Every now and then I’ll get an e-mail from someone who is just getting started with their site. They are overwhelmed by all the social media sites, tools, etc. (Who can blame them?)
Some are even so turned off by social media, they tell me they want nothing to do with it. Others believe it can be a distraction because you can get so caught up in being “followed” or “liked” that you lose sight of the real goal.
However, they realize how popular social media is today and they see so many bloggers and website owners relying on it for promotion, traffic, exposure, etc. So they ask me if I believe it’s possible to build a solid online presence today without using social media.
Well, obviously the short answer is “yes”. Look at all the people who have created a tremendous following on YouTube (For the record, I don’t consider that a social media site.) But video is not for everyone, nor is it appropriate for every kind of site.
And of course there’s SEO, but it has changed. Getting listed and ranked for competitive keywords in the search engines takes a lot longer than it used to. In addition, article marketing and directory submissions are not nearly as effective as they once were.
Of course there are other ways to promote a site (guest posting, press releases, writing exceptional/unique content etc.) But is that enough today?
What do you think? Is it smart for a new blogger or static website owner to ignore social media altogether in 2011?
I don’t think it’s possible. FB is ranked no. 2 after Google !
I think social media is one of community. Everything online has really surrounded the concept of building a community or a group of cheerleaders that can vouch for your business. People like to feel like they are a part of something unique and special and that usually comes from being a part of a community. Community strength is a very powerful branding force that can significantly grow a business on and offline.
But sometimes i am agree online business can success without social media..
I’m not a big fan of social media sites.
However, it’s hard to argue that patricipating in social media doesn’t help bring traffic to your website.
There’s no doubt that social media has become important in website ranking and for good reason, on the whole real people create social media signals and can be a great indicator of genuinely popular topics or products.
I agree with dreamaxess, its not a good idea to think in absolute terms. Social Media is just another platform that people can use to get their word out. Whether you use it or not is up to you. But SEO alone these days just isn’t going to cut it anymore, there’s just too much content out there vying for our attention.
Social Media also has other benefits of course. You can find out what readers like or dislike and work on that.
I think it is important to use social media for a blog. It’s going to take so much more time to make it if you don’t. In today’s tough internet world, social media is a must and it really doesn’t take that much time if you do it effectively.
I think the web is becoming such a complex, volatile and multifaceted world – you can’t really make sweeping calls about any method (whitehat of coz) – different methods work for different websites – it is not a universal truth that SMM is not good for sales conversion nor traffic generation, it has worked for some and it has not worked for some- I would advise doing your best in laying the foundations of long term traffic generation (such as publishing good quality content on on-site search engine optimised pages- then you can venture into establishing your footprints across all and any spheres of the web that can bring your traffic- thats my opinion….
I thought it was possible but it sounds like it is possible to do it without social media marketing. I would rather do it within those parameters though.
I think social media is a very important aspect of marketing and therefore should not be ignored.
Too many people think social media is the be all and end all to online marketing. However, if you are just getting started, social media can be the worst thing to start with because the social media medium becomes the whole business. SMM isn’t for sales conversion nor traffic generation.
I think social media is still in its infancy. As long as Facebook has only a single news feed, then no one has a great incentive to stuff it with ads. If they changed it to allow friend feeds as separate from business feeds, I think it would change things completely. But of course no one can get Facebook to make convenient changes anymore.
I believe that getting organic search with seo isn’t as easy as it was in the past. However I believe the perception of how seo really works is skewed by the “authorities” on seo to promote focusing on building quality and value rather than the easy lesser known strategies still out there to dominate serps. This is just from my experience being able to improve organic traffic with no limits based on the amount of effort I am willing to put into seo.
Social media is very important for any web site, but only 3 social media sites are worthy of attention Twitter(with more than 10 000 followers), Stumbleupon and the last one and the best Google + (with new G+ groups).
Absolutely not. A new website won’t get any traffic without social traffic playing a part in the equation early on and if they are vying for legitimate real links to boost rankings in the search engines (rather than making them yourself), they have to get out there and market themselves if they don’t want to find other sources of traffic like PPC.
you can do a media buy but then link the ads to your free social media marketing fan page. You can deploy ads that encourage people to become a fan, comment on your posts, or share your message with their friends.
The key of course to this question, I believe, is balance. I have seen some of my friends get so focused on social media that they get distracted by their own interests. The key is to approach every strategy as a goal and a task. If you don’t go to it with a specific outcome one can easily be sucked in by curiosity and spend countless hours browsing instead of working.
I believe that you can be successful without social media but why?! It’s a tool just like any other. Use it.
The internet itself is a tool. One can use it to watch movies all day long or be productive. We all have a choice.
Social media should be used to a certain extend as it will definitely help