Here an analogy: Would you go to Tiger Woods and say, "You sure practice and play a lot of golf. How do you find the time?" Tiger is in the business of playing golf. I am in the business of marketing, and marketing means getting out there by blogging and tweeting.
This isn't about making friends, updating them on my feelings and life, and letting them know that my cat rolled over. If you wanted to play golf professionally, would you ask Tiger if you should learn the game or watch from the sidelines? What do you think he'd say? If you want to use social media for marketing, you need to approach it as a business skill like any other business skill.
Companies often approach Social Computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed — a blog here, a podcast there — to achieve a marketing goal. But a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for. You can use the tool on this page to get started.
Forrester's Social Technographics® classifies consumers into six overlapping levels of participation (see a presentation, 8 slides). Based on their survey data we can see how participation varies among different groups of consumers, globally.
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“Professional, creative and a great marketing collaborator – Tracy from Wehringer and Co. is a leading consultant that I have worked with. No matter what the challenge, she rose to the occasion with flexibility and integrity. Tracy is a real pleasure to work with because she could take an idea and shape it into action. It is refreshing to work with a top-notch social marketing expert and I highly recommend Tracy’s work ethic.” April 23, 2009
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