Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. Is there value in a presence on them?
-
I have a client (professional practice) whose father is a marketing professor. He is pushing the client that he should have a professional page on social sites. While I believe having FB likes, shares, Tweet links, +1, etc. on the page, I really am ambivalent about building pages specifically for social media sites.
For some of you who have tracked the efficacy of these it would be great to know your pros and cons. -
Hi Robert
Apologies for the late reply. beena crazy few days here in South Africa
well lets put this into context. Having a Facebook presence and advertising on facebook using a PPC or CPM campaign are two different entities.
I agree, from my experience, advertising a product for lead generation on Facebook for instance has been a waste of time and doesd not convert well at all to sales.
I feel generally facebook users are there to have fun and pass the time rather than look for great deals and buy things.
However, Facebook and using Facebook advertsfor branding and general brand awereness is pretty powerfull.
Imagine the ripple effect of having 1000 users, who view your status and actually like it or comment or view it a few times. This gets fed into on to their wall and is seen by another 100 friends. So potentially you can reach 100 000 people with minimum effort. Once again, you arent selling anything but you are building your brand awerness. Zero cost, all to gain.
All networks have their pro's and con's. You need to find what is important for the long term benift of your client and then strategise from their. perform your own tettst and start compiling data for that particular client on social media platforms.
I hope that this helps youa little more
-
Thanks Kyle,
We utilize social bookmarking on almost every client site we have and you are correct. My interest is much more based on just not seeing the efficacy in building site type pages for clients on social media. I want them to spend their money where they get a bang for the buck so that is the reason for the questions.thanks again.
-
Stefano,
Again thanks for the responses, but..... The "social media is a must" and pro's outweigh the con's statements don't really provide depth. Is there anything in your experience that says: this is where it makes a difference. Something more tangible? I know all the arguments around everyone is there, its how people communicate, building buzz, etc. What i am after is more numbers, etc. - Bob's Tire House started an FB page and with no other advertising built a viral community and sold a thousand tires (yes it is an exaggeration, but purely for illustration of what I am looking for).
Or, an FB page when implemented as such will provide X or Y to your business. Just understand I am looking for a prove up on X or Y. Not being a pain on purpose, just bugged by this question.
-
I think this really is helpful. It would appear, that in order to make it work, there must also be someone who is monitoring it to insure a client is responded to? I would wonder about a time/value problem here.
With our clients, some do and some do not have say a FB page. (For all professional practices we encourage them being on LinkedIn). How do you judge the cost vs. benefit of monitoring this? -
Thanks for the response,
While I understand it is a "must," my question is, "why is it a must?" Just because people are on facebook, etc? I am wondering if there is any data around what verticals are able to quantify anything from same?
The biggest thing I have seen from (FB for example) is that when doing contextual ads on it the leads generated were purely worthless. I can see where a Groupon type ad, etc. would work, but am really ambivalent to spending a client's $ (even though I am making money by doing same) when I cannot see a real return. Even with throwing out the direct response or ROI piece, I do not see where a physician, attorney, manufacturing company, etc benefits from having a specific FB page.Thoughts
-
I agree social media is a most... depending on the niche. My normal suggestion for people trying to ease into social media is to use social bookmarking (add this, share this, etc). With social bookmarking you can see what channels your users prefer and based on your analytics you can make educated steps with your social media plan.
-
Mobile apps are a must if you are doing this, I agree.
-
Yes, i totally agree with you. You have to be pro-active but the pro's outweigh the cons.
look for tools like tweet deck to manage multiple accounts or mobile apps for notifications and to interact on the spot.
-
The biggest con for me is the anticipated response time on questions. When people ask a question on a Social Media site they expect an answer in less than 15 minutes. Sometimes I happen to be sitting at my computer, and that's no problem. However, most questions happen early in the morning, and late at night (auto industry). Because of that, I'm typically not conscious or coherent enough to answer questions about towing capacity, cubic feet of space, etc.
However, I've been able to connect with some people on a personal level, and have been able to get them to come in for service and repairs.
Bottom line, it can improve your bottom line, but the chance to lose a customer is there, as well.
