Social media marketing
Does your business have an effective social media marketing strategy, or are you just missing out on all these prospects?Social media websites have boomed in the past several years. In fact, social media now outperforms every online medium except for search engines. So…what are you doing to take advantage of this trend?
Social media marketing – do you need it?
Did you know that we now spend more of our free time online than we do watching TV?And social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have grown enormously over the last few years yet many businesses are yet to tap into this exciting new way to get in front of people.
Rapid growth of various social media channels has seen us turning to our social networks in increasing numbers to seek advice and recommendations on purchasing decisions. Wouldn’t you like to be “in the game” when someone is looking for a business like yours in the social arena?
Think of it as getting an online referral from an existing customer or a fan of your product or service. Don’t we all love referrals?
We build powerful social media campaigns for companies focused on roi. Our expert team is time tested at driving explosive traffic, greater levels of leads and sales.
Social media will alter our lives and institutions in ways that we are only beginning to comprehend. Social media is about ordinary people taking control of the world around them and finding creative new ways to bring their collective voices together to get what they want. Like it or not, it is the world to which institutions must adapt. And we have only the barest inkling of what will happen when a new generation of digitally empowered kids joins the workforce.When it comes to generating new interest or exposure for your online business, social networks can help you quickly locate potential buyers, connect with authority figures in your niche; expand your outreach and even conduct niche research to determine current buying patterns, trends and overall demand.
When it comes to social media marketing, you can instantly build brand awareness and establish a reputation in your market, if you are willing to dedicate the time and effort into communicating with your potential customers and peers.
“social media marketing take work, but it can pay off as you are able to zoom in on your target market, and not only generate leads, but evaluate potential products, and keep a pulse on your market”
Social media is a veritable research tool.
Social media can be an effective vehicle for pulling web traffic to ones’ site.
Social media used as a tool for the diversification of the audience base.
Why would you get involved in social media marketing?
Essentially social media allows you to create new relationships, grow existing relationships and develop trust between you and the consumer with your product, service or brand. With proper implementation the following benefits will follow:Gain more leads – grow your friends, followers, prospects and contact lists to obtain fresh leads.
Increase customer retention – regular communication with current and past customers keeps your business top of mind. When customers have a need for your product or service you have a much higher chance of getting repeat business.
Gain more referrals – your fans, customers and followers can recommend your business to their own (often extensive) networks.
Higher search engine rankings – as your online presence grows outside of your website, so does the level of importance search engines give to your website. This results in higher search engine rankings.
Portray your business – develop a social media plan around exactly who you are and portray your business like this in a social environment.
Market intelligence – observe what people are saying about your business and what questions they are asking? Use this information to market and operate your business more effectively.
The key to social media is content and communication strategy. This content is most likely unique to any other marketing you’ve done before.
Connect with new prospects - social media allows you to spread your message and organically connect with prospects in your target market.
Communicate with prospects - you can use social media websites to communicate information and messages to your prospects, to convert prospects into sales and profits.
Communicate with customers – you can also use social media tools to communicate and interact with your customers, improving customer retention and reorder rates! Also, happy customers can easily connect you to their network of contacts, allowing you to reach an even larger audience.
To have a chat about how social media can benefit your business call us for a chat today.
Recent social media marketing statistics
53% of twitter users recommend companies and products in their tweets74% of b2b companies aggressively using Facebook in social media marketing
57% of companies have acquired customers through LinkedIn
75% of small businesses in the u.s. engage in social media marketing
$3.1 billion will be spent on social media marketing in 2014
b2b spending on social media marketing will rise 67% over the next 3 years
20% of all website visitors to company sites come from social media
2 out 3 people that follow a brand on twitter will purchase from that brand
66% of marketers saw a rise in search engine rankings due to social media marketing
91% of experienced social marketers see improved website traffic due to social media
social media commerce sales are expected to climb to $30 billion in 2015
These figures reveal the huge black hole that our time disappears into when we visit Facebook, Twitter or YouTube or other social media sites.
- One in every nine people on Earth is on Facebook ( This number is calculated by dividing the planets 6.94 billion people by Facebook’s 750 million users)
- People spend 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook
- Each Facebook user spends on average 15 hours and 33 minutes a month on the site
- More than 250 million people access Facebook through their mobile devices
- More than 2.5 million websites have integrated with Facebook
- 30 billion pieces of content is shared on Facebook each month
- 300,000 users helped translate Facebook into 70 languages
- People on Facebook install 20 million “Apps” every day
- YouTube has 490 million unique users who visit every month (as of February 2011)
- YouTube generates 92 billion page views per month (These YouTube stats don’t include videos viewed on phones and embedded in websites)
- Users on YouTube spend a total of 2.9 billion hours per month (326,294 years)
- Wikipedia hosts 17 million articles
- Wikipedia authors total over 91,000 contributors
- People upload 3,000 images to Flickr (the photo sharing social media site) every minute
- Flickr hosts over 5 billion images
- 190 million average Tweets per day occur on Twitter (May 2011)
- Twitter is handling 1.6 billion queries per day
- Twitter is adding nearly 500,000 users a day
- Google+ has more than 25 million users
- Google+ was the fastest social network to reach 10 million users at 16 days (Twitter took 780 days and Facebook 852 days)
WHY Social Media Marketing Campaigns For Your Business?
