Talking Social Media Marketing

Talking Social Media Marketing

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Earlier this week I was honored to present to several local businesses about the pros and cons of several social media platforms. The experience renewed and reinforced my thinking about smart content as a marketable commodity.

What makes it smart, I believe, is that it adds value to a consumers life. I don’t believe that value needs to be direct, but certainly at least tangential to their needs or interests.

Of course, in news content is all we produce. The challenge in this case was to think of content that other businesses can produce, while not losing sight of their primary product or service.

To that end, I did not say during my presentation that every business should be on every platform. Instead, I suggested that businesses must pick the platforms that fit their model most closely. A business that makes or sells colorful items should think about exploiting that strength through photos or videos on Pinterest or Flicker, for example. Or a business whose customers are primarily other businesses should focus not on individual consumers through Facebook but on their target audience through LinkedIn.

The presentation was well received, and that made me realize that I’d taken for granted my willingness to experiment with digital platforms. I was in a room full of smart entrepreneurs but many had simply been too afraid to test something new.