Social Media Efforts: What’s the Point for the Big Ones?
It seems like every company nowadays has taken use of a social media platform where they can connect with their customers. Even the local dentist around the corner from where I live has a Facebook page you can like! And it is fully understandable if you think about the opportunities related to this type of marketing; it’s minimal of costs involved (compared to traditional media), you can build and support your business’ image through the way you communicate, it’s an opportunity to create a dialogue with your customers compared to the traditional you-listen-to-me-now-monologue. Even if the dentist so far has only gotten 20 likes, it’s a start and for small businesses it’s important to be visible in order to generate new customers, and to even keep the old ones.
But if we look at the other end of the scale, the companies topping the Fortune Global 500; why should they bother with all this social media stuff when in reality the people they reach out to in this way is only a per mille of their whole customer base. Take McDonald’s for example, they have 64 million customers in their stores everyday, and when multiplied into customers per year… Well, with that secure flow of people buying their burgers why should they even care about their 10 million+ fans on Facebook?
And then we have Walmart; the ruler of the corporate world in terms of generated revenue, landing the top spot of the Fortune Global 500 for the second year in a row. When talking about such extraterrestrial numbers as Walmart’s revenue, can it therefore be that the resources they put into maintaining their social media channels in fact equals what they potentially will earn on the additional sales coming from their marketing efforts in these channels? When you think about it, they are already getting their (piece of the) pie in the areas where they’re in, so percentage-wise it can’t really be significant can it?
I read an article the other day and one of the comments left from one of the readers shared this point of view. The article was about Walmart’s Foursquare check-ins showing that they had a total of 149,000 check-ins in the Thanksgiving week and approximately 35,000 of those came from the US’ busiest shopping day the Black Friday. In the comment the guy stated that
“If every single one of the ~35,000 people who checked in at Walmart on Black Friday spent an extra $10 because of this check-in. (…) That would equate to an extra $350,000 of revenue for Walmart. For comparison, Walmart’s total annual sales number is over $400 BILLION. The impact of Foursquare would boost its sales by a whopping .0001%.”
I guess he has a point, and it almost seems like the big ones can even save money on cutting back on their social media involvement, so why shouldn’t they?
I would say a definite no, they should not. It’s not all about the money (yes, of course in the end it is, but bear with me) it’s also about securing the future sales. Having a platform where you can communicate, for better or for worse, is crucial. The communication will take place, you being a part of it or not. And no company would like to live through the scenario of BP’s Gulf of Mexico nightmare or the release of the two Domino’s Pizza workers’ Youtube video, not at any rate, but at least not without having a megaphone to use for damage control! So if you are my local dentist, McDonald’s, Walmart or anyone in between I see without a doubt more pros than cons for keeping that social media activity up.
