Sarah Fowler

You’ve heard a lot about social media. You know you should get involved. You’re just not sure you have time/not sure you know how/not sure you want to jump in just yet. That’s fine (for now). What do you do now, then? Ignore the conversation? Pretend no one is mentioning your brand because you’re not there? No way!

It’s very common for me to have a conversation with a potential client that starts something like this:
“I know I should be on social media; I keep hearing that. But I don’t get it. What can I use it for?”
Let’s start with how you do business already– there’s no need to totally reinvent the wheel.

Ted’s online marketing strategy is pretty simple. They started with a solid, easy-to-navigate website; added email, then Facebook. It is not an inordinately expensive campaign, nor do the Ted’s staff have much direct interaction with fans (such as Twitter or back-and-forth on Facebook). They’ve just set up a forum for people to share good things, and given away a few (in the long run, also fairly inexpensive) incentives along the way to get more people involved.

In short, the same advice applies to building an online community as it does to any marketing venture: know your audience, and give them what they want before they even know they’re looking for it.

If you are not active in social media (especially Twitter), you are not set up to control your own message through a crisis. That’s a dangerous place to be.