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Tapping the power of Social Media: 6 steps for marketers

Ross Dawson, May 11, 2009 8:44 PM US PT

I wrote the article below for Tech Marketing magazine. It is intended as a quick guide for marketers who are looking to engage with social media.

It is now impossible to ignore the power and reach of social media. Yet the rules of engagement are very different to traditional marketing and PR. Here are a few guidelines to how to tap the power of social media without stumbling into the many pitfalls:

1. Participate and play

The only way to understand social media is to participate. Don’t just open Facebook and Twitter accounts. You need to play extensively with a wide variety of tools and discover how they are being used. If you think you don’t have time, think how much time you’ll have if you cannot work effectively in a world increasingly driven by social media.

2. Discover relevant conversations

Find out what is being said about your company, your competitors and your industry. Relevant conversations can easily be uncovered with free tools such as Google Alerts, Technorati, Twitter Search and Social Mention. There is also a wealth of more sophisticated tools available to track what is being said by your current or potential customers that you can learn from.

3. Identify influencers

A little research will readily uncover who are the most prominent influencers outside the obvious journalists and analysts in your space. Think laterally – they are not always the most visible people, but those who have the respect of your key audience.

4. Build a relationship with influencers

Once you find influencers, it is a massive mistake to then deluge them with press releases and product information. Follow their blogs and Twitter, learn what interests them, make comments or replies, and start a conversation. That may earn you the right to raise your favourite topics. Offer them things they value, particularly privileged access or insights, or by making them more visible.

5. Don’t make half-hearted efforts

You need to decide whether it is important for you to create a presence on blogs, Twitter, Facebook or other social media. For some, a presence is essential, though not everyone needs to do it. If you do engage, then you must maintain consistent effort over a sustained period. You will look foolish if you try something and then give up on it, so be wholehearted in what you decide is worth doing.

6. Find experienced guides

There is no substitute for experience in understanding how social media functions. Absolutely dive in and learn for yourself, but also seek guidance from the early explorers and practitioners. Many so-called ‘social media experts’ are recent converts – find out how long and how successfully they’ve participated before putting faith in their advice.

For the most current insights and trends in the living networks, follow @rossdawson on Twitter!

1 Comments

Adam Green said:

Google Alerts is one of the first tools you should turn to when trying to make sense of social media, because it will collect data from a wide range of sources without you having to create accounts everywhere. The best thing about these alerts is that they will direct you to the sites that Google finds authoritative for your keywords. This can save a huge amount of time over exploring on your own.

Once you get your first Google Alerts in place for your product and company names, you need to learn more details about Google search syntax to really get alerts that fit your needs. A few tricks, like the link:, site:, and inurl: operators can go a long way. This Google Alerts marketing tutorial will give explain these tricks in a form that marketers can take advantage of right away:

http://www.alertrank.com/google-alerts-marketing.html

May 12, 2009 7:42 AM

Ross Dawson is globally recognized as a leading futurist, entrepreneur, keynote speaker, strategy advisor, and bestselling author. He is Founding Chairman of four companies: professional services and venture firm Advanced Human Technologies, future and strategy consulting group Future Exploration Network, leading events firm The Insight Exchange, and influence ratings start-up Repyoot.

Ross is author most recently of Implementing Enterprise 2.0, the prescient Living Networks, which anticipated the social network revolution, and the Amazon.com bestseller Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships (click on the links for free chapter downloads). He is based in Sydney and San Francisco with his wife jewellery designer Victoria Buckley and two beautiful young daughters.