Satterfield Group Shares Insights on Web Marketing

March 22, 2010 - PRLog -- Everyone has a a friend of a friend that is a social media marketing expert. Bring up the subject and get ready to hear just about every opinion on how to maximize social media marketing programs. In general most people end up with far more questions than answers: Should I spend money on banner ads on popular forums? Does Facebook really grow my business? How do I track any of it?

The problem with social media is that when you go to find answers what you more than not find is a social media guru with a print at home credential, finding real meaningful information is getting harder and harder. Not claiming to be a guru and with no print at home "E-Marketing" degree from a non-existing institute here are a few tips that have worked for my own company and for many of our clients.


There is traffic and than there is traffic. On average under 4% off all site visitors are responsible for driving total site traffic. Anywhere from 20-50% of all site traffic comes from this small demographic of dedicated users, if you want traffic you need to find incentives to motivate these guests that influence so much traffic. On one of the blogs we run we have started to have monthly contests and giveaways, while only a small percentage of the users are active in the contest they residual information they spread about the contest has resulted in increased traffic and user signing up as fans, followers, or for e-mail updates.

This is important as consumers are more likely to respond to a peer posting of a contest, promotion, website, or other link than if you post it. What others are doing with your content be it from your blog, Facebook, or company website will draw much more traffic than any posting you make. What they say about your brand is more important than what you say about your brand. Content spread via word-of-mouth is far more powerful when driving brand awareness on and off line. (i.e. If you post a new product on your company fan page, it will have less impact than if a influential customer posted it on their Facebook page.)

This is also key in understanding the use of social sites like YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook, they are more about brand awareness and hardly ever high conversion centers. For a brand awareness campaign there is nothing more important than making sure that your content is available to your customers. Consumers love to share useful, entertaining, and relevant content with their friends, over 90% of web pages have less than 10 links pointing to them, this makes them invisible, get your content out there. Many companies will simply post advertisement on their Facebook fan page or purchase ad space on popular social media sites. Remember if you don't have anything interesting to spark a consumers interest they more than likely won't pass along your content and you have just spent lots of money on pay-per-click ads.

Social media is about interacting with your customer, if you have a minimum wage part time high school student who is not excited about your product doing your social media postings for you should strongly reconsider what your goals are. Consumers expect professional and passionate people on the other side of their screen, not just someone posting web site promo-codes over and over again.

Social media is not magic, it does not require a guru, it requires an enthusiast and brand Evangelist that is willing to spend the time it takes to generate interesting content that will work its way across the web. If you can so that well your audience will spread the word for you. There is only one real rule to social media.... content is king.




About the Author:
Michael Satterfield has worked in the automotive aftermarket for over 10 years, with a focus on internet sales and marketing. Michael holds a degree in Organizational Leadership with minors in Political Science and History. He also holds certifications in Internet Sales and Marketing from Ford Motor Company, Kia Motors North America, and Nichols, Campbell & Marrow. Michael founded Satterfield Group to help small businesses in the automotive aftermarket better brand themselves and build their corporate identities using both traditional and internet marketing. Michael is also a regular contributor to many automotive and marketing publications.

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Satterfield Group Int. is a multifaceted collection of companies that includes SGI Consulting, Morgan’s and Phillip’s, RBR, and several other automotive related media, sales and service businesses.