Inside the Social Media Ocean

Social Media Ocean?
A number of companies are beginning to “step into the water” so to speak of the social media ocean. However this is not something that you do as a hobby for your business. Social media needs regular updates as you begin to attract and maintain that loyal group of followers. You should develop Social Media strategies into everything you plan, from launch of a product, customer service, updates, in fact as many channels as possible.

Communication
However one of the important things to remember is that Social Media is all about communication. People are interested in what you are doing and planning just as much as what you are selling. Provide interesting content that keeps people informed, updated as well as providing opportunity for followers to spread the news globally from their social platforms.

Give content away
The easier that your content is found the easier it will be distributed by your followers! One way to provide easy to follow media is on youtube and any other media sites where you can provide video updates. One advantage of youtube is that they already provide the source code for others to embed your video on to blogs, other sites, im’s etc. Another aspect of distribution is making it free! You want to let people come and take the code to embed it in their site – we want people to hear and see what you are doing. Last year David Meerman Scott new book World Wide Rave spoke about the importance of being able to freely give away information, white paper, video for the purpose of letting your social media go global.
This year on March 30th 2009 Adam Wallace with David Meerman Scott was part of the opening bell ceremony at the Nasdaq. It is the first ever “Tweet-Up” to open the stock market with 30 guests tweeting the opening.

The next Generation
Today’s youth are already into digital media, gaming, video, iPhone and Blackberry apps, they look for the usual coffee houses know where all the local free areas are beside the usual Panera Bread stores! They are intense uses of the internet from IM, blogs and twitter to making video replies to youtube videos. This is the next audience.

2012 is coming; its time for a “new” Republican Party

MadMikesAmerica says that if the Republicans can’t change their policy then maybe they should change their logo.  (See above).

But what about rebranding?  Lessons learned from the Obama campaign show that the Republicans have got to get into social marketing.

Dollars in conventional advertising alone did not create the massive gulf in why people felt  a part of where Obama was going, Ads and TV are necessary too. Although I know a lot of SMM guru’s will come back and say its all about inbound marketing or online marketing.
A  percentage – yes thats true.  Hillary Clinton ran a conventional ad campaign and ran hard against Barak Obama to the end.
To reach all generations will demand a new skill set in marketing and advertising. There is a massive paradigm shift taking place where the age of information is no longer limited to the networks, to television and certainly not to radio or newspaper. The age of txt, IM, SMS is not new, it has been used for years, but now politicians are seeing that there is a way to reach out to grassroots, millions of people, especially the internet generation. These are not just young adults in college but many businessmen and women have accepted the 24/7 approach to receiving news, email, messages, even paperwork via pda’s blackberry’s and iphone’s are the norm.

The next Republican candidate that wants to be taken seriously by the people of the United States is going to have to implement a few things.

* Money: Obama raised so much money online that he did not have to use Federal Matched funds. Money drives the ability to generate unique marketing opportunities. Despite what people say that its all about the message – if you can not afford to get the message out to the masses you have already lost. Raising money offline and online is going to be a make or break situation. The DMC already have this skill set and know exactly how to turn this on.

* Social Awareness: it goes without saying that the new Republicans will need facebook, twitter, friendfeed, and  websites that look as though they were designed in 2012 not 2000 and most of all they need content! Listen to what people are saying and reply, become part of the conversation in society. Become part of the viral movement. Remember in 2012 you may be the underdog!  This is not the place to write anti-government speeches, but an opportunity to be positive and speak the truth.

* Website: content, content, update. And update often, use landing pages so that people can be followed up. Plus it gives the opportunity to get ground support in areas where candidates will be campaigning. Learn from the marketing gurus that use landing pages to point people to the next level.
Check out; David Meerman Scott – World Wide Rave or Seth Godwin – Tribes to see where the next level of communication is going. (If your reading this later than 2009 then input what the new books are!)

* Email: The Obama campaign used email blasts to reach out to followers in every city and state, selectively, not just blasted nationwide. This way when the tour pulls into a city or state, everyone knows what is happening for them alone.

* RSS: blogs/feeds updates daily on where the campaign is going, interaction with local people, interviews from the road, etc.

* Video: You Tube is easy to upload up to. Create professional videos that are both personal and informative.  people want to see what you have to say as much as listen to what you are saying. If the video message is a unique message then the opportunity for these to go viral and become more than a campaign message.

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Recent meetings….

I recently was in a client meeting where the discussion of Social Media and online Marketing was the next topic. The company assured my team that they were already involved and using social media but with little results. 

When I questioned what they were doing they answered, well “we have a blog and a MySpace page and a video on youtube”  I sat there for a couple of seconds  taking in this deep revelation, before going to the first of 30 graphics, slides, twitters, keynote presentation and videos about social media sites that are available. 

Click.  Within a few minutes the light at the end of the tunnel had been turned on! 

The conference centre we were meeting in was suddenly the hub of outgoing calls as they wanted this web designer to be in on the meeting, the guys doing their SEO offshore were also conferenced in then as we began to talk about the prospect of inbound marketing models, more phone calls to office staff were made for them to come and join the discussion.  This wasn’t a lecture this was social media Interaction between groups of people in different offices, time zones, even countries. All of this conversation going on about “social” marketing.

As I explained the analogy above of who and where people were involved and how – the client suddenly realized it wasn’t just all about selling, but being involved with people, who may or may not become clients. 

The key phrase of the day was when I explained that social media was just like a huge cocktail party and we were all involved in the intermingling crowd, across the web, we were there to listen, help and share with the people in the room.