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Including Social Media In Your Marketing Strategy
- Categorized in: Social Media
Years ago there was a statistic thrown around quite a bit that 80% of people visiting a website for the first time find it through a search engine.
While search engine traffic is still king, there has been a massive rise in social media traffic (eg. Facebook, Twitter) in the last couple of years, and it looks set to match the search engines and be a huge source of traffic for website owners.
A quick look at the most recent statistics for Facebook (June 2010) gives you an idea:
- 400 million users worldwide
- 70% of those are outside the United States
- currently growing by around 700,000 new users every day
- 50% of active users log on every day
- more than 25 billion pieces of content (photos, links, news items) are shared each month
- Facebook now gets more visits than Google search
And it continues to grow at an astounding rate.
Twitter has equally impressive numbers. It may not be growing quite as fast as Facebook, but these two giants of social media are increasing their traffic and reach at amazing rates.
These stats all show that internet marketing is changing. People are spending more time in their social media accounts than at Google. So now, not only should you be trying to be there when someone searches for your product (in a search engine), you should also be there when they're not searching for you (in social media circles, recommended by their friends). One day soon, instead of consumers finding products it will be the other way around: products will find consumers.
Besides the volume of potential traffic, social media can also promote your products with personal recommendations. For example, when someone sees your ad or post in Facebook and it says "8 friends like this", it makes it easier to sell your product.
It's all evolving quickly, and we've got lots to learn as we experiment with different social media ideas. Look out for some updates soon.
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I see referrals from social media sites and search engines as two different animals for the most part. No doubt prospective customers/clients search for solutions for their problems on Google. I think these people are probably ready to buy right now. If I'm looking for a dentist or a painter, I just can't see myself going to Facebook or Twitter to try and find one. It would be 100x easier to do it on Google. Social media sites are better for developing long term relationships with existing customers and people who may stumble upon you as a "friend of a friend." Also, don't forget Bing. It get's a significant amount of traffic and it may be easier to be seen on there.
What has surprised me the most is that it tends to work well for a variety of businesses. I often included social networking buttons on my clients' sites ranging from credit counseling, law firms, graphic and print design companies as well as others and it tends to help them out.
Social networking isn't just great for getting new customers, it also works wonders for keeping in touch with customers, whether it is for promoting new products or sales, or giving and receiving feedback.
In this day and age social networking should not be ignored by business.
I am also looking forward for entire program of this.