Life, food, events, and community in Albuquerque, NM

Social Marketing Discussion / NM AMA

This Thursday, 4/30, I am leading a discussion at the NM American Marketing Association regarding social marketing as a cost-effective medium to utilize in tough times. Wanted to post some of the discussion topics in case fellow web geeks would like to chime in on the discussion -

Discussion topics
* When presenting social marketing to clients or peers, what push back reasons do they provide for not wanting to test a campaign? How have you overcome push back?

* What has your experience been with measuring success of social marketing campaigns?

* What tracking technologies or platforms have you found most beneficial to use in social marketing campaigns?

* For consultants / marketers, do you find social marketing can be sold independently to a client OR does it need to be bundled with other efforts?

* In your opinion, what are common mistakes social marketers make? What are best practices we should be aware of?

* What type of corporate policies should companies have in regards to social marketing?

* In your experience, what are three things any peer or client should be testing in social marketing? Are there social marketing mediums that you think are not worth peers’ time?

Tags: ama, marketing, social

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Eric Renz-Whitmore on April 28, 2009 at 3:34pm: Damn, Very sorry to miss this event!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Rep Ayre on April 28, 2009 at 10:27pm: Jen,

Sounds like an ambitious project. Tried answering the questions and found that there are holes in my understanding. I believe others would also find this to be true.

In regard to tracking technologies, I recently read: http://www.scoutlabs.com/ . This might be of interest to you.

I also saw some info on corporate policies. It, too, is worth checking on:

There seems to be a lot of issues with copyrights, contract law, and portability of data ID. Additionally, I've read that it can be difficult when an employee takes on the personality of his company as an active participant of Twitter. I don't see how social web marketing can be bundled. Seems like a lot of work in relationship to the return.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by JeSais on April 29, 2009 at 7:57am: * In your opinion, what are common mistakes social marketers make? What are best practices we should be aware of?

One of the most common mistakes I see -- not creating a Plan... you can't just drop in on a network, post something about your business and expect the orders to come rolling in. You have to participate on a regular basis, and be a part of the community. Set up a schedule to peruse certain social networking sites and make an effort to comment and participate in the discourse.

I've found that companies that overtly sell in social networking arenas (and not by buying ads) quickly get a bad reputation.... so ALWAYS be honest about who you are. I participate in a lot of social networking sites for my industry and find that even if someone does complain, many many others will jump to my defense because I've always had my name and company on the bottom of my signature, and usually just answer questions-- often pointing potential customers to information on a website that is not owned by our company (but say, a magazine article or a trade association). IF someone asks a specific question as to where to buy or price I may post a link to our product, but more likely will just answer the question and say something like "your local supplier should have that and it generally sells for $$. Give us a call if you have any trouble, we have them in stock and can get them to you in a day or two."

My last tip is that social networking is a great place to listen... to simply find out what your competitors are doing, and what your potential customers are looking for.

Measuring success... yeah. I've been having trouble in that arena. We use google analytics but are having problems implementing it fully and I've asked our Web Guy to take a look at other options... so for now all I can tell you is where my traffic comes from.
The presentation sounds great... wish I could attend!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Reid Givens on April 29, 2009 at 11:16am: I'll try to put some more thought into this later, but until then:

http://technorati.com/search/%22social+media+marketing+best+practic...

http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/04/social-media-marketing-tips/; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jen Marshall on April 30, 2009 at 9:05pm: Thanks for all the thoughtful feedback.Hopefully some of the attendees from today's session will continue the conversation on here as well.

Referenced this article in the session today: Blogger Relations Lessons from Mommy Bloggers; ‘Welcome’ to Camp Baby

I'm also curious to hear feedback on recommendations on technologies that help automate responses and interaction in social marketing mediums. Interesting blog post on company that claims to be the up-and-coming "it" marketing automation solution.

Also, I love this list of major brands and what they are doing from a social marketing perspective. There are some great examples in here. Who would have thought the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile would have a killer blog and web site?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jane Pelz on May 1, 2009 at 10:10am: I am very interested in the results that people are getting, the implications for their reputations and in the corporate policies that should be established regarding social networking sites.

I haven't done much networking professionally but I am on several sites for my freelance content business and personal life. I hope we can continue this discussion over time because Jennifer's presentation at the NMAMA was very good and this medium bears careful watching as we move rapidly into the future.
Jane Pelz
www.janepelz.com; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Rep Ayre on May 3, 2009 at 11:23pm: Jen et. al:

Saw this Web Trend Map which shows some insights in the social web using the Tokyo Subway map. Thought it might be helpful with evaluation of Social Networking websites.; ▶ Reply to This