{"id":221,"date":"2009-05-30T18:12:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-31T00:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jamesvandyke.com\/?p=221"},"modified":"2009-05-30T18:12:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-31T00:12:00","slug":"the-essentials-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jamesvandyke.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/30\/the-essentials-social-media\/","title":{"rendered":"The Essentials: Social Media"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lately I&#8217;ve had several people ask me about adding social media to their marketing mix. Here are my three essential rules for social media:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>It&#8217;s still marketing<\/li>\n<li>Expect conversations on difficult issues<\/li>\n<li>Regular updates\u00a0 are key, so plan accordingly<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>It&#8217;s still marketing<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Social media is new, exciting and sometimes intoxicating. Before you jump in remember, the fundamentals of marketing still apply. You must still be able to answer:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What is my goal or objective?<\/li>\n<li>Who is my audience?<\/li>\n<li>What message am I trying to convey?<\/li>\n<li>What tactic is going to be most effective?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What can happen is that because it&#8217;s new and cool you think you need to join in.\u00a0 However, just because Twitter is in the news right now doesn&#8217;t mean it&#8217;s a solution to your problems. Social media isn&#8217;t a case of &#8220;if you build it, they will come.&#8221; Start with the basics and look to see if social media tactics are right for your situation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Expect conversations on difficult issues<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Be prepared to talk about the weaknesses or difficult issues of your organization or product. Social media creates a town hall atmosphere where critics are certain to voice their opinions. It&#8217;s more productive to allow these opinions in an arena where you have a opportunity to respond than other forums simply where you have no voice.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Regular updates are key &#8211; plan accordingly<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Unlike a new brochure, social media efforts will have a long life. People expect you to update them and respond to comments that they share. Creating a social media channel requires a time commitment. If you don&#8217;t update regularly, it will appear that your organization isn&#8217;t active and thriving. Your social media presence will affect how people view the quality and vibrancy of your organization in the same way your traditional marketing materials do.<\/p>\n<p>Questions or comments? Leave them in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lately I&#8217;ve had several people ask me about adding social media to their marketing mix. Here are my three essential rules for social media: It&#8217;s still marketing Expect conversations on difficult issues Regular updates\u00a0 are key, so plan accordingly It&#8217;s still marketing Social media is new, exciting and sometimes intoxicating. Before you jump in remember, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"url":"","client":"","location":"","start_date":"","end_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[90,45,87,46],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamesvandyke.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamesvandyke.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamesvandyke.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamesvandyke.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamesvandyke.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jamesvandyke.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":227,"href":"https:\/\/jamesvandyke.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions\/227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamesvandyke.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamesvandyke.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamesvandyke.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}