Faces and Blogs and Tweets, Oh My!
The big buzz in marketing these days is all about social networking and viral campaigns. In the past two days alone, I received about nine e-mails inviting me to various, educational seminars online.
And I’m sure you have been inundated with this same kind of information. It can be overwhelming…Do I start a Facebook page, set up a new blog or start using Twitter? What’s a tweet anyway?
Well, before you frantically start using the latest and greatest social networking sites, take a moment to review your business plan.
Keep it simple. Who are you trying to contact, what is your message and what benefits do you have to offer?
After all, if you just start using a tool just because you don’t want to miss out on the latest marketing technology or popular website, you can end up wasting a lot of time, effort and money…
So with this in mind, you may want to ask yourself these three questions prior to starting a big, new marketing campaign using the latest and greatest social networking tools:
- Is this tool going to help us reach our target customers with the appropriate message?
- Do we have valuable information to provide via these marketing venues?
- Are the resources available to regularly update and enhance our new, social marketing campaigns so we experience the best results?
If you answered “Yes” to these questions, then please move forward and plan how you are going to incorporate these social networking tools into your marketing and publicity plans.
But if you answered “No,” it may be best to do some more research and monitor news about the latest tools and trends. This way, you’ll be able to focus your efforts on the marketing activities that will give you the best results while still being aware of new tools and technologies that are available.
For additional information on social networking, please review the various articles on this site and visit www.blogger.com, www.wordpress.com, www.facebook.com, and www.twitter.com.
Check back later in the week for more PR and copywriting tips for your small business. In the meantime, feel free to write to me with your comments and questions. I’m here to help!
November 18th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Melanie,
Interesting post! Do you have a preference of social networking sites? Do you think one is more effective than others in terms of building a web presence?
Love to hear your thoughts!
-David
November 21st, 2008 at 1:09 am
Melanie
So many companies are so close to being broke these days. Can we make social networking work when we have such economical limits?
Thank you for your tips!
LaNila
SoSalt.net
November 25th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Great points. For a lot of startups and existing businesses, limited marketing dollars is a major problem. There are so many different types of social networking tools available. These sites are getting more and more industry specific everyday and maintaining a presence helps establish you as an expert in your industry.
November 28th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Social media tools are valuable but they do take time to build and grow your community. It is a great way we use to provide updates on what our business is up to. But you also have to provide valuable content to others as well.
The one limitation is that more of our prospects are not on SM tools yet.
December 1st, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Hi Melanie,
I own a restaurant and constantly looking for a better way to market my place. I have a website, and I do blog on Chowhound. Are there any articles or books you can suggest that would target my business. Thanks, Russ K
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:30 am
Hi Russell
There are many blogs and posts about getting more customers into your blog/website and even business you can simply run a search on google or even google blog search
One very simple example:
You can add useful links to “quality” pages and have them link to you. 1 example of that is http://www.lookuppage.com create a profile in 5 minutes and add your blog and your websites as links. and from your website and blog add links to your lookuppage
That’s just a very small example of how you can increase traffic into your website and business. it is very easy to pick up more. just search for ‘em
If you need any advice (although I’m not a professional, just looking to start my own business myself) feel free to contact me at brassjmes@gmail.com