I would really like to believe this article, and take out all our social sharing buttons, boxes, iframes, api layers and throw them in the trash :)
Is Social Media Worthless?
41–50 of 90 posts
Re: Is Social Media Worthless?
#42I know many stories like these. When I ask companies "Do you generate revenue via social media? Facebook, Twitter, G+ or anything?" the answer is always no. I would love to know about counterexamples if there are any.
Depends on your definition of generating revenue. For example:
1. If Coca-cola starts a social media campaign (and gets 1million likes) and Pepsi doesn't (0 likes), Coca-cola has a stronger brand position. Is this easy to calculate in real terms? No. But then again, Coca-cola nor Pepsi actually bottle their own products so they are measured on brand awareness anyways.
2. A friend of mine just started making custom bicycle wheels. He's gotten 3 new customers literally from our triathlon facebook group alone. Also, I would guess at least 5 people (probably way more) have had massages from a sports massage therapist in our club, simply because they posted on our group "I'm in need of a sports massage who knows a good one?"
"Social media" isn't necessarily a new way of driving business, but rather it's a new platform for capturing something that has been happening for decades - word of mouth - and then trying to position yourself (at scale) to exploit that word of mouth.
Re: Is Social Media Worthless?
#43I have no idea about the actual value of social media, but this evidence is clearly stacking the deck: * Search engines: how does your product become highly ranked and easily findable? * Partner websites: ditto, how do people find those? * Friend: how do those friends communicate about stuff like Lucidchart in 2013? This one is not even funny anymore... * Co-worker: ditto. A lot off our conversations not directly abo…
Just to touch on one of your points, we've actually found that most people who talk about us on social media are those using or looking for free accounts. There are certainly exceptions to the rule, but the overwhelming majority are people who don't want to pay a cent for the product. We still love those people, but they don't pay the bills. And like I mentioned in the blog post, a pretty significant sample of users confirmed that most who discover us through social media are on free accounts.
Like I wrote, we won't be abandoning our social media efforts anytime soon. But we are taking another look at how much time & effort we invest in those channels.
Re: Is Social Media Worthless?
#44I have no idea about the actual value of social media, but this evidence is clearly stacking the deck: * Search engines: how does your product become highly ranked and easily findable? * Partner websites: ditto, how do people find those? * Friend: how do those friends communicate about stuff like Lucidchart in 2013? This one is not even funny anymore... * Co-worker: ditto. A lot off our conversations not directly abo…
The article goes on to mention Pepsi & Coca-Cola's more rigorous experiments, with a similar finding of no value.
You're essentially asking for proof of a negative, i.e. prove that social media does not matter. This is as you stated impossible. This is also why the burden of proof is always on the person making the claim.
If companies are going to spend money on something, there should be proof that it has value.
Re: Is Social Media Worthless?
#45I have no idea about the actual value of social media, but this evidence is clearly stacking the deck: * Search engines: how does your product become highly ranked and easily findable? * Partner websites: ditto, how do people find those? * Friend: how do those friends communicate about stuff like Lucidchart in 2013? This one is not even funny anymore... * Co-worker: ditto. A lot off our conversations not directly abo…
You seem to be going on the assumption that if anyone ever gets to any website in any way then it was a result of "social media". Having people follow you on facebook does not get you in the top of search results on google/yahoo/bing. People can communicate without facebook. IM and texts still exist.
Re: Is Social Media Worthless?
#46Obligatory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines
That said, I think the real answer is "it's complicated". I'm pretty some businesses benefit from Social Media, but I expect there are a lot of variables that affect how much value they derive from it.
It also depends on how, exactly, you define "social media". It's become a bit of a catch-all term these days, and to the extent that it's been very generalized, I'd argue that the answer to the posed question is even more "No".
Anyway, FWIW, one more anecdote for you... so far the vast majority of the traffic to our blog and our website is traffic from links submitted here at HN, on Reddit, through Tweets, posted on G+, Facebook and LinkedIn, etc. We spend essentially nothing (other than a little bit of my time) on this, but I believe it is increasing our exposure and brand awareness. Social Media activity also seems to contribute to generating backlinks, which improve our positioning with the search engines.
We're still "pre revenue" so it doesn't make sense to talk about the ROI of our social media efforts yet, but my impression is that it's a valuable part of our effort to get the word out, without spending a pile of money.
shrug
Re: Is Social Media Worthless?
#47*are social media worthless. Are, not is.
"Social media" is considered to be a noun to define that type of site/community/service/etc. and can therefore be used in singular. The title is worded as "Is ..." rather than "are all the things that make up ...".
Re: Is Social Media Worthless?
#48I think the Pepsi example really doesn't work for two reasons: First, the decline in sales in the sugary soft drink industry is only remotely connected to their social media advertising. It is a widely reported phenomena that is usually attributed to a more health-conscious society and a widening array of beverage choices. Second, Pepsi's intention in offering contributions to non-profits based on social media recomm…
Completely agree, and I'd also argue that social media's worth varies quite widely based on a brand's current market penetration. Pepsi and Coke are so ingrained in our consciousness due to other ad buys that their social media outreach may be automatically be resented as "corporation is invading my Facebook".
But for smaller companies, at the very least, social media is a much frictionless way of disseminating updates and news, compared to email signups and expecting people to go to your company blog. And upstart companies may (initially) be seen in a more positive light for their seemingly underground/non-pretentious way of communicating to their fans/followers. I'd say that's hardly "worthless"
Re: Is Social Media Worthless?
#49I think the Pepsi example really doesn't work for two reasons: First, the decline in sales in the sugary soft drink industry is only remotely connected to their social media advertising. It is a widely reported phenomena that is usually attributed to a more health-conscious society and a widening array of beverage choices. Second, Pepsi's intention in offering contributions to non-profits based on social media recomm…
Pepsi is an interesting case for the ineffectiveness of advertising in general.
I find it hard to believe that television or other advertising for a product like Coke or Pepsi makes a big difference in sales. I'm already aware of the products, I already have my opinions on them, and they aren't going to change them.
If these companies stopped advertising tomorrow I don't think there would be an immediate effect on consumer behavior.
For a while I was a heavy drinker of low carb Monster. One day I saw the can, thought I'd try it, decided I liked it, and then I bought it frequently.
I hadn't seen a single ad (or promo) for Monster until years after I'd gotten sick of it.
What would happen is that the channels they sell through would notice that they weren't being so aggressive about marketing. The channels might think they are less serious and then they wouldn't work so hard to promote those products.
I know somebody who sells newspaper advertisements and when people ask the question "For what a postage stamp sized ad costs in the paper for a year I could rent a storefront or hire an employee so why do I need to spend money on you?" he gives them the answer that people who are used to seeing your ad in the newspaper might think you went out of business if the advertisements stop.
That's how sick the advertising business is in 2013.
Re: Is Social Media Worthless?
#50The article is written very much against social media sales people, who are basically just like sales people in any other field. The truth is that an awful lot of companies have hopped on the social wagon and push for it themselves, without needing to be sold on it.
Social media is just a small part of my company, we offer it as a service but only to companies who specifically request it, and then we ask that they provide expected KPIs up front which we can hit, and that KPIs should be related to the platform (e.g. likes, reach on Facebook), not related to sales - this way it is up to them to decide whether the spend is worth it or not, all we do is ensure that we deliver what they want from us. We've never pushed anyone to increase spend on social media (from a company point of view, we'd far rather they spend marketing budget with us away from social media...)
Despite this, despite the fact that we don't push it at all, our biggest social account spends $500k/year on Facebook with us, purely on community building. So sure, maybe some companies are being sold on it by salesmen, but plenty are making their own choices here.