The lure of social media

lure-of-social-media-01Everyday we are approached by businesses about using social media marketing / digital marketing to promote their business online.

They’re lured in by social media’s access to people as if it were a shallow pond full of fish.

The dialog starts – We want to use Facebook to drive people to our business. We have a website and a Facebook.

Let’s dive into this request in greater detail.

Conversion

The promotion this business is requesting is based upon conversion. Taking a social media user and converting them into a customer. Sadly, businesses don’t understand that the correlation between a Facebook post and direct in-person transaction is rather low, nearly zero.

To convert anyone online at a return worth the investment requires interaction of the personal and human kind.

Business conversions aren’t one directional it comes from an engaged community.

Engaging

Important: You’re not engaging your community if you’re solely creating content.

Providing a 2 way conversation takes time. It takes more time cultivating and engaging than many seem to be aware of. It also means you must go “door-to-door” to your online targets and engage with them. The online version of “door-to-door” could mean going to their blog, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and starting the conversation person to person. By starting the conversation and discreetly including a link to your blog you pull in interested individuals that have a high probability of converting into customers.

Social Media is like a gym membership, you only get out of it what you put into it.

Question: What lured you into using social media? Let me know in the comments below.