The Importance of Social Media

Nearly everywhere you look, advisers are admonishing us to “like us on facebook”. In many ways, it is quite annoying. Do I really want all of my friends and followers know that I like so-and-so pizza or some brand of clothing? And, while the answer to that may be “no”, the reality is that social media marketing is brilliant. When you consider the piles of money that marketers will put into print, television, or internet marketing, word-of-mouth (or perhaps word-of-click would be more appropriate) marketing via social media is only a fraction of the cost.

And, marketers are no dummies. For effective marketing, the marketer must place the product in front of the potential customers, therefore, the marketer must be aware of where the customer is or is going. Right now, the marketers are placing a lot of attention on social media.

Drew Hendrick on Forbes posted an interesting article titled “3 Ways Social Media is Driving a Business Revolution”. His third, and for this conversation – best, point is that the change in marketing is driven by the customer. Amazingly, the “folks” are pulling the marketing to where they are and marketers are compelled to oblige by this move. Further, even greater that compelling us to purchase some product or other, social media is also being used to pull people toward attitudes and services. You may recall how the 2008 national elections had one party deeply involved with social media resulting in a hammering of the competition. This move was called “revolutionary” and “genius” at the time.

Indeed it was. So no surprise that when you look at what is important to people, the push now is to drive marketing to social media. Emily Holbrook writes in LifeHealthPro.com “Industries such as telecommunications, consumer products and media and entertainment have already harnessed digital to attract and retain new customers. It is time for insurers to evolve and respond” (“Why social media is too important to ignore” http://www.lifehealthpro.com/2014/02/13/why-social-media-is-too-important-to-ignore).

Recently, social media has going through a phase that could be described as “throw it against the wall and see what sticks” and is now using analytics to target specific marketing to specific groups.  If you ever had the thought “hmm, my sister likes [product]. I should give it a try”, you are seeing it in action. Thus, it is critical to understand the demographics of the users of social media so that you can appropriately target your audience. A simple Google or Pinterest (ta-daa) search on “Social Media Demographics” will reveal a ton of hits from people who are very interested in the topic. One fun infographic was published last year Michalis Michael on CareerAddict.com called “Social Media Demographics: Who Uses What?” and is a good start.

As I am in Oregon, how Oregonians are using social media in of importance to me. This year, the Oregon Broadband Advisory Council sponsored a survey of broadband usage across the state. You can find the pdf of the survey here (http://www.oregon4biz.com/The-Oregon-Advantage/Telecommunications/oregon-broadband-council/2014meetings.php). Go to June 26 and click on “Pivot Oregon Survey Presentation”. In the data – which as of this writing continues to be mined – is a huge revelation of not only who is using what, but on what kind of devices people are doing it on. The short answer is this” focus on young people using mobile devices.

No duh.