Today I had the pleasure of speaking at the S. Florida's WECAI.org (Women in Ecommerce Association) kick-off event at the Tower Club in Fort Lauderdale. A roomful of woman (and a few good men who wiggled their way in!) learned what social media is - and is not, why they should care about social media, especially during this holiday shopping season, how to get started in social media and how to measure their social media efforts. It was a great event and I'm honored to have been their first speaker. Here is a link to the presentation: As a reminder, iClarity is your outsourced interactive marketing department from your VP of interactive down to your tactical implementers of strategy covering all facets of interactive marketing including but not limited to: - Web site usability
- Copy writing
- Email strategy and implementation
- Search engine optimization
- Search engine marketing
- Social media marketing
- Interactive media planning and buying
- And more!
Last night I attended the SFIMA monthly educational meeting held here in Ft. Lauderdale at the Riverside Hotel on Las Olas. It was the organization's first ever open forum, peer-to-peer event where attendees were able to ask questions of the board and other subject matter experts around the room. While unsure whether this format would be a success, it was well-received and undoubtedly the biggest issue on everyone's mind was social media.
Business owners, marketing VPs, directors, and managers all looked like deer in headlights as questions about Twitter, Tweeting, Facebook and MySpace advertising and more were discussed at length. Summarizing and paraphrasing, it seemed that the biggest concerns raised were:
- What is social media?
- What is Twitter?
- What is Twitter etiquette?
- How can I use Facebook for business?
- What networks should I be on?
Everyone seemed to be looking for that one simple answer to the question: what can social media do for me and how can it be done?
Just like search, print, TV or any other marketing channel, your social media marketing plan should tie back to your overall corporate strategies. For example, if your goal is lead generation, you will have a very different social media markeitng plan than if your goal is one of brand extension.
Someone raised the example of how Dell computers is using Twitter. Last year they sold over $1 million worth of refurbished machines via Twitter. They have a Twitter account with a very specific goal and message of selling refurbished machines. The Green Peace charity has the goal of raising awareness of their organization and increasing donations. These messaging strategies are very different.
Start by asking yourself, what do you want social media to do for you? Why do you want to engage in social media marketing activities? If you can't answer those 2 questions for your business, you shouldn't be in social media.
Once you answer those questions, your strategy should naturally shake out from there. And I offered this advice last night: creating your social media strategy, planning and initial implementaiton should take time. There should be careful consideration to which social media vehicles are right for your business, what your messaging should be like, the frequency of messaging, how to acquire a following/friend base, etc. But once that detailed strategy, planning and implementation are done, the ongoing maintenance of your social media marketing plan should be fairly simple. Literally, if it is taking you more than 5 hours per week, you've done something wrong and you need to regroup.
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