Six Clear Reasons why you should be using Social Media to build your Credibility

An Ad agency client asked me the other day to provide them the primary reason why their clients should use Social Media as part of their advertising mix. Specifically they were talking about Facebook, Twitter and Angieslist. The answer to this question is often confusing and misstated. This article provides six concise reasons why Social Media is so important today.  Reading this article will make it easy for the reader to see why Social Media has risen so quickly in advertising circles and it will help them prosper from using it.  Here are a few reasons why they should use Social Media as part of their marketing mix. 

1. Word of Mouth is Number One!

Word of Mouth - Visualized (Photo credit: mvellandi)

Ask any business owner or advertising agent what’s the best form of advertising and they will say word of mouth. It's the number one way to build real credibility. When you run an ad it’s recognized as a commercial, and the average person believes that ads exaggerate and are deceptive. When a person mentions how great your product or service is, or how wonderful your installers were, it's a testimonial. Word of mouth is perceived as the absolute truth and is priceless! Social Networking is Word of Mouth on Steroids. Make sure your clients are posting testimonials on your social media pages.

2. Social Media provides a Huge Number of Potential Prospects!

1.4 Billion Reasons presentation. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Facebook is the number two destination on the internet. It has almost a "billion" subscribers that cross all walks of life. Our local area has more than 500 thousand Facebook subscribers! If you added all the subscribers for Facebook, Twitter, (which has around 400 million) Google+, (which has around 300 million) Angieslist, YouTube (with 3 billion views a day) and LinkedIn (200 million business users), you would end up with a huge number of potential prospects. Of these services only Angieslist charges members to subscribe. This means that 98 percent of all Social Networks are basically free to use. Granted there is some overlap but the number of users would still be more than a billion people!

3. You can get Psycho-graphic as well as Demographic Information on your Target Market!

Facebook provides psycho-graphic and demographic profiles on its followers. To some extent you can target prospects on LinkedIn and Twitter with their profile information also.  Your ability to target subscribers via their profile is one of the main differences between a Social Media Pay Per Click programs and a Search Engine pay per click program. With a Search Engine, you are selecting a specific demographic. With Social Media you are targeting their personal profiles. Needless to say this is very powerful.  

A segment of a social network (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Also you can target someone via who they are connected to. When a person likes your page, their friends will see them listed as liking your page when your ad is running during your pay per click campaign. Thus your ad is displayed to matching profiles and appears as being endorsed by their friends at the same time. In other words their friends will appear to be providing a tacit endorsement of your product/service. Their friends will be perceived as saying that they like your products! This only occurs when you’re engaged in pay per click ad and or story ad campaigns.

4. Social Media Provides Real Client Engagement, no other Media does this so Well.

Social Media Brand Engagement Curve (Photo credit: Intersection Consulting)

It's a great way to engage your clients and prospects. No other media has a way of directly communicating with clients. When a customer makes a comment on one of your posts, you can quickly speak directly to them by answering or commenting on their post. You can even see if they are online and invite them to chat with you. There are other chat and direct response services out there that can help provide this kind of interaction, but few are free to use and are not part of the built in culture of Social Networks.

5. Social Media Provides Back-link Support for your SEO Efforts. 

exchange-links (Photo credit: vaXzine)

Both Twitter and Google+ post provides backlinks that are current and relevant. Because these posts are current, they receive high rankings. On top of that, each post counts as separate backlinks! These links also rank high on search engines especially if they are recent and match the keywords of the search. This is also true to some extent for LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook. I have also seen review posts act in this way and I always encourage my clients to ask their customers to post recommendations and testimonials. LinkedIn actually has a special section dedicated to show casing recommendations. These recommendations are used extensively by LinkedIn users. Facebook has a slew of add on applets that allow users to connect with each other and make recommendations in somewhat different ways.

6. Using Social Media is a Great Way to Provide a Subtle Form of Touch Marketing. 

Atari Game 1980

There is no question that if you stay in contact with your clients on a regular basis with helpful tips and useful information they would learn to look forward to your communications with them. If you are providing useful, interesting, funny or entertaining messages via your post, clients and prospects will pay attention. This type of interaction builds trust over time. It will also allow you to sneak in an occasional subtle commercial without ruffling your follower’s feathers. After a short period of time you will be able to provide direct response mail offering your current specials without being added to the spam list. If you respect your follower’s time, interests and privacy by providing them with useful information that they care about, they will reward you by staying engaged with your company.

