As Daniel Hochuli of LinkedIn points out, social media/digital channels are crucial for mental availability, but not necessarily for creating demand. His last post on LinkedIn is interesting and confirms evidence presented many times on this blog. Here is an extract.
I’m increasingly coming to the conclusion that socialmedia is well suited for demand generation but not as a convincer, rather just a conduit to conversion.
It’s likely that the core value of demand gen content on social media is just about being present, visible for frictionless conversion. Like any channel, just because they clicked on social media, doesn’t mean they were convinced on social media. It’s more likely they were already convinced elsewhere and merely converted via the social ad because it was conveniently present (because we are always on our phones and scrolling through our social feeds).
Being AlwaysOn is essential.
So, where is the actual convincing happening, if not on social media? Likely off-channel branding campaigns (TV, radio) as well as user-researching behaviour such as digital reviews, social proof and WoM.
Demand (leadgen) campaigns will not increase conversions over time because you are not filling the top of the funnel with new demand. That demand comes from brand campaigns.
