You are probably familiar with the terms “Online Promotion” and SEO. For many years it has been assumed these two terms are the gateway to riches in a modern era gold rush, and it is true for many of those working in the industry, it has indeed been very profitable. To the person with something to sell these are costs and if they improve the profit on a balance sheet are worthwhile.
Successful online promotion can only be achieved through constant change. 15 years ago the Internet was hailed as a revolution and paradise for adverters. Instant feedback to marketing campaigns fuelled the spread of banners and it wasn’t long before every site apart from the BBC looked more like the Exchange and Mart.
We became “banner blind” and these ads lost their effectiveness fast. A few years later Google arrived with its “Do no evil” policy yet sure enough, as soon as we were all hooked, they too became banner bandits. Every webmaster who couldn’t figure a way to make money dropped Google code on the site which ironically encouraged people to leave the moment they arrived.
Internet users have grown immune to this kind of advertising. How many times this week have you bought something after clicking their banner? Can you remember the product for any banner you clicked this week. It’s known as “push”. Traditional media likes to brand us like cattle, with their mark burned into memory forever.
We are less likely to allow old media to influence us. Instead we are interested in opinion. When you buy a book from Amazon do you prefer the Synopsis by the author or the comments by his readers? Do you read the negative first or the good or do you juxtapose them both? Do you trust a book with one five star rating or another a hundred reviews and a four star rating?
The benefit of the wisdom of the crowd over traditional advertising is compelling. “As seen on TV” is now considered a warning against paying too much. Today we buy from experience rather than advertising hype. Not just our own experience but the experience of thousands of other consumers too.
Ask any salesmen their preferred lead and it is likely to be “Word of Mouth” which is an elementary way to describe social media. The difference with word of mouth is it is limited to a few friends and social media has access to billions of potential customers. Members share all kind of information with specialist groups covering any subject the mind can imagine. Each member of the group looks over the shoulder of fellow members to see what they are doing and ask advice.
The advertising interloper will always be excommunicated from these groups. Old media, advertisers and opinionated individuals are quickly identified and removed from the sphere of influence for good.
What does this mean for the person with something to sell?
It means mediocre and poor quality are unlikely to benefit from the new social phenomenon. If that’s all you have then stick with old media as it suffers from the last death throws push advertising has to offer.
Worthwhile products enjoy a boom without leaving a hole in the balance sheet. Introducing your product to targeted groups and attract positive reviews from esteemed and influential social media experts in your field will generate buzz. Place your product in the correct sales medium so it can be found and purchased easily from a trustworthy resource.
Unlike TV, Radio, Press, Banner Ads, Google Adsense or any other form of traditional advertising push media is finite, whereas a social media marketing campaign will produce infinite buzz always online and ready for review.
Too many cooks…
It’s easy to be trapped into the belief you need friends in facebook or followers on twitter to achieve your goals. As a relative newcomer to these services I speak from the experience of the lack of experience, a rare qualification! With confidence I can say sales come from something else. It is too simplistic to say “the more followers I have the better chance of sales” I can think of many arguments against this but perhaps the most obvious is that if everyone is hunting the highest number of followers it’s likely he or she is attracting the same kind of people, and how often do you read messages from the hundreds of thousands of messages that spend the odd micro second on your timeline?
My advice is to only follow those people who you think can help you in your pursuits. And don’t worry about offending people by not following or even removing them as a friend. Instead congratulate yourself on taking the right steps to protect what you want. People will respect you for it, especially those you choose to follow because you think they are worthy of your attention.
Tags: internet marketing, online sales
Why do you not have a built in retweet button for amazing posts like this?
Good point! I did have one, it must have gotton dropped last time I upgraded wordpress. I’ll put it on my todo list. Thanks for the kind comment!