Social media marketing is the beckoning and shiny new toy.

It started as clever but simple to use online technology where you could share multi-media content with friends, family and school colleagues. It was fun, engaging and it has touched the social human global psyche.

It happened because the intersection of technologies such as cheap high speed internet, low cost hard disk storage and software that made using social network platforms as easy as writing a Microsoft “Word”  document became aligned at the same time.
Even the older generation found they could use Facebook!

CEO’s, business owners and management initially saw it as a distraction from serious business and traditional marketing. How could you take Facebook seriously when it it was the social network that the son or daughter used it to share their party photos from Saturday night.

What was the point of a a 140 character tweet?

Then the penny dropped.

Large brands realized that the marketing leverage and amplification that the “many to many” crowd sourced global conversations could bring to their marketing strategy was sizable and significant.

Coca Cola changed its marketing strategy from creative excellence to content excellence. They had realized that social media was able to spread their content and ideas with velocity and the crowd could create and share more stories on social networks than they could ever hope to buy.

Small to medium business were provided free marketing tools that they could use themselves to promote their business.

The democratization of marketing was now evident.

Along with this realization many myths abvout social media marketing have been spread that have caused confusion and disillusionment when the return on investment didn’t materialize or wasn’t apparent.

Myth #1. It’s Simple

There are many myths about social media marketing but the biggest one by far is that it is easy and can be done by an intern at lunch time.

For small, medium to large enterprises is it is far from simple because social media marketing does not scale very easily and it requires many resources, skills and processes that until recently were at an adolescent stage of development.

With social media marketing you need to:

• Write, film and snap the images and capture the content
• Edit the content into a creative format that entertains, educates and inspires
• Create it for the different types of media such as video, text (for blog posts), Twitter tweets, Facebook updates, Pinterest images and other major social media networks
• Establish processes that control the publishing and monitoring of the content that is spread globally by many individuals within one organisation that keeps the brand police happy
• Publish it on multiple networks,
• Optimise it for a variety of multimedia formats
• Develop and optimize it for many types of screens including laptops, iPad, iPhone, Android smart phones and tablets so that it renders properly and is easily viewed and consumed
• Optimise the content and platforms for search engines
• Monitor and measure the data you receive to see what works and what doesn’t

It is becoming a deluge of data on many social networks.

So far organisations in the main are using disparate and multiple tools such as Hootsuite, Tweetdeck and Klout that add a layer of complexity and are silos of data and processes that do not lend themselves to the era of big social data.

Help is at hand.

Tools and processes are emerging to make it possible to do social at scale.

Vendors such as Sprinklr, Exact Target, Adobe, Brightcove and Viral Heat are amongst many companies that are developing enterprise class tools that are offering the promise of one stop social solutions platforms that will enable organisations to provide “social at scale”

The Altimeter Group and Jeremiah Owyang have surveyed over 3 dozen vendors that offer the promise of providing the holy grail of “social at scale”. These are revealed in this presentation on Slideshare.

To properly create , publish and manage this social data explosion we are seeing the emerging need in marketing agencies (and major brand marketing teams) for not just “creative” talents but people who understand technology intimately.

It could be that the “Geeks will inherit the earth” in a knowledge and technology driven economy and culture.

Maybe we are seeing the rise of the “Ninja Nerd” who understands technology and the creative process on an increasingly social web.

I look forward to seeing this emerging evolution of social media marketing as it moves from adolescent promise to mature and robust business class platforms and processes.

Myth #2.  It’s Free

Planning , creating content, optimizing for search, publishing to multiple platforms takes time. Time is money.
The professionals with the skills and experience to make social media marketing successful are increasingly in demand and they need to be paid. In a lot of cases the free tools to manage and monitor the data explosion are not adequate to provide the insights needed to manage, sift and sort the data.

Enterprise class tools are not free. Participating on Facebook may cost nothing and tweeting is free but the content and eco-sytem to support a sustained social media marketing effort requires budget and commitment. Professional videos still cost money to produce and edit.

Free tools doesn’t mean that social media marketing is free.

