MARKETING EXPOSED

“Social media doesn’t replace traditional media, it’s the next step.”

- Chris Brogan from a recent conference I recently attended on Inbound Marketing

You’ve heard all the buzz, right?  Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, the “blogosphere“, just to name a few.  There is a lot of “buzz” because this has become such an important “next step” into what you do with regard to marketing your business.

THE WAY IT’S ALWAYS BEEN

For years and years, when you opened your storefront the way to get people to come by was to stand there and shout out to anyone willing to listen about what you had to offer and why what you had was a better option than some other place.  Of course, just standing in front of your store and shouting out to the street in front was pretty inefficient.

So, you utilized various mass media outlets to “shout out” on your behalf.  You ran a display ad in the local paper and in the yellow page directory.  You had commercial messages on radio and/or TV.  Maybe you even sent out special offers via mail. 

And in the last few years you even got into the “digital online age” and created a website!  But even then, you were literally standing there in front of your website and trying to shout out a message to anyone who just happened to come by.

This is Outbound Marketing.  You push messages out to whomever might be listening or reading or watching.  And you hope that something about your message catches the ear or eye of enough of those people to turn into sales.

THE NEXT STEP

Now, instead of just standing in front of your store and shouting, you venture right out into the community at large.  You get to know people personally.  You become a part of conversations.  And as you do so you learn more about them.  And their friends.  And about the things they’re talking about.

You also begin to learn about some interests that they have and realize that you can contribute insightful thoughts toward those interests, some of which might happen to be similar to the sorts of things you actually sell!  Some of these people start to take notice of you and really begin to value your opinions.  They begin to view you as a trusty resource. 

A day comes when they need or want one of these things you happen to sell and they seek you out.  Perhaps having been satisfied by what you’ve done for them they refer other friends to you.

This is Inbound Marketing.  You participate in conversations, become a friend and a resource on certain things.  And they come in to you!  And send you referrals.  It’s not so much you selling to them as it is them buying from you.

Ok, that’s a simplified analogy, but hopefully it helps you understand how it is that Inbound marketing is the essence of this thing you hear about called “Social Network Marketing.”   It’s the old fashioned idea of networking, but using wonderful new technologies to be able to do this on a much larger, more efficient, and more effective scale.

So, through getting on board with Twitter, or setting up a Facebook Fan Page, or beginning to write blog posts, you have ways to show that you are 1) a valuable resource;  and, 2) that you are also a human being with fun hobbies or interests that help you connect to others who become friends.  And hopefully in some cases, customers.  Or at least the basis for referrals to other customers.

Traditional media still plays an important role in helping you to build a known company brand name on a mass scale level to the particular marketplace that you serve.  Social media, in being the next step, puts a face and a personal identity to that brand on an individual scale level.  It’s taking your company brand and integrating into a personal brand.  And then building real personal relationships from that.  Personal relationships that can cement your business into whatever sort of community you serve, whether it’s just the small town in which your store is located, or the niche part of the world which you can now serve via the web.

Are you still trying to just stand there and shout out?  Or are you now also venturing out to shake hands and build new and valuable friendships?

- Steve

Storefront photo credit: jed_mtascp