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Can you succesfully market a service or product using only social media?

by Joe Ray
18 replies
I've been in business for a long time. I started way before social media.

I sold products and services through real people I knew. I acquired new clients when my old clients would refer me to other people. In other words, I built real relationships.

I had to attend conferences, markets and trade shows all over the world and I had to have an office with staff. But, I never liked the overhead expenses.

Fast forward 10 years. I thought I can do the same thing online using social media and get rid of the overhead costs.

After trying this a couple of years. I don't think it's possible. I haven't made even one deal from using social media.

I tend to think the people who say they're making a fortune from social media might be exaggerating a bit ... to put it nicely.

I would like to hear from businesses or individuals that can prove me wrong.
#market #media #product #service #social #succesfully
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  • Profile picture of the author John Jonas Phil VA
    It depends on your market. There are products and services that market mainly on social media at the start but if you want to grow, you eventually do have to branch out. There's only so much social media can do. And if you want higher conversions, you will need to do more than social media.
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    • Profile picture of the author Joe Ray
      if you want to grow, you eventually do have to branch out
      By "branch out" you mean paid advertisement on social media or google?

      If so, this means internet marketing is a concept where you pay some money to about 5 companies who will then send you buyers... or not.

      Is this really our only option to build a business on the internet? If it is, then this handful of platforms have a total monopoly over internet marketing.
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  • Profile picture of the author expmrb
    It is possible. But it totally depends on the niche and the product you are promoting.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bizopboost
    It Is Possible , But it takes a real knowledge of the demographic.
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    • Profile picture of the author Joe Ray
      My issue is that the demographic data these social media platforms are providing may or may not be accurate. I tend to think it's not accurate.

      In any case, you have no control over this data. You have to work with what they give you.

      Then, you think your ad campaign needs to be improved when you don't have the conversion. You spend a lot of time trying and testing different approaches. Time is money because we all have bills to pay. Thus, you should calculate your time as an added cost.

      But, what if there is nothing wrong with your ad or your social media strategy? What if the data they're providing is the problem? But, you will never know.
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  • Profile picture of the author ctrlaltdelete
    This depends on what you're selling and your target market. The key to marketing is to promote your service or product where your audience is most likely at. A good parallel to this are app ads on mobile games. The reason why games are advertised on other games is because they are targeting people who most likely play games.

    If perharps you are a social media marketing company and what to encourage other businesses to hire you to manage their accounts, this MAY work. But promoting your business on only one marketing funnel isn't something I would not advise.

    There are, however, many virtual assistants worldwide that you can hire that are also marketing experts. They will give you the proper insight you need to sell your product/service the best.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ronkar
    There are a lot of factors to think about when attempting to promote anything. It will take a massive amount of time if you're only using time invested strategies. You will eventually have to pay for traffic if you want to reach more people.

    It really comes down to your product and wether or not people actually need it, the market, your strategy, and your consistency.

    It is possible, and people are doing it.
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  • Profile picture of the author DABK
    Joe, do the likely buyers of the service or product live on social media?

    If yes, it's possible. If no, it's not.

    In real life, these days, for most products and services, the question has to do with choosing the right media to be competing on.
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    • Profile picture of the author Joe Ray
      Joe, do the likely buyers of the service or product live on social media?

      If yes, it's possible. If no, it's not.

      In real life, these days, for most products and services, the question has to do with choosing the right media to be competing on.
      DABK, thanks for your reply.

      I tried to compete on a couple of social platforms.

      For example, on one platform, on a niche group feed, there are hundreds of new articles each day. A new article pops up every couple of minutes.

      My hypothesis is that no one is going to read 98% of these articles.

      I took the time to look through all the articles in a given 24 hours. I found that 98% of the articles were not liked or shared and there were no comments.

      But, there were a lot of "views". I think these platforms will output and show a "view" when anyone opens the feed page. I don't think these "views" mean that anyone actually reads the articles.

      Then, when you see that your article had a lot of "views" but no action, you think you need to create better articles and post a lot more. It's like a religion...

