Just Be-Cause

Everywhere you go this year, you hear it.  You can’t get away from it.  No matter what, you’re going to hear THAT BELL.  Ring, ring, ring.  The Salvation Army Bell.  It’s been a part of the holiday landscape for a long time, and it’s not going to stop ringing for a long, long time.

Please don’t hear me being negative about the bell or the Salvation Army, because I’m fine with what they do.  But why do they pick this time of year to ring that bell?  Because we have come to know this as “the season of giving”; our hearts are a little bit softer these days…you know, the “peace on earth, good will to men” kind of thing.  The Salvation Army, like so many other charitable organizations, knows that supporting a cause brings out the best in us – and the general population is more likely to support their cause this time of year.

As for the rest of the year, charitable organizations must rely on the following fact for their existence: everybody has a cause.  Think about it – every person has something they could support if they chose to.  Have you, or someone you know, been hit by a natural disaster?  You could support the American Red Cross.  Breast cancer survivor?  You could support Susan G. Komen.  Sick child?  Make-a-Wish Foundation.  Got a thing for puppies or kitties?  Humane Society.  I could go on and on, but you get it.  Everybody’s got a cause.

But what about you as a business person?  What role is your business playing in the support of a cause?  In social media circles, a bunch of experts have drifted into the idea of “cause marketing”; it’s leveraging your support of a cause for a favorable association in the hopes of attracting and retaining more business.  Some tips:

1. Lose the expectations. If you go in with the idea that you’re going to secure ‘x’ prospects in ‘y’ timeframe, don’t go any farther.  Cause marketing is the highest level of social media marketing, and you must embrace the idea of community; although you will create positive association in the minds of potential customers, it’s not about your business – it’s about the cause.

2. Create your own cause. What has affected you or the ones you love?  What has affected your local community?  What has affected your industry?  Your personal connection to these issues will be what keeps you connected to the cause, so find something to stand for, and work hard to find people who are willing to stand with you.

3. If the perfect cause is already out there, support it yourself. Don’t fight them to get your piece of the pie – join them, and leverage your influence to help the cause.  Once you do join them, devote time to becoming a support leader for your cause, just like you work to cement your status as a thought leader within your industry.  Participate in discussions, invite friends, pose questions, and get seen (not as a business so much as a person).

4.  Take it to the street. What you can begin in social media circles like Facebook, you can move forward in the real world.  Host an event relating to your cause using MeetUp or some other meeting application.  Get face-to-face with the people who share your passion for the cause and make a difference.

5. MEAN IT. There is nothing more offensive than a company of any size or type that angles to make do anything for any cause JUST to get their logo on a banner or get their display up at an event.  It’s shallow, cheesy, self-centered…AND IT WON’T WORK.  The public is smarter than that, and if you’re not really committed they’ll find out sooner or later.  When they do, they will tell everyone, and you’re toast.  Please…get involved with a cause you really believe in.

The point is this: social media marketing isn’t really about marketing at all.  It’s about helping people, and knowing that things have a way of coming back to you.  Ultimately, you get what you give.  So, in this season of giving, give big, give often, and don’t stop.  Just…’cause.

Related Articles

• 5 Ways Charities Use Social Media To Increase Donations During Holidays (socialtimes.com)
• The Top Four Social Media Savvy Charities of 2010 [TNW Social Media] (thenextweb.com)

Santa Gets It

Image via Wikipedia

My 4-yr-old daughter got a video message from Santa today.  In the video, he talked to her by name, made mention of things specific to her, and even mentioned how he knew she had a guinea pig on her Christmas list (NO WAY, SANTA…FORGET IT!).  She was blown away, and she wasn’t the only one; her nine-yr-old brother, the one that’s “too big for Santa”, wants to know why HE didn’t get a video from ‘Ol St. Nick.  Come to think of it…what about me?

Here’s the point: an unexpected personal message from someone with a lot of stroke blows people away; it carries an impact and can change a person’s day.

