If Not Sales, What Is Social Media Good For?
April 18th, 2011 @ Paul Chaney
(Here’s my latest post at Practical Ecommerce.)
There is a battle being waged by small business owners, marketing professionals, researchers and Internet futurists alike over the value of social media in terms of its effect on commerce. There is even a term for it — social commerce.
Ample data exists to suggest that the effect of social media on ecommerce sales is insipid. For example, in a survey on social media and ecommerce conducted by Practical Ecommerce, more than 77 percent of respondents said that purchases made via social media, either directly or indirectly, amounted to less than five percent of total sales.
Read the full post at Practical Ecommerce.
Comments
Category : Social Commerce &Social Media
John Carr
1 year ago
Great point Paul. I have never experienced so many ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ in my life. One day it all seems so clear and all I have to do is implement the “tool-of-the-day”, and I’ll have more clients I’ll ever be able to handle. A few days later, exhausted from trying countless ways to get this latest “marvellous” tool installed, I’m back to square one. Tony Robbins said that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result”. For me insanity means trying to stay on top of an ever faster moving target that I’m simply not able to manage, let alone produce any meaningful results, social media included!
Paul Chaney
1 year ago
I hear you John. It gets overwhelming sometimes. I don’t place an emphasis on latest and greatest as much as I do tested and tried. That’s why I tend to limit my focus in working with clients to a handful of tools, most often starting with blogs, the the big three social networks, and, if it’s a local business, Yelp, Foursquare and Facebook Places.
I think the main point is, use the tools that best tie back to your overall marketing goals and objectives and that meet the target market where they are.
Thanks for the comment!
John Carr
1 year ago
Thanks Paul. I may be a bit slow on the uptake, but I thought FB, Twitter and LinkedIn are tested and tried venues. So what about the three tested soc. med. tools? Should I bother with them or not, regardless of how many zigillion visitors they have per second? Don’t take this personally, but I feel if don’t let off some steam, my head may blow up!
Paul Chaney
1 year ago
When I said three big social networks, I was speaking of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Again, which social network you choose to use depends on your marketing objectives, combined with where your market is. There are many other social networks (some vertically specific), forums, message boards, etc. where you may need to concentrate a focus. The best way I’ve found to do that is by starting a listening campaign using some reputation management tool like Trackur.
As my wife says, “It’s a cluster!”
John Carr
1 year ago
Thanks for the tip Paul. I had not heard of ‘Trackur’, but I’ll take a peek. Thanks again.