Social media is hot right now. And we all need to be on Twitter, right? I mean, if Oprahs on Twitter, we all should be. And its gotta be cool because Ashton Kutcher kicked CNNs ass on Twitter.

Im going to say this up front if you call yourself a social media guru you have missed the boat. Social media is just one weapon in the online marketers arsenal.  And if that is the only weapon you are using to wage war for your clients, you FAIL. A wholistic approach to eMarketing is what it takes to build buzz, drive traffic, convert visitors to customers, and re market them to bring those customers. That is what any healthy online or offline marketing plan does. Social media alone cannot make a business succeed.Now, what my beef with many eMarketers is is they often think of their way as the only way I see a lot of these self proclaimed social media gurus frowning on the use of text link ads or site sponsorships, SEO or affiliate programs. But the truth is, these should be used together to create the most robust campaign possible. Just as no marketing department would altogether forgo print media ads for television, no internet marketer should forgo online press releases, SEO, blogging or PPC for social media. They all work together.

Just as your offline strategies should be integrated and a mix of print media, television, billboard, direct mail, trade shows, radio, sponsorships, signage, conferences, etc… your online marketing strategies need to be integrated, supportive and symbiotic. Whatever your strategy is it must be designed so your online traffic takes action on your blog, site, landing pages, application or if you have an offline business you need to convert the online to offline through coupons, events, tweetups, contests or some sort of other irresistible offer.

Consider it this way:

Inbound marketing arm

• SEO natural search placement for prime convertible terms


• SEM paid ad placement on search engines
• PPC paid ad placement on popular related sites with traffic that is most likely to convert to your site.
• Social Networking syndicated content, personal engagement on social sites like Twitter and Facebook, business applications, fan pages, business and employee profiles etc.

Permission Based Marketing

• Affiliate programs that offer access to their vetted database of people that have requested offers and info on products or services like yours
• Database marketing where you remarket your own customers or prospects with newsletters, special email offers, event calendars, coupons etc.

Outbound Marketing

• This is when you need to flat out prospect and you buy a list of targeted email addresses and just blast email them. Is it spamming? Only if you are offering the wrong product if the product and offer is valuable- you will see results.

• You have inbound marketing where people find you naturally and visit your website through paid search placement (SEM/PPC), natural search placement (SEO), social media profiles and content, blogging, syndication etc and outbound marketing where people are directly marketed either with their permission or in a non permission environment like purchased, targeted email marketing lists, banner ads, text link ads, etc. or  permission based emails, offers, newsletters, coupons, etc. Inbound marketing

SEO is about naturally getting traffic from search engines that is qualified through keywords related to your product/service/site.

• SEM/PPC is buying traffic from search engines. This is more qualified guaranteed traffic

Social media is

• Syndicated video/content/podcasting
• Valuable offers ebooks/seminars/webinars etc
• Permission marketing/Outbound marketing
• Email marketing
• Newsletters
• RSS

Know your market.

Identify your market then recognize where that market is congregating online are they on myspace, facebook, twitter do they frequent niche blogs or social networks or belong to specific groups? Identify what they are searching for on Google.

Now, identify how you can reach them best do you need a fan page or an application on Facebook or both? Should you have corporate, brand and executive accounts on Twitter or just a single account to offer deals. Do you need to be providing specific niche content on a blog or just setup landing pages to collect a database or sell product?

How are you going to stay connected with your market? Once you have gotten the traffic to your blog, gotten the visitor to register for something or received their permission to market them through special offers or an RSS feed, are you going to integrate ads into your feeds, send a newsletter or drip emails reminding them of your service and products? How do you keep their interest

Calling all eMarketers - Send Me a Branded T-shirt and I will shoot the Friday video in it!

So, what I want to do is collect the largest collection of Internet marketing T-shirts out there. So, I will continue to shoot these Thursday vids in my bikini as long as all you boys and girls with sexy online
companies send me your branded T shirts and on Fridays I will shoot my videos in your company T and you can even request the topic. I am a size small and ifyou fill out the form here, I will provide my address so you can ship a shirtto me.