By Walter Elly
Senior Director of Internet Marketing
Ok, so what is FINT? FINT is (F)acebook, Linked(IN) and (T)witter. Those three social networks are part of the basics of social media marketing. To FINT means to have a presence on those three networks (Why those three? Check out our FINT announcement post). FINT also has a website at doyoufint.com. The website makes it easy for businesses to get started with FINT and share their FINT presence with their clients and customers.
So, why should you FINT?
1. Everyone (including your customers or prospects!) is on social media and they want you to join them
Numbers from 2008 for the world show that more than 2/3rds use social networking and in the US it’s nearly 70%. These numbers were all measured before Facebook exploded and doubled it’s size, going from 60 million to 120 million monthly visits, in less than 6 months!
As a result, we expect 2009 to be the year where Social Media overtakes Search as the #1 online activity. Recent 2009 numbers from the UK suggest we are on track for that to become a reality- and Facebook’s been planning to overtake Google all along. A video called Did You Know 3.0 puts it best by saying “We live in exponential times,” pointing out that it took Facebook two years to get to 50 million users, compared to other media:
- Radio: 38 years
- Television: 13 years
- Internet: 4 years
- iPod: 3 years
It’s no wonder that an Interactive Advertising Bureau Study recently concluded: “If you’re not on a social networking site, you’re not on the Internet.” The population is there but something even more compelling is that they want you there too: 93% of social media users believe a company should have a presence in social media.
2. Businesses that use social media are more profitable
Last week a landmark study was released that found “a direct correlation between top financial performance and deep social media engagement” – that “socially engaged companies are in fact more financially successful” and companies with the highest levels of social media activity on average increased revenues by 18% in the last 12 months, while the least active saw sales drop 6% over that period! Another study reports that businesses with an inbound marketing (which includes marketing like FINT) focused budget experienced a 61% lower cost per lead than businesses with traditional marketing focused budgets.
So, your customers and prospects are on social media, want you to join them AND it turns out that it’s actually more profitable to do so? What are you waiting for!
3. The business on social media train is leaving the station
Businesses have taken notice of this and will be shifting marketing budgets towards internet marketing in a dramatic fashion. Conservative estimates say “[internet marketing], which will be about 12% of overall advertising spend in 2009, is likely to grow to about 21% in five years. Along the way overall advertising budgets won’t grow much,” a $30 billion shift over 5 years. Then, on the high end of estimates, it’s predicted that we’ll see a $65 Billion shift away from traditional advertising to internet marketing in 2009 alone.
We expect this shift to be on the high end. In fact, just this week Southern Comfort announced they would shift their entire budget into internet marketing. Businesses are waking up to these facts and getting on board- will your customers and prospects find your competition on social media first?
You should FINT!
To summarize: The whole world is on social media and they want you to join them. It’s more profitable. It’s predicted that the business world is going to shift its marketing strategy in response. Your business needs to FINT now and establish a presence right away. It’s easy- just visit the FINT website, follow the instructions and get started. Or you can also connect with us on Facebook, LinkedIN or Twitter and we’ll help you get started. You can also of course give us a call or send Peter an IM.
FINT and get on board now!
10 Comments
And if these had to be ranked? I'd put Twitter #1 for sure, and LinkedIn last. For me it's just so much easier to build a relationship on Twitter than anywhere else.
Thanks for the insightful comment. I'd agree, with the caveat that you should be sure to have a strong web and/or blog presence to link to from your Twitter profile in order to provide more general "substance" around your presence.
Great article and a well crafted widget!
I tend to go overboard in explaining social media to people. From getting a somewhat unique identifier to setting up gravatar, yahoo and gmail accounts, your big three of course, and setting up analytics.
I love that your doyoufint site walks people through the basics quickly and easily and for free. Truly the spirit of social media and you offer the option for creating a strategy, which is great.
Best of luck to you from one of those "smart* lobster eating peeps" as so eloquently worded by the heady Ener hax! =D
* – smart is loosely applied to me though, having played with everything from cafepress to urbandictionary.com for social stuff!
Subquark – thanks for taking the time to check out doyoufint and for the kind words and comments! See you online
As to ranking these, I like to think of Twitter as the centre of much social media. mainly because it can easily ast as the main connector of Facebook, your blog, LinkedIn and Flickr.
Write blog post and include Flickr pic which updates twitter automatically which updates FB and LinkedIn (plus show blog on LinkedIn).
Works great for us (subbie up there). Hey had I posted here before? o_O
lol, too many channels, I had chirped to you, anyway, awesome resource and love your facebook fan page (the peeps at the deckup look like a great bunch – loved the Twitter for Dummies book – btw, the lady that wrote Internet for Dummies hangs out in Portsmouth often – must be something in the water, or beer, that makes all of you guys so smart) =)
namaste
Ener Hax – yes Twitter amongst the three connects them together very intimately, I feel that the blog is sortof the conduit between "the web" and "the social web" since it's inherently social and it's content is typically shared through social networks AND it's a great place to link to your social networks too, like we do here
Didn't know that about Internet for Dummies- that's cool!
So I see second life is your business- would love to hear your thoughts on how that connect in with all of this
virtual land is competitive and it's not enough to just be in-world with marketing (btw, Linden Lab has HUGE aspirations to dominate social media – link below)
while you can tweet from within sl, we don't connect outward from sl. our efforts point towards our sl biz with flickr (3600 pics), Facebook (800 friends), Twitter (2600 followers), the blog (daily posts – 4 authors), LinkedIn (funny to be there as an avatar), et cetera
you don't need to have your own sim, in less than a month, you can build a presence, and do things like sl podcasts to explain your services, products, or message (if you want to play around with land isl, give me a shout, no biggie, we have 12 sims)
then push your podcasts out from blip.tv to the iTunes store (another free social tool)
lol, i should be the social person for subQuark! (that's his spiel for conferences)
thanks for asking *duct tapes mouth*
http://dusanwriter.com/index.php/2009/08/17/silicon-valleys-sleeper-sensation-linden-lab-takes-a-rocket-launcher-to-social-media/
keep doing good MicroArts people, i <3 the FINT =p
Thanks so much for the insightful comments! Great stuff! I knew that SL was a force to be reckoned with, just did not have a handle before on how it permeated into the greater internet marketing sphere.
Also, the link you shared is fascinating, especially this idea "[Linden Lab] will have created an alternate (yet integrated) version of the Internet. " — unreal!
please do think about the offer on the land. we do this for worthwhile people (gee, you rank, ooh) because we believe it helps SL in general. i've met with Linden business peeps in person (way cool offices in San Fran, they also have an office in Beantown) and they have an awesome vision and incredible talent behind it
so if you have time and desire, pop in-world and we'll set you up with a free month, no strings attached at all
lol, we won't even chat with you unless you have questions (we do love to teach, but only if the other person wants it), we have lots on both our plates, and love it like crazy (in case you could not tell!) =D