How Marketers are Successfully Using Social Media to Grow Their Business

880 Online Marketers recently participated in a social media survey. The purpose of the survey was to understand how Marketers are using social media to promote and expand their businesses.

A few fast facts from the survey results:
-88% of survey responders indicated they were using social media for business purposes.
-The top 4 most popular social media sites for business were: Twitter (86% used), Blogs (79%), LinkedIn (78%) and Facebook (77%).
-Over 60% of Marketers who have been using social media for years claim that it has helped them close business.
-Men utilized video sites, such as YouTube, for marketing purposes much more frequently than women do (52.4% of men vs. 31.7% of women).

The benefits section of the white paper is a gold mine of information. Far and away, the top benefit for social media marketing is generating exposure. 61% increased traffic, while 56% said it led to new business partnerships. Nearly half of responders indicated that social media generated qualified leads. An unexpected side benefit from all the social media exposure was an improvement in the search rankings. And for those who worry that social media is a distraction that doesn't lead to sales, 35% said it helped to seal a deal (this figure goes up to 61.62% for Marketers who have several years of social media experience).

So now we know that social media offers tangible benefits to Marketers, but it does have a downside. Social media marketing, while free (or at least cheaper than other channels) is time consuming. The majority (64%) of marketers spend 5+ hours per week on it, while 39% spend 10+ hours per week. But anything worth doing is worth doing well, right? Sorry, you can't just buy one of those off the shelf systems claiming that you can get 20k followers in 2 weeks, just by using a spam bot.

One last nugget from the survey...72% of Marketers have either just started or have been using social media professionally for only a few months. So, if you are a small business owner/marketer, don't worry. You haven't missed the boat. But I hope this report has convinced you that the time to start leveraging social media for business is now. And if you have started using it, please leave a quick comment so that others can learn from your experience.

For more information see:
http://www.whitepapersource.com/socialmediamarketing/

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Has Twitter Jumped the Shark?

Oprah is using Twitter (in all caps unfortunately). So is Ashton Kutcher and his 1 Million followers. Now that Twitter has gone mainstream, is it in danger of jumping the shark?

I don't think so. According to Social Media theory, the more users there are, the greater the benefit to all. I agree with this theory to a point. And that point starts with Facebook. Do I really need to know at any given moment what my ex-boyfriend from 6th grade is doing? All those updates are really starting to clog my Facebook feed. But I digress. A fundamental difference between Facebook and Twitter is that I can easily unfollow someone (without hurt feelings) who is posting too often. This power makes it less annoying to me. I have over 600 followers on Twitter (most of whom I follow in return) and I hope the number keeps growing. On Facebook, I have around 70 friends and I hope that number doesn't grow exponentially.

From a business perspective, the recent spike in number of Twitterers should be welcomed. More people means more potential customers. TechCrunch estimated the Oprah effect to be almost 1.2 Million new users. Obviously they need to need to be part of your target market, but Twitter is growing so quickly that some of those new users are bound to be. More people also means a higher likelihood that your message will be passed along to others (AKA viral marketing or Buzz marketing). So perhaps all you business Twitterers out there, should send Oprah a thank you tweet. Just remember to turn your Caps Lock function off.

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Social Networking Stats -- Facebook & Twitter Rising, Myspace Declining

Compete.com recently released their ranking of social networking sites for January 2009*. Ranked by number of monthly visits, Facebook overtook Myspace to grab the top spot for the first time. 

This reversal doesn't surprise me. While Facebook has been innovating, Myspace has been stagnating. Facebook finished rolling out its feed-focused redesign last Fall; since then the average number of monthly visits has increased from 11 to 17. Meanwhile, Myspace also introduced feeds, but not in key areas like the profile page. Since then, Myspace visits have remained flat at an average of 14 per month.

*Statistics are based on US internet traffic.

I have to say that I don't really get the point of tagged.com and I'm surprised to see it in the number 6 position. I am also really tired of getting spam telling me I need to respond to my tags.

With all the innovation taking place in the social media space, it will be interesting to watch how the rankings change over the next few months. I believe that Myspace will continue to lose steam and drop in the rankings. Ditto tagged.com. I also predict that Twitter will rise to the number two spot in the next six months. I am a big fan of Linkedin.com and expect it to move up the rankings to the fourth and perhaps even the third spot within the next six months.

For more information, see the article in Venture Beat and compete.com.

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