Taking a Knife to your Modern Day Marketing Methods:
Just how much information is being shared each and every day on the internet? Let me raise an eyebrow or two by looking at what exactly is happening in the world today and the potential reach you can be achieving:
- A worldwide population of approximately 7.4 billion of which 3.5 billion can be reached via the internet.
- There are 2.3 billion people on this planet that actively use social media.
- 1.86 billion are using Facebook at least once monthly.
- There are 10 million users of Twitter in China, even though it is blocked!
- Youtube has 300 hours of video footage added to it every minute.
- 300 million photos are added to Facebook every day.
- Instagram has over 500 million active users.
- I know for sure, I’m 100% confident, in that you the reader have used social media at least once.
So, approximately 30% of the population of the world can be reached by social media, be it Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube or Twitter and along with all the other social media channels that we know of and those that we do not and also those which are only used in specific countries like RenRen from China.
So, where does the knife come in to things?
Well, for me the progress of the internet and especially social media was very much expected and this takes us on to the next level in that yes you are likely to be using social media these days, but are you delivering telling enough content – Are you cutting through all the other content being shared to reach your target audiences? This is where you need to be getting the knife out and using it to chop up the content you are sharing, especially if you believe you are not getting the results you were hoping for from using the internet for marketing.
Money usually speaks the most for both internet marketing and that of social media – sponsored content and advertising goes a long way to delivering results, the more per keyword you pay for or clicks on your links then the bigger results you can achieve though this depends on how deep your pockets are as even this side of marketing is heavily populated and you have much competition to cut through.
So, what about online marketing that you can control, that relies on the quality of what you share to grab yourself the required attention. Can you post content for free on Twitter, as an example, that will deliver the same as or better results to that which is sponsored?
The answer to that is yes. For me, every time I have used paid for promotion on social media, the results have always been less to the natural results delivered from my own endeavours. Yes, I have much time to dedicate to social media and for many businesses, they will be time poor when it comes to dedicating a proportion of it to marketing. Though the point to take here is that you can achieve greater results from careful content being delivered on line rather than just everyday standard content.
Another fact to digest is that many of the top 10% of successful social media accounts are not business, they are accounts which started out as a hobby, ones interest, merely wanting to share with the world their thoughts, promote their passions and yet, they have gone on to be some of the greatest marketing channels internationally beating many major TV channels / Radio stations and website in their reach. Though there is still no magical formula, no rule book, no sure fire step by step manual, internet marketing is still down to some very basic rules:
- Understanding where, when and how your audiences online are active.
- Create or use a platform that can reach them (be it your blogging website or a social media platform).
- Deliver quality attention grabbing content on a regular basis.
- Monitor what works best, stick to the what gets you best engagement and pull away from what does not.
- Experiment all the time with new methods of reaching your audiences.
- Stay up to date with trends and innovation.
Cutting through the large crowds gathered on social media is difficult because not only have you to compete against rival competitors in many different forms today, you are also competing against ordinary consumers too who from only a hobby could hold larger more persuasive audiences. As an estate agent nowadays you’ve high street vs hybrid vs online vs sell it yourself and you are also held to ransom with rating websites and exposed by social media where any complaints can be shared almost immediately – carry out a poor viewing and by the time you get back to the office there is a Tweet out, 3 likes on it, two shares, 3 comments and a damning photo (this can though work in reverse with positive customer feedback).
Study your content, spend a couple of minutes more on choosing an image for you blog or your social media update and you will see much better results (just like when you are selling a property with images). Release content at optimum times of the day and week and see far better engage across social media. Add quality regular content to your website (outside of just listings) and see your ranking improve on Google. Be imaginative, creative, think outside the box, study competition, research keywords, look out for trending news and more further good habits will deliver you better results on the internet and allow you to cut through this crowded market.
Stats source include: Gizmodo, Wearesocial
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