Don’t forget that when you’re checking out a social media monitoring report or sifting through your customer feedback emails.

Every single person who has purchased your product or service has made the choice to invest in you.  When you think about the times we’re in, and the choices families all over America are having to make this Christmas season, it’s pretty apparent that this level of investment hasn’t been greater for a long time.  And if that wasn’t enough, since you’re seeing what they’ve said, they’ve made the additional investments of time, thought, and energy to mention your brand to their friends, colleagues, and families…or they’ve even addressed you directly.

Here’s where Kris Kringle gets it: he understands how far communication can go in perpetuating a belief.  If you follow his lead, and you reach out to the people who are talking about you in an honest, open, personal way, you’ll be amazed at what can happen.  From your perspective, you may be at home, plopped down on the sofa in your underwear and sporting a nasty case of dragon breath because you just got up and haven’t brushed your teeth yet as you say hello courtesy of your iPad.  But to them, the person that made those huge investments, you’re the head of a company with important things to do all day every day.  And you took the time out of that hectic schedule of yours to personally engage in communications with them.  And you didn’t just address their concern; you gave them a little glimpse of who you are as a person…a person.  Not a company big wig, but a person.

Now if you are being open, honest, and sincere with them, here’s the message you’re REALLY sending them:  Not only does your opinion about my product or service matter to me, but you matter to me.  In fact, you matter to me enough that I think you’re worthy enough to possess something personal about me.

That message WILL be taken well, even if it came out of a complaint, and it will positively impact their feelings regarding the decision they made to invest in you.

So, take a tip from Santa…and make ‘em believe.

BTW – if you want to surprise somebody with this cool Santa video thing, here it is: Portable North Pole.

Related Articles

• “Free Personalized Video From Santa Claus” and related posts (freestuff.com)
• Santa App is Coming to Town (geardiary.com)

Passion…and Her Killer

Checked out a post from Steve Allan (“What Makes Great Social Media Content?”) this morning that really got me thinking.  You should definitely read it for yourself, but in short, he talked about passion being the key to quality content creation.  After I read it, I thought about how huge a role passion plays in my job, and I wanted to share with you the three places it must be found before you can be successful in social media.

1. The passion must first be found in me. Social media marketing is all about helping people, and if I, a social media marketing person, am not passionate about helping people in every way every day, I need to consider a career change…because it’s coming, whether I want it to or not.  For me, some tasks, like reviewing monitoring data, can get rather boring, but when they do, I always come back to what I’m passionate about, and what I LOVE to see – my partners’ businesses grow and succeed.

2. The passion must then be found in your thought leaders. When you go through the process of choosing the person or people who will be key players in your social media strategy, they must have passion for what you do or make.  Social media is all about relationship, and if there’s no passion, there’s no relationship.

3. The passion must ALWAYS be found – and cherished – in your customers. Dropping some cash for a social media monitoring platform seems like a good thing to do, especially when they throw in those fancy “sentiment algorithms”.  Please don’t think that an algorithm can adequately convey how a person is feeling, and don’t get lazy and abandon looking at the communications personally.  To really run an effective campaign, you have to remember that the words you’re reading came from a real person with a real life and real problems…and real passions.

Finally, her killer: stress. You already know how much damage stress can do to you on a personal level; it can maul you physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually.  However, you may not think about it as a social media marketing murderer.  Consider how any or all of your relationships are effected when stress hits you; you can’t communicate as well, you misinterpret what the other person says and does, and sometimes, you just want to be left alone.  Those things can be devastating on a personal level, but in business, they’re downright lethal.

With that said, I urge you to consider the state of your passion, and de-stress as soon, and as often, as you can.  Turn off the computer, power down the smart phone, and spend time with God, family, your dog, or alone somewhere peaceful…a place where you can dump the stress and pick up your passion again.

