8/17/2010
Simplified Social Marketing – What Is Social Media?
Keeping It Simple
Social media are communication platforms used for creating, distributing, and exchanging information.
For example, business people routinely use Twitter for all three purposes.
- They create original content to inform, amuse, or enlighten
- They distribute content by tweeting and retweeting links to valuable information
- They exchange content by engaging in one-to-one or group tweet exchanges
Create, distribute, exchange: these are the three dimensions of social media content.
Depending on the strategy, one content dimension may be relatively more important. For instance -
- When the goal is thought leadership, creating content is primary
- When the goal is driving website traffic, distributing content is primary
- When the goal is community building, exchanging content is primary
Why is this important? Because knowing where your content emphasis is helps determine what social media platforms to use.
- A blog is great for creating content
- Twitter is great for distributing content
- Facebook is great for exchanging content
Generally speaking – and there are always exceptions – a thought leadership strategy without a blog is hard to pull off. Any traffic generation strategy should give Twitter strong consideration. And for community building – don’t overlook Facebook.
The keys to avoiding confusion about social marketing:
- Don’t get caught up in the bells and whistles of the various social media platforms
- Don’t be intimidated by the complexity and volume of communication
Instead, figure out what your business purpose is. When you have strategic clarity, choosing the right social media tools isn’t really that difficult.
8 Responses to Simplified Social Marketing – What Is Social Media?
Brad,
This is the most straight-forward explanation I’ve come across. Thanks
Hi Bill, thanks for the feedback. I think it’s a pretty useful model.
I agree with Bill, the way this has been explained makes it very clear on how to take in the social media world. When it’s broken down like this then it doesn’t seem so overwhelming, I have started to figure out exactly how to use each different platform, and what the uses of each one is, just like you have explained. When you know what your goals are and what is needed to be achieved by using social media, then that’s the hard part done. You just have to apply it.
Mandeep, Glad this information is helping you. Like just about anything, social media can be as simple or complex as you want to make it. But it’s usually best to start by taking a look at it in simple terms before getting tangled up in the details of applications and plugins and optimization. If you go into the tangle first, you could easily spend a lot of time on cool tactics that have little or no strategic relevance to what you are trying to accomplish.
Hi Brad, I agree with Bill, this is a very straightforward explanation that we can all use to explain the medium to non-users. Too often we get entangled in the language and make it far more complex than necessary. I love the simplicity of your model – it’s simple but direct and comprehensive.
Thank you for the encouragement, Karen! I’m thinking of making this a series.
Brad I like your break down:
One of the ways that I’ve tried to explain this to folks is that:
• a blog, as you said, builds thought leadership.
• Twitter is great for distributing short non-personal conversations across the web.
• Facebook is best for engaging tight knit connections or for bringing your genuine friends together into a community.
• Linkedin is great for industry targeted thought leadership and engagement.
Great blog, by the way!
Hi Benin, Your breakdown works very well. There are always exceptions, but it’s important to understand the basics of each channel before a company starts trying to determine its strategy. Thanks for your comment!