Social media marketing is more than just a buzzword. It’s a way of life and a means of survival in today’s Internet lifestyle. Whereas the Internet of the past was more about “me, myself, and I,” the past few years have brought about substantial change: our online interactions are now more social. Our product purchases are often driven by user reviews. We enjoy reading interesting stories shared with us by our friends and colleagues. We have seen the rise of online communities where individuals with similar backgrounds or interests can connect to one another.
Regardless of whether you’ve done traditional marketing online or absolutely none at all, diving into this unfamiliar territory is not that much of a challenge. To understand the basics of “social media marketing,” let’s break down the terminology. The idea behind social media marketing is to leverage the “social” through its “media” (communication and tools) to “market” to your constituents.
The big idea behind social media marketing that you are focusing on is communication. Fortunately, communities exist that already have active participants—those passionate about a specific subject—and better yet, there are numerous tools that can help facilitate this kind of communication. If you’re a small-business owner or even a member of a corporate entity but are unfamiliar with this territory, there are many ways to dive in and become part of the conversation.
Conversation is a two-way dialogue. Unlike traditional marketing, social media marketers are required to start listening and talking to their constituents. This is possibly the biggest hurdle facing a social media marketing initiative. However, have you searched for your product or brand name today? What are people saying? Don’t you feel compelled to respond?
It’s about time that you began understanding the social media landscape. It’s about time that you began leveraging the networks where people are already conversing about you to respond favorably to their feedback or criticisms. It’s about time that you embarked on a social media marketing initiative.
Chapter 1, An Introduction to Social Media Marketing, introduces the concept of social media marketing and explains its role in today’s online marketing initiatives. This chapter also covers some of the primary tools used for a social media marketing campaign.
Chapter 2, Goal Setting in a Social Environment, discusses the challenges and hurdles faced in social media marketing and also explains the various ways to leverage social media marketing to achieve specific goals.
Chapter 3, Achieving Social Media Mastery: Networking and Implementing Strategy, outlines tools for monitoring online chatter and what you can do to appease your audience.
Chapter 4, Participation Is Marketing: Getting into the Game, explains how participation online is critical to success in social media marketing and presents case studies highlighting small and large businesses achieving success with this tactic. Chapter 4 also discusses another important part of social media marketing: reputation management.
Chapter 5, Using Blogs to Communicate, Influence, and Learn from Your Constituents, describes the growth of blogs and explains how to set up a blog from scratch and how to make it friendly for social media communities.
Chapter 6, Microblogging Magic: How Twitter Can Transform Your Business, illustrates microblogging service Twitter and explains how to use the service. It also features case studies of businesses that have successfully navigated the Twitter landscape for marketing gain.
Chapter 7, Getting Social: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Other Social Networks, discusses the primary three social networking sites and explains how you can use them appropriately for social media marketing gain.
Chapter 8, Informing Your Public: The Informational Social Networks, highlights knowledge exchange websites such as Wikipedia and Yahoo! Answers and offers insights into how you can use these networks to establish thought leadership and expertise.
Chapter 9, Leaving Your Mark: How to Rock the Social Bookmarking Space, presents the concept of social bookmarking sites and explains how to use these services.
Chapter 10, Social News Brings You Page Views, explains the benefits of content creation for social news sites and outlines the steps you can take to write great content for, and to become a successful contributor, to those sites.
Chapter 11, New Media Tactics: Photography, Video, and Podcasting, covers the services that allow you to promote your photographs and videos and explains how you can become a rockstar podcaster or videoblogger.
Chapter 12, Sealing the Deal: Putting It All Together, explains the best approach for a successful social media marketing strategy, especially once you’re armed with the information presented in the preceding chapters.
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When working on a book on social media, one must realize that the collective intelligence—the social—is of utmost importance for materializing this dream and bringing it to fruition. Without the help of several individuals, both for feedback and content, The New Community Rules would never have been possible.
With that said, there are a few individuals who must be thanked for their debate, their insights, and their ears while I spent the last few months writing what I hope to be an authoritative resource on social media strategy and the tools and communities to make that strategy a reality. In no particular order, I’d like to give thanks to these individuals: Jason Falls, blogger at Social Media Explorer (www.socialmediaexplorer.com), whose blog can supplement this reading as he has highlighted two case studies seen in this book; Jane Quigley, for insightful corporate strategy; Matthew Inman of 0at.org, who is an artist and a creative mind and is at the forefront of viral quiz and questionnaire technology; Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim (www.marketingpilgrim.com), for his expertise on reputation management and then some; Matt McGee of Small Business SEM (www.smallbusinesssem.com), for having great Flickr photos and providing wonderful insights into the content of this book; and Dave McClure, the same individual who wrote the foreword for this book, and one of the most amazing minds in this arena and whose background is not so far off from my own.
Special thanks to those who gave me some great insightful feedback during our interviews, both online and over the phone. These individuals include Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com; Nick Ayres, Interactive Marketing Manager of The Home Depot; Ed Nicholson, Director of Community and Public Relations at Tyson Foods; Rob Key, Constantin Basturea, and Paull Young of social media marketing and communications agency Converseon; Justin Levy, General Manager of Caminito Argentinean Steakhouse; Frank Eliason, Director of Digital Care at Comcast; Shashi Bellamkoda, Social Media Swami at Network Solutions; Morgan Johnston of JetBlue’s Corporate Communications team; Michelle Greer of SimpleSpeak Marketing; Sam Feferkorn, consultant for Oh! Nuts in New York; Regan Fletcher, Vice President of Business Development at Yoono; and Andrew Milligan, owner of Sumo Lounge.
Additionally, many thanks to my eyes and ears: Anna Bourland, Brian Wallace, and Samir Balwani. Also, thank you to Loren Feldman, Jay Izso, Brent Csutoras, Chris Winfield, Allen Stern, Anita Campbell, Laura Fitton, Muhammad Saleem, Jonathan Fields, Todd Defren, Greg Davies, Joe Fowler III, and Brian Hill for your tidbits and advice.
Most of all, thanks to my husband, Brian, who most appropriately fits the dedication since he really had to endure all of these few months of hard work, but who did it with grace and was supportive throughout.
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