How to Reduce Your Dependency on Social Media With a New Marketing Strategy

TikTok’s future in the United States remains uncertain as President Trump’s extension of ByteDance’s deadline to sell looms. Will there be a deal in time? Will the Chinese social giant hold firm? The app’s American future is unclear. But this isn’t TikTok’s only problem—Australia recently raised its minimum age for using social media to 16.

These changes have raised alarm bells for businesses relying solely on social media to drive sales. If a social platform goes down, so does any business heavily reliant on that platform. With the shifting reality of social media, developing a marketing strategy that doesn’t rely on social media is the safe option.

Try your hand at reducing your dependency on social media with a new marketing strategy.  Here are some ideas.

Do CEOs Need to Use Social Media?

According to a Fast Company article, more than 60% of Fortune 500 CEOs have zero social media presence. That may be a problem.  But what about CEOs of privately owned businesses? Your guess is as good as mine but the article below states:

Social media is where your customers are—shouldn’t you be there, too?

Yes, Even CEOs Need To Use Social Media -- And They Need to Do It Well

Article of Interest: How to Improve Search Rankings Through Social Media Interactions

Online content is Queen (not King in our case). It's a valuable asset to leverage and grow a business.

Here are three ways to use social media to improve your search rankings.

Blog Post of Interest: Social Media Marketing

As social media platforms such as Google+ and Facebook continue to evolve and grow, how do you, as a business owner, stay focused and up to date on what's relevant?

The reality of web marketing is that almost all of it happens on platforms that are owned by others. Platform owners, such as Facebook or Google, have provided environments where some things are easy to do, some things are much harder to do, and some things simply can't be done. Even tougher for marketers is that these systems are constantly changing ...

Read: Your Marketing Can Keep Pace with Facebook and Google

Resource of Interest: 20 Tips for Best ROI in Social Media

Should ROI (return on investment) -- a very popular investment metric -- in social media be based on outreach efforts and bottom line profit results or based on a new ROI (return on influence) -- that of more a creative investment metric -- that you develop contingent upon your group of friends and colleagues?

You can decide here.

In the meantime, let us know how you measure success or what constitutes a win in your mind.

Article of Interest: Twitter Intelligence

Since the focus of our 6th Annual WPO Chicago Summit August 13th is on communication strategies for a connected world (e.g., social media), we will continue to blog about a variety of social media and networking platforms that enable you to connect, collaborate and engage with other human beings worldwide through your business.

The first big question is this: Are you connected? As a founder, President or CEO of an organization, are you using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, and blog sites as a business tool?

Here's what a CEO says:

"Customers crave engagement and dialogue with the brands they love, and Twitter is one of the ways you can help establish that," Marr said. "The key is remembering that you're walking into one big dinner party - if you start shilling products instead of engaging with people you might not find any seats at the table."

About how 31 percent of business owners through the 2008 Inc. 500 maintained a blog or presence on a social network.

What about you? What are you doing right now? How will we know?

Read more here.

Other related resources:

CEO's Who Twitter
Tweets From the Chiefs
C Level Tweeters
No surprises in CEOs using Twitter

Blog Post of Interest: Online Marketing 2009 Predictions

What should we be learning in 2009 to drive results for our businesses? Yes, tightening our belts during tough times is common sense but where do you cut and where do you spend when so many aspects to running a lean business need attention?

Over the course of WPO Chicago chapter sessions, a consensus was reached by members that it is never a good idea to cut sales and marketing (but maybe think about combining them) and considering the importance of online marketing (we like to refer to what's ahead as Web 3.0), you need to learn everything there is to know about it -- now.

Tip: Business blogging has NOT arrived yet so you still have a chance to get in front of this tremendous growth opportunity for your business.

Read more about what's in store for business blogging, SEO, social media advertising and more here.

And if you doubt our marketing claim above, read "How Marketing Drives Top-Line Growth in a Recession."

Sound Advice: 50 Steps to Establishing a Consistent Social Media Practice

One of the topics that continues to come up during our WPO Chicago chapter sessions is social media. Some of the questions are: What is it? Why do I need it? Who uses it? How do I develop a strategy around it?

All great questions and oftentimes unanswerable because the platform is still so very new.

One individual I have been following for a long time is Chris Brogan. He writes an amazing blog that extensively covers how to use social media and social networks to build relationships and deliver value. You don't want to miss it.

And this post, 50 Steps to Establishing a Consistent Social Media Practice, is one of my all-time favorites. It serves as a primer to getting your arms around social media.

Blog Post of Interest: Analysis of a Superbowl Ad Rating Experiment Using Twitter

There has been a tremendous amount of chatter about social media and social networking over the past couple of months. Both mediums bring content and information sharing from a passive to an active experience for everyone from a President (like you) to an individual who makes coffee at your local Starbucks. Think Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter and Kaneva.

At any given moment, someone you know is someone you really don't know in the social Internet world (for example, they may be an Avatar on Second Life under a name you don't recognize). We are empowered by the way in which information can be and is being disseminated to one another anywhere at anytime and at a lightening speed.

So what's this have to do with an analysis of a Superbowl ad rating experiment using Twitter? Everything. After you read this fascinating post from Forrester Research, you might think twice about ignoring the social Internet revolution that's taking place as I write this. The Forrester post begins like this:

Josh Bernoff and I conducted an interesting experiment. I (Jeremiah) encouraged the twitter community (social media, marketing, advertising mavens) to join in on providing real-time ratings about ads during the superbowl.

The experiment was a huge success. They had over 2000 responses from over 70 people over a 4 hour period.

They then shift over to what's going on with Super Tuesday (2/5/08) and report this:

Coincidently, today is Super Tuesday where many Americans will be voting, and I see that Google and Twitter are working together to create a map mashup (read what a mashup is here) to show real-time voices of which user is voting for who.

Expect this trend of real-time rating through social media to continue, and by this time next year, I hope to work with a sophisticated group who can take our little experiment to the next level.

We encourage you to use these platforms as a way to grow your business, build meaningful user-generated content, interaction and long-lasting value for your clients, vendors, constituents, partners, visitors and shareholders. And if you are already, please let us know what you are doing and how you are doing it. We'd welcome a chance to share your success stories with the world.