The Need for Social Media in Marketing

There have been some amazing studies published this year about the explosion of social media. There are deep implications for the way businesses adapt to technology and sink or swim based on their ability to keep up. Here are some highlights, comments from the blogs, and links to learn more.

Before you hire those Social Media Services…

Make sure the vendor walks the talk:

1) Check online to see how they are using social media. Is it authentic, are they part of the conversation? are there trackbacks indicating they are conversing with others?
2) Get referenced from their clients, since many of these programs are public, you can easily find out who’s involved, either with or without the vendor.
3) Ask the social media vendor to clearly state their expertise, and demonstrate a strategy plan, ask for examples and details.
4) Ask them to answer the tough questions, the ones you’ll have to answer to your COO and CFO.
5) Get more than one proposal for work, aside from traditional marketing services, also get a proposal from specific social media agencies.
6) Get recommendations for vendors from social media platform vendors, find third party reports, and join user groups with your peers to get objective opinions.

By Jeremiah Owyang

Social Media and Business Familiarity (US)

For the first time, growth in familiarity, adoption and importance to mission has been documented in a statistically significant, longitudinal study. If the Inc. 500 is embracing social media at this record pace, can the rest of corporate America be far behind?

From familiarity to usage to importance, social media is expanding rapidly within the Inc. 500.

The bottom line is that the Inc. 500 continues to learn about social media at a very quick pace.

Search is Changing. Are you?

“The biggest boom on the Internet is still going on as the other 70%- 80% of businesses (mostly local gigs) begin to create their first websites. It’s simply too important to ignore anymore.  Any serious SEO firm would do well to keep up with Local if they service any Small/Medium sized businesses.

~Adam”

http://mashable.com/author/aaron-uhrmacher/