Social media is seen by many marketers as the next gold rush. Like any business, the media industry evolves in cycles. In the past, there have been few job openings at media companies but now as content converges and more media companies are looking for ways to branch out and reach larger population bases there is an increase in the availability of highly coveted marketing positions.

However, the availability of new technologies and new developments in the media industry have created a demand for new kinds of experience, cultural knowledge and skills sets that candidates must be aware of if they wish for such a position.

If you are pondering starting social media marketing, these findings will help push you over the edge.  If you’re already onboard, feel free to examine what the really experienced marketers are doing.

When searching for a marketing position in the media industry it is important to know that the industry is highly heterogeneous. Marketers should also be aware of the competition that they will face when pursuing a position at a media company. Typically, marketers must have a plethora of solid experience and a vast understanding of the media industry and the specific changes impacting the industry they are looking to work in. Marketers should already be familiar with how to communicate their messages across a variety of mediums and how to connect with a large customer base.

Social marketing requires so many processes going on at once that it can quickly become overwhelming. It’s no wonder that things can slip through the cracks.

5 Simple Things Most Social Media Marketers Forget To Do

Set Goals

It’s amazing how many campaigns are run without a set goal. Marketers understand that social media is interacting with consumers but forget they need goals to track success. The goal doesn’t need to be a sales figure, it could be something as simple as number of @ replies on Twitter or Facebook fans. By analyzing your current standing, your goal and your % change you can decide what has been working and what not. Without these numbers you can neither optimize your campaign nor determine success.

Link Profiles

Linking your social media profiles to a hub and each other is a simple and effective way to build a community throughout your network. By making it easy for consumers to find the brand profiles you will remove an obstacle for them to join the community. Giving consumers multiple ways to connect with the brand increase the likelihood.

Use Multimedia

The web has evolved to go beyond just textual content to include images and videos. Leaving out this section of content means, disregarding a large section of consumers.

Listen Intently

When engaging in social media, 60% of your time should be spent listening to the industry and mentions of your brand. Only 40% of your time should be spent actually interacting with consumers. Here listening means actively tracking conversation and reading mentions. Just knowing that they exist is not enough; you need to know what they’re talking about, how they talk and what the trend is.

Have Fun

One of the forgotten, yet most important aspect of social media is to have fun. Brands forget that they’re engaging consumers talking to them instead of broadcasting a message. By having a good time yourself and staying upbeat consumers enjoy interacting with you. The brand must set the mood for the engagement, just like in offline relationships, online consumers will take cues from the brand on how the interaction should occur.

Remembering these 5 strategies can help make your social campaign a success. These may be easy to forget, but are extremely effective.

Author: Joel Postman

I’ve always thought I knew what a mommy blogger was. I’ve heard the term, I know a couple of mommy bloggers, and I read all kinds of blogs, so I am familiar with mommy blogging in general.

I try to keep an open-mind about all blogs, and there are some great writers out there writing on mommy blogs, and I enjoy and respect that. I write a blog, but I don’t consider myself a blogger, and I certainly don’t call myself a daddy blogger, though there are hundreds of men who do think of themselves that way.

There are several things about mommy blogging that intrigue me, so I decided to do some research. I wanted to know how deep the mommy blogger “movement” ran, whether it was about more than cloth vs.

Disposable diapers, why women become mommy bloggers, and whether the phenomenon had run its course.

I think there’s a subtle contradiction in the term “mommy blogger.” In a career context, the words “mom,” “mother,” and “mommy” traditionally have had an almost apologetic element to them, or have served as qualifiers. A “working mom” was someone who balanced career and family life.

An underlying implication is that this involved tradeoffs, or sacrifices, in the quality of both family life and career. The term “stay at home mom,” came into use as a way of saying “I don’t work for a company, but I do an equally or more important job than my husband.”

“I think mommy blogger can be demeaning because you don’t see the word daddy blogger being bandied about,” freelance journalist  Kimber Schmahl , who does not consider herself a mommy blogger told me. “I certainly don’t feel my blog is any less worthwhile because I am a mother.”

Whether it’s politically correct to say so or not, the mommy blogging field is an offshoot of blogging in general. The very early days of blogging were generally dominated by male bloggers. When women started blogging it was initially (though no longer) a novelty, and the notion of a mommy blogger was all the more unusual.

Even today, mommy bloggers remain a minority, albeit a large one. According to one study, 57% of the total female population in the U.S. is online regularly, but only 20% of online users are moms. And in the last three years, Internet use by moms has tripled. In other words, the market for mommy bloggers should be growing.

