Aaron C. NewmanFounder, Techigy

http://sm2.techrigy.com

January 2009

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PRSA – RochesterSocial Media Marketing 101

What is Social Media?

• Social Networks– Facebook, MySpace, Ning, Orkut

• Blogs/Wikis– Blogger, WordPress

• Microblogs– Twitter, Identi.ca, Tumblr

• Photo/Video sharing– Flickr, Youtube

• Message boards/Forums– Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Groups

Social media are primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings.

-Wikipedia

What is Social Media Marketing?

• Other buzz words to understand (all highly-related)– Word-of-mouth – Viral marketing– Grassroots marketing– Buzz marketing– Conversational marketing

Social media marketing is about building ways that fans of a brand or company can promote it themselves in multiple online social media venues.

-Wikipedia

What is NOT Social Media Marketing?

• SMM is not just about advertising on FaceBook

• Astroturfing or Shilling– DON’T DO IT – you will be exposed

• Lack of Transparency– Blogging for the CEO– Fictional characters

• Walmarting Across America blog

• Why has SMM becoming relevant?

• The Year 2000– Blogs were people talking about their cats

• The Year 2009– Social media is people talking about your brand

• Critical mass of people participating– Facebook added 20 million users in past 3 months

Why do I care?

Who owns your brand?

Your brand is the conversations occurring through word-of-mouth

Old World:Advertising was shouting as loud

as possible to reach a mass market.

What happened:People learned how to tune your message out

New World:Renaissance in WOM

Tapping into the conversations

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Evolution in Marketing

• Typical initial thoughts on social media– Can I stop those evil negative opinions?

• Not the BEST reason to engage– Wouldn’t you rather listen and learn

• Decreased effectiveness of traditional marketing– We have learned to ignore advertising/PR

• Reaching your customers where there are– Can’t always bring them to your site

Should I Engage?

Getting Started

• First Consider Your Social Media Strategy– What are you try to accomplish?– How will you measure it?– How does it fit in with your overall strategy

• Get commitment from management– Half hearted participation is not effective– Need to build social capital and credibility

Getting the Most Value

• Social Media creates 1-to-Many Conversations– 1-to-1 Conversations are expensive– Social media broadcasts to many readers– Social media is indexed and searched later

• Finding Influencers with the highest 1-to-Many– Dunbar’s Law places limitations on number of relationship we

can maintain at ~150– Malcolm Gladwell’s Connectors– Albert Laszlo’s Network Hubs

• Social Media Optimization (Rohit Bhargava)– Like SEO for social sites– Increase Linkability/Get communities Connected

Stage 1: Listening

• http://techrigy.com/pdf/EngagingSocialMediaWhiteP.pdf

• Step #1 – Listen to what people are saying about your brand.

• Step #2 – Listen to what people are saying about your competitors.

• Step #3 – Listen to what people are saying in your industry.

Stage 2: Engaging

• Step #4 Start your company blogging– CEO blog or employee

blogs?

• Step #5 Comment on other blogs– Participate, don’t pitch

• Step #6 Participate in conversations on tools such as Twitter.– Create conversations

Stage 2: Engaging

• Step #7 Engage your customers through social networks– Setup your own + find existing ones

• Step #8 Contribute to sources such as Wikipedia.– Delicate balance – not for brochures

• Step #9 Encourage your customers to talk about your product, good or bad.– Address problems, show them you care

Resources

• Books“Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day” By Dave Evans

(originally from Webster)

“The New Rules of Marketing and PR” By David Meer Scott

• Blogshttp://www.micropersuasion.com/

http://www.briansolis.com/

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/

• Podcastshttp://www.insidepr.ca/

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Resources

• Social Media Monitoring and Analytics: SM2 from Techrigy Provides Visibility Into Social Media

• Designed for PR and Brand Professionals

• Monitors Blogs, Wikis, Microblogs like Twitter, Social Networks, any User-Generated Content

• Analysis includes tone, sentiment, demographics, location, share of voice and more

• Fully functional listening and engagement tool, Freemium version at http://sm2.techrigy

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Questions?

Social media marketing will be a central function of any marketing strategy going forward.

Contact information:

Aaron Newman - aaron@techrigy.com

http://twitter.com/aaronnewman

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