Related Articles

• Turning Customers Into Passionate Brand Fans (blogworld.com)
• ULTIMATE GUIDE: How To Create A Business Social Media Strategy From Start To Finish (businessinsider.com)
• the POP (andyswan.com)
• The Power of Pull: From Passion to Potential (gauravonomics.com)

Learning from the Break-Up

I had to break up with my social media monitoring service (which I will henceforth dub “The X”) yesterday, and it wasn’t too pretty.  Yes, I had some ongoing technical issues, and to be honest, there were some flaws in the design that hurt the product, but that wasn’t why I ended the relationship.

I sent “The X” packing because they treated me like garbage.

I’m not going to trash them here, but I am certainly willing to steer anyone and everyone who asks away from them, so if you want to know who I’m talking about, send me an email or hit me up on twitter.

I’m telling you all this because I want you to understand that customer service had better be your #1 concern.  Yes, content generation is important, too, so don’t hear me saying that you shouldn’t continually strive to generate and share great content (for generation tips, check out this great post from Chris Brogan).  However, if you’re selling anything – and all of us are – you’d better back it up with good service.

Here are some things you should do, based on what “The X” didn’t do:

1. Be accessible. “The X” could only be reached via email, which gave me the distinct impression that I was on their timetable, regardless of important the issue was to me.  The more contact options you give your customers, the more empowered they feel in the relationship…which is a good thing.

2. Follow the customer’s lead.  Via email, I asked my representative to call me, so we could discuss the issue.  He actually ignored the request!  Nothing says “I don’t care” more than an ignored request.  NOTHING.  If a customer suggests how your interaction should proceed, acknowledge the request and act on it in any way if you can.  If you can’t, clarify why and offer an alternative or two.

3. Do everything you can to retain them. In the email salvos fired between myself and “The X”, they actually told me to cancel my account.  Are you kidding me?  Really?  Told me they’d give me a refund if I cancelled, and then actually included a link to get the process started!  In case you hadn’t noticed, customers aren’t exactly growing on trees right now, so if you have one, do everything you can (within reason, of course) to keep them.  By working with them to address the problem, you do three things: first, you keep them as a customer.  Second, you convert them to an endorser.  And third, you possibly discover a problem with your product or service upon which you can improve.

4. Be courteous. Every email I received from “The X” had at least one condescending remark in it.  Why on earth would you treat a customer like that?  Please…make EVERY attempt to drive home the fact that you care about your customer and their issue, and that you don’t think they’re stupid because things aren’t perfect.  Even if you cannot solve the problem, and you do wind up losing them as a customer, if you treat them with dignity throughout the entire process, chances are they’re not going to slam you.  And in this day and age, the slamming is going to happen online, where the entire world can see it.

Be warned: your choice is to either learn from the mistakes of “The X”, or suffer their fate.

Even if you do have great content, if you treat your customers like garbage, nobody’s going to be around to use it.

Related Articles

• Do You Treat Your Customers Like a Deal or a Relationship? A Lesson from McGee Toyota (perkettprsuasion.com)
• Relevance and Looking After Your Business (dannybrown.me)

Defrag Your Social Media Marketing Plan

My son’s laptop froze up on him the other day, and of course, dear old dad gets to stop everything and debug it.  Yeah, like school work is important or something.  Well, it was absolutely LOADED with garbage: programs he never used, games he never played, applications he ‘accidentally’ downloaded, and so on.

I opted for a “Throw Out and Clean Up” strategy: first, I trashed every program that could be a drain on the system (the programs he never used, the games he never played, the applications he ‘accidentally’ downloaded, and so on).  After I took the trash out, I set the laptop up for a disk cleanup and defrag.

In case you don’t know, you’ve forgotten, or you don’t feeling skipping down a paragraph, here’s a Wikipedia definition: “defragmentation is a process that reduces the amount of fragmentation in file systems. It does this by physically organizing the contents of the disk to store the pieces of each file close together and contiguously.”  In other words, the computer cleans your drawers.

