Peter Corbett on Social Marketing

Peter Corbett spoke at Joe Shumard’s Internet
Implementation Forum at the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce. I
think Peter is one of the smartest people I’ve heard on using social
media. This isn’t his whole presentation, just the parts I like best.

His
company, iStrategy Labs www.istrategylabs.com
is a “digital experiential marketing agency.” Google istrategylabs
for an incredible demonstration of search engine optimization.

Peter
had been in the advertising agency business when an error from his
management left him with the opportunity to start his own practice. He
produced an age/demographic analysis of Facebook users. Since few people
were coming to his blog, he linked his piece to the Wikipedia
“Facebook” page and began getting 40,000 hits a day and offers to talk
on television and interview in the media.

He uses all types of
social media, and as an example told how using Facebook for business has
some irreplaceable advantages. Facebook advertising can get you to
incredibly small markets (a specific niche in a single town) for very
low cost.

Small ads to small niches burn out. You need a new ad
every 2-4 weeks. Doesn’t mean people aren’t responding, it means
everyone who fits your criteria has seen them! Start with 5 ads, pick
the two best performing and add four more.

When one of the
participants, a professional writer, was wondering if he should
concentrate on his business Facebook or his personal face book, Peter
said, “I would concentrate on getting the message out that you are the
best writer, period.”

People and organizations track a single
word on Twitter. He tells the story about someone who did a transaction
with a company because she mentioned their product, and they came to
her.

One local listserv is notoriously anti-promotion. Peter got
excellent results by answering questions and referring others, until
now he is the most referred provider in his niche on that network, and
has the other members recommending him. In this case, anti-promotion
also meant promote the group.

Peter creates a lot of notice by
designing a physical event, promoting it, sharing it to make it bigger,
and building a community of people who are getting value from the event.
One is www.DigitalCapitalWeek.org,
June 11 through 20, 2010 all over the Washington DC area.