Social Media Executive Primer

Astadia recently published an Executive White Paper Primer on Social Media so I thought I'd give you a sneak peek at it, It was co-authored by me, along with colleagues Karin Pindle, Kara Balmer and Matt Glazer. Enjoy.

What is Social Media?

Social media supports the human need for social interaction, using Internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM). — Wikipedia 9/09

What’s In It For Me?

In his book “The New Rules of Marketing & PR”, David Meerman Scott lists three uses of blogs for marketing and PR:

1. 
   
   To easily monitor what millions of people are saying about you, the market you sell into,your organization, and its products.
   
   
2. 
   
   To participate in those conversations by commenting on other people’s blogs
   
   
3. 
   
   To begin and to shape those conversations by creating and writing your own blog.
   
   

The Players

Top Social Networking Sites by Unique Visitors (October 2009):

• 
  
  Facebook is a social utility that helps people communicate with friends, family and coworkers.The company develops technologies that facilitate the sharing of information through the social graph, the digital mapping of people’s real-world social connections. 300m
  
  

• 
  
  Windows Live Spaces (also known by its users as MSN Spaces) is Microsoft’s blogging and Social Networking platform. Basic functionality of Windows Live Spaces includes: Blogs, Photos, Lists and Profiles. 120m
  
  

• MySpace became the most popular social networking site in the United States in June 2006. According to comScore however, MySpace was overtaken internationally by main competitor Facebook in April 2008, based on monthly unique visitors. In March, 2009, they announced a partnership with Citysearch to beta launch ‘MySpace Local’ — a social directory of small business profiles allowing users to review, rate, and share content from businesses nationwide. 264m

• 
  
  Flickr has established itself as one of the Internet’s leading spots for amateur photography. More than 2 billion pictures have been posted by the site’s 27 million members. 32m
  
  

• 
  
  Twitter is a social networking service that allows users to send “tweets,” or text-based messages up to 140 characters long, to the Twitter website. 44m n Classmates.com is a personal networking service connecting over 32 million members with friends, family, military and work colleagues. 50m
  
  

• 
  
  Linkedin has established the world’s largest and most powerful business network. Currently, over 27 million professionals are on LinkedIn, representing all five hundred of the Fortune 500 companies, as well as a wide range of household names in technology, financial services, media, consumer packaged goods, entertainment, fashion, and numerous other industries. 50m
  
  

• 
  
  MyLife Locating friends and family, keeping in touch (formerly Reunion.com) 51m
  
  

• 
  
  LiveJournal contains more than 12 million personal journals created since the site was launched in 1999. Vox is a new service of LiveJournal with rich blogging, social networking, and privilege-setting features. 17m
  
  

• 
  
  Tagged allows its users to build and customize profiles, send messages, leave comments, post bulletins, customize status, browse photos, watch videos, play games, give gifts, give tags, chat and make friends. 70m
  
  

• 
  
  Bebo, an acronym for “Blog early, blog often”, is a social networking website, founded in January 2005. 40m
  
  

Part 1-Social Media: An Executive Primer

Part 2-Define Your Strategy
Part 3-Define Your Purpose
Part 4-Define Your Voice
Part 5-Audience Relationships
Part 6-How to Start
Part 7-Measuring Success
Part 8-Social Media Do’s and Don’ts

Updated 5-8-12
Visit my brand new website and learn more about Social Media Marketing Best Practices

Steve Kellogg

-Demand Generation/Marketing Automation Consultant, Astadia
-Eloqua Certified Marketing Best Practices Consultant -