If you're in the business of selling stuff, according to one big-time research firm social media marketing is a waste of your time and money.
Forrester Research has released a report recently that concludes...
"Social tactics are not meaningful sales drivers. While the hype around social networks as a driver of influence in eCommerce continues to capture the attention of online executives, the truth is that social continues to struggle and registers as a barely negligible source of sales for either new or repeat buyers. In fact, fewer than 1% of transactions for both new and repeat shoppers could be traced back to trackable social links."Now think about this for a minute. This study is about the influence of online social media on online sales. If the influence on online sales is "barely negligible" can you imagine the influence on traditional retail sales (which account for about 94% of everything sold?) What's below barely negligible? Strongly negligible?
The study goes on to say...
“The reality is that even the most popular social image-sharing sites (like Pinterest) have failed to move the needle with respect to sales for most retail sites.”To tell you the truth, even I was a little shocked reading about this study. There aren't too many people in the ad world who are more skeptical about the magical power of social media marketing than I am. But I thought the truth probably fell somewhere between "magic" and "barely negligible."
According to a piece about this study in Marketing...
As a direct source of sales, web marketing mainstays of search and email continue to be the most fruitful...Hmmm...seems to me I've read something like this somewhere before. Oh yeah, it was in The Ad Contrarian over two years ago...
"It is true that there's data to support the effectiveness of two types of online advertising: search and email. But is that it?"It's starting to look more and more like the answer is... yes. That's about it.
