Think Businesses Are Marketing In Traditional Ways? Think Again

If the bad economy did anything for businesses, it made them become more efficient in the way they market. No longer do they simply spend because they’ve always done so. They’re looking at what they spend on, and how well it works at attracting new clients.

According to B to B’s 2010 Outlook survey, 87 percent of all businesses will be keeping their current marketing budgets steady or increasing them in the coming year. But where they will be spending that money will vary greatly.

The highest area of decreased spending is in the print category and in attending events, both at 63 percent.

The highest area of increased spending is in the online category, with over 80 percent anticipating increasing within this category.

So where are the best places to increase spending online? Email campaigns, search campaigns, social media and website development were the top categories – pretty much as expected.

We all know the struggle traditional media sources are having right now. Just today we went hunting for a story on a local media site, and found it as a current release. However when we did a Google search for the same story, we found it in online sources from several days ago.

You can’t stay in traditional sources because you’ve always been there. If your clients are moving on, you need to as well.

Shifts happen quickly now. Where it took years for new technology to penetrate the main population even a few short years ago, now technology can affect the majority in a matter of months.

If you’re not learning something new, it will have an impact on your business.

Social Marketing: Where Do The Fundamentals Fit In?

Why are you using social media? What does social marketing mean to your business?

Along with new industry terms comes the misconception of what something can truly do for you.

Social marketing isn’t something new you can implement in your business. It’s not a way of jumping in ahead of your competitors, learning the secrets, and having instant success.

Instead, social marketing is simply a continuation of traditional marketing – with a twist.

Marketing: The Basics
People have basic questions when they are ready to invest their money into a product or service.

• Who are you?
• How can your company help me?
• How can your product/service help me?
• Are you the best choice for me?

The only thing that’s changed over the past 50 years is the way we go about finding out the answers. Take a look at this video:

So ask yourself a question.

Why am I using social marketing, and how will it help me build my business?

Every time you tweet, it should be helping you build a relationship. Every time you create a blog post, it should be helping you build your reputation. Every time you post on Facebook, it should be building up your list of qualified potential buyers.

If not, you’re simply wasting your time.

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TheSocialGhost.com provides you a quick look at using the search functions within Twitter to grow your business potential.

How To Use Twellowhood To Build Your Twitter Followers

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Creating A Social Strategy Within Your Business Plan

Do you have a business plan? What about a marketing plan? Do you have a social networking strategy somewhere within those plans?

Most people don’t. They have never put down on paper exactly why they are using Facebook, or how Twitter will help grow their businesses.

But just because it’s a free tool doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a plan of action for what you are doing. Like all other forms of marketing, you should give some thought to why you are doing it, and how you will implement it over a long period of time.

1. Don’t use social networking for marketing your business unless you understand how it will impact your overall business.

Too many business owners start using Twitter or Facebook without having a plan and understanding how it will impact their business models. Sure they are free tools. Yes you can reach out to a ton of people. But statistics show almost 95% of all people on Twitter have 100 or less followers, and rarely post more than a few times.

That’s not a strategy. There are no checks and balances to make sure you are on target. And you probably won’t have any results because there is little effort in a strategy like this.

2. There’s a cost to everything.

Whenever I meet with people and they find out I help people develop social networking strategies, the questions pour in.

How often should I post on Twitter?
Can you really build business relationships with Facebook?
Is LinkedIn a successful tool?

Sure, all of these are free resources for you. But the trouble with each of them is they take time to fully put to use, and to see the results.

I’ve been on Twitter for 1 ½ years, and have only had measurable results since January. Is it a significant part of my business? No. I have different streams coming in from all over. But Twitter is bringing me in income every single week.

My goal is to make it a stream of income, and to use it effectively. Which I’m doing fairly well.

The cost to me is my time. It takes time every day to build up the relationships, and to understand how and when to promote each piece of my business.

When you are developing your own strategy, its important to understand that just because its free, doesn’t mean you will see instant results and have it work for you with your limited knowledge on the subject matter.

You have to be willing to learn how to use it better, not just use it knowing what you know.

Start developing your own strategy and find out what’s truly possible with social marketing.

How To Use BingTweets to Build Your Business

TheSocialGhost provides tools and resources to help you navigate social marketing easier. Here we look at the tool BingTweets.com

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