Yes, everyone. It's time. Time for this little intern to spread her wings and fly from Firebelly (or be pushed out of the next unexpectedly by Duncan. You choose the visual you prefer!) and venture back into the world where commoners don't understand social media and all of the opportunities it presents; back into the world where aren't thinking about what they need to Tweet or how they can update their status every second of every day; back to a world where I must defend my social media obsession and repeatedly explain why it's so important to thrive as a functioning human being in this computer-driven day-in-age. I have been so spoiled here at Firebelly and learned so much.
What have I learned? Can I write a novel to answer this question? No? Well, then I'll summarize a few of the major things:
Social media is a conversation, not a lecture: As I've written in a previous blog, social media can't work as a marketing tool if there's no response. You can tweet or update your status all you want about what's coming up next or something new going on at your company, but if you don't respond to comments/advice/feedback from your followers/friends, they'll lose interest. They won't feel connected to you or your company, which is a major purpose of social media marketing. So respond. Be interactive. Take the time to reply to at least one response each day. It will pay off in loyal followers and more personal communication between producer and consumer.
Video is an extremely effective marketing tool: People read and comprehend. They see and comprehend. If they can do both at one time, that's most effective for the company marketing to people. Studies show that people remember 10 percent of what they see, 20 percent of what they hear and 50 percent of what they see and hear. Utilize that statistic by registering for a Youtube page and updating it frequently. Furthermore, people recall 80 percent of what they see, hear and do. So if you can make your videos interactive (i.e. instructing them to click links, get up and do this, anything at all interactive), your videos will be the most effective they can be towards your marketing goal.
Twitter is a legit obsession: Yeah, yeah, I know everyone said this about Facebook, Myspace and every other social media networking Web site that's out there and will be out there in the future. However, Twitter is a rare breed. When you learn how to use it properly, you can't live without it. My TweetDeck is my best friend. As a news junkie, I visit at least 10 news-based Web sites daily. Because I follow them on Twitter, TweetDeck allows me to collect all of those sites' updates in one place and have them fed to me as they are updated. It's pure heaven! I also RT people consistently as a way of giving mad props to someone's thought or Internet find. On the marketing side, #hashtags make searching for what your customers are talking about extremely simple. Learn how to use Twitter to your marketing advantage. You won't regret the time (and/or money, since time is money, as smart business people say) spent on the effort.
Lastly, and most importantly, I learned I love social media and wish to continue working with it in the future. Based on how popular it is now, I don't think that wish will be difficult to grant. I will be continuing my interning life in New York City this summer at an organization that is in the rookie stages of incorporating social media into its marketing strategy. I know I will take the lessons I learned at Firebelly to help that currently small component of the organization to grow into a driving force (like a heard of cattle, right Duncan?)
I send so many thanks to Duncan and the rest of the Firebelly team for allowing me so many opportunities and being so willing to teach me everything they know in the short time I was here. I hope to continue writing/editing/blogging/social media'ing for them in the future.
Alyson (@ Twitter)
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