Social Media and Marketing 101.1

Marketing once relied on the very basic premise that to reach people it was necessary to use mass market channels. Social media has changed all that. Where wide reach and repetition once worked, social media now has allowed us marketers to be audience-focused, niche-market embracing and specified message-developing in order to touch and influence customers and clients.

Just consider the reach and saturation of social media, brought to you thanks to HubSpot Blog:
There are more than 3.5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, etc.) shared each week on Facebook.
53 percent of people on Twitter recommend companies or their products in their tweets.
56 percent of LinkedIn's 100 million users are outside of the United States.
There are more than 5 billion photos on Flickr.
$3.08 billion will be spent to advertise on social networking sites in 2011, a 55 percent increase over 2010.

 

So, how are you and your business, organization or institution using social media to reach your audiences? 

Tweets at the speed of light

I continue to be amazed by the speed at which information travels, especially between 17-year-olds, such as my son and his fellow tweeps. Twitter is the social medium of choice among his peers, and I understand why. He knew of Osama bin Laden's death 45 minutes before CNN reported it. He learned of a local tragedy from friends hours before it hit the local newspaper online. He follows AP news on Twitter for his history class' current events assignment.

The immediacy of Twitter is astounding and the reach is mind-boggling. According to DigitalBuzz, Twitter users are sending 55 million tweets each day. The number of Twitter users increases by 300,000 every day. About 27% of tweets are related to private conversations, and 10% are related to news articles and news blogs.

I'm in, although if you follow me on Twitter--@wendypink--don't expect the most current information. For that, call me.

Lies, damn lies and statistics

Have you every noticed how often media get statistics wrong? I mean the proper use or a meaningful comparison of statistics. It's sad that those who are in the seat to help all of us understand science are woefully unprepared to do so. That's why I encourage communications students to take a sadistics, I mean statistics, class so that they can then help communicate science/data/results in a manner that not only can be understood, but also has context for the listener/viewer/reader.

Andrew Lang, a late 19th-century Scottish poet, said, "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts - for support rather than for illumination."  I'd opt for either one right now.

High in the hills on horseback

I had the opportunity last night to ride horses with Demeter partners Sharlet and Linda. We're out here in the Black Hills of South Dakota for our annual Demeter meeting and we rode at a friend's of Sharlet's. Now grant that I hadn't been on a horse in nearly 25 years, but I want to you to know that all went well. In fact, it was so much fun and so beautiful in the hills that I'm ready to do it again...after my leg muscles recover. Here is what I learned from riding last night:
Communing in nature with your friends is a good thing
Horses are smarter than I thought
Whoa means whoa

The view from atop of a horse is unmatched

What I learned from Harry Potter...

I saw the last Harry Potter movie with my friend Linda, her mom and her kids last weekend, and really loved the final episode of the epic series. Reflecting on the movie's lessons, here is what I learned:
Good does triumph over evil
Even villians could benefit from rhinoplasty
Magic is not always black
Your friends are invaluable
I still really, really hate snakes.

Finally, a blog all my own

It's interesting that I've written blog content for clients for several years, but never had a spot for my own thoughts, ideas and ramblings...until now. Welcome to "Communing with the Communicator," where I attempt to provide insight (all my own) to communication topics of the day.

My thought today is that God gave us two ears and one mouth, so we could listen twice as much as we talk. A very good lesson to those of us in agriculture who want to "tell our story" without listening an iota to our customers/consumers.

Have a beautiful day.