Social Marketing




Social Marketing

Social Marketing is a low cost and effective way to market your organization, business or yourself. There are many different ways to use the internet and social marketing to promote your business and organization. The following is one way.

First create your Blog. For blogging I prefer blogger.com, but there are numerous free and low cost services. You can get up and blogging in a few minutes, although it will take some time to learn the tricks.



Then write the Entry on a Blog - My Examples

Start slow and easy - the blog below a simple one entry blog.

http://socialmarketing201.blogspot.com/


You try to make your blog interesting to your intended reader. You can just have entries originated by you, but it will probably be more interesting if you add content from other similar web sites. It takes a little time to figure how to do it, but essentially you are linking other similar web sites, blogs, twitter, facebook, linkedin and other sites to your blog. As they write new content it appears on your site. My example below:


You can write many blogs if you wish. You may wish to have one that is just your resume or or brochure that does not change very often.  My example is:




The address of the blog is a little long. You can purchase a .com address to make the address easier to remember, and have it automatically forward to your blog. My example below:




After you have your blog up and running you will want to join other social networks which will compliment your blog. There are many different social networks. These are the ones I use.








Use the same or very similar name for all the systems. If you are marketing a company or yourself, use the name of the company or your name.


After you have your pages running, write a short blast on Twitter, Facebook, 
and Linkedin, directing people to the blog. Update them each time you write a new entry.


You will want to reach out and find others in your group and link with them. You want to let them know what you are doing without becoming obnoxious about it.

Use the blog as the main focus - Put information on the blog that your target audience will find interesting.  I use the other services to point people to the blog.

My Examples - And I am older then dirt. 
If I can do it  - you can. 
So simple even a cave man can do it.


http://craighullinger.com


http://cityplanningnews.com



http://www.facebook.com/craighullinger

Pictures are worth a 1,000 words. If you are marketing yourself, a photo of yourself can be used.  If you look like me, a distant fuzzy shot is best. I am a city planner, hence the map.


You can also use direct email to your contacts.  I usually just send a link to my blog to my contacts so if they are interested they can go to the blog, or if not, just delete the email.  You should send the email to anundisclosed@list.com with the actual addresses to a bcc address - that way spammers won't pick up the addresses and harass your email contacts.




It is your choice whether you use a simple email format or one with an attractive photo or letterhead - the attractive letter head looks nice but takes longer to open and will not work on everyone's computer.

Social marketing is evolving rapidly, but you can get underway quickly with no cost and a little effort. It takes a reasonably computer savvy person a couple of hours to get all this up and running, and then some time to develop a little skill. 
I will be glad to help you get going if you need help. Have fun.



309 634 5557

No comments:

Post a Comment

Free E-book "Readings in Urban Planning and Design"

Readings in Urban Planning and Design This manuscript expands upon, and compliments, chapters in the book “Planning Connections – Human, Nat...