Making more cents with social media

Reach, the buzzword for any advertiser and marketer. More specifically maximum reach with minimum output; and as they begin to realise, nothing gives them that leverage and effect than Social Media.

With the evolution Social Media at an exponential pace, marketers are, more than ever able to efficiently and persistently reach out to potential markets without appearing as whiny, pushy or needy as conventional media. A unique feature and strength of using Social Media to position and market is in its engagement and interaction with the target market.

It is no longer a one-way communiqué but a socially interactive process; engaging thousands yet seemingly intimate.

The interaction bestows upon the marketer credibility and trustworthiness by the very audience it engages. They are essential commodities in today’s information laden society; where herd mentality and not the quality of the content, rules what you watch and read in cyberspace. In today’s world, one may lack talent but if you have a mob that follows your every step then you are a social influencer.

When we speak of or discuss Social Media, we are looking at technology channels that congregate the masses; either through similar interests and sometimes out of sheer curiosity. At the forefront of this technological phenomenon, we have Facebook. A community based website which is more “us” than “you” or “me”.

Once upon a time, businesses considered using Facebook as an essential element in their marketing strategy. It created jobs and vocations that you would probably have never heard of 10 years ago and as we continue our digital penetration to the digital realm, harnessing the power of “us” is still considered pivotal to that whole paradigm.

Unfortunately due to mistiming, mismanagement or miscalculation on Facebook’s part, businesses using Facebook are to face with the reality of higher costs in engaging their consumer base. No longer is the core cost of managing and maintaining Facebook’s pages limited to hiring consultants, building and maintaining applications or running advertisements.

Now businesses have to incur additional cost to reach out to their fan base that sees a Facebook business page as the primary source of information on a brand’s product or services. No longer will all of your 100,000 fans get to see your witty and equivocally informative updates, links and connectivity on Facebook; now you have to pay to ensure that those who had “like” your page will be updated on your “social” activities on Facebook.

As grim as this may sound, truth is; this is only but the beginning and other social media platforms may just follow suit.

Facebook is intent in leveraging on their platform and ensuring maximum monetization of its features, all in a bid to boost profits. Facebook has ultimately turned a highly liberalized social-digital movement whose mass populace was based on the concept of “free” into an all-consuming reality that there really is no such thing as a “free lunch” and someone will have to pay for “free”.

Once, marketers and advertisers hailed Facebook for its REACH and CONNECTIVITY and became hugely dependant on it, making Facebook a dominant player in the social media scene. Today, it is becoming clear that the early popular endorsement was a folly.

It is akin to a political party winning 90% seats in Parliament despite getting only 60% of the votes. With Facebook’s share price at almost half of its initial public offering, it is clear that confidence in the company is dwindling.

As both Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg try to bolster and inspire investors’ confidence, many SME’s are facing with the reality that there is no alternative but to ingest the additional cost on being “social” or lose out.

However, one would have to ask if this persists, would it then really make cents to be on Social Media?