Gary Vanerchuk: Technology Doesn't have Feelings

Gary's got a great way of delivering information so that anyone can understand.

I 100% agree that media is changing. I also agree 100% that this change takes time. Yes, some traditional media platforms like magazines, newspaper, yellow pages etc. are in fatal nosedives or have been eliminated altogether. Conversely, many social media tools have yet to reach their expected widescale adoption.

In either case, there are many reasons to use both types of new and old media. According to the CMUST study, TV and Radio still occupy about 60-70% of the average consumer's media time per week.  Internet usage is growing and is the 3rd major player in a Canadian consumer's media time.

Today, social media platforms like facebook and twitter have grown enough to be recognized by mass audiences.  However, the fact that millions of people use twitter does not mean that your brand can reach a mass audience just by creating a twitter account.   As Gary would agree, it takes hard work, hustle and time to build and connect to a community that cares about you.

In my opinion, all brands and businesses need to start this building process.

While your building your social media community, you can access the mass audiences of relevant traditional media platforms like TV and Radio to accelerate your own social media growth.

3 Months, 400 tweets, 100 Twitter Followers - What I've learned so far

What's Twitter Anyway? (taken from their site)

Twitter is an information network made up of 140-character messages called Tweets. It's a new and easy way to discover the latest news (“what’s happening”) related to subjects you care about.

What I've done (in social media)

• 3 months ago I started content marketing almost daily on multiple social media platforms (facebook, linkedin, twitter, youtube, blogspot, digg) 
• I've tried to link most of these platforms together 
• I get much of my twitter content from iPhone apps called Mashable, Ad-ology, Mprofs and tweet google articles
• have built a database of about 300 clients that I email with articles that I write every 3 weeks or so

Why I'm doing it (social media that is)

• SM is a new marketing platform that I need to know as a marketer
• i'm hoping to use social media to develop new prospects
• to be able to integrate social media strategies for my radio clients
• when someone googles "calgary marketing" I want to show up 1st in the results

What I've learned so far (in no particular order)

• Social media isn't a magic bullet
• it takes lots of work to maintain social media sites 
• i don't really like using facebook for business
• My blog is the best place to post my ideas
• getting recommendations on linkedin is important.  it's akin to an online consumer review
• it's been 3 months and I've just started to meet some people
• I'm having better conversations with my regular clients and feel like I'm being seen as a resource
• I've learned LOTS about marketing and communication
• "tweeting" hasn't replaced cold calling, I still have to do it
• More and more prospects say tell me that they appreciate my articles & ideas
• I've got more ideas & am building better marketing plans for clients
• ping.fm, seesmic, tweetdeck are useful programs to help access & contribute social media content 
• twellow is a cool site to find local twitter users in your area
• http://bit.ly/ is a site to shrink links for twitter

What I'm going to learn (in no particular order)

• use more #hashtags
• tag more people in twitter
• How to better leverage my existing SM platforms
• how to use twitter lists
• how to connect with more people

Introduction to Social Networking Part 1

This is a really simple but effective description of what social networks and social media can do. This is part one, I will post part 2 seperately.