The average midsize or large company (1000 employees or more) has 178 “social media assets” (Twitter handles, employee blogs, etc.)–yet only 25% of companies offer social business training to their employees. (Marketingeasy)B2b marketers believe social media is critical to organic search success. Marketers rate social media as the second-most important factor (64%) in search, behind only strong content (82%). (BtoB Magazine)
Although Facebook is the most important social media lead generation tool for b2c marketers (with 77% saying they had had acquired a customer through Facebook, compared to 60% for a company blog), among B2B companies, LinkedIn was the most effective, with 65% having acquired a customer through the professional network, followed by company blogs (60%), Facebook (43%), and Twitter (40%). (Marketing Charts)
The best way to “go viral” is to engage millions of users, each of whom shares through small networks. “Online sharing, even at viral scale, takes place through many small groups, not via the single status post or tweet of a few influencers…Content goes viral when it spreads beyond a particular sphere of influence and spreads across the social web via ordinarily people sharing with their friends…the median ratio of Facebook views to shares (is) merely 9-to-1. This means that for every Facebook share, only nine people visited the story. Even the largest stories on Facebook are the product of lots of intimate sharing—not one person sharing and hundreds of thousands of people clicking.” (Ad Age)
LinkedIn generates more leads for b2b companies than Facebook, Twitter or blogs. Yet only 47% of b2b marketers say they are actively using LinkedIn vs. 90% on Facebook. (Social Media B2B)
One-third of global b2b buyers use social media to engage with their vendors, and 75% expect to use social media in future purchases processes. (Social Media B2B)
“Best in class” b2b companies are significantly more likely than average firms to integrate their social media efforts with their email marketing (65% vs. 51%), SEO (61% vs. 49%) and webinars (47% vs. 31%). (MarketingProfs)
As for “best in class” practices, 51% of best-in-Class companies use website social sharing tools, compared to 36% of average firms while 49% use keyword-based social media monitoring, compared with 39% of their more average peers. (MarketingProfs)
Top executives need to be involved in social media. 77% of buyers say they are more likely to buy from a company who’s CEO uses social media. 94% said C-suite social media participation enhances a brand image. And 82% of employees say they trust a company more when the CEO and leadership team communicate via social media. (eMarketer)
User Experience
Want more registrations on your website? Consider offering a social login (i.e., the ability for visitors to register at and log in to your site using one of their existing social network profiles rather than creating a new login):86% of people say they are bothered by the need to create new accounts at websites. (MarketingSherpa)
77% responded that social login is “a good solution that should be offered.” (MarketingSherpa)
21% of “best in class” companies use social sign-in, compared to 8% of average-performing firms. (MarketingProfs)
Lead Nurturing
Only 27% of B2B leads are sales-ready when first generated. This makes lead nurturing essential for capitalizing on the other 73%. But 65% of B2B marketers have not established lead nurturing campaigns. (MarketingSherpa)SEO-driven leads have the highest lead-to-close rate (15%) among common lead generation sources. Paid search leads average a 7% rate, while outbound marketing leads (e.g., direct mail, telemarketing) close at a 2% rate. (Econsultancy)
70% of local businesses use Facebook. The U.S. has the largest number of Facebook users. The country with the second-largest Facebook population: Indonesia. (Jeff Bullas)
Facebook is the leading source of referred social media traffic to websites, at 26%. Twitter is second at 3.6%. (Pooky Shares)
34% of marketers have generated leads using Twitter, and 20% have closed deals. (Mindjumpers)
40% of Twitter users rarely post anything but primarily consume content there. 55% access Twitter via a mobile device. (Mindjumpers)
92% of retweets are based on “interesting content.” Only 26% are due to inclusion of “please RT!” in the tweet. (Mindjumpers)
Twitter now has 200 million users, including 8% of the U.S. population. About one-quarter of all users are considered “extremely active,” checking in several times per day. (Jeff Bullas)
55% of all Twitter users use the service to share links to news stories, and 53% retweets others. (Jeff Bullas)
77 of the world’s 100 largest companies maintain a corporate Twitter account. But media outlets are the most active users. (Jeff Bullas)
Google and Google+
Google’s search engine is used by 85% of global Internet users every month. (MediaPost)Google+ is expected to reach 400 million users by the end of 2012. It’s membership is 63% male, with the largest cohort in their mid-20s. While the largest blocks of users by country are in the U.S., the second largest is India. However, only 17% of users are considered “active.” (Jeff Bullas)
83% of Pinterest users are women. In the U.S., the most popular categories are Fashion, Desserts, Clothes and Birthdays. (MediaPost)
