Why it Takes so Long to Achieve Social Media Success

If you’re impatient, social media is probably the wrong marketing channel for you.

This is data from the recent research released by Social Media Examiner. This is not a scientific study, but it is a view from nearly 4,000 marketers, skewed toward small businesses. So we can’t regard it as absolute truth but it is probably directionally correct. Let’s take a close look at what we can learn from the feedback provided by these active social media marketers.

Social media success takes time
Now let’s refer to the chart at the top of the post again. When we compare a soft benefit like awareness with a “hard” benefit like sales, we see that most people even just starting with social media recognize an immediate benefit on the awareness front. In fact about 80 percent saw results in the first year compared to 35 percent who saw an increase in sales right out of the gate.

Weak relational links
Why does it take so long for the sales to kick in?
One of the biggest problems many businesses face is they compare social media marketing efforts with advertising. That is an inaccurate comparsion because the mechanisms and benefits are different. If you need to drive rapid awareness or pump up sales with a coupon, advertising still works really well (assuming people see your ads!).
While social media has many benefits including marketing research, customer service, and collaboration, for many businesses it’s primarily about building relationships that lead to sales. But social media connections are weak relational links. Social media platforms simply open new doors, and it takes time to turn those connections into strong links that are actionable.
Instead of comparing social media marketing to advertisng, it might be more accurate comparing it to the benefits of attending an annual trade show or networking meeting where it takes time to build relationships that lead to sales.
So yes, the immediate benefit of social media marketing is awareness and that is IMPORTANT because awareness leads to engagement. Over time, that engagement may result in trust. And it’s not until we get to that point that we can begin seeing some cash coming in the door maybe years down the line.
This is why social media marketing can be a hard sell to executives who are accustomed to the overnight results of advertising. Unfortunately, many traditional kinds of advertising present diminishing returns as people spend less time with newspapers, local radio, and network television. For this reason, it makes good sense to start moving up that social media sales curve now, right?

Source:businessesgrow

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