Using Social Media for Business

Social media marketing, or content marketing, is all the rage in marketing and public relations today. Businesses are investing more and more of their marketing dollars into online influencers and perfecting their "free" social networking accounts to engage customers through this new media. But how is it to be used? How do we engage and influence through social media?

Social Media as Cocktail Parties

Social media can be a very impactful form of marketing for an organization or business, but it is not to be used like any other marketing tool. Scott uses a cocktail party as a metaphor for social media: "Think of social media and the ways that people interact on blogs, forums, and social networking sites as bars, private clubs, and cocktail parties" (Scott 63). Social media is to treated like bars, clubs, and parties. Weird, I know, but it works. 

Here is why:

These are the places people go to congregate, meet up with friends and meet new friends, and have a good time. People converse back and forth; it's not a speech or performance. It's where casual, genuine conversation happens with friends, and maybe new friends, too. 

You listen. You talk, providing insight to the conversation. You listen again. You do NOT sell (at least at first). You build rapport. You make friends. You have fun.

This is how social media is to be used for business. New accounts, your potential customers, aren't looking to follow a feed that is sell, sell, sell. New accounts want to become friends with accounts that engage in the bigger conversation, gives more than it takes and listens to those they are talking to.

Listen. Engage. Listen again. Make friends. Have fun. It's that simple.