Social Media Strategies for 2010 and Beyond

During the past months I have talked about different strategies that contribute to empowering and enabling social media strategies from a marketing and public relations standpoint. These strategies have the ultimate goal of fostering good relationships between a company and its publics; the cornerstone of all public relations endeavors. Today it could be argued that public relations, marketing and social media practices can work concurrently as part of an overall marketing and public relations strategy. This process should be thoroughly comprehensive; from the way that websites are set up and presented to customers to the strategy that is used to interact with them. Short and long term strategies should also be part of the planning process. This document is a compendium of those strategies along with an application of the topics I have discussed on this blog so far.

Managing and Getting People’s Attention:

Today, with the onset of time-shifted media, never-ending possibilities of things to do online and overall busy life-styles, getting the attention of people (consumers) today is more difficult than ever. Media scholars, in increasing numbers are proclaiming that traditional forms of marketing, advertising and public relations are becoming inefficient and nothing short of wasted time and efforts. Fortunately social media’s open access helps address this. Social media websites like Facebook and Twitter are the places where much of people’s attention is now being spent. Similarly to how advertisers shifted their focus from radio to television when that new technology emerged, today the focus has to shift from television advertising to social media engagement. Fortunately this endeavor provides multiple benefits; as a form of advertising it engages people with a brand and related messages. However as an engagement tool it assists with:

1. Building customer loyalty

2. Maintaining brand awareness

3. Enabling word-of-mouth marketing

—an example that perfectly exemplifies all three forms of this engagement is what Best Buy is now doing on Twitter. If Best Buy offers some sort of coupon via their Twitter feed, it encourages people to visit their local Best Buy (loyalty), fosters conversations (brand awareness) and it can be easily shared with a re-tweet (word-of-mouth).

Facebook is also an important component to creating connections with consumers in platforms where they already devote much of their attention. With over 400 million users Facebook seems poised to be the leader in social networking, at least for the foreseeable future. Surprisingly, Facebok has now on track to overtake Google in terms of directing traffic to other websites. It seems likely that in the coming months, Facebook will continue to expand its presence and relevance for our society as part of the social media landscape. Thus from a marketing and public relations standpoint it seems clear that Facebook is a very important tool for reaching customers. If Twitter is about enabling sharing and serving as a gateway for content (see more about Twitter here), then Facebook serves more as a participation and engagement tool. Of course, this participation can have the sharing component, but for the most part it serves more as way for companies to listen to their customers and communicate with them in a place where they already spend their time. Facebook is the perfect tool for this now and in the immediate future as it continues to grow and expand.Short-term

Strategies and Best Practices

Arguably, the single most important step is for companies to take now (if they have not already done so), is to overcome their trepidation of partaking in the social media landscape. Many companies have already done so and are most likely seeing benefits from their efforts. Compared to risks, the benefits outweigh them when considering these ventures. At the very least companies are able to provide good customer service and show that they are ahead of the curve to their customers. A more desirable, and tangible benefit is of course when companies start seeing that their social media marketing and public relation endeavors result in some sort of Return on Investment (ROI). It seems clear then, that there are more benefits to be had by moving to social media than drawbacks.

There are certain strategies and best practices to keep in mind when moving a company’s presence to the social media field. Given the fact that the Web 2.0 era is all about sharing and interaction it is important to remember to keep things simple. This Mashable article suggests that when including sharing and subscription options on any website the buttons for the most popular social networking sites should also be the most predominant. The premise of this thinking is that if sharing occurs on the biggest and most popular sites, then eventually the same information will trickle down to reach all areas online where people end up seeing the information eventually.

With Web 2.0 brands and companies now have unparalleled access to listen to their consumers both the negative and positive feedback. Feedback loops are now easily shared. It could be argued that the best marketing strategy in this new environment is to listen to consumers first and respond what they have to say to keep them happy. Not surprisingly, word-of-mouth marketing leads to increased trust of a brand and its products. These two processes can work in tandem to benefit both customers and companies. According to media scholar Brian Solis: “80% of (customers) reported that customer stories and suggestions shape products and services. As a result, brands earn the trust and loyalty of their customers by listening and responding”

Finally, social media strategists need to remember that social networking websites are places where customers are in charge. They can chose to listen and ignore the messages that are put out by companies with the relative ease of a click of a button. Thus, maintaining a natural, approachable and genuine tone when speaking to customers is of upmost importance. It is also important to think about the future when planning out social media strategies. What may be the most important technology may be outdated six months ago and replaced by something else. Although predicting what these new trends may be is difficult, having a long-term plan for adopting new changes is also important.

