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December 2009
Exercise
Your Social
Media Muscle
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and the other social
media only work if you exercise with them regularly.
These four social media experts will pump you up
and introduce you to the next level of communication
muscle: Tyler Olson, Social Media Consulting;
Dave Meyer, BizzyWeb; Alan Kremer, imagewrks
MARKETING; and Jim Robinson, ITR Group.
December 2009
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New Busiout the latting; Dave
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Twitter? Twitter,
Facebook?
Facebook,LinkedIn?
LinkedIn and Which
the otherOne?
social media
only work
if you
exercise
with
them
regularly.
Its All About Choosing
the Best
Tools
to Reach
Your
Customers.
ness Minnesota approached this team of experts to write about the latest trends and strategies: Tyler Olson, Social Media Consulting; Dave
Meyer, BizzyWeb; Alan Kremer, imagewrks MARKETING; and Jim
Robinson, ITR Group.
They will share more information in a free interactive workshop
from 3 to 5 p.m. on January 14 at the Airport Hilton in Bloomington.
New Business Minnesota will hold its monthly Startup Meetup networking event immediately following the workshop. For more information and to register and RSVP go to:
www.newstartupmeetup.com.
Twitter? Facebook? L
Integrating
Social Media
Whats Next? Getting the Most Out of Your Online Communication.
By Dave Meyer
Special to New Business Minnesota
ocial media is an amazing tool for marketing a new business. Tools like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn allow cashstrapped startups a way to generate buzz and
engage their prospects and customers on a
more personal level.
But even with free tools, theres always a
cost. It takes time to connect with your fans,
share ideas about your products, listen to
what your customers are saying, or network
with prospects and referral sources.
Heres the good news. There is a trick
to consolidating your social media efforts.
When its done right, updating your social
networking accounts can be done through a
single tool your website.
Just as it doesnt make sense to force your
customers to connect with you only one way
you probably wouldnt limit customers to
just connecting over the phone for example,
or just through a contact form on your website effective communication in
todays world requires you to be
where people are.
The companies who are best
able to reach out and connect
are the ones who are seeing real
results. Social media tools each
serve a slightly different purpose.
Twitter is great for keeping up
with experts in any given field and
marketing ideas. LinkedIn is the
go-to spot to find talent and network with professionals. Facebook is where
250 million people go to connect with old
friends.
Couple the confusion of which network
does what with the tools your company already uses emails, your website, traditional advertising and even in-person networking or sales calls and its easy to see why so
many are overwhelmed by it all.
However, a well-designed website using
a tool like WordPress can do much of your
social media connecting for you.
WordPress is an open-source content
management system that allows users to
logon to their own website from any browser and publish news articles (or posts), manage pages and add multimedia content with
ease.
Since it was originally created as a blog-
munity.
Develop quarterly content calendars.
This systematically guides the subject matter, ensuring posts and conversation starters
actively support the clients primary marketing goals.
Assign one person to have committed
ownership. As the saying goes, if everybody
owns it, nobody does. We encourage our
clients to identify one person who can take
charge of their companys social media presence.
Integrating social media with the overall marketing program.
Social media should never be viewed as
a Lone Ranger attempt at marketing a company. So we think about what links can be
made between social networking efforts and
a companys other online/offline marketing
initiatives. How can tactics be cross-promoted?
I know social networking will continue
to gain momentum as companies stop feeling overwhelmed even frightened by
this medium. Without question, social media can be an incredibly powerful venue for
companies willing to legitimately engage with their
contacts and customers.
As with any tactic, the
results should be measured.
But when it comes right
down to it, the power and
benefits of social networking outweigh its shortcomings, even for a skeptic like
me.
Alan Kremer is an owner and Vice President for Imagewrks Marketing, a company
recently named among the 50 fastest growing
private companies in Minnesota. Imagewrks
identifies and solves its clients core marketing
and communications issues, and offers everything from research and creative strategy to
design, printing and fulfillmentall under
one roof. He can be reached at alan@iwmarketing.com. www.iwmarketing.com.
Develop a Strategy
Getting Started
Monitor the Social Media arena to understand how you should participate. Social
Media Monitoring allows you to identify
people who might be interested in what you
have to say or sell. Monitoring will help you
in finding, connecting, conversing, and engaging with them.
Social Media monitoring is one of the
most reliable and fastest ways to identify
unhappy customers, disgruntled former employees, or disenchanted suppliers. If someone has a grudge or axe to grind, monitoring
is your early warning system.
Remember, Social Media is more than
Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. The online
universe is expansive and new applications
and services are always emerging. If you
limit your monitoring to these three applications, you are doing a disservice to yourself, your brand and your company.