INTERNET MARKETING & MARKET SATURATION
Whether you have a B2C or a B2B company, the most important and influential way to market is through a multi-pronged approach. Why? Because whether are or you arenʼt targeting 5.6 billion
people, you still need to be where the people are.
Therefore, when it comes to internet marketing there is a common question and solution. “How do you get people to find you on the internet? you fill it with yourself”.
While this article is about how Facebook is an important and needed part to this equation, I first want to state that you shouldn’t be making any moves to increase traffic to your website before you make sure you want people to be going there.
IMPORTANCE OF A GOOD WEBSITE.
The visual appeal of a website is more important than the product or the service in getting meaningful hits on your website.
According to a test performed at Carleton University in Ottawa, users were able to rank a site after seeing it for only 1/20th of a second. Furthermore, even if the site was flashed up more than once, it was given the same rating every time – proving that these were not random rankings.
If the first impression of your website is negative, well you can be almost certain to drive your customers off. Therefore, the visual layout and appeal of your site is key to maintaining the user long enough to even just see if you can provide the services to solve their problems.
While there is no exact definition of what makes a site seen as aesthetic or not, it seems that site is based on taste and on what the person viewing it is looking for. When given a list of sites all specializing in the same thing, the subjects seemed to give very similar rankings.
Furthermore, several studies performed at the University of Maryland show that when it comes to kinetic vision, people associate clean layouts, whites, steal blues, and simplicity with technological aptitude.
But having a good website is no good unless people can find it.
So before you start linking millions of people to your website, or if you want your facebook account to do the right work - it is important to make sure that your stuff LOOKS good first.
FACEBOOKING YOUR COMPANY: THE IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL NETWORK MARKETING
The truth is, no matter the company social network marketing has become very important. There are three key reasons for this.
FACEBOOK ISNʼT FOR KIDS ANYMORE: DISPELLING THE YOUTH MYTH
2011 Data Shows the breakdown of facebook use by age.
What this shows: The people under 25 who use facebook is almost equal to the people over 45 who use facebook. If you are say a B2B this is key. Who are people over 45? People who manage sales departments, own companies. These are a lot of times professionals, tech savvy professionals.
The 23% in the middle, are at the age group that often tend to be entrepreneurs. That means these are the ones most likely to be attempting to start a new business. That means 60% of facebook users falls within the demographic of your most likely client base.
FACEBOOK SCOPE: HOW FAR IT REALLY REACHES
Did you know facebook reaches 400 million users a day?
Did you know that according to Nielsen in a 2010 study, Facebook reaches 56% of the active internet users in North America?
Did you know that it has an average usage of 6hrs per month?
Did you know that it is the #3 site visited by users 65 and older?
Did you know that it is the #2 site visted by users between 35 – 65?
The scope of facebook is much more used than you think, and by a different demographic. To not have a presence on this is basically to not have a presence at all.
IF YOU DEAL WITH COMPANY’S: YOUR CLIENTS (OR POTENTIAL CLIENTS) HAVE FACEBOOK, AND USE IT!
In 2011 facebook reported on its official company statistics page, that over 1million web sites have integrated with its developer platform. These sites arenʼt just small personal blogs, as CNN and many other online publications have been successfully exper imenting with the plugins.
While Facebook previously said that more than 60 million people “engage with Facebook Connect” on other sites, it now says that the number is up to 150 million.
What that means is that your clients or potential clients are using facebook to advertise their company. It may not be your product, and they may have a different target audience, but you are able to target them by being where they are.
HUMANIZING SELLS THINGS
If you great deal of your sales happen without actually touching the product, and you pride your company in its great interpersonal skills then you should have face book. Why? Because for new clients, proof is only found in the pudding.
One of the strongest benefits of social media is that it can humanize a company.
There is no better way to humanize a company than to let customers, prospects and brand advocates know who they are communicating with online. The community manager has grown across social platforms, but in most cases, their identity has not been revealed on Facebook.
Cisco is one B2B company that listed their Facebook community manager on their Page. You can now choose to show the Admins, or Page Owners on the left side, with links to their Facebook profiles.
CONCLUSIONS
Beyond the obvious search engine benefit of companyʼs such as facebook lending you their hits and usage, Facebook gives you the ability to get right in where the clients are. The better the facebook page, the better likely they are to respond to your company. It makes you look more technologically savvy, and it also puts your company where the people are.
When you look at how important marketing is, especially for a B2B, it seems like a waste of a free hosting resource not to use social networking as a means to promote your company – it doesnʼt mean you have to spend money on facebook advertising if you donʼt want to, but at least it allows you to connect and be easily found on the internet. Statistics prove that any information to the contrary is just myth and misinformation.
