Many of you may remember the marketing mix from your intro to marketing course back in college, but just in case you forgot, here is a quick refresher. Traditionally the marketing mixed has always been comprised of 4 things:
- product – what are you going to produce
- price – how much are you going to charge
- place – where can the product be purchased
- promotion – how are you going to promote the product
In terms of social media the elements you need to worry about are slightly different. Keep in mind that you can probably expand and include dozens of things you need to look at, but I want to focus on the general big 4. Also not that the social media marketing mix applies more so towards corporations than towards individuals. I am also assuming that you already defined your goals and objectives.
Platforms
What social media platforms are you going to use to get your message across? There are a lot of them out there you need to make sure you select the platforms that best cater to your needs and to your target market. Your list of platforms is going to be dynamic and will fluctuate as new ones emerge or as old ones die off or improve.
Personality
What kind of personality are you? Are you an upfront blunt as a spoon person or are you a bit more conservative and polite? Are you going to create a social media character with his/her own personality? (like the Chicago Tribune did with Colonel Tribune).
Whether your blogging, twittering, or commenting on someone’s photos, try to keep your personality consistent. Don’t worry about censoring yourself or trying to impress anyone. People like authenticity and when you use your real personality you will get genuine people that are interested in what you have to say. When Gary Vaynerchuk first started his wine blog, he was shy and timid, that wasn’t really who he was. Eventually he figured out that if he wanted to succeed he needed to be authentic, he needed to be himself. Now, people like him for who he really is and not for something he pretends to be. Get the picture?
People
Who are you writing for? Who is the audience that you are trying to reach and why are you trying to reach them? This is very important because you want to make sure that you are sending out targeted and relevant content to the people who want it. You want to build relationships with all of these “people” and this means understanding who these people are.
Promotion
The gist of “promotion” is understanding how you are going to promote your brand. How are you going to grow your communities? How are you going to integrate your social media platforms to help promote your brand or company? Are you going to offer special discounts or offers to your facebook friends? Will you have special discount links that you are going to twitter out?
I would consider these to be the initial 4 elements of the social media marketing mix. Defining these key 4 elements should give you a solid framework from which to build your social media strategy off of.
What other elements would you add to the social media marketing mix and why?
Thanks for reading
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