90% of consumers trust peer recommendations. - Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey
Only 14% of consumers trust advertisements. - Marketing to the Social Web, Larry Weber
Social Media Marketing is a powerful but low-cost means of getting attention, links and massive amounts of traffic. It is extremely effective for building corporate branding, product evangelism and reputation management.
Burger King generates online mileage through innovative Facebook apps and viral campaigns. Starbucks goes in for customer suggestions. Sun Microsystems creates a splash with its CEO Blog. IBM goes the whole hog with an entire network of blogs! Comcast reaches out to consumers through Twitter. Graco facilitates picture sharing on Flickr. And Dell has cultivated a truly cross-platform community, making more than $3 million worth of sales through Twitter!
Social Media is where all the Big Brands are right now, not to mention almost everyone else. It is the new frontier, where none of the old rules seem to apply. You don’t need any expensive ads, professional copywriting or impressive designs to make a mark.
With minimum capital investment, Social Media tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are transforming businesses by providing incredible exposure, seamless communication, massive traffic and quality leads.
Josh Bernoff, Senior VP (Idea Development) at Forrester Research, believes that Social Media Marketing goes much beyond simple ROI and other metrics.
"This isn't an ad campaign. This is the beginning of a transformation of how your whole company runs," says Bernoff. "So think about it first... but your competition is doing it right now."