Long-Term Strategies and Best Practices

The key to ensuring success for social media and public relation practitioners in the long-run is to stay ahead of new and emerging technologies. Moore’s Law is also applicable to Web 2.0 technologies. Thus realizing that social media technologies and practices will be constantly changing should be the principal long-term strategy to keep in mind. I have previously discussed this topic, and gave the example of Starbucks and their efforts to stay ahead of the curve. They not only use popular social platforms that are relevant today, but also up and coming platforms that are yet to diffuse on a mass level. (See Foursquare). Starbucks has managed to foster relevancy to their brand by interacting with their customers via current and up and coming technologies.

Another important long-term strategy to keep in mind in regards to the more technical aspect of a social media operation is the differences between Search Engine Optimization (SEO) versus Social Media Optimization (SMO). These two processes can work together very well to help a brand expand its online presence. Given the fact that today, many people are spending much of their time online in social networking sites it makes sense to make SMO part of the continual strategy. For the time being, Facebook continues to be the most important player in the social media landscape, with Twitter being a close second. Guidelines for SMO have been developed by social media scholars. These guidelines rely on people actively sharing content to their friends and followers on social networks.

Ultimately, success or failure when embarking on social media initiatives relies on a number of factors. However, having the right short and long term strategies and a well-informed knowledge of the basic components of social media will ultimately yield the best possible results. As more people and companies continue to expand their use of social media we will continue to discover the best ways to use these technologies to their fullest potential. In the meantime, continual exploration and experimentation is the best option to pursue. This is for both the benefits of customers as well as companies. As they establish a relationship in the social media landscape both can benefit from this relationship.

Staying Ahead of the Curve

With new and emerging technologies coming out at staggering speeds, it has become necessary for companies stay ahead of the curve and becoming what Mashable calls an “Early Adopter Brand“. The concept of an “early adopter” normally applies to a person’s use and adoption to new technologies. For example, all those people who lined since 3am to get an iPad a couple of weeks ago perfectly encapsulate an early adopter. There are a number of benefits and drawbacks to being an early adopter, for both individual people and major brands: The benefits are gaining recognition and notoriety by bringing new and exciting technologies to light. Discovering potential uses and engaging their consumers with new and exciting tools. The main drawback is that there is an inherent risk to ventures like this. As an entrepreneurial undertaking being an early adopter means that a brand might end up wasting time focusing on a technology whose results may not be as fruitful as originally expected. It essentially comes down to timing and strategy. According to Mashable:

“In some ways we’re still in the early days of understanding the relationship between businesses and social media. It’s now more crucial than ever to understand why it’s important to be an early adopter brand.”

But when the right technology meets the right brand at the right time, there are benefits for everyone. In the Mashable article they highlight Starbucks. Starbucks has stayed ahead of the curve with their involvement with social media applications. With Twitter’s recent launch of Promoted Tweets (see my previous discussion on that topic here), Starbucks was one of the first companies to start using this new service. Whether the Promoted Tweets initiative succeeds or not Starbucks gained dual benefits from adopting this new service:

“…the initial rollout of Promoted Tweets has ensured that Starbucks gets a major mention in every mainstream and new media article on Promoted Tweets…their sample Promoted Tweets screenshot served as the only visual representation…when the news first broke.”

It’s not surprising to see live web applications come up and fail shortly after release. However the lackluster adaptability of Google’s social networking application, Google Buzz is somewhat surprising. This is an example of what a failed business opportunity might look like for enterprises trying to stay on top of new technologies. Ultimately that depends on what is out there and what can potentially become the next popular venture. Today, it seems like the next hot trend in social networking will be Location-Based games. These services allow people to gain points be “checking-in” at certain places. If they check in often enough, they may be awarded prizes and distinctions. Within the games these distinctions may be meaningless, but some companies have begun to recognize their customers because of these games. They essentially work as customer-loyalty programs, if a person has enough points to become the “Mayor” of their favorite Starbucks then that store might use some sort of discount program to reward their loyalty. This represents another way of connecting online and offline marketing and public relations as a way of engaging consumers. The important aspect to consider is that they have to be engaged in areas that are familiar to them. By using new forms of technologies, brands and technologies build communities with their users and expand their reach.

