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Thomas Brunt -> RE: social medial optimization (6/25/2009 14:57:49)
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I have become fascinated with this topic, lately. I'm not qualified to tell you exactly what to do, but I can tell you some discoveries I have made through trial and error.
I have done a good bit with Twitter and Facebook recently.
I believe that if you're not actually using the social media platform as a true community member and benefiting from it in that way then it's very hard to understand how to use it for any kind of marketing.
Twitter
I made a web site specifically to try promotion on Twitter. Here's the site. http://riskfreeweb.com . I first tried targeting geographically by finding people to follow with Local Tweeps. That produced lots of temporary followers but no sales. Then I tried following people who had posted "need a new Website." I know it's spammy. I should have known better, but I just wanted to see how it worked. It didn't.
During this time I never really had any understanding of why someone would use Twitter. It seemed silly to me, but I knew it was popular. Then 1 day I decided that I could use Twitter to keep up with my news sources more efficiently than I could with Google Reader. That turned out to be a revelation. I can keep up with far more news sources with a Twitter account than I ever could with an RSS reader. I'm now completely addicted to Twitter. I don't follow everyone who follows me because I don't want to clutter my account with info that I don't need. I only post info that I think my followers can use. I don't have much of a following at this point, but it's only been a couple of weeks, and it is growing without me following tons of people in hopes or reciprocity.
Facebook
I started a FB account a few years ago to see what the big deal was. I was underwhelmed, and I never really used it. Months later, an old friend found me through Facebook. Then it happened again. Then I went looking for some old friends and found them. Then I was hooked. I decided to look into advertising on Facebook, and it looked interesting. I tested some things that didn't really work. I tried making some public profile pages, and they didn't really work. Then I started using some public profile walls to keep up to date and interact with some businesses. It was only then that I understood how public profile pages fit into the way people live. I started a new public profile last week, and I have over 70 fans as of today. Quite a few of them have registered for my webinars.
I think the first step is to become a real part of the community. I don't think you should even try to make money from it until it becomes part of you and you part of it.
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