Ranking the Social Media Big 4 – A Strategy Intro

August 12, 2010 | By Matt Rogers

Okay, let’s settle down and take a deep breath with this Social Media thing.  You’re not going to burst into a ball of flames if you don’t do Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, and LinkedIn RIGHT NOW.

Saying you don’t have the time and resources is a legitimate concern.  So are questions about how your business is actually going to grow through Social Media, or whether these social media sites have anything to do with your customers.

For one, social media isn’t one-size-fits all.  A real estate agent is going to use it much differently than a stock broker or a retailer.  Two, like all marketing initiatives, you have to do the strategy groundwork to make sure you’re casting your net where your customers are swimming.  Last, you better have some good, creative talent in-house, or be prepared to commit to outsourcing if you’re going to make it work, because it isn’t a one shot deal.

With this in mind, I’m doing 3 posts (maybe 4) that rank the big 4 social media sites for different businesses:  B2B, retail, real estate, and a yet to be determined 4th option.

The goal is to express that, at the end of the day, you need to make social media work for you, not the other way around.

The first is the B2B Social Media Rankings Edition.

We’ll do the others soon.  We’d tell you when, but we’re a small business here and we have lots of things to do, so keep your pants on and subscribe.