Newsletter #139 What Social Media Can Do

Created on Dec 9 2009 12:00AM

Feature Article

A Wikipedia definition of social media: “... media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques.” Common examples of social media are Facebook, Twitter, blogs and wikis.

Is social media going to work for you?

When it comes to using the Net, most companies are fixated on how it can bring new customers in the later stages of the buying process. That is, they see the Internet as a sales machine, bringing new customers who will immediately buy. Social media shouldn't be used in that fashion.

What social media should be used for is to:

• Help you understand what potential buyers are talking about and what they are interested in. Encouraging feedback from those who come into contact with you should be a major driving force behind any use of social media.


• Develop conversations with potential buyers that will move them from the early or middle stages of the buying process toward a sale. Make potential buyers comfortable and ready to trust you by providing useful information that meets customer needs and answers their questions.


• Find out the good and bad aspects of your product or service by allowing your customers to communicate with you and other customers.


• Discover new opportunities and new ways to serve your customers.

What social media should not be used for:

• To develop one-way conversations that you control. Using your business Facebook page to just recycle your press releases is not going to engage people.


• To drive large numbers of people to your Website who are ready to buy. It just won't happen.


• To be your primary marketing channel.

Before you dive into the social media scrum you should ask yourself these questions:

• Are you really prepared to loosen control over your brand?


• What is the strategy here? Is it a long term branding proposition or a short term campaign based around a particular event?


• Exactly what kind of social media will work best with your business strategy above?


• Who is going to maintain your social media activities? Having a social media presence takes time and someone has to be tasked to make it happen.


• How do you know it is successful and what will you consider a success?

We see the use of social media as a long term game based around building your brand and extending your reach in the marketplace.

You need to think about how social media fits within your long term strategies. It's not a 'flash in the pan' development; the rise of social media is more a continuation of the shift towards communities and relationships, rather than static content.

The real danger is not recognising the trend, not whether you have a social media presence right now or not.

Hot Tips

Newbies

If you ever want to select more than one item from a list in a program - you may want to delete a number of files or open several images at once, use the 'Shift' or 'Ctrl' (Apple key on Mac) keys. To select a continuous range of items hold down the 'Shift' key while clicking at the top and bottom of the range. To select items that are not in a continuous group, hold down the 'Ctrl' key and click on them. Then just press "delete", "File/Open" or whatever you want to do.

Power Users

Tabbed browsing is a great feature. Assuming you're using Firefox, IE7+ or another browser that allows tabs, here are some tab keyboard shortcuts:

• New blank tab "Ctrl + T" (Mac: "Apple + T")
• Close a tab "Ctrl + W" ("Apple + W")
• Next tab "Ctrl + Tab"  ("Ctrl + Tab")
• Previous tab "Ctrl + Shift + Tab"  ("Ctrl + Shift + Tab")
• Open link in a new tab "Ctrl + Click" ("Apple + Click")
• Select tab [1 to 9] "Ctrl + [1 to 9]"  ("Apple + [1 to 9]" (doesn't seem to work in Safari)

Interesting Sites

The Webby Awards has come up with its 10 Most Influential Internet Moments of the Decade and it's worthwhile checking out. From Craigslist in 2000 to Twitter in 2009, it's an interesting list that puts the last decade into perspective in Internet-terms. http://www.webbyawards.com/press/topwebmomentsdecade.php

InsiteFul Quotes

"I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph." Shirley Temple

You can see our other Quick Quotes on the front page of www.netinsites.com; just refresh the page to see another one randomly selected from our database. Great for presentations or times when you want to appear to be a techno-dude(ss)!

Archives

To access previous newsletters visit our newsletter archive.

If you want to subscribe to this newsletter just visit www.netinsites.com and use the box at the top right.

Best wishes

Alex Garden

Internet Strategy | Website Design | Website Promotion | Web Text Messaging | Email Newsletters | Online Sports Games | Content Management