Personally, I think this graphic is a MUCH better way of displaying how defragging works.  You’ll see that the files are all jumbled up to start with, and when the defrag is done, everything’s in a nice orderly setup, and, as a result, things run much more smoothly.

Now take another look at the defragmentation process, and think about the way you approach your business’ social media marketing activities.

Have you set goals? This is by far the toughest part of the process, but without it, there’s no way to defragment your social media marketing efforts.  Take all the time you need to target where and how you want to grow.  If you’ve already been through the goal-setting process, take a little time to make sure the goals you set are still in line with what you want for your business.

 

The AIDA Funnel

 

Have you built strategies? You’re probably familiar with the  AIDA Funnel, but if you’re not, AIDA is an acronym for Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action.  Although somewhat basic, it definitely provides a great starting point for any business’ social media marketing strategy.  Josh Peters, author of Twittfaced, posted a great blog on Mashable recently about AIDA’s social media application; he even added two very relevant aspects of the online experience that will definitely help to better your defrag and shape your strategy – loyalty and advocacy.

Have you decided on platforms? This goes hand-in-hand with strategy development, but it’s very easy to load yourself down with the haphazard employment of platforms just because you “feel like you’ve got to be there.”  Yes, you should have a presence on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Yes, you should blog.  However, if your strategy dictates that loyalty plays a major role in your goal structure, you may find that a good email newsletter is a good way to reach your customer base, and viral video isn’t the best avenue to take.  Maybe a forum would be a good move for your business’ site, but maybe not.  One point of caution – ALWAYS be on the lookout for emerging platforms and technologies (like mobile), and see how they would work within the context of your goals and strategy.  Another point of caution: be aware of various platform’s waning popularity (like mySpace), and adjust your strategy to begin to steer clear of it.

Have you budgeted your time? I’m a huge advocate of budgeting (see my post on the Tithe Rule), which forces you to stay organized.  It’s a great way to keep that strategy defragged and looking showroom new.  Block out what aspect of your social media marketing strategy you’re going to work on each day, and stick to it.

Here’s the best part: what you really have to d— hold on…arrrrggh!  My son’s laptop locked up again.  Are you kidding me?  Maybe I’ll work on defragging his brain this time.

Related Articles

• HOW TO: Optimize Your Social Media Marketing Strategy (mashable.com)

Chris Brogan Has Nothing On Me

If you don’t know who Chris Brogan is, here’s a brief rundown, courtesy of, you guessed it, chrisbrogan.com:

“Chris Brogan consults and speaks professionally with Fortune 100 and 500 companies like PepsiCo, General Motors, Microsoft, and more, on the future of business communications, and social software technologies. He is a New York Times bestselling co-author of Trust Agents, and a featured monthly columnist at Entrepreneur Magazine. Chris’s blog, is in the Top 5 of the Advertising Age Power150. He has over 11 years experience in online community, social media, and related technologies.

Chris is President of New Marketing Labs, a new media marketing agency serving primarily Fortune 100 and 500 clients, and president of Human Business Works, an online education and community company for small businesses and solo entrepreneurs.”

But he’s got nothing on me.

Just like Brogan, I read blogs and reports and studies and interviews to get more information and insight to pass along to people just like you – to help them and their business.

Just like Brogan, I write blogs and offer helpful tips on dealing with life and marketing and social media.

Just like Brogan, I include links to research and surveys and stats in those blogs…more than he does these days, in fact.

Just like Brogan, I help my clients develop methods of building relationships with people.

Just like Brogan, my first name is Chris.

So why is he always booked for speaking engagements and invited to the unveiling of the Oakley Tank and turning away customers who are willing to pay him obscene amounts of money, while I, well, have a few openings in my calendar for a seminar, haven’t even been invited to the unearthing of a septic tank, and would love to talk about your business (I’m thinking 2pm this afternoon, if that works for you…)?

Time.  Time well spent.