Myth #3. It’s Just Facebook

Many organisations think that because Facebook dominates the social media numbers game with nearly one billion users, that it is the only social media network to consider in a social media marketing strategy.

Facebook only allows less than 15% of your updates to appear in your Facebook followers timelines through its “Edge Rank” algorithms.

If you are a B2B organisation then LinkedIn could be a social network you want to embrace firmly. LinkedIn is also one of the fastest growing social networks.

Twitter can be used to create a targeted group of followers that is expensive and slow to build on Facebook.
The rise of an increasingly visual web has made social media such as Instagram and Pinterest networks increasingly attractive as part of your social media marketing strategy. Some case studies are revealing that Pinterest is more effective than Facebook in driving social commerce. The online boutique store Boticca’s data is evidence of that.

The basics of marketing must not be forgotten in the frenzy of social media mayhem.

Myth #4. Social Media is the “Silver Bullet”

Social media is not your marketing saviour.

You need to have contagious content on your websites and blog that people will want to share on social networks. You need to  relentlessly build followers, tribes and subscribers. This takes commitment and persistence. Don’t forget the role of traditional media such as email marketing.

Remember to continue to optimize  your online properties for search engines. Being found on Google is still a “must do”. If you aren’t doing this then you need to reconsider some of your marketing budget priorities.

Social media marketing advertising is still only $5 billion and search engine marketing spend is 10 times larger at $50 billion plus. Why?…because it works.

Facebook maybe sexy and funky but Google is still king of online and its Google+ network is close to reaching a tipping point in social media consciousness.

What About You?

What has been your experience with social media? Has it been effective? Are you struggling to perform “social at scale”.

What has been your return on investment? Have you been able to measure it?

What other marketing works for you? Has email marketing been important to your tactics?

Are you paying enough attention to SEO (Search Engine Optimization) so people looking for you online can find your in search engines results pages?

Look forward to hearing your stories and successes.



































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Geoffrey Rush the Oscar winning actor said he has strived to accomplish two things in his life…”Credibility
and Visibility“.
 
If you are a job seeker then standing out is important in securing that next job.

Business owners and entrepreneurs need to be noticed to obtain funding and sell their products and services.
To succeed as a musician and artist your work obtains visibility as it is played, displayed and seen.

Authors have the challenge of writing a book that has to stand out in a mountain of 15 million books that will be published in 2012.

If you want to stand out, Seth Godin recommends “Purple Cows”

Do something unique and different.

Pick Yourself

We live in an age where we have the means and the machines to self publish and self market. Technology is democratising publishing and marketing.

The Gutenberg press has been superseded by the digital press. The written word has been set free from the confines of time and space.

On a social web  you don’t need to wait to be picked to publish. You can “Pick  yourself”.

No longer do authors have to pitch or beg a publisher. Amazon is providing the platform for self publishing.
The tools and technologies now allow you to publish short form content in an instant. That could be on Tumblr, Facebook or Google+.

Even your smart phone is a publishing machine in your pocket that can publish images and text whether that is on Instagram or Twitter.

Emulate then Innovate

Online video adds to the publishing mix which provides the means to communicate with all the power of face to face communication with all its associated subliminal messages.

The motivating power of face to face communications is not restricted to the boardroom or the town hall. YouTube is leveraging the transmission of skills that cannot be transmitted just with words.

You can’t show someone how to dance with text.

Video transmits the non verbal such as facial expressions, gestures, passion and eye contact where serious magic happens.

Reading and writing are fairly recent inventions whereas face to face communication has been honed by tens of thousands of years of evolution.

“What Gutenberg did for writing video is doing for face to face communications“.

Video enables people to view how something is done, then emulate and finally innovate.

Radical Openess

The hardest part though is being prepared to open up and expose yourself to the world. Content needs to be set free and giving away your secrets is part of this new paradigm of radical openness!

Credibility is achieved through the display of your skills via your content whether it is carried by music, words or video. Visibility is achieved by building online tribes and followers and sharing with them  your ideas.

So what can you do to stand out on a very crowded web?

1. Tap into your passions

Some  people know from the first awakening of awareness, what they will do for the rest of their life. We all have an inkling of what we love. What keeps you up late at night, what do you read about, what makes you leap into your car and drive for hours?

