Social media has made a huge difference to the online landscape and for online marketing campaigns. If done well, a social media campaign can make a business, if undertaken poorly, could destroy them!
Social media marketing (SMM) can be a great asset for your marketing toolkit. To leverage it correctly, you must consider first what you want to accomplish. How will it fit in with, or complement your overall marketing plan?
There are several players in this market, and each will need different communications strategies:
- Opinion Leaders – generate information, and create dialogue.
- Communicators – update social status to converse.
- Critics – reply to posts and requests, and get involved.
- Collectors – bookmark sites, and use RSS feeds.
- Joiners – maintain profiles and visit social sites.
- Spectators – read, listen, watch but do not participate.
- Don’t Cares – not involved, don’t want to be.
Source: Forrester Research Social User Profile Ladder
The main social media platforms include:
The name of a social media networking site that connects people with friends and others who work, study, and live around them. People use Facebook to keep in touch with friends, post photos, share links, and exchange other information. Facebook users can see only the profiles of confirmed friends and the people in their networks.
Facebook’s not just for keeping tabs on friends and filling out quizzes — it can also be used as a highly effective business tool. It’s great for marketing your products, landing work, and connecting with your customers.
LinkedIn is a social media networking site designed specifically for the business community. The goal of the site is to allow registered members to establish and document networks of people they know and trust professionally.
A LinkedIn member’s profile page, which emphasises employment history and education, has professional network news feeds and a limited number of customisable modules. Basic membership for LinkedIn is free. Network members are called “connections.” Unlike other free social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter, LinkedIn requires connections to have a pre-existing relationship.
Most people use LinkedIn to “get to someone” in order to make a sale, form a partnership, or get a job. It works well for this because it is an online network of more than 8.5 million experienced professionals from around the world representing 130 industries. The principle is the 6-degrees of separation from anyone in the world.
Digg
A community-based website where users submit content and rate that content by “Digging” what they see and like best. A submission that earns a larger number of Diggs, and therefore is more popular with users, is moved to the Digg homepage for the category of content it belongs in. The Digg website was founded by Kevin Rose and launched in November 2004.
X – formerly Twitter
A very popular microblogging system that lets a person send brief text messages up to 140 characters in length to a list of followers. Launched in 2006, Twitter was designed as a social media network to keep friends and colleagues informed throughout the day. However, it became widely used for commercial and political purposes to keep customers, constituents, and fans up-to-date as well as to solicit feedback. Its takeover by Elon Musk has been controversial and the platform has been boycotted by many former customers.
MySpace
MySpace is an online community that allows friends to keep in touch and meet new people as well. It started out as a website that bands could use to promote their music but has since grown into a more general community of friends. After a troubled time, the network was bought by Justin Timberlake and seems to increasing in popularity again.
The “friends” concept is the heart and soul of MySpace. By building a list of friends, you have your own network of people readily accessible from your profile page.
Technorati
Technorati tracks blogs and other forms of citizen media, including video blogs (vlogs), podcasts, and amateur movies and videos in real-time. All this activity is monitored and indexed within minutes of posting.
Technorati is also synonymous with “digerati;” people who are technically competent.
Warning
If you run a small business or are a sole trader (whether you work from home or on-premises), please note that posting your movements on social media platforms could lead you to be a victim of crime. If you record your address (even if it is on your website), and then tell someone that you are checking in at the airport for a holiday or business meeting – criminals will know that your home or office will most likely be empty.
Your competitors may also be monitoring you, so telling them that you are meeting a particular client could leave you open to increased and targeted competition. To get help in the development of both strategy and the tactical use of social media marketing, call Jack Marketing Solutions™ today.
Glossary: Awareness, Blog, Bookmarking, Friend of Brand, Like, Microblog, Networking, Podcast, Public Relations, Social Marketing, Testimonial, Trust, Twitter, XML Trusted Feeds, Viral Marketing, Webinar, Whitepaper, Wiki, X formely Twitter