1. Social Media Marketing: Questions Answered By: Andrea Folkman, LaTisha Skinner, Melanie Hubbard

2. Where is Social Media? Impressive statistics 50% of Facebook’s 400 million users log on every day Average user has 130 Friends Users spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook 90% of online Americans are searching for health resources 870 hospitals now have roughly 2,260 social media sites http://mashable.com/2010/12/12/social-wellness/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29

3. Where is Social Media?

4. Consider This… POST: people, objectives, strategy, time Are your customers ready? What are your goals? Do you want to target customers or employees? What kind of relationship do you want with your online audience? What message do you want to send? How will your audience speak back? Will your message be heard? The answers to these questions will help guide you into the right social media for your organization Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogs, del.icio.us, RSS Feed… More! Li, C., Bernoff, J. (2008). Groundswell. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press.

5. What You Need To Know Brand Monitoring Access to what your audience is saying about you, VALUABLE Speaking with audience and letting them speak back Angry visible complaints, are you prepared? Bad news travels faster Legal issues—audience could share too much health information, Li, C., Bernoff, J. (2008). Groundswell. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press. http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2011/2/18/some-physicians-post-inappropriate-content-on-twitter-report-finds.aspx

6. What You Need To Know Cost Social Media costs are usually FREE! Require intense monitoring, additional positions? ROI, same as other marketing ventures—hard to calculate Operations are very visible Are operations in tip-top shape to impress social media audiences? Need social media policy to avoid legal issues Li, C., Bernoff, J. (2008). Groundswell. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press. http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-strategy/maybe-youre-just-not-ready-for-social-media/

7. Reasons Why You Should Access to new customers Existing customers and customer loyalty enhanced Learn more about who your customers are and what they want Brand Monitoring Success maximized and failures minimized Find what’s relevant to your audience faster Cost effective relative to other medias Showcase the success of others Don’t hog the limelight Give marketing a more personal touch http://elearning.isu.edu/moodle/file.php/7718/Pros_and_Cons_of_SoMe_Marketing_2010.pdf

8. Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Your Customers are Not Using Social Media It is important to remember that even though it may seem like everyone is using social media, there still are some that are not. You must do some research and determine if in fact your customers are using social media. If your customers are not using these technologies, it would be an effort failed and a waste of resources.

9. Recommendations Hire a social media manager Reasons Why: Contrary to popular belief, just because your 14 year old niece has a Facebook account, that doesn't mean she could (or should) create your own businesses fan page You must have a well thought out social media strategy if you want to succeed Just because you already have social media platforms in place, that doesn't mean you are using them correctly. You need someone to remind you -not- to be a broadcaster! Having a social media manager saves you, the business owner, time (our most valuable asset). http://socialmediatoday.com/krysty-petrucci/250907/5-reasons-you-need-social-media-manager

10. Recommendations Social Media is a Continuum Social media is an ongoing process of communication through technology. If you are able to build loyal costumers, the last thing you are going to want to do is loose contact with those individuals who have the ability to help sustain your organization. You must implement social media and continually improve and update it. http://www.theuksportsnetwork.com/5-reasons-a-business-should-not-use-social-media