By Susan E. Campbell
Social media have not only changed the way companies and clients talk with one another, but marketing professionals say that businesses lose a competitive edge when social sites are under-utilized.
“Companies know they need more clients and they know social media is cost-effective,” said Sara Mannix, founder of Mannix Marketing. “But they need assistance to choose which venues will give the best return on their advertising dollars.”
In the 1990s Mannix Marketing was launched as a search engine optimization company. Today Mannix and her team help clients garner more business and higher profits through well planned, well executed marketing programs across digital media.
“There have been more changes in the digital marketing industry in the past three months than in the past 10 years,” she said.
“It is no longer enough just to have a website and social sites open,” said Cory Patterson, founder of Cuore Communications. Cuore Communications helps small businesses and non-profit organizations utilize social sites, blogs and targeted marketing to gain or keep a competitive edge.
“The company needs to analyze where traffic to its Web site is coming from and optimize those sources,” the four main ones being Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Blogger, Patterson said.
Of all the hits to a company’s website, social media now drive between 10 and 20 percent on average, according to Patterson. Hits on the Web lead to more personal connections that can lead to customer acquisition and retention.
“Regular posts not only increase the likelihood of finding a company on a search engine because social media is dynamic,” Patterson said. “Posts that are perceived as authentic make that personal connection with the consumer.”
Because of the “social contact factor,” business owners have to be “willing to be a part of the process” of posting and measuring results, said Mannix.
But that is a time-consuming responsibility that many business owners don’t want to accept.
“As a small business owner learns to understand the nuances of social marketing, valuable time is taken away from focusing on profits,” said Patterson. “Some clients want to outsource 100 percent of their social marketing efforts to us,” Mannix said. “But the best thing to retain in-house is the daily social media posting, since authenticity matters to consumers.”
Patterson said she holds weekly sessions with her clients to find out first-hand what’s new or top-of-mind. She may ultimately write the post, but it will be in the client’s voice and it will inform, entertain, or both.
Mannix said that if the business owner has literally no time, social marketing may not be the best venue for them.
A growing trend in digital marketing is away from text and toward greater use of graphics, especially videos, Patterson said.
“Photo-based posts are growing with the momentum of Pinterest and Instagram,” she said. “Today a company can market its business with a video that is funny or cute and informative and hope it goes viral, or post video testimonials from happy customers.” A company like a florist or event planner can make a better impression of their services with photos and videos. Or a non-profit that shows pictures of the house it is building for a homeless family better informs the public about what it is doing that simply writing about it, Patterson said.
“Any new business is wise to have a Web presence as part of its start-up,” Patterson said.
Social media is especially important for restaurants, according to Patterson. Before it even opens for business, a new restaurant is already increasing awareness about the quality of its menu and location as well as delivering price information and hours of operation.
“People use their smartphones to quickly search for a restaurant,” she said. “If the only way to find your restaurant is through some random site, it puts into the consumer’s mind that this must not be a very good place to eat.”
Patterson said she herself makes the same value judgments.
“If a company has been around for five or 10 years and has not created a successful site, I get the impression that it is not doing well enough to have one, or they’re not doing what they’re doing well,” she said.
Another top trend today is optimizing web sites and social network sites for use by cellular phones, tablets and anything new and mobile.
“When accessing a Web site from cell phone, the page is going to be very tiny unless there is a way to look at only the piece of the site that interests the viewer,” Patterson said.
Another problem is the time it takes to load the page onto the phone. Reprogramming the site for use by devices with different formats solves both problems, say the professionals.
“Since the beginning of the year, Mannix Marketing has been converting our clients’ sites for mobile use,” Mannix said. “We are working diligently to develop schema language, a kind of grid system that re-sizes images and text from the site and moves them around to accommodate the particular mobile device.
“A good site will also have a link to click on to access the full site from the mobile device if desired,” Patterson said.
Mannix said hits on a site that come from mobile devices is now up to 25 percent and growing.
Many businesses that learn about the opportunities of social marketing want to jump in with both feet. But Mannix said it’s best to conduct a marketing program in phases. Get attention on the Web initially through organic means and later through paid searches. “The beauty of paid searches through news feeds, columns or sponsored feeds is that the client can set any budget it wants and simply stop the advertisements upon reaching a quota of responses,” said Patterson.
Just as a company’s brand is unique, so is its marketing mix. For free initial consultation on the use and benefits of social media, log on to mannixmarketing.com and cuorecommunications.com. Mannix can be reached at 743-9424 and Patterson at 742-9432.