Internet marketing | Social media is like your cocktail party

By Karin Schefermann

It is important to remember the fundamental difference between traditional media and new social media. Traditional media is like your father when you arrive home late from a party. He gives you a lecture on what is good for you and what you should not do but doesn’t give you a chance to respond. Billboards, TV and radio all have the same mentality; they keep pushing adverts but they don’t provide you with a platform to respond.

Social Media on the other hand is like your cocktail party because interaction and feedback is encouraged. The most important aspect of social media is to increase the visibility of your brand, services and product.

Step 1
The first step is to actually make an appearance at the cocktail party. To stand out you need to look good. It is all about first impressions. All media platforms need to be consistent so that your brand can be recognised and remembered.

Step 2
The next step is to find the group where you feel comfortable. At a cocktail party you will have pockets of people. Each pocket represents a different topic. The ‘jocks’ will stand together talking about sport, the girls about gossip, the debate team about politics and the geeks about computers. The same principle applies to Facebook; you have different groups forming according to interest.

Step 3
Be that person everyone wants to speak to. What do you do to become a good host? Listen to what other people have to say. This is easier said than done because everybody likes talking about themselves. The host will always ask you how you are doing and what your interests are. This makes a person feel special and want to interact with the host. This increases trust between the host and the guest. Instead of sending sales tweets to your followers, ask them what they are interested in and what they would like to talk about. This is far more valuable because you are learning more about your target market.

If your party was successful, the word will spread that you were a great host and that they would definitely go to one of your parties again. Therefore more and more people will join your cocktail party because people trust their friends’ recommendations. Soon you will be starting a natural trend and your followers will grow by themselves because of the effort you made from the beginning to be a good host.

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Back to SmartyPants Newsletter - March 2010 Edition