Social media marketing is, of course, all the rage with businesses these days. Every time I meet with a prospective client or hang out at a networking event, everyone wants to know how to put Twitter (or Facebook, or LinkedIn or YouTube) to work for their business.
Can you really get business from them?
How do you get started?
Isn’t it just a bunch of people talking about what they had for lunch?
In a funny way, the answer to all those questions is the same – and perhaps unsurprisingly, that answer is content.
If we simplify social media (just a little), it’s about Josephine Public being able to create, connect and share without the middle man of traditional media. More than anything, it’s about conversations.
Conversations Are About Something
And conversations need a topic.
If you’re using social media for personal reasons – meeting new people, keeping in touch with friends – then that topic can be whatever you like. What you had for lunch might be a hugely interesting topic of conversation – but it’s not going to help attract much new business or develop loyal repeat customers.
Yes, personality is important, but brands need more than ‘friends’ – they need ‘fans’ – and real fans love you for what you know and do. So when you’re using social media for business, the about in the conversation should be at some level business related.
So how do you start a conversation about business? You create content worth talking about.
Content is the tasty stuff in the middle of social media conversations. In the same way that co-workers once discussed ‘must see’ TV at the watercooler they now pass around YouTube clips, blogs posts and pictures of cats ‘hazzing cheezeburgers’.
For businesses hoping to make social media a part of their communications strategy, the price of entry is having something interesting to say – the kind of stuff that people want to talk about and share. Informative, useful and even entertaining content forms the basis of these conversations – both between businesses and consumers and between consumers themselves.
It’s certainly possible to build a social media presence talking about your personal lunchtime favorites, but as a business you need great content to refer back to and make your expertise, brand or even your personality tangible and sharable.
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Mark – good material.
One of the biggest mistakes people who are new to social media marketing is that they think in existing marketing terms – here is the info about our company!
Good points about “content” creating the interest for people to want to be involved more.
Steve – Event Planner
http://www.resourcema.com
http://www.resourcegroup.org
Great insights ….. If you havent got a story and one that everyone can tell and engage in then Social Media will be as effective as sending your PR to the mdia and hoping for the best ….
My daughter Nikki and I have compiled much of what we have learned about Social Media Marketing (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook etc) in the ebook we have just launched . Our aim was to introduce in a simple and easy to adopt way, the benefits to those who have not yet bothered to find out the hows, whys, whats of social media tools and social networking sites,
Read and/or download your FREE copy of The Grumpy Old Managers Guide to Social Media Marketing http://www.tinyurl.com/gomgsm
Also feel free to distribute it to those that may benefit and give me any feedback you have.
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