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.

Hey business owners: If you have had a “sales” conversation with another business and you have decided on another firm or different direction, use common sense and let that person know you are not going to hire them. Trust me, it’s not like we can’t handle rejection! We are in business for ourselves, right? We really don’t feel all that bad about it as that’s part of business. And by telling us we didn’t get the business, it helps us make decisions about taking on other clients. But not saying anything, not even an email to let us know, is basically a rude business practice that makes me question whether I really want to do business with you.

In business today, the world is small. It doesn’t take much to tarnish your brand. Your brand identity is built through all your interactions in business, including your marketing materials, how you answer the phones, to how your service and support organizations treat your clients. So when you deal with vendors, extend the courtesy to them that you would your clients, business partners and other people associated with your business. I know people don’t like delivering negative messages, but if you treat your vendors this way, do you treat your customers any differently?