Using Social Media Platforms for Marketing
I have noticed lately that my social media accounts are full of marketing crud. Yes, crud. Now, I am not one to tell you all not to use social media to market (obviously), but shoveling out meaningless content with lots of links is not the way to do it.
It seems that some people are trying to take old school marketing and advertising techniques and apply 
them to social media. The problem with that is that old school marketing and advertising is about one way communication. Messaging that is watered down to the lowest common denominator in order to appeal to the most people.
Social media is, well, social…as is social media marketing. And if you are starting with the idea that this is about showing up and continuously pushing information out until someone finally hits a link, you are missing the mark by a mile. That is the surest way to alienate an entire community of people.
Using social media platforms for marketing your blog, and anything else for that matter, starts with the generation of quality information…let’s say blog posts…then moves to finding other people who are interested in the same topic. Once you have found interested parties, then you have a conversation, or two or three…next thing you know, you are having a relationship. That is what generates sticky traffic.
Some argue that this is too intensive of a model, that they simply don’t have the time to interact in this way. Then, this isn’t the form of marketing for you. There are ways to work smarter in this process, but there are no shortcuts. If you consider the volume of effort you must invest to get traditional marketing to work, surely developing a few relationships isn’t that big of a deal.
Remember, your blog is a social media tool. And if you want to use your blog to promote your business, you will have to interact with your readers. They don’t want to show up and read volumes of information and have zero interaction. That’s back to a standard website format…one way communication. Reach out and connect with the people in your social media spheres, you will be glad you did.