I don't want to oversimplify why Social Media marketing is so powerful. I also don't want to imply that it's easy, because it's very labor intensive. Having said this, its common knowledge that word of mouth is the most powerful form of advertising there is. Social Networking is all about word of mouth. It's word of mouth with exponential growth and speed potential! When you say something about your product or service, it's perceived at best as hyperbole. On the other hand when a customer (and their friends) praises your product or service on a Social Network, it’s a testimonial. Because of the nature of Social Networks, that message can become viral very quickly, spreading a positive message, so fast that it makes face to face word of mouth marketing seem like watching grass grow. This also means that Social Media can be a double edge sword. It can make you look good and help close the deal or it can hurt your chances when you don't compare well against your competition.

In this article I have shared with you 6 potent reasons why you should be engaged in Social Media. It’s becoming a vital part of business marketing. The truth is this; even if you’re not using Social Media, your clients and prospects are, and they are talking about your product or service whether you know it or not. Social Media word of mouth can help or hurt you quickly. If you have no direct input, if you’re not engaged you are vulnerable! If you want to have any semblance of control, any ability to steer your message so that it is positive, have any perceived value as being useful, as being engaging and compelling, then you need to be engaged. Not using social media today is like being an ostrich with its head in the sand, just before the lion waltz’s in for dinner.

If you use these six principles in your advertising campaigns, your efforts will produce greater results and more positive long term effects. Ignore these principles and you will have to deal with the long term consequences of your inaction's. You will be left behind while your competition surges ahead and stakes a claim to your customers. Take advantage of Social Media marketing, it’s mostly free and there for the taking.

I have written several other articles covering how to use social Media effectively. See my syndicated articles covering social networking on Ezine magazine online. Especially read these three; #1, Success Secrets for Social Media Connecting, #2, Three Common Mistakes Business People Make When Using Social Media and #3, Six Cardinal Rules for Success in Social Media Marketing. Here is a link to my articles. http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Hector_E._Cisneros

That’s my opinion I love to hear yours.

That’s my opinion I love to hear yours.

Hector Cisneros is a writer and author, has been an entrepreneur for more than 30 years, is a veteran of BNI for 19 years and was a BNI director for over five years. He is still an active BNI member and follows the philosophy of Givers Gain. He is the owner of several businesses in Jacksonville, Florida. He actively coaches business owners in the fine art of Online advertising, Business Networking and Word of Mouth marketing. He is a principle partner in W Squared Media Group and the president of Website Know How, Inc. a holding company for several of his business ventures that include online advertising, word of mouth marketing, real estate holdings, non-profit training/support, book publishing, health and wellness product sales and Adventure sports. Hector's new book 60 Seconds to success, teaches business owners how to get the most from word of mouth marketing by using great 60 second introductions. To learn more about Hector Cisneros, Social Media, Online Marketing or Word of Mouth Marketing visit Hector's profile on EzineArticles.com  Networkers Apprentice workshop http://networkersapprentice.com or my book website at http://www.60SecondsToSuccess.com

Related articles

• Keeping In Touch with Customer Needs (blogs.constantcontact.com)
• Establishing Credibility for the Best Websites (computertechtuts.wordpress.com)
• A marketers guide to social media's most important questions (newmediaandmarketing.com)

What Does the Public’s Uncontrollable App-etite Mean to You?

Here is a great blog written by my friend and partner Carl Weiss.  He allowed me to post this blog on my site because I asked him if I could share it with you. Read and enjoy, this is really great and informative stuff.

“There’s an app for that.”  How many times have we all heard that phrase during the past couple of years?  Allow me to put it into better perspective for you.  During the last week of 2011, 1.2 billion apps were downloaded, with 242 million apps being downloaded on Christmas day alone.  While that number may seem staggering, it is even more so when one considers that less than 11 billion apps were downloaded in all of 2010.  Add to that the fact that it is predicted that the number of mobile apps offered by companies will increase by a factor of 10 in 2012, and it is clear that the public’s App-etite is clearly uncontrollable.

FACT: As of December 2011, there were nearly 1 million applications available to the public, with nearly 2,000 new apps being published on a daily basis.

