Comments on: What’s wrong with social media?

By: Pamela

Pamela — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:11:17 +0000

Marc- Admittedly, I never had a very cohesive plan for my SM efforts. I did newsletters, a blog, twitted, moderated a group on an antique site. I did know enough to try and concentrate on being search pertinent. But I am even more search centric now than ever.

For example, Julia Child is currently a hot search. I had had one of her cookbooks on my website and another here in the shop. The website piece I removed and added to my Etsy and sold in 8 hours. The other piece I have on Ebay and it got an opening bid immediately and has a slew of watchers…no social media necessary. And just the listing of those drove traffic to my website.

Now I feel like if I know what searches are doing well and where I am most likely to find the type of person searching for the specif items I have, I am best off to spend my time making the things available. But what I was doing, and see other people doing all the time, is listing a particular item on their website and then trying to go out and drum up interest. I sometimes go to a retail website and there is almost nothing there, yet you can see the person all over the internet trying to drum up business. So it seems like they really are trying to brand themselves, but I am not sure that they are really trying to sell anything. Of course, I realize it is completely different if you are selling a service.

On the other hand, I am sure that some of my SM efforts were helpful to my B&M business and that I have lost business by letting them slide. Customers did come in and comment about how much they liked my blog. But how would I make that a measurable effort?

Overall, I need to figure out what would produce some results appropriate to the effort. It all still seems like a quagmire to me.
Pamela

By: Fine Estate

Fine Estate — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:20:09 +0000

Those are Mighty Words to ponder, and I will…

Thanks,

Martin

By: marc meyer

marc meyer — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:10:25 +0000

@ Martin I agree, when you do have the cash to blow you have to be very strategic about how you spend your money and your time. As I told Pamela, in both of your roles, what really matters is targeted traffic that finds you via search. But as you said Martin, traffic is meaningless w/o a conversion strategy, so what is the call to action on your site? What do you want your visitors to do? Brochureware won’t cut it. So either they get something or you get something, but someone has to get something.

By: marc meyer

marc meyer — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:07:18 +0000

@Pamela Interesting. A few questions. What did your SM efforts consist of? and How were you measuring those efforts? Don’t forget though that your social media initiatives are not the silver bullet, they are but merely a piece of the puzzle represented by marketing. I think what some don’t get and one of the things I stress, is the importance of knowing what the end game result is. For me and what I tell clients is to focus on something that some might take for granted. Search.

By: Pamela

Pamela — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:02:34 +0000

At the beginning of March, as I began to be more concerned that our Brick and Mortar store was not going to pick up as usual for the spring and summer, I also became aware that the hours involved in social media efforts seemed to not really be translating into much that was measurable in terms of sales. I just decided to take a hiatus and revert to my pre-social media business plan. April through September my total sales were up by 47% over the same period last year. And the increase all comes from internet sales. Store sales are still down from last year.

Yes, I miss some of my internet friends. But the main point of an antique retail business is to sell things.
Pamela

By: Fine Estate

Fine Estate — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:35:16 +0000

The big Corps can afford this madness; of playing or failing at Social Media Monetization…someone like me, I can’t afford it. Its gottah work or I will move on.

Twitter as of yet, at least for me, has not converted into any measurable sales…Oh but the “Promise” that it some day might spurs me on…

Stumble Upon…just seems to lead to spectacular traffic spikes – leading to high bounce rates, diminished time on site stats, and no sales…

Still I Stumble, like all of us small sites…towards what we see as possible – Meaningful interactions with site visitors…who on occasion, buy something.

My Alexa Rank 3 months ago was 2.9 mil, and as of yesterday it was 417K. My Google Page Rank is 3. Hub Spot Rates my site at 98.5%. To achieve this I personally have put in at least a thousand hours of my own time.

This game is not for the faint of heart or for anyone looking to achieve anything like instant results.

I am branding me, my unique perspective about the world of antiques and collectibles. I will succeed at this because I am the one who is in charge, no outsourcing here, no delegating of traffic to “Machines.” or Adwords.

But here is the thing about the internet, and the way companies either do well or fail…I call it the “Remedial Frame.”

If as a site owner one does not almost daily analyze, and remediate, then that site is doomed to fail at any meaningful conversion…

And that’s where I find my self right now. In the analysis! And there is not much help out there for this, for someone who offers this analysis. Plenty of PR Marketers and so called SEO Optimizer’s who promise to get you traffic.

Traffic is basically meaningless without a conversion strategy.

Where dose one go to find a person who can analyze the tons of site data, so as to better understand the motivation of those who are coming to a site, in order to better serve them a product that they can understand, enjoy, and purchase.

Martin