Social Media Marketing - (Yes it's still the I must draw blog)

So, the other day as part of my day job I went to Social Media Marketing training. You may be noticing that I've been more active than usual in the social spheres and this was in part due to the overwhelming statistics which I couldn't ignore. I used to think I was quite techy I can no longer make that claim as I don't even have a smartphone. I am making the assumption at this point that you have a website, blog and e-newsletter.

Here in a nutshell is what I learnt - Websites which used to be the piece de resistance are no longer the behemoths of old. You have 4-6 seconds to capture your viewer, marketing people are seeing websites as hubs for social media marketing e.g Facebook. Everyone is suffering from major ADD and like 24 want real-time updates and interaction. So, you need a website but you need to maintain a presence.

Facebook- billions of people have their own personal page however you can also create a business page handy if you don't want to share every aspect of your life with the entire world. So after umminng and aaahing I caved in and created a business page and whoosh the satisfying acknowledgement of like. Post badges on your blog and websites so that you can spread the word. If you get 25 likes you can claim your own unique name. I still need 3 more likes, hint, hint.


Twitter - In the past I have made half-hearted attempts with this media and couldn't see the point, now if I had a smartphone it would probably make more sense, imagine real time thrift store find, to buy or not to buy ? I could interact directly with anyone reading my tweets. There's a bloomin' useful tool that manages your tweets (you can pre-program up to 30 days in advance, imagine that) it's called hootsuite.com and drumroll when you tweet you can simultaneously send it to your facebook, now that's more like it. I'm not that witty when it comes to tweeting, does anyone really care what type of sandwich I'm eating etc so if you like me are tweetless then simply link to your new blog posts, flikr uploads or anything else you find interesting on the net. Use it as a way to thank people too.

Flickr - I've had a Yahoo account for as long as I can remember and in all honesty I get so much spam that I barely use it but that's what you need if you are going to use Flickr. On Wednesday I created my Flickr stream, which has a gargantuan audience if you tag your pictures well. If anyone comments and says "Is that for sale"? it arrives via email and you can respond to potential purchaser which 2 days after I posted my pics occurred, really.

Foursquare.com -  I had never even heard of this but apparently Yahoo wanted to buy it for $100,000,000 so they must see potential in it. Again, you need a smartphone, the idea is that you can connect with your friends, collect badges etc by checking in. The GPS in your phone posts your exact location, (no good for Tiger Woods) and lets your friends know where you are. Other people if looking for say a happening bar could see how many people have checked in and make a decision about whether to go or not. I don't have a bar or shop and sadly spend most of my time crafting away in my house so I don't think I'll be using this just yet.

But, I haven't got the time, I hear you say, think about it this way apart from the time investment all this stuff is free marketing. As long as you respond in a timely manner to requests you build relationships and help to build your brand.

There endeth the lesson, if like me you are a one-man band on a miniscule advertising budget, why not give it a go.