Newsstand

July 15, 2011
Marketing for Social Media—It's a Scary Thing [DMA11]

In the quest to learn everything about marketing for social media, you can stumble across a web site that lists 101 social media sites! No, you don't have to use StumbleUpon to find this site. And, yes, it’s probably more like 1001 social media sites that are out there. You may realize that you only know a lot about the top ten sites, a little about the next fifteen, and not much about the rest. Are you missing something in marketing for social media? What is everyone else in the industry doing to keep up with this constantly-expanding medium that we’re supposed to master at every turn?

You can also find an interesting word—meme. This identifies ideas, behaviors or styles that spread quickly from person to person within a culture. Social marketing is definitely a meme—one idea can spread so rapidly that we lose our breath just trying to keep up with it. How many of those top 25 social media outlets weren’t even invented just five years ago? Did anyone in the industry have any idea how huge an impact Facebook and Twitter would have on the way we communicate and market? How many new marketing channels are on the drawing boards now?

It all seems quite overwhelming but, as direct marketers it’s our job to keep on top of trends, learn about them, analyze them, and advise our clients on how best to integrate them into a total marketing strategy. It’s crucial that we spend time researching and learning about these opportunities because that’s what clients rely on us to do. We need to understand the nature of each outlet, how it works, its primary value as a marketing tool, and how to make it work to meet specific goals. Then we have to include these insights into our marketing plans and recommendations, and teach our clients about them as well.

Over 10,000 attendees will be learning about the latest in marketing for social media and integrated marketing at this year’s DMA2011 Conference and Exhibition Oct 1-6 in Boston—the global event for real-time marketers. With everything changing so quickly, this is the one place we can find in-depth, expert information on what’s happening right now and get a sneak peek at what’s around the corner. And next year, we’re just going to have to come back again and learn about a whole new crop of social media outlets. That’s what makes direct marketing so interesting!

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