Oct 01

What’s The Formula to Mastering Social Media?

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I attend between 2-4 events every weekday. Most of these are industry parties but there are 3 events a week where I’m sitting in a room of people listening to someone tell us about social media and they have all of the answers. I’m beginning to lose faith in the experts and realizing that no one has a formula to making social networking work for me. I have found some excellent tools and what people consider “tips” to help me master the social web and I have made a lot of progress using my own methods. I am not a master and attend events and sessions held by masters in order to learn something new and always leave with more questions.

Today, I attended an event called Agency BootCamp and its focus was social media. Here is what I was supposed to learn from this event:

• The makeup of a successful social media campaign.
• Common mistakes and misconceptions.
• Steps to maximize the ROI of your campaign.
• What the future holds for social media.
• Answers to your own questions. You are encouraged to participate in this interactive format.

The panelists were members of CafeMom, Myspace, Bebo and other social networks. The 3 hour event focused solely on getting your clients to look at social media as a viable resource for advertising and the best way to run successful campaigns even on tight budgets. The entire talk was “pay to play” and didn’t tell anyone how to successfully brand your company using means that don’t require advertising. I understand now that wasn’t the focus but it was dissapointing that Myspace is telling me that the only way to reach people is by advertising on their site. 

I would like 10 solid tips that I can apply today to really stand out in social networks. What can my company do right now to connect with our customers? What’s the best way to engage our customers, start a conversation and get future customers involved as well? I want to do this without launching a 100 thousand dollar campaign on Myspace.

Of course, I’m already doing this for Yoono and do this for myself too. I consider myself a social media “professional” but I am always looking to see how other people do it. I want to learn some new tips that I can apply today. Unfortunately 50% of the people attending these events no nothing about social media marketing and they left today’s session with no new knowledge and a couple of extra business cards. There has to be an event that gives attendees real meat & potatoes and not another idea / concept. Does such an event exist?

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  • Maybe the 'right' definition of social media will help set things straight.

    http://learningseobasics.com/archives/657
  • There's no secret to SM. SM has been around long before we ever gave it a label. It's human beings interacting and making exchanges with one another.

    Transparency is best when dealing directly with the consumer, which is the target market you wish for anyway. Just be yourself, make friends, mutually show appreciation for submissions and needs and build communities of like minded marketers.

    Nowadays, most of the glam rockstar types in the industry, are focussed more upon marketing to fellow marketers so they can make it to the homepage in an effort to look good enough to be hire-worthy. Sell their mother for a dollar.

    They 'teach' you just enouh to keep you thinking you need them to teach you something else. When, in actuality, you've always had what it took to begin with. You just had to begin leading as opposed to following their herd.

    Peace
  • I have one solid tip, but it goes against the rules of social media. Consider if your customers are interested in participating in a relationship with you IN PUBLIC. Social Media implies social and public displays and that can be a negative. Fantastic relationships can form in discreet methods.

    Be a little publicly anti-social. Otherwise, you'll be as political and showbiz as anyone who realizes 'omg, they are WATCHING ME'.
  • cool! your post got me working on one too. I really think the burst of engineering and innovation now needs complementary creativity and experimentation among ancillary parties: marketing, advertising and PR. Without cashflow many companies simply won't survive.

    If social media can bridge the everyday and the commercial worlds then it'll take new forms of advertising (and new ad units?), new methods of tracking and measurement, and appropriate integration by the platforms.

    Bring it!
  • Excellent tips! I like those a lot and makes for a great followup blog post.
  • Spot on Adam. We're all guilty of talking about conversational media as an it. It's not an "it". It's a "do" and a "be". Not a noun but a verb. Everyone knows what to do in social media -- it's a matter of losing your position and using your intuition!

    1. Stop thinking about your brand, and put yourself in your customer's shoes
    2. Stop thinking about how you see your brand, and think about what how customers see you
    3. Give up control
    4. Switch sides and think like a consumer
    5. Get on the tools and talk like a user
    6. Worry less about your message and more about your relations: relate to your customer
    7. Make it meaningful to the audience already there: make it local, personal, and social
    8. Listen as much as you talk
    9. Invite as much as you promote
    10. Your audience is not captive, so captivate it!
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