I speak with a lot of business owners of all sizes about social media marketing, and right now everyone is GaGa over Facebook. The Facebook obsession is understandable – Facebook is the GIANT of social media marketing. With over 750 million people on Facebook and over half of them logging in every day, Facebook represents a huge opportunity for businesses.
But one of the things that I like to stress about social media marketing is that it is more than just Facebook. Facebook is only ONE of a LARGE NUMBER of social media tools that can grow your business. This is why I created the Social Media Field Guide, which is the basis of my book and one of the tools that I like to use in my social media marketing presentations.
The problem that a lot of business owners have is thinking strategically about ALL of the social media marketing opportunities instead of just the most popular tools like Facebook and Twitter.
I recently gave a keynote presentation to small business owners and I talked to them about 20 social media tools that they may not have thought of to grow their business.
Here is half of the list (I can’t give out everything on my blog ;-P)
- Webinars
- Discussion Forums
- Niche Social Networks
- Foursquare
- Co-Creation
- Participation in Communities
- YouTube and Video Marketing
- Review Sites
- SlideShare
- Scribd
You make an excellent point! There’s no debating that a Facebook presence is a must for businesses these days, but depending on who your targets are, you might be selling your business short if you put all your social media eggs in one basket. It’s great that you help business owners branch out in the social media world.
Thanks for the comment! You are absolutely right – you don’t want to put all of your eggs in one basket, or as I like to say “If I’m going to put all of my eggs in one basket, it better be a basket that I am carrying” (like my website).
– K