This is your engine room.

2. Leverage your innate abilties

What are you good at? Reading, learning, loving, writing, video production, speaking, cooking or running? This is where you start. Along the way you will discover other skills that you didn’t know you had.

3. Build your Soapbox

This can be a Facebook page, Google+, Tumblr or a WordPress blog. My pulpit of choice is WordPress technology, with my own domain and self hosted. It is mine, I own it and I have control.

I like that.

Don’t  hand over the keys of your content hub and home to a social network  that can cut you off or ask you to leave with an explanation.

Some people have made their home on a Facebook page or Google+. If you are removed (and it has happened and regularly) then I can only wish you good luck in calling their help line.

4. Start

This is where the rubber hits the road.

I remember reading a blog post on Hubspot and it said even if you aren’t exactly clear on what you should be publishing ….just start. This could be writing, creating YouTube videos, posting fashion photos, Publishing images of your art, paper folding or infographics.

In short create content. Don’t wait for the design and branding to be perfect. The refinement can happen on the journey as the crowd tells you what works and what doesn’t.

Just do it!

The magic is in the movement.

5. Know your audience

Understand the persona of the audience(s)who you are targeting.Don’t over complicate this, the audience will become clearer over time. You will hear their voice and see their shadows. You will sense what they want.

Just listen.

6. Educate

“How to” articles are always popular. It is the fastest growing category on YouTube. Educate with stories. A story’s power is twofold. It provides knowledge of how to act and inspiration which is the motivation to act.
Don’t underestimate people’s desire to learn.

7. Inform

In your target niche people want to know what is happening. Keep them up to date with the latest facts, figures and news. Articles that provide insights into the latest industry news will keep your audience coming back for more.

8. Inspire

Show people the potential to change their life and show them a future with potential and let them know that dreams can come true.

A vision is vital.

7. Stay on topic

We are all tempted to go off on tangents. You need to keep asking yourself “does my audience want to read about this”. You can try new angles but the crowd will tell you via the retweets, Google plus ones, shares, likes and comments what they like and don’t like.

Focus is vital.

8. Keep it  simple

As you build knowledge through researching, reading and creating you will be hit with the “Curse of Knowledge“.

“The better we get at generating great ideas—new insights and novel solutions—in our field of expertise, the more unnatural it becomes for us to communicate those ideas clearly. That’s why knowledge is a curse.”
So keep the message simple and clear of “industry speak” and acronyms.

9. Market and promote everywhere

Create a brand and presence on the large vibrant social networks. Publish and promote your content from your blog to as many social network platforms as time and resources allow.

Be “ubiquitous”

10. Build for search engines

Google with its latest updates called “Panda” and “Penguin” is valuing unique content that receives social votes, whether that is a “plus one” on Google, a “Like” on Facebook or a retweet on Twitter. Use WordPress plugins like “SEO all in one” or “Yoast” that create search engine friendly titles, descriptions and tags that make it easy for Google to crawl your site and show up in search engine results.

11. Build your tribes

Tap into the power of reciprocation. Follow people on Twitter and they will follow you back (some of the time). The great content on your homebase (blog) and the essential engagement with your followers will help you build a tribe. Be real and be willing to show the human side of your self.
Open the hood and reveal your secrets and the tribe will leap in.

12. Communicate with multi-media

Everyone learns differently. The younger generation prefers a short video. Baby boomers would rather read an article. The LinkedIn types like powerpoint presentations on Slideshare.

Provide the same content in a variety of media.

13. Hone your writing skills

If you want to write then you need to “read”. Writing can be learned. The basics are vocabulary, tempting headlines and well structured articles.

Tempting visuals (eg Infographics) will add a little bit of content contagion.

14. Be relentless

I can’t stress too much how important this is. Producing content once a month isn’t going to cut it. It is like flying plane.

Full throttle for takeoff until you reach cruising altitude.

 How About You

Are you visible online? What has worked for you in getting attention? Is it video or is it writing articles and blog posts?

Have you tapped into the power of writing great headlines? Do you need to build a larger and more engaged tribe.

Look forward to hearing your stories.








































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