Social Marketing for the Entrepreneur

The latest buzz is all about Social Marketing! Everyone is either doing it or wondering how to do it. The goal for all entrepreneurs and business owners is to bring in new business cost effectively. Can social marketing do this? Is traditional media more effective or is the grapevine correct that traditional media is on the way out? Well, I've been dabbling in just about everything and am learning as I'm going. All I can do is share my experience and opinions. I'm sure on the fast developing topic, my opinion will undoubtedly change with time. (Please excuse my use of the word,"suck" in this blog but I believe it is the best term for the context in which I am using it)

As an entrepreneur with a limited advertising and marketing budget, I am always looking for ways to get Free PR! So far, we've been pretty successful at it. You can go to the "Articles and Appearances" tab of our website (http://www.yogastickysocks.1shoppal.com/art.html) and see all of our editorial placements, blog placements, and TV appearances over the last year and a half. This doesn't even include the national radio giveaways we participate in.

However, over the last 3 - 6 months, I've been spending alot of time on Social Marketing. I have an old YouTube page that unfortunately hasn't been updated in a long time; a Facebook page that is very active and a Twitter account. I also have been running continuous ads on the sidebar of Facebook.

In the last week, in an effort to separate my friends from my colleagues on Facebook I launched a Yoga Stick-e Socks Fan page. This will allow me to send direct messages, information, offers etc... to people who are truly interested in my product line. It also provides you with demographics of your Fans which is very interesting and useful info. Best of all, it's Free! Facebook has also added a new feature which will allow you to have your Facebook posts automatically feed into your Twitter account! (As I was writing this, I received an email from MySpace, telling me that they've just added this feature as well).

As an entrepreur, you'll find managing all of the social marketing websites can be a huge "time suck" thus killing your daily productivity. I'm learning about all sorts of short cuts. For example, with TwitRobot, one can write a bunch of "Tweets" and have them automatically posted on Twitter at whatever time interval you want. TwitRobot, also will grab my headlines from this blog and randomly post them with links to my blog. Thus, I'm hoping I am adding valuable and worthwhile content to my Tweets. That is an important aspect to Tweeting. I think unless you are a HUGE celebrity, no one cares if you just had a great cup of coffee at Starbucks or just dropped your kids off at school! Nor do they want to keep getting a sales pitch. The content does need to add value to maintain a following.

Additionally with Twitter, I think it's important to search on people who actually have an interest in your area of specialty. For example, when I got started, I just started following anyone and everyone to get followers. However, I'm now learning that was a mistake and I'm gradually dropping those who I am following that appear to have no interest in Yoga, Pilates, Entrepreneurship or PR. These are the only people for which my Tweets will be relevant.

It's also important with Twitter to be able to reply as soon as possible to Direct Messages. I didn't get this at first. Initially it seemed all of the Direct Messages were just nothing mail of people saying "thanks for following me". However, as I eventually went through my 205 ignored direct messages, I found 2 that were from bloggers and journalists wanting to interview me! So, lesson learned, like all mail you must go through it or you'll miss opportunities! Fortunately it wasn't too late for my reply.

One of the great things I like about Twitter is that you can see if anyone is talking about your product. I've found that some of the radio stations using my products for contests have been tweeting about them. I also found people recommending them to other people on Twitter.

Again, how do you manage this without it becoming a complete "productivity suck"? I found a tool called, "Tweetdeck". This tool is free and allows you to have a console on your computer screen that constantly updates you with prompts of any direct messages or mentions on Twitter. Now, you don't have to sit and monitor Twitter at all hours to make it useful!

Lastly, one of the facets of Facebook I am most pleased with is their advertising opportunities. With Facebook, you are able to run the sidebar ads for whatever your budget can manage. For example, I run ads anywhere from $1.00 - $3.00/day. What do I get for this? Well, I started running ads in mid June, since then I've had over 1.2 million impressions and have reached people in my targeted demographic. I call this BRAND BUILDING.

Bottom line thoughts on social marketing currently -- I think it's currently great for Brand Building. However, I think it can be a "time suck" and one needs to recognize how much time is being spent on it. I think one needs to use tools to enable shortcuts to allow for the most "bang for your buck".

What is it not? In most cases it will not bring immediate dollars in the door (of course there are exceptions). If you are an entrepreneur of a consumer good and you think this method of advertising is going to immediately generate revenue, I think it's unlikely. The tried and true, in my experience, is still the only way to bring in revenue -- call those buyers directly, participate in tradeshows, and get free editorial in the traditional BIG PUBLICATIONS!!! To date, my best ROM (Return on Marketing) has come from editorials in Better Homes and Gardens (pg 122 of January 2009 issue) and Fitness Magazine with television spots coming in next.

So, Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/StickeSocks. Or become a Fan on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Yoga-Stick-e-Socks/132863094860 or just click on the side bar to the right of this blog on Blogger and click on the Yoga Stick-e Socks on the top of the Facebook window.

Go get some business now, you've spent long enough reading my blog!