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The Social Media Landscape
On February 26 I gave a brief presentation co-sponsored by North Coast Small Business Development Center and the Redwood Technology Consortium’s Internet Marketing Group. As the title suggests it was a high level overview of the current state of social media marketing and my opinions on what works and what doesn’t. The slideshow isn’t that informative, but here it is in any case. Links to resources mentioned are below.
Resources Mentioned- The Pew Survey on Social Media Demographics
- Coming and Going on Facebook (also from Pew)
- Google Alerts
- Google Analytics
- NetVibes
- HootSuite
- Buffer
- If This Then That
- Social Media Examiner
- Social Media Today
- HubSpot
I think the core of my talk is the section on Content Marketing. That’s the new buzzword but for years the mantra has been Content is King and it’s essentially the same concept: Create valuable content whether it’s with a blog, newsletter, training videos, white papers, case studies, even testimonials. Embed that stuff in your site (good for SEO) and then post about those things on as many places and platforms as you can. Social Media Marketing should have 2 goals:
- Get people to market for you: If you provide value they will.
- Drive traffic to your site where you can control the experience (capture leads and/or conduct transactions).
I would love to hear your experiences with making social media marketing effective and efficient. And any great tools you discover along the way. Add your comments below! And as always, please share this post on your networks.
Post from: Talking Tech
The Social Media Landscape
The Legacy of a Suicide
If you’ve paid attention to the news recently you might have heard of the death of Internet programmer and activist Aaron Swartz. This may be small solace to his family and friends, but his suicide and the examination of his life and the issues he focused on could finally become the impetus for much needed changes to the way the Internet is governed and distributed.
Aaron Swartz from ragesoss on Flickr
I can’t begin to understand the causes that led to his suicide. I’m sure the reasons are complex and deeply rooted in Aaron’s personality as well as whatever outside pressures he was under. But as some of the emotional wave in reaction to his death subsides, I am seeing and hearing some really good discussion about the issues he was concerned with: Free flow of information, copyright law, open source, improved and economical bandwidth access for all. If you do much of anything on the Internet, these should be your concerns as well. A great discussion of Aaron’s life and legacy that reaches far beyond the events and causes of his death can be heard on this podcast from KCRW’s To the Point. Check it out.
Some additional links to good coverage:
Post from: Talking Tech
The Legacy of a Suicide