I imagine that these services will continue to gain importance later this year. They seem to meld and mesh all the best components of social media: interpersonal interaction between users, mobile device accessibility, direct and indirect connections with people’s favorite brands and the ability to connect with other, well-established social networking sites. It seems then like the stage is set for the next adopters to jump into the next popular trend and reap the benefits of their entrepreneurial efforts.

Twitter In The News

In the past two weeks there have been many headlines regarding some big changes coming to Twitter. All of these changes are significant in that they signal Twitter’s efforts to become more relevant, profitable and adaptive so as to stay ahead of the curve. Additionally this shows the importance of Twitter’s long term legacy to our society as viewed by the government. I’m going to run through some of these headlines to give my input and discuss them.

 

Twitter Launches A New Ad Platform

Well, it was inevitable; Twitter has now begun to embed ads in their search results. Since Twitter’s burgeoning popularity took off many people have wondered what would be the best way to make this venture profitable. Of course, many companies had been using Twitter as a way of promoting products, but the question of how to make the Twitter platform itself profitable always lingered. There was concern by the upper management at Twitter as to whether including any form of advertisements would detract from Twitter’s organic feel. It seems like they have come up with an ideal solution. These ads are similar to the highlighted search results a user might see when using a search engine like Yahoo or Google. They are featured at the top of the search results but are related to keywords from the original search.

Twitter is calling these results “Promoted Tweets” and straying from referring them as any forms of advertisements. They are clearly highlighted as an promotion by a tag highlighted at the bottom of the tweet that says: “Promoted by [Company Name]”. Twitter is avoiding categorizing these tweets as advertisements and instead highlighting the mutual benefits for the companies and the users. According to Twitter:

“…all Promoted Tweets are organic Tweets, there is not a single “ad” in our Promoted Tweets platform that isn’t already an organic part of Twitter…Promoted Tweets will also be timely. Like any other Tweet, the connection between you and a Promoted Tweet in real-time provides a powerful means of delivering information relevant to you at the moment”.

I think that Twitter has taken the right approach here. This new platform is all about connecting users with information relevant to them. This has always been the cornerstone of what Twitter is all about. The Promoted Tweets are usually tweets that originated from the company that they relate to, for example: Starbucks, Best Buy, Red Bull and others. I’m not sure how a tweet gets selected to be promoted, but it looks like it is not the most recent one. I imagine that the company has some input as to which tweet will be featured. As long as Twitter continues to make these ads part of the organic experience of Twitter I can picture that this platform will be successfully integrated.

 

Congress To Archive Every Single Tweet Ever Created

In a somewhat surprising move the Library of Congress announced that they will be archiving every public tweet. According to them this will allow them to catalog some of the most striking moments from recent history in a completely new way. They will be essentially cataloging the voices of every Twitter user. With a staggering 55 million tweets are created daily, the amount of tweets to be store is absolutely immense. Of course no other place in the world would be more fitting to store this massive amount of data than the Library of Congress. Nonetheless, this brings up concerns about privacy about people’s lives and information. Although only public tweets are going to be archived some people might not have considered that what they published six months ago might be saved for posterity when they first published it.

Twitter addressed some of these concerns via their blog:

“Only after a six-month delay can the Tweets be used for internal library use, for non-commercial research, public display by the library itself, and for preservation. The open exchange of information can have a positive global impact.”

It will be interesting to see the kind of information that researchers will be able to come up with this data. Given Twitter’s organic feel and use determining whether any trends or patterns are present with the ways that users interact with the service will most likely yield very interesting results. More importantly this could potentially herald a new way of examining our society. Privacy concerns aside, I do agree with the notion that as a public forum, Twitter deserves to be archived. It has served as an outlet for users to express their views and opinions on news, popular culture, and human history. I also find it significant that a vast amount of everyday people’s thoughts will be stored for their intellectual, cultural and historical value along some of the world’s most well-known and respected literature. I see this as a form of crowdsourcing. Thanks to the Twitter platform the voices of many people are regarded and valued just as the voices of the experts and scholars.

