Social Media Marketing Maverick

Apparently I am not alone.

Cone, Inc. presented findings of an online survey done in September, 2008 of 1,092 adults (525 men and 567 women 18 or older) that showed 60 percent of them use social media web sites.

Of the 60 percent of social media users, 93 percent believe companies should have a presence in social media, while a huge 85 percent believe a company should not only be present but also interact.

A whopping 56 percent of users feel both a stronger connection with and better served by companies when they can interact with them in a social media  environment.

Wow. And get this…this is coming from hard to reach consumers in the online space like men, younger users (ages 18-34) and the wealthiest households (income over $75,000+).

All the more reason I say “connectivity is the new currency(tm)”. 

Read more here:

Cone Finds That Americans Expect Companies to Have a Presence in Social Media

Welcome to another edition of the Social Media Marketing Live Lab.

As you already know, I consider myself one big experiment in how social media is changing business - my new mantra is “Connectivity is the New Currency”.  This time, it’s me who is the actual subject in the lab, I’m involved in an interesting experiment involving getting an MBA in Social Media Marketing.

MBA stands for Mastering Business Actions.

About 6 weeks ago, I met Ann DeVere, creator of the Marketing Blueprint and the MBA in Marketing.  for the second time in as many years. The first time was over the phone, the second time in person with a group of highly motivated entrepreneurs at a Brian Tracy iLearningGlobal event. I’d been interested in learning more about her MBA so quickly went into interestED mode because I sensed there was some transferable application of her system to social marketing.

MBA in Marketing has 3 steps:

1. Identify Your Most PROFITABLE Customer
2. Create Your Marketing Message That Speaks Only to Them
3. Implementing Your Marketing Message using the Power of 3

While I was talking with Ann, I was also in the process of identifying the value to ME in her offer, because that is what we all think. Except, in my case I’m always ALSO thinking about the value of what someone has to my network (includes my clients).

So I was on multiple levels thinking of the ways in which to APPLY her system in my world, the brave new world of social media marketing.

Social “Multimedia” Marketing is the actual term that came up for me as she talked about her MBA (Mastering Business Actions) in Marketing.  And I realized that multimedia is what people are actually talking about when they talk about the value of generating the content being used in social media marketing today:

• Video turns into content used in Social video-sharing sites: YouTube, Vimeo
• Slideshows turn into viral marketing pieces and can be uploaded to YouTube and others
• Audio turns into MP3 most popularly known as a Podcast,  distributed online: iTunes,your blog.
• Images can be socially shared - Flickr, Picasa
• Powerpoint presentations - SlideShare
• White Papers/Special Reports - Scribd.com

When I really got the power in her 3 step system, I was hooked, and I shared my thoughts on how valuable I felt her information was applied to Mastering Business Actions social media marketing.

And so Ann also got the power of that and this social media Live Lab experiment was born - the MBA in Social “Multi”Media Marketing.

And you know every good experiment deserves it’s own blog, so we’ll be posting at www.MBAinSocialMarketing.com also.

Stay tuned for the next post - it will be about Step 1: Identifying Your Most Profitable Customer.

Your Teacher & Student,
Michelle P,

Technorati Tags ann devere, MBA in marketing, michelle price, multimedia marketing, social marketing, social media marketing, social media strategy, social media trends

(***Disclaimer***
Please excuse the way the posts are all squished together - I upgraded to Wordpress 2.6.2 AND added some really cool plugins, but now cannot figure out what is happening with the stylesheets - Bear with me til it’s fixed ;-))

(***Update*** I deactivated all the plug-ins and sure enough one of them was causing that problem.  So you can peer into the mind of a Renaissance woman geek - the next step I am taking is to reactivate them one by one to see which one was the culprit…***;-)

So, now on to my post…

Getting more (and BETTER) business is fast becoming more and more dependent on your ability to connect deeper and faster with others, which is where social media has the potential to deliver.

Tune in as Melody Campbell, The Small Business Guru and I have a candid conversation about how small business owners can grow their “social capital”, create stronger relationships and get more loyal business using social networks the way they were meant to be used.

Show details:
Get More Business Show - www.blogtalkradio.com/getmorebusiness
October 3, 2008
Friday 9 am PST
30 minutes

I’m in Great Company…here are some previous and upcoming guests:

Joan Stewart of Publicity Hound
Tom Antion of Great Internet Marketing
David Frey of Marketing Best Practices (Author “Small Business Marketing Bible”)
Terry Dean - He is a legend in Internet Marketing!
And more…you can see the shows at www.GetMoreBusinessPodcast.com

Nancy Marmolejo - Viva Visibility
Wendy Weiss - Queen of Cold Calling
Mike of Briz.com
Jeff Herring - The Article Marketing Guy
Denise Michaels - Author of Testosterone Free Marketing

Waiting in the wings are a few surprise guests…one is an author and was a featured personality on The Secret.

(And, you already may know that I owe my escape from wage slave to the entrepreneur lifestyle I craved to John Assaraf, featured teacher in The Secret so I will tune in to see who this personality is!)

Technorati Tags blog talk radio, melody campbell, michelle price, social capital, social media marketing, Social Networking