S.M.M companies are actually springing up throughout the place nowadays and they are telling anyone that may listen about how precisely incredibly important social networking like Facebook twitterFacebook Likes Reseller Panel
and YouTube are to your business but, for the typical small to medium-sized business, does marketing to social support systems really meet most of the hype? Is spending a tiny fortune on hiring a SMM company worthy of it? And has anyone really done their research with this before they hired someone to create there Facebook business page? Some SMM companies are establishing things such as Facebook business pages (which are free) for $600 to $1,000 or even more and telling their clients they don't need a website because Facebook is the largest social network on earth and everybody features a Facebook account. Now while it may be true that Facebook is the largest social network on earth and yes, Facebook's members are potential consumers, the actual question is are they actually buying? Social media marketing companies are typical too happy to point out the positives of social networking like how many people use Facebook or how many tweets were delivered last year and how many people watch YouTube videos etc. but are you getting the total picture? I once sat alongside a SMM "expert" at a small business seminar who had been spruiking to anyone who came within earshot in regards to the amazing advantages of establishing a Facebook business page for small company (with him of course) and selling on Facebook. So, intrigued by these "experts" advice I looked him on Facebook only to get he'd only 11 Facebook friends (not a good start). So being the research nut that I am, I chose to take a good look into SMM in regard to selling to see if it actually worked, who did it work for and if it did why did Social Media Marketing work for them? And should business rely so heavily on social support systems for sales?

As a website developer I was constantly (and now increasingly) confronted with several social networking challenges when potential clients would say that having a website sounds good but they had a Facebook business page and had been told by various sources (the ever present yet anonymous "they") that social support systems were the action to take, but after discussing their needs it became quite clear that those potential clients didn't actually know why they needed social support systems or SMM to generate online sales, They just wanted it. For small and medium-sized business I always recommended creating a quality website over any type of social network, why? Well it's simple really because social networking is Social Media, and social Networks are Social Networks they are not business media and business networks (that could be similar to LinkedIn). I understand that sounds simple but it's true and the statistics back it up. The truth is that social networking marketing fails to share with you that Facebook is a social network not a research engine and despite how many Facebook users and Google users being around the same, people don't use Facebook in the same way they work with a search engine like Google (which has around half the search engine market), Yahoo and Bing to find business or products. They use it to keep in touch with family and friends and for news and entertainment. In a recently available study done by the IBM Institute for Business Value around 55% of all social networking users stated that they do not engage with brands over social networking at all and only around 23% actually purposefully use social networking to communicate with brands. Now out of all people who do use social networking and who do communicate with brands whether purposefully or not, the majority (66%) say they need to feel a business is communicating honestly before they will interact.

Well to start with I would say that having a well optimized website remains going to create you far more business that social networking in most cases particularly if you certainly are a small to medium-sized local business because far more folks will key in "hairdresser Port Macquarie" into a research engine like Google, Yahoo and Bing than they ever will on any Social Media Site and if you don't have a website you're missing out on all of the potential business. However despite most of the (not so good) statistics I still believe that it is still advisable for business to utilize social networking simply not in the same way that many of SMM professionals are today, Why? Because it's clearly not in the direction they claim it does. Basically SMM Companies and Business in general viewed social support systems like Facebook as a fresh market ripe for the picking and when Facebook started getting users measured by the millions PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel invested US$500,000 for 7% of the business (in June 2004) and since them a couple of venture capital firms have made investments into Facebook and in October 2007, Microsoft announced that it had purchased a 1.6% share of Facebook for $240 million. However since Facebook's humble beginnings up until now (2012) both SMM Companies and Business have failed to seriously capitalise on the huge number of Facebook users online. The stark reality is numbers does not equal buyers. Is it in a Social Media Marketing company's best interest to talk social support systems up? Absolutely. Is it in a Social Network like Facebook's best interests for folks to believe that companies can sell en masse by advertising and marketing together? Obviously it is. In early 2012, Facebook disclosed that its profits had jumped 65% to $1 billion in the previous year as its revenue which can be mainly from advertising had jumped almost 90% to $3.71 billion so clearly the idea of SMM is exercising for them but it is exercising for you personally? Well... statistically no, but that will not necessarily mean that it never will.

I think the major difference between social support systems and search engines is intent. People who use Google are deliberately looking for something so when they do a search for hairdressers that's what they are searching for at that particular time. With something similar to Facebook the principal intent is generally to get in touch with friends and family. In October 2008, Mark Zuckerberg himself said "I don't think social support systems may be monetized in the same way that search (Search Engines) did... In 36 months from we have now to figure out what the optimum model is. But that is not our primary focus today" ;.One of the biggest problems business face with social support systems and SMM is perception. Based on the IBM Institute for Business Value study there were "significant gaps between what businesses think consumers care about and what consumers say they want from their social networking interactions with companies." For example in today's society people aren't just going to hand you over there recommendations, Facebook likes, comments or details without getting something back for this, so the old adage "what's in it for me personally?" comes into play. So the principal reason most people give for reaching brands or business on social networking is to get discounts, yet the brands and business themselves think the key reason people communicate with them on social networking is to master about new products. For brands and business receiving discounts only ranks 12th on the listing of explanations why people communicate with them. Most businesses believe social networking increases advocacy, but only 38 % of consumers agree.

 There have been some good initiatives shown in the IBM study of companies that had gotten some kind of a handle on how to use social networking for their advantage, bearing in mind that when asked what they do when they communicate with businesses or brands via social networking, consumers list "getting discounts or coupons" and "purchasing products and services" as the utmost effective two activities, respectively a U.S ice cream company called Cold Stone Creamery offered discounts on the products on the Facebook page. Alternatively there is a great program launched by Best Buys in the U.S called Twelpforce where employees can answer customer's questions via Twitter. With both Cold Stone Creamery and Twelpforce the benefit is actually in the favour of the potential customer & the truly amazing trick to social networking marketing is to sell without trying to sell (or looking like your selling) unfortunately most social networking marketing is focused the incorrect way.

Building a tangible buyer to consumer relationship via social networking is difficult and essentially the most benefit to business' using social networking to boost their websites Google rankings. But business' have to recognize that you can't just setup a Facebook business page and hope for the best. SMM requires effort and potential customers have to see value in everything you have to offer via your social networking efforts let them have something worth their social interaction and time and then you might get better results.