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vangogh
05-17-2009, 01:43 PM
I thought the follow would make an interesting conversation about how to approach social media marketing. It's from an interview with Darren Rowse (http://mollermarketing.com/2009/05/15/darren-rowse-social-media-marketing/). This was the first question, but there are a few more.


In regards to social media, where is the best place to start if you are new to online marketing?

The best place to start is by researching WHERE the people you want to connect with are already gathering. The problem with social media is that it’s not simply enough to get on facebook or twitter and start sending marketing messages randomly. Different groups of people with different demographics and interests are gathering on different sites. Research where your market is and then spend significant time investing into building genuine relationships in that site before even thinking about marketing directly.

I think the most important point to grab from the above is that you want to first figure out where the people you want to connect with are spending there time. If your market doesn't use Facebook it doesn't make sense for you to spend your marketing time there.

That might mean for your business some very popular sites aren't really important. As an example think about Digg, which is mainly a site by and for technogeeks. If your business is on the low end of the technology scale then Digg isn't going to be the best use of your time.

It might also mean that the best use of your time is a forum or two. Forums are social media 1.0. They just aren't as sexy now with all the newer sites, but at their heart the are still social communities.

I'd also add social media is less about the media and more about the social. You don't have to be on Twitter or MySpace or an specific media. It's about being social and gaining from real people. Each site has its own strengths and communities. You don't need to be on all of them. Find the few where your market spends its time and the few you enjoy using. However don't limit yourself to one or two either. Sign up for as many as you can, at least to get your name (company name or avatar) as a profile.

KristineS
05-18-2009, 01:41 PM
I agree with this wholeheartedly, and it's what I tell everyone who asks this question. The first question always has to be who do I want to reach, and the second question has to be where are those people. Only after you've answered those two questions can you decide where you need to be.

It annoys me so much when I see people preaching MySpace or FaceBook or Twitter as the one size fits all solution that will bring in lots of traffic. None of those things are going to work in every situation.

vangogh
05-18-2009, 01:55 PM
I hear you about the one size fits all recommendations. I think a lot of people look at social media and just think traffic so they look to the one or two sites that seem to drive the most traffic. Right now Twitter is the hot social site. That doesn't mean you have to use it. It really depends on where the people you want to reach and connect with are spending their time. If your market is using Twitter then it makes sense for you to use it as well. If your market is at Facebook then that's where you should be.

Odds are you'll want to use several social sites as the people you want to interact with will be using several.

Harold Mansfield
05-20-2009, 08:44 PM
I can't wait for them all to be together. Same IM Platform, same messaging, same everything so that you log into one thing and update them all. I mean it can be done through a series of hooks and ladders, but personally...I am getting weary.

I use Twitter because I have to. I hate My Space, but it's a necessary evil in Music. Facebook is OK, I never really log in that much, it auto updates from the others.

But honestly, I am really sick of getting "invites" to be friends on platforms that I have never heard of, or ones that I don't use, from people no where near my niche.

I mean what is the point of just networking with every used car and mortgage agent on Friendster?

The majority of people are just all over the place...sending "Friend me" and "Follows" to every link they click, without even bothering about the actual "networking" (noun. a supportive system of sharing information and services among individuals and groups having a common interest) part of it.

It gets very tiring.

Patrysha
05-20-2009, 08:55 PM
Social media is the proverbial two-edged sword. You have to be very careful with it...for time management, for fiscal management and for marketing and PR.

You can either jump in and test it yourself (and see quickly whether it does what you want it do or not) or let someone else do the testing while you wait for the reports to come in. It's like I said to a friend who had just finally found Facebook (we've been networking via email chat group for...I forget how long exactly...I know I joined in 1998) - if you find you don't have time to get to Twitter (which her 16 year old had just told her about earlier that day), not to worry...something else will be along in fifteen minutes or so when she has a chance to catch her breath :-)

As long as you have strong foundations...the individual tactics can be tested and tweaked and you don't have to do absolutely everything to be successful. Even the so-called free stuff has a price. You just have to figure out whether it's worth the effort and cost for your business.

phanio
05-20-2009, 09:10 PM
This is good advice for any marketing medium - you have to know your customers and where they are. Thus, you know how to get in front of them and what message to put out - does not matter if its online or off.

