General - Friday, January 30, 2009 16:40 - 0 Comments

Getting a Toe in the Water!

I never was able to just dive into a pool. I was always more comfortable going down the steps at the shallow end and getting use to the water first. In getting involved with social media, I believe that is sound advice. Social media marketing can take many forms:

• Blogs (like this one)
• Micro Blogs (Twitter)
• Forums and message boards
• Social Networks (Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn)
• Photo and Video sharing (YouTube, Flickr)
• Social book marking (StumbleUpon, Digg)
• Opinion and review sites (TripAdvisor, Rotten Tomatoes)
• Branded Communities (Netflix)

With all these choices how can you be sure what’s right for your business? First, do a little research. Talk to your customers; ask them how they use the Internet. Then check out a few of the sites listed in this post. Basically, the equivalent of getting a toe in the water with social media marketing really involves just listening.

Right now, the world is out there talking, posting, photographing and reviewing your brand, business or your industry. Once you start listening, the path to how you should participate in this new medium will become much clearer.

Ok, here comes the shameless plug…if even listening seems like too big of a task, we have the technology to help you. Just drop me an email and I can help you with Social Media Monitoring. This is a new service we offer that compiles nearly every public conversation on the web, based on a specified list of keywords. We condense all this information in to relevant reports and offer recommendations on what to do with the data.