Tuesday, September 15, 2009

The Community Factor - Social Media

I have been trying to figure out something that probably has been blatantly obvious to the rest of the world, what is all the buzz about social media? Why is it growing like it is? It finally dawned on me; it allows anyone to create a community in minutes. Simple, right. Why is that important? You ask good questions, I will tell you. When it comes to marketing whether it is local or global, the rule of thumb is he who has the biggest list wins. The key is that the list should be targeted and focused. By joining a social media site such as Facebook and Twitter you become part of a large group of millions of users. Once you are a member you create subgroups or interest groups such as a Fan Page on Facebook. Once you have this Fan Page up you can get your friends to promote it for you and before long you can build a more focused list. At this point you have an opportunity to monetize your time and effort.

The whole key is building clusters of groups with similar interests or communities. Then add value and content to keep this community engaged. Once you do that you can start to share what you have to offer by way of products, seminars and services. Literally, when done well, you can be selling on the internet in weeks and months instead of years.

What kind of community do you want to build? What kind of community are you a member of? Now how can you apply this to what you do and how you do it?