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You’ve heard of small businesses — and large businesses, too — using social media campaigns to attract new customers, cultivate continuing customers, and build community around their product or service. And you would like to try this yourself.

That’s a great idea! And it’s a low risk idea too, since all the ingredients are free. Free as in dollars. But not free as in time, imagination, and commitment.

Traditional marketing — advertising — and the early implementation of the Web– Web 1.0– was entirely a one-way flow. I put up a big sign, an offer, a pitch, and the target might go buy my stuff. I talk AT you, not with you.

Social media marketing– Web 2.0– is about establishing a conversation about your product or service with your clients and customers. Web 2.0 is about empowering your product or services users to cheerfully do your marketing for you. Not because this is easier or even necessarily cheaper (although it is). But because your customers are better at marketing your product than you are. Did you absorb that last sentence? If not, read it again. Does it remind you of the advertising maxim “the best advertising is word of mouth”?

Your customers are better at marketing your product then you are. Even when they are being critical of some aspect of it. Unmitigated praise is not believable. And criticism allows you to:

1. Improve your product or service with advice from free consultants.
2. Answer your critics directly and in public in a way that shows that you care, and that you are right on top of all issues concerning your product.

This kind of transparency can only help you.

Your best competitors probably already have social media strategies. The time to begin your social media strategy is yesterday. If yesterday is all booked up, start today.

Social media continues to get a lot of attention — and justifiably so. It’s the biggest, most complex, most dynamic change to happen in marketing since the invention of television in 1923. (In case you’re wondering, yes, TV was invented in 1923, but it didn’t take off in the U.S. until the early 1950s.)

With all the stuff going on in Social Media, it’s not surprising that people are making plenty of mistakes. With that in mind, we’ve decided to compose a list of how NOT to run a Social Media campaign.

Don’t upload a corporate YouTube video and claim you “have a Social Media campaign.” Social Media is about a conversation, not about uploading a YouTube video.

Don’t sit on the sidelines. As 60 Second Marketer visitor Ruby Gottlieb once said, “In order to understand Social Media, you have to use Social Media.”…

Read the whole 60 Second Marketer article “How not to run a social media campaign“.

St Pete’s Seven North Web Design & Graphics Social Media-Hub Website: Leveraging WordPress for Easy SEO and Lower Cost.

Social Media Marketing-St Pete’s Seven North Web Design

From Mashable

Why use social media?

The best way to illustrate why small businesses are using social media is with a story. Think back to the days of the wild west. In those days, towns had one general store, and the store owner knew everyone. People trusted him and knew what they were getting. Enter the industrial age, and efficiency trumped personalization. People didn’t mind where they bought from, as long as goods were cheap.

Now, that mentality has changed. Consumers are once again reverting to a need for personalization from businesses large and small. The need has been rekindled by the Internet and our ability to find anything we want, as well as a mistrust of advertising (think used cars salesmen).

We’ve reached a point where the consumer wants to know the store owner’s name and that he can be trusted. Small businesses must look beyond their want to grow into corporations, and instead focus on their core customers. Thanks to social media, we’re able to foster these relationships easily and quickly.

Read the whole story, 5 Easy Social Media Wins for Your Small Business, on Mashable.