budget

Today we’re covering Part 4 of our Budgeting 2009 Web Strategy Series – Social Media.

Social Media
Cost: Free – Completely variable depending on scope
Time: An hour a day – at least

As a preface – I am not a social media expert. If you want expert analysis, see the resources below.

Social Media is all about community and conversations. You cannot simply sign up for Twitter and Facebook and consider it social media marketing. The biggest part of a social media budget, at least for us at 48Web, is time. It takes time to build community – and community is one of the most powerful facets of a an effective web strategy. There are three steps to using social media as a marketing tool – listen, join the conversation, and engage discussions. (If you think there are more or less, please share them with us in the comments).

Listening is easy and can be automated. This is the simplest step to get into social media – start listening. Subscribe to Twitter and Google Blog Searches to get started. Set up Google Blog Alerts for your company. All these listening tools are free. And if you want to really start researching – start using Trackur or FiltrBox. Setting up this research environment is easy and takes little time – but has a HUGE ROI. Joining the conversation is often the hardest part because social media is very adverse to traditional marketing messages. In fact – I’d just start joining discussions without any marketing broadcasts. Next up – engage conversations.. Start discussions and gear them towards your brand. Again – I am not a social media expert, but these methods do work. If you have other recommendations, please leave them in the comments.

Social media is a low budget (time and cost), high ROI method of marketing – It’s a must-do internet marketing tactic for an effective web strategy. If you are looking to get started in Social Media, check out Zane’s simple Social Media Starter Kit… Or, check out the Social Media Cheat Sheet. Or, see the resources below. [click to continue…]

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