While some apps are pay to play, where consumers are charged a few dollars to download and use them, a vast number of them are given away for free. ..or, are they?  While an app may be free to download, that doesn’t mean the app developer isn’t looking to cash in. 

facebook (Photo credit: sitmonkeysupreme)

For example: A recent Wall Street Journal article that examined 100 of the most popular Facebook apps found that some apps seek not only the email addresses, current location and sexual preference of users, but also of their Facebook friends. One Yahoo service powered by Facebook requests access to a person's religious and political leanings as a condition for using it. The popular Skype service for making online phone calls seeks the Facebook photos and birthdays of its users and their friends.

What the article didn’t reveal is that the WSJ isn’t immune from this phenomenon, since its own app, WSJ Social, collects data from its subscribers, including profile information, email address and the ability to post an update whenever a subscriber reads an article.

Image via CrunchBase

While you may recall the recent firestorm raged over Google’s new privacy policy, no one seemed to mind that other search engines, social networks, affiliate marketers and app purveyors were busy at work collecting, analyzing and selling our personal information as well.  Perhaps the reason that so many journalists were asleep at the switch with regards to sweeping changes taking place in cyberspace is due to the fact that until recently the ability to collect and control vast amounts of personal information about every man, woman and child online was a non-starter.  Of course, this was in a time before most people were wired to the web 24/7 via a host of devices capable of transmitting information at will.

Let’s face it, capitalizing on personal data has never been easier or more lucrative.  Facebook, which is slated to go public in May to the tune of $100 billion or more, is hip deep in turning personal data into gold.  When it comes to collecting personal information, social networks in general and Facebook in particular are king.  From the get go when you sign up for a social network, you are asked a myriad of questions concerning everything from your age and sex, to likes, dislikes, movies and books you have seen and read, photos, videos and much more.  Then you are encouraged to share even more personal information on a daily basis about yourself and your friends.  Last but not least, you are expected to willingly proselytize the network to friends and family.  That in effect is the very essence of social networking.  It is also the source of the network’s revenue, since their profits are derived chiefly via advertising.

With the growth of mobile marketing, it wasn’t long before social networks began to break out of the box and onto our phones.  Getting back to the Wall Street Journal’s examination of the 100 most popular Facebook apps, “ The app that sought the widest array of personal information of the 100 examined, "MyPad for iPad," has a two-paragraph privacy policy that says it is "adding Privacy settings shortly." Privacy policies that describe how they collect, use and share data are required by Facebook. The app maker couldn't be reached for comment.”

The article goes on to state that, “By virtue of its size and user base of 800-million-plus people, Facebook is at the heart of the personal data economy. Popular apps can quickly go "viral" there and gain millions of users—but can also flame out just as quickly. This explains why some apps seek to cash in by gathering as much data as possible and hoping to find ways to make money from it.”

While apps are technically required to ask permission to access uses Facebook data, the way in which the permission is couched, namely in a way that would make the app virtually non-functioning if you deny access, makes it a sure bet that users will almost always grant access.  One of the items that the app makers don’t tell the public is the fact that while Facebook tries to restrict app makers from sharing the data collected with any company that hasn’t signed an agreement with Facebook, this isn’t always the case. 

Image via CrunchBase

“Data obtained from PrivacyChoice show that several dozen widely used apps are using unapproved companies, most notably Google, the biggest online ad company. That means app users can be tracked within their apps by Google and others. Google said advertisers using its DoubleClick ad services agree to terms that prohibit the collection of any personally identifiable information.”

While the WSJ article concerned itself with Facebook apps, if the world’s largest social network and the world’s largest search engine are not above breaching each other’s privacy policies, what is the likelihood that many of their smaller and hungrier brethren in the world of online advertising are above bending the rules?

Multinational corporations for one have seen the light when it comes to the advantages of apps.  The popularity of mobile apps is now seen as a major player in driving revenues.  Given the fact that within two years more people will be surfing the web via mobile device rather than PC, is it any wonder that companies large and small see mobile marketing as their ticket to easy money, especially since most people haven’t got a clue as to how to prevent their personal data from being mined.

Hey, I’ll bet there’s an app for that!

Carl Weiss is president of W Squared MediaGroup and co-host of the weekly online radio show Working the Web to Win.  Since 1995 he has helped hundreds of businesses improve their visibility and results online.