SMM Conversations

Yes, I can hardly find time to get to Facebook and Twitter, where I already have networks in the 100's! And I personally love the energy of the Biznik "main site." I suspect this group will not be "another place to chat" at all, but rather a place where we might be able to talk about strategies that work for us on other sites.

I went to Steve MacDonald's Bellevue event last night, VERY good and helpful. He has a Practical Social Media Newsletter that I just signed up for - I suspect it's a good one. (17.95/mo.)

I personally am starting to love Twitter. I'm MoneyHealer and BestSellerCoach, and plan on starting one or two more accounts to go w/ my "niches." I use the search function to find people with common interests, or who might be looking for what I offer.

Personally, I use Twitter and have gotten a few jobs using it. I didn't start the account with the intent to market myself but it has become that with the increase in Twitter's popularity. I use Facebook for keeping in touch with friends who I do not see on a regular basis and I have no intentions of turning that into a way to promote my freelance business. I've found the best way to market myself is to go out and meet people.

We use niche forums, articles directories, blogs, Twitter, and of course LinkedIn. We have advised clients to do the same. It's however not easy doing 50 things at once. We know clients are busy with their own daily "to do" list therefore managing their SM is not something they can do for themselves.That is where we suggest spending at least 20-40 minutes per day, feeding those networks.

Twitter does have it good points--as do all social medias--it is when you stop seeing the forrest for the trees that we have to be careful on how much time we spend in transparent marketing vs. how much we get back.

Some folks are kind of down on SM for being a huge time vampire to them. It certainly can be but I really do think it has to do with establishing a purpose for the activity or network and then sticking to that purpose (while allowing for a little fun once in a while).

What are people's take on boutique agencies specializing in social media marketing? Social media marketing is becoming a must for getting the word out about your business, but to the points mentioned above, it's often difficult to manage and where do you find the time? I'm sorta on the fence on this, I see the value those boutique's bring, yet I can do it all for free on my own...curious to know what others think?

Our is a boutique, full-service firm and we are seeing a lot of interest. Reasons vary from client to client, but often they want to maintain their core focus.

On the one hand they know they have to engage in this space to stay relevant, for lack of a better word; and on the other, I think they have a hard time adding social media to their staff's duties.

I think we are just in the niche market. So social media marketing seems time consuming for us.

But on other hand, we are still spending more time on social media.

We don't know if there's any benefits.

Do you have any advice for us? http://www.inverter-china.com is the website. Just the niche market. What's your opinion?

Richard