Is marketing through social networks a waste of time?

More and more small business owners spend more and more time online with social networking. Is time spent here wasted or is it useful?

For sure, blogging, twittering and facebooking takes time - a lot of time if you want to post more articles than just one every now and then.

There are some things online that you can automate, such as the update of your twitter account, that you can set up in a way that it will show your latest blog posts or facebook post. However, communication through social networks should stay personal. That means, not everything should or can be automated. If you really want to start interacting with people, you yourself will have to answer their questions or respond to their comments they might leave on your blog or facebook page.

So why do businesses and organizations even have blogs, twitter accounts, a fanpage on facebook, if it is so much work to keep it updated?

They do it to draw attention to themselves, to gain more and more subscribers or 'followers'. Of course, as a company or organization you also want to sell. Either your product or service or your organization’s purpose.
If you do not gain any new subscribers, ‘followers’, customers or clients with all your efforts, then you are probably just wasting your time.

Of course it will take some time (at least several months) until you succeed with your efforts in social networks. If you are not successful, you should reconsider your strategy. It might be better for you to target your audience through other channels.

How much time do you spend with social networking? Do you believe it is a waste of time?

The importance of marketing according to D. Packard

„Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.“ /David Packard (Co-founder of Hewlett-Packard)

This quote by the founder of Hewlett-Packard is only partially correct. Today, many firms offer products that cannot be differentiated from others easily. Therefore, it is important how customers perceive the product. The perception can be influenced with the right marketing strategy, as well as the implementation of this strategy. The management of an organization should set this strategy together with marketing experts (internal and external). But consider, that the strategy will mainly be implemented by the organization's marketing experts. The big field of marketing is too complicated for managers, who do not have the experience with it.

Ad design

Your ad should consist of several elements: the eye-catcher - this can be a photo or an illustration; a headline - the headline that appeals to the audience, of course; the text – which explains to your audience in brief what this is about; and of course the logo and the address of your company.
It is important not to forget the A.R.A.-principle (Action - Reaction - Action)!

Impact of your ad

It has been scientifically proven that the first impression is crucial in an advertisement.
Therefore, you should have your ads made by a professional – this will cost you, but you will set yourself apart from the poorly designed advertisements of your competition. Updates ad can be made later by the publisher of the magazine in which the ad will appears.

To function, your ad should not be oversized. A small ad is absolutely fine. Also, if your ad is smaller, you will have the money to advertise several times in a row!

Ads

Are you sure that it necessarily has to be an ad? Perhaps you can find a cheaper alternative to draw the attention of your target audience to your company?

In daily newspapers there are usually not many ads (that means little competition for you), because ads are very expensive. Ads in advertising newspapers on the other hand, are slightly cheaper, but you have much more competition as they are cluttered with ads. Thus, your ad will drown instead of drawing attention. Moreover, it is questionable if you can reach your target audience with an ad in a newspaper. Only if you are absolutely sure that the readership of the newspaper accurately reflects your target audience, you should place an ad.
A cheaper alternative to ads in newspapers are ads in local and official gazettes. These also have the advantage of being read, as important information for all citizens of the city can be found here.
If you offer your products / services for a very specific audience, I recommend ads in relevant journals. However, you should offer your products / services nationwide, as journals do not have regional or local editions.
Ads in popular magazines tend to have a high circulation. Thus, prices for ads are also extremely high. However, you will reach a very large number of readers. Whether these readers are your target audience is questionable.
Other magazines that might be helpful for your ad campaign are city magazines, as well as student newspapers. Since the circulation is very small, ads are cheap. If readers of the magazine match your target audience, you should seize the opportunity advertise here.

Ad strategy

In order to have success with your ad, you should only advertise in a certain time frame – advertise six times in a row. Only with repetitions your audience will notice your ad.

The size of your ad is irrelevant. Instead of advertising with a rather large ad, rather advertise with small ads that you can repeat more often for the same amount of money.

Have your ad designed in black and white design - this saves money. Of course, color ads are more beautiful, but all the other ads are in color too. Your ad will stand out much more if you keep it in black and white.