Social Media: Take the Party to Your Place

Social media is all the rage, but you already knew that. Seth Godin calls it a big cocktail party. The English say, “No, it’s more like an evening at the neighborhood pub.” Either way, it’s something big happening somewhere else—it’s not a party at your place. Go ahead and enjoy the party, but make sure you plan ahead to make it worth your while when the party’s over. To keep the party going on your own turf, you’ll need to take home all the data you’ll need to follow up and reconnect. Here are five quick steps to make sure your partying leads to something productive.

1. Remember you’re partying at someone else’s house. Whether you’re on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, or another social media platform, you’re away from home. It’s not your website or blog. Facebook may have drawn a huge crowd, but it’s Facebook’s crowd. Don’t be lulled to sleep thinking your “friends” on Facebook on actually yours. At any moment Facebook can change their TOS (terms of service) or freeze your account. When that happens, the party’s over.

2. Make provision to take the party home with you. You’ll want to be a good guest at the party; you’ll also want to set the stage for the next contact at your place. You’ll need permission and a pathway to make it happen.

3. Make it easy for the folks at the party to find your house and to feel welcome. Put on the hat of a direct mail marketing expert and hear the word’s of the experts of yesterday admonish you: “it’s all about the list.” If real estate is all about “location, location, location,” digital partying is all about “data, data, data.” Five thousand friends on Facebook don’t count as an asset for your business until you have their name, address, email address, and phone number on your own database along with their permission to contact them again. Give folks a reason to visit your place and then invite them to leave their contact information with you.

4. On social media, use the same tools you’re using on your own digital domains to capture email addresses and enable “opt-in” participation. On Facebook you can use MyHTML or Facebook Markup Language (FBML) to drop in the code you’ll need to create an opt-in form. For sites like Twitter, use the field for “website” to hold the address to a special landing page. On the page, give folks a compelling reason to connect with you and then make it obvious you want their opt-in data and make it easy for them to give it to you.

5. Integrate your social media into your marketing program. With the opt-in form, social media becomes another input source for your ongoing marketing efforts.

Whether it’s a worldwide cocktail party or an evening at the English pub, social media is a thrilling, active place for you to enjoy a party away from home and meet cool people. No matter how rewarding the party is, there’s always the next morning at work. You’ll be at work much longer than you’ll be at the party, so be sure you get all the data you need to move the party to your house (work) and keep the party going as long as you can.

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About The B2Bblogger: Trey Pennington (@treypennington) uses technology, marketing, and stories to connect businesses with the people they seek to serve. With an educational background in marketing, including an undergraduate degree in marketing management and an MBA, combined with a masters in education, Trey understands the need for businesses to discover and develop their core story and to engage their marketplace in making the story their own.

His book, Spitball Marketing: Using What You’ve Got to Get More of What You Want is due out in early 2010. You can read more from Trey now at his blog www.treypennington.com.

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