Found this in research for a client project. I’m not sure I agree with his first statement, since content gets you connections, but the rest is there.

As to taking more homework to understand the social media aspects of web 2.0, that’s why we teach Websitetology, we give our students the knowledge to make sites that work.

Getting small fast isn’t as important as being fast period. Sometimes the window for getting attention is so short that someone else will eat your lunch before you even finish ordering it.

Ketchum Interview on PR & Social Media at Like It Matters

Social media is about connection, not content.
Social media is about them, not you.
Social media may be cheaper initially, but it takes far more homework.
Get small fast. (Niche is nice. Think smaller feature sets, more targeted audiences, less chatter from you, and so on.)
Relax, it’s early in the social media game. You’re not behind, because everyone’s just trying to figure out the new environment.

We’ve been running the seminar for almost a year now- and people still are resisting the idea that a website can be a lot more than a brochure or a store. Ideally, you are building a community of like-minded people who are interested in the needs your business serves.

Target marketing is finally becoming a reality with social media.

Found the following article while doing some research for a client brief. It’s one of the best explanations of why a WordPress site (or other web 2.0 style site) is the natural evolution for a business website.

I only picked a paragraph to quote, I highly recommend you head over and read the whole thing:

O’Reilly Network — Building Online Communities

Exist For a ReasonYou must know why your site exists. Otherwise, you cannot judge the effectiveness of any policy. Worse yet, how will visitors know if they want to join the community? What benefit does a user derive from participating? Why should anyone care? Without an underlying goal, it’s extremely difficult to guide users in constructive ways. It would be like starting a company and forgetting that, at some point, you need paying customers.

Why are you online? What problem are you trying to solve? Remember, 80% of Internet use begins with a search- what are they looking for, and how are you providing it?

Today I was calling make-up artists for a photo shoot. And, of course, I didn’t start with a google search- I called a photographer I knew well and asked her who I should call. She gave me three names, and one of the artists told be about the forth. Good thing I called my friend, because none of the three she told me about had a website.

Each time, I asked, do you have a site that I can look at your work-  each of them gave me an excuse. None of them would would think of working without a phone, but all of them seem to think a site won’t help them. Only one of the three site-less ones had a digital file ready to e-mail, a nice little quicktime movie that showed some of his work. The other two- nothing.

Make-up artists are the ultimate cottage industry. You don’t hire a “Make-up artist company (at least not in the Midwest), they are all self-employed, sole proprietors, in a very visual business. Hence, a website would come in handy. Especially in the Dayton, Cincinnati, Columbus Ohio market, where there is a small community of make-up artists- and quite a few photographers.
While the cost of producing a good looking website used to be thousands of dollars, it doesn’t have to be that way anymore thanks to WordPress and the Websitetology seminar. For $79 you get a full day of training, and we then offer a registration, hosting and WordPress installation package for a price of less than the cost of hosting alone from some hosting companies.

The fourth make-up artist had a site. It wasn’t amazing, but it did come up first in Google when I typed her name. It had samples of her work, a list of clients, and contact information. While the other three told me things like “a website won’t get me business, it’s all word of mouth”- the one with the site told me it gets her work all over the country, at much higher rates than what she can charge locally.

These days, it doesn’t matter how small you are, a website is critical for every business. We even did a site for a disabled, retired man who launches white birds at weddings and funerals- and he doesn’t have a computer or internet access, but he’s getting customers from it.

If you are reading this- because you needed a make-up artist in Dayton, Cincinnati or Columbus- I’m sorry. That’s one of the problems with Google searches. But if you give us a call- we’ll tell you who we ended up using.