Why Is Social Media So Popular?

We use social media in our daily activities. Whether we are sending a text message to a friend, answering a Facebook message, asking about a recipe on a food forum, or looking for a job on Linkedin. We are always using social media.  But why is social media so important? Why is it so popular? Who cares that we are on  different digital platforms and constantly uploading our own content and reading content of other users? 

The following figures will give you an insight on why social media has become so important for companies and individuals: 

Facebook boasts over 171 million unique visitors compared to Google, the most popular Web search engine, which  exceeds 174 million unique visitors.  YouTube, a video sharing website, is the second largest search engine with 153 million unique visitors and where over  two billion videos are downloaded each day.  There are over 156 million blogs in existence. Tumblr is the 8^th largest site in the U.S. Social Networks and Blogs category.  Nearly 40 % of social media users access social media content from their mobile phones. Americans spend  more time on Facebook than on any other website. 

These figures are astounding.  Social media has a powerful influence on consumer behavior and on purchase decisions.  In fact, 60 percent of people who use three or more digital means of research for product purchases learned about a specific brand or retailer from a social networking site. Furthermore, 70 percent of  social networkers shop online. 

The audience now decides and expresses freely the value of a company’s products and services.  Companies worldwide want to know how to better tap into this huge market.  These companies are aware that to stay competitive  they have to not only become “social” but understand how to harness the power that social media marketing  can have.

Understanding Your Online Audience

Your audience online is changing? Are you? Do you really know who your target market is and more importantly, do you know what it wants? Often times we spend and waste time "talking" to an audience that is not our potential consumer. Have you thought about how many of your Facebook fans or followers would actually be interested in your product or service? For example if your content or wall posts on Facebook is geared toward sales in sporting equipment and most of your Facebook followers or friends are elderly people who rarely get out to ski, you are definitely not going to get the results you are looking for. Another example is you own an expensive wellness spa but your followers are all college students that have little to no disposable income. Perhaps you are the CEO of a trendy swim trunk company and your followers are friends that purchase maybe one pair of swim trunks every year. You need to do some reaching out to find an audience that really "fits" your product. You need to find out who your evangelists are and you need to cater to them.

What forums do you actively participate in? Are you offering interesting and valuable information in these forums or are you just trying to make a fast sell? The same holds true for online associations, groups and clubs. You need to find the people that are truly interested in the same product or service you provide.

Understanding your audience takes a lot of research and does not happen overnight. The payoff however is great. The engagement between you and your audience will be a natural consequence and that engagement will lead to future sales.

Luxury Brands & Social Media Marketing

Burberry acquires 3 million fans on Facebook and has a social network Art of the Trench that is truly engaging. Jimmy Choo runs with its treasure hunt on Foursquare and Louis Vuitton partners with Foursquare to offer a designer badge. Tiffany wears its Engagement Ring iPhone app.  DKNY is doing fashionably well on Twitter.  It is especially exciting for marketing professionals to watch what is going on with social media and luxury brands. Who would have thought that something so exclusive, so closed doors, so v.i.p. as luxury brands would utilize social media to not only get "in touch" with their present followers but to acquire new fans and thus consumers? It is fantastic to see what some of these companies are doing to really harness the power of social media.

Forbes recently wrote that according to a Forrester Research Survey, "in 2008 only one third of international luxury firms actively sold online, yet 8 out of 10 affluent consumers actively used the internet to research and purchase luxury goods on a daily basis."  Another survey shows how these numbers are growing. EMarketer published in 2007 in   "Affluent Internet Users: How The Rich Live Online" that these users will grow from 43.7 million in 2006 to 57.1 million in 2011.  So we know that the affluent purchase more and more online on a daily basis so why aren't more luxury brands taking advantage of this?

This is astounding and signifies that those few luxury brands that are embracing the internet have an extreme advantage over their competitors who refuse to budge. What else can luxury brand designers do to remain at the cutting edge of social media and attract a new generation of luxury consumers?

1. Research

• Study the trends and behavior of  online visitors and customers to identify new opportunities 
• Find creative ways to increase consumer engagement with the brand and product online

 2. Social Media, Mobile & SEO

• Work with in house departments and third party firms to define and execute the mobile strategy 
• Maintain total brand consistency throughout all digital platforms while building  brand awareness, engagement, purchase intent, repeat purchase and brand advocacy
• Direct search engine marketing and optimization
• Utilize digital platforms, stores and third parties to increase e-mail address acquisition 

3.  Ecommerce

• Identify innovative ways to enhance consumer interactions with the brand and product through Ecommerce and especially via mobile devices.

 4. Follow up 

• Analyze performance and tweak and retweak according to results.  Remeasure.

    

Social Media Marketing For Your Business- "Where Do I Begin?"

This will be the first part of a multi part post on steps to take in social media marketing. The first thing that many people tell me is that they have no idea how social media works and do not know where to begin.

The best advice I can give anyone who really wants to harness the power that social media can offer for their business is to listen to the conversations that are taking place regarding similar products, services or industries as their own. Let's take a step back. Here are some of the main types of social media:

Social Networking- Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin
Social Sharing- YouTube, Flickr
Blogs
Microblogging- Twitter
Social Bookmarking- Delicious, Diigo
Social Events- Eventful, Upcoming
Social News  sites- Digg, Reddit
Forums and Message boards
Wikis

How does one find those social media communities best connected to their product or service? Here the most obvious would be to do a google search or similar search engine search. You will quickly see the top listings for your industry, product, service, etc. You will find blogs, forums, discussion groups. You should also do a Twitter search and a Facebook and Myspace search. Here the point is to find where these conversations are taking place. Your particular product or similar product may be present in the form of blogs and on Twitter and not have a significant presence on Facebook or Myspace.

After you have done substantial listening, you can actually join in on the conversations, being honest with who you are and what you are interested in learning and more importantly, sharing. Do not make the mistake of trying to pitch your product or idea to the community because chances are you will be kicked out. Social media communities do not want to be marketed to. Good luck!