These are all good questions to ask as we face the new media marketing trend. The tools of marketing have expanded and for many businesses, this new media is an unknown territory that complicates the marketing mix.

Whether your business sells to consumers (B2C) or to businesses (B2B), new media marketing will have a profound effect on your marketing plan in the future. You need to prepare to join the conversation, listen to your customers, and build a long term relationship with them that helps your business succeed.

Social Media Tools

The new social media tools enable users to publish content easily, building a brand not only for their businesses, but in many cases for themselves. The following are the tools that you need to be aware of and work into your marketing mix over time. There are others, but we’ll focus on the basics first.

• Blogs – A blog is a web site using technology that makes it easy for anyone to post information to the web. The blog itself is a frequent post of information about a particular topic welcoming comments and discussion. If you don’t have a web site yet or are considering an update, consider moving to blogging software as the foundation. It makes updating content easy and you can add the blog to your site when you are ready to do so.
• Podcasts – A podcast is an audio file that automatically gets delivered to your computer and can be transferred to your portable MP3 player so you can listen to it wherever you are. If you are familiar with RSS, simply think of podcasting as RSS for audio. (If you need more on RSS, read my last article on The Benefits of Using RSS.) You do NOT need an iPod to listen to a podcast.
• Social networks – A social network is a community of people who share interests and activities. Social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn, provide an online place where a user can create a profile and build a personal network that connects him or her to other users.

Why are they called Social Media?

Internet technologies we have been using have enabled us to push our marketing messages out into the marketplace. Web sites spoke to your audience, explaining what you have to offer. Getting qualified prospects to your Web site was a matter of creating a compelling offer and using direct marketing, search engine marketing, Internet advertising and other marketing activities to direct their attention to your landing pages.

Social media marketing enables you to build relationships with your prospects, enabling them to voice their ideas and opinions with you. In order to make this type of marketing work for you, you need to develop a safe environment that invites people to speak with you. You need to join the conversation and build your brand through your words and actions.

Where Do I Start?

Businesses interested in employing social media tactics as part of their marketing plan should begin now to research how these are being used and how to get started. There is a culture and etiquette associated with the use of new media that you should understand before diving in. If you are a small business that sells services, a blog may just be the thing you need to boost your credibility and attract new clients. If you have a lot to say and want to make it easy for folks to listen to your opinions and information, then consider creating a podcast of your information. Social media marketing may seem like it is just one more thing to add complexity to the already complex marketing world, but diving in and learning how to take advantage of these as marketing tools will pay off in the long run. Don’t get overwhelmed – pick one area and learn it.

For example, start with learning how blogs work by visiting a number of them that cover a topic you are interested in. To find blogs, you can go to the Google Blog Search and type in the topic you are interested in. Read a few, subscribe to some with RSS, and watch, listen and learn. Create your blog and start posting regularly. Then start adding comments
to some of the posts you read with useful information on topic, sharing your knowledge and opinion with others while getting links back to your blog. Like all marketing activities, getting your blog visible to the search engines will take time, but adding fresh content and getting links back to your blog will help it rise in the search engine rankings so people will be able to find you.

Join the Conversation

Whether a business targets consumers or other businesses, social media marketing is going to have an impact on the marketing activities very soon. Learning what is available to you, determining whether your market can be effectively reached through social media and tying it in with your traditional marketing activities will benefit your business in the long term. Using these tools to market your business is more than worth investment.

As a B2B marketing person, you might think this list is overwhelming. However, in my view this is a wonderful list of potential tactics that you might employ depending on the goals you plan to achieve this year.

If you are new to Web marketing or have only dabbled in some search engine marketing, email campaigns or Internet advertising, this is a great list to get you thinking about other ways to get your message out or better, let your constituents get your message out for you.

If you are a veteran Web marketer, this is a great checklist to help you stimulate news ideas for your marketing plan.

In all cases, develop the plan, research the opportunities and execute effectively. Web marketing is no different from traditional forms in this respect.

Whether or not those statistics are true, it opened my eyes to the fact that there are many small business owners unaware of these new marketing tools. Some basic education on what these tools are and how they can use it for their business would be a valuable resource. Therefore, I have written the first in a series of articles called Social Media Marketing Basics.

As the title indicates, it is very basic information for those not exposed to this new media as many of us have been. Future articles will dive deeper into the various topics, describing how they can be used to market their businesses. Feel free to read and comment back here on your thoughts and suggestions for the next in the series.

Why is this important?

