Social Media Marketing Stage 1 – Planning

After determining your budget and appointing someone in charge of your social media marketing campaign, it’s time to develop your plan.

So…to give you a jumpstart I’ll give you 5 quick things to jot down on your to do list.

1. What are your goals?

If you don’t know your company’s goals, then you  can’t begin a marketing campaign.  Clearly (I can’t stress that word enough) outline what your goals are.  You have to know what you are setting out to accomplish or else you cannot go on to Step 2.

B2B Social Media Success

Carabiner Communications, a PR firm, just released a new white paper on how B2B companies can connect using social media.

I am a huge believer in B2B success using social media because I have seen what effective social media marketing has done for companies.

The white paper outlines how companies can begin their own social media campaigns.

You can download the white paper at http://www.carabinerpr.com/socialmedia/

Facebook = Advertising Success…If Done Right

A few years ago, Target ran a very successful advertising campaign on Facebook.  Their success, targeting their most wanted customers, college students.

When looking at the Facebook campaign AKQA ran for Target, AKQA did exactly what you are supposed to do when running an social media marketing campaign.

Basically, if you build it, they will come.

The message was adjusted for their audience. 

Rather than just talking to their audience, they made their campaign more about party planning.

“Our attitude had to be that we were taking advantage of an environment that already exists; we aren’t there so much to tell a story, but to put on a party, giving the students a platform for social interaction,” says Mauro Cavalletti,  AKQA’s creative director.

Social Media Marketing Mythbuster

I was a little dismayed at the article I read on BusinessWeek.com last week about  Social Media Marketing and businesses.

So, I’m going to do everyone that wants to know a little more about Social Media a favor and debunkify those myths outlined in that article one by one.

1. Social media sites are free.

“Using social media sites isn’t as easy or cheap as many people think…there’s a significant cost: your time.”

That is indeed true.  That’s what makes social media sites so appealing to the 250 million plus American’s that are on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace (just to name a few) everyday.  Yes it takes a little time to build an attractive profile and a network, but that’s what social media is all about, socializing.