Social Media Or Phone Book?

Social Media Or Phone Book?

Old habits die hard! Despite the rapid fall in percentage of people
looking for services through the yellow pages, business owners are
still bowing to the traditions and spending substantial amounts of
money on phone book advertising.

As you are reviewing your advertising budget I am sure you always have
in mind what's in it for you, and there is a time where you must make
an educated choice.

In a recent national radio interview one of the speakers was asked how
they did their searching for services like plumbers, or products like
restaurants in their neighborhood. One answered "I go online" and the
other one said "Word of Mouth".

In fact he revealed that he had expressively asked yellow pages NOT to
deliver the phone book to their place...But that request was declined
because the only credibility left to the phone book is its distribution!

Is it a better idea to rely on your website and your social media
marketing for your lead generation? Here are 5 reasons why the answer is
more and more overwhelmingly YES:

1.Unlimited Brand awareness
Using the web and in particular social media, there is no end to how much
information your can give about your brand. This is free, renewable
advertising real estate, with a unique chance to showcase your point of
difference. Buying this amount of space would be totally prohibitive in
print advertising

2.Interactive advertising
Online you are able to get instant feed back from clients about their
experience but also from people who haven't used your business yet. You
get to create a relationship before purchase

3. Instant Word Of Mouth
Social media marketing creates a conversation that may never happen at
the pub or around the dinner table. It also allows word of mouth to spread
between strangers. You can easily do your market research by surfing a business's
facebook wall

4. Standing Out Of The Crowd At No Extra Cost
Custom designed facebook fan pages are a key to initial interaction. As more
people use Facebook to do their research, many more businesses use custom
design to improve visitors' first impression. Check this tool to give a great
reason for visitors to "like" your page. Why buy a big expensive ad on the
phone book?

5. Controlling Brand Reputation
The Conversation you are having with your clients and prospects is a much more
credible way to control first impressions than dominating pages of print
advertising. This is where small to medium businesses have the opportunity to
compete on a level playing field, even with big companies

Facebook accounts versus Facebook fanpage: what do I choose?

This is a question I get asked a lot: For my business do

I get a facebook account and get lots of friends into it

or do I get a Facebook page and grow my Fans list?

Using the right strategy is not complex, but crucial.

Here are my answers:

Case Number One:

You are an accountant, a lawyer, a consultant, a coach

etc....or any other situation where you are known as a

business person and you are the main reason people

will do business with your company.

In that case you should have a personal account where

you build a Friends list and you become member of

facebook groups within your industry.

This in turn helps you build your following and you can

then direct them to your fan page.

So in many cases in small business you need both an

account under your own name and then a fan page under

your name or your company name.

Case Number Two

If you own or co-own a corporation and people do

business with your company mainly because your

company has a big name in the industry, then you can

go straight to having a page only, under your company

name.

The main restriction here is that a page cannot

be part of a Facebook group. That alone limits your viral

marketing options down the track.

Having a proper social media strategy can sound

complex but it is possible to keep it simple and easy,

with great return on investment.

This is a very brief answer to this question, there

are more elements to it but I just wanted to give you

some clarity here.