I think I’ve got it! I just attended a Webinar about marketing with Twitter. The speaker was Jamie Turner @60 Second Marketer. He had a great way of explaining the various social media in an easy-to-understand parable. Here’s how he explained things (in my own words).
- Facebook is a like a pub or bar. You get to know people on a personal level.
- LinkedIn is like a trade show. You hook up with people for business purposes.
- Twitter is like a cocktail party. There are may conversations going at the same time. It’s sort of like Instant Messaging groups of people. You listen to one group and then you take that information and relay it to another group via your retweets.
- YouTube is like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. It’s difficult to break through the lines of people. But, if you get through to where the cameras are focused you can be seen by a million people.
- MySpace is like Woodstock for the younger generation. It is very cause-oriented marketing of sorts.
Jamie’s explanation really opened my eyes to the benefits of social media in marketing B to B. He noted that marketing has changed from a monologue to a dialogue. Marketing used to be pushing out the message to a mass audience. Now, it’s more of a two-way dialogue between customer and company and vice versa. He used the word “narrowcasting” to describe today’s conversation with customers vs. the traditional “broadcasting” method of the past.
I didn’t realize how many other types of social sites existed other than the ones I’ve mentioned above. You should also consider using the following types of media:
- Blogs
- Bookmarking and Tagging
- Content Aggregation
- Crowdsourcing & Voting
- Discussion Boards & Forums
- Events & Meetings
- Photosharing
- Podcasting
- Presentation Sharing
- Ratings & Reviews
- Widgets
- Wikis
So, next time you’re tweeting, posting to your Facebook page, or linking with someone on LinkedIn remember that each social site can be used for a specific purpose. If you’re not on the sites, try them personally first, and then start doing some marketing for your business. You’ll discover a whole new world of conversation with your customers.
