Mashable: Why Big Brands Struggle With Social Media.
The reference example in this article is Twitter, but discussion boards, blogs, and social networking sites count, too.
- Understating social media as “just another marketing channel” instead of building a long term relationship with consumers.
- Social media does not fit in the existing corporate structure–it falls somewhere between “marketing, PR, communications, content production, and web development.”
- Social media has no borders. Departments and marketing campaigns are often set up by region or nation.
- Beyond this, I think that social media provides a wake-up call to some businesses. Some regions, demographics, and countries, do not look on the brand favorably. Venturing into the space forces companies to face this problem.
- Social media is long term. Growth and cultivation of the relationships in social media take time, and cannot be placed in marketing windows or into quarterly objectives.
- There are no guaranteed results in social media. I’d like to think of this a different way. Every company’s relationship with its customers needs a different approach. There isn’t a standard formula for leading to x% sales growth or xx,xxx page views.
- Different magnitude of exposures. A superbowl may guarantee millions of viewers, while social media may, at best, gain you 50,000 fans. Which would you rather pay for?
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- In the dot com boom, a publisher could get $3.00 for one thousand page views, $0.10 for a single click to the advertisers’ site, and up to $20.00 for a “purchase” or “sign-up”. Which one was more valuable for the advertiser? Depends on what the advertiser was trying to accomplish.
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- Brand impressions – CPM (banner ads at cost per 1,000 views)
- Extended impression – CPC (cost per click) – user has to click-through to advertisers’ site.
- Sales leads – CPA (cost per action) – user has to offer up, at a minimum, contact information. Often a sale of some sort has to be made.
- Social media may gain you dedicated fans, or possibly even better–put you in touch with your brand evangelists.