Marketing using social media strategies

I’m a big fan of not necessarily reinventing but rather optimising the wheels that businesses run on. From traditional media players to hierarchal corporate society, the Internet provides lots of opportunities to do this. You see, the rules for business are the same online: interest, recommendations, and, ultimately, sales.

Could be at forefront

In South Africa, consumer brands could be at the forefront of an emerging and highly interactive marketing trend, social media. Instead, consumers are online generating a large amount of content with little – if any – engagement from business. And that’s what I’d like to highlight.

Search for numerous top business names on Technorati (www.technorati.com), the world’s largest and most respected blog search engine, and you’re presented with thousands of blog posts – written by South Africans – all about these various businesses, their products, experiences…you name it. Go to Afrigator (www.afrigator.com) and there, too, you’ll find talk about many brands.

Internationally, businesses realise the importance of engaging with their consumers. From reputation management strategies to campaign blogs and MySpace profiles, the international business community is embracing the Internet. And users are thanking them for it by engaging with them and creating a lot of buzz on their behalf.

I’ve said this before: as more consumers enjoy social networking and Web 2.0 properties, business must learn to embrace it, monitor it, engage with their consumers, and provide a platform to join the conversation, all in a way that ties in with their overall business agenda.

Free guide

As a primer, my free guide to social media marketing explains what social media is, what its benefits are, and why marketers need to start integrating it into their marketing strategies. Download "Creating Brand Relationships with Social Media" here.