Starting your plan for social media marketing in a small or big business should be driven by a need or a reason.

Why use Social Media – because your customers are using it!

First step in your social media marketing plan is to open powerpoint or write on a flipchart the reason why you need to use social media, some good reasons include:

• most of our target audience use social media (no brainer), or
• because visits to your brand or company website are down as our customers spend more time on social media sites (better)
• to deliver a sales & marketing programme using online & social media

There are probably plenty of other good reasons you can think of. The point to remember is these are all good quantifiable reasons.

The second thing to remember is that these reasons involve engaging the customer in conversations – marketing speak we all can love! What this means is you need to be active & involved in the customer conversation. Don’t think you can sit back and launch a Facebook fan page or a Twitter account to just ‘monitor’ online things.

Rule 3 – You need to use social media because its where your customers are and you need to engage with them! Don’t sit back and be passive.

Damien Saunders

Should you be worried that you don’t have an iPhone app? Do you know if you’re website works on a mobile? what about mobile SEO? It is very important for CEO’s and CMO’s to add mobile to their communications and marketing strategy.

The fact that most companies have yet to build a mobile website shows you are not alone and many companies want to know what they should do first.

• Build an app.
• Build a mobile strategy or
• Build a mobile website

Considering each approach …

Why Build a Mobile app

Answer Yes to these questions and you’ll know that building an app is right for you:

1. Is your company always first to market?
2. Do you want to get some PR effect?
3. Interested in winning a Mobile or Advertising industry Award

Developing an app for iPhone is the natural option for good PR or getting Marketing Awards. You can build apps and games for iPhones, Android, Nokia and many other smartphones.

Carefully consider too if you need to build an app for widescreen devices like the iPad or Smartphone netbooks.

Building a branded game or app for mobile is a good approach to complement a social media, viral or email campaign.

Develop a Marketing Strategy for Mobile

Want to understand mobile better, then consider how ‘mobile’ fits in your marketing mix. Could you get better PR? Leverage a viral campaign? Link mobile to your social media approach? Or want smartphone users to find your brand. I suggest you build a mobile website and look at your customer relationship marketing strategy.

Build a Mobile Website

Yes just do something. You can start by building a mobile friendly site, build an app and start to learn from them. Stay motivated and maybe expect the same results as the early web pioneers. Once you’ve done something you’ll still need to promote it.

So what were the 3 approaches to mobile marketing strategy again?

1. Build an App

2. Develop a Marketing Strategy plan

3. Build a mobile website

Of course whatever you do, you need to learn, get insights and leverage your stats tools, get feedback from customers and users and don’t expect to get to the top of the iTunes store unless you have a big budget.

Now tell me what you think?

Damien Saunders