It’s not new, although you might be new to it. Social Marketing is networking, that’s it. It’s simple, just be a part of the community when you have a chance. Join in on the conversation.
Social marketing is important, if for no other reason it’s a way to let your business out of the house to run around, meet other businesses and get some well deserved stimulation. Actually, it doesn’t even need to be all about your business. Social marketing can equally be about the individual.
I use a bunch of different Social Marketing platforms, Facebook , Twitter, Youtube , LinkedIn, heck, I even use Blip.fm. I’m not going to mislead you and say that I don’t use social media for business. I do. But I don’t use social media with the expectations of gaining leads. Honestly, I don’t.
I think its Madness that some people calculate social media success by the number of followers/friends or subscribers that one has. Like any crazy person, I distance myself from those who do. Having a goal of being the center of attention is never very social, and even for dogs it’s considered bad behaviour. Routinely I go through my twitter account and un-follow those that are using services designed to harvest followers and send out spammy bulk tweets. I want to have a twitter account and follow people who are more interested in being social than they are about being the center of attention.
I use Facebook to connect with old friends, family and some business colleagues who I genuinely like, I’ve also set up a Fanpage for Evolvingminds so that I can hopefully get insight into what our “Fans” are interested in, and if they hate something that we’ve written about or done. The Fanpage is (for business) a place I can engage and manage the reputation of my business.
Twitter, for me, is for both fun and for research. It’s a place where I can connect with people I admire, and track trends. I use twitter to find out about new products, surveys and discussions both local and around the world. With its “small-talk” nature I find twitter kinda’ fun.
I use YouTube to Broadcast and Promote, both for self-serving purposes and to provide video resources (mostly because I love playing with video.
LinkedIn is strictly professional, it is for business. It’s a place for me to promote my skills and the projects I’ve worked on. Unlike others, I don’t cold call on LinkedIn – simply because I hate spam. I repeat, I HATE SPAM. I do however love networking in a professional atmosphere, so respect the referral system that LinkedIn provides.
And Blip.fm? Well, I always wanted to be a dj. So it’s a great place for me to pretend.
I know this article kinda’ makes me sound like a social snob – I’m not. I’d love to have you a part of my social network, and I’d be more than happy to connect with you and get to know you better. You can find me on any of the links I’ve provided in this post, or better yet, just contact me here.
Twitter
Facebook