Professional services businesses sell expertise. You can’t touch the product or get a 30-day trial like you can with a physical (or software) product. A good way to prove that you have the expertise a prospect is looking for is to give some of that knowledge away that intrigues your audience and makes them want more. You can accomplish this by writing articles or tips that would interest your target audience.

When I started my Vista Viewpoint newsletter five years ago, I included an article and a tip of the month. Today, email newsletters are the medium to use when you want to nurture those who have requested your information (that is opted into your mailing list), but a blog with useful tips, articles and information for your target prospect will reach a far wider audience if marketed appropriately. People searching for information will find your blog or podcast and can anonymously subscribe through RSS. Those that find you, are interested in what you have to say and regularly read your information are more likely to call you if they need your services.

People normally choose to do business with those they trust and somehow get to know in some way. Building trust is something your blog or podcast can help you do. So if you are considering one of these newer mediums as marketing tools for your business, don’t shy away from them. However, put a plan in place that describes your frequency, focus and tactics to publicize them, and join the conversation on the Web. It will take time but will pay off in the long run.

I use this concept as the basis for a presentation on developing an integrated marketing plan that I offer to small business owners (a topic that easily can run from 30 minutes to 3 hours).

As I was updating my slides for the marketing workshop that I gave today, I wanted to include social media (new media) marketing as part of the marketing mix. My perception prior to thinking this through for the workshop was to include social media marketing under Internet marketing along with search engine marketing, PPC advertising, SEO and other Internet related activities.

However, as I organized my thoughts, I started categorizing the marketing mix into the following areas based on their primary marketing objective:

• Generating leads
• Increasing visibility
• Developing credibility
• Building relationships

By looking at the tactics through this lens, my “ah ha” moment was when I realized that Internet marketing fell into the “generating leads” category because it was a direct marketing activity that drove your prospect to do something (visit the site, sign up for the free offer, etc.) while social media marketing fell into the “developing credibility” and “building relationships” categories.

For completeness, here are all the activities by category:

• Generating leads – direct marketing, Internet marketing, events (tradeshows)
• Increasing visibility – events, public relations, advertising
• Developing credibility – events, public relations, new media marketing
• Building relationships – word of mouth, strategic alliances, new media marketing

The beauty of this classification is that it helps business owners understand what tactics they may wish to use depending on their marketing goals. If this helps you, let me know. If you have a different classification for all the marketing tactics out there, let me know that too.

My colleague in Vista Consulting, Bob Rentsch, is on the Board of the Greater Worcester Habitat for Humanity and is running an auction to raise funds to help them achieve their mission to “build simple, decent, affordable homes to give low-income families in Central Massachusetts the opportunity for homeownership”.

Last week he found out that his online auction website was one of two dozen that is eligible for a donation from the company that makes the auction software. They will award a $2000 donation to the auction website that gets the most votes in an on-line poll.

Bob’s challenge – to get the word out about how to vote. “Friends and family” emails work, a posting on the website is good too, but Bob was searching for a way to get the message out to supporters. This is the perfect time to use social media marketing to communicate the message in a timely basis and engage the audience to help build momentum.

If you want to help a good cause, help get the word out as well. Plug the contest and send them to the auction web site link to vote for the Greater Worcester Habitat for Humanity. Some family in Central Massachusetts will be forever grateful.

I heard that statement in the context of people’s behaviors in meetings. Having observed many blog posts and their associated comments, I have to say that this statement holds true in the blogosphere as well. Some people have brilliant insight into a topic and their comments to a post are clear and interesting. There are others that seem to comment just because their feel the “have to” or to get the link back to their site.

Engaging people in conversation is a back and forth exercise of comments, commentary and opinion. In person it is stimulating. Via a blog it should be the same. In an in-person conversation, there will be those that listen and not contribute for many reasons. In the blogosphere, the same holds true.

I have not started leaving comments on other blogs yet (although I was tempted to at Matt Cutts blog post on his cat Ozzie). I will in time, but I’m watching, listening and learning the culture of blogs. I’m sure some post will compel me to leave a comment, but for now I just enjoy absorbing all the knowledge of people who want to share it.

Joining the conversation and sharing your knowledge is important, but it is also just as important to listen. By listening to what is being said, you will learn a lot about your customers, prospects and partners. They will appreciate having your ear for a while. Give it to them and then do something that delights them.

What do you think? Should you comment just to comment? Or do you listen, learn and comment when appropriate?

