How to Make Money with Social Media: What Social Media Isn't
- Marketing Has Changed More in the Past 5 Years Than in the Previous 100 Combined
- What Social Media Isn't
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
IS YOUTUBE A WASTE OF TIME? IS TWITTER JUST A FLASH IN THE PAN? CAN FACEBOOK BE USED TO GROW SALES AND REVENUE? CAN SOCIAL MEDIA BE MEASURED? MORE IMPORTANTLY, CAN YOU GENERATE A POSITIVE RETURN ON YOUR INVESTMENT WITH A SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN?
If these are some of the questions you've asked yourself, then you've come to the right place. Because this is a book designed to answer your questions about social media. More specifically, it's a book that's designed to help you set up, launch, and run a social media campaign that makes money. After all, what's the point of running a social media campaign if it doesn't drive revenue?
Social media is a big, complex subject, but before we take a look at the new world of social media, let's take a look at the old world of traditional marketing. By looking back before we look forward, we'll have a better sense of where social media is going to take us in the future.
Marketing Has Changed More in the Past 5 Years Than in the Previous 100 Combined
It's hard to believe, but more marketing changes have occurred in the past 5 years than in the previous 100 years. For perspective on this, let's look back to the starting point for modern marketing. On Christmas Eve 1906, Reginald Fessenden made the world's first radio broadcast. Fessenden sent out a short radio program from Brant Rock, Massachusetts, that included his rendition of "O Holy Night" and ended with a reading from the Bible. And with little more than that, radio was born. Suddenly, companies such as Sears, Coca-Cola, and Ford had the capability to send their advertising messages to millions of people at once.
More than 20 years later, the first television station launched in Schenectady, New York. That station, owned by General Electric, was able to broadcast images as far away as Los Angeles. By September 1928, the station was making four broadcasts a week, although the general population wouldn't widely adopt television until the 1950s.
Then for the next several decades, nothing happened. Sure, there were a few leaps forward (such as the advent of cable TV), but the media used to connect companies to consumers didn't change in any quantifiable way for the entire twentieth century.
Fast-forward to today, when new media appear online monthly or even weekly. What's driving this rapidly changing environment? Put simply, it's the combination of broadband Internet and the wide adoption of personal computers, smart phones, and content tablets such as the Kindle and the iPad. These technological leaps forward have changed the way consumers both receive information and interact with the brands they love.
With change comes opportunity. But if you don't know how to harness these changes, you won't be able to take advantage of the opportunity.
Do you want to learn how to make money with social media? Would you like to find out how to measure the return on investment (ROI) of a social media campaign? Or would you like to see a road map to help you integrate a social media campaign into your existing marketing plan?
To do these things, we start by giving you a deeper understanding of what social media is. And the best way to understand social media is to start by talking about what social media is not. After all, social media is defined in many ways, so let's zig while other people are zagging and talk about what social media isn't.