Social Media Marketing

We have a lot of clients asking us about using Social Media to market their products or business. They want to know how to make it work for them, and with good reason; over 3 million people a day login to Facebook alone.

The first thing you need to understand about social media is that it is a tool. Just like a television commercial, a newspaper ad or a flyer that you hang up. To use social media marketing to its fullest potential, you first need a great idea and then you need to use the proper tools to get your message out there. Let’s look at some social media marketing ideas that have hit the mark using this new medium to its fullest potential.

The Pepsi Refresh Project

This is a classic example of a brilliant marketing idea that uses social media as a tool to run the campaign. Pepsi chose to use a charitable giving campaign that would let the world decide where the money would go. Anybody could submit an idea that would have a positive impact on their community. Once ideas were accepted, people would vote on the ideas. There would be 4 levels of winners, in 6 different categories, and people could vote up to 10 times a day. Why was this so smart? Users would vote using Facebook, and of course every time they voted, a post would go up on the users’ wall, so all their friends would also see it. This is the epitome of viral marketing.

The Old Spice Guy

This is one of the most popular social media campaigns to have hit the net. Old Spice hired former NFL football player Isaiah Mustafa to star in a series of You Tube commercials that responded to questions from Twitter followers and Facebook fans, live. The response translated into over 30 million views on You Tube, 120,000 Twitter followers, 675,000 Facebook fans, and sky rocketing sales for Old Spice. Why was the campaign so smart? They chose the perfect guy to talk to the Old Spice audience in a frank way that made viewers laugh, and cry. They used social media as the perfect medium to get the messages out and gave users the ability to make it viral.

These are just two well known examples of using social media as a community forming, interactive platform to get a message out. There are plenty of businesses, both big and small, promoting themselves on Facebook, participating in Groupon offers, or giving their Foursquare Mayors freebies. (If the terms above make your head spin, contact us. We can help you.) They are using social media in a way that best fits their business. It’s something we recommend to all our clients that are interested in expanding their online presence.

In most cases today, using the web’s interactivity, community-building capacity, and the ability to specialize local offers, is smart. However, it’s important to understand the media and how it works. Understand the benefits and draw backs, and remember that your social media marketing is first and foremost, marketing. You need a great idea that will hit a chord with your target audience. There are more and more options everyday for social media outlets, depending on your business, goals and budget. Choose wisely.