Social Media Marketing Best Practices

Aug 28, 2008

A few years ago I came across an Amway couple… those sorts who befriend you in order to encourage you to sign up under them or buy their merchandise. The sole purpose for them behind making new contacts and acquaintances was to generate leads. Even when they organized a social occasion it was mainly to showcase their products and again, to sign up new members under them. This was when I came across this expression “networking”. People network to further their careers and grow their businesses. There is nothing wrong in that as long as you don’t pester people with your never-ending ideas and product offers. For a long time the expression “networking” carried a negative connotation for me.

When I started reading about social media marketing I equated with networking. People were basically networking to get new friends and generate more leads. It took me some time to realize that social networking is not just mercantile; you establish many rewarding relationships with people from all over the world coming from different fields and professions. You make friends, sometimes great friends, and in the process there is nothing wrong if those friends want to work with you on professional assignments or if they want to recommend you to their friends and colleagues. I think one of the greatest benefits of actively participating in the process of social media marketing is that it is not blind marketing; you learn so much and you share so much.

Keeping this in mind, a few months ago I started using Twitter on a regular basis. Compared to other people there, my “regular” means quite an overstatement, but at least I have started visiting the website on a daily basis. I’m getting some great links and messages from highly experienced and socially active experts. So much good information is available provided you have access to it; otherwise it is all-encompassing wilderness.

Mitch Joel has started a thread on the best practices of social media marketing. Here is the post where he has as initiated the idea. Although I’m not experienced in social media marketing my personal experience has shown that it helps you a lot to carefully listen to the conversations going around. This way you get to assimilate lots of wisdom. Listening also helps you gauge the general trend in your field. For instance I am trying to follow conversations of people involved with social media marketing, online copywriting and content writing, search engine optimization, creative writing, blogging and Internet technology. So far I don’t feel like sharing my own thoughts because although I read a lot and I’m pretty much comfortable supplying content to my clients there is still a lot to learn before I can contribute. So I think listening and understanding the conversations going on in the social media marketing seen can be a worthy component of social media marketing best practices.