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Sun Oct 25, 2009

by Eric Brown

Forget all the 'It's About the Conversation" Social Media hype
and babble. If you are using Social Media for your Small Business, or
any business, or you are contemplating entering the Social Media space for your
business, It is About Selling More Stuff, period. There is NO other reason to do it.



The quote by Sergio Zyman sums it up nicely, just replace the word Marketing with Social Media.

"The sole purpose of marketing is to sell more to more
people, more often and at higher prices. There is no other reason to do
it."

If you are contemplating utilizing Social Media for your business for
any other reason Than To Sell More Stuff, consider it is a Hobby, not a
viable Business Decision

It seems that many of the "purists" in the Social Media Space may well be slowly coming around to the reality that unless they are selling something, hunger sets in. We all need to buy shoes, so sooner or later a business must profit. Absent selling something there is no profit, absent profit, there is no business, only a hobby.

For us at Urbane Apartments, Social Media Marketing has worked very well. Our year over year numbers are impressive considering the economy and the fact that we operate in SE Michigan, plagued with the highest unemployment in the nation.

Year Over Year Numbers; Sept 2008 verses Sept 2009
Our Web Site Traffic to our three web sites, UrbaneApts.com, UrbaneLobby.com and UrbaneBlog.com increased 108%! Great news right, web traffic soars from the effective use of Social Media by 108%, but who really cares? Did We Rent More Apartments, because if we didn't, the practice of Social Media Marketing is just a hobby.

Our phyisical traffic did increase, in that we did 54% more tours and showings, but the real metirc which is Renting Apartments increased by 69%!

How Did All That Happen
We are learning a lot about how to establish and maintain  The Larger Communty, and that The Directional Flow of Marketing Has Changed.

By Larger Community, we mean, just how many "Members of the Community" do we need on say facebook, our blog, our Ning site, our myspace page, our flickr site, our You Tube site, etc. to keep our apartments full.

By The Directional Flow of Marketing Has Changed we mean, with Social Media, prospects are part of your Larger Community because they choose to be and they can leave at any time, as oppossed to the reverse, which is you shouting marketing messages at them. 

You see, we didn't do any paid advertising at Urbane Apartments in 2009, We only used Social Media Marketing , and yes We Engaged in the Conversation, We Connected with our Residents, We Enhanced the Residents Experience, all of the popular buzz words for Social Media, but we started with the Goal of Renting More Apartments.

Check out our small business news site.

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