As each year comes to a close I usually take some time to review my year’s Social Media activities. This year to add a bit of interactivity to my Social Media lectures with the Digital Marketing Institute I’ve been challenging the students to get into teams, come up with a funny team name (essential to get the creative juices flowing) and to give me the top 5 reasons for using Social Media.
Now of course each company and individual has different needs for using Social Media: some may be using it to increase sales, some maybe be reaching out to deliver a better customer service. But all team challenges need a defining answer so we can declare a winner so I’ve been comparing their answers to the survey results completed by Social Media Examiner, please see below.
I’ve found that this is a nice place to start a lecture as each participant can see a benefit for their business in Social Media Marketing. It also helps to centre the attention on entering a Social Media Strategy with a key goal that will dictate and inform their content strategy.
The Benefits of Social Media Marketing as surveyed by SocialMediaExaminer.com
Were you surprised by any of the survey findings?
The most prominent finding of “Increased Exposure” is fairly obvious but many find the second leading answer of “Increased Traffic” to be unexpected. It’s easy to forget the power your social channels possess when you want to drive traffic to your key online spaces. Many companies have reported significant increases in social referred traffic with Comscore’s “The Power of Like” which showed Starbucks Facebook Fans were 418% more likely to visit Starbucks.com while friends of fans were 230% more likely to visit the Starbucks Website.
Similarly, the third answer of “Provided market insight” was also a welcome result of social media marketing! It can’t be underestimated how much you can learn from your Social Media Community within the free flow of daily conversation and dialogue. Even outside of owned media spaces like a company’s Facebook or Twitter accounts, essential insights can be gleaned.
This year at Radical we have conducted hundreds of Social Listening Reports for clients to provide critical strategic insights including:
- Feedback on Product Launches
- Brand Sentiment following a crisis
- Competitor activity
- Social share of voice within a particular industry
So what are the DMI students taking from this exercise? Well it gets them excited about the possibilities Social Media can bring to their business which is a great attention keeper! But more importantly it lets them know that like any strategy, a Social Media Strategy needs to be start with an objective if success is to follow.
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