Chris Brogan has spent countless hours over a period of eleven years learning, failing, succeeding, tweaking, overhauling, reworking, rethinking, and helping.  Over that time he has amassed experience and insight and perspective.  If you ask Chris a question about this stuff, you know he’s got an answer you can depend on.  He has built and maintained his reputation brilliantly.

What about you?  If you’ve been keeping a small business running for more than five years, you know what you’re doing; if you didn’t, you wouldn’t still be in business.  How are you leveraging that expertise in this world of social media?

Go to LinkedIn, head to the Answers page, and start finding questions that pertain to your area of expertise.    Go to Facebook, do a search for groups relevant to your expertise, and chime in.  Conduct a similar search on Twitter.  Go to the blogs you regularly read which are authored by experts in your industry and start commenting on them.  Go show the world that you know what you’re doing, you know what you’re talking about, and you’re sincerely interested in passing along any of your expertise you can to help them with their problems.

You know, looking back at that last paragraph, it’s coming off kind of bossy.  You know why?  Because I know what I’m talking about.

After all, Chris Brogan has nothing on me.

Related Articles

• Chris Brogan: Making Your Business the Talk of the Town (entrepreneur.com)
• Relating to Chris Brogan (cindyronzoni.com)

Halloween vs. Social Media Marketing

I don’t dig Halloween.  Not a good season for me.

For starters, I’m not too big into scary stuff; life is plenty frightful for me as it is.  I’ve had nightmares off and on for 30+ years after seeing The Exorcist when I was a kid.  Not too cool about Jason, Michael, or Freddy, and don’t even get me started about Paranormal Activity.  You can have all that stuff.

I know what you’re saying: “But what about trick or treating and the cute costumes and the candy and blah blah blah?”  Well, here’s what I say to you: you never know who’s door you’re knocking on, the costumes are too expensive, the candy rots your teeth, and blah blah blah right back at ya.  A Halloween fan?  Not so much.

I do like jack o’lanterns, though.

Anyway, you’ll come to find, as I have, that you can pull some pretty cool social media marketing out of just about anything, even if it is something as uncomfortably bizarre as Halloween.  For your review, some “good” things about Halloween that aren’t so good for SMM:

1. Halloween is supposed to scare you. Social media marketing should NOT. It’s just about creating relationships, which is something you do (or should do) in your business every day.  Any measure of success you’ve had up to this point can be traced back to the forming and nurturing of relationships.  Social media just represents a different way of doing it.  Kyle Lacy put out a great post about it this week, and included some great stats on how big social media marketing is getting, and how mainstream its becoming.

2. You wear a mask on Halloween.  You NEVER wear one in social media marketing. Part of Halloween’s fun (for those of you weirdos who enjoy it…), is hiding your true identity and acting out in a way you normally wouldn’t.  In social media marketing, your honest, transparent, and genuine online representation of both you and your business are crucial to your success.  And if you’ve got an upset customer, don’t hide; address it head-on, out in the open, and make sure your follow-through with them is visible as well.  This week, eMarketer.com shared a survey taken by Invoke Solutions regarding trust-building.  In that survey, 37% of frequent social media users said it was “extremely important” that dialog is open to both positive and negative comments. Bottom line: being transparent will help your bottom line.  Take off the mask.

3. Halloween is a big day to get lots of sweet stuff. Social media marketing is a great way to GIVE lots of sweet stuff. Yes, give.  Through social media marketing, you build your reputation and trust value by helping others.  Think about it in your own life…if you call a plumber, and he shows you that you don’t need a new toilet, you just need to fix the rubber stopper, and he’s got one in his truck he’ll give you, wouldn’t you call him back when you’ve got water all over the kitchen floor?  Provide value for people, and good things will happen.  As Shane Gibson and Stephen Jagger say in their book Sociable!, “networking online is not about generating referrals so much as it is about becoming referable.”

