An associate of ours passed along a note that Dave Barger, a local competitor who is very active with promoting Social Media, is giving a speech on that topic to the Public Relations Society of America- Memphis Chapter.

Dave has done a great job getting the word out about how effective Social Media is for online marketing in Memphis, but I’m seeing a growing trend that everyone wants to focus on Social Media right now since it is the new ‘hot’ thing out there. Let me first say that I am a true believer in social media marketing, but I can’t say enough that it has to be part of an overall online marketing strategy. I talk to every client that we sit down with about the amazing benefits of social media marketing, but it is not likely to bring high levels of success if undertaken as a singular effort.  Marketing, as a rule, should not operate inside of a vacuum and that goes for Social Media Marketing as well.

Social Media Gone Wrong
Recently, there has been a ton of buzz about Motrin’s social media campaign that completely backfired. In case you missed it, this commercial was a Web video ad for Motrin was developed by the folks at McNeil Consumer Healthcare, which is a unit of Johnson & Johnson. The ad was targeted at mothers and talked about the physical pain involved with carrying an infant in a sling. Watch for yourself and see what you think:

The ad was intended to show empathy for young moms, but ad came off as too flippant for some and a hger campaign of angry mothers started building on Twitter over the weekend with thousands joining its ranks, tweeting angrily about the Motrin campaign.

Equally swift was the company’s response, which came early Monday when Johnson & Johnson plastered the front-page of the Motrin.com site with an apology. They stated, in case anybody missed it – “We have heard you.”

This is a great example of how using Social Media went terribly wrong and why consultants who are pushing Social media marketing as the be-all, end-all of online marketing may quite possibly be giving some less-than-ideal advice to their clients. That’s why it is important to understand how all the pieced come together for a successful online presence, so keep reading, and we’ll continue to tell you how to do it!

I gave a seminar last Friday at Emerge Memphis for one of their Brown Bag lunches, which are just lunch-and-learn type events. I was asked to speak about Internet Marketing, and I chose to give a broad overview because it seems that so many companies that we talk to (including our fellow companies in Emerge Memphis) have very little idea of what it takes to have a successful website.

For those who aren’t familiar with Emerge or the Incubator concept, I recommend looking into it because they are doing some great things for Memphis business.

So I put together a simple presentation on the basics: how does a Search Engines rank a website, what can you do to influence how they rank your site, and I also ran over all of the various methods for marketing a site online. We also did some screen captures from Camtasia that did a great job of showing how Google Analytics works. In my opinion, nothing will illustrate the power of marketing online more than showing how detailed the reporting packages are that are available. Google Analytics never disappoints in that regard, and I think that we made some headway on getting many of these people to start thinking about their Internet marketing plan.

Here’s the SlideShare of the presentation, however the movies that were embedded did not convert so you don’t get to see how Analytics, Emma, or Google Trends works. If you really want to see if then let me know.

The first time I wrote about a three-step process for organizations to participate in social media was in February of 2007. While my thinking on how it works has gotten much more complex over time, it still is a simple framework by which a company can start think about social media strategy.

I would love to hear what others think each of these steps should entail. What does it mean to listen? How can you participate? What can a company do to contribute?

I will be covering these concepts and more at my upcoming half-day seminar at the PRSA International Conference in Detroit, Building Integrated Social Media Campaigns: How to Leverage New Media in Existing Communication Plans. I will also be doing a master class on the Strategist and Social Media during the conference itself, so your advanced input is welcome. [From Three Steps: How Companies Can Participate Successfully in Social Media]

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