Conrad Strydom views and commentary from a web engineer

Want to spend bucks on social media marketing? Read here first.

image via gapingvoid.com

More and more companies are latching on to social media marketing as a way to get their product across. Large companies are hiring the cream of social media consultants to establish a social strategy involving sophisticated monitoring systems, CRM integration and even hiring banks of staff to hit sites like facebook, twitter, myspace etc.

Sad thing is that smaller and smaller businesses are now getting caught up on the buzz, often losing serious amounts of cash to charlatans looking for a way to milk the wave, and worse, embarking on crazy "viral" competitions in which they giveaway wads of their hard earn income.

Before you start selling through social media channels, stop and think! In the beginning (uh 2 years ago?!) it was cute how hard companies where trying to get my attention but now its just getting old. Start listening to your customers for once if you want to really benefit your company. In short: talk less, listen more.

The number one danger out on the internet today for your business is the risk of losing a single customer as a result of negative feedback placed onto a social media channel like facebook and twitter. Disgruntled customers are really loud, happy ones keep quiet, ecstatic ones are even louder than angry ones. You need to engage your unhappy customers, and turn their frowns upside down, an ecstatic customer is your most valuable marketing asset, can you afford to have the antithesis running out there blackening your name? No! You want to be able to engage with them, and you can! This is the beauty of social media. All it takes is a reply to a tweet, a comment on a blog or a response on a forum.

So do you go out there and hire a "Social Media Expert" straight away to get you "situated"? No I honestly don't think you have to, just do a Google search for "Social Media Strategy"and "Online Reputation Management" and read how others do it, make your self knowledgeable. Even if you pay that expert, remember he will eventually leave you to your own devices anyway. Also sign up for accounts on popular social networks and twitter and learn to use them, its really not hard! Remember that the expert also had to learn to use these things like the rest of us.

To get you started looks at tools like http://www.whostalkin.com/ and for a small fee there is a very good local product available at http://www.brandseye.com/

So after you have given it a go and want to ramp up to the next level, then you can consider bringing in an expert, its just that now you will be much more equipped to make your own informed decisions.

Good Luck!