Why Care? 1.
Social networks can amass like-minded people around shared interests with little external force, no organizational center, and a group sense of what is important and what comes next.
2.
Blogs and wikis encourage conversations, sharing, creation 3.
Social software, like Flickr and Last.
fm and even Amazon.
com, promote human-mediated information sharing.
Similar mechanisms inside of larger organizations would be just as effective.
4.
Social news sites show the popularity of certain information, at least within certain demographics.
Would roll-your-own voting within the company be useful? 5.
Social networks are full of prospecting and lead generation information for sales and marketing.
6.
Social networks make for great ways to understand the mindset of the online consumer, should that be of value to you.
7.
Online versions of your materials and media, especially in formats that let you share, mean that you're equipping others to run with your message, should that be important (like if you're a marketer).
8.
Online versions of your materials and media are searchable, and help Google help you find new visitors / customers / employees.
9.
Social networks contain lots of information about your prospective new hires, your customers, your competitors.
10.
Blogs allow you to speak your mind, and let the rest of the world know your thought processes and mindsets.
11.
Podcasts reach people who are trying out new gadgets, like iPhones, iPods, Apple TVs, Zunes, and more.
12.
Tagging and sharing and all the other activities common on the social Web mean that information gets passed around much faster.
13.
People feel heard.
Now take the Zen Approach to Social Marketing 1.
Break off a dedicated amount of time each day to focus on the sites you've isolated as the "core" social sites to interact with.
These will include the biggest sites with the most concentrated group of prospective customers.
You should only have around 5 sites to deal with, so choose among all the sites you find your target market hanging out on wisely.
2.
Set aside another block of time weekly to research new places to set up accounts and test them for interest.
Interest is measured by the amount of traffic you can pull out of these sites with the least amount of interaction.
For example, how many visitors can you generate from a site by blogging there once a week? Or once a month? 3.
Over time you will build a pretty sizable network of places you feel you need to visit often.
This is where people usually break down.
And this is where the Zen approach comes in handy.
4.
For sites that are moderate to "unknown" traffic producers, just let them be.
Give them what time you can and stay focused on your main traffic earners with a concerted effort.
5.
Let email notifications from sites you interact with only occasionally be your reminder to step back into them and do a little blogging, posting, voting, friending, or commenting.
Otherwise, keep them off your "must do" list.
6.
Pay attention to your stats and only spend time on sites that are producing traffic for you.
You will find some of your top 5 sites will change over time as you find new sites that offer more potential.
That's okay, but you must keep your top 5 list at 5 sites.
Many people's top 5 list expands to 10 or 20 and, again, this leads to burn out and frustration as they try to keep up a demanding schedule of social marketing.
This inevitably leads to something else suffering in your marketing plan.
And it will cause many to question whether the whole social marketing thing is worth it at all.
7.
Be like water and flow through social sites.
Let the activities each sites "wants" you to participate in flow around you and don't freak out thinking you must interact with every site you are a part of just because you can.
Many times are not the right times to drop what you are doing to go answer friend requests.
Do it when you can do it.
The people and the sites are not going anywhere