How to Integrate Social Media to Your Marketing Plan
Part 4 of a 5 part series

Step 3 – Create your content. The key difference between outbound and inbound marketing is, outbound involves selling and talking; inbound, specifically social media, entails sharing and listening. If you use social media to blatantly sell, you’ll lose your connections, fans and followers. The key to engaging content is it must be compelling and captivating. Based on your market’s interests, …

How to Integrate Social Media to Your Marketing Plan
Part 3 of a 5 part series

Step 2 – Integrate your tactics. Begin this step by reviewing the objectives (what you want to accomplish) and strategies (how you position and promote your brand) in your marketing plan. Then brainstorm how you can align social media tactics to your existing marketing. A simple exercise is create a two column flip chart with all of your current marketing …

How to Integrate Social Media to Your Marketing Plan
Part 2 of a 5 part series

Step 1 – Choose the best channels. There are literally thousands of social media outlets (most are niche networks). For Business-to-Business (B2B) companies, LinkedIn and blogging are the most effective. For Business-to-Consumer (B2C), Facebook and Twitter are preferable. In a recent study conducted by B2B Magazine the “big three” social media channels being used by business are LinkedIn (72%), Facebook …

How to Integrate Social Media to Your Marketing Plan
Part 1 of a five part series

An increasingly popular growth strategy is to engage in social media marketing. For many businesses, there is confusion on how to do so effectively. The most common complaint I hear is “I don’t have the resources or knowledge to do social media.” Fueling that complaint is the belief that social media is an isolated marketing tactic…it’s not! Your social media …