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For the past 5 years, social media has been a constant topic of conversation in the media and a buzzword in business.  Although it’s talked about a lot, there are very few people who are really talking about social media in a way that small businesses fully understand how they can generate results for their business. Very few businesses in general – small or large – truly understand how social media should be used to drive results.  Many companies look at social media solely as a marketing channel and they’ve attempted to shove traditional marketing tactics through a new form of media they have not yet begun to understand. Many of the social media gurus out there are experts on a single social platform; meaning, they only know Facebook or they only know Twitter, etc.  They have useful information and they do a great job of sharing best practices within their area of expertise, but their knowledge is deep, not wide. The challenge with this scenario is that social media is almost always talked about in a vacuum.  Most of the time, social media gurus don’t have an adequate understanding of how small businesses should be integrating social media into their business’s overall marketing strategy. Simply having a social media presence will not compensate for a lack of overall strategy. I believe that integrating social media into your current marketing efforts is one of the fastest and most effective ways to drive results for your business. Social media is one, if not the only, communication channel that can be integrated with each aspect of your business’s marketing efforts. Each part of your marketing strategy should be working together in one strategic way to achieve the objectives you’ve set for your business.  A marketing strategy that involves tactics through multiple channels is called anintegrated marketing strategy. While this is a topic on which an entire book could be written, the purpose of this post is simply to spark some thoughts about how you can leverage social media as a key component of your marketing efforts…

Is Your Marketing Strategy Integrated & Socialized?