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Social is Seriously Serious Business

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I received an IM from a friend a couple days ago that got me thinking. He was asking for my advice because his friend’s 15-year-old son wants to start a social media marketing business. I asked my friend to send me this young man’s business plan, so that I could review and make recommendations. The response: “Um, he doesn’t have a business plan.”

WHAT?

Don’t get me wrong – there are teens who are capable of being businesspeople. Take Brooke Martin, for example, who created icpooch when she was just 12. This kind of magic can and does happen. But I can just see how this kiddo’s plan evolved… I want extra money > I like social networks > Local businesses use social networks > I could post for these businesses and charge them for it > I’ll start a social media marketing business! So easy, right? WRONG.

Clearly the first step would be to develop a business plan. But what that plan entails can really vary depending on the business. Creating and managing a business’ social media marketing could mean so many different things. A few examples? OK… a Facebook page, LinkedIn groups, a LinkedIn corporate page, a Twitter profile, a Google+ page, Tumblr, Reddit, Yelp. What about content driven social? Oh, how about… Pinterest, Instagram, a YouTube channel, Meerkat and/or Periscope and/or Vine, blogs. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

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Google: Creepy Stalker or Super Assistant?

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Of course you already know this, but in case you’ve had a momentary brain lapse, let me remind you that Google is a MASSIVE enterprise. Google is the largest search engine by a long shot. By early 2014, Google had 67.6% of the global search market share with Bing coming in second at 18.7% and Yahoo third with only 10%. As of the 4th quarter of 2013, Google’s Android mobile operating system had a firm hold on more than 77% of the global market share. Google’s email client, aptly named “Gmail,” has more than 500 million users. More than 1 billion unique users visit Google’s YouTube video network each month, and there are more than 100 hours of video uploaded to the site each MINUTE. Google+ surpassed Twitter in 2013 as the second most popular social network with 540 million monthly active users. Google also has the second most used web browser, with Chrome claiming 20% of the global market share behind Microsoft’s Internet Explorer’s 58% and Firefox sitting in third place with 15%.

googleusers

The Social Media Hat, 2014

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Social Channel Selection & the Content Sandwich

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Back when the social media revolution began, there were few options available to businesses – blogs, forums and MySpace were the highlights. Shortly thereafter, Facebook, which began as a platform for college students became available to the masses and Twitter launched… fast-forward to today. Social media now takes the form of networks (Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, MySpace), videos (YouTube, Vimeo, Vine), images (Instagram, Flickr), blogs (Blogger, WordPress), microblogs (Twitter, Tumblr), chats and video chats (SnapChat, WhatsApp, Skype), bookmarking/content-sharing sites (Pinterest, Digg, StumbleUpon, SlideShare), communities (reddit), music (Spotify, Last.FM, SoundCloud), Q&A forums (Quora, Ask.FM), location-based platforms (Foursquare, Swarm, Yelp), review sites (Yelp, OpenTable, TripAdvisor), and shopping (Amazon, eBay).

Online social opportunities for each and every business are endless. Unfortunately, time and money are not. Think you can just choose your favorite platform and dive-in head first? Probably not a good idea. It’s unlikely that your entire target audience will be devoted to one social site (see below). In fact, they most likely use several different social platforms at different times for different reasons. So try to be everywhere, right? NO. You’ll spread yourself too thin.

Social Media Matrix

Pew Research Center, 2013

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