Is your marketing campaign suffering from social media neglect?

happygeek 0 Tallied Votes 738 Views Share

A group of social media experts meeting at Microsoft's London offices has warned that social media is more than just a numbers game and for marketing campaigns to succeed, business must understand how a blend of creativity and science drives it. The round robin event featuring social media experts from across the UK was held by hosting specialists UKFast at the London offices of Microsoft and debated how best to maximise the potency of social media campaigns.

Charlie Osmond, CEO Fresh Networks, spends a lot of time looking at statistics for his clients that cover areas such as what proportion of sales were brought through Facebook, for example, and obviously these are useful to a marketing campaign but Osmond warned that as clients demand more and more statistics, they are in danger of losing the real focus of a campaign. "We have had clients who come in and ask for us to get their business 10,000 fans on Facebook and we wonder why" Ronnie Brown, marketing manager at Outside Line, added "Would you start a television or traditional campaign saying that you want to reach a million viewers? We don't. We start by saying that we want people to act, feel or think differently."

Liz Backhouse, social media marketer for UKFast, went on to admit that MDs are naturally going to look for tangible evidence of success because that is how they have been conditioned to act. People expect to see numbers that show 'this many people have visited your website because this much money was spent' and that's part of the problem. "Google is the main place that people have been marketing on the internet pre-social media, they offer fantastic statistics from analytics to everything within the ad-words interface so marketers are used to seeing numbers" Backhouse stated, adding "The traditional marketers within companies expect social media to deliver these in the same way as Google and they are yet to understand that it is not all about those raw numbers, it is about balancing measurable statistics with engagement and conversation."

Meanwhile, Robin Grant, MD of global social media agency We Are Social, went on to argue the importance of incorporating statistics into the creativity of the medium by stating how vital it is for an e-commerce presence to track the numbers behind those social media campaigns. "We had a client who generated more than £1million extra e-commerce revenue through a social marketing campaign. With stats like this at least we can prove to the finance director that the social media is worthwhile and worthy of investment" he insisted. But, as Blackhouse concluded, "The problem with analytics tools at the moment is that one site can tell you one thing, another site will tell you another and we have to go to several places to gain the overview that we need. Having to collate all of this information is time consuming and there is also the risk that companies will rely on one site which can only tell them a small area of the information that they need to properly analyse their social media presence."

Perhaps what is needed, and what the entire panel could agree on, was that the introduction of Twitter analytics could be a real game-changer as far as the analysis of social media campaigns is concerned.

stellaandreapar -6 Newbie Poster

Well... social media sites might not prove to be helpful to some. For promotion, there are some tools that works for some and not to others. And it depends on what the niche needs.

anrichfosters 0 Newbie Poster

For me I think Social Media campaigning or Marketing campaign can have both ways, either negative or positive.

rocco88 -5 Junior Poster

Social media can be both negative and positive. It has certainty become popular.

stunning boy -4 Junior Poster in Training

As far as the SEO is concerned i never went for back links for social media but you can't neglect the traffic anf potential+loyal visitors from social sites.

sufalamtech 0 Newbie Poster

Analysis of diabetes sites indicates that many lack scientific accuracy and put users' personal information at risk.

Kenster! 0 Newbie Poster

For SEO, social media is very important. As for actually building out a social media presence, it's important to keep your objective in mind. Many companies jump right in and build direct advertising campaigns with their social media platform, but many times the best thing is to use it as a brand building tool and worry about advertising and monetizing once you have a core group.

Branding can be more important than direct monetizing!

Chris_tax 0 Newbie Poster

I am planning a fun Facebook ad campaign using cartoon characters

Chris

Chris_tax 0 Newbie Poster

Marketing is a lot of work. It needs to be your focus especially if you have a new business

Chris_tax 0 Newbie Poster

I own a part time tax business
My clients are locals
My facebook ad campaign is directed to locals.

judan -4 Newbie Poster

Social media helps in lot of ways for the business. It helps in creating friendly relation with the clients and direct interaction. Although negative comments can be little harmful on a social platform.

Healthcare -6 Newbie Poster Banned

I dont think so. SMO is one of the essential feature in SEO. I usually post my ad in facebook and twitter.

PlainOldChad 0 Newbie Poster

Social media has become popular, but as mentioned before it depends on the niche. But there is no harm in getting out the the world via social media

blara -2 Newbie Poster

article is owsome but not only social media can do every thing many more steps are requried for achiving a good goal

vikap10 0 Newbie Poster

Social media is an important part in marketing today. Its popularity and importance is increasing with google giving more weightage now in search results with more social media presence. I believe, this is just a start. It will go a long way.

longlivemedia 0 Newbie Poster

An interesting look into social media and its applications in marketing. Not sure if I agree on all of the concepts being discussed, but it's good to see things in a different perspective.

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