Utilizing New Media to Market Your Small Business

New media is the term for digital communication. Some examples include blogs, podcasts, wikis, websites, virtual worlds, interactive web applications, online video and content for your hand-held or mobile device. Most companies already utilize new media in the form of a website, an email campaign or making connections through social networking sites. This article presents a plan for creating a new media strategy for your business. This strategy is an important and cost-effective marketing tool that is used to reach new people, connect with your audience, build your network and make sales.  Through diversifying your marketing strategy with new media tools you can: <ul> <li>Build your referral network  </li> <li>Increase your website page-rank by following a basic rule of Search Engine Optimization: The more sites that link to you, the higher that search engines will rank your site.  </li> <li>Increase your web traffic and the sales that it brings  </li> <li>Build a word-of-mouth campaign about your product or service  </li> </ul> Step 1: Learn about new media possibilities. There is more to the internet than a website. This is the first lesson in your education regarding new media.  How do you find these possibilities?  Start with the award-winners and work your way out. Do an internet search for Web 2.0 awards. Look at the award-offering websites and check out both the award-winners and the runner-ups. Every time you see a website and the service it offers, ask yourself: How can my product or service be introduced to new audiences with this service? Next, follow new internet developments and news. Blogs like <a href="http://www.gizmodo.com">Gizmodo.com</a> are a great way to learn about up-and-coming internet and hardware based new media technologies. Every time you see a new technology, ask yourself: How can my product or service be introduced to new audiences with this? My company worked on the marketing campaign for a documentary film. The film introduced a new concept that merged genealogy and self-help. Our campaign included: <ul> <li>Building a new website that utilized existing web 2.0 services from other sites and maintained a unified branding for the film and its' marketing materials,  </li> <li>Writing articles for reference and wiki websites,  </li> <li>Creating a video podcast series that educated people about the concept,  </li> <li>Creating an interactive video campaign that would get YouTube users involved in the questions being answered in the film,  </li> <li>Building a Google Earth overlay that traced the journey taken in the film,  </li> <li>Writing comments on genealogy and self-help websites that introduced the questions of the film and mentioning the film as a resource.  </li> </ul> This multi-tiered approach brought new visitors to the film website and bolstered the word-of-mouth campaign that we wanted to build. Step 2: Pick your audience. Who is your target audience? This is a good question to ask of any marketing campaign. Does your product or service make sense for audiences on <a href="http://www.youtube.com">YouTube</a>? <a href="http://www.itunes.com">iTunes</a>? <a href="http://www.flickr.com">Flickr</a>? <a href="http://www.linkedin.com">LinkedIn</a>? <a href="http://biznik.com">BizNik</a>? <a href="http://www.cnn.com">CNN</a>? Or, is it more appropriate for a DVD, mobile phone or hand-held device? My company recently created three video podcast series for an independent record label, a local magazine and a lobby group. After some research, we decided that the record label podcast would be best suited for iTunes; the magazine would have a better audience on YouTube; and the lobby group would have the best audience on both YouTube and the <a href="http://www.getmiro.com/">Democracy Player</a>. We actually posted all three podcasts on every format we could get our hands on, but targeted our marketing campaigns on the specific platforms that we thought would work best. For YouTube, we made sure to post our podcasts as "response videos" to other videos on the same topic. We networked with other video makers and tried to get our videos "favorited." This increased the likelihood that our videos would get viewed more often. A colleague wanted to market his political commentary and essays. He was building a portfolio for his career as a freelance writer. I suggested that he regularly contribute comments on local and national newspaper websites, write for blogs and always use the same web name. Within a short time, he gathered several clippings for his website and began creating a name for himself and his writing. A targeted campaign will save you time and money, direct your energy and give you better results faster.  Step 3: Create your strategy. (AKA, Get Creative) You've already learned about the new technologies and picked your audience. The next step is to make a plan. With any marketing strategy, the sales potential is great but depends on the amount of time, money and energy you spend. While creating your new media strategy, you want to factor in each and plan accordingly. Here are some tips to get you started: <ul> <li>Plan time on a regular basis to get things done. Are you going to spend one hour a day doing research? One hour a week? Make a schedule and stick to it.  </li> <li>Define your business before you create your new media strategy. Don't let your strategy, website or profile define you. Take the time to think about who you are and what you're doing. Don't get stumped by that "About" section on the new website you're signing up for.  </li> <li>Create your branding and profile ahead of time. Write your mission statement, tag line, and title and put them in a folder with your logo, an image and whatever other assets you have for your company. That way, when you create new web accounts, you only have to copy and paste the materials you already have.  </li> <li>Write out your goals. What are you trying to achieve? How do you know when your plan has met success? Are there levels of success that you are trying to reach?  </li> <li>Set milestones and a timeline. Make a to-do list that reflects your strategy and the time it will take to implement.  </li> <li>Create a budget.  </li> <li>Don't go for the cheapest options first; Go for most effective. If a video campaign will be more effective than a series of accounts on websites that link to yours, then focus your energy on that video campaign.   </li> <li>Is there a way to track statistics on your website or RSS feed? Is it turned on? If not, turn it on.</li> </ul> Step 4: Implementation Go for it. Enough said. Step 5: Review The best marketing campaigns have built in measures for review. You need to know if you've met your markers for success or failure. Have you made a return on your investment? Make sure you've set up your review process when you wrote your goals in Step 3. Now, track those statistics and ask yourself if your campaign is meeting its' markers. If it is, congratulations! If not, assess your goals and see if your strategy needs some modifications. Conclusion: The internet opens businesses up to a barrage of marketing possibilities. Creating a new media strategy will help your business utilize these possibilities to leverage your products or services in exciting, fresh ways. 2008-03-17T19:49:50Z

2008-03-24T10:54:31Z

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utilizing-new-media-to-market-your-small-business

2008-03-19T15:27:28Z

New media is the term for digital communication. Some examples include blogs, podcasts, wikis, websites, virtual worlds, online video and content for your hand-held or mobile device. This article presents a plan for creating a new media strategy for your business.

Utilizing New Media to Market Your Small Business

2009-02-24T09:43:27Z