-
Hi Robert
In this day and age, have a social media presence is an absolute must. Yes, social media can take a lot of work to get up and running but allows a great platform to interact with the public, not only potential clients.
Dont try and sell services, but rather sell your mission statement
As for Linkedin...its a must for any professional looking to network. The reason being is that people on Linkedin are specifically looking to do business and make business connevtions.
The key is to be trans[parent, give as much information as possible and have fun while doing it.
Hope this helps.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Facebook Reach on Post Just Spiked!
Yesterday I put a post with a photo on our company Facebook page Normally our reach on a post is 500-600 out of a list of 77,000 followers. However, since posting this one yesterday afternoon, our reach has hit almost 9,000! The only thing different with this post vs. any others we've done is that I put a text link for the company name back to the same Facebook page that the post was put on. I didn't intend to do this, it's just that when I started typing in our company name, Facebook suggested making it a link, so I thought, why not? I'm thinking somehow that made it appear in more people's timelines than usual. We posted it the same time in the day as every other post, and this was the only thing unique about it. Any thoughts?
Social Media | | GenesisToday0 -
Exporting Facebook Page Likes
Has anyone found a work-around to export the entire list of people how have liked your page? I know this has been on-going problem for people, but I'm hoping someone here discovered a secret method they'd like to share...please. Thanks, Ruben
Social Media | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
What is the value of having a social media feed displayed on your website?
This is something I asked myself this evening. You see a lot of sites with a Facebook or Twitter feed displayed, but I struggle to understand their value. OK, it shows that you are active on this or that social media channel, but unless you are posting great content consistently on the social media displayed, the impact of your feed could detract from the web page it is displayed on. It could also cause a visitor to that page on your site to click away from your site into the noise and distraction of that social media channel. I don't have an issue with using social media icons to link to your channels, but they are more discreet and the sort of thing people will look for if they are interested enough in your web pages to want to connect with you. Also, social sharing icons are good, but I do not see the value in social media feeds. Do you agree or disagree? I am more than will to be persuaded otherwise. Thanks in advance,
Social Media | | crackingmedia
Peter0 -
Facebook Checkin probs for a local business FB fan page
Hi I have a client who has set up Facebook fan page for their physically located local business and they have 'checkedin' to it but not showing on FB page as having been checked in i.e. '0 were here' when i would have thought it should show at least 1 Does anybody know how best to set up FB fan page for a local business so is checkin'able ? or rather just get the checking in aspect of existing page working properly ? (Have followed FB help guidelines) Cheers Dan
Social Media | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Explanation of Facebook referral paths in Google Analytics
In the past month I have seen a huge increase in the visits + conversions from Facebook (which is obviously great). However, from Google Analytics it appears that most of my visits are not coming from my brand page. Is there an explanation of what these referral paths mean? Top Facebook referral paths: / /l.php /home.php /ajax/emu/end.php /brand - much less visits than above URLs
Social Media | | theLotter1 -
Facebook like box error
Hello, Using the following code to display a facebook like box http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-NLP-Coaching-Institute-of-California/187804434598142" data-width="198" data-height="320" data-show-faces="true" data-stream="false" data-header="true"> Getting "log in to see this content" when we're not logged in. Our Age setting is set to 13+ example image attached Thanksfacebook-error.gif
Social Media | | BobGW0 -
How to migrate "friends" to likes on a new facebook corporate account
Hi, My client, which is a university department, used a regular facebook page to manage some 800 friend on a personal Facebook page. How would you go about convincing the friends to switch to "likees" on a new corporate account? Is holding a giveaway my best bet? Any other ideas? Thanks!
Social Media | | michalseo0 -
Facebook Promotion Help
I am considering doing a iPad give away to gain more Facebook page likes. I have several questions running through my brain that I'm hopeful fellow Mozzers can help me with. I was thinking I'll give away an iPad for every 500 FB likes on our page...or $1.00 per like. If I get an abundance of likes will Google smile upon me? How do I track the entries? Are there any tools that can assist in getting the word out on this and or tracking it all? I'm kind of a FB newb!
Social Media | | TheDude0