People have definite opinions about social media marketing and about the tools used to execute a social media strategy. Enjoy!This generally means Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and a blog. The tools you use to engage your audience vary greatly according to what business you are involved in. There are times when I’d recommend a client to make more use of Foursquare and article distribution on Wiki than Facebook. What I would say, in every case, is that social media application begins with a blog. All other tools used depend on that hub and ideally, none of them stand alone. As in traditional marketing, social media tools need support, even Twitter!All media activity costs. Whether it is in terms of time, resource, people or actual media costs there is an investment made by the user. Yes, a lot of the applications can be accessed for free i.e. costing only your time, however if you do not know how to use them properly they will cost you more than time in the end.
You’d generally employ are marketing consultant or an advertising agency to ensure that you get the most ‘bang’ for your ‘buck’. Whilst few people can claim to be social media experts there is a definite advantage to using a social media consultant with good writing skills and a history in advertising and marketing.If you really want to utilize the tools of social media yourself then you need to be trained to get the most out of them on a daily basis, to see the bigger picture and you need to ensure that you have the time to use them.There is a different tone used and the layout has to be just so. Keyword density comes into it as do parent headers and sub headers. The angle taken to promote a business because you cannot blatantly promote yourself if you want publishers to use your article, what degree to niche your topic, embedding links and resources it is becoming rather technical.
It is not just about registering with all the social media tools and waiting for your sales to soar. Social Media tools are used as part of a marketing campaign whether it is on or offline and objectives to measure it by are important. Each business has their own objectives but sometimes it is difficult to apply those objectives to social media activity as the tools are not always measurable.
A good social media consultant will help you set realistic goals and attain them.Not at all! Facebook is a great social networking tool and does allow you to have a business page too but it is not the mainstay of a social media campaign, a blog is. If you are going to use Facebook as a marketing tool and start a business or fan page you need to have a reason for doing so. Like all social media tools it is no good starting on Facebook if you are going to abandon it after a few weeks.There are many ways each tool can be adapted to suit the business need just as in traditional media marketing.
