Reach and the social graph

written by Quired
02-17-2009
1151 views | 0 comments

What is a social graph and how does it affect the small business owner?

Here is an entry from Wikipedia.

"A social network (social graph) is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, ideas, financial exchange, friendship, kinship, dislike, conflict or trade.
social graph article on wikipedia.com

My objective in this post is to not go much deeper than this in the definition but to explore how this model can impact the bottom line of your business.

The graph represents how people connect to each other through online networks. What affects your business is how these connections may contribute to the discovery of your offerings and convert visitors to buyers.

Let's think about traditional forms of advertising for a moment. Advertising boils down to sharing your message in different mediums to help inspire the selling of what you offer (Right!).

Whether you share your message on a billboard, a TV commercial, a baseball field, the yellow pages or a radio spot, you are sharing your message with the masses hoping someone will relate your message with their need or want and hopefully pick up the phone or send an email.

In these situations, you are pushing your message to your market.

The only connection is when someone decides to buy. In the advertising business they call this at the end of the funnel. This is spectacular as long as the end of the funnel (push) approach is yielding enough business to make your business profitable. This seems to work very well in a healthy bull market (or as I like to call it a low branch market)

When the economy is good and business is good your fruit (customer) is a little closer to pick than in a tight economy where the fruit might be harder to reach.

Please, small business owners a show of hands how many of you have been relying on word of mouth marketing during good times.

Not to say word of mouth marketing is bad. (Absolutely not) Word of mouth marketing is one of the best forms of marketing because it validates that you are providing a good product and service. But again, in a tight economy what if it is not enough. And what if your traditional marketing is not as effective when the branches are higher?

One thing the great depression had proven was that many businesses who continued to advertise faired better than those who did not.

But here is the rub. If your business is struggling then how do you afford to continue to advertise? The answer is that you may need to look at a different approach. Maybe something that is less expensive but would continue to share your message.

What you may need is a branch bender. Something to help make the fruit easier to pick in a hard market.

I my humble opinion, the social graph is the branch bender.

Understand that I am not suggesting to leave traditional marketing (although for some it may be the right choice), but to look at replacing some of your traditional marketing efforts with a cost effective social media marketing strategy.

Now let's talk about why social media marketing may be an effective strategy.

• Increased brand awareness
• Tune into industry trends and news
• Prospects and customers updated on product releases and events
• More efficient means of building effective PR
• Inspires word of mouth marketing
• Effective lead list builder
• Highly targeted means of exposure
• Build a community around your brand

How does this form of marketing bend the branches then? It takes the power of the social graph and provides access to a community of potential buyers to discover and share your message.

Think about it. With traditional marketing you are typically marketing to one person. Hoping that one person watching the TV commercial will identify with your offering and make the call. With social media marketing you are marketing to a network of influencers and potential buyers.

It is the same principle of how a comedian who uploaded a skit onto youtube can have a viewership of 113,594,744. Don't believe me Click Here

This video went viral 2 years ago. A network of influencers in the social graph found this interesting and shared and commented on the clip driving the traffic through the roof. I don't think a penny was spent on building this audience. How much do you think he would have spent on a TV buy to get the same audience?

Not to say that your offering will achieve this level of exposure but the principle does apply. This comedian received exposure through participating in the social graph. He was involved essentially in social media marketing.

How can this affect your business?

The first thing you have to know is that you cannot treat social media marketing the same as traditional marketing. You don't pitch the social graph. You don't sell to an online community. What you do is create a message, engage in a conversation and participate with your prospects and customers.

The social graph is like a network of friends powered by the fact that they are also networked with other influencers who could grab onto your message and identify with your offering.

What is so special about that you say? Well this network could have a million people in the pipeline that could turn into business for you. Your job is plant the seed into the network and let it grow. But we all know what happens when you don't water the seed. Social media is no different than traditional marketing in that the better quality the message and the more attention paid the better the prospects of an inquiry.

Another thing about social media marketing is that it will more than likely take longer than traditional marketing to demonstrate an ROI. But it also could last longer as well. As long as you continue to provide a message to your community (and a great product or service), it is something that can feed your business for years to come.

If you remember at the beginning of the article I spoke of end of funnel marketing. Social media strategies are more middle of the funnel marketing where you engage the prospect earlier in the process to effectively create more opportunities for conversions. Of course you want to focus on buyers but how many prospects are you missing out on by taking too narrow of an approach.

The idea is to drive people who are already somewhat interested in your offerings to your site and provide the tools to help them determine whether you are the right fit for their needs.

Many of the web tools I have discussed in this article are not built into the majority of websites at this point in time, especially in the ability to manage video, audio, photos and blogs from one location.

Quired websites are built just for this reason.

For those of you interested in looking for solutions to help you engage with your market not just push static content, consider a Quired.com solution.

If you are uncertain, I encourage you to click on the follow link on Quired.com to stay up to date on important marketing trends for you business. If you don't choose Quired, please do your research and find a solution that will help you engage with your prospects and customers.