Social Network Marketing Event Draws Huge Crowd

Anyone who doubts just how red-hot social marketing is these days should have tried to get into Wednesday's Motor City Connect workshop on "Using LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter For Business."

You couldn't -- it was sold out, even after moving from the 125-seat Automation Alley atrium to a 225-seat classroom at Walsh College Troy's campus.

Basically, Motor City Connect presenters Charlie Wollborg and Terry Bean, taking time off from their jobs at the marketing agency Curve Detroit, said every business has to account for and participate intelligently in social networking if it hopes to survive.

First, they said, Aesop lied. (Or maybe he was just writing for the tortoise market.) The hare always wins; the race really is always to the swift. So that means when it comes to social networking, Rule No. 1 is "Ready. Fire. Aim."

But Rule No. 2 is Join All, Participate Few. That said, there are literally dozens, maybe hundreds, of social networks out there, with more coming every day. Businesses should consider coming up with a creative Web site name that could host a social network for their industry and parking it. But for the most part, there are three major social networks.

Facebook, which started out on college campuses. Wollborg and Bean said this site is "a great way to link up with your past," all the way back to elementary school, and it's reasonably good for networking.

LinkedIn is the mostly-all-business networking site for the present, for those serious business contacts.

Twitter, meanwhile, with its strict micro-message limit, wide net and silly-sounding nomenclature (tweet?), is the future. It's full of early adopters who will give business people the information and contacts they need for tomorrow. (So yeah, I'm on it, at mattroush, although I kind of don't see the point when I already post most of my life and job on Facebook.)

As for MySpace, they said, if you're involved in the music industry, it's critical. But if you're not, don't spend a flippin' minute on MySpace. In fact, they said that just by uttering that sentence they had already spent too much time talking about MySpace.

Wollborg and Bean said there are applications that can aggregate a person's Twitter posts, and that they use multiple accounts on Twitter -- some to follow, some to promote.

Rule No. 3: PBO (Personal Brand Organization) is the new SEO (search engine optimization). They said today's professionals must take detailed steps to brand themselves online, and take this stuff seriously (as in by fully completing their online profiles, including pictures, and updating them frequently.

They also noted Rule No. 4, Don't Be That Guy -- saying that social networking is a conversation, not a sales pitch. Being overly salesy on Facebook or Twitter is just as obnoxious as "networking" your way around a reception by spending 10 seconds with each person -- just as long as it takes to shove your business card in their face.

Rule No. 5: Feed Your Networks. That means fresh content regularly. However, they acknowledged that social networking sites are a black hole, a timewaster. That's why you do it in little chunks -- and you do even that at various times of day from day to day to maximize exposure, because there are different audiencs aboard at different times.

Rule No. 6: It ROIs or it dies. If something fails to show a return, drop it.

Rule No. 7: Find your golden ratio. Share the megaphone with others to increase your amplification.

Rule No. 8: Build it before you need it. Be ready on social networks before their time

And finally, Rule No. 9: Tools are not tactics. Owning a scalpel doesn't make you a surgeon. Hire experts.

The class will be offered again on Feb. 10. More at www.motorcityconnect.com.

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Social Network Marketing Event Draws Huge Crowd

GLITR Friday, February 5, 2010

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