Why You Need a Strategy for Social Media - an eMarketer article

If you talk to a lot of marketers nowadays, Social Media or Social Marketing pops up in conversations about their plans for 2010. eMarketer has an article today just on the said topic. It indicates that social media has matured to the point where marketers are no longer asking whether social media should be part of their marketing mix but how and where they should participate. There's a strong need of a clear strategy.

Many marketers or businesses might think creating social network accounts across multiple networks (i.e. they tweet, they've a Facebook fans page, they've a blog, they've a YouTube page, etc.) are considered "sociable", but without a clear understanding what's best for their businesses, and more importantly, their target audiences, being just "sociable" don't work.

You need to first understand:

"Where does social media fit within your organization?"

"What are you using social media for?"

"How are you integrating social media into your overall marketing mix?"

"How are you turning the information gathered from social media into a business gain?"