Unless you’ve been fully disconnected from the world, it’s been hard not to notice all the talk about social media these days.  Sites like Twitter and Facebook are all the rage.  But what does this really mean to you and your business?

Why Social Media Now??

The idea of selling, pitching and applying hard-core marketing techniques doesn’t resonate with your prospects during a recession. In addition, you likely have fewer dollars to spend on your marketing efforts.

The magic of social media is twofold. First, you can engage directly with prospects and customers without any middleman (no list broker or reliance on publications). Second, it’s free. There’s absolutely no cost to leverage social media sites and build huge followings. Forget about email providers and search advertising. Social media marketing bypasses all the fee-based services you’re used to.

And there is no better time to begin social media marketing. Sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have literally exploded and encompass hundreds of millions of people. For example, if Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth largest in the world.

Even though social media is HOT, according to the Social Media Marketing Industry Report, most marketers have only been using it for a few months.  What does this mean? A big fat opportunity for your business.

First, The Bad Way to Use Social Media

You could do what I did at first.  Just get a Twitter account and start promoting the heck out of yourself.

I found out the hard way that folks HATE hearing all about you in the social media world (unless you’re already a star).  Each time I had a blog post I would go out to Twitter and post something about it.

Now there’s nothing inherently wrong with that if done correctly.  However, most folks start ignoring you if all you do is talk about yourself.  Think about that friend of yours that is so self focused.  Don’t you struggle listening when he only talks about how great he is?

A Few Tips on Doing Social Media Right

First, there is no single path to social media success.  Instead there are many roads leading to opportunity.

However, knowing what road to take is really a matter of looking at what those who have come before you have tested and documented as successful.

Here’s two proven techniques:

1. Share valuable content with your followers: Start tracking what is going in with key people and businesses in your space.  When you see something new, informative or interesting, let your network know about it.  This allows you to be a dispenser of valuable knowledge, building credibility and respect—critical for developing relationships and opportunity.

2. Engage with influential people: Identify key people who you’d like to network with and begin engaging in a public dialog with these folks (or at least start listening to what they have to say).  Comment back on their Twitter posts, Facebook updates and blog posts.  Start gaining name recognition with these folks. This can lead to new business opportunities and an impressive response among your followers.

Something Else You Should Consider…

Professional development…  Yep!

How about investing a little in learning from the true industry experts.  There’s a really BIG event coming up dedicated to social media marketing—and it’s 100 percent online.

It’s called Social Media Success Summit 2009 (see image below) and the presenters are literally the biggest names out there.

Many of the leading social media superstars will be presenting, including Gary Vaynerchuk (Wine Library TV), Darren Rowse (Problogger), Mari Smith (Facebook guru), Jason Alba (wrote the book on LinkedIn), Ann Handley (MarketingProfs), Brian Clark (Copyblogger), Chris Garrett (Authority Blogger) and Denise Wakeman (BlogSquad).

Here’s a video from two of the presenters about the event:

Be sure to check it out.  The early bird discount (40%) expires Thursday May 14th.

ALSO, there is a really cool and FREE class on social media marketing available here (look in upper right).

Have you been using social media with success?  I’d like to hear from you…

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 7th, 2009 at 6:07 am and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.