This morning, Liberty Interactive Marketing went to listen to Charlene Li of Groundswell speak on Social Media Strategies.  I’ll highlight a few key takeaways/considerations to social media in this post but first I’ll define Social Media and why all the buzz about it.

What is this Social Media thing?
I like to define it as utilizing social platforms and networks to connect and share with people who have similar interests, needs, wants, etc. as you do. Some of the most popular social platforms and social networks are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and MySpace.

Why is there so much buzz around using Social Media for Marketing and Advertising?
Well, good question. I think the first thing to keep in mind is the strategy behind Social Media is unlike traditional advertising and online advertising.  It has it’s own methods and metrics to define success.  If done correctly, you can create a successful dialogue with consumers to help support their needs and fulfill information voids.  Results can lead to increased loyalty, brand awareness and visibility for your company.   It’s essentially brand building, marketing, and PR all wrapped into one.

A few key takeaways to doing Social Media right:

1. Understand your audience. Who are they, where are they, what are they talking about?
2. Start small. Define a small goal on how to reach your audience. Then have a big lofty one.
3. Define metrics for success and the tools to use. How are you measuring marketing effectiveness now? Understand the metrics for each type of Social Media phase and platform.
4. Give up control. Understand that you must be willing to lose control and listen to what people are saying, learn from them, adjust. Be honest, be helpful, be there!
5. Invest. Understand that you must find the right labor to manage and care for it.  Often times you will be trading media costs for labor costs. Social Media is not free.
6. Respond quickly.
7. Be patient. Be willing to invest long-term and not receive immediate results.
8. Fail and try again. Be willing to try many different things before getting it right (blogs, twitter, forums, Facebook, etc.) and be willing to fail miserably and try again.

Don’t know where to start? Post questions or comments below or call us at 602-275-3935, we’re happy to help.

Twitter is an interesting idea, but as I joke with Liberty, telling a bunch of random fellows that you are going to “eat some cheese” borders on megalomania.  Sure, potential exists for other possible uses like getting out of jail in egypt, but examples like this stand in almost insane opposite to “decided my farts smell like toast”.  It’s a matter of depth, ya know?

Now Plurk seems to add another layer to their Twitter clone by color coding their entries based upon what you are actually doing or ‘verbing’.  For instance, If I say “Jimmy feels like enjoying a string cheese”, the word feels gets highlighted to a specific color.  Also, if you want to share a link or a video, it automatically converts the link based upon the url ending.  So a jpg will show up as a mini image in your little plurk.  So it adds just the smallest amount of depth to your twitter-like experience.  It is like a personal mini-tumblr.

Besides, twitter is having massive problems of scale (clicky, you will enjoy).  Now is the time to check out those other services…

Hi all,

I’ve been delaying my second post about Twitter mostly because I wanted to get a better handle on its many benefits and uses. Luckily, Rand Fishkin posted a video blog this morning about Twitter so I’ll let him take the floor.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-adopting-twitter

By the way, I’m posting this link to Twitter.