To understand the future we have only to look at the past. Not so long ago many business owners wondered if they should spend the money on a fax machine. They wondered who would ever have any need to send them a fax or for that matter who would THEY ever need to send a fax to anyway. Quickly everyone discovered that they did have reason to buy into the new technology. Then stores were selling computers and many business owners wondered if a computer would change their business. We have seen the change as a result of the introduction of the home computer. Then business owners saw that their competitors all had websites so they got websites too.
Now the business owner who gave in to the computer and threw out the typewriter and finally got a website is being told that social media marketing is something they need to add to their business marketing plans.
So this brings up two questions:
1 Who says you need social media marketing for your business?
2 How will social media marketing help your business?
The first question is best answered in the video below. This is How Different Organizations Use Social Media from the CCT Program. The Communication, Culture and Technology Program and Hilltop Consultants’ social media branch present got together a panel of experts on this subject. It should be noted that Hilltop Consultants is a student run business consulting group based in the prestigious Georgetown University in Washington D.C. There are social media clubs at universities all around the United States as well as entire courses devoted to this topic. The audience is made up of college students but the panel of experts are people age 30 and above who are required to be proficient in the use of social media as part of their job. Therefore it is clear that this is not a passing fad but a new way to communicate with your clients.
The video was produced Thursday, November 5th, 2009.
Featuring CCT alumni, Don Jones and Michael Dumlao of Booz Allen Hamilton, and CCT student, Sara Lichterman and Melody Fox Ahmed of The Berkley Center.
Now for the second question about how social media marketing can help your business. For many people when they first heard about Twitter they assumed that they would never use it and it has no place in their business. If you thought that then you are not alone in your thinking that maybe only the TV news stations might want to "Tweet" messages out to the public. Welcome to the new age of social media marketing; it's a two way street. In the past we could only read things on the Internet but today we can all be writers. Our ad agency uses Twitter and if you have a Twitter account you can click to follow us Ad Agency.
Large retail businesses like Best Buy use Twitter to answer questions from customers and potential customers. Your business might announce new products, services or special Internet only sales. It might supprise you to know that religious groups, the government and plenty of businesses use all types of social media marketing. Sadly big businesses seem to be the ones who caught on to this first and that's too bad because the use of social media is free. Our job is to develop a plan for your business and help to implement your social media marketing plan so that it doesn't become a new project for you to deal with.
We write blogs and tweet on behalf of our clients. Please click to fine out more about how we can be the social media marketing branch of your company.
Forget the hype! Let's get the facts here, social media is you and me, it is just people posting things on the Internet for others to read. Ignore the claims from
the "experts" who want to run
your social medial marketing campaign using renewable energy sources and get
real results from a real company, with
a real office
and real ad
agency experience!
