If you are not actively involved with any social networks you need to stop reading this and sign up for a few. If you are not using social media to get your business out there and interacting in a new way with your clients, you are missing a huge opportunity. Now with those big words out of the way, I admit I went into the idea of social marketing my business a bit skeptical. But here is what I quickly discovered: talking to my clients about social media marketing was a great “in” to talking about a larger piece of their marketing planning.

For those of you actively involved in the conversations online, this isn’t all that surprising. Like any marketing channel, you need to be strategic - strategic as to which networks you should be a part of, as well as your voice and how you talk about your brand. People can spot a fake or a shameless self-promoter right away. Don’t be afraid to give away a couple good ideas or intriguing thoughts to stir up some responses. And don’t fear new social networks, either! When in doubt you can you can always unsubscribe. The key is to be yourself; talk candidly and be open, transparent, and truthful. People can spot a fake easily and instantly.

Here are some of the basic networks we have used and had great success on:

Technorati: A network dedicated to categorizing your favorite blogs. Our blog on Technorati: http://www.makingcreativematter.com/

Twitter: A new craze called micro-blogging where you can throw out little thoughts, tid bits of info while tracking others. http://twitter.com/rule29

Facebook: One of the largest social networks with 80 million users it is not just for Harvard students anymore, it is for businesses too! Not to mention it has amazing tracking and user statistics. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Geneva-IL/Rule29/5782198319

Flickr: An innovative way to share photography online. Try geo-tagging and mobile uploads to really get involved. http://www.flickr.com/photos/rule29/sets/

Linked In: A social network for business professionals to help make connections and seek employees. Do you have your resume online? http://www.linkedin.com/in/rule29

In the end, actively talking about what you do and being apart of the online community strengthens your brand - even if you don’t see it right away. Before you know it, you will be sharing links, being asked to be a guest blogger and connecting with people you only once wished knew you existed.

What networks do you use? Any favorites out there?

This entry was posted on Monday, September 29th, 2008 at 11:09 am and is filed under Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.