My Marketing Strategy

Nicolette Lemmon, President & Founder

In a USA Today article, Real-Time Web Keeps Social Network Connected, the reporter said that “More than four in five U.S. adults online use social media at least once a month, according to a new Forrester Research report.” That’s a huge statistic of people being online, but the most rapid growth has been among consumers 35 and older.

With the choices of connecting in the social media fabric are huge, from Twitter to Facebook to LinkedIn to Blogs and Communities, I have been thinking about how people’s behavior weighs into the actual benefit or value of being so “connected.”

With busy lives, the ability to be hyperconnected is the factor that makes me wonder as a marketer, do we need to create messages that focus on different social media users?

For example, consider your own habits – are you the:
Watcher – have created some profiles but do not regularly post on or update them yet read the email alerts when someone does follow you on Twitter or write on your Facebook wall or send invitations from LinkedIn.
Fringe Follower – did create profiles on several social media and try to keep up with updates or posts every week, even if only once a week, plus use organizing or search tools like TweetDeck or other application to watch threads of conversation.
Social Butterfly – created profiles on all the most popular sites and regularly post life updates, invite friends to join your LinkedIn group, retweet and #followfriday others regularly on Twitter, leave comments on popular blogs, track as much as possible using organizer applications and/or alerts to your cell phone.
Addict – Start the day by checking for updates before getting out of bed using your phone so as not to miss anything and put the phone on the nightstand as you do a final check when going to bed at night; constantly be checking it and texting responses while having a meal with a friend or family member, nervous that you’re missing something while driving in traffic, so check at stoplights.

Okay, my profiles are simply based on how the social media networks are changing our behavior. This means marketers also have moving targets within the member or customer base that require different communication.

By the way, which one are you? I am still a fringe follower!

Want to learn more about how social media can be weaved into your 2009 marketing efforts? Check out our webinar, “Let’s Talk Strategy – Layering Online & Social Media with Traditional Marketing”.