Social Media Marketing: Go Where Your Customers Are

Every morning when I leave my home for work, there are always two things I make sure I have before I lock the door: my keys and my cell phone. I can handle forgetting my wallet, but god help me if I forget my phone. Clearly, my life has changed to accommodate the demand for attention that this little device creates.

Think about how entwined with our cell phones we have become. On my drive into work, I constantly see people walking down the street looking at their phones instead of where they are going. I once saw a guy cross the street and step directly into oncoming traffic because he was too enamored with whatever was happening on his phone. And then of course, we all love to run into the speaker phone talkers. I even noticed a couple sitting in the second row at a recent NBA playoff game, and they weren’t even watching! They paid $3,500 per seat to be at that game, yet sending snapchats and checking Facebook held priority.

So what’s my point?

Think of all the time you spend, each and every day, on your smartphone. These habits have become the norm. So knowing how addicted we have become as a culture, why aren’t more businesses upping their social media game?

The advantages are clear. If you want to reach potential customers, you need to go where they are already spending a large part of their time: on social media.

Why wouldn’t you? For some, they might not know where to start. For others, they may have tried and not gotten the level of response they wanted.

Believe it or not, there are strategies to making a social media campaign successful. The type of content, the frequency, and the time of day of a post can all affect its effectiveness. Is the post strictly informational or does it create a dialogue? A dialogue or “shared content” can create a viral campaign that can and usually does take on a life of its own. With social media, you can become part of the experience, and no other advertising lets you do that.

Here’s where all my friends and colleagues in the Media Industry are going to hate me, but that doesn’t make this any less true. TV, Radio, Newspaper, et al. are all passive forms of advertising. You throw advertisements out into the public sphere and hope someone see it, hears it, and maybe, just maybe, reacts to it. The people you are trying to reach are passively accepting or rejecting your message. There is no engagement.

DVR’s are the death of TV ads. Watching live TV has become almost painful in this ADD world. In fact, I bet you too have a habit of taking out your cell phone and scrolling through social media during commercial breaks. I can’t make my point any clearer.

If your business wants to engage with your potential customers and grow your Internet presence, then we should talk. I can help you get the dynamic and responsive website your business needs, and help set you up with an online marketing campaign to improve your social media presence, SEO, and more.

Give me a call sometime. You know my phone won’t be more than an arm’s length away. I look forward to hearing from you.

Bob Clarke
VP Digital Marketing
Ruby Porter Marketing & Design
541-852-1081