Sphinn - The Inconvienent Truth About Social Media Marketing

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The Inconvienent Truth About Social Media Marketing

Went Hot: February 14, 2008 - 2:11 pm
Posted By: kevgibbo 507 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://searchengineland.com)
Category: Bookmarking

"Social media is hot. Everyone wants to be on Digg's home page. Link baiting, especially using things like numbered lists, imperative rules or controversial hooks is the SEM strategy du jour. There's just one—major—problem with spending so much time and effort on capturing the eyeballs of social media users. Social media traffic does not monetize."

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from neyne 507 days ago #

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this is so on point and mirrors exactly what I'm seeing on our sites, both in terms of social traffic not monetizing and co-buranding that does..

from robdiana 507 days ago #

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I think the problem with social media revenue is that the target is only ads. Once they come up with some other revenue model like subscriptions for something, it might be easier to make money. I recently talked about this on my blog as well, basically stating that linkedin and stumbleupon have subscriptions and are doing fairly well. Digg and others that are primarily ad-based are definitely struggling.

from planetc1 507 days ago #

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I liked the idea of co-branding. Maybe not to monitize but to increase brand awareness by attaching weak brand to strong brand.

from beanstalk 507 days ago #

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Ahhh, but what if you're revenue is based on traffic and page impressions. :)

from organicapex 506 days ago #

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I think this is completely untrue.

1. The traffic from social networking sites like myspace is highly untargeted - I agree.

But, its about finding the right places where people talk about or search for niches relevant to your product.

Just like in PPC, if your selling tomatoes, you cannot bid on the keyword "potatoes" - You cannot arbitrarily assume that social media is just about Myspace/Digg, it has gotten over and above all of that and is poised to become the next big advertising phenomenon.

2. Money thrown into social media marketing isn't necessarily a waste, since the traffic coming from social media aren't like the traffic from search and tend to be more "participative".

These kind of folks in my opinion would be the ones who comment on your blog posts or subscribe to your feed.

Or, in other terms social media traffic doesnt convert right away but eventually does so and the value from social media is probably more than search in terms of brand building or making users propagate your product.

3. There are no metrics YET to gauge the success of social media, so one cannot come into quick conclusions about social media being not so good a marketing mode.

I think that the post in SEL is prolly link bait or somebody who cant figure out the REAL DEAL with social media.

from MariosAlexandrou 506 days ago #

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Social media may not monetize directly, but I believe the side-benefits are important to keep in mind. For example, is there any better way to get a new site crawled and indexed than to attract a bunch of links from trusted sources? Sure none of the original visitors may convert, but the subsequent ones brought by improved rankings will.

from thejenn 506 days ago #

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Excellent post Aaron. The social media marketing that so many SEOs talk about (social news/voting sites) very rarely results in more than a traffic blip and some inbound links. While there's certainly value to those inbound links, it's not the "be-all, end-all" many represent it to be.

Of course when you get into real social media marketing (blogs, Flickr, connecting with your customers on social sites, video, etc) there's plenty of opportunity and there can be amazing returns.

from toprank 506 days ago #

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@thejenn, I hear you. Seems like good advice to me.

from NickWilsdon 506 days ago #

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I agree with Marios, the point is the second wave after the social media bump. Those links and extra traffic give you a boost in Google, I've seen this on several occasions.

This is largely because Google, in an attempt to give the freshest SERPs, quickly rewards sites that seem to be popular.

However in terms of R.O.I. I still think traditional SEO or even site usability win out at the moment (especially if you're running an ecommerce site). If you don't have those aspects in order I would look there before seeking out the social media hit.