Six Social Media Platform All Marketers Should Consider

Kent Lewis provides a concise and succinct list of the "in's and out's" of the six (6) leadig social media sites that every marketer should be familiar with - if not using - in his blog http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/24169.asp

Facebook

• Community mindset: connect
• Primary demographic: 25 to 45
• Ideal fit for: entertainment, lifestyle brands, and non-profits
• Biggest opportunity: using ads to build fans
• Biggest challenge: few appreciate Facebook advertising
• Metrics: fans, comments, likes, wall posts
• Helpful tools: Lexicon, ad interface, applications, analytics, connect, etc.

MySpace

• Community mindset: connect
• Primary demographic: 15 to 25
• Ideal fit for: music and entertainment
• Biggest opportunity: providing music samples
• Biggest challenges: noisy; losing market share quickly
• Metrics: friends, favorites, groups, impressions
• Helpful tools: Open Platform, MyApps, MySpace Toolbox

LinkedIn

• Community mindset: connect
• Primary demographic: 35 to 55
• Ideal fit for: service providers, industry associations
• Biggest opportunity: creating thought leadership via Q&A and Groups
• Biggest challenge: time commitment
• Metrics: profile connections, best answers, group members, discussions
• Helpful tools: Applications, Salesforce plug-in

Blogs

• Community mindset: create
• Primary demographic: 35 to 55
• Ideal fit for: technology
• Biggest opportunity: develop thought-leadership
• Biggest challenge: requires significant resources over time
• Metrics: feed subscribers, comments, Technorati score, pingbacks, inbound links, visibility in search engines
• Helpful tools: WordPress plug-ins

Twitter

• Community mindset: create (microblogging)
• Primary demographic: 35 to 45
• Ideal fit for: service industry
• Biggest opportunity: customer service, consumer insight, sales and marketing
• Biggest challenges: noisy; reliability issues; platform limitations
• Metrics: followers, @ replies, retweets, direct messages, custom hashtags
• Helpful tools: BingTweets, TweetBeep, TweetDeck, HootSuite, CoTweet, Mr. Tweet, Twitalyzer, blog plug-ins

YouTube

• Community mindset: vote
• Primary demographic: 25 to 45
• Ideal fit for: big brands and entertainment
• Biggest opportunity: creating viral content (e.g., United Breaks Guitars)
• Biggest challenges: noise; conversions
• Metrics: views, comments, subscribers, ratings
• Helpful tools: TubeMogul, YouTube Insight