It’ll be interesting to see where Twitter goes on from here. Despite fierce competition from Facebook and other forms of social media, they continue to find ways to make the service relevant, innovative and useful. The evolution of the live web continues. And it will be interesting to see where it goes next.

Search Engine Optimization or Social Media Optimization?

Changes in the Web 2.0 era tend to happen at alarmingly fast rates. What might be an essential skills for employees to have two months ago may be outdated or not as important today. As someone who has been trying to enter the job market in a social media position, I commonly see job requirements that list experience with SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. SEO relies on the architecture of search engines like Google that use tracking “spiders” to find information on the web. The information is uploaded to the internet in the forms of keywords that people may use when they are searching the web. The goal of SEO is to ensure that a company is easily identifiable when consumers search for information on search engines. This should be an important goal for any company that is trying to establish a presence online.

However, Brian Solis suggests that this method is not the only important consideration for establishing a web presence. According to Solis this trend is changing. Once again Social Networks are at the front of significant changes on the internet. They are overtaking search engines as the main source of information for many internet users. This might eventually render search engine optimization useless. This is being overtaken by Social Media Optimization (SMO). Solis explains the possible reasons as to why this process started and its effects:

“Facebook recently overtook Yahoo as the second most visited site in the United States. And in doing so, Facebook along with other social networks set the stage for a confluence of social and search that fundamentally changes who we, as a society, discover and share information, and in turn, where attention is directed and driven.”

Given the impact and relevance of social networks today SMO should be a part of any company’s marketing and engagement strategy. While this transition continues to take place, Solis suggests the overall approach that people should keep in mind with this new method: SEO + SMO= Amplified findability in the traditional and social web”.

Getting to know and understand the actual SMO process requires a redefinition of traditional optimization practices. The earliest online article I could find about SMO dates back to August, 2006 on IMB, or The Influential Marketing Blog. The originally posted an article called “5 Rules of Social Media Optimization (SMO).” This list was eventually adapted by other media scholars and grew to be a 17 point list. Some of the later points are redundant or right-down unnecessary, in my opinion. For example: 14. Develop a SMO strategy, 11. Be real, 10. Create content. The first five points are the most useful and important, even today, almost four years after this list was initially developed:

1. Increase your linkability
2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy
3. Reward inbound links
4. Help your content travel
5. Encourage the mashup

I would argue that these rules are all about embracing the participatory web and thus its success hinges on companies being able to interact with their users on social media platforms. However this is not just limited to interaction, nor is interaction the most important component. Instead the focus here it foster and allow sharing to take place. This is essential for sharing not only content but also sharing and spreading brand awareness and enhancing. This thus enhances the spread and attention that any given brand may receive. Going back to first Brian Solis article, he has a chart that shows the origins or referral traffic for some websites. It is not surprising to see that social networks, (including Facebook, Twitter and Myspace) have become the predominant sources for referring traffic to these brands.

USA Today leads this group of brands in terms of generating traffic via social networks. I imagine that this is due to their posts and news stories which many people probably go on to share on social networking sites. These probably include some sort of link that re-directs the viewer back to the USA Today page. The only brand that has not experienced this shift is Gap. If they wanted to increase their presence and traffic generated by social networks I imagine that a strategy based around coupons or sales, easily shareable on social networks, would drive traffic to their websites from these sources.

As social networking sites it will be interesting to see how much their impact continues to change the entire internet. They are currently the main source of attention for online users, thus companies need to establish a presence on these sites if they want to continue to be relevant for their current audience as well as potential audiences.

Enabling User Sharing—Best Practices

As companies begin to overcome their initial hesitations for pioneering social media initiatives, the focus then becomes figuring out the best way to allow their users to interact with their content. Facebook, Twitter and the newly-emerging location-based social networking services seem like ideal ways to encourage people to share content online. There are hundreds of online social applications that allow users to share content. Website designers should focus on making sharing as easy as possible for their users. Mashable—The Social Media Guide offers some suggestions for making this happen.

Simple Social Design Tips From the Masters

“With so much content competing for users’ attention, it’s important for content creators to have websites or applications that are accessible, clean and interactive.”

