By Eddie Bluff & Brian Bluff
Site-Seeker, Inc.
Editor’s Note: Eddie Bluff was a presenter at the 2013 EASA Convention in Las Vegas. His sessions were titled “Marketing via Your Web Site,” “The Convergence of Search & Social Media,” and “Web Site and Social Media Audits.”
“Social media? You mean like Facebook? My employees get fired if they’re on Facebook at work!”
That’s the usual reaction we get when we present the idea of using social media to business owners, managers, and executives at most industrial-minded firms around the country. Typically, our first-time prospects see social media as:
- Unsecure
- Time wasting
- Frivolous
- Insignificant
Those objections, all very reasonable at first glance, can be taken apart with just a little examination.
In an attempt to dispel some of the trepidation expressed through these anti-social media objections, the remainder of this article will tackle each head on.
Social media is unsecure
You don’t want trade secrets, business transactions, or any competitive advantages leaked online, even by mistake. There is risk with social media, but that risk is inherent with having employees in general; it’s not unique to social media.
Think about it: our company, your company, and businesses all over the world “allow” their employees to answer the phone, send email, attend meetings, go to trade shows, and generally represent the company. Why wouldn’t they offer the same branding and authority to enter into social media, the fastest growing channel for businesses today?
To lessen the frequency of any bad incidents, we have worked to improve our recruiting practices, which includes ascertaining how employees use social media. Taking a proactive approach by creating a social media policy can also lessen the potential for a security violation.
Social media is time wasting
If you do it right, social media is time consuming, not time wasting.
It’s also time consuming to take a steady stream of orders or to manage a pile of new leads. But that’s time you don’t mind spending. Anything can take up your valuable time, but with social media there are actually tools and strategies you can use to minimize the time required.
The overarching goal of a business-to-business social media program is to establish yourself as an approachable expert within an expanding group of qualified customers and prospects. You do this by listening, sharing and becoming a valued resource online, just as you are offline.
Creating content and monitoring your social media platforms is time-consuming. Blog posts, articles, videos, images, and infographics make up your expert content. You will need to create this content and that takes time. It’s inescapable: the more time you spend with high quality engagement on social media, the higher your return.
That might seem overwhelming, but here’s an easy tip to get more value from less time.
A white paper can be turned into three or four blog posts; a PowerPoint presentation can be converted into a video or uploaded to a presentation sharing site like SlideShare; a video can, with a few clicks, be embedded into a blog post or your Web site. The secret to saving time is to capture your thoughts once, then trickle them out using different media.
And so as not to overwhelm your community and business prospects, you can automate, queue, and plan the way you push out your content with a variety of online tools.
Creating and scheduling a social media campaign is time consuming, but it’s also quite doable.
Social media is frivolous
It’s widely believed (through several studies and a bit of data crunching) that upwards of 50% of Twitter activity is spam and people rambling on about what they had for breakfast.
Luckily, all that noise, which makes up a good amount of social media by volume, is actually very little of the real activity that happens online.
If you have a decent social media plan in place, you will pass along news, spread valuable information, and participate in conversation with prospects and customers. Social media is just another information pipeline. It’s just as frivolous as how you make use of it, same as anything else, including television, print, and even face to face communication.
Social media is insignificant
Are your customers people? If so, then they do use social media – in a significant amount. Adoption of social platforms has grown to astounding levels:
- 900 million Facebook users
- 300 million Twitter users
- 135 million LinkedIn users
- 93 million Google Plus users
All these users engage in conversations about every subject under the sun. To prove to yourself that people are discussing your industry online, search for keywords relevant to your industry on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn. There will be some noise, sure, but you’ll be surprised at what people are talking about. And you’ll probably find something you want to say, as well.
Final thoughts
You still may not think social media is a big concern for your business. Even though it offers you: a) an unparalleled chance to teach and learn among the leaders in your field; b) inside access to your customers and prospects; and c) a sterling opportunity to show off why you’re some of the best businesses in the electromechanical apparatus industry.
Here’s one more reason why social media should be important to you.
Search engine marketing and social media are forever connected. Search engines now use social signals like Twitter and Facebook as ranking factors. They display the avatars of our friends and connections within search engine results pages; and Google has recently integrated Google Plus content within the traditional search results.
If your Web site is a valued source of leads, you have little choice but to engage with social media. Yes, social media is time consuming; it does provide rogue employees yet another opportunity to embarrass or harm your company; and it can be frivolous. However, when executed properly, social media supports your overall online marketing effort and leads to an enormous ROI.
Eddie Bluff is the Vice President of Key Accounts and Co-Founder of Site-Seeker, Inc., an Internet marketing company created by Eddie and his brother, Brian, in 2003. Site-Seeker performs the efforts necessary to drive qualified visitors to its clients’ Web sites; convert the visitors into buyers; measure the results achieved; and develop improvement plans based on performance.
Brian Bluff is the President and Co-Founder of Site-Seeker, Inc., a Central New York based Internet Marketing Firm that has been recognized as being one of New York’s fastest growing small businesses.
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