Internet & Social Media Marketing Newsletter

Michael Newman Consulting Newsletter

Internet & Social Media Marketing

April 20, 2010

In This Issue

Go Where the People Are

Briana Bragg Interview on Blogging

Twitter Success Stories

Interview with Briana Bragg on Blogging Advice

Briana runs a company called Busines Bragger which specializes in social media marketing. Briana provides sound advice for business blogging. She explains the benefits of blogging and things to consider for your blogging strategy. This is a must read if you are considering a business blog. Click here to read the interview.

Why Your Brand Needs to be on Facebook
(click here)

Realizing the critical value of Facebook.

Twitter Success

Stories

6 Case Studies

(click here)

Unique entertainment, microsites and call to action strategies.

5 Ways to Not Be Annoying on Twitter

(click here)

Don't lose your followers.

Will Recorded Music Have Value in the Future?

Are You Using Call to Action Strategies?

Contact Information

Click here

Penton Media Bankruptcy

Penton Media's Chapter 11 filing in February (Mix, Pro Audio, Live Sound and other industry publications) is just one of the latest indicators that print media publishers need a digital media strategy to survive.

It also emphasizes the need for manufacturers and resellers to focus resources on internet and social media strategies if they want to have any chance of communicating with their audience.

The internet is where the people are - it's that simple. Things have changed so fast, marketers have had trouble digesting what has happened much less what to do about it.

Recently I was threatened to be banned from a LinkedIn group in our industry. The group moderator saw my business title that had social media marketing in it and immediately assumed I was an industry outsider. The post was the most lively in the group with lots of discussion about the music industry!

I don't blame the moderator. This person was trying to understand all this social site stuff too. I mention it to show just how new these concepts are to many people.

Gone are the the days of writing a marketing plan that lives for a year. Companies need to be quick on their feet to adapt. They also need to dedicated resources to a solid internet marketing plan. See my article below for more information.

Go Where the People Are

I came up with the title for this article when I was creating a presentation showing the importance of using social media marketing in business planning. I realized that I needed to describe how marketing emphasis should shift along with the public interest. Now we use the internet for everything from finding a friend to looking for movie tickets - and many things in between.

By "going where the people are" you tap into these trends in many ways. But because the internet is extremely dynamic and evolving, we don't have hard and fast rules for generating revenue from many of these applications.

What we have to do is look at the examples of success, the ways to communicate and NOT to communicate and create some plans tied to our business goals. If something doesn't work, then try again, and again, and again.

One of the biggest mistakes a company can make is either ignore these internet trends or treat internet marketing as an add-on to current marketing plans. Soon people that can create great content and write to enduce action are going to be the hottest commodities in business.

There are almost half a billion people using Facebook and the average user spends more than 55 minutes a day on the site. Twitter has grown from one million users in 2008 to over five million in 2010. 60% of Facebook fans and 79% of Twitter followers are more likely to recommend brands they participate with. 51% of Facebook fans and 67% of Twitter followers are more likely to buy the brands they follow. Over half of the Facebook and Twitter participants check in with one of the social sites as the first thing they do in the morning. I guarantee these statistics will just keep growing.

But social media marketing is just one component of your business strategy. If the hub of a wheel is your business plan, the spokes of that wheel are sales, support, accounting and the components of your marketing plan which include social media marketing, blogging, newsletters, forum participation and an extremely important component: your web site. All aspects of your plan must be integrated and function together to achieve your goals.

You also need to react quickly which is not something we have typically been trained to do. It is a requirement these days however.

The biggest challenge I see people struggling with is finding the time to work on these strategies and the resources to implement them. People feel overwhelmed so they don't take the first step which is get help creating a plan. Just like your company's business plan, you need a roadmap for internet marketing.

Because many of the strategies are new to our marketersand touch so many areas of the business, it's crucial to map out where you want to go. The beauty of internet marketing is that just about everything you do can be monetized and analyzed against a return on investment exercise.

So hit the marketing reset button and jump in. You are guaranteed to modify things as you go. No one is perfect the first time.

Just don't look back on 2010 and say, "my daughter spends more time on the internet than my marketing team." She's watering Farmville crops. You on the other hand are losing revenue.

Give me a call if you want some advice. I'm big on the karma thing.

And to my friends: please stop sending me those Mafia Wars weapons. You know who you are.

Click here or the link on the left for contact info.