Social media fails as a marketing strategy?

[djbaxter]

Facebook & Twitter Barely Compete With Traditional Marketing Strategies

A study conducted by the research analysis firm ForeSee Results found that people preferred to hear about what a particular company was doing via email rather than social media.

The survey covers the websites for 40 retailers and the survey group totals around 20,000 people. It found that only 5% said social media interactions are their primary influence when it came to driving them toward a particular website. And when they do visit the website because of a social media prompt they are less likely to purchase anything than those who visited either from a link in an email or via search.

19% of website views came about thanks to promotional emails and 8% due to search engine results, nearly a quarter thanks to ?traditional? e-marketing methods compared to the fractional results produced by social media.

In terms of converting time and money spent into revenue and profit social media is valuable but it?s much more a long game than a well placed email and an efficient SEO campaign.

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[angelarah]

It is an interesting read, but still, when I think about the social media marketing, there need to be an 'emotional' connection, and not to mention the generation appropriateness. My mother in her 60s is not going to bother with checking out the invites from her favorite store. When I get on my facebook, I just want to catch up with my friends and family. Everything else seems .. just spammy. How we are going to shape up the social media marketing strategy to convince someone to connect/visit will be the key; it is for me, at least. I have looked for a case of successful smm example and haven't found any. Maybe I am too hopeful and hadn't looked deep enough.

 

[seoptimize]

I think social media can lead to sales/conversions in such an indirect way that it's difficult to detect. For example, many of the sites/businesses I discover through social media might get my attention, but I might not re-visit the site for a few weeks, if ever. So social media is good for brand building and things of that sort, which could eventually and indirectly lead to a customer base. I think social media is still so young that of course it's going to be difficult to pinpoint it as a marketing strategy. Especially when SEO and PPC can be so measurable, that's something lacking in social media.