Rachel Friedmann

I am constantly learning about the latest marketing techniques and what’s going on in the world online. I recently attended Association Bisnow’s Digital Strategies breakfast, where half the attendees were busy tweeting on their smartphones! One of the recommendations from the breakfast was that a White Paper could be turned into 3-months of tweets. My eyes began rolling.

Twitter has become one of the fastest ways to receive up-to-date information and one of the biggest regurgitaters of information. Many “Tweeters” link to interesting articles, retweet others thoughts, or are blogging/tweeting so fast that the focus becomes quantity instead of quality. In essence, they do not have a strategy behind what they are doing; they are just reacting. As in any type of marketing or PR campaign, traditional or new, strategy is vital and should not be ignored.

I constantly advise clients that all social media tools are not right for everyone. Not everyone needs a facebook, twitter, blog, linkedin, youtube, etc they should think about what the purpose is first, where their audience is looking online, and of course create a strategy. This great article sums up my sentiments http://www.whatsnextblog.com/archives/2010/09/top_10_reasons_your_company_shouldnt_blog_redux.asp

Strategy. Strategy. Strategy. It is the biggest thing missing in online marketing today. Before you start tweeting 20 tweets a day, decide what your purpose is and go from there! Remember this social media is one more way to communicate with your audience.

People throw this term around a lot and as someone who does social media as part of her job I decided to further explore the definition. When I started my search, I immediately found a great blog post from 2008 “What I Want a Social Media Expert to Know.” I was pleased to to know that I could quickly check off everything on his list, but I wanted to delve deeper into the definition on my own.

As someone with a marketing background, I apply traditional marketing to anything I do on the web. From understanding your audience, to knowing what will be value added content; there is more to social media than just knowing how to set up a blog, SEO, or knowing all the names of the most popular social networking sites.

One under-recognized area is the building of relationships both on and off line. One of the quickest ways to get recognized and bring traffic to your site is by conversing with others. I like to think of Malcolm Gladwell who discusses how influencers, mavens, and connectors can move ideas. One of the keys to success in online marketing is connecting with the influencers in your industry. As I am writing this, I typed into Google “gladwell influencers” and one of the first links was Increasing Social Media ROI Using Gladwell’s Tipping Point Framework

Apparently, I am not the first to think of this idea. This is a great slideshow that shows how to bring Gladwell’s ideas into your social media strategy.

Since I can and do this, I will call myself a social media connector/maven for now.

I have asked others in the interactive world, how did you prepare for this career? The answer I receive usually is “I wing it as I go – reading blogs and twitter.”  I don’t know of any degree you can receive in interactive marketing or training course that would help propel one forward. So how does one become an interactive guru? Practice.

Like most, I stumbled on to the online arena by accident out of necessity for an organization I worked for about 6 years ago. This relatively new discipline relies on traditional marketing methods – strategy, targeting, branding, metrics, messaging, etc. but has twists and turns that are hard for even the most savvy to keep up with because it is constantly changing. An example, up until recently one had to go on to each of their social networking sites to make updates – now there are a plethora of online applications that make this easier and also allow you to track what your digital footprint’s impact is on your company, brand, or product. For many this is a marketer’s dream come true; for others its another intimidating technology or application to tackle and learn. This is where the almighty powerful interactive guru comes in.

I keep having the same conversation with people – social media should not just be about tactics, its about strategy and knowing the discipline. Many believe that anyone in their office can just start an online conversation, but really it takes experience and know-how to navigate the ever-changing world of the internet. Also, knowing what to say and how to say it is pretty important too.