Peter Wilkinson Panther Social Media
Essentially, social media marketing, social media advertising and sales are different things. Sales are not directly related to social media campaigns in the same way that they are to immediate transactions on your company website – or through “traditional” seo, which aims to return your site as a possible location for consumers to visit as a result of a product or keyword specific query. In these cases a sales action is prompted by the text of your advert, or your landing page. In social media marketing, the goal is to influence rather than coerce.
At first glance you might not think there’s a great deal of difference between influencing behaviour and persuading someone to buy something. And in effect, in a way, there isn’t. The end goal of all social media advertising, after all, is to persuade someone to enrich your business in some way. That’s the end goal of all advertising and indeed all promotion full stop.
The difference is in the feeling. Social media marketing tries to get consumers fanatical about your brand rather than simply persuading strangers to come and buy your products. So you develop a brand personality and put it out there in the social media sphere, so your fans and customers can interact with your company and start evangelising on your behalf. What happens as a result of this is slower than direct marketing, but has the potential to come back with much greater numbers of sales.
Here’s the difference between direct marketing sales figures and social media marketing sales figures. Market directly to someone and they might think to buy your product because they need it at that time. So – one person equals a single sale.
Use social media advertising to build a buzz around your brand, though, and every person who gets drawn in has a high probability of not only buying more than once themselves, but of bringing their whole social network with them. End result here: one person is equal to a potential multitude of sales.
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