Social Media Marketing

It's funny how quick marketing tools come and go. When I teach any marketing course, I try to emphasize to the students that we are teaching what the current tools are but by the time they are in a marketing career, these tools will change. Just three years ago, Facebook and Twitter were the hot tools. Everyone had to have a social media presence - in fact, the social media presence was more important than anything else. We see today that Facebook is again trying to unveil a new layout to the social medium in an effort to make it more user friendly, and I'm sure bring in some more advertising bucks.

And no, I am not saying that Facebook is a thing of the past. Having a social media presence is still important for just about any brand - ESPECIALLY for those brands that don't even have a website. However, a brand should not rely on this alone. You need to figure out what the lifestyle of your consumer is - what groups are they participating in? What activities are they engaged in? Where do they spend most of their time? Connecting with them on a more personal level while not bombarding them with advertising (what some folks call stealth advertising or stealth marketing) is going to be more and more important in the coming years.