A Beginner’s Guide to Marketing through Social Networking

As I’ve written about several times and as you’ve no doubt read elsewhere, social networking is the new frontier of the marketing world. However, for many companies, the prospect of entering into this new media sphere is a daunting one. There are many services to choose from, all with their own respective learning curves. Further, the maintenance schedule on each of these is as constant as it is time consuming. And yet, I’ve spoken to many business people recently in different sectors who all speak of the same sinking feeling; that if they don’t get on board the social media train, it’s going to leave the station without them, to the detriment of their business.

If you’ve tossed and turned over this prospect as well, but haven’t quite wrapped your head around how to best take the social media plunge, below are a few tips, articles and books to help you get your bearings.

Outsourcing

One tempting option when considering an entrance into the social media sphere is outsourcing. Rather than spend precious time and resources internally getting up to speed, some would rather just pay an expert to launch their campaign. Though this is a viable solution, social networking sites communicate a lot about a company, for better or for worse. A careless social media presence can have adverse effects on a company that is not in control of it’s own message, so caution must be used. Chris Garrett provides a great outline of which tasks it’s okay to outsource and which should be kept internal in the following article.

Email Campaigns and Social Media

The one marketing area growing even faster than social media is email outreach and campaigning. The following article discusses the prospect of integrating these two rapidly growing platforms as well as tracking and monetizing your efforts.

What Do Results Look Like?

For many, the notion of a social networking marketing campaign is still a very abstract concept. Though one may be frequently exposed to the buzz words that surround Facebook, Twitter and the like, having a firm grasp on the ins and outs of a successful campaign is a different thing altogether. In his article Social Media Moguls : More Social than the Big Boys, Erik Cagle highlights three medium sized printing companies using social media today, explaining some of their daily practices and illustrating how each have reaped tangible benefits.

Looking to Dig a Little Deeper?

If the previous articles piqued your curiosity and you’d like to explore implementing a social media strategy for your company further, one of the best books I’ve yet seen on the topic is David Meerman Scott’s “The New Rules of Marketing & PR.” In his book, Scott not only goes through step by step instructions for effectively developing an array of social media platforms, he also explains the paradigm shift occurring in marketing today and how to best use new media tools as a supplement to traditional marketing techniques. It’s a quick, engaging and comprehensive read that gives anybody interested in giving their company a new approach to marketing the tools they need to take their first crucial steps.

~ by rauffenberg on June 23, 2010.