7/9/2012
Does your company practice social media marketing, or do you use social networks for marketing? There is a difference. The first – social media marketing – requires a strategy specific to social channels, and content tailored to those platforms. The second – marketing on social networks – is simply distributing traditional marketing messages through social media. Social media marketing works. Marketing on social networks doesn’t. What’s the difference?
One (social media marketing) is a true two-way conversation between a company and its customers, prospective customers, and the world at large. The other is a way to push out company offerings to anyone who can hear them. This includes tactics like feeding miscellaneous news to a Twitter stream, posting special deals on Qwiqq and Groupon, and sending direct messages and emails asking people to follow the brand.
While there are times and specific niche markets where some of these tactics – particularly hyperlocal promotions like those on Qwiqq or Groupon – work, simply pushing a traditional marketing or sales message out through a new channel is still one-way communication. Here are five rules of thumb that can help you develop a social marketing plan that will work for you and your business.