• Mashable’s first tip is to keep things simple. More specifically when a website tries to get their users to interact with their content on other platforms they should ensure that their links and buttons are conducive to this process. For example, filling up a website with many buttons to enable sharing may actually make it too confusing and overwhelming for users. Obviously creating confusion for users may actually inhibit the purpose and process of social sharing. Their suggestion for this is that designers should mainly focus on spreading and promoting their content on the most popular platforms. This screencap is from a blog I follow regularly. On every news story they have buttons for sharing their stories. Hovering over this button shows about 10 different outlets for sharing their story on. It looks like this.

However, clicking on it expands the window to give the user over 250 different outlets for sharing. But this is only available should the user click on the “More” button. I think this approach is probably the right one for enabling them to spread their content. Only after clicking on the window is the user presented with many more options for sharing that content. The majority of these services are very much niche market applications. They appear to cater to specialized interests and markets. Everything from fashion-minded websites, to smaller and less popular news sharing websites, some of which have particular topics with their stories; politics, for example. With this approach this blog is making their content easy to share for the majority of their users. Thus someone wants to share a post on Twitter, a relatively mainstream service; they can easily do so, just by hovering over the Share button. However if a niche user of a news sharing website like Style Hive, then a click of a button will easily enable this as well.

• Of course these efforts are worthless without having the right strategy. Jeremiah Owyang’s web site Web Strategy discusses what would be the next step in this process: Developing an appropriate strategy for any social media endeavor. Having these buttons and links is important but without a strategy it will inevitably “send traffic away”. This article lists seven possible strategies for social media strategists to keep in mind as they develop their strategies. Each approach has positive aspects and drawbacks. They even list a possible approach that companies may want to delve into in the future.
• A more effective way to integrate these efforts with a company is to allow them to interact with the company through Facebook and/or Twitter. According to the web strategy article this “widens the marketing funnel”. In other words, users are interacting with a brand on their own terms. By allowing them to use the familiarity of Facebook or Twitter they can interact with this content on a platform that is familiar to them. At the same time they are able to use features from these services, for example Facebook status updates and tweets.
• These are some of the strategies that go into enabling a social media strategy that builds a connection between a company’s website and the social networking sites that users know and love. In many respects these efforts are more important that simply creating fan pages or Twitter accounts. Instead they allow these efforts to go a step further and truly allow companies to embrace the benefits of the Web 2.0 era. They allow a more complete experience for users. Most importantly they allow an incredibly easy way to enable word-of-mouth marketing. In the future more companies will continue to adopt these efforts we will see this continue to be an increasingly significant for companies to expand their presence and remain relevant online.

Actionable Data

As part of my internship experience with The Media Consortium tracking user data has been an important task. Although it can be very time-consuming and occasionally frustrating, it is an important aspect for any online enterprise. It involves gathering data from sources like Google Analytics, Feedburner, and Newsladder and analyzing it to determine the way that users interact with the site. The main challenge becomes sorting through all the data in order to gain meaningful information that can be used for the company’s benefit. This is a challenge because these sources provide a great deal of information; they are incredibly thorough. Although one would be tempted to think that the most important information to gain from these sources are the number of page views any given site might get, some media experts say that is not so important anymore.

According to a blog post on Read Write Web says that page views have become an obsolete form of tracking data. They quantify this metric as a part of the dot-com crash “failed business model”. This makes sense, as the internet continues to grow and expand; the attention of consumers becomes a very scarce and hard-to-obtain resource. The focus and goal in reaching consumers becomes reaching the right consumer, at the right time with the right information. This is becoming the best business practice in the 21^st century. This was the same thought that Seth Godin posited in his book “Unleashing The Ideavirus“. Godin’s advice boils down the notion of the “idea” as something that is directly applicable and important to people. In this day and age this is the best way to gain their attention. According to Godin:

“Marketing by interrupting people isn’t cost-effective anymore. You can’t afford to seek out people and send them unwanted marketing messages…and hope that some will send you money.”

This further proves the idea that measuring page views as a way of identifying consumer trends is simply ineffective and obsolete. The Read Write Web offers some insight for adapting to this new consumer culture. Marketers and public relations practitioners should now start to focus on what their users do with their content and how they can respond these actions to create a mutually beneficial website experience. This is what the article calls actionable data. This is data that people should “…use the information you gather to make a decision and take action”. Obviously the first step for this is getting a way to gather and analyze the data.

