When I try to tell people that I’m trying to really get into social media I get this bizarre look. I try to explain that by using various methods on social networks and social mediums I get an evan stranger look. When I tell them what “social networks” I use such as facebook/myspace/bebo/linkedin/etc and “social mediums” such as digg/stumpleupon/sphinn/etc – the looks go away and I get the eye roll and usually the following phrases, “Oh, your playing on the internet like facebook, where’s the money in that?”
NO! This is far from playing and believe it or not there is a lot of money in that. I usually have my laptop so I open it up and let them cruise their facebook profile and look at their app’s and groups they belong to – then ask how they came to be apart of them.
“Someone told me about it and it looked cool”
That my friend is social media
When a “friend” told you about it that social media now became social media marketing p2p (person to person). Social media marketing is best described by the following:
Utilizing social networking and user-generated content platforms to promote a product, service or content
I’m a marketer at heart (or at least like to believe it) – I go to the malls with the family and love to people watch and see how they get interested to go into stores and wonder what made them purchased new Nike shoes or food at the food court. The answer could range from the colors the store used to prior usage of the store all the way to having a desire to be apart of a ‘crowd’.
That same exact princple(s) apply to social media and marketing towards it. Why join facebook and linkedin? Why have a blog when you have email? Why twitter…period.
To answer that question look at what your customers or clients are looking “at” and looking “for”. You can create that “need” or “want” just as easy by examining the average consumer in your target market (from age specific’s to location).
The bottom line is marketing for stores vs. online are the same – the approach might be different but the overall layout is the same. So, what is social media? It’s everything and everyone online – that’s my definition, what’s yours?
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