Are you a socialite? Are you using the various tools known as Social Media? Whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, MySpace, or other interest-specific online communities such as Reunion.com or cafemom.com, people are socializing, connecting and communicating in a myriad of interactive and interesting ways. The question is, “How can I use social networking in my marketing program?”
Think you want to become a “socialite”? The key to successfully socializing online is to understand what you want to accomplish. Having a clear marketing goal is still the most important part of joining this new scene. What are the questions to ask to determine what’s right for your city, product or service?
My colleague at Placemaking Group, Barbara Irias, wrote a white paper on the subject.
The numbers are changing quickly in Social Media world, and as of January 2009, Facebook has more unique users than MySpace. With its younger demographics, you’d probably still rather promote your band’s music on MySpace, but now there are opportunities to promote your Mattress Company on Facebook. In a review of other statistics (for instance, rankings provided by the commercial blogsite compete.com), Twitter was ranked #3 in January 2009, moving up with amazing speed from #22 just 12 months earlier.
Here’s our “short list” of the most widely used social networking sites– Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Ning, and Collective X. To get some of our thoughts on how and when to use each to accomplish a marketing objective go to Barbara’s “Social Networking to Reach Marketing Objectives: Definitions and Uses.”