“The mom blogger field is an over saturated one right now,” says Mae Mason, creator of Mutha Mae’s  “Word to Your Mutha”  blog. “There aren’t enough hours in the day to get through all of your favorite blogs/mom networking sites/mom forums.” Mae says she blogs because she likes the attention, enjoys the outlet, and draws strength and confidence from her readers.

Mommy blogger  Kristen Munson  thinks “mom blogs are going to remain very influential, whether they are personal or for business,” adding, “Most women have an inherent need to interact with other women, and the Internet makes this possible in so many unique ways.”

From a thematic standpoint, the idea of a mommy blog does not generally appeal to me, because I have always assumed mommies blog about mommy stuff, like choosing a private school or day care provider.

I have children, and my wife and I have a circle of married friends with whom we get together socially, and these topics are constants, so I have no need for an online forum for this.

I prefer to spend my online time on my career and on personal interests like antiques, vintage motorcycles, music, rhetoric and persuasion, etc.

Zoe Siskos, a blogger and Social Media Analyst who often helps clients interact with mommy bloggers, says “I always keep in mind that a person is not their blog…Being a ‘mommy blogger’ may be a piece of that, but I also enjoy diving into their blogs to find out what other ways they like to define themselves.”

Still, even the most popular mommy blogs often focus on the minutiae of being a mommy. This can be very appealing to advertisers who want to promote car seats, children’s clothing, baby formula, etc., as well as fashion and women’s lifestyle products.

If you’ll pardon the mangled metaphor, perhaps the mother of all mommy blogs is Dooce, written by Heather Armstrong of Salt Lake City. According to ABC News, “Armstrong says she prefers to chronicle ‘the mundane and boring details of the life we all live.’” While this holds no interest for me, apparently I am alone.

Dooce boasts 1 million monthly readers, and receives “$40,000 per month in revenue from advertisers like Wal-Mart, Hewlett-Packard and, most recently, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.” Mommy blogging is big business, though Mason “doubt(s) there will ever be another Dooce phenomenon.”

Dooce was also the winner of the 2008 Blogger’s Choice Awards for “Hottest Mommy Blogger”, which brings me back to this notion of mommy blogging’s potentially confusing messages: mommy bloggers often take stands on social and political issues, and actively support mothers and families as important institutions, while at the same time, writing openly about sex, and in some cases, porn and sex toys.

I can understand how people are receiving mixed messages from some mommy bloggers, and this could make it difficult for some of them to take a clear, firm moral stand on gender and sexual issues.

I think mommy blogging, like blogging in general, is a very useful and healthy pursuit for most people.

Mommy blogging is surrounded by complex social and gender issues, and both perceptions and misconceptions. There is both tremendous opportunity to do good, and potential to deliver mixed messages and demean women.

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Author: JBChicagoMarketingAgency

What was life like before Twitter? I can hardly remember the days before I received HotAmishChick’s updates (example tweet: “Tobias: ‘Wow! How many bonnets can one girl own?!’ Me: ‘Four.’ We lead a simple life.”), and Meanbot’s mean-but-funny retorts (Meanbot is “seldom misquoted by her children. In fact they usually repeat word for word the things she should not have said.”). But all jokes aside, Twitter had proven some very real worth in the business world, and it has also opened the door to some great things going on in the field.

Case in point: While perusing Twitter this month, I saw some tweets about an event aiming to help school age children in Texas get healthy. For some reason or another it caught my attention, and I decided to dig into it to see what it was all about. Some quick research showed me this: The National Dairy Council, in conjunction with numerous other organizations like the Houston Independent School District, spearheaded a “Healthy Kids, Healthy Schools” summit this past weekend.

This working session brought together forward-thinking individuals willing to take charge in eliminating childhood obesity. Suggestions were made, projects were defined and challenges were addressed - all in an effort to help Houston-area students be more fit and healthy.    A recent blog post by Seth Godin (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/) included this paragraph: “Just like every powerful tool, the impact comes from the craftsman, not the tool. Marketing has more reach, with more speed, than it has ever had before.

With less money, you can have more impact than anyone could have imagined just ten years ago. The question, one I hope you’ll ask yourself, is what are you going to do with that impact?”In my eyes, the National Dairy Council decided to use its impact to do the best type of marketing: the type that helps others. It is a great principle on many levels, as the National Dairy Council will be affiliated with a summit that is all about creating change - and members of the council are taking time to educate people in the hopes of bettering their lives.

The council attained quality face time with the community, but the fact they are taking time to make a difference is something great to have associated with its name. Companies can often seem unattainable and impersonal, but through efforts such as this, they can attach a community-outreach persona to their name while helping our youth improve their futures. I’m glad to see there are still some organizations out there that are promoting good.

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