New Media Marketing

Posted by Joni Holderman on Tuesday, July 28, 2009 at 9:14pm.

Blogs, YouTube and Twitter are the three most cost-effective marketing methods in the 21^st century so far. These revolutionary marketing techniques transcend national boundaries. The are as inexpensive and effective for a business executive in Nairobi as for one in Toronto.

The popular video “United Breaks Guitars” by Dave Carroll illustrates the power of Youtube.com marketing. In 2008, Carroll’s prized $3,500 Taylor guitar was smashed by United Airlines baggage handlers at O’Hare airport in Chicago, USA. After a year of pleading with United to repair or replace the guitar, Carroll was told the answer was definitely “no.”

Instead of accepting defeat, Carroll used the incident to promote his music to a new audience. He wrote a song about United Airline’s poor customer service, and friends volunteered to make it into a music video posted on Youtube. In just 2 weeks, more than 3.7 million saw the work of this little-known songwriter/musician from Nova Scotia, Canada.

Hits on the website www.davecarrollmusic.com and sales of his solo album, Perfect Blue, are at record levels. United Airlines apologized to Carroll and made a donation to a music school of Carroll’s choice.

While not everyone can write a catchy song, nearly anyone can create an effective blog. Author Jason R. Rich suggests that business owners create an interesting, informative blog that features how-to advice, new products, tips and news for consumers. Rich is the author of the book Blogging for Fame and Fortune.

According to Rich, blogging is the ideal tool to position yourself as an expert in your chosen field - whether that industry is fashion or funerals. Blogging allows entrepreneurs to connect with customers as friends. It increases credibility and allows you to increase credibility.

It is essential to have updated blog content. Ideally, the blog would be updated by 300 words or more, 5 to 7 times per week - preferably every day or almost every day.

Rich warns that running a successful blog can be harder than it appears. The challenge is driving a steady streak of traffic to the blog, and getting readers to return. This builds a large audience for each blog. Often, this marketing effort is more difficult than writing the blogs.

Even if you aren’t interested in writing blogs, any business can get excellent low-cost marketing by asking bloggers to test their product and write reviews of it. Reviews are valuable advertising, and may even help to improve the product.

The latest marketing trend is Twitter. Twitter posts, called “tweets” are just 140 characters - perfect for text messaging or display on mobile phones. Twitter is the best medium for reaching consumers with a short attention span, or the youngest, trendiest consumers.

Separately or in combination, Youtube, blogs and Twitter can boost revenue for almost any business.