Social Media Has Changed Everything in Marketing
This blog entry was posted on August 31, 2009.
Use social media to build your brand and your reputation, not to sell products. Brand yourself as a leader. Your brand is what you represent, what you care about and your connection to others. You want to be the unique and persuasive voice in your market. Your goal is to create a cultural following.
Success will happen because of effort. Successful social media marketing takes many hours each day and takes engaging your market at every turn. Social media marketing is about being where the conversations are happening and then interacting in these conversations.
It creates opportunity. The power is in brand development and brand perception. Success with using social media is not a sprint, it’s running the marathon. Success is built by building honest relationships. Authenticity must be real.
Today we live in a world where you can’t hide. The world will become more transparent… not less. There is no more lurking in the shadows. Social media shines a light on everything and everybody.
The online marketing landscape has changed tremendously in just the past 5 years. It is getting increasingly chaotic. The old style of controlling your market is dead. It is about interacting and conversing with your market at a grassroots level.
Information itself should have no price and all content should be offered free. Social media marketing is about giving out this information in exchange for building your brand and your reputation as the authority. Your goal is to make a difference and to make your market better.
Your business can make money by packaging the information in a way that has value. This can be in the form of courses, books, seminars and personal consulting. Spending time with clients and giving advice and planning has a high value.
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“Spending time with clients and giving advice and planning has a high value.”
Exactly right. And really, this is overlooked. I hear a lot of, “Well, where’s the ROI in social media?” Unfortunately, it’s really hard to track specific ROI on social media efforts… perhaps I can just hammer this principle home.
Comment by Christian — August 31, 2009 @ 9:53 am
Christian,
Social media does not have a directly measurable ROI like you see in PPC or an organic SEO campaign. But the results are just as tangible and just as real.
Comment by Doug Williams — August 31, 2009 @ 3:16 pm
“Social media shines a light on everything and everybody.”
So very true, Doug.
“It is getting increasingly chaotic.”
And I’ve noticed that, as well. It seems like there are huge communities in folks for so many services, it’s hard to keep up nowadays!
Comment by Adam — August 31, 2009 @ 4:57 pm