Are you missing out on a large part of your market? Social Media Buzz represents a significant amount of traffic on the web today. FaceBook has been outperforming Google through most of 2010 and still is currently. To give you an idea of why this is important, FaceBook (just one social media site) is NOW BIGGER THAN GOOGLE - the dominant search engine since 1999, and the dominant website UNTIL JUST RECENTLY!!!
Why Are Search Engines Losing Ground? Traffic that comes to your website(s) from social media sites like FaceBook ARE NOT coming from the search engines. Imagine when people find you through a social media site and click on your link - they have effectively bypassed the search engines. Social media is displacing the value of search engines, and even though the largest expenditure on most corporate advertising expense sheets is STILL search engine pay per click (PPC), I find it simply amazing that social media advertising isn't even noted as a line item expense.
The fact is that most companies don't know what to do with the social media sites. PPC has some measured effect, but it doesn't address over half the Internet market available today. The "Viral Video" represents a common idea of how most people understand social media to work. In this scenario, a video becomes popular because people share it with their friends, then they share it with their friends, etc. until there are a huge number of views for that video. This "Viral Effect" is the potential of Social Media, but how can you get this effect for your content?
The key is to generate BUZZ for your content. We have a dedicated set of social media specialists that are interested in information we provide because we TARGET the information to the individuals that are interested in specific things. These social media specialists read the content we provide through our subscription service and a few share the content with their friends. We effectively get the initial BUZZ necessary to start a sharing frenzy!
We guarantee a certain amount of BUZZ because we know that when we run social media advertising campaigns for well-written informational content, we ALWAYS get at least 100-150 shares within the first 30 days. This translates to at least 400-500 targeted visitors within the first 30 days. More importantly, the targeted traffic continues to come for months and years as people continue sharing the information you provide in your content. Unlike PPC, which is spent and gone forever, social media advertising is a one time investment that lasts for years.
QUICK NOTE: Advertising spent in the US for 2007 reached $149 billion - $168.6 billion, in 2008 - Search Engine Advertising is still the biggest line item expenditure on many corporate expense sheets, and none that I have seen have any mention of advertising or marketing to Social Media! This is an unbelievably underutilized tool for corporate entities.
We have tested our campaigns over the last 2+ years and have generated a minimum of 5,000 targeted leads within any 12 month period for EVERY campaign we have run. We are also able to record the BUZZ that is generated from our campaigns over multiple social media sites and share that with you. When it comes to social media advertising, we have a definite and guaranteed ROI (return on investment) for our customers. This is not "marketing" where your money is spent experimenting with what may or may not work!
Again, the fact is that when people find you on social media sites like FaceBook, Twitter, Digg or LinkedIn, they click your link and you have effectively bypassed the search engines. If you don't have a social media advertising budget, you are missing out on a huge part of the market. We now provide a social media "advertising" product that comes with an auditing system - you can see the members on the social media sites that said they like your content. More than that, we have visitor sessions counter and other features that we can tie directly into your content so you can SEE THE BUZZ, and your visitors and SHARE THE BUZZ!
Quick Note: Neilson shows only about $40 Billion Spent in 2007 and 2008 in traditional advertising.Traditional Advertising (TV, newspaper, radio, etc.) has been displaced by Search Engine Advertising in the last 10 years, just as social media is displacing Search Engines NOW! Just look at the difference for 2007 - $40 billion in traditional advertising versus $149 billion total advertising - much of this difference is spent on Internet advertising.
