Social Media is media that utilizes a social platform – its meant to interact with a person in a manner similar to person-person interaction. This means video, photo-sharing, blogging, profiles, tagging, commenting on eachother’s items, friend circles, groups, and on and on and on.

What makes social media so special is it’s two main applications: social media optimization and social media marketing. Social media optimization is the trick/expertise/pure luck of creating social media in a way that will encourage it’s spread (aka. viral) across the web. This is where rules like no videos over 2 minutes come in to play – 2 min is a very viral-able time block. Social media marketing is focused more on the pr, content, and collaborative aspects of social media – this isn’t too far off from traditional marketing and pr… just add tech and a strong narrowing of topics/audience (there’s blogs for people who love radishes for goodness sakes!)

Great info, but why should you care?

If your business is ever impacted by referrals (meaning you ever get referrals or want to get referrals) or your reputation matters at all (people talk you know), then you might want to make sure that you have an “ear to the ground” in the areas that your clients are talking. Even if you aren’t’ advertising, or spending any real marketing dollars in social media – because your clients are there… they are on Facebook telling their girlfriends and coworkers and random friends about how their back doesn’t ache any more thanks to the chiropractor Aunt Jemima referred them to. Tourist Sally is posting reviews of the restaurants she ate at while on vacation in San Diego. Lesley the promo products lady is writing recommendations of her favorite colleagues that EVERYONE’s friends can see.

I was talking with a restaurateur friend of mine last week that said he didn’t want to work on the internet – people say bad things and you can’t do anything about it (which isn’t true – you can – it’s what I do for a living) – and he’s not sure he wants to get involved. I understand what he means.. don’t you? If people “run their mouths” illegitimately in real-life, imagine what they could do with a veil of anonymity via online reviewing services!!

But wouldn’t you rather know?

in the next episode we’ll talk about how you can keep track of your reputation (and build referrals) online… stay tuned!