Social media is the darling of the moment. Marketer after marketer has plunged into the world of Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Yelp, any and every social media out there in the search to engage with customers, build community, and certainly be part of the biggest phenomenon on the web since HTML. But many of my SEO training class students ask, “Is Social Media worth it? How should it integrate with our Search Engine Marketing (SEM) strategy?” A recent article in the New York Times got me thinking, and researching…
The Facebook Era: How to Market Your Business With Facebook
The November 15, 2009 New York Times was abuzz with a fun article called “How to Market Your Business with Facebook.” But, what do the French say? Oh yes – Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, or the more we move to social media, the more traditional PR is at work posting articles in mainstream magazines and newspapers to encourage buzz about social media. Does Facebook have a PR agency? Does Twitter?
In this case traditional PR was clearly at work here – an author with a new book, an author plugging her new book via an article in the New York Times… And of course the irony being that the traditional media are telling us just how important not Web 1.0 is, but Web 2.0 (Social Media) is… Whenever I read these articles, my skeptical tech journalist instincts flame on (remember: I am a dot.com survivor)… And I wonder if we are seeing old wine in new bottles – some very traditional old media PR that is wrapping itself in the New Media blanket, to sell books.
After all, think about it in big bold terms: you are reading THE NEW YORK TIMES to find out how important it is to FACEBOOK, not the other way round!
OK, rather cynical I admit. But that is what journalists are supposed to be – although I think critical journalism is being relegated more and more to the blogosphere and not the pages of the New York Times, but I digress.
So the point of the article is that every business should get on Facebook / Social Media (build community) and hopefully thereby sell products or services. I can’t disagree with that – I certainly think that social media has a place, the issue being what that place is in an Integrated Marketing & Communications (IMC) strategy.
By the way, quotes from the article and homage to the book author: “You need to be where your customers are and your prospective customers are,” said Clara Shih, author of The Facebook Era (Pearson Education, 2009). “And with 300 million people on Facebook, and still growing, that’s increasingly where your audience is for a lot of products and services.” You can view the book’s Facebook page, here.
Facebook Profiles in Courage: Chris Meyer vs. Sprinkles
The article profiles two very different businesses. First, Chris Meyer of Woodbury, Minnesota, Wedding photographer, who, according to the Times article, estimates that he has spent about $300 on Facebook ads in the last two years and has generated more than $60,000 in business. He says about three-quarters of his clients now come to him through Facebook, either from ads or recommendations from friends. “I’d be out of business if I didn’t have Facebook,” Mr. Meyer said. “Especially with this economy, I need to stretch each marketing dollar as much as I possibly can.” I had to Google quite a bit to find him at http://www.cm-photographics.com/ and his Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/CMPhotographics
Second, there was Sprinkles, a high end cupcake bakery in Beverly Hills, California, with a Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/sprinkles.
According to the article, Sprinkles uses Facebook to give customers a whiff of what’s cooking. Every day it posts a password on Facebook that can be redeemed for a free cupcake. Since April, its fan base has risen tenfold to 70,000. The company was also featured on Oprah, and it seems to use Facebook as a real-time way to notify its fans about where and when the best cupcakes will be available, plus issue coupons.
So we have two profiles in courage – one a wedding photographer and one a trendy bakery in Beverly Hills. Is there any logic for other businesspeople into the strategies used? I Googled and searched both, and what was striking is that neither business has a very good on page SEO strategy, whereas Sprinkles clearly has an excellent link building strategy with 2,600 backlinks vs. only 62 for cm-photographics.com. What lessons can be learned from this article, and from these two profiles in courage?
Is it SEO vs. Facebook? Or is it (should it be) SEO AND Facebook?
I would submit to you that Clara Shih is one of many purveyors of the latest fad, the latest dog-chasing-its-tale, the latest busy busywork for marketers and small businesses. It reminds one of the early Web craze: you must have a web page, even if you do not know what it is supposed to do for you. Today, it’s you must Facebook, you must Twitter, you must Youtube… And for many businesses, we have unfortunately “moved past” basic SEO – basic <TITLE> tags, basic on page optimization, even basic attention paid to the No. 1 source of traffic to most businesses: Google. This is vividly so on Meyer’s Wedding photographer website, because if people search for one thing on Google, it’s all the paraphernalia associated with weddings!
I Googled for Meyers for these keywords:
- wedding photographer minnesota
- wedding photography minnesota
- high-end wedding photographer minnesota
- luxury wedding photographer minnesota
- unique wedding photography minnesota
And he was not in the top 200 results… Now perhaps he isn’t seeking the type of client who would Google, and prefers the type who would just Facebook. That would be a totally valid marketing judgement on his part. I can’t say. What I can say is that most wedding photographers can’t afford to turn down business these days, and their marketing goal should be to be No. 1 on Google for their target searches (plus their geographies) and to have a vibrant presence in social media.
As for cupcakes? It’s the exception that proves the rule. I can’t imagine many Googlers Googling cupcakes, and the one very successful example of Twitter / Facebook does seem to be real-time restaurant updates, so having an active social media strategy makes a lot of sense. Their website isn’t very SEO friendly, but their amazing link strategy more than makes up for it. Consequently, it seems like Sprinkles is having its cupcake and eating it too: being highly visible on both Facebook and Google.
In conclusion, for most businesses, you should get Google right first. And then (and only then) move on to social media. With limited time and resources, don’t put the cupcake before the icing, or the photographer (Facebook) before the photography (website).
