January 28, 2013
The exponential growth of online social networks has been a hot topic over the past few years and shows no signs of cooling down, with the International Telecommunications Union claiming in a new report that the number of people using all social media services has now passed the 1 billion mark.
One draw of social networking for many businesses and companies is its speed; new information can be instantly catapulted out into the virtual ether or at a target audience with the simplest of clicks. The problem with this, however, is that as fast as information can appear, it can almost as quickly be buried pages back beneath newer posts, images, tags and updates etc. Social media should of course be a part of every business’s marketing strategy but it is good to bear in mind the benefits of combining it with more classic, tangible branding. And it does have its pitfalls…
Despite the hype, social media marketing is not the world. Of course it has the power to drive traffic to your website, blog, articles etc, but it can be far more time consuming than some companies expect. Sites and pages must be rigorously maintained. High demands on your time can occur when, for example, content must be created, edited and approved before publishing or because every last comment must be responded to. You can alleviate these demands by outsourcing – but for a fee. In addition, it can be difficult to constantly come up with innovative and exciting content that interests a variety of readers – without relevance your efforts will be wasted. Your brand can become background noise against the ubiquitous buzz of others’ marketing efforts.
Be prepared for anything you publish to be up for grabs too! Others can easily criticise you and backlash is the last thing you want your social media marketing to create. With ever-changing content and less time to oversee what your own team is publishing you open yourself up to potential negatives. Maybe we should we all resign ourselves to a life online…but does nobody else miss real conversations? Or real books, real records? The world may be migrating to the internet and taking us all with it, but there are plenty of people who still appreciate the effort put into a personalised item or gift.
Here at Noted In Style we aim to help brands grow by providing them with premium products that are a physical presence in people’s lives and act as reminders of customer/brand relationships day to day. The increase in visualisation of content that has emerged over the the last two years shows that people like to see brands. What better way to do this than by giving customers or staff a high quality branded product that will last far longer than the transient updates of the virtual world. Contact us today to discuss getting your own branded notebooks, diaries or iPad cases.
