Unlearning social media marketing techniques

…or at least what used to be the popular ones.

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In the not-so-distant past, social media marketers turned to Facebook for the banner ads. Buying search engine positions was also another common strategy. These were marketing tools that drove hits from Internet users. Hits were the prized currency.

But netizens’ discriminating tastes are ever changing. According to Jim Tobin, President of Ignite Social Media and author of the book Earn It, Don’t Buy It, merely buying social exposure is no longer enough. Brands need to utilize social engagement to bring in the results. 

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In his book, Tobin states that more than 99 percent of users no longer click on banner ads. In fact, there is already an observed waning of interest from Facebook users. People have now gone on to other sites such as Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and other applications.

Twitter owned 2012, as the social network welcomed migrants from other platforms. Teenagers contributed most to the microblogging platform’s growth with a representation of 26 percent, up 12 percent from 2011. Facebook is now considered as “old school” as Friendster and Myspace. 

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Sincere engagement means sharing ideas with and among customers. After all, it’s “the principle underlying ‘viral marketing.’” But while engaging customers still costs money, brand loyalty has always been THE top benefit.

John Bohan is an Internet advertising expert and founder of SocialTyze. Read more updates about the business applications of social media in this LinkedIn account.

Thanksgiving through social media

In an era of selfies, food photos and self-rants, there can still be a lot of room for sincere social interaction.

A new research conducted by Marketwired shows gratitude can be shared across segments of netizens from around the world. In fact, the company tallied mentions of “thankful,” “thanks,” and “thank yous” to more than a billion.

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“I found that the number of times ‘thanks’ or ‘thank you’ were mentioned this year was quite large,” according to Sheldon Levine, director of community at Sysomos. “It actually works out to those words appearing in social channels well over 2 million times a day.” 

A big chunk of grateful words was floated on Twitter.  In general, most users were thankful for “life,” with “friends” besting “family” and “work” rounding out the top fourth topic.

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“Marketwired calculated 951,770,752 tweets, including messages of gratitude, this year. That compares favorably to 48,093,584 mentions in forum posts; 10,236,979 words of thanks in blog posts; and 4,372,346 mentions in online news articles.”

What was pleasantly surprising for Levine was that people were most thankful for “life.” He surmised that the respondents were making reference to the life they lead.  While a number of people’s posts would focus on disappointments – like heartaches and the occasional rant over the boss – “life” topping the list is reflective of the fact that more people are generally happy with what they have. 

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John Bohan is the founder and general manager of SocialTyze, an Internet firm that specializes in social marketing solutions.  Read more information on social media in this Google+ page.