Is Social Media Worth The Effort?

I offer SEO services for small local businesses and I have been doing a lot of research on Social Media sites. The goal is discover how social media can benefit the small business owner that have websites as part of their small business marketing mix.

I wrote an article Titled "Is social media worth the effort." It can be found here
http://www.tucsonwebsiteconsulting.com/social-media-sites It takes a look at our efforts and the slim ROI for our own site. The site is B2B and is a destination site. There is no affiliate marketing on the website.

We are not much different than any small business website whose goal is to generate leads for our services.

Keep in mind the target market, for this thread is the small business owner who doesn't have a lot of time or experience. What social media site would you recommend for this group, that is easy to use and doesn't take a lot of time?

 

I think it definitely can be worth the effort if the right focus is applied. If you make a lot of "friends" in your niche and regularly engage in conversation (which applies to marketing through blog comments as well) and present yourself as a person rather than simply a business, social media marketing can be an effective branding tool. In other words, don't just try to sell on the social networks. These are the places for them to get to know you. Then, they might take the initiative to see what you have to offer, and what other people say about you for that matter.

 

Yes, it's worth all the trouble. I don't claim to be an expert or anything but marketing through social media has paid off for me. The key, IMO, is to only contact people whom you have enough similar interests or with whom you know you can network efficiently. No use of having a ton of "friends" if you know they barely have any interest on what you do and vice versa.

 

Yup! Here is my conversion from video site 1:200
I get 1000 for each sale generated on this experiment.
So what do you think? I think you are the only one who can answer your question. For some niches, it might work well but not in some others. Just give it a try, and do some tracking.

 

Well, I have been using social media sites and tracking the results. So far for an SEO site it is a bust. My only leads come through Google and Craigslist.

 

myspace,facebook

 

Maybe you have missed my point. Is social media worth the effort for B2B sites.

 

Nope its not worth the effort at all IMO.

Btw there is no money in seo either : )

 

Well, if you aren't in SEO how can you say that? Just curious?

 

Social media are absolutely worth the trouble. Not only do they help drive traffic, but they are all about networking, which has been a long established way to do business online and offline.

 

Has anyone actually used Social Media successfully for a B2B Site... If so please explain.

Social Media is great if all you want to do is make money through clicks. What I would like to know is can or have you applied it to a site that sells and actual product or service?