Social Media Marketing Best Practices

Meeting Preview
SDForum Marketing SIG April meeting - 4/13/09
By: Mark Helfen


Your marketing job is likely to completely change over the next two years, as social media becomes an ever larger part of the marketing mix. So says Sudha Jamthe, who will speak at the next Monday's SIG meeting, helping you get ahead of the curve.

I spoke briefly to Jamthe about her upcoming talk. She said that social media - Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter among others - will become an increasingly important part of your job in marketing. A "social media mix" to add to the marketing mix.

"But only a handful of people know this. You should be one of them."

She believes that the combination of Web 2.0, and the new social media tools will change every role in marketing - product management and marketing, corporate communications, public relations, and the rest.

Jamthe works as a consultant to companies like Intuit, AOL, and Bebo, helping create a social media strategy in their marketing campaigns. She finds that customers are ahead of her clients in using products like Facebook and Twitter.

"Its more ubiquitous than people think," she said. Most of the marketing people she works with are knowledgeable about Linkedin. But her clients are "blown away" by what their customers are already doing, telling her "they had no idea that they can to that."

Jamthe's bio describes her as "passionate about social media," so I asked her what drove her interest.

She said the social media bug bit her about two and a half years ago. As a marketer, she likes to engage in conversations with customers. Before, she could only speak them at specific times - events, meetings, phone calls.

Now she can be connected all the time, and really get to know people. It takes the conversation to the "next level."

Like all good social media marketers, Jamthe has lots of ways to reach her:

A blog: http://coolastory.com
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sujamthe
Facebook: http://sujamthe.socialtoo.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sujamthe

You can read more details about the meeting here

Getting in the spirit of the topic, I guess I should also show the following for ME....

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Mark-Helfen/1423354725
Twitter: http://twitter.com/mark_helfen

Happy tweeting......




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Mark Helfen is a Marketing Consultant and Freelance Writer. He can be reached at mhelfen@wordpixel.com