Using Social Media To Connect With Today’s Customer

Social networking users have surpassed email users for the first time. In fact 22% of time spent on the Internet is social. Yet many businesses (read most) still view social media as something people do on their personal time and do not feel it is necessary for their business. Ignoring social media comes at a great price.  

Businesses looking to connect with prospects and customers on the Internet must use social media to stand out in search. Hubspot’s Brian Halligan says, “If you want to be found on Google you have to be doing well in social media. This is just as true for B2B as B2C companies because at the end of the day you are really marketing to people.”

Got your attention?

Using social media well means prospects and customers come to you. Social media is high touch.  From my point of view as an SEO provider social media is a critical component in every search engine optimization project. Social media connects (links) prospects and customers that are already interested in your product or service to you.

The Social Media Challenge

Salesforce’s George Hu says, “There is a social media divide between companies and customers.  Your customers and employees are social, but what about your company? Today it is just too hard to get the information we need.” When I build a social media profile I filter out irrelevant information. With social media the information you need comes to you and the chatter goes away.

How Important is Social Media?

Businesses need to understand the potential of social media. Dell Computer got it right when they used Twitter to bring in $6.5 million in sales. 

Dell’s Social Media Command Center participates in 22,000 conversations a year and has 13,000 employees trained in social media to  “market, sell, service, and engage.”

Social media is what is happening right now. Read Write Enterprise’s Ed Tittel says, “Social media is no longer an after-thought or a luxury.” It is a requirement.

Social Media Changes the Marketing Paradigm

Hubspot says the marketing playbook is dead because we are getting better and better shutting traditional marketing messages out.  And they back it up every year in their annual State of Inbound Marketing reports.  Brian Halligan has it right, “marketing is about the width of your brain not the width of your wallet.”

Does Social Media Influence Search Results?

Netflix is one of the world’s best inbound marketers.  Their website has 798,000 pages indexed on Google and each page is a magnet. 35,471 websites link to Netflix, they have 95,967 Twitter followers and 1,691,020 Facebook fans.

It is important to understand that leaders in almost every industry vertical outperform their competitors on the Internet in page count, links, Fans, and Likes. This is why they do well in the search results.  Prospects and customers find them first.

How to Use Social Media

My recipe goes like this: high quality original content increases page count and social media increases links, Fans and Likes.  The answer is to completely rethink your website. Create tons and tons of remarkable content targeting prospects and customers and share it out using social media every day.