It's true that there is going to be a big change in Online Marketing in 2011. For a start, both Google and Bing have come clean and told all that they will be taking Tweets and Posts/Likes into account when deciding what site to rank first in the SERPs. Then there is the case the power of the blog is set to increase, especially if you can harness this to get more links to a site.
However, some of the things I have been reading are saying things that I have difficulty in agreeing with. The basis of these comments are that ALL businesses MUST have a Facebook and Twitter account. Now while I can agree that having a Twitter account for all is a good idea, Twitter being very easy to use. It also does not take huge amounts of time to use and there is a lot of software out there to help. Twitter also is easily spidered (and is by Google all the time).
So Twitter is a good thing to have in my view, the amount of effort being well worth the effort.
Facebook is however a different kettle of fish in my view. Yes I'm sure it can be useful and could bring in traffic, however, for the small to medium size business will it bring in the level of traffic and SERP's bonus points necessary to balance the amount of effort?
In my view, whereas for the BIG businesses, Facebook is a MUST, for the smaller one, the only reason that I would recommend investing the time / money is in support of a Signal Creation programme, this being associated with a Blog on the customers site. We believe in this so much that we are launching a brand new product in Feb 2011, but more on that later.
To get back to the point, I do think that Facebook has a role for Big business, as for them it is essential to track their brand reputation and see what people are saying about them, moving to defuse any negative comments before they gain to much momentum and following (Twitter should be used this way too by the way).
So, yes for Big business, Facebook is a must, but for the smaller ones, without a big brand to protect, is Facebook necessary?
My view (and one that may well cause some comment) is that for the SME, that Facebook is not really worth investing the time and money that it would take to make it count. Sure, if they are going to be using a blog to push their site, then Facebook is a key part of the Signal creation process, but other than that, I'd keep away from Facebook (unless you are interested in it and would like to invest your spare time as it can't do any harm).
More on Social Media and Signal in the next few days
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