http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/business/smallbusiness/12social.ready.html
Being the guy who says “I don’t build websites, I build communication and marketing systems”, this article stuck out at me during breakfast.
The article is short and simple, explaining the idea of how blogging, podcasting, twittering(a.k.a. tweeting), facebooking are all different forms of making a connection and communicating. And for the majority of clients, it’s all about the free price vs. traditional ad models.
For me, as the article also says, these activities involve time, which we have less and less of these days. I’m taking time to write this post right now! I like to try and keep it short, but it’s tough to manage writing anything of worth in 20 minutes. For this online marketer, doing it any way you can is better than not doing it at all, you need to have realistic goals. I mean if your customer isn’t on Twitter, don’t go signing up for an account just because you heard it’s “the new thing”. But I know my readers would never do that, right? Right! 🙂
So what’s my technique with social networking? Well, I just started this blog not too long ago. I’ve had a few blogs in my time, but the Internet Farmer is the one I’ve chosen for my work, and I’ve made a commitment to keep up with it in my marketing. It’s fun, a little catchy, and makes a nice statement about who I am (1/2 geek and 1/2 farmer wannabe). I Facebook personally(when I can), which sometimes bring a new project here and there. I don’t use Twitter for myself or my business, but I probably will for my upcoming Maine Farm podcast(still in development) to broadcast Maine food-related headlines as they develop.
Are you using any social marketing techniques? If so, which ones? How much time do you spend doing it vs. the payoff? Please leave comments below, and email me if you would like to discuss this professionally.