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Social media marketing: Why it’s not paying off

July 04, 2012 | Online Marketing

The average small business owner does not get a sufficient return on social media efforts. Most put in too much time and resources for too little return. Here's what you're doing wrong.

Let's assume, for a moment, that social media only serves a marketing purpose for a small business. Of course, this isn't true, but I'll get to that in a moment. Would you not have small businesses do marketing at all if it's not quantifying? Millions of businesses spend $3000/year on the Yellow Pages. Millions spend on direct mail, radio, and/or print advertising.

Now, the beauty of social media marketing is that unlike those aforementioned linear media, social media is bidirectional and the Internet has a permanent record, which means that in addition to using it for marketing purposes, small businesses can use it to gather marketing intelligence, build their brand, enhance their reputation, efficiently manage customer service, and find new sales leads, just to name a few uses.

You gauge return by increased leads, online and offline traffic, share of online voice, and ultimately, sales. Social media marketing done right, everyday, is helping small businesses enhance their reputation, increase customer loyalty and frequency, and yes, put more bread on the table.

Get the full story at Inc.com

Read also "Is social media a waste of time?" at Forbes, and "Why I waste time on social media" at Forbes

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