We wanted to write a follow up for our 10 Social Media Marketing Tips article. After years of experience developing and implementing social media marketing strategy we know that each business needs to identify the platforms which best serve its objectives. It is interesting to note, however, that there are times where a business may under-value the popularity or impact of a particular social network platform based on some unfounded preconceived notions.
Our clients will often bring up the point that they “don’t use Facebook” or “would never tweet anything personally” or “wouldn’t even know how to pin something on Pinterest.” While this may be the case, it’s important to recognize that although you may have made that personal decision, many of your potential buyers haven’t. The constant growth of the major Social Networking websites, along with the intermittent introduction of new ones (ex. Instagram) is all the proof you should need to acknowledge the face that the majority of buyers participate regularly in at least one such platform.
We recently integrated Pinterest with a client’s website, allowing viewers to quickly and easily pin photos from the site on their Pinterest boards. The client admitted to “not really getting the whole ‘Pinterest thing'”. The client, a small local business, also pointed out that they are “already on Facebook and Twitter, so what’s the point of adding Pinterest?” After discussing the pros of implementing Pinterest, the client followed our suggestion.
We began by looking at the most popular posts on the website, both Socially and through the website, and then took a closer look at the top results. We recently looked at one particular page on the website that made us all do a double-take. Socially, the page had been tweeted 3 times, Liked on Facebook 61 times…..and pinned on Pinterest over 52,000 times! This large spike in Social sharing resulted in an increase of several hundreds daily visitors to the website for several months. These are the results of a single post going viral. Literally 10’s of thousands of eyes on the website were the direct result of a single page being pinned.
So why Pinterest? Why did one particular social media platform outperform the rest so drastically? Social Media marketing does not lend itself to a “one size fits all” approach. Each company has unique Social objectives, and those objective must be examined before the appropriate strategy can be developed. One of the basic considerations will always be which platform or platforms best serve a particular Social objective. Using the appropriate Social Media website is critical to maximizing your return on investment. A campaign that complete failed on Facebook could have been an enormous success on Twitter, and vice versa. In this particular case, clearly Pinterest was the ideal platform.
Social Media Marketing is a hot topic these days. Both small businesses and large can leverage the exponential power of Social Media and achieve great results. We suggest you begin by outlining clear objectives and identifying your plan to measure success. Once the correct plan is in place you will be well on your way to Social Media success.
Why People ‘Like’ and ‘Unlike’ Brands on Facebook
2012 Search Engine Optimization Guide for the New Google Algorithm
Social Media Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses