Know Your Social Media Tools

When social media is part of an integrated communications and marketing strategy, it can help to build better online relationships, manage and strengthen your brand, and enhance your overall online position. Done properly, blogs, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube can be used to create a band of loyal followers.

Let’s face it, when it comes to getting and keeping profitable customers there are only four basic components that we can manage:

• Product (your offering — the unique combination of product, service and experience)
• Price (the value that your customer perceives translated into money)
• Distribution (putting your offering within arms reach of the customer)
• Promotion (communicating your offering)
That’s all there is to the marketing mix.

Of course, it can’t be that easy, right? Some of us go wrong by becoming entrenched in traditional marketing strategies. And the rest of us go to the other extreme and become paralyzed by the overwhelming number of tools and Internet applications that seek to bring us together, yet separate us from real face-to-face contact.
Social media has been one of those magical and mysterious technical terms that seemingly everyone under 30 has been all a-twitter about. And those of us over 30 have been curious and more than a little suspicious about.
The challenge that traditional marketers have is in understanding how to use this new “ingredient” in their marketing mix. Is it like a “meat” or just a “spice?”

What Role Should Social Media Play?

If I had to put social media in just one category of the marketing mix, I would choose promotion, i.e., communication. That’s not to say it doesn’t play a role in the other components, just not as BIG a role.

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. If you play the role of bringing people together around a product, service or interest — you increase your credibility, build your brand and may, in time, increase your profitability by creating a loyal following.


5 Easy Ways to Spice Up Your Mix with Social Media

1. Develop a social media strategy that fits your business. Deciding to put together a social media strategy is like drafting the project plan that goes in line with your business model. Never copy a strategy from competitors – use it as a base for reference.

2. Choose the critical few social media applications. No one says you have to use every single social media application that’s out there. Choose a few and choose carefully. 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. Think of social media as a giant digital billboard. Treat every post, every tweet and every comment as an opportunity to build your strength and build value around what you offer. Use your smart, knowledgeable and active employees to build your brand.

To start, consider adding a blog to your traditional Web site. Don’t forget to use your logo, company colours, a picture of yourself or any other branding vehicle. You can customize many of the social media tools to match your image. For tools like Twitter, use a photo of yourself in the profile and use your logo and company colours as a wallpaper when you customize your page.

4. Find the right place for social media in your strategy. Right now social media is a shiny new toy. 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.

As a business owner, create a LinkedIn profile and use it as a place to connect to customers and collect testimonials. Once you feel comfortable with that, move into Facebook and either create or start a group that is focused on your industry, product or service.

You might consider creating a Twitter profile and searching and creating a community or village of people in your industry. Put your Twitter ID on your business cards, have a space or page on your Web site with instructions on how to connect with your online communities.

5. Go mobile. Many blog platforms offer mobile applications 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. If you are a salesperson, you can document a creative application of your product. If you are a business owner at a conference you can share links, experiences and feedback with your customers or communities. You can inform your customer community about product fixes and improvements or product launches and even new blog posts.

No matter how you slice it, if you want to be in business in the next 20 years, you’d better be using the tools that 20 year olds are using to decide who to buy from. People can and do have conversations about you, your company and your products and services.

Don’t put your head in the sand and wait for the market to define you.


Article by Amit Kumar, Senior Consultant of Training Edge International