Like many other services before it, website analytics has also been changed with the Web 2.0 revolution. This makes these services more easily available to smaller companies. They are free of charge. Five years ago, my employer would not have had enough budget to access paid services that provide this information. Thanks to Google’s open-access mantra, their service is completely free, user-friendly and chocked-full of features that make visitor analysis a very insightful venture. I look forward, past the pain-staking data-gathering aspect of this project and being able to see how this data can best be used to interact with our audiences.

It seems like this novel concept of action over numbers is starting to spread as well. Twitter recently announced a new initiative to make their service more accessible. Instead of “buttons” that re-direct viewers from a website to Twitter page, they will now be able to see their tweets in the same page, as well as having the option to follow that user. Twitter is clearly adapting to this mantra. Instead of bumping up the number of people that visit their site, they are increasing and differentiating the way that users can use the service. They are giving their users the right tools to interact with their service and fostering action with that information and data; ultimately this may be the best strategy for continuing Twitter’s burgeoning popularity.

What remains to be seen is the efforts that other Web 2.0 outlets come up with to further engage their users. The focus is now to make their data something that people not only see, but also interact with and spread throughout the web.

Links Cited:

• http://blog.twitter.com/2010/03/anywhere.html
• http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2010/03/the-death-of-the-pageview.php
• http://www.sethgodin.com/ideavirus/downloads/IdeavirusReadandShare.pdf

Return on Investement (ROI)

As the Social Media Revolution continues to expand and change the online world, many companies ponder the best strategies for reaching consumers on this new landscape. Undeniably there is a vast and untapped market out there for any company to reach and engage. In other words, each of them have their very own groundswell, a fan base of varying sizes but unequivocal devotion a brand or product. Groundswells everywhere are just waiting to be reached and tapped. To be engaged in some sort of interaction as the internet continues to vie for their attention in one way or another. The challenge for marketers who attempt to engage customer in the social media arena is to figure out the best way to do so. At the same time, they have to maintain accountability and prove why they do their jobs. The best way to do so is by getting customers to see their efforts and thus create some sort of business transaction. Companies want to make sure that the efforts and expenses that they put into social media outlets pay off in the end. More importantly they want to make sure that they are creating a profit.  This is more commonly known as the Return on Investement.

There are a number of outlets for people to reach their consumers online. The three most popular being: Facebook, Twitter and Blogs. Each site offers different advantages and benefits over the other. However, they are best used in a combination of all three (see my previous research on best practices for using Twitter). The most recent discussion by social media scholars have focused on Facebook and its ever expanding presence and power. Today Facebook has over 400 million active users (see more numbers here), that is more people than the population of the United States. These users interact with Facebook in a any number of ways. From connecting with friends, posting status updates, but most importantly for this discussion, they become fans of pages and share links. According to Brian Solis, today in 2010, we are in an era of social media marketing, based on information, rationalization and resolve (see more at this Mashable article). In other words consumers are tired of traditional advertising. It is not a secret that it has become a mostly ineffective way to create sales. Yet the profit motive continues to be an important consideration for decision makers and companies. Solis mentions the fact that there are no clear, tangible standards or figures that show ROI numbers for social media marketing. Thus many people are hesitant to engage with social media initiatives. In this instance hesitation is the same as ignorance. Most people are doubtful to try out new initiatives for fear of failure. Missing out on social media initiatives and continuing the same marketing practices of the past few decades mean that companies will continue to struggle to develop effective marketing strategies, reach their consumers on an arena that is comfortable and familiar to them and avoiding the further monetary benefits that reaching the groundswell can bring. A key component of social media is the constant flow of communication that like-minded people have on this field. As Solis discusses this can be an incredibly important way to foster sales:

Customer Insight

Customer ratings and reviews rose to the top of useful marketing feedback, as they delivered tangible ROI insight. In 2009, 80% of respondents reported that customer stories and suggestions shape products and services. As a result, brands earn the trust and loyalty of their customers by listening and responding.

