The Big Wave Blog

Social Media 101
December 4, 2007

This was our first session at PubCon. It was great to have the industry experts speaking on the hottest and the most misunderstood search medium: Social Media Marketing.

Here are the “honorable mentions,” the networks mentioned during the presentation:

Flickr, DeviantART, AdultSwim, Mixx, Hugg, Sphinn, Digg, StumbleUpon, MySpace, Wikipedia, Technorati, SlideShare, YouTube, LinkedIn, Del.icio.us, IMDb, Tribe, Hacker News, Newsvine, Mename, Boing Boing, Techmeme.

Here are the top things to watch out for when getting into these networks to boost your online presence:

1. Think long term. Getting into any social network just for the short-term traffic spike will not be good for you or your business. Consistency is the name of the game.
2. Be an authority. Study the medium before joining it. Aim to be an active member. Don’t be the guy who logs in thrice a week to submit 20 articles for his clients and never contributes anything meaningful.
3. Deliver sharp content. Use catchy titles and images. Keep the content sharp and use it to solve people’s problems.

Neil Patel outlined “the dark side of social media,” which was very entertaining. A comedian at heart, I can now see how Neil became one of the top comedy channels on YouTube.

Personally, I strongly feel that in social media, “social” comes before anything else. You have to be involved and be an authority in the network before you start telling them where to buy goods and services.

Using this medium effectively to achieve marketing results is very challenging and requires a lot of effort. The downside to utilizing Social Media improperly is huge.

So beware what you wish for and how you get it online.