The truth about social media & digital PR no one tells you

Digital PR and social media have an incredible amount of buzz around them and everyone wants onto that bandwagon. Before you do so, there’s a couple of things that most web2.0 types won’t tell you:

You could do this all yourself

Instead of hiring someone you could learn how to use Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, blogging, AudioBoo’s and so on for your PR and marketing purposes. Depending on your personality and technical skills you might take to it easily.

But while you are doing all of that – and learning the ropes – who’s selling your product? Who’s making the company products?

You may not need a full PR experience though. It may well be that a couple of days training and a guide/mentor is appropriate for your budget and company size.

Social media will not bring you in one extra sale

Did an advert in a newspaper ever guarantee you a sale? Of course not, so why should social media be any different? If you want to guarantee sales through social media then throw in some discounts or exclusive offers.

Where social media will build you sales is in your interactions with customers, sharing your enthusiasm for your products, letting them see sneak peaks of items. That increased loyalty to your brand will pay off in the long run.

ROI is easily measured for social media

Many people say Return On Investment is impossible for social media. Nonsense. It’s easy to see how many people are talking about your products, what keywords attract them to your site, how long they stay on it, what countries they come from. You can get breakdowns on your visitors and customers that would have been impossible even nine years ago. What you can’t be guaranteed is the traditional ROI figures, but you can still get ROI.

People may not read every tweet or blog you do

There’s lots out there to try and make sure people read everything you do but it can be difficult – there’s just so much out there! And bear in mind, there was never any guarantee that they looked at the newspaper page with your advert or story or that they listened to the radio just as you were being mentioned.

Why are we telling you this? Life’s too short to be spent trying to pretend something is better than it is or that it’s a Holy Grail for sales. Also, when you work with us you’ll see that if you’re straight with us, we’re straight with you.