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Part 1 of social media marketing: research & evaluation

March 25, 2008

The social web, by definition, has one of two meanings.  Most important to you is: (1) it is an online place that people visit (login) to meet, discuss, hash out, vent, and share their thoughts, comments and opinions.  The second definition is (2) a future network that is an open global distributed data sharing network similar to today's World Wide Web, except instead of linking documents, the Social Web will link people, organizations, and concepts. 

The first definition is also referred to as Web 2.0.  There are hundreds of social websites; no doubt you're familiar with the most popular ones like Facebook, iVillage, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. People are online discussing your business, your products, your store, new releases, what they like and don't like, and all the while they're influencing your target market better than you can (good or bad).  And they're doing it all for free. 

Traditional marketing methods of spreading the word are no longer very effective.  These methods include television, magazines, newspapers, radio, direct mail and billboards.  Your customers are Tivo-ing out your commercials, reading the magazines and newspapers online, buying satellite radio or listening to their iPods (or others), and recycling their direct mail or opt-ing out of receiving mail altogether.  Out of all of them, billboards still work because people are in their cars more than ever (but they're multi-tasking instead of paying attention to the side of the road).

So what's a small business owner to do?

In order to effectively reach your target audience online, you need to aggregate customers.  You do this by:
1.  providing compelling content and creating retail environments that customers want to visit and
2.  by going out and participating in blogs in your industry, joining discussion groups, joining and/or building a community online, etc. (discussed in-depth below).

The Internet is the first place people turn to for information; it's provides everything the old marketing methods used to supply all in one place.  It's turning the old methods on their heads because the Internet isn't the new media of choice, the people online are.  Huh?

Larry Webber writes in his book, Marketing to the Social Web, "How do you now market in this new environment? [...] A manager of an environment [that would be you] helps people make decisions to buy."  A good example of this is Starbucks. They brought in music in their stores, support social causes, and internet access.  People come to buy a coffee and stay to work, mingle and socialize.  It's a destination as well as a retail space.  My favorite place to visit is a coffee shop called Krankies.  I come here everyday to work and, since I'm here I buy their products.  

But you're not a coffee shop, you're thinking, so what can you do?

Start small (but get started now.). 

First, perform research about your business.   For example, let's pretend you specialize in selling vintage clothes.  To begin: 
a] make a list of your key search words (I am keeping it short for this exercise)
      -- vintage clothes
      -- retro clothes
      -- vintage clothing online
      -- vintage clothing discussions
      -- cheap vintage clothing

b] make a list of 4 to 5 competitors (again, keeping it short for this exercise)
      -- http://www.thebudgetfashionista.com/
      -- http://www.rustyzipper.com/
      -- http://www.unique-vintage.com/
      -- http://www.modcloth.com/
      -- http://www.vintagevixen.com/

c] make a list of sites your target audience is visiting (target market for vintage, let's say, are women in their late teens to early 40s who are budget conscious, want something unique, and love fashion). Search for blogs/discussions:
      -- on Zuula - (it has 9 blog search engines in one place)
      -- search on Google for vintage clothes discussions      
      -- Facebook 
      -- eBay 
      -- Omgili topic buzz  
      -- MyLot, etc.  
You know your industry, what do you visit?

d] perform a search on your company to see how many links, what people are saying, etc.

e] Finally, in this first step, perform a benchmark:
1.  Read the blogs and discussion threads to find out what people are saying. What is the common thread among each?  In the vintage discussions, it's about how to buy, what to look for, and where to get the best deals.
2.  How can you contribute to these discussions?  I suggest, when they ask for advice, supply it and list your site and credentials.  Answer their questions and form a dialogue.
4. What are they saying about your competitors and who do they recommend?  Why do they like one store over another?  Take notes.
5.  Which bloggers names do you recognize and, after monitoring them, do you trust what they say?  If so, start building a relationship with them.  We'll get into this more in later blogs.

Once you're done with your first step, feel free to share what you learned, the challenges you faced, and what you need help with in the comments section below. Remember, this is a blog...

Note:  each week I'll be discussing a new technique to enhance your social marketing.  

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Part 1: research & evaluation / benchmark what people are discussing | Part 2: ensure your website is visit-worthy | Part 3: create bookmarks & tagging for your content | Part 4: increase your linkability & reward your inbound links | Part 5: evaluate the online channel strategies | Part 6: work to build your community & participate yourself | Part 7: promote your company and yourself | Part 8: measuring your progress | Part 9: improve the benefit and the experience | Part 10: help your content travel | Part 11: use the 22 psychological needs to make a difference | Part 12: social networking tools

Posted by Suze Bragg on March 25, 2008 | Comments (3)