Social Media Marketing: The Future of Marketing?

10th February 2009

Today I’ve been to a half day seminar at a local hotel organised by Business Link, the UK government’s business support quango which was to my delight, free!

This fact, the subject matter and its proximity to our office, was a major motivating factor for me to attend.

By the way, as a side note: the hotel was the Gomersal Park Hotel, which has a high profile and good reputation in the local area as a ‘business class’ hotel: but it has an appalling website. I’ve made a mental note to address that with them in the not too distant future!

Back to the subject in hand: the seminar itself was delivered by a guy from a Hull based marketing and new media agency called Eskimo Soup and was on the subject of Social Media Marketing and its use as a business marketing tool.

What that means in a nutshell is how small business owners can capitalise on the benefits that social networking websites like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter etc can bring as promotional and marketing tools for their own businesses. Today’s 2 hour presentation concentrated on Facebook and to a lesser degree the professional networking site LinkedIn.

Now you’re probably asking yourself, “What the hell am I doing at such an event given that I’m supposed to be an Internet Consultant who should be gemmed up on all this sort-of-stuff as a matter of course?” This is particularly the case as this type of Business Link presentations are generally aimed at “newbies” or “novices” in the subject matter. Surely such events are too low-brow for me to attend?

Good question! I’m glad you’ve asked me that.

Quite simply I was there for three main reasons: above and beyond it being a free event of course. What do you take me for?

To Learn. Search Engine Optimisation, no problems! I’ll be happy to give a presentation on the subject myself, however Social Media Marketing (SMM) is new territory for me. So like the rest of the candidates at today’s session. I was there to learn, albeit from a somewhat higher starting point than some people there today no doubt. And before you ask; yes, I did pick some useful tips and techniques.
Networking. Events like this are great if as an attendee to such events, you offer a similar or complimentary service to the subject matter of the presentation. In my case how such reasoning translates is: My business provides website promotion and development. The event is aimed at people who have a need for such as services and as such are open minded to the concept of promoting or enhancing their website for the purposes of growing their business. The fact they are there at this event, tells me this. Put the two together and you have fellow attendees who are likely to be in the market for my company’s services.Viola! A great opportunity for business with pre-qualified business owners.
To Emulate. One of the strategies I have for my business is to become a presenter for the likes of Business Link and other business support groups. The money’s not bad and it’s an excellent way to present oneself as an “expert” and as such build credibility in the minds’ of potential clients.However before I can run I need to walk by watching and learning from other presenters doing what I want to do.
Today’s presenter had a nice delivery style for what can be a very dry subject. I felt he pitched it a reasonable level so as not to lose the complete ‘novices’ whilst keeping the interest of the more experienced social media activist in the room. He also did a good job of fielding off a couple of questions from one of the more audible candidates, which could have easily taken him off at a tangent screwing up his schedule in the process

Today’s presentation has been uploaded to the web by the presenter, Chris Middleton at Eskimo Soup. View it for yourself by clicking on the link below.