Internet Marketing - Matt Bailey [215]
Chapter Contents
Monday and Tuesday: Understand the Breadth of Social Media
Wednesday: Communicate Your Message Effectively
Thursday: Assess Your Resources
Friday: Enact Your Social-Media Plan
Monday and Tuesday: Understand the Breadth of Social Media
Social media has been around longer than the modern Internet. One of my geekiest claims to fame is that my dad brought home a computer in 1984. Within only a few months, inspired by the movie WarGames, I had a modem (where you would place the phone handset in a cradle and go online through CompuServe, a dial-up service). The only places that was really of any interest at that time were the bulletin board systems (BBSs), one of the earliest forms of chat and discussion forums.
As I look back now, the BBSs were the beginnings of the digital social-media culture. People with common interests would meet, discuss, debate, recommend, and refer each other to businesses or products. There was no marketing in this public forum because marketers were vastly unaware of this emerging form of communication.
In later forms, this communication developed into threaded conversations in newsgroups, or UseNet. Newsgroups operated on the same principles as the bulletin boards but offered abilities to upload and distribute files and participate in discussions without a high technical level of knowledge.
As technology, broadband, mobile, and social-media applications have increased, so also has the ability of people to communicate with one another through online media. The field of social media has increased dramatically both in the number of participants and in the number of media options. Depending on a person’s comfort level with online communications and interaction, they will find a social-media type that will work for them.
Blogs, of course, are the foundational blocks of modern social media. Blogs dominate the social-media landscape in both accessibility and results, which is why last week’s chapter was dedicated to blogs. This week’s chapter provides an overview and strategy for utilizing the rest of the social-media tools.
When added to a marketing manager’s daily duties within a business, the prospect of keeping up with social media and understanding how each new media works can be overwhelming. Unfortunately, many businesses feel pressured to do something, anything, when it comes to social media. If they don’t have a clear strategy or understanding, the purpose becomes convoluted, the time involved and resources needed for social media seem to be too much or to be unaccountable, and there is no measurement of results. You need a solid foundation of knowledge to avoid being overwhelmed, so I will start with a basic overview of the types of social media and how they reach specific audiences.
Discussion Forums
The types of discussion contained in the early BBSs and newsgroups are typically contained in discussion forums these days. Discussion forums are still one of the most vibrant and viable places to discover what customers and groups discuss and share in terms of products, industries, and niche topics. The general rule is that the more niche the topic, the more conversation and the more active the community will be in the discussion forums.
There are millions of discussion forums, and they cater to the most niche topics imaginable. The discussion forums are not just about cars, music, horses, and dogs, but there are multiple forums for different car makes and models, music genres, dogs breeds, and horse disciplines. In short, name the topic, and there are most likely a number of forums dedicated to it (see Figure 18-1).
Figure 18-1: A sampling of parenting-related topics on a discussion forum
Most discussion forums are owned and operated by a single person. Typically out of passion for a specific subject, the person started the forum as a way to find and