4. Halloween is on one day a year (thank the good Lord above). Social media marketing should happen DAILY. It shouldn’t take over your life, but you should be willing to commit some of your resources to growing and maximizing your online reputation every day.  In a previous post, Time Budgeting for Social Media, I laid out “The Tithe Rule”:  an easy way to determine, and track, the amount of time you should spend on social media marketing.  Between writing and reading and commenting on blogs, posting on Twitter, answering questions and participating in discussions on LinkedIn, and keeping pace with your Facebook fan page, you’ll have plenty of quality ways to fill up that time, and grow your reputation in the process.

So, this weekend, as you get through the spookiest time of the year, take a look around…and remember what NOT to do in your social media marketing ventures.

Boo!  Whoa…I just scared myself.

The “Social” of Social Media Marketing – Politics, Elections, and Small Business

Image via Wikipedia

I read a bunch of social media blogs, and there’s typically a bunch of technical stuff going, along with some handy tips and occasionally, a funny one-liner or two that has something to do with “the funniest tweet of the week”. Haven’t seen one yet that addresses what I feel must be addressed:

For the next week, forget about social media.  Well, for the next seven days, forget about the routine you’ve established thus far, anyway.

I always advise my clients to employ the “Tithe Rule” – to begin to be effective, give 10% of your workday to social media marketing. However, for the next seven days, I’m telling them all – and I’m also telling you – to use that time in another way: spend 10% of each workday this week researching candidates for next Tuesday’s vote. Furthermore, I would strongly encourage you to strongly encourage your business’ thought leaders to do the same.

I always advise my clients to adopt and maintain a social media strategy that engages as many employees as possible. For this week, I’m asking you to engage everyone in pointed political conversation about the issues that effect your business; a roundtable-style staff meeting is a great way to get their feelings and perspectives on things, and a great forum for you to provide insight into the effects of the issues being debated in this election cycle.

I always advise my clients to adopt a flexible attitude toward social media for several reasons: technologies change, new technologies are developed, new research is released, and so forth. If you get too married to one platform or one technology, you’re painting your business into a corner, and you’re going to lose in the end. For the next seven days, I would ask you (and your thought leaders and your staff) to strive for a new level of political flexibility. I have not, nor will I, shill for any candidate, party, or political ideology in this post (although I will gladly discuss my views with anyone interested); however, I will GLADLY push for you to cast aside your allegiances to candidates, parties, and ideologies, and focus intently on the issues that are specific to your situation. Figure out what is best for your business, and then find the candidate who has a track record of support what’s best for you.

Finally, I always advise my clients to share. To give. To help. In a social media marketing arena, you have to want to help someone, or they won’t have any interest in developing a relationship with you. For the next seven days, I would ask you to help others who need information.  For some baseline information, try Project Vote Smart; which has all kinds of information about candidates in every state (don’t yet know if there’s a site that goes down to the local level, but I’ll keep checking).  Just remember: working together, utilizing the social media platforms we know and trust, we can get the information out there, and help people help themselves to become an educated voter.

This is about our society. It’s the real ‘social’ of social media. Have a good week, and thank you in advance for voting on November 2nd.

Time Budgeting for Social Media

One of the most oft-asked questions relating to small business and social media marketing is this: “How much time do I have to spend on this stuff?”

Before we go any farther, give me a minute to hoist myself up onto this conveniently placed, heavy-duty soapbox and address the verbage.  As a business owner, you don’t HAVE to spend any time on it.  However, understand that potential customers don’t HAVE to spend any time on your site or in your store or on the phone with you, either.  They don’t HAVE to spend their money with you.  And you don’t HAVE to eat today…

Okay…down off my soapbox now. However, if I haven’t completely convinced you that’s it’s a worthwhile time investment, Brad Shorr’s post below.  Even better, check out what eMarketer just put out about brand campaigns and social media.

