I love Social Media. And if you’re here reading MY blog, you must too, because I’m not exactly at the top of them thar Google pages.
And, if you love social media, I’m willing to bet you’re on Facebook, Twitter, have posted some YouTube videos, occasionally save stuff to Delicious and maybe even write a blog of your own. In other words, you understand social media and how it has become an important way to connect with consumers.
But how do you make sense of social media to other people? How do you “sell” it as an important part of your marketing plan? I think it’s totally fair for people to ask the question, and it’s our job to prove its value. Here’s how I’m doing that:
- In the beginning, go rogue. It will take a little time to build a meaningful base of Twitter followers or Facebook fans, so do it on your own in your spare time. Once you have some impressive numbers, start to share the story.
- Connect the online conversation with real-life events. Use social media to promote events or promotions and show your internal audience how you increased traffic by using social media. A tweet-up is a great way to do this.
- Find and send out articles about brands using social media to grow sales. Duh, right? But the important part here is that you have to keep doing this. You’re not going to convince anyone right away.
- Conduct your own training. You might have to tailor your training to the type of person you’re talking to. The Common Craft videos are useful for a variety of audiences.
- Get people to dip their toe in the social media pool. Convince them to gign them up for various social networking platforms and see what sticks. One person may love Facebook, another might love Twitter. But if they’re not living it, they’re probably never going to get it.
