Social Networking Does Not Work.
Well, it doesn't seem to be working in its current form. In a recent article on EcommerceBytes, Social Networking Not Driving Sales to Online Marketplaces, Ina Steiner of Ecommercebytes writes:
Combined, the top three social networking traffic-drivers - Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter - accounted for just 1.1% of the total 100 million visitors to these marketplaces.
I could almost hear a collective sigh of relief from sellers who felt pressured to participate in social networking in order to drive sales. Comments posted to the article seem to support my intuition: "You just saved me a boat load of time. I'm done tweeting," "I gave up on the social sites eons ago," "I feel this social e-commerce is a MAJOR time suck." I also heard from several friends outside of e-commerce with similar feelings.
Let's back up
Before you give up on your social media campaign, let's look at what social networking actually is. Per Dictionary.com:
social networking
noun
- the development of social and professional contacts; the sharing of information and services among people with a common interest.
This definition pretty much sums up how many people view social networks. Nowhere in the definition does it imply sales, conversions, or boat loads of cash. When I am at a social event with colleagues and friends in the real world, the last thing I want to hear is a sales pitch. That said, if I'm chatting with friends and complaining about how the Seattle housing inventory is tight and one of those friends mentions she's a real estate agent with a sweet "in" on a new property, I'm all over that. She'll win my business.
A matter of etiquette
So why is social networking different when you're online? The short answer: it isn't different. If friendly business exchanges come up naturally between interested parties already engaged in conversation, whether the conversation takes place online or in person, it's all well and good. The problem comes when people see online anonymity as a reason–or opportunity–to disregard normal social etiquette. Just because you are online doesn't mean normal social rules don't apply.
Does this mean you should stop tweeting items and posting ads to Facebook or Pinterest? Well, if you're just publishing a stream of impersonal listings instead of engaging with a relevant community, then yes, you should probably change your strategy. The ugly truth is, most Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook users consider your ads spam, so chances are they aren't paying attention anyway, regardless of your follower count.
Improving your strategy
David Steiner closes a related EcommerceByes article with "Perhaps it's time to rethink the amount of time and energy you, as an online merchant, spend Tweeting, Liking and Pinning." Based on the data in these articles, I'm inclined to agree with them. It's at least time to rethink how you're using your time and energy on the social web, especially if your feed is wholly composed of self-promotion.
If you ask me, there's never been a better time to stand out with social networking than now. But it's only going to work if you do it strategically. I would challenge you to review your current methods of engaging your online networks, and think about how it fits into your overall marketing strategy. Ask yourself these questions:
- Are you inadvertently spamming your followers?
- What are your methods for posting items to your social networks?
- Are you targeting specific, interest-focused communities (e.g. collectors, fashionistas, DIY champions, etc.) that are likely to be interested in what you're selling?
- Do you engage with your followers outside of posting items for sale?
Concentrating on the quality of your posts over their quantity will entice your followers with content that will draw them to your business. If you consistently say things that are informative, useful, entertaining, thought-provoking, or–better yet–some combination of all of these, people will listen. Once you have someone's attention, you'll still want to avoid the hard sell so you don't lose it.
Further resources
Here are a few resources to help you to harness your social networking energies more effectively:
- "How to Market Your Business With Facebook," The New York Times
- "How to Promote Your Online Community without Spamming," Dummies.com
- "Secrets to Using Facebook to Market Your Business," PCWorld
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15 responses to Social Networking Does Not Work.
True, true, true. Interaction is the key. Once you start communicating with folks, they begin to communicate back with you. Conversations can be started up over something as simple as a quote that takes folks by surprise because it is not so well known.
About two months ago, one person I was casually interacting with from Australia surprisingly became a customer. People have to feel like you’re human. Even if you’re not manually sending out your posts. Try to interject in-between and get involved. It shows people you care about what they think and say.
What I have done occasionally is to do an intro in comment sections of online economy artcles.
PEOPLE ARE LOOKING FOR OPPORTUNITES TO HELP SUPPORT SMALL MOM AND POP BUSINESSES AND TO BUY AMERICAN MADE ITEMS.
When ever I’ve done this, I’ve seen measurable results. PLUS, the first time I was inspired to write out my little blurb, the comments had been running RAMPANT for awhile. Stats showed 5 views had been generated by a “buried” comment.
Would there be anyway for Bonz to incorporate a Made In America section within the homepage?
PATRIOTISM could be a substantial differentiating feature to get Bonanza to stand apart from the crowd.
As I understand, a side benefit of interacting on the social sites its that it raises your placement in Google Organic.
I have to wonder if it’s because of the type of sellers they used to conduct the test on. Were these huge mega sellers who don’t have much time to interact with their followers? Sellers like that usually use a service or have a marketer do everything for them. I wonder what the results would have been had they used sellers who have small businesses and who are really active in social networking? I also think that there will always be some who do well, but won’t reveal what it is they are doing. If they did, they would lose their edge. I will continue as I have because I find it benefits me in other ways, as bellavistaboutique above me said…
I posted this on one of our forums:
I just had a thought occur to me while I was replying on another thread.
Consider what we do right here on Bonanza. How many of you interact here in the forums, and have gotten to know many of the sellers here by doing so? How many of you have made purchases from other sellers here, OR made sales because someone you interact with here was familiar with you and comfortable buying from you? Probably almost every one on this thread.
It is no different off site. When I go to make a purchase here, and I have a choice between buying from a seller I know, and one I don’t…I always go with the seller I know.
That’s the effect of Social Networking.
Social sites work for those who figure out how to make them work. Oh I love the Made in America Idea That would be a wonderful idea. A category for made in America.
