Social Media Marketing Not A Miracle But Worth The Effort

A couple of posts again I said that a post featuring Ivana Taylor would be forthcoming. This is it. Why Social Media Should Be a Key Ingredient in Your Marketing Mix via Small Business Trends by Ivana Taylor from May of this year. I am also letting her take the point in arguing for social media.

What Role Should Social Media Play?

Social media's primary benefit to your communication strategy is its ability to build relationships and communities between individuals who share interests AND who would not be brought together otherwise except for those interests.

5 Easy Ways to Spice Up Your Mix with Social Media

1. Develop a social media strategy YESTERDAY.

Its insane to ignore the movement to this kind of communication. But it's wise to learn and make decisions about how to use it so it doesn't use you.

2. Choose the critical few social media applications. Always ask yourself: Who is my ideal customer? What is important to them when they are buying what I'm selling? And which tool will help them connect with my business in an easy and relevant way

3. Build your brand from the inside out. Use your smart, knowledgeable and active employees to build your brand.?

Ms Taylor also cites the Groundswell book that is making such an impact.

Forrester Research has taken what they've learned and published a book called Groundswell. The authors of the book Charlene Li and Josh Burnoff (both VPs and analysts for Forrester) are also active members of the social media community and have developed a dedicated fan base that will use their products and services.

4. Find the right place for social media in your strategy. The real work is in finding the right balance between social media and more traditional marketing tools like your printed materials. The ideal outcome is to have them all working together.

5. Go mobile. Many blog platforms offer mobile applications (like Typepad) that you can download to your phone. Twitter is designed to be mobile. This gives you the opportunity to report and communicate discretely in real time.

As usual, I am advocating applying business methodology to change-agent and social-entrepreneurial organizational objectives. Ms Taylor's ideas, especially her last idea, make all the more sense if the clientele one is working on is more dependent upon the cellphone than the laptop.