The Practical Social Media

By Amy Africa

Twitter: Worth a Test?

Although some categorize Twitter as a social media site, it’s really a combination listening and miniature e-mail marketing tool. Terry Flynn of Gibraltar Direct calls Twitter “an exercise in creating your own paparazzi,” which I agree with for the most part. If you want to run Twitter like a business, it’s worth a test. That means being aggressive and asking repeatedly for orders.

World Series of Poker Academy (@wsopacademy) advertises last-minute poker camp specials; DealTaker (@deal taker) tweets the day’s best deals and coupons it has to offer; and Woot (@woot, @wootoff, @woot
shirt, @wootwine, @wootsellout) has several different feeds its clients can follow, depending on what they’re interested in.

Who does all this social stuff best? A lot of the social media mucky-mucks think Gary Vaynerchuk, owner of Wine Library and the Wine Library TV video blog (he’s @garyvee on Twitter). But my personal favorite is Steve Spangler of Steve Spangler Science. He’s completely charming, fun, witty and rocket scientist smart. He “gets it” in a very different way than most folks. He blogs at stevespangler.com, and you can find his store at stevespanglerscience.com. Both of them, as well as Fetch Enterprises (www.fetchdog.com), are worth checking out.

You’re too old-school. Why don’t you retire already?”

Ahhh … another day, another client meeting. Another fresh-faced punk who thinks he’s a social media expert because he has accounts on Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Twitter — and his ever-so-charming personality on about 50 online dating sites.

I sit stoically, replaying in my head the scene from “Fried Green Tomatoes” where Kathy Bates smashes her big ole boat of a car into the teensy automobile of the two young girls because they “stole” her parking space. Much older, she figured she had better insurance.

Feeling confident that I have much better lawyers, I know I could smack him like Kathy Bates and get away with it. But I restrain myself.

If every Tom, Dick and Harry professing to be some social guru gave me a dollar, I’d top Bill Gates on this year’s Fortune 100 list. Unfortunately, most of these so-called experts can’t afford to give me a dollar without a paycheck advance.

Yes, everyone’s buzzing about the social space. It’s hot, it’s sexy and you can’t watch the news without someone like Barbara Walters talking about “MyFace.” But the truth is, it’s also a lot of work. Not to mention, most marketers don’t need more traffic — they need to figure out how to convert the traffic they already have.

If you’re pondering whether to fix your abysmal catalog quick-order form or spend the time on Sphinn or Facebook, it’s a no-brainer: Perfect the form first. If you have the bandwidth, however, here are some social elements worth trying on your own site.

Add Video
YouTube is the second largest search engine, and now, unlike a couple years ago, if you produce your videos properly, it really can increase sales and conversions. You don’t even need a fancy-schmancy production studio; an ordinary Flip camera will do.

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Social Media: The Practical Social Media