Love them or loathe them, social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, are rife with advertising possibilities. There’s been tons of buzz about utilizing these free platforms for marketing purposes, but it can be difficult to generate an effective strategy based around these sites. Most companies have realized that simply creating accounts and profiles isn’t enough to bring traffic or revenue to a business, especially those of the smaller variety without a substantial amount of brand recognition.
In fact, small businesses in particular tend to be lost when it comes to developing a long term PR plan. There are social media experts for hire, but lots of small business owners can’t afford to hire a full time employee whose sole purpose in the company is to manage the twitter presence. At the same time, social media requires constant updates in order to remain relevant. Without new content added on a daily basis, your online existence will quickly fade into oblivion. Updating multiple accounts and blogs is very time consuming for someone without a separate marketing team. And lots of professionals are totally in the dark when it comes to local SEO tactics and other complex industry tools.
Companies interested in learning more about mastering social networking for business purposes may find it helpful to attend conferences on this subject. For example, on September 30th, 2010, there will be an excellent social media marketing event in Miami Beach, FL. Expert presenters at this one day gathering are going to cover a ton of cool topics, such as location-based advertising, blogging, and viral campaigns. As with any similar symposium, attending means having an opportunity to do some old fashioned face-to-face networking with other entrepreneurs. The official start time is 9:00am, but we’d recommend getting there early to make sure you get to sign up for the lectures you’d prefer. Tickets are still available, although they’re disappearing quickly. There are only 17 remaining as of 2:30pm PST! To grab the last few passes, please visit the registration site here. If you decide to attend this event, be sure to share your reflections and experiences with us!