by: Matt Rhodes
I spoke about sharing some of our thoughts on how to go online as a set of lessons. We’re going to be feeding one or two lessons a week for the next couple of months as part of this, this first is below. We start by looking at how you should be communicating online – what’s good and what’s bad.
The Kaiser Edition has posted some interesting thoughts on the social media epidemic that seems to be infiltrating every aspect of marketing at the moment.
The approach mirrors to some extent what we have been talking about here. If you want to ‘do’ online properly and ‘do’ social media properly then you need to be honest online. There is too often the temptation to try to control everything online as part of a consistent and traditional marketing message. This is a false construct – it tries to take old methods online and just put them online rather than taking advantage of the new things that you can do online.
Stop thinking “putting old methods of marketing online”; start thinking “new methods of marketing”
This can be scary but really it shouldn’t be. It’s easy. Social media provides a way for you to get up close and personal with people online in a way you never could before. Think how you would talk to somebody at a networking event or if you met them in a pub or cafe. That’s more like how you should be speaking online. Be open and honest and they will be the same back to you.
Don’t write as though you’re marketing. Write as though you’re speaking to somebody you know
This can take practice. The best I know is to sign up for twitter, you have 140 characters to convey a message. Just the practice of doing this is useful – even if you don’t have anybody to follow. Of course, you should feel free to follow me of course (Matt’s twitter account).
We’ll be back next time with a look at what social media tools are out there and what each is most useful for.
Original Post: blog.freshnetworks.com/index.php/2008/04/15/social-media-beginners-lesson-1-the-conspiracy/
