Social Media

This week I attended an awesome event on social media marketing (SoSlam) in Knoxville, TN. If you missed it this year, don’t miss it next year.  Fabulous line-up of speakers!  Following are some of  my notes from this experience.

To begin with, some reasons to use social media when marketing your business:  (1) make/announce news, (2) change minds  and, (3) sell stuff!  Or, said another way: answer a challenge, highlight a new opportunity, teach something. If your business has need to do any of these, you should be using social media.

Our world is getting faster and faster. Did you know:

• • We spend more than 1/2 our day consuming media? Do you filter what you read? So do your clients.
  • Over 90% of texts are read and read within 3 minutes. Do you use texting as a way to reach your consumer?

• Users will wait 2 seconds for a web page to load before they click onto something else. How efficient is your site?
• Facebook has more users than google, yahoo, youtube, microsoft, wikipedia, and amazon combined. Don’t you want to be there?
• Smartphone ownership was 10% in 2009, 31% in 2010 and growing.
• 20% of all iPhone users go to bed with it – its the last thing they look at before they go to sleep – they check it in the morning before they get out of bed.
• 52% of Americans have a profile in a social networking community
• 51% of all Americans (12+) have a Facebook account. (over 1/2 of ALL Americans!) Twitter = 8%

When marketing online, be purposeful, be deliberate, be intentional.  Remember, what you put out there stays out there, even if you go back and delete it.  Posting online anywhere is: #1 global, #2 permanent, #3 discoverable in a court of law.

How do you know your social media is working? The phones should be ringing, bringing you new business!  You can also use any/many of the available web analytics tools to measure what’s working and what’s not.

As you’re learning, you don’t need to market on the social media sites (Facebook, Linked-in, Twitter, etc), but you’d better be on there listening to your consumer to see what they’re saying, what they want.  After all, your marketing isn’t about you, it’s about them – answers to their questions, solutions to their problems.  Learn more about this from my friend Laura Click of Blue Kite Markting.

And, you need to be out there to stay aware of what your competition is doing.

Should you be using social media?  Absolutely. You can’t rely on the old ways of marketing to  work in the new economy.  Get informed about using Facebook, Twitter, Linked-in and get busy!  What social media are you using and how’s it working for you?