UNHCE Information Technology & Distance Education Blog

Social marketing is the thing right now. What is social marketing? According to Wikipedia:

Social marketing is the systematic application of marketing along with other concepts and techniques to achieve specific behavioral goals for a social good. Social marketing can be applied to promote, for example, merit goods, make the society avoid demerit goods and thus to promote that considers society's well being as a whole. This may include asking people not to smoke in public areas, for example, ask them to use seat belts, prompting to make them follow speed limits.

I thought it might be helpful to explain the most popular forms of social marketing such as Twitter and Blogging.

Twitter:
By now, most of you have at least heard of Twitter. Twitter is a free social networking tool and/or microblog. Current estimates of the number of daily users range between 4 and 6 million. Recently, Complete.com ranked Twitter as the third most popular social network, right behind Facebook and MySpace. Twitter has grown 1382% and retains more members than either Facebook or MySpace. Why the increased popularity? Twitter allows only short comments (140 characters) and makes it simple to add and retrieve information. You go to your Twitter account and all new updates are there for you to view. Since they are small, often with links to more information, they are easy to look over and allow you to pick and choose which information you want to look at further and which you want to ignore. Also, it doesn't require as much input of personal information as Facebook and MySpace.

Twitter is becoming the place to go for the latest information rather than a place to catch up to friends and family. For example, a friend of mine who lives in San Jose, CA first heard about an earthquake in her area via Twitter before the local news station had time to report it. Once someone tweets, it goes out to the world for everyone to see. You can limit those who follow you, but that is less likely with Twitter since the information is generally for public consumption. There are still those who just post inconsequential bits and pieces (i.e. just got out of bed and brushed my teeth...) and there are those who will follow anyone and want to be followed by everyone just for the numbers. However, there is a definite trend towards more specific information which has attracted more mainstream viewers, President Obama, NASA, CNN, The Times use Twitter. When Oprah Winfrey sent her first tweet, so many viewers decided to follow her, it brought the system down. The LA Fire Department used Twitter to warn residents about wildfires in the area.

However you feel about it, it is a great way to get information out there, so take a look and think of the possibilities. Pick a subject matter you want information on, type it into the search and see what you find. You can access Twitter via web browser, desktop application, Blackberry and iPhone. If you are intrigued, you should take a look at Twittervision 3D.

Blogs:

What is a blog? According to Wikipedia

"A blog (a contraction of the term weblog) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog."

MySpace and Facebook are blogs. You can create an account for free. However, they require personal information you may not want to supply (age, DOB, etc.) If you want to create a blog, but do not want to share personal information, you can create one for free at Blogger.com, Createblog.com and many others. I use Blogger.com for the NH Adobe User Group blog.

A blog is a website that is easy to create and update. It allows you to accept comments from others as well. Our Extension Update is a blog. The information is less static than a regular website as it archives itself after a period of time. So, it is important to create entries on a regular basis if you wish to retain followers. With a blog, you can limit viewers by utilizing password protection and followers may want to subscribe to your blog so they get the latest information as it appears on your blog. If you want to create a blog Extension has it's own blogging software, Movable Type. Contact Stephen Judd for more information.

Social marketing may help you get your message across to your clientele in an easy, timely manner. Give it a try and see what you think.