Social Marketing: Theory & Practice

I recently had a discussion with a colleague about social marketing consultants and she said something that was very interesting.

“The social marketing consultants I know charge hourly to train people to do their own social marketing.”

I’ve had enough experience with trainers to know that theory and practice are very different. The theory of social marketing goes right out the window when you send out your first tweet. People are indifferent to your new Twitter and Facebook page. There’s very little reason why they should pay any attention to your efforts to engage them in a conversation about your products and service. No one cares!

The only way visitors will find any value in your social accounts is by providing them with valuable content. Forcing an employee to become blogger on behalf of your company is akin to handing your grandmother the DVR remote and asking her to set it up.

Anyone can blog, but it takes someone special to create interesting content.

The truth is it takes several dedicated hours a day to manage a business’s social network. One must:

1. Constantly watch for comments, replies, or reviews directed at your company.
2. Write engaging blog posts about your products, services, and industry.
3. Organize each blog post in way that is easy to read quickly and with lots of pictures.
4. Distribute new blog posts to social bookmarking sites and minor social networks.
5. Regularly watch for updates from people looking for services or even your competitors.
6. Supervise blogs, forums, video sites, and review sites for mentions about your business.

There’s a lot of details to constructing a social marketing campaign, but it is something that can be learned through experience. However, don’t believe that it can be taught on an hourly basis. Those social marketing snobs are just too proud to get their hands dirty with real work.