Social Media and Web 2.0 has really swept across the internet community like wild fire and the effects it’s had are remarkable. When I decided to start building my start-up, I knew my main obstacle would be the marketing aspect once I am done. This is certainly not because I lack the skills to successfully get the word out, but the resources I will have to work with on my PR and Marketing campaign are very limited. I am bootstrapping and will do so until the I convince the right investors that I am worth their coin. However, the emergence of Social Media has really cut down the costs of most marketing campaigns if you know how to take advantage of it.
When we say Social Media, one word immediately comes to the mind of the young, tech savvy individual – Twitter. Whether you like it or not, Twitter is an amazing platform for people to build and grow relationships. If you are an Entrepreneur and you are good at networking with other people, you can win several thousands of followers just from Twitter alone. On the other hand, there’s a whole lot more to Social Media than just Twitter. Websites like Facebook (0ffering fan pages or company pages), MySpace, Scribd, LinkedIn have all shown potency as a means to reaching a targeted audience.
I first heard the phrase ‘Social Media’ a little over 2 years ago, and have always been fascinated by how people jumped on the bandwagon. We are talking about a network of websites whose premise is to get people to interact with others. It first started off as people staying in touch with their friends and then it grew into getting to interact with friends of friends and so on. Today, the openness and the ease with which people can communicate with other people (friends and strangers) on these platforms have made Social Media Networks a revelation in the world of Marketing.
Three brands that stand out to me when I think about social media and businesses are: Zappos, Ford and Dell. Now you may say these brands are all popular names and it is only natural that people flock towards them. While I agree with that stance, I also still believe it takes some good strategizing to achieve what they have achieved using Social Media.
When I first examined the Ford Brand presence across the social media sphere, I imagined that these networking sites were built for Ford. Ford has taken a few specific networks, focused on them and built a community in each network. They also built a ‘media hub‘ that brings together all their feeds, networks and online presence in one place. They have used Social Media to handle their PR effectively and this can be observed in how they dealt with the copyright infringement fiasco they dealt months back. Not only can Social Media win you new costumers, it can help you define your public image.
Dell and Zappos have done very well with Twitter especially. They have used this network to develop intimate relationships with their customers, announce new developments, get feedback and so forth. The success of these two companies can only inspire young, new Entrepreneurs like myself. Their stories have taught us the importance of building personal relationships with fans/customer, being open to their needs and being readily available to interact with them.
The moral lesson of this post is just to encourage every new entrepreneur, whether you are still in stealth mode or you have gone live with your product, learn to embrace Social Media. Study some of the success stories of companies on Social Networks and take follow their lead. I understand that not everyone is Social Media savvy and can handle Marketing for a start-up, in those cases you can always outsource. You can also look for firms that are specifically build for this purpose – to market for startups. People like Samir Belwani, Reem Abeidoh, Rebecca Ryckman are all brilliant Social Media Strategists with good experience. Remember that the startup journey is always a lesson, you might learn that you failed or learn that you succeeded, all that matters is that you learn.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=de007cad-7132-4b7a-b349-ff79fdd977ab)
