The Social Media Special Commences

Well, here it is and summer is essentially over. It is high time I give you another great nugget to chew over, as apparently my two-storm-name-petition idea is getting quite the buzz these days. It may take you a long time to get in here, gosh darn it, but I'm glad to see you're being flogged and hope you'll help me with my petition drive.
Over the last couple of months, I have been spending as much time as I can, between Cedar Point trips, new logo and web designs and all the spectacular new clients I've met, acquiring and absorbing everything I can about the use and misuse of social media for business. I have been reading away, researching and diving in. In fact, right now I am reading a great resource about social media and marketing and wanted to share a couple tidbits with all of you, just to give you a taste of where we're headed. Unfortunately, I don't know many businesses around here who are using social media, or, perhaps I should say, using it well or to any advantage. It's not a pool to climb into by the ladder, holding on to the ledge all the way around. This requires a full-on-dive-right-in, take-no-mercy and get-completely-soaking-wet commitment to seeing it through. To do it well, you can't take as much time off as I do (oops) between postings. I just hope the entertainment value is high enough that you'll come back anyway and re-read the old postings, too (did I mention that you should check out my drive to get two names for tropical storms?).
The book I'm buried in now is Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business by Larry Weber. It really is action-packed and, though it may be more in-depth than you care to go, I would be thrilled to sit and have a conversation with any of you about how social media can and should help your business. In fact, I've decided in my late-night moment here that I am now offering a special to anyone who would like to have me set up a facebook (and possibly twitter) account AND create a plan of action for how it will be managed, by whom and recommendations for its success. Don't lose sight of your brand image when you make your social media marketing plan! Please email me at amy@aha4creative.com for details of the Social Media Special.
I'd like to leave you with one quote from Weber's book and that is his very clear way of describing how the social media dialogue is so very different from traditional channels of advertising and marketing by broadcasting a message. Weber says that unlike advertising that is "talking at customers, marketers should talk with them. And the social web is the most effective way in the history of the world to do that on a large scale." He continues to note that social media sources provide places where people with common interests can gather together and share views and opinions on a variety of topics—it is this sense of community and two-way communication that gives marketers such a personal way to reach their customers.
Now that I have you salivating for more....please let me know when we can get together and discuss your vision of social media's place in your business. Cheers!