Is Your Business Too Reliant On Social Media?

There is a fine line between integrating social media as part of an overall marketing strategy and relying completely on it to market a business. Just because social media is the so-called “next big thing”, it doesn’t mean that it can be a business-savior.

The following are some reasons why relying on social media along won’t guarantee marketing success.

News Sharing

Sharing company and product news and information solely via information will limit the people who may see it. In additional to sharing news, new products, and other developments, other marketing outlets that should be utilized include:

• Press Releases
• News Section on the Website or Blog
• Radio and TV
• Mailing List

Campaigns Coupons

Marketing and promotional campaigns are great to grow a social media audience (including Twitter followers and Facebook likes), via giveaways, contests, and awareness promotions. However, any marketing efforts should be spread evenly among all marketing channels.

For instance, if a business is trying to grow their social media presence and is going to give away a laptop computer to a random Facebook fan.

Besides promoting the giveaway on their Facebook page, they should also mention the giveaway on their website, in their store, on their products, in employee email signatures, and anywhere else current and perspective customers may see it. This helps drive traffic and engagement by moving customers from one marketing medium to another.

Not Considering Demographics

When it comes down to it, social media is going to reach a certain demographic — people who use social media. For some companies, this may be ideal. But for a company that markets to all age groups or even a specific age group, this may not be the best way to market a business.

Even though some of the fastest growing age and gender demographics aren’t tech-savvy people in their 20s and 30s, this doesn’t mean that everyone is using social media, and businesses should marketing their brand and products accordingly.

Implementing social media as a piece of the entire marketing pie (with the “pie” being the budget or time and effort) is the only way to not only reach the demographic that uses Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites, but to also potentially reach customers who don’t even know what Twitter is.

Cross-Promotion With Other Mediums

As mentioned above, cross-promoting social media with other marketing mediums can help make it an effective piece of the pie.

Besides promoting social media giveaways via other marketing mediums, implementing an overall brand strategy that doesn’t make social media stand out, but rather makes it fit in, is what works.

Bravo TV

A good example of this is the way that Bravo (the TV channel) shows custom Twitter hashtags at the bottom of each of their main shows or events.

For instance, The Real Housewives of New Jersey may have the hashtag of #RHONJ.

The hashtag runs alongside other promotions of upcoming shows that run at the bottom of the screen, seamlessly adding it to Bravo’s total marketing of their television shows.

Bravo isn’t making a big deal about how they have a presence on Twitter.

They are recognizing that using Twitter to discuss what is on TV is now part of their viewership’s lives, and they are making it easy for fans to connect and discuss the show, together.

This is what integrating social media in other types of marketing and media is all about.

Whether a company is coming up with a marketing plan for a TV show or a new line of body wash, the underlying efforts of seamlessly integrating social media instead of focusing on it as the only way a company can have a marketing presence is what is important.

Yes, social media has changed the way we communicate; however we are all still speaking the same language (with occasional # symbols thrown in).

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

Related Topics: Let’s Get Social

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Teaming with Microsoft to sell a virtual Boeing 737 in the cloud

Thanks to help from Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform, Boeing is taking its virtual 737 into the cloud.

Boeing is rolling out the 737 Explained, what the commercial airplane maker calls a “virtual model of the Boeing 737 generated from thousands of high-resolution photographs that create an immersive 3-D-like model.”

We told you in August about 737 Expanded and how Boeing was using the Azure platform and cloud-based technology to market the 737. The 100- to 215- seat, single-aisle 737 is the world’s best-selling commercial aircraft. And now Boeing is launching 737 Expanded to allow Boeing sales people to show details of the aircraft on different devices.

“We were looking for a new way to communicate the essence of the Boeing 737,” said Diana Klug, director of marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said in a statement. “737 Explained is one of the best marketing tools I’ve seen because it allows us to show prospective customers the new features and improvements without bringing them to an airport.”

Real 737s on the assembly line. (Boeing photo).

The 737 Explained is built on the Windows Azure platform and gives Boeing customers a way to experience the aircraft without having to actually be next to one.

The commercial aircraft giant has already been using the software giant’s technology to create a virtual tour of the next-generation Boeing 737 plane, using Kinect, Silverlight Deep Zoom, and Windows 7 Touch and Azure.

Digital marketing agency Wire Stone created Boeing 737 Explained, an interactive marketing tool to help Boeing pitch the aircraft to potential buyers. While Wire Stone is based in the Silicon Valley, the Boeing Kinect work took place at the agency’s Seattle office.

In what is being billed as an early commercial non-entertainment use of Kinect, Wire Stone says it integrated Kinect and other Microsoft technology for Boeing to use in trade shows and other venues that can support massive displays where Boeing 737 Explained can be viewed in real-world dimensions.

Wire Stone CTO Jon Baker said by taking the virtual 737 to the cloud, it allows Boeing to present the aircraft on different types of devices.

“We wanted to use a cloud-based imple-mentation so that we had the flexibility to increase the number of server instances supporting the application in order to keep performance levels very high,” Baker is quoted in a Microsoft case study post. “We tested three different cloud platforms. We felt that Windows Azure would give us the greatest performance and flexibility.”

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