Social Media as a Marketing Tool does it work?

Today this is the big question on my mind.  I recently developed a website for one of my customers that allowed a user to place a comment on the services their particular council offered.  They then created a Twitter account and off they went. www.thelocalgovernmentforum.co.uk

Finding people to follow was not a problem as they decided to follow each council that had a twitter account.  Slowly but surely the number of followers increased to over 250 but alas very few of these followers visited the website.

The current Mrs G also has a website which is advertised via Twitter & Facebook and again we have the same issues we have followers and people who like posts but no actual traffic coming from the Social Media networks to the websites. www.mathsstar.com

I recently read an article that suggested that Social Media was great for keeping in touch but in a lot of cases people would hit the like, follow or re-tweet button without the referer ever visiting the link.  It would seem that unless what you say in a tweet or a like is topical, people will just move on.

Do you have any experience in the Social Media field that can point me and others in the right direction?  I know there are a lot of businesses making money out of social media but I am beginning to wonder if keeping to the top of the search listings is the best way to drive traffic to a website.

Its been a while

Since my last blog I have been incredibly busy working on some exciting new systems for my clients. There is one I am not too sure on its success.

It’s a blog style forum listing all of the Councils in the country and then allowing other people to comment on how they feel their council is doing.

It was released in January this year as a prototype and to date has been a total flop. Let me know your thoughts www.thelocalgovernmentforum.co.uk

January is nearly over!

I must admit I began 2011 with some concerns. Being self-employed is worrying at the best of times without the fear of tax hikes and redundancies. However january has not been too bad. I am busy, the work keeps coming and I am enjoying it!

I am also going to make sure that I keep blogging. I have always thought that a blog post has to be long and informative, however looking around I have come to realise a [pst does not have to be long to be informative! So I might be quickpressing more posts in 2011.