Transcript
Page 1: Social Media Marketing White Paper

There are 48,500,000 results on Google when you type in "Social Media Services". There are 36,100,000 listing when you type in "Social Media Business Services. A review of the listing only five pages deep reveals "advertising, ad placement and design services" are the

dominant services. It appears the majority of the service providers think "social media" is about ad placement, click through, ad analytics and fundamentally the offerings are applying old tricks to new media. One thing is clear, there is a huge market of suppliers offering to help companies enter the world of social media. The problem is some may start you off on the wrong road. As previously written in post titled "Do Old Mindsets Repeat Themselves" and "Do You Like Being Shot At?" the marketers message to an uniformed and yet eager market is leading the sheep to the wolves den to be slaugthered. The old school of thought concerning marketing and use of media was driven by impressions, clickthrough and a host of other "tricks of the trade". Here is some news for those looking for help. Stay away from the tricks and enter doing the right things for the right purpose. What Are The Right Things? The wrong thing is to think of social media as an extension of old advertising methods. The right thing is to think of it as the opportunity to build new relationships and extend your business networks online, without being restricted by geographical boundaries. During our search for "Social Media Services" on Google search we found a site whose white paper promotes three critcal elements for entering into "social media" and using the tools correctly. The site is RSSApplied and their white paper promotes three service elements which include:

1. Knowledge

Page 2: Social Media Marketing White Paper

2. Strategies 3. Execution

The services appear to be designed around use of virtual tools to deliver the knowledge required, qualified resources to help with the strategies and a community to assist with execution. There is a host of other companies, both large and small, also offering numerous services for businesses but only a few seem to approach the market like RSSApplied. The pricing for those offering other than "advertising design and placement" range from monthly subscription models, monthly campaign management to a full course consulting engagement with all the beels and whistles. The costs were as low as $250 a month for basic services all the way up to six figure engagements for everything from setting up and running your community blog to defining and implementing strategically designed initiatives. How Does A Business Choose? For those just entering or those just beginning the options, technology, language and "rules of the road" can be very confusing. The choices are fairly straight forward:

1. Learn on your own 2. Hiring an internal resource to manage your transformation 3. Hiring outside "experts" to help you do the right things and do

them right 4. Join a community of experts who can guide you along the way 5. Apply the old rules to the new game and loose

Whatever you choose, one thing is certain. Some companies will offer you a roadmap, but few really know how to get there. What say you?