double, because currently 36% of the marketers use social media as a method for direct marketing. Another interesting point is that 42% of them do not uses ´clickstreamdata´ in their customer database processing. By this circumstance they cannot measure the impact of the online campaigns in social websites. It seems that many marketers are influences by the hype of social media as a commercial tool. The questioned marketers labeled social media also as a prerequisite for success.

What do you think? Is this invested money wasted or will consumers be more open to commercial activities trough social media over time?

Does advertising in social media gains profit?

The news item ´How to increase revenue through social media´ attract my attention. According to research by Knowledge Networks only 16% of the Internet users can be influenced by ads on social sites. While 83% of the Internet users between 13 and 54 years old participate in social media, uses less than 4% social media regularly for product orientation! I found this a remarkable finding, this means that a few customers are open to commercial incentives on their social profiles. The traditional way of advertising in social media is less profitable than I thought because 84% of the users do not read the ads.

Please, watch underneath video and conclude afterwards if social media is a fad!

Leisure surfing increases work productivity

In my previous blog I described the added values of the use of social media in organisations. I have good news because there is again evidence found that surfing for leisure improves the work productivity of employees. Brent Coker (2009) from the University of Melbourne claims that people who surf the Internet for fun at work are more productive about 9%. This kind of surfing is also known as ‘Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing’. A lack of concentration is the cause of above finding. We must rest the mind for a quick break which leads to a higher concentration of a day’s work which results in higher productivity.

Activities which among to ‘Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing are: reading online news sites, searching for product information, playing online games, watching YouTube movies. Secretly searching for a colleague on Face Book belongs to the past with this study in mind. Also feeling guilt if you ordered online new jeans during working hours is not any more necessary.

For more information about the study of Brent Coker click here.

Attitude of organizations towards social media

It is expected that the use of social media technologies will only increase within organizations. A lot of organizations are not completely happy with this increase of social media during the work time of their employees. They often think it is a kind of personal activity, an activity that the employee can do at their own time. In addition, security of information plays an important role by the exchange of data. The most often used social media in organizations are: YouTube, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter. Before an organization decides to quit access to social media they first have to consider which opportunities will be missed.

Underneath overview has to prove that using social media in organizations gain added values and is not wasting time for the employee nor for the organization. The added values of the use of social media in organizations are: the easiness with which employees can use tools to communicate about work related issues, improvement of customer service and by this increase customer loyalty and feedback, improvement of recruitment activities, cooperation between departments in the organization, accelerated decision making of management issues, improvement of the reputation and/or competitiveness and focus on future prospects.

The threshold to apply social media in organizations will just decrease because of the new generation of employees which are better familiar with social media. A nice example of efficiency and affectivity which social media can offer is the following assumption. An employee uses YouTube to watch a 1 minute ‘how to’ video or uses the helpdesk of Microsoft Word for searching half an hour for the right document to solve his problem. What would you prefer as organization? Exactly, the most time saving assumption, the YouTube assumption. This example explains that social media can be used for solving practical problems.
In the world of today an organization cannot operate without using social media.

Are you agree with me that social media in organizations is inevitable?