Add Social Media to Your Marketing Toolbox

** This post originally appeared here http://www.awaionline.com/2009/05/add-social-media-to-your-marketing-toolbox/

Old Man Guru says: Using Social Media sites like MySpace or Twitter to market your business is as dumb as image advertising.

Che Guevara Yogi Guru says: Social Media is revolutionary!

Full Disclosure: I use social media, but think it’s the online equivalent of the office water cooler. A place where too many people idle their time away. I also feel that arguing the merits of social media in marketing is moronic. I’ll explain in a moment.

First, let me tell you that I’ve been conducting personal research on the effectiveness of social media in building a business, increasing sales, and actual ROI on money – or time – invested …

I asked a simple, “How’s it working for you?” Out of my 2,000 friends, spread across the World Wide Galaxy, only two people gave me a useful response. Hmm … the research is ongoing.

To be fair, I had twelve total responses. Except for the two mentioned above, the others were pitches to buy something, or to take a look at a squeeze page for help.

I’m Not Ready To Give Up On The Virtual Water Cooler, Yet

Despite explosive growth and hundreds of millions of registered users (Facebook alone, reports 200 Million members) I believe social media is still a baby and may prove to be revolutionary, in the future.

Why Is It Moronic To Argue Social Media’s Merits?

For two reasons:

Reason #1 You’re going to add social media (if you already haven’t done so) to your marketing bag of tricks, no matter what others say …

You — like Christopher Columbus and Marco Polo — are a pioneer and don’t mind getting beat up to clear a path for the rest of us

God bless you …

I remember, not too long ago, that blogs (ahem, web logs) didn’t get any respect. But the blog pioneers spent hundreds of thousands of man-hours and millions of dollars, plus pure grit, and discovered how to bend the blog to their will and make it work.

Today, online copywriters and marketers have them to thank for creating effective blogging benchmarks. For instance …

• Post often
• Use keywords in the copy
• Write a good title
• Write in your personal voice
• and many more …

Social media isn’t there yet. But, you may be the pioneer that climbs this mountain — Because It’s There.

Everyone will thank you for showing the rest of us how to make boatloads of cash for online clients and web-based businesses — in a predictable and methodical manner.

Reason #2 You wanna get paid to manage social media campaigns for clients

Halleluiah!

It doesn’t matter what any of the guru’s think — the engraved truth is that social media is the trend! The trend is your friend so, go with the flow …

Social media, the posting, responding, engaging, research, and pitching eats up time and requires solid online copywriting to execute. Clients need a hand and are willing to hire a web copywriter to do the handiwork.

And just in case you’re a social media hater … Would you turn down a bus bench or billboard ad because it goes against your online-direct-response-marketing-dogma? No you wouldn’t!

You’d charge well for your expertise and time. Do the best job you can. Make a new client. AND THEN consult the client on the Jedi ways of online direct response marketing.

Wealthy Web Writing Guru says: Allow others to argue social media marketing merits — while you mint your own coin.

But what if you’re new to social media? No problem. In my next edition I’m going to give you a checklist that’ll help you establish a good social media foundation. It’ll save you time and give you direction to achieve your, or your clients, social media goals.

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Read more from the AWAI’s (American Writers & Artists, Inc) Wealthy Web Writers letters:

Social Media Marketing: Proven or Unproven Method?

What a PR agency can teach you about writing blogs

Poor Man’s SEO: How I got on Google’s first page