April 27th, 2010
by foreignwebmarketingcorrespondent
You’ve heard of social media and you’ve probably also heard it’s the next big thing to support effective and healthy web marketing. Okay, so you’ve got a website and you may have your personal Twitter account and you may even have a blog. This is all a good start, but the tools are only a start, you need to keep up: make sure your social media is a winning combination and constantly keep an eye out for the newest social media strategies out there that will put you on top in your industry!
Think of your website as this little gem from the past. Would you want to be seen in tomorrow’s team meeting using this (hey it even comes with a wrist strap)? You wouldn’t, unless you want to treat everyone to a few morning laughs. You really want a Blackberry or an iPhone – a smart phone that works for you. Similarly, you also don’t want to solely rely on your website – you want a smart website that links with social media and offers your business healthy web marketing! Of the numerous social apps out there (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, YouTube and the list goes on and on), which ones should you use? All of them? Are they all NECESSARY for your healthy web marketing?
Web Marketing Therapy’s own guru Lorrie Thomas was recently quoted in the savvy article ‘Social Media Mash Up’, by Brittany Glen. Brittany’s brilliant article discusses useful social media tools and a few tips from industry experts on how you can make social media work for you! Lorrie explains, “Social media is driving search visibility…But companies must think service before sales to win with Web 2.0 tools. Social media marketing is all about building relationships.” So add a dab of social media to your website and see how easier it is to connect with your customers and partners while expanding your audience. Mike Freestone, owner of Holland, AIA/Freestone Design finds it much easier to communicate with his clients by using Twitter and keeping a blog. “Social media has put me in contact with clients I would have never reached otherwise.” Here’s what social media you can throw in your tool box (combined with your website):
- Company Blog – Offering personal or professional insights will “…increase your company’s visibility by taking internal expertise and publishing it on a blog to become an authority,” in the wise words of Lorrie. Posting your expertise will attract new visitors to your site, as well as build a loyal following and thus increase your SEO – search engine optimization (web traffic to your site through search engines like Google).
- Facebook fan page (for your company, not you!) – Share your business with Facebook users by including a company profile, contact details, link to your site, photos, news and videos. However, make sure you’d have a ‘fan following’. If Facebook users are not in your demographic, then snazzing up your page becomes a hobby rather than healthy marketing!
- Google’s Buzz – Link your updates with your Google inbox and contacts! Experts like Nick Dumitru, president of search engine marketing firm Think Basis, Inc. projects this will be very popular very soon!
- Google Alerts – get regular email updates on your company and how it’s faring on the world wide web
- And don’t forget the good old Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Flickr
With so many potential eggs to be dropped into your web basket, WHICH ones will work for you? Sure you could throw all of them into the mix, but there’s no point if they won’t make your online presence shine! Keith Vincent, director of marketing at
PPAI explains the significance in choosing the right social media, “The important thing for us [PPAI] was to choose social media opportunities that offer the most value and that matched up best with our strategic initiatives. Equally important was to be sure we could manage our presence in each area. You can invest a lot of time in many different initiatives and really get nowhere.” In choosing your social media, consider this: while it’s FREE advertising, it takes TIME to post a blog, maintain your Facebook fan page, keep up with tweets and upload digital photos on Flickr. Which ones have the greatest impact for marketing your business? Decide how much TIME should be invested in social media on a daily basis and remember Lorrie’s advice: recycle your blog posts into a short tweet and post that same article on Facebook and on article-marketing sites. To read the full article visit
Eight Legged Media (starts on page 17!)
Categories: Blog
Tags: Ask the Marketing Therapist, blogging, brittany glen, facebook, google alerts, Lorrie Thomas, Social Media, social media marketing, social media mash up, social media mashup, twitter
Tweets that mention Web Marketing Therapy » Blog Archive » Should You Use Social Media as Part of Your Marketing Toolbox? -- Topsy.com
(April 27th, 2010 at 6:08 am)
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Lorrie Thomas, Emilia Doerr, Nicki Gauthier, Wei Wang, Pamela Sherman and others. Pamela Sherman said: Should You Use Social Media as Part of Your Marketing Toolbox?: You’ve heard of social media and you’ve probably a… http://bit.ly/akiS7I [...]
Patrick Long
(April 29th, 2010 at 6:51 am)
What I also enjoy about social platforms is they can be easily integrated with each other. And there are various automation tools that when used properly make it easy to update them with content that are useful to your target market. Marketing has become less boring with social media.