Social Media and Marketing: Some resources

We're always talking about CONNECTING businesses and social media, and how each can influence the other. The most important "connection" that we discuss between the two is MARKETING.

There's a lot of "buzz" out there about smart social media practices. Here are some of my favorite articles today:

Beware Social Media Marketing Myths

The Social Media Marketing Blog

This review of the e-book "Smart Marketing"

20 Best Social Media and Marketing Blogs by Women

Online shopping options... and social media?

A lot of what we do in my social media marketing class is discussing how businesses can use social media platforms to promote businesses. I think one of the best ways that this is show is through small, online businesses. As early as 10 years ago, online businesses really just didn't exist--especially widespread like they do now. If you wanted to order something that a local store didn't have, your only option was to order it from a catalog--and then you had to order by phone! Now there's hosting sites like:

These are sites that are not only online marketplaces, but have also become mini social networks themselves. For example, amazon has "lists" that you can share with anyone on Amazon, and get feedback through discussion:

On etsy, you can have friend "circles" and then share treasuries of some of your favorite items.

Not only have some of these sites changed the process of shopping in general, but they have become their own social media sites! How cool!

Visual Inspiration Boards

I've been thinking a lot about virtual inspiration boards lately. We've been discussing delcious and stumbleUpon in class, and I also have a favorite "visual virtual inspiration board," in pinterest.

Its' hard for me to directly relate these to "How can businesses use this for marketing?" since I use them all in a completely different way--as a collection of inspiration for my own creative work and business.

The more I think about it though, I have purchased things from etsy sellers BECAUSE of their work that I saw online, through places like StumbleUpon and Pinterest.

I think the key for getting your name out there through these "bookmarking" sites is to know your audience and what they like, become connected to them, and then "tag" your sites appropriately, so they they will easily "stumble" onto your product or website.

Interesting...

I've spent some time this weeking thinking about social media stats. I know how much my life revolves around social media (I'm a little addicted) but is the whole world like this too? Where is everyone else posting? How many people are on these sites?

Here are some interesting articles and "thoughts" that I found, while doing my "wonderings"

10 Ways Social Media Will Change in 2011

10 Ways to Change the World Through Social Media
Top 10 Social Media Blogs

del.icio.us bookmarking

Today, in my social media class, we were introduced to a "social media" platform called Delicious. It took some getting used to for me, but in the end, I liked it. I definitely think it's something that I could use in the future, if only for personal use. It's like a bit more organized "Stumble Upon" (which, if you haven't checked it out, it's worth checking!!).

Since this is a "business marketing" class, of course we had to make a connection to how businesses could use this to market themselves. I don't see businesses having as much control over delicous as Twitter or Facebook, but it might be good to see what people bookmark you with, how they tag you, or help find competition. Maybe I just need to do some more 'exploring' and figure this out a bit more!

Until then, here are some articles that get me thinking about how delicious could be used for business marketing:

Are your business bookmarks del.icio.us?
How to Use Delicious for B2B Marketing
5 Ways to Use Delicious.com in Your Business
Can using Delicious help the popularity of your website?

Social Media and Business

While social media (Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, etc) has been used for years as purely "social" communication tools, companies are now starting to see the benefits of using social media. Social media can be used to update "followers" and "fans" of the business on new stock, upcoming sales, to receive customer feedback, and to keep the business in the "top" of the consumer's mind---especially when they are interacting with their social media platforms.

So why should businesses bother with using social media to promote themselves? Here are my top 3 reasons:

1. It’s (mostly) free. Almost all of the social media sites are free—the only cost involved is the cost of the time it takes to update the sites. Many companies just add this to the marketing personnel’s job, or even hiring an unpaid marketing intern. When the costs of advertising (print, radio, television, etc) keep skyrocketing, “free advertising” in the form of social media is very valuable to small businesses who may not have a large advertising budget.

2. Everyone is “on” social media. Twitter currently has 175 million users “tweeting” and Facebook 600 million active users. While not everyone on Facebook or twitter may be in your small business’s market, the exposure of that many users is worth it.

3. Customers can easily “Tell their friends.” When a customer “likes” or “friends” posts and updates from your company, all of their friends can see—and then “click through” to your company. Even more exposure!