But in the U.K., the five most popular topics on Pinterest are Venture Capital, Blogging Resources, Crafts, Web Analytics and SEO/Marketing. (Pooky Shares)
22% of all pins come from New York, followed by Los Angeles at 15%. A higher percentage come from Minneapolis (10%) than from San Francisco (8%)–even though Pinterest is based in Palo Alto. (MediaPost)
Pinterest is virtually tied with Twitter (at 3.6%) for the amount of referred social traffic it sends to websites. (Pooky Shares)
Tumblr
Tumblr grew 900% in 2011 and now has 90 million users. However, just 2% of members account for more than 40% of all traffic. (Jeff Bullas)The five most popular tags for Tumblr posts are GIF, LOL, Fashion, Art and Vintage. The U.S. has the largest share of users, followed by Brazil. (Jeff Bullas)
Mobile Marketing
4.8 billion people now own mobile phones. Just 4.2 billion own a toothbrush. (Mindjumpers)One-third of Smart phones globally use the Android OS. (MediaPost)
The number of tablets in use in the U.S. rose from 34 million in 2011 to 55 million this year and is expected to reach 108 million by 2015. (TMGmedia)
Mobile commerce is projected to ten-fold from 2010 ($3 billion) to 2016 ($31 billion). (TMGmedia)
While three-quarters of b2b marketers are aware of the growing importance of mobile devices, only 23% rate mobile search as either “important” or “critical” to their search marketing objectives. (BtoB Magazine)
Just 16% of b2b marketers are producing mobile-specific content as part of their content marketing efforts. (Smart Insights)
Although the percentage of visits to b2b websites coming from smart phones has increased nearly 50% in the past year, they still represent only about 1 out of every 24 sites visits on average. (Webbiquity)
SEO and Search Marketing
57% of B2B marketers say SEO has the biggest impact on their lead generation goals. (Mindjumpers)Though half of all b2b digital spending is focused on search and most websites are organically optimized, only 65% of b2b marketers have ever used pay-per-click advertising. (BtoB Magazine)
Search provides the highest quality leads. According to research by HubSpot, “SEO leads have a 15% close rate, on par with the close rate for direct traffic, and ahead of referrals (9%), paid search (7%), social media (4%), and outbound leads (2%).” (Marketing Charts)
Mobile + apps Statistics
42% of mobile users share multimedia via FacebookGoogle+ is the second-most used social network for sharing multimedia content from a mobile device (10%)
Smartphone owners now spend as much time using social networking apps such as Twitter and Facebook as they do playing games
In Q1 2012, users logged an average of 24 minutes per day using social apps (on phone), with 24 minutes being spent on gaming apps
There were around 100 billion smartphone application sessions during Q1 2012
Users log an average of 77 minutes per day using apps on their smartphone
Social commerce statistics
Social commerce sales should total $9.2 billion by the end of this year and are expected to climb to $14.25 billion in 2013 and $30 billion in 2015Some 167 million people will shop online this year, which will increase to 192 million by 2016 (spending an average of $1,800 per person per year)
20% would purchase within a social media site
40% of Twitter users regularly search for products via Twitter
12% of consumers have purchased a product online because of info they found on Twitter
60% are willing to post about products/services in FB if they get a deal or discount
Social TV Statistics
42% of Americans watch TV while they’re on their laptops, smartphones or tablets45% of men and 55% of women tweet while watching TV
31% of those aged 50+ are talking “TV” on social media, 27% 25-35 and 12% up to 18 years
50% of Twitter users that engage with shows discuss the show they’re watching in real-time
77% of social network users tweet to tell friends what they’re watching
68% tweet to keep shows they like on air
Customer Service in Social Media Statistics
Social media users are willing to pay a 21% premium for brands that deliver great service through social media17% have used social media in past year to obtain a service response
Social media users who receive great service tell an average of 42 people (compared to just 9 for social absentees)
83% of social media users have not completed an intended purchase because of poor customer service and will inform 53 people (compared to 49% and 17 people for those not active on social)
Blogging
Social media sites and blogs reach 80% of all U.S. internet users. (Mindjumpers)Social networks and blogs account for 23% of all time spent online — twice as much as gaming. (Mindjumpers)
“Increased frequency of blogging correlates with increased customer acquisition, according to…HubSpot. 92% of blog users who posted multiple times a day acquired a customer through their blog, a figure that decreased to 66% for those who blogged monthly and 43% for those who posted less than monthly.” (Marketing Charts)
The most popular frequency for blog posting is weekly (60% of bloggers). Just 10% post daily. (Marketing Charts)
Blogs are the single most important inbound marketing tool. “When asked to rank the importance of the services they use, 25% of users rated their company blog as critical to their business, while a further 56% considered them either important (34%) or useful (22%)” for a total of 81%. (Marketing Charts)
