John Halderman writes about personal growth and online marketing , helping people take command of their income, personal growth and wellness. He is also on Twitter
Are you one of the many who has jumped in to the use of social media for marketing purposes? You are not alone, this is a very fast growing phenomenon. The question comes up frequently, just how is the best way to do this? It takes time, so as with any aspect of business, we should be looking at how to best utilize the time we allot to it. What results do we get for a given amount of effort.
Of course this leads into the questions about where, what and how. For most of us, we just jump into something we have heard about and dip out feet into it to see what happens. Now we all know that trial and error is the most heavily used mode of learning for human beings but that when we have a foundation of knowledge when we start, we are not starting from scratch. And acquiring new information with which to make our attempts more specific helps to speed up the process leading to some success.
This thing we call social marketing is no different. It is still very new to most of us but there are some people who have been at it for several years, so some results are now coming out as to the questions of where, what and how.
Now some people just will get a lot of followers in Twitter, Facebook or whatever just because of who they are. Already having some star status of some sort will attract people for no other reason. Like Steve Wozniak who on set up ‘votewoz’ on Twitter to tie in with his participation on the TV show Dancing with stars. On Feb. 26, 2009 he had about 200 followers and by march 24th he had over 62,000. Now can most of us expect that kind or rise in Twitter, not quite! Will his notoriety and web savvy help him win Dancing With Stars, who knows!
But there are some people who have been able to get some really good direct results from their efforts with social marketing. I suggest, those are the people to watch and study. There are Twitter rating sites like http://twitterholic.com/ where you can see the lists of how Twitterers rank. You can find people to watch here. Look for those high ranking and successful in your field or in the area of social media marketing you want to participate in such as @MariSmith or @barefoot_exec or @mariaandros .
Research is starting to pop up around this social media marketing thing such as the study that Michael Selzner just did called “Social Media Marketing Industry Report” where he polled a whole bunch or social media users to gather the most asked questions and the answers. A very detailed report with much to learn based on real experience rather than just what is being passed around.
And, I know all I mentioned here for the most part was Twitter, just keeping it simple. It all applies to the whole area of social media which leads to my final point. Which avenues do you use? Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, blogging, Digg and all the other modes of social interaction may each be more or less effective with your type of business or even niche. So part of the process is to discover the best ones for you. You can look to others in your same field and take notice of what they are doing. Does it appear that they are successful with a particular method? They may point you to where the poeple you want to influence hanging out?
As with anything, keep your eyes open for who you can learn from and what you can learn from. Of course you will need to tailor it all to what you are doing, which brings us back to trial and error. But, hey, with picking up some knowledge and pointers it becomes easier and faster to progress.
John
Great article, John! Sometimes finding out a bit more information and learning about what we want to achieve makes the experience that much better from the start and is likely to have us continue to do something rather than ditch it pretty quickly!
Internet marketing strategies like twitter really can make a difference to how your business is percieved and can definitely bring you more business by interacting with your fellow twitterers! The key, of course, is interaction. People like to deal with people they know, like and trust, so building trust and an identity will only speed up the process.