We've been utilizing social media sites with success for clients for a while now. While Internet marketers extol the virtue of social Media for traffic generation, link building and viral marketing, we think that the use of social Media for these purposes is limited. From our experience, the best use of social media is for branding and, by extension, prospecting new clients.
Social Media & Traffic
In terms of traffic, SM only benefits relatively few. Sites such as Digg and Technorati really only deliver significant traffic if your posts make it to the front page. With hundres of thousands of users posting all the time. don't bank on this.
The best traffic generation SM site, we've found, is Stumbleupon. Unfortunately, the traffic you can siphon off from this site is hit or miss; there doesn't appear to be any predictable pattern to it.
Social Media for Link Building
While it is true that SM sites provide back links, the value of these links is questionable, and far from uniform across the various SM sites or under all conditions. For example, Facebook pages sometimes supply do-follow backlinks. However, the generic profile pages usually do not.
Additionally, the importance search engies place on SM links is uncertain at best. Some SM the SEs totally ignore Others they report, but don't give much trust or link juice. And many are simply no-followed.
Social Media, Brand Awareness & Prospecting
The bottom line is: Internet marketing exists primarily to generate business. And generating business requires clients, partners and customers. It also requires some level of brand awareness. Why will people buy your products and services if they don't know who you are or have any trust in your products and services? To obtain clients, you need a quality brand and a prospect list to go on. To service and keep clients, you need partners to help out.
SM sites, we think, serve these needs the best.
As they are major traffic hubs, they are great places to create awareness for your brands inexpensively and for a widespread audience. In this regard, they are somewhat like free advertising, if used properly.
As your SM profiles start to gain interest (which requires a definite mindset and approach) these followers make perfect candidates for e-Newsletters, blog contributors and/or link partners.
Remember, social media is not about selling or self-promotion; those will get you nowhere on most social media networks. Social media success is more about networking and creating trust; about creating a brand and letting your contributions on these sites be more of a natural expression of that brand.
Sent from my T-Mobile Dash - Gnosis Arts - www.gnosisarts.com
No comments:
Post a Comment