What Why and How of Social Media ???

Understanding social media marketing is so difficult because it seems to be so different. For decades, most of the rules of communicating with customers stayed the same. You figured out who you were going to sell to. You did your best to create a product or service that would have value for that target audience. And then you blasted out your marketing message in print, on billboards, on radio, and since the 1950s on TV.

But to know how social media marketing can be meaningful, let us first know what social media marketing is?

This is how I describe social media marketing - it is a social ice- cream. You‘ll thinking social media and ice-cream? What is the connection? Because I feel it is something to share and celebrate, it bring people together, and last but not the least , it can not only come from the you but can also come from friend and neighbors. According to Lloyd Salmons, first chairman of the Internet Advertising Bureau "Social media isn't just about big networks like Face book and MySpace; it's about brands/people having conversations

Why Social media?

Future of Advertising: Social media marketing is a powerful strategy that will get you links, attention and massive amounts of traffic. There is no other low-cost promotional method out there that will easily give you large numbers of visitors, some of whom may come back to your website again and again." And do you know 63% of United States companies plan to increase their social media budget in 2009.

Powerful Tool: Social media marketing is a powerful tool, because you can learn direct from the customers, you get free customer review better than costly advertisement and it is a way to know what exactly the customers need. Social media is become a place where people can talk to each other, speak up his or her voice regardless of their age, sex and color without any interruption. Some powerful social media sites are:

· Face book

· Twitter

· You tube

· Digg

· Friend feed

· Stumble upon

· Readit

· Flickr

4 big secrets of social media marketing:

Be Remarkable: Be a person that people will talk about: Now how you do this: How you look (for example – I saw this person at twitter and he had the most wired picture, but because it was so wired it made me click on his account, how you sound – you should have a unique factor/voice (for example: you use catch phrase in your writing, people after a while would know that it is written by you. Make people identify you (example: they might identify you as an ice-cream maker who makes the best chocolate ice-cream in Los Angeles)

Be Fun – Social media is not about being stuffy, it about hanging out with friend. OK what do you do when you meet friend, you talk about fun stuff and not how boring you day was at school or at work. The whole ideas to make them comfortable, because the much you make them comfortable the more they will open themselves up to you. It’s not necessary that you have to be funny, but you can always pick up things from YouTube and post it.

Be Helpful and Supportive - Make people get over their fears. Be helpful, be supportive tell them it’s ok and prove it to them. People say I am trying but nothing seems to work up...tell them Thomas Edison tried to make light bulb 10000 times and he screwed p by 9999 times he did that... Be really supportive of your community and the people and they will be supportive to you.

Be Controversial - don’t worry about getting people annoyed if you believe in what you are talking about. Find people who agree with you. For example if you find something that is important and nobody is talking about, then you talk about it. It is a good way of being contervertional without too much risk. People might come up to you and say oh...man I wish I would have said that, that’s makes you appreciative for your effort. And if you drive few people crazy...it’s ok....because people will either love you or hate you. There is no money in the middle. So don’t be boring and centralist…it will just not work.

So what did we learn about social media?

Think of the social media as a platform for connection. As something that gives you a chance to be heard or read, even for a brief moment of a few hours. The people who are drawn to your message will visit your site and recommend it to others. In fact the KEY difference is that while many of the 'old' tools such as TV ads, radio spots, and coupons are ONE-WAY communication channels, social media is TWO-WAY. The future of social media is the future of the world.