Category: Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is seen as important by female business owners

However, a study shows that there are more people who value it than are actually using it.

Recent research is indicating that female business owners are feeling quite optimistic, overall, about the way that their companies will be performing over the upcoming year, and that many of them feel that social media marketing could play a notable role in helping to enhance outcomes.

That said, a surprising number of women business owners are not using this technique, despite the value they assign it.

The research from the National Association of Women Business Owners and Web.com Group, Inc., showed that 89 percent of women feel that their business performance will be positive throughout this year. This is an increase of 8 percent over the figures that were registered last year when women business owners were asked the same question. Among those who participated in the survey, most said that social media marketing was important for building relationships with customers.

In fact, 85 percent of women business owners felt that social media marketing was important for this purpose.

However, at the same time that this vast majority expressed that they felt this way, only 67 percent of this same group said that they were currently using one of the social networks in order to connect with customers. At the same time, only slightly over half felt strong enough in their ability to build a presence over social media in order to achieve this goal. When all was said and done, only about one in every four female business owners are posting comments at least one time per day.Social Media Marketing - Business Woman

Among those that were posting over social media, the preferred site was also surprising. Although Facebook is by far the largest social network and it receives the highest amount of traffic, it was still used by only 21 percent of the respondents. LinkedIn had the top spot at 25 percent. This could suggest either that women prefer the latter network or it could also indicate that many of the survey participants were marketing business to business – for which LinkedIn would be the top choice.

This year could be a defining one for social media marketing, as the perception of its value continues to rise, but at a greater rate than its adoption among this demographic.

Social media marketing is frequently done improperly on Twitter

Companies may be focusing too heavily on posting and not enough on the message they are sharing.

Among the hottest ways for a business to go about spreading the word about itself, encouraging customer interaction, and advertising its latest news is social media marketing, but just because a company has a Twitter account, it doesn’t mean that they know how to use it effectively for their desired purpose.

In fact, many are finding that businesses are failing to use their Twitter opportunities properly.

The entire purpose of social media marketing is to help a business to solve certain problems. It can be used to raise awareness, build reappraisal of a brand, reduce churn, and reward loyalty. These are all the primary goals of marketing over any channel. Twitter offers businesses a very cost effective way to accomplish these goals – when done properly. Unfortunately, for many businesses, this doesn’t appear to be the case.

Social media marketing efforts are all too frequently focusing on presence, not problem solving.

Among the companies that have been able to break away from that trend is Oreo. Despite the fact that the brand has been around for a century and it has already achieved a high level of recognition there had not been any real relevance to the brand among younger audiences. The marketers at that company took it upon themselves to use Twitter creatively and reach out to that generation.Social Media Marketing Done Improperly by Twitter

The Super Bowl last year was a defining moment for the brand, when it took advantage of its advertising spots and Twitter to get the very most out of the power failure that struck the massive NFL event.

Since that time, the brand has managed to keep up a strategy that works to engage with consumers over social media marketing on Twitter. Competitor, KitKat, did not miss this lesson and has since boosted their own efforts over this channel, nor have many other major brands. The positive feedback that they have received has reinforced the belief that this form of mobile advertising is getting through to consumers and is making a difference. Equally, other businesses should be studying those successes in order to determine how they can go about applying it to their own efforts.