Anyone who has followed my blogs knows that Chris Brogan has had a significant impact on my social media education. The amazing thing is, he and I have never met nor have we even talked on the phone to each other.
I was sent a link to one of his blog posts. I read the post, liked it, and then searched his archives. Some of the suggestions and tips he offered were useful in our “everyday” business of selling iced tea concentrate to foodservice operators. Some of his ideas and postings were completely new revelations to me.
You see…I am old. Well, I’m older than Chris. I learned spreadsheets on Lotus 1-2-3. I did not have online access to research sites and news archives. I had to look stuff up in encyclopedias (real books) that required you to correctly spell the thing you wanted to research. For news archives, we would sift through hundreds of microfilms looking for a particular picture or quote. It was tedious and sometimes painful.
I love what the Internet has developed into so far. With news apps, search engines and alerts, we can filter information to specific key words so we don’t have to read the “fluff” until we get to something that is personally useful and/or relevant.
As a marketer and brand owner, I really love that social media is reshaping how business gets done. We have heard the term “social media marketing” so often that we blindly accept the phrase without really understanding what it actually means.
The concept of social media marketing is not an easy one to understand. (At least not for my age group.) We can define it as “marketing strategies utilizing the Internet and social/community websites”, which sounds pretty, but what does it mean?
Initially I looked at it in the context of traditional marketing. I tried to figure out how our print and word of mouth marketing campaigns would fit within the social sphere. To put it simply, I tried to fit a square peg (traditional marketing) in a round hole (social media).
It wasn’t until after reading Chris’ book (co-authored by Julien Smith) Trust Agents and then the book Socialnomics by Eric Qualman that the proverbial light bulb went off.
Social media marketing is not so much about marketing as it is about communication.
Reading those words now, I feel pretty silly. And I am sure a few of you out there (Chris, Julien and Eric most likely) are probably in disbelief that I didn’t just KNOW this simple truth.
Facebook, Twitter and the like are not about forcing a brand or product upon the consumer. For the companies who DO employ that strategy, IT IS SIMILAR TO WRITING AN EMAIL IN CAPS…it’s just not very professional.
Social media sites are about communicating. Sometimes you communicate with your clients and consumers. Sometimes you communicate with your peers. Every once in awhile you may even communicate with your competitors.
The marketing aspect comes from keeping your brand and/or product in front of consumers. By engaging in conversations about your product/company/ brand/ or even personal interests, you develop (or enhance) a relationship with your customer. You get to know more about the people using your product, and they get to know more about the people making the products they use.
I still have a lot to learn about social media marketing.
Thankfully, BECAUSE of social media, I have an almost unlimited supply of reference material and expert advice available to me.
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