Article Intro


 
Title: Don't Ignore Today's Version of Watercooler Marketing

 
Social networking is not just for teenagers anymore. Thirty-seven percent of adults and 70 percent of teens in the United States frequent social networking sites, according to e-marketing professionals. By 2011, those numbers will likely rise to 50 percent and 84 percent respectively. Is that an avenue of marketing you can afford to ignore?




Full Article

 

An Explosion of Resources You Can't Afford to Overlook

You may think of social networking sites as places for young people to connect. That is how it started, after all. Facebook was originally a way for college students to "meet up" with other students on the same campus, though now anyone over the age of 13 who has an e-mail address can participate. Social network advertising is not like traditional online advertising. It requires marketers to more precisely target their ads, with greater creativity, frequent testing, and constant upkeep.

If your firm chooses to use social networking as a marketing tool, don't expect it to be easy. Competition is fierce, but the scale of this pool of visitors is so enormous and so likely to keep growing that it shouldn't be ignored. By some estimates, in 2007 worldwide spending on social networking ads reached $1.2 billion, and that is expected to grow to $2.2 billion before 2008 is over. That's impressive growth. But for the U.S. alone, social network advertising is expected to have jumped 169 percent between the end of 2007 and the end of 2008. And by 2012, total spending in the U.S. could increase by about 450 percent.

Ads

Why is social network marketing experiencing such rapid growth? For one thing, it's free. Your firm can register and fill out a profile without cost. But also, social networking includes a feature that allows members to add their own contact lists. When members hit on something they want others to see, it's a simple matter to spread it quickly to their friends. If a well-developed ad finds favor with those you target, the network of people you reach can expand in the blink of an eye.
 


While social networking is generally looked at in the business world as less important than e-mail marketing and other Internet ads, that seems to be changing. Pioneers in business marketing are using this form of advertising to get close to their customers, their employees, and their prospects. To be successful, they do their research, know their audience well, and run pilot programs to see what they need to offer members to get their attention.

Before you decide that social network marketing is only for businesses that are upstarts or that create products and services mostly for young people, think again. Do the names Del Monte and New York Life Insurance ring any bells? Both of them are making inroads into the social networking scene by providing information useful to a specific audiences. For example, Del Monte has a Web site called "Moms Online Community" and another called "I Love My Dog." Using these sites, they are able to identify issues that really matter to various groups of consumers, and determine factors that influence buying decisions.

Recruiting Tool

It's true that for young people, social networking is generally more about socializing than anything as serious as business marketing. It's also true that most young people are thinking about their future careers. For CPA firms that are hoping to recruit on college campuses, social networking seems like a natural way to spread the word about why future accountants should consider working for them. And with the current shortage of qualified accounting students, social networking could also be a way to entice undecided college students and even high schoolers to think about the field of accounting.

Here's a great example. Many young people are deeply concerned about the environment and about social responsibility. For firms that have "gone green" or that devote a lot of resources to working with not-for-profit organizations, putting this information out in an ad on a site like Facebook, Linked In or XING would be a great way to capture the imaginations of high school and college students looking for an employment path that aligns with the things they care about.

Blogging

Another form of social networking is blogging. Everyone these days seems to have a blog. Some use it as a way to just rant about everything that bothers them or share their thoughts on subjects of interest. But others use blogs to deliver useful information, including tax tips. Some CPAs are even willing to answer simple tax questions on their blogs, though of course there has to be a balance between what you give away and what you use to attract new clients. The trouble with some blogs is the same as the trouble with some Web sites. They get started and then the people or businesses that initiated them fail to put in the time required to keep them going. A neglected Web site or blog is as obvious as an unused, dust covered piece of furniture. And when the blog represents your business, it gives the impression that everyone went home and left the lights on. Starting a blog is an excellent use of the Internet to spread information. But if you can't devote adequate time to it, it may be better to wait until you can.

More about blogging in a future article.