On Friday, I had the privilege of meeting with a favorite client of ours who is about one year deep in his social media marketing journey. He gives bold testimonial that new media and social media are his number one marketing tools – and he can say that confidently because his businesses are thriving like never before.
Last week, another client of ours closed a deal that had been in the works through social media channels for nearly four months. But what a doozey of a good deal it was – a key influencer purchased and is telling everyone about his purchase. Gold.
We get asked all the time: How quickly can social media move the needle?
There are a lot of answers to the question. Here are a few thoughts I have in the “how long does it take to move the needle” category.
1. Once you have built an engaged social media community and are providing valuable information to them through other new media channels as well (such as e-mail and website or blog), if you ring the dinner bell on social media (most typically Facebook Pages or Twitter), they’ll come. Sometimes in less than an hour. That’s quick needle-moving.
2. Rome wasn’t built in a day. That community that makes some businesses look like an overnight success – it isn’t. Sure, you can build NUMBERS in a matter of days if you know what you’re doing – but trust and engagement that lead to sales (and isn’t that what we’re after: selling more stuff) – that’s a slower hill to climb. Sales will start increasing or at least stabilize in fairly short order, but the real benefit is gained by building long-term trust and engagement with your community of customers and prospects online. That trust that makes them feel like insiders will have a mushroom effect on your business success – when that level of trust reaches critical mass you are staged for record sales numbers, massive amounts of PR, and recommendations from key influentials in your target market – regardless of the economy. The needle moving sales success that happens at this stage of the game happens after deliberate, strategic, and consistent relationship building over a series of months (but not years).
3. Social media doesn’t move the needle. Solid marketing strategy integrated throughout your business, including a wise understanding of your customers and how to use and market via new media and social media tools is what moves the needle.
4. The needle will never move if you don’t make what’s happening online and off-line cohesive and consistent. Inconsistency will leave you dead in the water. You’ll also be dead in the water if the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.
5. The needle will move the wrong direction if you fail to make good on the promises you make online. If the pizza is burned, and you don’t make me happy again – the needle will undoubtedly move the wrong direction for you – probably sooner than later.
6. The needle is moving all the time whether you want it to you or not. We visited with a local restaurant manager last night that had no idea what was happening on Twitter in his area. Just because your head is in the sand, doesn’t mean that the world isn’t going on around you. The majority of brick and mortar buying decisions are made before the customer ever pulls into your parking lot – they’re looking online first. If you aren’t there – they’ll go somewhere else – and you’ll wonder where your sales are going. You will miss opportunities to grow your business.
The needle is moving, people are talking – are you listening, learning and engaging in an effort to move YOUR needle in the profitable direction – even if it takes a few months to hit one out of the park?
Photo Credit: Unhindered by Talent
In my case this weekend, it took less than 48 hours to move the needle! While on a press trip this past weekend in New Orleans, I Facebooked about how awesome one of our meals was at a sponsoring restaurant. The message read as follows:
“Okay – NO B.S. here…. The BEST sandwich I have ever eaten is at Luke in NOLA. If you are in town…order the PRESSED PIG sandwich… It is like going to food heaven. Seriously. I wanted to run and kiss the cook.”
Two days later, we went back to the restaurant for an encore and ran into a “very visible couple” from the Jackson area. They said they were there because they had read my Facebook post! The manager of the restaurant and I were both happy.
Eliz, Don’t know how I missed your comment, but I love it! This is a fantastic testimonial to the power of social media. Thanks for sharing!