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9 Ways Social Media Can Expand Your Online Marketing

Written by: Daryl James

Article Overview: When every news report warns of global doom and gloom, the business owner’s first instinct is to cut all extraneous costs. You run your production team lean, run your sales force lean, and everything else goes into the deep freeze. Too many people see marketing as something irrelevant, as vague feel-good fluff that neither makes the product nor closes the sale. That’s crazy talk. We’ve come up with ideas for marketing yourself through the latest social media and the old-fashioned general Internet...

9 Ways Social Media Can Expand Your Online Marketing

When every news report warns of global doom and gloom, the business owner’s first instinct is to cut all extraneous costs. You run your production team lean, run your sales force lean, and everything else goes into the deep freeze. Too many people see marketing as something irrelevant, as vague feel-good fluff that neither makes the product nor closes the sale. That’s crazy talk.

When the sales pipeline is running dry, or at least no longer gushing, it’s marketing that fills that pipeline, and even in lean times, targeted efforts can keep your name out in the marketplace and create a conversation (and hey, maybe even hype). This shows you’re a thriving player, not one of many recessionary casualties, and prepares potential customers for the closing move your sales team will execute.We’ve come up with ideas for marketing yourself through the latest social media and the old-fashioned general Internet:

Social Media Optimization:

1. Are you on Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter and other social media sites? If not (or if so, and you’re overwhelmed with all of it), you may want a Social Media Optimization (SMO) expert to put your message into the newest and fastest-growing Internet arena. Have her create a Facebook or LinkedIn group for your company and invite your users; every one of their friends will see that they are related to your company and there is just nothing better than that for word-of-mouth.
2. Keep that SMO expert onboard to troll conversation on Twitter about your company and your industry, so she can send responses and begin threads. Use Google Alerts to be notified when terms relevant to your business are mentioned.
3. Other social media your expert can monitor: Forum and blog commenting, LinkedIn and Yahoo Answers, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and GetSatisfaction.
4. Launch video tutorials for your website. In addition post them to YouTube. Hire a personable, well-spoken provider to help you convert your script to a professional-looking online video using tools like Camtasia or Snapz.
5. Get a blogger to maintain a company blog and to reach out to other blogs to keep your message in the conversation.
6. Do you have a community forum on your website? When users post questions, are they getting an answer? Bring in a moderator for your community forum to make sure that when users take the time to post a comment, they get a response that will encourage them to come back.
7. Hire a writer to create articles relevant to your industry and syndicate them to Squidoo, Business.com and EzineArticles.com.
8. Get a writer with exceptional PowerPoint skills to prepare a presentation that is highly relevant to your industry, and post it on SlideShare.com.
9. Recruit an analyst to prepare a few charts and data about your company and business and post on swivel.com.

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Article Tags: business owner, crazy talk, deep freeze, doom and gloom, facebook, fluff, general internet, global doom, google, internet arena, lean times, linkedin, media optimization, news report, sales pipeline, twitter, video tutorials, word of mouth, yahoo answers, youtube



Related Forum Posts
Kevin's Case Study #11 - A New Forum Category? - Hi Everyone, 2009 is a new year and I'd like to create a new forum category to jazz things up! In the past, there's been some interest voiced about adding a "Social Media Marketing", "Online Marketing", "Internet Marketing" or "Online Promotion" category. I'll implement [u:1g2tv6tf]ONE[/u:1g2tv6tf] of those new categories, but can someone first tell me what the difference would be between the existing "Marketing" section and one of those new options mentioned above? Thanks
Re: Should Evan add a "Social Media Marketing" category to the f - Hi, Online Marketing would be a great title, and having sub categories would make it even better, there would plenty of categories to choose from, Social Media, SEO, Article Marketing and yes even Affiliate Marketing to name just a few, great looking site btw Jeff, take care, Carol
Re: Should Evan add a "Social Media Marketing" category to the f - Just as an update, Evan has extended the poll's expiration date and says he'd like to see at least 25 "yes" votes before implementing the new category. Moreover, it would probably be called "Online Marketing" instead of Social Media Marketing".
Re: Should Evan add a "Social Media Marketing" category to the f - [quote="BuzzAroundBooks":p78047w2]Just as an update, Evan has extended the poll's expiration date and says he'd like to see at least 25 "yes" votes before implementing the new category. Moreover, it would probably be called "Online Marketing" instead of Social Media Marketing".[/quote:p78047w2] Okay - I have a request -- can the title be changed to "Online Marketing"? The reason I'm asking is because people may not know what social media marketing is , while that would make me vote for it to learn more, but not every thinks like that. Also, online marketing could capture more attention when people spot in on the list. Shri
Re: Kevin needs "social glue" ideas - Hi, I like the idea of "10 items that could act as "social glue" because I am an internet marketer. But I agree with the rest that the 10 recent post is nice. Maybe we should open up a new section in the forums on Social Media...or Social Media Marketing. I will tell you that the world is about 1 1/2 behind when it comes to understanding social media. Building a section now will put EvanCarmichael.com is a great position a year down the road when people realize Social Media can produce more traffic than SEO. Jeff


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