There is much talk these days about social media, and it is important for a business marketer to understand how this “new media” can work to compliment the tried and true methods of promotion. Traditionally these have involved mailing lists, attractive templates and links to websites and articles that serve to sell, educate or remind a high value client.
It is important to stay focused and remember that social media and websites do not sell products or services. Businesses make money when they sell to people who know, like and trust them. Costa Rica real estate, tourism or relocation is even more competitive because the Internet is the primary means to effectively deal with the challenge of distance and the need to reach a special niche.
Packaging the sales pitch in social media empowers the audience in an email campaign to pass along to their peers both your sales pitch and their endorsement. In the past this was done by simply forwarding email. There were obvious barriers such a spam filters, and mass penetration was hampered by a lack of transparency or trust in a long email chain.
Social media solves this problem by making the social connections visible, and spam is eliminated by requiring advance permission for communication. For example two people on Facebook with a common friend or common interest can comment on the same message, invitation, photo, blog entry or video. A person can control the quality and flow of information by simply choosing friends wisely or pruning connections.
Of course not everyone is ready to embrace social media, and for some the switch to email is as far as they will go into the Internet age. For this reason the opt-in email list is still very important, however must be complimented by alternatives such as Facebook and Twitter.
Social media has significant implications for niche advertising, which will be discussed in a future article. For now, making the switch to social media requires a reboot, and for many the first step is to get out of their email campaign layouts and into a content management system that presents itself as a blog.
Finally making the change to social media doesn’t require a complete rewrite of a properly designed web site that markets effectively. A business that is already collecting opt-in email need only refocus email campaigns onto a carefully crafted blog that penetrates the social web.
Once the reboot is made the focus continues to engage customers and make sales, however the social networking is now built in to the system and even if for some reason the social media revolution never comes the business can count on better tools for producing sales content.
