In a recent episode of The Simpsons, teacher Edna Krabappel confiscated her students’ iphones to stop them from texting. Shakespeare be damned, because the new teacher gave the kids back their iphones and assigned them 20 minutes of Tweets on Twitter for homework. Such is this social networking world – an animated TV show imitating life.
The world seems to be one big social network. It isn’t just Edna’s class who are tweeting – perhaps even your grandmother has an account. Stephen Hawkings and Demi Moore are tweeting. Over on facebook, everyone from Barack Obama to Aerosmith, to Bill Gates, Hugh Hefner and Jackie Chan are all there.
And there is more to social media than facebook and twitter. There are photosharing social sites such as Flikr and Photobucket; videosharing social sites such as Youtube, Blip.tv and Joost; professional networking sites such as linkedin; trend sites such as Digg; more social networking sites like Myspace… and now Google Wave. Even Disney has an advertising… oops, sorry… I mean a social networking site.
Obviously big budgets will get you your own social networking site, or at least allow you to maximize advertising on such sites, but how can us ordinary mortals make sense of all these sites and use them to market our businesses? Anyone can have a Facebook site or a Twitter account, but how does that help market your business? I decided I needed to look deeper into this – into the psychology of social media.
Mikolaj Jan Piskorski is an associate professor at Harvard Business School. He has a very straightforward perspective on social media:
“To be successful, you need to shift your mindset from social media to social strategy.” He offers a useful analogy: imagine you’re having dinner with a few good friends and a stranger sits down and tries to sell you something. Piskorski suggests that is how many companies approach marketing on social media sites.
Instead, marketing has to consider why “friends” are drawn to the site in the first place – what social need the site serves and how users interact while there.
Coming next time: What’s your social media profile?
About Hartland Ross
Hartland Ross is an online marketing strategist, entrepreneur, and founder and president of eBridge Marketing Solutions - an online marketing agency and consulting firm catering to technology companies.
An expert in the principles of marketing, strategy and business development, Hartland began his entrepreneurial career in the building materials industry as a successful franchise owner and operator. He followed this up with a stint in the pulp and paper industry before landing positions with two different internet marketing startups in the online advertising sector. He then took his online success and moved on to become VP of Sales and Marketing for a national training and development company.
Considered a pioneer in the online world, Hartland has been working in the sales and marketing of web based technology companies since 1999. He is well recognized and regarded in the hosting industry and to date has worked with over 150 web hosting companies providing business growth, marketing strategy and industry direction advice and recommendations.
With 15 years of business development experience, plus over 10 years experience in working specifically with technology companies, Hartland is a sought after speaker and online authority who is often interviewed and quoted in various industry related case studies and articles.
Corporate philanthropy is also top of mind for Hartland who believes it's important to give back to his community. Hartland is a past board member of Young Entrepreneurs Association and is an active mentor for Junior Achievement helping our youth become the business leaders of tomorrow.
A graduate of UBC, Hartland holds a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master degree in Business Administration with a focus on Business Strategy.
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