Stairwellblog

There is so much information on the Internet that it can be hard to separate what is substantial and what are the mad ramblings of a 12 year old on his parents’ computer. It’s not surprising that amongst the photoshoped pictures of Bigfoot, fake celebrity deaths, and fan-made film trailers, there is a lot of misinformation that becomes commonly thought of as fact. This is especially true when it comes to subjects like advertising where lots of people have strong opinions and are willing to share them. (I’ve had more than a few people tell me “Advertising doesn’t work on me,” while drinking a Bud Light and decked out in Nike shoes.)

When I started out in advertising, I did cold-calling for an agency’s sales team. I spent most of my day trying to get decision makers on the phone and listening to excuses and reasons why they didn’t need a digital advertising agency. I learned a lot about the misconceptions surrounding advertising that are not only untrue – but could actually be very bad for business. By far the number one excuse for people who didn’t want to do digital advertising was. “I just paid for a great new website,” Or some variation on that.

1. I just paid for a great new website

Having a nice looking website is great and it’s a necessity for doing business these days, but the truth is that if you rely on just a great website for your online presence, you are likely wasting your money. Having a great website is useless unless you do something to draw people to it. You can do more with a plain website, a great SEO presence, and a Facebook/YouTube campaign then you can by just pouring money into a website with tons of Flash and videos.

2. We’re a small business and we’re never going to have the budget to compete with bigger companies.

That’s another one I heard at least once a day. Of course if you have 2 pizza places that are successful you’re still not going to spend hundreds of millions or get a Super Bowl ad. But your Facebook advertising cost the exact same as Pizza Hut’s. Dominos spends as much on Twitter as I do ($0.00) every month. And you can by a video camera and post YouTube videos just as easily as Papa John’s can shoot and post a viral ad. You have just as much of a chance of catching on with your video as they do. That’s the beauty of the Internet; great ads have a way of catching on like a blaze of fire regardless of who made them.

3. Our audience is older and doesn’t use the internet.

That might have been a good excuse ten years ago but the facts show that more and more older people are using the internet for online shopping, keeping in touch with friends and family, and shockingly enough podcasts. With phones and TV connected to the internet becoming standard, and sites like Netflix making is easy and convenient to get movies major companies have started gearing some of their advertising to the 55 and over crowed. Even Facebook has started promoting itself as a place to keep in touch with your kids and grandkids showing that advertisers are taking older people surfing the net very seriously.

4. I’m trying Facebook and I don’t get a lot of fans.

This one is a big one that I dealt with just this last week. Business to Business pages don’t get a lot of fans. If you look at an owner or manager’s personal Facebook page you don’t see a lot of fan pages. The numbers you should be looking at are the ones that Facebook is kind enough to send you in an e-mail once a week. If you are the admin on a page you get metrics that say the number of visitors and how it’s changed since last week. Facebook knows that those are the numbers that ad agencies and marketing managers really want to see. They don’t tell you just who clicked the fan button. They tell you how many people took time to look at your page and those are the number that really matter. Don’t get hung up on the number of fans.

Ultimately, getting to the meat of what is true and not true about social media (and understanding the value of digital agencies) is really a question of doing the costs/benefits research and finding someone who is trustworthy to service your online marketing objectives. So, the next time a kid calls, trying to set up a pitch for a digital agency, keep an open mind; he could be your company’s next big thing!

www.g4commerce.com/all-the-cool-kids-are-doing-it/
www.socialmediaexaminer.com/4-facebook-marketing-myths-and-how-to-overcome-them/

www.silicon.com/technology/networks/2003/11/14/old-people-like-the-internet-39116903/

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090610074159

www.toprankblog.com/2010/06/content-marketing-curation-context

Last 5 posts by joshuasinason

• Twitter Offering Regional Targeted Ads and Becoming The Place For Social Media Marketing in 2012 - January 20th, 2012
• Social Media Aspects That Failed in 2011 But Could Explode In 2012 - January 3rd, 2012
• The State of Streaming Video in 2012 - December 21st, 2011
• Gearing Social Media To Sports Fans - December 9th, 2011
• Take A Lesson From The Muppets: Kermit The Frog and Social Media - November 22nd, 2011