Would you have guessed which form of social media outreach worked best for the Fortune 500 companies? 71% of the Inc. 500 companies surveyed said they are using Facebook for marketing, and it is the largest social media tool used, with a claimed 85% success rate for their campaigns. Twitter usage was slightly down from last year at 81%. But the big daddy of social networking was not the one that performed best.
The social media platform that outperformed all others was old school forums and message boards. Yes simply having the ability to post questions and answers to a healthy and active community of like minded users makes the most satisfied customers. It’s nice to see that the internet of 1980 is still just as effective at connecting people as ever.
Blogging moved up to a 86% success rate but engagement seems to be peaking. Podcasting dropped precipitously from last year as video takes over.
Social media data published by eMarketer.
25 Responses
I support the concept of using the howitzer method to politely infiltrate forums and gain peoples trust while providing free content.
Grateful for this written content material, our old school forums are still making thousands in adsense revenue.
Have you heard about Google authorship feature? What do you think about it?
@jeremy Google is being super sneaky here by changing the rel=author to require a google+ account. I am sure this will be exploited for ranking purposes by enterprising SEO’s.
I appreciated checking out the info on forum marketing on this internet-site, we will be creating personas for them.
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Thanks for your posting about forum posts and real social networking – this still works for SEO.
Really enjoyed this blog post, can you make it so I get an alert email whenever you publish a new post?
Wow! I guess forums are a great way to have users interact, but who would have thought that they would still be such a viable form of traffic?
Social media has always been with us, it just happens that facebook has the best user interface.
Just wondering what the age demographics might say?
Which age groups are more likely to use one social media tool over another. It would better target the traffic your seeking?
Thanks.
@dakota Great point, I suspect older folks would be more comfortable with online forums where you share less personal information by default.
It’s indeed a favorable piece of knowledge to see that corporations are employing old school forums to connect with customers. I’m happy that they have shared this helpful information, it makes me want to buy more.
I like the knowledge that big business is using forums to engage consumers and help their customers. They are trying to add value to their products beyond SEO and appear to be succeeding.
If you’re still on the fence about forums consider this: they were the earliest form of online communities, and will outlast any current social networking fad.
Wow im very surprised as well. Cant believe that Forums are on the top. Thanks for the great tip!
What is foursquare? Got to check it out and get with the new kids.
Very surprised that forums are the largest social media tool.
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Wow I can’t believe good old forums are still tops with users.
We are direct SEO providers of Fresh Content and forum development. We see fortune 500 companies expanding into social media and offering Q&A on their sites.
Survey of Inc. 500 companies is a good point for using forums and communities. How about small business owners – I think the marketing picture will be different.
I’m with Paul. But I agree, forums provide like-minded people a chance to connect and get quick answers. In a lot of ways, easier than Facebook and Twitter which are getting overly congested.
Do you have a good statistics report that can measure social media success on forums and Q&A sites?