...stop listening to surveys on social media/Web 2.0.
AUSTIN, TX--Business owners, if you need to wait till acceptance rates hit a certain plateau before adopting your own social media strategy, then I promise you you're efforts will be doomed. Fact is, social media is growing so fast and morphing so rapidly, that if you're company takes a "wait till next year" approach, you'll be left behind and never be able to catch up.
Take for example a new survey by Jupiter released this last July that warns retailers away from social media campaigns. eCommerce Times quotes Jupiter's report
"The majority of online shoppers who have used social and community sites while
researching and purchasing do not believe that such sites affected their purchase decisions, and few online shoppers said they spend incrementally more due to their use of social and community sites."
Also quoted is Jupiter's the lead analyst for the report, Patty Freeman Evans, as saying
"Retailer[s] should take a pause from all the hype they've heard about social networking and social media because those sites are not something that's going to immediately drive incremental sales for them."
If you take Jupiter as Gospel and forgo a social media campaign, what will happen to your business if just say consumers begin to flock to social media and your largest competitor has a year's jump on you with their wikis, forums, blogs and user-generated content (UGC)?
While you consider that, here's another study called IT Execs: Social Media Most Trusted Source for Purchasing Decisions to chew on by the good folks at ITtoolbox and PJA Advertising + Marketing. Take these findings from the study into consideration:
- IT professionals cite social media as the most trustworthy online source of information when making purchasing decisions
- Executive-level decision-makers spend nearly 3.5 hours per week consuming or participating in social media - the highest usage profile of any IT audience
- Nearly two-thirds of IT professionals surveyed say social media content and user-generated tools have made for a more informed purchasing decision; nearly three-quarters say such content and tools have made their lives more efficient.
- IT audiences now spend as much or more time consuming or participating in social media as they do consuming editorial media or vendor content.
What do the purchasing habits of IT geeks mean to you if say you're a maker of premium dog food? (Attention Jim Kelly!) Consider that these geeks owned PCs while you were still banging out forms in triplicate on an electric typewriter. They were online as you bought your first Commodore 64. And now that you're ordering just about everything on Amazon while listening to your iPod, take a moment to consider who was there first. The geeks shall inherit the earth not simply through usurping the popular kids. The ultimate Revenge of the Nerds is that you and your customers grow a little more geekier every day.
Are you going to sit on your hands while your competitors adopt the Tao of the Geek and steal away your market share?
Here's some more findings about UGC that Jordan McCollum culled from a new survey from PR Week and Manning, Selvage & Lee:
- 43.4% of marketers will use UGC in the next year
- 42.3% have definitely allocated some portion of their budget to UGC
- 92.5% would consider turning to an Internet/new media specialist for a “new media campaign,” and 47.7% would turn to them first (that’s more than 2.5 times greater than the next choice, a PR agency).
- 46.6% think Internet/new media agencies do a very good or excellent job measuring their effectiveness (second only to direct marketing agencies).
Did you catch this figure -- 43.4% of marketers will use UGC in the next year? What percentage of these marketers are retailers, the survey didn't say. My advice is not to wait till next year to find out.
I'd also advise you to stop listening to surveys and start ramping up your social media campaign now.
Need more convincing? Check out Why Your Business Needs a Blog.
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