Social Marketing: Facebook and Twitter only part of the puzzle

By now it is probably a safe assumption that the Facebook and Twitter logos are almost as recognizable as the “golden arches.” The sheer volume of users to the sites (a combined 690 million according to Mashup) can act as a distraction to social media marketers and business owners alike. These distractions can also cause marketers to turn a blind eye to the who, what, when, where and why of one’s overall marketing efforts. Today, I would like to emphasize the importance of not limiting your social media marketing efforts to just Twitter and Facebook.

“Why not?”, you ask. There are a number of answers to this question. One core reason is the rapid growth of various other social media sites. Take LinkedIn, for example – according to CNN Money, this past November they were at 85 million users but were adding 1 million users a day!* Another great example is the traffic volume that other social media sites like StumbleUpon can deliver. Recent statistics from The Next Web indicate that StumbleUpon, despite having 10% of the users of Facebook, actually sends more outbound traffic.

You may also be asking, “Who am I targeting?” Demographics. Have you clearly defined the market you would like to target? If the answer to that question is “no,” than you may find yourself spending a lot of time promoting without a purpose. Let’s take a look at some Twitter demographics to illustrate this point. According to pewresearch.org, Twitter’s key age demographic is 18-29-year-olds, which accounts for 62% of overall Twitter usage. With that knowledge in mind, marketing efforts on Twitter for post-high-school education will obviously have a much stronger impact than, say, luxury homes.

Your other question may be, “Where should I spend my time marketing online?” The easiest way to answer that question is, “Do your homework!” The rapid changes and growth within the social media marketing field makes it difficult to keep up. However, the rewards for putting in the time make the research well worth it. The SEOmoz blog has provided a nice guide categorized by number of users to help you get started. Good luck!

100 Million+ Users - Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube
25 Million+ Users - Reddit, Flickr, Yelp, Wikipedia
10 Million+ Users - Tumblr, StumbleUpon, Care 2, Digg, Delicious