      What if the majority of your perceived potential "buyers" are on that platform trying to sell just like you? They don't have the money or the intention to buy anything.

      Then, you get frustrated and start paying the platform for ads... and that doesn't work either for the same reason.

      Sounds pessimistic?

      There must be a better way...
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      • Profile picture of the author DABK
        It seems like you are defining a view differently than they are.

        Somewhere, each good platform defines terms.

        Google considers a view to be the same as a page on your site showed up in search results, even if that was on page 84 and whoever searched stopped at page 2.

        You need to use their definitions and take that into account.

        Since you seem to be dealing in articles... If there are views but no likes, it might mean that you need a better article... But, most likely, you need a catchier title and article description (if they show those) or 1st paragraph...Not a better article.

        I am assuming you were dealing with a platform set up like a blog... Last article shows at the top, next to last shows as #2. They show title and short intro or Title and the 1st paragraph (or the first 2 - 4 lines).

        If articles is where you're competing, look up bum marketing on Google. A guy named Travis Sage (or was it Sago) had a good course on how to write articles that get read (he covered titles, intro, descriptions, everything). You can learn a lot from him.

        Back to platforms... Yes, they could be wrong about the info... But they are not completely off... You just adjust... By that, I mean, you take whatever numbers they have and use them, then make a change, see results...If results are good, you keep the change and think of another one... Little increments add up to lots of money.



        Originally Posted by Joe Ray View Post

        DABK, thanks for your reply.

        I tried to compete on a couple of social platforms.

        For example, on one platform, on a niche group feed, there are hundreds of new articles each day. A new article pops up every couple of minutes.

        My hypothesis is that no one is going to read 98% of these articles.

        I took the time to look through all the articles in a given 24 hours. I found that 98% of the articles were not liked or shared and there were no comments.

        But, there were a lot of "views". I think these platforms will output and show a "view" when anyone opens the feed page. I don't think these "views" mean that anyone actually reads the articles.

        Then, when you see that your article had a lot of "views" but no action, you think you need to create better articles and post a lot more. It's like a religion...

        What if the majority of your perceived potential "buyers" are on that platform trying to sell just like you? They don't have the money or the intention to buy anything.

        Then, you get frustrated and start paying the platform for ads... and that doesn't work either for the same reason.

        Sounds pessimistic?

        There must be a better way...
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  • Profile picture of the author Richard Juwah
    Hello Joe,

    In my experience I've experimented using facebook buy and sell groups and within 1 week and half, I got 2 sales leads for my web design services.

    Not that they panned out eventually but I got to increase my exposure rate like x10 (as compared to walking door to door under hot sun).

    So I guess it does work if it's targeted.
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  • Profile picture of the author ctrlaltdelete
    Yes, you can, but it does depend on what you're selling and who you're selling it to. Some niches work better, some don't. But it would be a good idea to branch out and get a dedicated website too if you want even more people to find you. Facebook's got a good built-in search engine but Google is still the go-to site whenever people want to search for something.
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  • Profile picture of the author Elna R Wiley
    I have one good product and i am currently promoting it only via social media. So yes it is definitely possible.
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  • Profile picture of the author BrunoBruno
    Yes you can. But you will still need involve yourself with digital marketing. Influencer marketing might be beneficial on this one.
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  • Profile picture of the author joyceblass
    It depends on your product. But one thing I know for sure is that most consumers are now lurking online to find the things they want to purchase and for a business to remain in the competition, it needs to be where the consumers are. I still recommend you use social media to market your product. If it becomes too much for you, maybe you should get involve with a social media marketing agency .
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  • Profile picture of the author Kathrine Leach
    Yes you can do it ...but it depends on your niche..
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  • Profile picture of the author jbbryant
    Of course, most companies are tapping socmed nowadays, even entrepreneurs.
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  • Profile picture of the author Castor Troy1
    Now a days social media is very important part of the business, because of most of the time people use social media so it can be nice business platform, even facebook has their own marketing strategy. But right now it is difficult to say what will be happen after ten years, on these people are doing business over social media, so it can be a great platform for doing business.
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