How Dominating Social Media Marketing is a Lot like Being an Awesome Party Guest

I was writing a piece last week on the benefits of social media marketing.

And unlike when I’m writing client pieces where I conduct a whole lot of research, take pages and pages of notes and have a really focused initial direction, I tend to just let words fly out of me if I’m writing more about my personal beliefs of our industry.

And as I was blabbering about social media benefits, I felt like I killed it at my random comparison of social media marketing to being an awesome party guest.

Because don’t some of our best ideas come from a stream of consciousness?

So let’s talk about social media marketing a bit.

Personally, I’m not so convinced that social media is used nearly as much as it should be by nearly enough businesses.

What I notice is that a lot of business owners honestly just don’t really know the deal with it. They might not use it themselves, and so why would they want to invest time in it for their company?

Maybe they have a personal Facebook page. Maybe they have a LinkedIn page that kind of just sits there gathering dust. They barely understand Twitter and they don’t even know where to begin with Instagram.

It’s all too much so you know what? Screw it.

Or perhaps they attempt to dabble in it, so they do have a business LinkedIn account, a Facebook page, a Google+ and a Twitter account… but they aren’t utilized to the capacity that they really should be. Rather they post a few times a day, sometimes not even that much, and they call their job done.

“What? I plop down a link to a blog post occasionally. I’ve done zero hashtag research so instead I hashtag words that don’t even make sense… what else can I do!?”

I’ve heard on more than one occasion from a business owner that “social media doesn’t deliver good ROI” — but I always wonder exactly how much of the “I” or, investment, they are actually putting in.

And I don’t mean just plopping down a post or two, calling it a day and thinking you’ve put in your investment.

Let’s talk about what social media should actually be.

I mean these platforms themselves are all housed under one single type of media: social.

The entire point is to be social.

I’ve pulled part of this from the piece I wrote last week:

By definition, the word ‘social’ means “relating to or involving activities in which people spend time talking to each other or doing enjoyable things with each other.”

Let’s say you’re attending a party — a social gathering. You walk in with a box of cookies. Rather than telling other guests that you brought a box of cookies, you just quietly place them on the table, among many other delicious desserts. You brought something to the party, sure, but you definitely weren’t being social.

Now let’s say you attend the same party with the same box of cookies — but this time you let everybody know you brought them. Maybe you just slip it in to some conversations, you tell your friends about the awesome cookies you brought from that awesome bakery that they need to try. Maybe you even take the initiative and offer to get a cookie or two for somebody. By going out of your way to be social, more of your cookies will likely be eaten than if you simply plop the box down in hopes that it will stand out among all of the other desserts on the table.

Social media marketing is a lot like that party.

You can’t just create an account, add a few posts here and there and think that people are just going to find it on their own. Sure, maybe somebody will stumble upon it (we have one particular Morey Publishing employee who’s notorious for sniffing out free food), but the fact remains that posts on social media get buried in a matter of seconds, so if plopping tweets, pictures or videos without true promotion is what you do, than you might as well do nothing at all.

And in regards to the ROI conversation, the amount of earned media engagement, brand awareness and increased traffic social media marketing brings to brands that are doing social right is actually incredible.

Take Starbucks for example. Within just four weeks of increased exposure due to a social media campaign, the buying behavior of their Facebook followers and their followers friends increased by as much as 38 percent.

Need a little more? According to a HubSpot Marketing Blog post called 16 Stats that Prove Social Media Isn’t Just a Fad:

- 92% of marketers indicate that their social media efforts increased brand exposure

- 80% of marketers indicate that their social media efforts increased traffic

- 66% of marketers see lead generation benefits with social media by using it for as little at 6 hours per week

- More than 58% of marketers who have been using social media for one year or longer improved search engine rankings

- More than half of marketers with at least one year of social media experience were generating leads with social platforms

Remember: social media marketing is all about actually being social. Take the time to truly invest in building a buzzing community and the return will follow.

When in doubt: remember how to be a good party guest.

Everybody loves a good party guest.

I am an Inbound Content Developer at Morey Publishing. Learn more about our awesome Long Island ad agency & let’s be creative.