Finding Value in Social Media Marketing

FINDING VALUE IN SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

No doubt you’ve heard of MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and the variety of other social media sites available at our current moment in time.

Twitter, arguably, is the flavor of the week with it’s recent outing on Oprah as well as Ashton Kutcher’s campaign to reach 1 million followers before CNN reached the same goal.
The question lies in the value of these sites.

It can be agreed that for social communication, if you are only following friends and only friends are following you, then yes, you’re going to get that all important question answered by your friends, which is “What are they doing right now?” In addition, they might post a news story or photos of the new baby or other information that might interest you as well.

SOCIAL MARKETING

The recent trend, however, has turned towards marketing on the social media sites. As a marketing professional, my clients, friends and even my mom have asked me about the value in marketing on Twitter. I have my own thoughts on the subject. My own theories. My own predictions. But I was interested to hear from individuals trying to market their small [or large] sized business on social media.

I was recently asked to host @Firgs’ (of Design by Firgs) chat on Twitter. This is a chat which I frequently participate in and it covers topics on graphic design, web development, technology, social media and marketing, etc. all of which Mint Condition is involved in. I find it an interesting and useful networking forum where I can share opinions with other creative professionals on a given topic. So, the question I posted as the host of the chat is “What is the value of marketing on Twitter?”

The results were clear. Most of the creative professionals I talked to don’t use Twitter as a marketing tool. Most use it as info gathering, i.e., retweets, articles, etc. It just doesn’t seem to be a great ROI (your investment being your time). For example, if you charge a client $75 per hour for your time and you’re spending four hours a day on Twitter marketing your business, are you getting a return on investment of that time?

I think in most cases, the answer is NO… and here’s why.

THE DEGRADATION OF TWITTER

First, it appears that Twitter has become a popularity contest. To be able to say “I have 20,000 followers reading my tweets on whatever mundane tasks I’m performing during my normal life” is something of a bragging rite. Therefore, the value of these tweets certainly comes into question… if they were ever interesting to begin with.

Second, if you’re following people en masse, solely to get them to follow you, you risk losing those followers by posting something that is not relevant to them, because you have not targeted directly to them. In addition, if people are following you only because they follow everyone who is following them, chances are they are not reading all of the tweets that come across their deck… so they’re not reading yours.

The ultimate goal is to find your target market. Get the right followers following you so they can benefit from information about your service or product. Your business model tells you who your target market is. Find them, offer them something relevant and the response surely will follow.
Third, the majority of mass followers are mass marketers. Your marketing tweets are falling on the deaf ears of other marketers and in most cases they are mass marketers. There is nothing more annoying than being tweetspammed by some tweep posting 12 tweets in a row with info ranging from a fat burning pill, to the latest hair growth product. These people immediately get unfollowed on my Twitter.

VALUE

Finally, and certainly not the least of these is VALUE. Make your tweets valuable. Just because it’s free doesn’t mean it has to be fodder. Tweet as if it’s a paid ad. Make it not only relevant, but valuable.

Use your experience and insight to craft a meaningful article for publication and point your followers to it. Blog relevantly and intelligently. Position yourself as an expert so your product or service becomes a highly sought after commodity. Create something valuable to contribute to the world (perhaps a chat like @Firgs does). Because in the end, it’s value which will prevail.

UNGRACEFUL DEMISE

Unfortunately, our world (and especially our cyber world) is full of uneducated, irresponsible marketers trying to find a quick, easy and cheap way to get people to spend their money on valueless products. Because of this, my prediction is that Twitter will die an ungraceful death in a ball of tweetspammers hawking miracle products to each other.



Jennifer “Mintie” Scanland is the Creative Director and CEO of Mint Condition Creative Solutions in Chicago. You can follow @MintCondCreativ on Twitter.