“Social Media is about breaking down barriers to engage in conversations”

“Social Media is about breaking down barriers to engage in conversations.”

“Relationships are the new metric for ROI.”

-These are just two quotes from an amazing blog post I read today. “Conversational Marketing Vs. Market Conversations”

It really gets me thinking… With all the hype on Social Networks and people being put together by grouping, and links, does everyone become a salesman/ or marketer?

In my experience, ever since customized AOL Member Profiles, people have been selling themselves. Now with the Myspace & Facebook evolution, everyone has a crooked picture (the angles) and they are promoting a blog that they are trying to sell ads on so they wont have to work at Starbucks….. (I guess that was harsh) But what about us, the online marketers who really have business to promote…. a lot of times we fall in the cracks.

It almost seems that all online marketers, must must must be  prominent figures amongst many in online communities.

A lot of marketers I have spoken to even do most of their work on online communities. Get to the top of your community, target your fans, and promote your product. This is the formula I see every day.

In “Conversational Marketing Vs. Market Conversations”, Brian Solis discusses the right way to be a marketer in a place where everyone is a salesman. We must all listen to the market, before we participate. This taught me a lot because many times I feel so eager to just jump into the industry, instead of sitting back and observing the entire spectrum.

The best way to do even the most important aspects of Search Marketing (PPC, Keyword Advertising, PPL, etc) is to analyze your market for a period of time until you feel completely ready to promote to the target. And these methods are considered “traditional”, yet still completely necessary.

So while it is tempting to jump head first into the industry, it is also important to understand how everything works and to prepare for the future, because this might be “The Year of Facebook”, but who knows what next year will bring.

… The ironic thing about this is the fact that I found this posted on Sphinn. It was posted by “Lyndon”, (a top “Sphinner”)and while I don’t know who he is… I know he posts some great articles on Sphinn!

Tags: Blogs, Facebook, Marketing, SMM, Social Media