Five Lies About Social Media Marketing

When you think back on it, the advent of social media hit the marketing world like hot sauce on an empty stomach. All of a sudden businesses with an appetite for “what’s next” rushed to set up Facebook Pages, Twitter accounts and blogs to connect with as many customers as possible. Waylaid somewhere along the way, however, were the fundamentals of public relations, marketing, corporate communications and sales — giving way to erroneous assumptions about how businesses should manage their social marketing.

In my view, there is no “one way” to manage your online positioning using social media. Instead, each company’s marketing strategy should differ depending on specific goals and target audiences.

What follows is a cheat sheet to the dangers of absolutes when it comes to marketing online:

1. Size matters. Many small businesses equate the number of “likes” or “followers” on branded social-media platforms to success, not realizing that it’s the quality of those likes and followers that is important. More people signing up to view your message doesn’t necessarily equate an increase in sales or even a bump in long-term or sustainable brand recognition.
    
2. The medium is the message. Just because it’s Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace or some other newfangled online or mobile-powered platform, the message still carries more weight than the medium. It’s always been about the message. It’s not about the platform or the technology. The technology is just a tool, and just because younger people were the first to use Twitter and Facebook, don’t think for a moment that older employees can’t effectively use them just as well.
    
3. Social media gurus really do exist. No, they don’t. Here’s my advice when you run across someone positioning himself or herself as a “social media guru” or expert. Run for the exit. Everybody working in this field is practicing on the job training. Just because they’ve written a book like I have or spoken in public about the do’s and don’ts of social media, doesn’t mean they know your business and how to conceptualize and manage campaigns that hit upon your business-related goals. 
    
4. Social media is ‘new’ media. No, it isn’t. Media is media. At one point or another, newspapers, radio, television and the Internet were considered new forms of media and now they’re labeled as “traditional” media. So “new” media doesn’t mean that only “experts” or young hotshots can successfully operate your social-media team. That’s hogwash. Nothing replaces knowledge of the basics of marketing, combined with knowledge of your business-related goals and the need for authenticity and transparency in your socially laden communications.
    
5. Social media can be effectively outsourced to a PR firm. Nobody knows your business like the people who work inside your building. You can certainly work with an agency to set up and implement your social media-related efforts or to propose ideas for contests and the like. But when it comes to communicating your messages on a daily basis, your people are in the best position to keep your community of customers and prospects up to date and informed about what really matters to them.

What myth about marketing would you like to see debunked? Leave a comment and let us know. 

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Digital Marketing Startup BrightWhistle Receives Funding to Fuel Development …

Digital Marketing Startup Already Generating Results for Health Care
Service Providers

ATLANTA–(BUSINESS WIRE)–BrightWhistle Inc., a first-in-class online customer and patient
acquisition management platform provider, announced today that it has
raised $1.1 million in seed funding, led by Atlanta-based Hamilton
Ventures. Eastside Partners and other prominent angel investors also
participated in the round. Jamie Hamilton, managing partner, Hamilton
Ventures, and Emerson Fann, managing partner, Eastside Partners, will
join the company’s board of directors. Former Weather Channel and Disney
executive and prominent Atlanta angel investor Paul Iaffaldano will also
join the board.

“Current marketing automation tools help manage leads once they’ve
entered the pipeline, but marketers continue to face intense pressure to
fill the pipeline with new, highly qualified leads that actually convert
into new customers”

With several health care clients already realizing a significant ROI
using the BrightWhistle solution, the company will use this investment
to fuel continued growth in the health services sector as well as future
expansion into multi-location businesses and marketing agencies. The
funding will also help augment the engineering team in order to enhance
the company’s platform.

Leveraging premium content from its proprietary network, BrightWhistle’s
first-in-class platform enables a digital marketer to build and manage a
matrix of location/practitioner sites designed to magnify a company’s
online presence. The same platform powers targeted search and social
media ad campaigns designed to attract, target, qualify and convert new
patients and customers.

“Current marketing automation tools help manage leads once they’ve
entered the pipeline, but marketers continue to face intense pressure to
fill the pipeline with new, highly qualified leads that actually convert
into new customers,” said Greg Foster, co-founder and CEO,
BrightWhistle. “This approach goes well beyond traditional means of
acquiring new patients and represents a sea change in how marketers take
control of the patient/customer acquisition process.”

Prior to BrightWhistle, Foster served on the management team of three
successful start-ups, including Southern Direct, a company he founded
and ultimately sold to Turner Broadcasting. He then served as vice
president of corporate development at Turner, and later as a digital
media focused venture capitalist with Noro-Moseley Partners. He
currently serves as an entrepreneur-in-residence for Chrysalis Ventures.

“At the heart of our approach is a platform capable of generating and
managing hyper-localized sites powered by high quality content that
educates and informs prospective consumers,” said Chad Mallory,
co-founder and CTO, BrightWhistle. “When combined with our system that
scales the targeting and conversion of prospects within search and
social media platforms like Facebook, Google and LinkedIn, the complete
solution serves as an end-to-end customer acquisition system.” Prior to
BrightWhistle, Mallory was co-founder and CTO of Nexteppe, a company
designed to serve the lead generation needs of the automotive
marketplace.

“BrightWhistle’s pioneering approach to automating the online customer
acquisition process combined with the business, technology and marketing
expertise of the founders sets BrightWhistle apart from other digital
marketing and advertising vendors,” said Jamie Hamilton, managing
partner, Hamilton Ventures. “Hamilton Ventures is excited to be a part
of a venture that is already impacting the way health care service
providers are finding new patients.”

About BrightWhistle Inc.

Established in 2010, BrightWhistle drives new business for health care
service providers, multi-location businesses and marketing agencies. By
integrating PPC Ad Management, a digital matrix of branded websites and
quality content, BrightWhistle’s first-in-class online customer and
patient acquisition management platform increases new customer count
while decreasing acquisition costs. BrightWhistle, one of the few
companies with official access to the Facebook Ads API, has been named
one of the Top 40 Innovative Companies in Georgia for 2011 by the
Technology Association of Georgia. BrightWhistle is based in Atlanta,
Ga., and can be found at www.brightwhistle.com.

About Hamilton Ventures

Hamilton Ventures, LLC is a privately held investment company actively
engaged in making investments on behalf of its principals and its
co-investment partners, with a focus on providing expansion capital to
rapidly growing companies. Hamilton Ventures provides investment
services exclusively to the Hamilton Ventures sponsored investments.
Among the services provided are identification of investment
opportunities, evaluation of prospective investments for conformance
with portfolio objectives, negotiation and consummation of transactions
and ongoing asset management.

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