Are You Socially Challenged?

I’ve been doing the social networking thing for a while. In the old days, (which, in Internet terms is about an hour and a half ago) that consisted of discussion groups, forums, email and blogs. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that important adds to that mix these days are Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, among others. Over the next few posts, I’ll address each. Social networking/media can be a very good marketing tool. But, like other tools and tactics, you need some reachable goals and a plan to get there.

To start, a bit of data is needed. Fortunately, Michael Stelzner,
Founder of WhitePaperSource.com, has published a great report about social networking for marketers. You can download the report by clicking here. Don’t forget to subscribe to Michael’s newsletter, too. White papers can be an excellent marketing tool and Stelzner is the Big Kahuna in this area. Here are some of his top findings:

• "Top three questions marketers want answered: (1) What are the best tactics to use, (2) how to do I measure the effectiveness of social media and (3) where do I start?

• Marketers are mostly new to social media: A significant 88% of marketers surveyed are using social media to market their businesses, BUT 72% have only been doing so for a few months or less.

• How much time does this take? A significant 64% of marketers are using social media for 5 hours or more each week and 39% for 10 or more hours weekly.

• The top benefit of social media marketing: The number-one advantage is generating exposure for the business, indicated 81% of all marketers, followed by increasing traffic and building new business partnerships.

• The top social media tools: Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook were the top four social media tools used by marketers, in that order.

• Social media tools marketers most want to learn about: Social bookmarking sites were ranked of highest interest, followed closely by Twitter."

The bottom line? If you’re not involved with social media, it’s time to get on board. Don’t feel bad though. As mention above, a whopping 72% are also just getting started with this marketing method. You’ve got to start somewhere.

For me, Facebook was the starting point. A colleague suggested I get involved. Like Twitter, my first thought after setting up an account was, “Okay, how the heck does this work?” It didn’t take too long to get a handle on it. Then came Twitter, where I thought, “Um ... yeah. I don’t get it.” Twitter seemed to be a 140 character discussion group for those with Attention Deficit Disorder. After the 2009 HOW Design Conference, I‘ve become more active and it’s making a lot more sense.

Watch for my next post where I’ll start off with the ins and outs of Twitter.