Creativity! The Best Social Media-Marketing Secret Going Forward Into 2011

Posted by Jason Kienbaum on Nov 30, 2010 in Small Business Marketing | 3 comments

There are a ton of ways to promote our business online for the rest of 2010 and going forward for 2011. However, what is going to separate companies from one another is their ability to be creative with all the different types of web tools, like social media. It always seems to be at the top of everyone’s online marketing efforts and why shouldn’t it be? After all it’s a free platform to promote your brand. Too many companies are now settling for an “I’ll wait to see what others do,” kind of mentality, especially when it comes to social media. I get it; social media and the whole web 2.0 are still somewhat new and maybe scary to tackle (at least for some big brands it is anyway).  However, here is a great opportunity to put your creativity to work and pick up some momentum for your business. Below are my three must do’s if you want to incorporate some creativity into you social media marketing!

It doesn’t really matter what social media network you are using as long as you are committed to using it and looking for new opportunities to influence your brand within that space and for those that subscribe to you. This will not only help you extend your brand but it will also help you be seen as an innovator or leader within social media if your creative idea is effective.

There are so many different social media or social networking websites in the game today that you can’t possibly have a presence on all of them and it doesn’t pay to unless you have the time. It goes back to my first point on commitment so let’s not half ass a social media presence. Even though you can’t be on every social media platform, I feel it is at least requires a look to see if it could be the right place for your business in the future. I at least try to check out as many new social medias as possible, even if it’s just to do something simple like register my personal name and business name. There is life outside of Facebook and Twitter – we just need to be looking. Remember when everyone was using Myspace and it was the place to be? Well that didn’t last too long when Facebook started dominating. So who’s to say that can’t happen to your favorite social media?

• DailyBooth
• Ustream
• Forumspring.me
• Social location:  Gowalla, Foursquare and Facebook Places

New applications can be a way for you to be creative in the social media space, especially if you are looking to shake things up a bit in our standard social media players like Twitter and Facebook. If you consider yourself a savvy veteran with your social media identifying new applications to use can be a simple and effective way to bring in some much needed creativity. You have the ability to quickly learn the application and establish what results you want with this application. Taking this approach can not only bring a blast of creativity, but you also can benefit from being one of the first to use a new application and possibly capture a solid audience. A quick example of this is the Paper.li application, which seemed to explode on the scene for Twitter, but since then has lost some momentum. However, those who first integrated it and properly use it, still find it to be a valuable application.