Social Media Strategy and Marketing: Doing It By The Book

Social Media Strategy and Marketing: Doing It By The Book

IBM conducted a survey of senior-level marketing executives at mid-market and large companies in the United States and the United Kingdom that revealed some sobering information. Sixty-seven percent 67% of these marketers readily admitted they know they must add social media to their marketing mix, but don’t know where to start.

A number of people had been encouraging me to write a book and share my expertise in this area, so I did. And while I did continue working with clients and speaking publicly while writing my book, I took a hiatus from posting blogs.

Regularly posting informative blogs is important. Since I had a great deal of insight and knowledge to share, rather than trickle it out via numerous blog posts I was inspired to write an entire book to disseminate the information on a larger scale for all those who want to be in the know.

Writing the book was a labor of love because I’m so passionate about the topics. And it provided an opportunity to share about the underpinnings beneath the use of social media.

The title of the book is, “Insightful Knowledge: An Enlightened Guide to Social Media Strategy & Marketing”

Insightful Knowledge actually has two meanings.

First, I openly share the insightful knowledge I’ve gained since I began utilizing online communities back in the days of Bulletin Board Systems, CompuServe, Prodigy, and AOL; six years before the web browser was invented. In 1987, I was using the strategies and tactics that are now considered best practices for social media marketing and running a social business – in the process I built a global brand with 70% market share.

The second meaning of insightful knowledge has everything to do with the significant advantages companies realize when they effectively utilize social media and become market-driven social organizations. The transformation into a social organization includes interacting with consumers in real-time and developing an excellent understanding of their sentiments. This requires perpetually engaging consumers in meaningful dialogues that result in actual relationships. The information learned from these relationships should be utilized for Voice of Customer initiatives to help organizations truly understand what consumers actually value. When employees hear specific feedback from that’s directly attributed to a real customer’s actual interaction with the organization and an interesting phenomenon occurs, and employees become much more empathetic.

This empathy, along with greatly improved levels of comprehension regarding customers’ needs enables organizations to adapt and adjust to keep their brands in sync with their public to increase relevance. It also provides the insights to make knowledge-driven decisions; insightful knowledge.

Copyright © Stephen Monaco 2013.   All rights reserved.