Everybody’s talking about social media marketing, but how do you know if it’s right for your business?  And what if you are a nonprofit agency or a school – does social media have value outside the business world?

First let’s define social media by its most well known forms, including blogs and social networking (Twitter, FaceBook and LinkedIn).  Blogs, like the one you are reading right now, provide you with a way to communicate a message or share a story with the outside world.  A blog is like a newsletter that you write and share article by article.  When you think about it that way, you probably already create content that you could use for blogging.  Because blogging is more informal, you can get more people involved to write a paragraph or two about a timely topic in your industry, a success story or an experience that your audience can relate to.

Social networking requires a little more thought about who it is that you want to connect with.  Are you looking to inform potential clients about your services, or brainstorm with others in your industry, or maybe find potential sources of referrals?  Each goal will require you to think about who those people are, and what forms of social media they are likely to be using.  For example, I find LinkedIn to be a powerful networking tool to connect with clients, former colleagues, and other professionals that I meet and want to keep in touch with.  By regularly updating my LinkedIn status, I can share what I am working on with all of my contacts with one click of the mouse.  I can even include links back to my blog or a particular page of our web site that provides more information.  I have found that even people I have known and worked with for many years may not fully understand all of the ways that I can help organizations with their computer network or web site, but if they hear a success story, they suddenly think of someone else they know with that struggle who they can’t wait to refer me to.

Maybe you realize that you have something to say, and you know who you want to reach with your message, but there are other considerations to making social media marketing a success.  The questions in our “10 questions to ask before starting a social media marketing campaign” will help you determine if this is the right step for you.

Tags: Blogging, business success tips, generate business from website, inbound marketing, marketing strategy, small business concerns, Social media, uses of social media

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 12:37 pm by Tracy Fox and is filed under Marketing, Website Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.