I absolutely agree that confusing Social Media Marketing and Social Media Networking is a recipe for frustration and burning up resources.

My primary motivation for creating a series of videos and a template for Social Media Strategy (link to the first post) is to address a need that we have observed and heard amongst a large number of business people who are being encouraged to embrace Social Media Marketing and confuse Social Media activity (primarily networking) with strategic use of Social Media for business. This is unsatisfactory for everyone, the businesses and the audience. Many people come to Social Media with a mindset that comes from traditional media. “Here are some more channels through which to spread my message”. As you probably realise this really doesn’t work as effectively, as using Social Media to first listen to your market, to secondly engage your market (build genuine rapport, a relationship), thirdly connect your target audience with you, your business and one another, and then fourthly to share rich content that solves problems for your market.

As you can see in this video we advise that business people first listen, engage, and connect with their market before a significant push into sharing content. The reason we do this is because we have employed this formula ourselves and with/for clients in different markets and for different purposes. We have found this approach very effective and we are comforted by the fact that many of our mentors have found this fundamental approach effective.

I really value your comments. It would be interesting to hear what Social Media Marketing sequence you recommend and what experiences have lead you to that understanding? I would also be very interested to understand what marketing steps you advise before networking?

Perhaps you are referring for the need to have an objective and a pathway for prospects to follow before devote resources to engaging them, if so couldn’t agree more. Again we observe frustration on a significant scale when business people have an under developed web strategy e.g. online brochure style website (no interactivity, no pathway for involvement, no process for articulating their value proposition for creating service in their market, no process for qualifying visitors into genuine prospects) and falsely believe that randomly following people on Twitter or setting up a Facebook fan page is going to suddenly lead to a business boom. [In this regard this website is not yet a best practice model, we are working on that]

This is the precise scenario we are trying to address. Would love to hear your comments Kevin, thanks again for your input. Dean

The business owner (interested in marketing) has begun a social media networking initiative and NOT a social media marketing initiative… They have been confused and have set down the wrong path from the start!

One of the biggest mistakes that Internet marketers make is believing that they can launch a social media marketing initiative inside of social media networking environments (like Facebbook, Twitter, etc.)

Social media marketing and social media networking are two VERY different initiatives. If you try to do one inside the other you are bound for disaster. Much like mixing baking soda and vinegar together with explosive results.

There is a clear and distinct order in which you engage social media for business benefit. If you try the networking bit before the marketing bit then you are not operating at maximum efficiency.

Most people have it wrong. They network with people in an attempt to build their business (prospecting)… This is the most inefficient way to use social media and a great waste of time and energy. Not to mention it is hard to track results… It’s not completely measureable!

http://friendfeed.com/building43/dfaf484f/moment-you-believe-in-social-media-via