The New Community Rules

Chapter 12. Sealing the Deal: Putting It All Together

Now that you have the basics down for social media marketing, let’s focus on putting together everything you’ve learned so that you can proceed with your promotional strategy for the benefit of the community and for your own marketing motives. We’ve covered social networks, social bookmarking sites, social news sites, and a variety of new media sites, but for the most part, promoting yourself using only one medium won’t yield the biggest success. In fact, for the best ROI, you will likely need to focus your energies on multiple online properties. You may be surprised to see how the community reacts to each different campaign.

Social media is also about declaring your identity early on in the process on the appropriate channels, such as your own website or profile page (but only on services where the community participates in such activity). It is also about creating a communications channel that you actively monitor and participate in. Communications in social media do not necessarily have to happen onsite; the real-life relationships that follow can benefit your company objectives, so use social media as a stepping stone to find other means of communication.

Identification: Telling People Who You Are

The first step in social media marketing is to be open and honest about your reasons for participating in the space. Who are you and why are you here? Typically, this will be something you declare on your social networking profiles ...