Social media works best when it provides potential customers with something they’ve never seen before or the opportunity to jump into a conversation they wouldn’t otherwise be able to have.

The weakest social media campaigns are purely sales-oriented, every blog written and tweet published has a single aim – advertising. That generally means their content is very one-note, can be repetitive and has a clear agenda which puts off many readers.

That’s not to say social media should obscure your business’ involvement entirely; just that it should explore different avenues by which to raise awareness. For blogs – is there an industry issue or debate you want to become involved with? A key business question you’d like to discuss or some information on a key area you’d like to share? Addressing these sorts of topics via blogs not only positions you as a business of intelligence and free thought, but also encourages engagement with your brand through debate and conversation.

If you are more interested in social networking, then the word constraints obviously come into play. However, there are still plenty of characters to ask a question and open a debate, or, just as importantly, respond to someone else’s work. Conversation is a two-way corridor and the more you interact with others, the more you’ll find come back to you!

Tags: social media, social media marketing, social media training

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 21st, 2010 at 5:48 pm and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.