My main problem with social media is that it will be gone tomorrow. I still remember when everyone was touting MySpace and Facebook was just a college app. Now there is Twitter which is popular - but I don't think it will be here tomorrow - something else will take it's place new technology - new generation - new something will come along and displace it.

But, if it is hot now and your market is there - you need to be using it - just be flexible as tomorrow it will be something else.

vangogh
05-21-2009, 01:29 AM
My main problem with social media is that it will be gone tomorrow

It's not going anywhere. Individual sites may come and go, but the concept isn't going anywhere. What we do here on the forum is social media. It's all about communicating with other people. That's been around forever and will continue to be around forever. The medium through which we communicate will evolve, but the main concept behind it all won't.


I can't wait for them all to be together. Same IM Platform, same messaging, same everything so that you log into one thing and update them all.

I started using Seesmic (http://desktop.seesmic.com/) as a Twitter client recently. Right now it also integrates with Facebook and they have plans for adding a few other services as well. I don't think MySpace is one of them, but that might be because MySpace doesn't offer the same kind of API. I know one of the services they're looking to integrate is FreindFeed, which combines so many other things.


Social media is the proverbial two-edged sword. You have to be very careful with it...for time management, for fiscal management and for marketing and PR.

I don't really see the two edged thing with social media. I agree it can be a time sink, but so can a lot of things. I'm on Twitter, but it's not as though I spend all day on it. Some days I never open a Twitter client and other days I do spend more time with it. Mostly it's a few quick bursts throughout the day. Same thing with other sites. They can suck you in, but they don't have to if you don't let them.

To me it's all an extension of the same old networking we'd do offline. I have profiles on a variety of sites and I interact with some people across many of them. The profiles also help extend the reach of my brand and some help drive traffic back to my site or each other. You have to use a few to see which ones you like. Some sites I just don't get anything from so I don't use them. I might still have a profile and I might still check in on them from time to time, but I hardly ever use them. Other sites I find useful and I use them often.

My favorite site is still Delicious. I absorb a lot of content and I want to bookmark it. By tagging it at Delicious it makes it very easy for me to search for articles I want to read later.

Patrysha
05-21-2009, 09:10 AM
I don't really see the two edged thing with social media. I agree it can be a time sink, but so can a lot of things. I'm on Twitter, but it's not as though I spend all day on it. Some days I never open a Twitter client and other days I do spend more time with it. Mostly it's a few quick bursts throughout the day. Same thing with other sites. They can suck you in, but they don't have to if you don't let them.

To me it's all an extension of the same old networking we'd do offline.

Yes, but you use it strategically and know how to control your time and keep track of the results of the time you spend. Many people (whether networking online or offline) do not keep similar control. I'm a yapper. So I have to be careful on the time suck. For me, it's about awareness.

As I said it's about time management (not spending too much time, but enough that you have a presence), fiscal management (knowing where the resources are going and what is coming back in return and adjusting when neccessary) and marketing and pr management (if you have someone that seems to always be on, one does wonder when they get any work done...which can lead to perception issues with a smaller business)

vangogh
05-21-2009, 11:16 AM
That's true. And to be fair when I first started it was all much more of a time sink for me. The more I get involved with social media as a whole the easier it is for me to see where to spend my time and how much of my time I should spend.

I'm also plugged into this world so I probably have more tools that help me manage my time more efficiently.

One takeaway from this thread is that I hope people will understand you don't need to be using every social site out there. You should start by figuring out where the people you want to connect with are spending their time. For example eborg knows he needs to be engaged with MySpace because of the music connection. For me Twitter is important since it's one place where my industry is connecting, but I don't spend any time on MySpace since that's not where my market or industry is.

KristineS
05-21-2009, 12:36 PM
I think it's important that people also understand that they don't have to connect with anyone who wants to connect with them. Take Twitter for instance. I have a lot of people that follow me who have absolutely nothing to do with the topics about which I Twitter. They usually are following huge amounts of people and I get a sense they just randomly follow people in hopes that people will just randomly follow them back. I go and look at those accounts and try to get a sense of the content they offer. If it seems useful or interesting, I'll follow that person. If not, I won't. I don't feel obligated to follow everyone who follows me.

Keep in mind that you need the right connections not just a lot of connections.