DMN3 Blog

Social Media is a wave sweeping across the Internet. How to catch and ride that wave is at the forefront of online marketing discussions. Whether your organization is in Houston, Chicago or Tokyo, you are probably struggling with how to use social media sites to further your marketing objectives. Here are some things you should know…

Social media continues to be more and more important to marketing. Why? Marketing is all about having a presence where your potential customers congregate. More and more users are using social media and for longer periods of time. Facebook alone is estimated to have as many as a half billion users. You can read my last post here on social site consumption: Social Media Continues to Attract More Internet Users.

I encourage you to read my other posts on social media marketing for businesses:

What You Don’t Know About Social Media Can Hurt You

Social Networking: Protect Yourself

How Do You Perceive Social Media: Promise or Threat?

The point of this post and the ones to follow are to discuss some aspects of how to use social media and networking sites to market your organization and its products and services. There are many social networking sites dedicated to specific subjects or groups that share common interests. The key is how your organization can appear relevant to the members of that community.

You can also start your own community around your company’s interests, products, services, etc. Remember, you still need to be relevant in the eyes of those who visit and participate in that community.

In a recent post I discussed how important trust is to developing loyal customers:

“Trust is earned during the course of a relationship. If your visitors already have a relationship from previous online or offline visits and transactions, it becomes easier for them to trust you and take action. That assumes, of course, that the earlier transactions were perceived as positive and the user was satisfied with the experience. Satisfied customers become loyal customers.”

You can read the entire post here:

Trust is the Currency of the Internet: How Much Do You Have?

Your organization’s involvement in social media marketing is about building relationships with other members of that community. As community members come to know you, you begin to earn their trust. As stated above, that relationship makes it easier for them to take action. Transactions on social media and other sites are perceived as positive by visitors.

Display advertising or broadcasting a bunch of news releases and promotional materials to social media sites is not perceived as satisfying to the most members of the community. If that is the sum of your efforts, you are probably wasting your time.

Social Media marketing is a lot more than setting up a Facebook page or a Twitter account. It is a running dialogue with you and your target audience. It must become a part of your overall marketing strategy.

Social media sites are well received because they engage their members. To be perceived as valuable to other members of the community, you must be perceived as an organization that is a participant in the conversation taking place within it. You must listen, respond, be helpful, and post relevant and interesting information. You must be a part of a conversation that is two-way and ongoing.

In coming posts, I will discuss some specific tactics you can use to help you more effectively market on social media sites. Stay tuned…