What forms of social media can help your business and how?
How is an online social media strategy different than traditional web business approaches?
These questions led us to host a workshop around leveraging social media for your business last week. The event started with our own Skip Shuda providing an overview of social media, including an impressive set of market numbers and market trends. Skip also discussed case studies of how social networks have worked and Josh Bernoff's strategy around the acronym "P.O.S.T" from his book "Groundswell." This strategy is key to initiating a social media plan. It stands for:
- People - Who are you targeting? Who do you want to reach? Understanding your market is important before determining your objective. Where are they in the adoption cycle? Try to identify if they're early adopters, laggards, etc.
- Objective - What is your objective? What are you trying to accomplish? Does it tie in to the people you are targeting? The objective must be understandable before you can move on to the next step.
- Strategy - How are you going to achieve your objective? Are you going to look for groups your target market belongs to? Are you going to join a social network?
- Technology - What kind of technology are you going to use? For a blog, you'd need a blogging platform. Some other examples are podcasts, videos, e-newsletters, etc.
- Listen to our podcast for more information and examples
Afterwards, each of our panelists spoke about their perspective fields of expertise. Valeria Maltoni of ConversationAgent.com discussed blogging with an emphasis on its benefits to businesses and as a means to initiate conversations with customers. She also discussed some case studies about certain companies that have solved a problem or started a product/service from blogging.
Ed Callahan, our LinkedIn expert, talked about creating a digital brand for your company as well as how to control your digital dirt (or what others are saying about you).
Finally, social media and Facebook expert Gunter Pfau of Stuzo.com, discussed why you should build your business using a Facebook application vs. building an island. He also dug into the benefits of using applications and widgets.
Be sure to listen to our podcast of the event, available for free on our homepage. Also, thanks to Valeria for posting her own recap of the event.
For your convenience, we've provided a timeline of the 90-minute podcast:
- 5:00 - Skip Shuda provides the introduction with an overview of soical media, market numbers,15:08 - Valeria Maltoni discusses blogging, Twitter and the role of blogs in creating conversations with your market.
- 25:30 - Ed Callahan discusses LinkedIn, creating a digital brand and controlling your "digital dirt."
- 40:26 - Gunter Pfau discusses Facebook, the trends for social media and using applications for your business.
- 55:45 - Q&A session begins with the panel.
We hope you enjoy the podcast! Feel free to post your own questions and we'll be happy to answer them.
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By: Yasmine Mustafa
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