The week before last I was in Seattle presenting at the OD Network Conference 2009. Most of the folks at my presentation were well outside the field of online marketing and were there to learn what they can do, to market their own businesses. They seemed to be totally engaged in how they can increase their findability online. My presentation included:
- Persona development
- The importance of speaking from your customers point of view
- Goal setting
- A review of what makes an effective website
- Scannability
- SEO tactics
- Persuasive paths or calls to actions
- How to leverage LinkedIn
- Best practices for blogs
The one thing I really wanted to review, but time did not allow, was an understanding of the importance of your choice of technology matching your potential customers.
What does this mean?
To illustrate this, I’ll use an example. If you are an external consultant for Fortune 500 companies, the mix of technology used should match those known to be frequented by corporations. LinkedIn would be more appropriate than MySpace, as LinkedIn’s members include executives from all Fortune 500 companies. While the members of MySpace are mostly teens or those in the music industry.
This may seem obvious to some, but I think it’s a very important concept.
Let’s take a different example. Twitter is a very hot social platform right now. However, it may not make a lot of sense to spend marketing time and dollars on Twitter for some types of businesses. Some types of businesses could really leverage using Twitter. I think most retailers could gain visibility and customer goodwill investing their marketing dollars in Twitter. The point is, it’s important to take a critical looks at who your market is and match this with an appropriate social media.