By Kim Albee
Updated October 18, 2012
I talk with B2B marketers every day, and now more and more B2C marketers, and in just about every case, people think they are missing out if they're not active with social media. I then ask them, if you could achieve your marketing objectives without social media, would you care? The answer is always "No! I just want to achieve my objectives." Exactly. As I reviewed this post, even though I wrote this two years ago -- it is still relevant today.
Great question that was asked at Focus.com. It also came up tonight at dinner with my sister, Ardath.
It all boils down to CONTENT. If you want to participate on social media sites to drive interest, the only way to do that is through having relevant and engaging content.
Social Media is a distribution channel.
You Tube is a distribution channel.
iTunes is a distribution channel.
Your Website is a distribution channel.
Your Blog is a distribution channel.
Email is a distribution channel.
Direct Mail is a distribution channel.
For your content.
I think it's safe to say that effective online marketing and lead nurturing is completely dependent upon how relevant your content is, and leveraging all of the different media (text, video, audio) in your content strategy. In social, you can post discussions, or status updates that point to content that you make available, so you continue to build your reputation. Then other content is available to people who "opt-in" to learn more, or otherwise show interest, which you deliver through email, direct mail, etc.
Is there a difference between content that drives traffic and interest, and content that nurtures leads who are actively expressing interest and providing you with their information? I believe that the answer is Yes.
Which gets at the critical aspect that underlies the ability to produce relevant content, which is having an intimate understanding of your target market -- their pain, their needs, their interest, etc. Without this, developing a content strategy, that both drives traffic and interest, as well as nurtures those that have expressed interest, will be a guessing game -- no matter whether you use social to distribute that content, or other nurturing tactics and channels.
Updated October 2012 -- Focus has been taken offline - so you can't see the answers. We did a webinar In May 2012 on Easy Social Media Marketing that outlines how to approach your social media activities in a way that's manageable and will produce results.
For interviews with Joe Pulizzi and Ardath Albee about how to put together content that drives results, check out: InternetMarketingCompete.com/content-strategy
