Social media

What the hell is social media all about?

There’s a lot of guff and hot air being talked about Social Media. It is a powerful new marketing tool, but we need to keep things in perspective. Most businesses find that Social Media is incredibly hard to “do”. Why? Because it’s a process not an event.

Getting fit is a process. So is building a company or brand. Whereas printing a brochure or attending an exhibition is an event.

Events are easier to do because you know you can pay for them, organise them and manage them.

Processes (like Social Media) only build results in the medium/long term. So if you want to get involved with Social Media (and you probably should).

Here’s my ten tips:

1. Register your brand name - go to www.knowem.com and check whether your brand is being used. If not, register it. Quick.

2. Do your research - get online and start finding out what’s going on out there. Are any of your competitors already engaging with Social Media. If so, how?

3. Understand the culture and etiquette of the different Social Media tools - of course you can only do this by getting involved.

4. Read, Read, Read - it can be daunting but unless you know what’s going on, you won’t know what’s going on!

5. Select the right Social Media tools (that’s all they are) – will you be Facebooking or Twittering or YouTubing – you can’t engage with them all, so find out which is best for your business.

6. Learn the right vocabulary - so you can ensure you fit in.

7. Encourage all staff to participate - you can’t do it on your own

8. Network - that’s why it’s called “Social Networking”.

9. Think “conversations” rather than “campaigns” - never hard sell. You’ll fail.

10. Learn from it - learning stuff is a great by-product of being involved.

I’ll be giving a short seminar on Social Media in February together with others on Internet Marketing and Marketing in a Recession - book early if you want to come along!

Andy Chemney, managing director, Ignition CBS.