B2B companies with blogs generate 67% more leads per month on average than non-blogging firms. (Social Media B2B)
Video and SlideShare
52% of b2b marketers use video as part of their content marketing mix. (Smart Insights)Video production costs vary widely, depending on length, quality, and type of content and other factors. High-end animated videos can cost $20,000-$30,000, while simpler interview-type videos can be under $1,000. Common 2- to 3-minute videos with a mix of live action and simple animation typically cost $2,000-$5,000. (Mack Collier)
SlideShare draws 60 million visitors per month; but most importantly for b2b marketers, it attracts 3X more traffic from business owners than any other social media site. (Jeff Bullas)
Social Demographics
On social networking sites, men and women are about equally willing to share their real names (both about 87%), political and religious affiliation, and the brands they like (~77%), but men are far more likely than women to share their physical address (11% vs. 4%), their current location (35% vs. 20%), their phone number 15% vs. 4%), and their income level (16% vs. 5%). (AllTwitter)Contrary to what you’ve probably been told, longer format video may actually drive higher engagement: “different types of content yield different sharing behaviors. Breaking down video behavior within StumbleUpon, videos viewed between two to three minutes found a spike in sharing out to social media, whereas videos viewed beyond four minutes see direct shares increase by five times. Longer, arguably more involved, content may drive viewers to more intimate sharing routes.” (Ad Age)
Inbound and Content Marketing
90% of b2b marketers do some form of content marketing. 26% of b2b marketing budgets are invested in content, and 60% of b2b marketers say they plan to spend more on content marketing in the coming year. (Smart Insights)The most popular content marketing tactics used by b2b marketers are article posting (used by 79% of b2b marketers), social media excluding blogs (74%), blogs (65%) and enewsletters (63%). Just 10% use virtual conferences. (Smart Insights)
The average cost to generate a lead through inbound marketing ($143) is about half the average for outbound marketing ($373). (Econsultancy)
Small businesses, on average, spend twice the share of their lead generation budget (43%) on inbound marketing as do large companies (21%). Small organizations spend more than twice as much on social media and 3X as much on blogging as their larger counterparts, while big businesses spend three times as much on trade shows and nearly twice the share of their budget on direct mail as do smaller firms. (Econsultancy)
More is (often at least) better. Businesses with 40+ different landing pages/offers generate 10X more leads than those with five or fewer landing pages, and those with 200 or more total blog posts generate 3.5X more leads than those whose blogs have 20 or fewer posts. (Econsultancy)
84% of b2b companies are using some form of social media marketing. However, “best in class” companies generate over 3X their share of all leads (17% vs. 5%) from social media as do average performing companies. (MarketingProfs)
90% of b2b marketers are doing some form of content marketing, and b2b marketers spend on average 26% of their marketing budgets on content. The most effective content marketers spend twice as much as their less effective peers on content development, and consider buying stage when developing content. (B2B Marketing Insider)
It shouldn’t be a surprise, but content has to be good in order to be effective. B2b buyers say that less than half of vendor content is useful–and vendors who produce such low-value content are 27% less likely to be considered and 40% less likely to win the business. “Good” content is concise, entertaining (includes stories), more educational than promotional, and is contextually personalized. (B2B Marketing Insider)
Media and Online Advertising
Most “national” newspapers are still quite regional: the Chicago Tribune gets socially shared at above average levels only in Illinois, the Washington Post only in Virginia, D.C. and Maryland, and the New York Times only in a clump of northeastern states and Hawaii (though the Wall Street Journal is very popular in Arizona). Fox News is most popular in the southeastern U.S. plus Nevada and Alaska, while the Huffington Post is widely share along the Interstate 35 corridor (Minnesota to Texas), Florida, Oregon, Maine and the rustbelt. (Forbes)Online CPM rates have little correlation with actual advertiser value delivered. Nearly one-third of all display ads are never seen (defined as 50% of the pixels in view for at least one second). But contrary to popular belief, “below the fold” ads don’t necessarily have lower impression rates than those placed high on the page. (MediaPost)
Leaderboard (728 x 90 pixels) and medium rectangle (300 x 250) ad sizes have the highest view-in rates. Coupon and directory sites have the highest ad view rates, both over 80%. In contrast, a sponsor’s ads had just a 27% likelihood of being seen on pet-oriented sites. (MediaPost)
Social media marketing
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