Should you add social networking/media to your marketing strategies?

Social networking is NOT new. I first found what could be called social networking back in 1995, but even then it was old. In the 1960’s or 70’s it starter out as Usenet I knew it as alt newsgroups.

Back in 2004, it was the only way to meet others online; it just wasn’t used to often for or buy businesses. Think Prodigy Forums, think “forums” for any type of person or problem, think AOL Groups.

Fast forward again…

Today, all consolidated business, strategic, marketing, and financial plans should include at a minimum discussion about social marketing/media. Most should include integrated marketing and network strategies. Integrated = a variety of marketing strategies that build on each other that could be off line and online.

Depending on who your ideal client/target market is that could (and usually does) includes some type of social media strategy. Even if the strategy = putting your top executives profile on a few sites, that’s time consuming and should be on a plan.

A social networking story from a business owner (me).
Early on, I was a member of Ecademy and Ryze (early 2000’s).

Being an early user, I created a LinkedIn Profile in 2005, even though it made no sense for me to do so. Why not? Most users back then were male executives looking for jobs and recruiters. Why did I do it? Search engine rankings. Being around the Internet since 1994, I knew that the LinkedIn profile, links and all the new updates to LinkedIn could have a good effecton my own company website rankings.

So I created my profile an put a note in my S.I.M.P.L.E. folders that reminded me to check Linkedin yearly to see if it was something I should spend more time on.

Each year I checked and in 2008 I saw that there were more women and B2B business owners on Linkedin. I updated my profile, and added information to the new sections that LinkedIn added to their site.

In mid 2008, I checked again and it was now time to spend more time on LinkedIn while removing time I was spending elsewhere. In 2009 two new clients came direct from LinkedIn and many ezine subscribers. I also taught my first teleseminar on the subject.

In 2010 started a Group for Women Business Advisors and spent more time answering questions in the Groups and ANSWERS sections. Since my clients are B2Bs and because they were asking me to help critique their profile so often, I created a LinkedIn program with copywriter, Christine Mifsud, and added this tipc to my speaking topics.

Recently I started answering fewer questions on Groups. Mainly because with the recent changes LinkedIn has become an an “ad fest” with folks posting their own blog posts there in droves. Possibly the addition last week of a Promotions Tab in each group will help the problem, we’ll see. I am finding myself spending more time on Focus.com It also has a very business like demographics.

Monitoring your time and marketing efforts is so important!