Jay, I am trying to figure out how to start our social marketing as you recommend. Our information is so technical that we cannot hire someone off the street to blog or answer questions in the different medias. Our technical staff is so overwhelmed with work that they really have no time to monitor the different sites. Help?

Here is my reply:

Not all Social Media needs to involve a two-way conversation. For example we could develop YouTube videos. A series of 8-10 videos explaining common tips for your target market could gain a lot of popularity on YouTube, we would search engine optimize the videos so they would come up in Google and YouTube searches and they could be easily uploaded to your website and blog. Did you know that YouTube is the #3 website in the world and the #2 search engine!

Speaking of blogs, they are primarily a  1-way informational medium, they don’t require a lot of moderating and conversation. I check the comments on my blog a couple times a week or so, it only takes a minute to approve comments.

I love podcasts!!! These are another 1 way medium, primarily. You could do a series of 7 or 10 podcasts with tips for your target market. There are very few podcasts on any topic, but there are now millions of iPhones, iPods and iTouches – 25% of users download podcasts. It is a great way to build a following with an audience looking for this content, very few competitors are podcasting. You could also add the shows to your website. Here’s how we do it for our internet marketing podcast.

Another good tip, take 5-10 minutes every couple days and log onto LinkedIn. Click on the ‘More’ tab, and click ‘Questions’. You can search for questions in your niche, provide answers and position yourself/the firm as experts. You will likely generate leads and build your valuable LinkedIn network.

We should create Facebook ‘Fan’ Page. By offering valuable tips and including the videos this page would gain a small but loyal and valuable following among your target  community.

One last idea. We could create a community for you, like the Internet Marketing Club . You could have your experts develop a short webinar, if you have 5-6 experts,  they could do 1 webinar every 2 months, and you could invite authors of books and some complimentary professionals to do a webinar once in a while – voila! You’ll have an active community, a weekly webinar series with more content to add to your website, more leads and more links! The webinars keep the site growing because they are very viral, people tweet about them and tell friends. We just landed a great new customer thanks to Internet Marketing Club, it really works!

All of these approaches will get noticed and build links for your website and support search engine optimization.

Please let us know if you’d like to test drive any of these new mediums.

Best regards,

Jay

A big part of my social life is through social media. My friends and family mostly live many miles away and I keep in touch through Facebook, Twitter, text, email etc. I also have a number of real genuine friends I have met through social media.

Just this weekend I had the following very enriching social interactions:

- A friend sent a tweet that he was going for lunch with another friend, I tweeted him. I joined them for lunch. We cooked up a new business venture, a podcast, we’re going to work on it this week.
- A friend mentioned he needed a lead gen expert. I sent a note to a friend. She Facebooked me from Spain that she’s out of the country. I sent an email to connect the two of them.
- My friend John in Atlanta (who I met through my podcast) sent me a shout out on Twitter just to say Hi. I sent him a tweet – we connected.
- I discovered a great little Yogurt place on the location based networking site Foursquare
- I saw a link to Barak Obama’s speech at the White House Correspondents dinner. I watched it on YouTube. The President was great Jay Leno tanked.
- A friend recommended that I see a speaker named Jared Spool. I watched his SouthXSouthwest Presentation on YouTube – he has a great audience interaction method
- I listen to podcasts while I workout, walk my dog, commute etc. Just this weekend I listened to:
o Marketing Over Coffee Two social media friends of mine (Christopher S Penn and John Wall) cover interactive marketing. I learned their perspective on the new Facebook ‘Like’ functionality
o I listened to another podcast called Dishy Mix and learned about virtual seminars
o Cliff Ravenscraft who I met at a podcasting conference has 30,000 listeners to his GSPN Lost Podcast

I replied to my friend with an email, and now I am sharing my thoughts as a blog. I’ll tweet about it and Facebook about it. A few people will Re-Tweet and ‘Like’ my post and spread it to their friends. I look forward to some interesting feedback and conversation. Very Social

Personally I believe that since moving to Florida 8 years ago I lost a lot of social connection. Social Media has given me back a lot of human connectedness.

How about you? Are you more social or less human?

I'm not a blogger I Tweet a lot