What emerged is a revolution in communications forcing us tothink in words rather than paragraphs. We now have to cut through the BS andget to the point, quickly.
 
Instead of causing less communication due to the characterrestraint tweeters have found a way to do even more with less. Each word now hasa higher level of value, often times requiring users to write and rewrite toget the message across in 140.

 So what effect has this actually had on the industry?
We pitch better stories, create better ads, and presentbetter ideas. That old elevator message that we were all taught suddenlybecomes the way we communicate.
 
We as an industry present our ideas clear, concise, andwithout the BS that an ADD society can’t retain.
 
Moving forward how can we become even better communicators?
The social aspect of this communication, in particular theart of retweets, can be the biggest, most game changing part of this all. Yespeople already see value in this and tap into it. But the possibilities aremuch larger when we begin to communicate with the purpose of being retweeted.
 
The Goal: Effective Communications with 100 Characters.
Communicating for retweets of course takes us from 140 to120 or so when we account for the RT and username. Then if we take into accounta link we are looking at 100 characters, which should be the ultimate goal.
 
If we can then build compelling enough statements in 100characters our ideas can move quicker and reach more people than ever thoughtpossible. We are no longer reaching local media, existing clients, regionalmarkets, and friends. We are tapping into a global audience. Just imagine, 7degrees of separation. A few of your followers retweet, a few of theirsretweet, and so on. Suddenly your ideas, ads, and news are communicating inways never dreamed.
 
So hold on communicators. We are evolving, becoming better,more effective, and reaching more people, all in 140 characters or less.
 
So “What are you doing”? Drop me a line in the comments andlet me know what you think.

This will be the first in a series of social marketing tips looking at First Why your company should not try social marketing, second why your company should social market, and third how to get started with social marketing. These will be living post so if you have ideas on how to make these articles better post in the comments and I will keep working to create a better article. 

1. Twitter, blogging, and social media take a lot of time. So much in fact many companies are going to a dedicated social media person.

The worst possible thing you can do is having a page out there that the last update was in 2007. For this reason alone social media is not for most companies. Social media is dynamic and in need of constant updating, if you cannot keep it fresh then don’t do it.

2. Social media requires a level of creativity that most companies do no have.

Most of your old school direct mail marketing people will not “get” social media. They can’t understand why people use it and they do not know how to utilize it. Marketing with social media requires the ability to think outside the box and be on the cutting edge of marketing. Simply put unless you are lucky enough to have that, or willing to get it, your classic marketing techniques in social marketing will fail.

3. Finding the right are of social marketing is difficult and often you are trying the wrong medium for your audience.

Social marketing takes an extensive amount of research in finding where your target audiences are and how to reach them. More often than not you are trying to reach different audiences such as media and customers and this typically doubles the effort. Most companies either give up before they get started or end up doing it wrong.

4. Social market seems to change daily. Most companies lack the flexibility and willingness to change on the fly.

As if the time researching and the time updating is no enough, you also have to spend time keeping up with the latest trends. This also means that there will be times when you have to abandon all this work and shift to a new focus. Most managers/directors in companies simply cannot handle this sort of change and uncertainty.

5. Social Marketing is not easy; you will eventually fail.

There is no book about how to execute social marketing, inevitably you will spend months working on something and get it wrong. If you have got through #4 and started questioning if you should do social marketing then it is not for your company because you are afraid to fail. 

If you made it this far, congrats. Next time I will take a look at why you should try social marketing with your company. 

Working on a beginners guide to social marketing book aimed just at giving companies without any social marketing knowledge a starting point.

If you have any topics you would like to see covered in this shoot me over an email and I will work it in. I plan on posting a few excerpts here as I go.