There’s absolutely no doubt that time is your most valuable resource, and you need to be able to convert as much of it into revenue as you can.  To that point, there’s also no doubt that time can get away from you when you begin to engage various social media platforms; especially when you begin to see connections being formed.  It’s exciting to answer a question effectively on LinkedIn, hit the “Publish” button on a killer blog you just finished up, and watch your Facebook Fan Page “Likes” jump each day.

But it’s about business, so you’re going to need some guidelines to keep things in perspective.  Three tips:

1. Employ the “Tithe Rule”. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, tithing is typically discussed in religious circles; it refers to giving a certain amount of what you have to God for the church’s work.  These days, it’s money – 10% of what you’ve earned.  I’d suggest you spend no more than 10% of your workday on social media.  To keep the math simple, if you work a ten hour day, you should spend up to one hour blogging or tweeting or posting or answering or discussing or commenting.

2. Prioritize your social media marketing work. My last post addressed the choices you’ll have to make, because some platforms fit some people (and businesses) better than others (for more on this, check out Martin Zwilling’s post – it’s listed below).  If you know your customers respond to Facebook interaction, make sure you’re distributing content through that channel every day or two.  However, don’t abandon Twitter because you haven’t seen much come of it; make room in your time budget to research different successful microblog marketing techniques.  If you want to check out a great book on techniques, follow Ruth Shipley’s recommendation (a recommendation I whole-heartedly second) on the zen of social media marketing by Shama Hyder Kabani.

3. Avoid over-analysis. You’ve heard the phrase “paralysis through analysis”, and it certainly applies here.  Social media marketing is based on the idea of helping people by providing valuable content.  What better subject to find content than SMM?  You may see it as a blessing, because you can learn alot, but it’s a double-edged sword: successful social media marketing is about doing it, not reading about it.  SMM superhero Chris Brogan wrote about this recently:

“And yet, where we go awry is that we look for more and more cookbooks instead of just figuring out what we have and cooking something.”

And finally, something I can’t stress enough: STICK WITH IT! Don’t stop reading, commenting, writing, posting, and replying.  Sometimes it may not seem like anything good is happening, and you’re seeing no ROI for the 10% you’re putting in every day.  Stick with it, because better days are always coming.

Related Articles

• Five Steps To Social Media Success for Startups (startupprofessionals.com)
• Social Media Marketing for Skeptics (wordsellinc.com)
• Social Media Marketing Made Easy (socialmediaexaminer.com)

Picking Your Social Media Poison

Just a quick note – my take on a recent report from eMarketer.

“In the red corner…coming in with impressive usage numbers for decades…it’s the online communication veteran used by everyone ages 18 to 80…it’s EMAIL!!!!!!!!”

And the crowd roars.

“And in the blue corner…the fastest-growing online communications network, with 500+ million users and counting…with a blockbuster movie made in its honor…it’s FACEBOOK!!!!!!!”

And the crowd roars.

The fight has raged on for a while now between marketers and ‘experts’: which is better?  Email? Facebook?  Should I turn it into a media Battle Royal and throw in Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, bookmarking sites, and leave an empty space along the ring ropes for the next new technology?

Thankfully, ‘better’ is a relative term, so we can ask a more relevant question: what technologies should I abandon?

My suggestion to you?  Go with what you know.  If you feel more comfortable communicating with your clients via email, go ahead (as long as you remember that the best communication has value – don’t just throw specials at them).  eMarketer’s recent report points out that email is still the preferred method of content sharing over the age of 25.  If you’ve got a newsletter that’s got some good content going, don’t forget about sending it just so you can pummel Twitter.

I offer this advice with a word of caution, though: social media is growing at a frenetic pace, and the number of people integrating it into their daily life is exploding.  You MUST pay attention to what people are doing in the social media world, or your business will suffer…sooner or later.

So, if you feel good about doing the email thing, don’t worry – it’s not going anywhere.  Keep it up, but keep it good.  And if you don’t know much about Facebook, that’s okay, too…but dedicate some time to learning about it, because you’re going to need to know – that’s a guarantee.