I’ve just stumbled upon EverythingCU.com, and have come across this excellent list of 27 Credit Union Social Media Don’ts. Don’t worry – every point can be applied beyond Credit Unions. Read it, apply it, and critique yourself. Whatever your first two reactions are after reading it, promise you’ll do something about it. Otherwise, it’s just another fancy list.
My favorites -
Don’t think that social media is just another marketing channel to starting shouting on.
Don’t blog just because everyone else is doing it. And if you do, don’t let it languish for long periods of time.
Don’t think that social media and traditional marketing are an either/or situation. The best campaigns utilize both types where appropriate.
The article at WebWatch is a good read, and, from my point of view, everything Nye says that’s different about LinkedIn and Facebook is true and evident. I’m 31, and I’ve definitely enjoyed my limited LinkedIn experiences much more than on Facebook. I see the purposes for both, but as an adult professional, I’m not as interested in who’s hooking up with who as I am in knowing where my friends and colleagues are now working and how I can improve my professional networking.
The comparison between the two is a little unfair: one is for professional networking, another is for social networking. Yet, they are extremely similar, they just target very different audiences and serve very different purposes.
If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, do it now, check it out and see what you think.
Sam moderated a Web 2.0 panel recently and was kind enough to pass along his notes. Every one of them deserves your attention, but here are the quotes that really stick out to me:
25% of Google search results is user generated content. If googling your company is one of the first steps a prospect before making a decision about you, how important is this stat?
Use any negative comments to your advantage. There is an opportunity in all negative comments. When people reject the idea of a corporate blog, they usually reject it for this reason. No one wants to unveil their dirty laundry (or facilitate a medium where even the clean laundry can get dirty). But that’s really not an accurate way to think about it. The way you deal with customer issues are much bigger opportunities than getting 5-star ratings from every visitor.
Have our PR firm find the A list or almost A list bloggers in our category. Interview them for your blog. They’ll likely reciprocate with links like “I was interviewed here”. This makes excellent sense. It leverages celebrity endorsement opportunities, it introduces you to the big dogs in your market, and it usually leads to them scratching your back in return. All you have to do is ask.
I’ve said it before, as have many others: Web 2.0 is opening up the entire business world to small business. However big you want your small business to be, you now have almost all the tools and almost all the opportunities that the big companies do. How are you using them? What if you just incorporated one “act of social media” – how would that affect your business?
It’s too dang hard to keep up the Joneses of marketing and business.
Every time I turn around, there’s a new tactic, tool, software, myth – SOMETHING that’s better than anything else before it. It’s happening at almost a daily rate.
And it makes me want to not do anything, cuz I know there will be a better (or more popular) way to do it tomorrow.
I confess, I have no idea how to use Twitter for business. Or Facebook. I’m sure I could figure it out, but I just haven’t. And that goes for just about anything else.
It doesn’t mean they don’t work. It means they won’t work for me, because I’ll never bother to use them.
So what do you do? You accept that maybe you won’t use the Silver Bullet of the week and stick with the method that you’re confident in and comfortable with. It’s better to use something that’s not the latest than to not use something that is.
Compiling lists like this is one of the things that can be so powerful about social media. How else could you muster up such a collection from so many industry authorities?
Here’s an interesting study on Baby Boomers and their use of word-of-mouth marketing. In summary, 89% of boomers consider friends as reliable sources for product purchasing advice.
A few observations:
The study notes that boomers use face-to-face and phone conversations twice as much as online tools such as email and the web to make their recommendations. It would interesting to know where that chain begins, though. In other words, are the 45% of boomers who use the web to make their recommendations advising much of the 89% who use phone conversations and face-to-face?
Boomers don’t like giving advice on financial services – seems most of them don’t need to worry about it (or at least don’t want to talk about it), and it’s frustrating the financial services industry.
Great site here with what appears to be a simple idea that could result in greatness. Thanks to Home4Business for passing it along.
There’s no substitute for one really big, great idea, obviously, but sometimes doing a smidge more across the board can lead to huge gains, too. In other words, sometimes the best idea is implementing several good ideas.