Developing a strategy remains a murky area for people who are trying to tap into this market. However some media critics point to the fact that the social media landscape is starting to become more stable and reliable. Steve Rubel says that out of this discord one player is starting to emerge as the definite source to reach consumers: Facebook (at least for the time being). A fairly recent occurrence that has been noted with Facebook is the fact that it is now starting to overtake Google in terms of directing more users online. Rubel says that he “treats Facebook as his private newsreader”. It seems that Rubel is not the only one. As more and more companies begin to experiment with social media marketing, Facebook seems like the best place to begin. Many companies have set up their own “Fan Pages” on Facebook. This strategy has many benefits: it offers immediate recognition, ease of use and direct access to consumers. Fan pages offer the author the ability to publish statuses, much in the same way as any regular Facebook user can. As people begin to connect with and become fans of more and more entities and companies they care about, their list of fan pages can grow at a tremendous pace. Many of these companies use their Facebook fan page to publish news releases or link to their websites, among other interactions. Rubel has some ideas as to why Facebook is gaining tract:

…in an age of infinite noise, the site (Facebook) actually helps me manage my attention. What’s more it makes it easier for me to connect with streams I care about from brands, news sources and thinkers like Jeremiah Owyang and Om Malik. I also like the richness of the conversation and how it’s easy to read, navigate and respond.

Thus it makes sense for Rubel to use his Facebook as his primary newsreader. It seems likely that many other people to begin to follow suit. Given the fact that Facebook is a website where people devote much of their attention, it makes sense for companies to invest in social media endeavors. What makes Facebook such an important tool for marketers is the integration that they get into the everyday lives of people. People can choose which pages to add to their news feed. This is incredibly important. Customers are electing to be exposed to this information; they want to give their attention to it. This is a prime target audience for marketers. Ten years ago, it would have been nearly impossible to find a group of people who are simply willing to listen to what companies have to say. Facebook facilitates this. Given Facebook’s structure, some will want to share content posted by companies with their friends. This is word-of-mouth marketing at its best. Given Facebook’s exponential growth the benefits and most importantly the profits of social media marketing are likely to be found on this platform.

The time has come for companies who are ahead of the curve to begin investing time, energy and money into establishing, fosterling and maintaining a media presence. Instead of worry about ROI and numbers they should foster a strategy that will help them tap into these audiences. It is clear by now that the audience and more importantly the attention is there. What remains to be done now is for companies to take the steps and try new marketing approaches that will work in the 21^st century. Although strategies can be varied and go through much trail-and-error before marketers are able to fine tune the best way to reach their publics, they need to start now to gain this advantage. The best strategy will most likely be different between one company and another. What is clear is that the worse strategy is doing nothing and avoiding social media marketing altogether. There will be some companies that avoid it, but the ones that do not will most likely see benefits from this. More importantly they will be able to produce that ever important ROI.

Links Cited:

http://mashable.com/2010/01/26/maturation-social-media-roi

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/14/BUU51C0AMN.DTL

http://www.steverubel.com/facebook-now-drives-more-traffic-to-web-sites

http://www.steverubel.com/three-ways-to-manage-your-attention-with-face

Why is Social Media Important?

This blog started out as an assignment for my Communication 491 class-a Seminar In Social Media and Communication.

The content and focus of this blog will now switch gears. I want to be able to join in the conversations that are happening out there in regards to Social Media. Social media is now an important aspect of society, both on the online as well as the offline world. It has also become an important aspect for the lives of many people.

As someone who one day wishes to work in this field, and boy do I have a number of dream companies I would like to work for in mind, I want to be able to study this phenomenon in more detail.

So this will now be the focus of my blog. I’m excited to see where the ever-changing world of social media will take us. For now I leave you with this video, that shows just how significant this phenomenon is:

The Culmination Of Communication 491

Final Project:

Blog

1. This is my blog
2. My Blog’s template picture came from my Flick PhotoSet
3. More than half of the discussion questions have been posted here, as well as on Twitter.

Twitter

1. I have used my Twitter to post class questions and content. The widget linking to that content is also visible on this page.

Multimedia Piece

1. My Multimedia piece was a combination of both photo and video blogging combined into a video resume.
2. This video resume has been posted to my YouTube feed, as well as to this blog. (See previous posting)

Other Content That Must Be Part of the Assignment

1. My Resume has been added to this blog.
2. My Introductory statement has been posted to this page.

Final Project-Video Resume