Social Networking Isn’t Free
My clients often tell me some variation of “My teenaged daughter thinks my business should have a Facebook site.” Or the client will want to know if they should be blogging or using Twitter. Or they might ask what, exactly, Twitter is.

They are typically intrigued that there might be a free way to hit the buzz lottery. Being ever the pragmatist, I tell them that while the cost of entry for social marketing is free, relevant, ongoing participation is not.

What I mean is this: Generally, doing social networking right requires dedicated resources to generate content and to interact with all of your business’ newfound “friends”. Dedicated resources are not free, nor, typically, even cheap. And this can be especially challenging in leaner organizations where everyone is already wearing too many hats!

There are three key questions you should ask to assess whether social marketing is right for your business now: Read More -›

So my mother asked me about Twitter last week. My clients often ask me about it, too. They’ve heard the buzz, aren’t really sure what it is, but are concerned that they’re missing out on a great tactic.

My first response to most questions about tactics is to refer back to the company’s brand strategy. If a tactic doesn’t support the strategies, it’s almost always a “no”. Also, many of my clients have limited resources and still have a lot of work to do on getting their marketing fundamentals in order, so they have bigger fish to fry first.

Because of this, I typically advise, “not now” for tweeting (communicating via Twitter). However, I do recommend two things:
1) Register their company’s name (Click Here). For example, I “own” argentumstrat;
2) Assign someone in customer service to periodically conduct a Twitter Search. Read More -›