As Moms said, “I have to wonder if it’s because of the type of sellers they used to conduct the test on.”
This was the most important point to me, and as the firms were anonymous, it is impossible to judge their “statistics.”
…In the first article written by David [linked at the bottom of Ina’s article…where you can leave comments], he obviously was seeing that ecommercebytes does not gain much traffic from Twitter. But their situation is different from the average small independent seller.
…Thanks, Mark for this insight. Tweeted it.
Sorry, have to post again:
Here is just two cases of where using social media has worked in the past hour.
Per Lexity, my views in the past hour that went to the shopping cart (and one has been purchased so far) is:
Hobnail Hurricane Parlor Lamp 3 Way Vintage Frosted White Glass – Table Lamps (Tweeted on Twitter on Sept 8th, but sold through my Pinterest page.)
8 min ago, from Pinterest
Hanging Candle Holder Ivory Frost with Flared Rim 3.75 × 3.75 – Candle Holders & Accessories
28 min ago, from T (Twitter) (Not taken to checkout yet…)
Just another case where there are lots of variables that can bring in sales to us individually.
I’m one of the people sighing in relief….I’m on Twitter and Pinterest, but rarely have the time to look at either, or to contribute to them. I check into Bonanza about once a day, but only about once a week to Twitter. I’ve never believed that “views” translate into sales. Especially in a bad economy. People may stop to look at what you have, but if they simply don’t need it, they’re not going to buy. A lot of “views” are just people puttering around on the net, killing time, or researching an item because they have one THEY want to sell. Having said this, I do want to emphasize that I personally appreciate the many lovely people on this site who have tweeted something of mine. Their kindness means a great deal to me!
Made in America? We have products that are made in America in our booth. We haven’t had much success with Social Media but we are early on in to it and finding our way as well.
I have been wondering over the past couple weeks why Bonanza doesnt have a presence on Facebook or other Social media sites. Yardsellr, Copious, Style.ly, etc, are very active on facebook. Yardsellr, which is has only been around almost 2 years, has such a strong presence and relies heavily on Facebook. And now Yardsellr is on the flop with the buyers slice they are now charging. The sellers there are looking for another alternative. And now there are TONS of buyers looking for a new place to spend. I cant help but think Bonanza is missing a perfect opportunity to sweep in and become greater than what they already are. And I believe Bonanza would just Explode with traffic and sales.
As far as Pintrest, Facebook, and Twitter goes. I have gotten a couple outside sales from Pintrest. I dont facebook or tweet my items enough to give my items enough attention. I have tweeted others items over and over. Hopefully they are getting some sales. I have been so busy listing, that I neglect my own items to tweet. So I cant really say whether or not it works, but Pintrest has brought some interest and sales. And I have only been here for a couple weeks. I just wish I new how to get outside sales to leave feedback lol.
I do believe in Twitter, Facebook and Pintrest. I just think Bonanza can make a stronger impact then I can as Yardsellr and others have been so successful at doing with Facebook. Anyways, thats my 2 cents. I am going back to listing now
As a replacement for a decent blog, of course social networking is bound to fail; half the content is private and not crawler-searchable anyway.
Blogs that pull in traffic ‘cuz they’re cool stand a way better chance of driving it here, especially if you have a widget installed too. But whether or not you have a blog-
Google Organic thrives on original content, to the point where “Content re-writer” programs began springing up in 2004-2005 to fool Google. So a well-written, original description, not the one the dropshipper provides, is instrumental.
That’s mostly for the robots. Then the luscious, kick-ass picture is for the shopper.
To hook someone in here from any search engine, your crazy, weird, quirky item is the best advertising there is.
I have always, however, pounded my fist that the number one goal of this place should be destination site, Destination Site, DESTINATION SITE!
I do not believe that the anonymous buyer program helped us in this regard. If you kidnap someone in the back of a van, bring them inside your store, sell them something and throw em back into the van to be returned to the street corner, guess what? They’re not going to remember the store.
They’re gonna remember the van.
Perma, You are a hoot! LOL~
When I go shopping for something I go to google or bing to search for the item. I even use ebay or online sites like walmart, best buy, home depot, etc, or even search here at bonz.
I don’t and never will use twitter or facebook for my online shopping. I don’t think many other people will either. The 1% that does must be the ones that live on twitter or facebook.
perma: 2 thumbs up for your description of the anonymous buyer experience.
I have had sales as a direct result from conversations on Facebook. I don’t know about Twitter. I don’t really like Twitter and don’t do a whole lot with it. I do enjoy Facebook though, and that’s really what has drawn me away from the forums here because it’s so much easier to keep up with, for one thing. That said, I don’t post a whole bunch of listings on Facebook. I do it every now and then. Even on my fan page, I try to post things other than what I’m selling so it doesn’t look like one big list of please buy this. I talk to people about whatever, and I’ve sold my Mexican cookbooklet that I wrote to a couple of people as a direct result from conversations that turned to the subject somehow. I’ve sold banners and listing templates as a direct result from talking about making those things, and from others talking about the ones that I’ve made for them. But to just post links to your listings all day and night, no, that doesn’t work. I hide those people from my news feed that do nothing but that too so I don’t even see their spam.
I agree with casper, too, I search for what I want to buy.
Celeste_Taylor09 mentioned Yardsellr, Copious, Style.ly and I won’t sign up for them because you can’t even look at their sites without signing up, and then they have you spam your friends trying to get them to sign up. I want nothing to do with those sites… not to shop… not to buy. That type of stuff doesn’t work for me.
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