The topic of print verses online publishing is something that many marketing folks are pondering at the moment when it comes to spending their advertising dollars. For many of my technology clients, print advertising is not a factor. Most have embraced online advertising in some form and if we do a print ad, it is usually for a conference guide or some very targeted publication.

What is happening in the media industry for high technology is just the beginning. A post by Tony Hung, Print Publishing’s Death Knell?, points out some interesting facts about IDG Publishing’s revenue mix between online and print. IDG is a media company focusing on the IT industry. According to Colin Crawford’s post, The transformation of IDG, the absolute dollar growth of IDG’s online revenues now exceeds the decline in their print revenues. This change in their revenue mix and higher margins from the online businesses have resulted in them being more profitable than before. So it is no surprise that InfoWorld (an IDG publication) announced that it would be discontinuing its print publication in order to focus its efforts online. According to another post by Colin, since print is no longer the major product line at InfoWorld, closure of the 27 year print publication is a natural step in a plan that was put into place 2 years ago.

The future of print in the technology industry is transitioning. Other print publications already have disappeared or have been repurposed into online publications. More will follow suit. And truthfully, in an industry where change happens so quickly, I would prefer to get all of my information online.

But is this the case in all industries? If print advertising is part of your marketing strategy, it may be a good time to do an analysis of your industry and target market to determine whether a shift from print to online is happening and how you can distribute your advertising efforts to take advantage of this trend.

Along came the Internet which has given marketers an additional medium in which to communicate their messages to their target audience. And although it took a while for companies to incorporate Internet marketing within their corporate marketing functions, the Internet is now an integrated part of their overall marketing plan.

So if you have Internet marketing activities in your marketing plan, does that mean you are implementing social media marketing?

Many corporate marketers would like to think so, but there is a fundamental difference between Internet marketing, using the Internet as a means to communicate your message to your target audience, and social media marketing.

Social media makes marketing a multidimensional exercise. It is no longer about pushing your message out to your audience. Social media marketing takes the same Internet technologies and adds interaction with your audience. It’s having your constituents spread your messages for you rather than you talk deafly to some cloud of people who may or may not care about what you have to offer. In some ways it really isn’t much different from word of mouth marketing where your happy clients, colleagues and partners say good things about you and provide you referral business. The difference is the speed with which your message is carried via the social network.

And it’s because of that speed that many corporate marketers are frightened of it. The key is to embrace it and use it because your company is being talked about in social networks and there is nothing you can do to stop it. By participating in the social networking world, letting your customers speak directly to you, and listening to what they have to say, you are more likely to win the hearts and minds of the masses than you will if you hide behind the corporate veneer.

How do you turn your Internet marketing activities into social media marketing?

I am an extremely strong proponent for Internet marketing. It has worked for my business and my clients’ businesses and now we are extending that Internet presence by adding on social media marketing. Every business, small or large, needs to open the communications channels with their audience. Look for opportunities to get feedback on your company, good or bad, and respond. For small businesses, start a blog. It doesn’t matter whether you market B2B or B2C, a blog provides benefits you normally will not get from Internet marketing alone.

In 7 reasons why small businesses should blog, Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba, authors of Citizen Marketers, provide reasons and advice on why you should blog.

Adding social media marketing to your marketing mix is not a difficult project. It does need to be planned so that your social media marketing activities stay on brand with all of your marketing activities. And depending on your company, you may need to evaluate the effect social media marketing has on the culture of your business. But there are ways of evolving your company to take advantage of this new and exciting marketing area. It’s really not that scary afterall.

I found all of them interesting because of the broad range of topics covered within the social media arena. My podcasts that stood out for me are the interviews with:

• Guy Kawasaki – author of 8 books, venture capitalist and former Apple marketing executive. Guy focuses on what is important about social media.
• Scott Wilder – group manager of the small business division for Intuit. This podcast had insight into how to make social media tools work for a large corporation.
• Jennifer McClure – executive director of the Society for New Communications Research. Jennifer discusses the company culture requirements for successfully using social media within the company.
• Jeremiah Owyang – director of corporate media strategy for PodTech. Jeremiah discusses how to implement a corporate social media strategy.
• Regis Mckenna – renowned marketer. Regis discusses why social media is a natural outcome of the evolution of the technology behind it and why corporations should adopt social media.
• Dave Sifry – CEO of Technorati. Because Technorati tracks 67 million blogs in total, and 1.5 million blog posts a day, how it has changed the landscape of marketing.

You can subscribe to this podcast via iTunes or go directly to PodTech to subscribe.