Social Marketing And Social Media

oritto — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 23:51:49 +0000

Chris Winfield (@chriswinfield) kicked off a packed breakout session at the South By Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin by promising to not mention Facebook and Twitter. Easier said than done.

The “T word” and the “F word” (no, not that one) were mentioned numerous times but Winfield and fellow presenter Tony Adam (@tonyadam) did offer some good strategies for businesses looking to enhance their marketing efforts through social media. Local media companies should be doing most, if not all of them. social media marketing

The key lessons:

- Find out where your customers are: Use traffic reporting tools like Google Analytics to find out where your current visitors are coming from. Set up news alerts on your brand and your competitors to find who’s talking/writing about them.
- Frequently update your blog(s): Winfield said it is “so important to reach out to your customers” this way. He also recommended becoming part of the community on blogs and news sites that frequently write about your topic area.
- Seek new sources: Check Technorati and Alltop to discover new blogs and news sites that are focusing on your topic area, too. instead of technorati to figure out what’s hot in your topic area. social media

- Niche social networks: Do a Google search for niche social networks and find one in your topic area. then frequent it and monitor it.
- Publish video: Make sure they are bite-sized clips, “short and sweet” according to Winfield. “They are great for awareness but the best ones contain little to no marketing messages.” (I’d love to see a media company try that!) Among the best examples mentioned were the Quicksilver dynamite surfing video, the Dove Evolution series and this …

- Don’t overlook forums: One of the most overlooked areas of social media, according to Winfield, is forums. “They’re not sexy, they’re kind of old.” But they have a tremendous amount of activity, including some in your topic area. Go to search.big-boards.com to find some that share your interest.

- Use Yahoo answers: Winfield called it “one of the only things Yahoo has done really well. There you can find your niche pretty fast and pretty easily. Once you do, you want to be pretty involved.” Why? Because answers rank so well in search engines. So more people will find your site. If you’re a local media company, think of all the knowledge you could be sharing by answering questions about your local area, either on Yahoo Answers or on a Q&A section on your own site.

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Social Marketing And Social Media