Social Networking: How Best to Approach It For Your Business
You’d have to be living under a rock if you haven’t at least heard of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. And whether you’re aware of it or not, social networking has crept into your online shopping experience with the explosion of user reviews now resident on many retailer web sites. The phenomenon of connecting people for the betterment of all is firmly entrenched, and now its time for you to decide what and if you should explore it for your business.
Like many new concepts, social media is widely misunderstood and used in ways which bring little to no value to its users. Twitter is the latest social networking darling, with exponential growth in users quarter over quarter, culminating with “Servers are Overloaded” messages occasionally popping up, a tribute to the fact that the owners of Twitter did not predict its rapid ascent.
For every valuable “tweet” I see, there are probably 10 of dubious value, including ones providing information about the poster’s dinner, or what kind of day they had or similar nonsense. People seem to be confusing Twitter with Facebook, which actually encourages such trivial status updates in order to generate online conversations between friends, and in fact Facebook is quite successful with this. There is little value, however, for businesses to know what kind of day you had.
But this is the internet after all, and that means there is a wealth of valuable knowledge out there on how best to engage social media for your business – the trick is to separate the wheat from the chaff. A successful social media strategy will involve some forward-thinking approaches for businesses, including non-traditional ways of measuring success. One of the most common pitfalls for businesses is to try and force traditional success metrics onto social media efforts, ensuring dissatisfaction.
We’ve spent some time and effort to learn about the emerging social media market, filtered with an eye towards how we could leverage it successfully for our clients. We’ve attended conferences such as South By Southwest Interactive to hear thought leaders talk about the successes and failures, we’ve participated in panel discussions with other social marketers and business leaders, and we’ve compiled a list of trusted resources to help us understand the best paths to success.
Here are some links to information sources we feel will help you understand social media marketing, in plain English and without the heavy use of newly-emerged buzzwords.
Mashable: Social Media and SEO: 5 Essential Steps To Success – a concise article providing some common sense steps to begin a successful social media journey.
Social Media 404: Social Media Best Practices – a PDF presentation about their propriety metholodology called OASIS, but chock full of best practice information for anyone considering a social media plan.
Social Media Explorer: How To Embrace The Process Of Social Media – a good article on a very informative web site, giving you basic concepts to embrace once you decide to expend effort in social media marketing.
There are countless other social media marketing information sites on the internet, and we’ll keep looking and reading to decide which provide the best information – concise, actionable, up to the minute – and keep honing our skills. Social media marketing is not suited for every business, and requires investment in time, capital and perhaps most importantly, thinking differently.
We know that you rely upon us to help you maximize the effectiveness of your online presence – through the design and development of an attractive and user-friendly web site, SEO and SEM efforts, online marketing campaigns and more. Employing an effective social media marketing effort may be the right answer for your business, too, but it helps to have a partner who understands the landscape upon which you’ll be traversing, and stays with you every step of the way.
