2009 was a great year for social media marketing and how far we have come. There are so many success stories to be proud of and to celebrate.
At the beginning of the year, social media was only understood and used by a select few. Now that we are at the end of 2009, there is a huge amount of buzz around Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc, and most companies are trying to figure out how they are going to use social media to their benefit or to improve on how they are currently using those sites.
The leap from traditional marketing to social media marketing is truly profound. Businesses were and still are hungry to get involved with this new and exciting marketing and the seemingly endless possibilities that are presented.
The big question surrounding social media marketing has always been, “how are sales converted?” Everyone wants to know that. It is important to remember that social media is not a sales tool. It is a marketing tool. Social media marketing can increase the likelihood of a sale, just like any other well thought-out marketing campaign. However, you still need a quality sales person to close the sale.
As with any marketing campaign, there are 3 simple principles that must exist in order to ensure success: awareness, interest, and sale. The marketing effort creates awareness and interest in the goods and services and the salesperson closes the sale.
Let’s look at awareness in a little more depth. It has been said many times that any publicity is good publicity. Gaining awareness is the Holy Grail of marketing professionals. There can be occasions when negative publicity doesn’t have a positive impact on brand awareness. However, in the majority of cases, people noticing and believing in a brand leads to increased sales.
Along with awareness (and following closely behind) is interest. Once customers are aware of a product or service, they will be interested in it. The difficult part is to get them interested to the point of wanting to buy it. Of course, that ties in with the skill of the salesperson.
An important element of social media marketing (as is also the case with traditional marketing) is being able to measure the value that it brings. Return on investment (ROI) is very important. Quantifying the value of the marketing efforts must be measured in terms of increasing the probability of closing of the sales, while reducing the time that it takes to close the sales.
There are several contributing factors that link social media marketing (and marketing in general) with successful sales. Some examples are new product releases, new channels, new features, and new sales team members. All of these factors can have a positive impact on increasing sales. Marketing generates leads and influences sales.
With social media marketing, we want to get the customer’s attention, attract them to our offerings, have them to prefer our products and services over anyone else’s, want them to become our loyal followers, and want them to promote our products and service to others.
As exciting as the emergence of (or coming of age, if you will) social media has been in 2009, it will be even more exciting in 2010. All companies will want to get more and more involved. There are tricks, tips, and wisdom available that can help small businesses to increase their brand awareness and engage their targeted customers. There are many opportunities and challenges that will be presented for all businesses in 2010. Business owners would be foolish if they didn’t take advantage of them.
We are pleased to provide you the insightful comments contained herein. Please contact us at CompuKol Communications for further discussion on how we might be able to assist you and your team.
About the Author.
Michael Cohn is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CompuKol Communications. He has over 25 years of experience in IT and web technologies. Mr. Cohn spent a significant amount of time at a major telecommunications company, where his main focus was on initiating and leading synergy efforts across all business units by dramatically improving efficiency, online collaboration, and the company’s Intranet capabilities, which accelerated gains in business productivity. He also reduced company travel and travel costs by introducing and implementing various collaboration technologies.
His expertise includes business analysis; project management; management of global cross-matrix teams; systems engineering and analysis, architecture, prototyping and integration; technology evaluation and assessment; systems development; performance evaluation; and management of off-shore development.
Mr. Cohn earned a Master’s degree in project management from George Washington University in Washington, DC; and a Master’s degree in computer science and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, NJ.
Mr. Cohn is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). 
