Tag: social media marketing

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The Need for Integrated Marketing: It’s Not Just Social Media

“If only we went viral” and “If only we had a Facebook page and an Internet guru who knew how to make our RSS feed than we could get on the front page of TechCrunch” is something that is commonly heard.

The promise of social media was, to some, the magic promise of viral marketing.

It’s a false promise.

The fundamentals still matter.

Marketing is not about viral or social media – rather it’s about developing the proper strategy to meet your business goals.

What are you trying to get and what is the pathway to get there?

  • Brand Awareness?
  • Revenue Growth?
  • New Sales?
  • Thought Leadership?
  • Repeat Business?
  • Saved Customers and Recovery of Customers?
  • Introduce A New Program?
  • Donations?

Each goal has a different tactic to meet that goal.
Business Planning Class
Social media is not the answer, it’s a channel. One of my favorite strategic frameworks, Forrester’s POST Analysis, explicitly states that you pick the People (Audience), Objectives, and Strategy before choosing what technology to implement this with.

Before determining the tactic, you need to develop the strategy that maps the strategy and tactics to your goal. This, of course, requires knowledge of integrated marketing: branding/positioning, public relations, marketing, web development, SEO, and more. Yes, with the growing importance of digital platforms, technological literacy is a must for any marketing strategist, but it is not the goal – rather the tool to get it.

Jono Bacon, the Community Manager of Ubuntu, a popular Linux distribution, has a good framework for how to map strategy with tactics in his book The Art of Community:

OBJECTIVE:

GOAL:

SUCCESS CRITERIA:

  • Item
  • Item

IMPLEMENTATION PLAN:

  • Item
  • Item

OWNER:

GOAL:

SUCCESS CRITERIA:

  • Item
  • Item

IMPLEMENTATION PLAN:

  • Item
  • Item

OWNER:

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What is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing is in the news a lot and it’s something that businesses are finally getting. According to a new report from the University of Massachusett’s Center for Marketing Research, more than 79% of Inc 500 firms said that social media is important for their marketing strategy.

But what is Social Media Marketing and how does it differ from traditional marketing and outbound marketing tricks like dial marketing? While social media is conducted on social media marketing channels such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, it’s not about the channels. Rather, it’s about the social media marketing VALUES.

What is Social Media?

Social media is participatory. Comments, conversation, news, photo, and video and podcasts are made public. This is not just comments and conversation from your brand but also from your customers, community, and — yes, it’s true — even detractors.

Social media connects experiences with a community and brand.

Social media is based on the notion of influence. This is the same principle as traditional public relations, but instead of the journalist acting as the gatekeeper, each individual can have influence – regardless of their day job.

Social media applies cross-platform and cross-task. It’s not about the platform. It’s also not just a marketing task, but an interdisciplinary and cross-department task. Social media marketing is a term that describes use of social networks, online communities, blogs, wikis or any other online collaborative media for marketing, sales, public relations and customer service.

Social media marketing is just one component of Inbound Marketing. It’s not the be-all and end all.

How about your business? Do you consider social media important? What results have you seen from using it?