Jon Reed - Get Up to Speed with Online Marketing: How to Use Websites, Blogs, Social Networking and Much More

How to Use Websites, Blogs, Social Networking and Much More

Jon Reed

Vice President, Publisher: Tim Moore
Associate Publisher and Director of Marketing: Amy Neidlinger
Acquisitions Editor: Megan Graue
Operations Specialist: Jodi Kemper
Assistant Marketing Manager: Megan Graue
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Managing Editor: Kristy Hart
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Manufacturing Buyer: Dan Uhrig

2012 by Jon Reed
Publishing as FT Press
Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458

Authorized adaptation from the original UK edition, entitled Get Up to Speed with Online Marketing, by Jon Reed, published by Pearson Education Limited, Jon Reed 2011.

This U.S. adaptation is published by Pearson Education, Inc.,
2012 by arrangement with Pearson Education Ltd, United Kingdom.

FT Press offers excellent discounts on this book when ordered in quantity for bulk purchases or special sales. For more information, please contact U.S. Corporate and Government Sales, 1-800-382-3419, .

Company and product names mentioned herein are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Rights are restricted to U.S., its dependencies, and the Philippines.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing May 2012
ISBN-10: 0-13-306627-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-13-306627-2

Pearson Education LTD.
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Pearson Education Asia, Ltd.
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Not to be part of the social media revolution is to miss out. Jon Reed really gets it and shows you how to join in.

Suzanne Moore, Columnist, Mail on Sunday

In a fast-paced digital world where it seems like everyone is playing catch up, Get Up to Speed with Online Marketing is packed with the practical, no-nonsense insight that allows anyone marketing their business not only to keep up but to get ahead.

Justin Cooke, CEO, Fortune Cookie and Chair, British Interactive Media Association

Why waste money and resources trying to tweak your marketing strategy for the online age? Jon Reed has done it for you by giving you the tools to join the social marketing revolution taking place. This practical and invaluable book should be on the desk of anyone wanting to make a success of their online presence.

Claudio Concha, Head of New Media, Big Lottery Fund

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube? If you want to figure out how to effectively use social media to build your business, Jon Reeds straightforward and practical guide will help you figure out which one to use and where to start.

Suzanne Kavanagh, Skillset

I would like to thank the business owners who generously shared their experiences of online marketing with me for this book and continue to do so by contributing case studies to the website. I would also like to thank Liz Gooster, Martina OSullivan, Emma Devlin, and Anna Campling at FT Prentice Hall for their support, and my friends and family for their patience while I was writing Get Up To Speed With Online Marketing. Im also grateful to the many people who tweeted encouragement while I was writing and everyone who has taken my workshops, attended my lectures, read my blogs and followed me on Twitter. Its a pleasure to be part of your social network. This book is for you.

We are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce copyright material:

from Digg.

In some instances we have been unable to trace the owners of copyright material, and we would appreciate any information that would enable us to do so. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders and we apologize in advance for any unintentional omissions. We would be pleased to insert the appropriate acknowledgement in any subsequent edition of this publication.

Jon Reed is a social media consultant, trainer, lecturer, writer, and blogger. He previously worked in publishing for 10 years, including as publishing director for McGraw-Hill. He runs the following businesses:

Reed Media (www.reedmedia.eu)a social media consultancy business, offering social media production and training.

Small Business Studio (www.smallbusinessstudio.co.uk)a web design, branding, and marketing agency for start-ups and entrepreneurs.

Publishing Talk (www.publishingtalk.eu)a blog and online community of authors and publishers interested in social media, digital publishing, and the future of the industry.

He also blogs about anything else that interests him at www.jonreed.co.uk, and can be found on most social networking sites. Follow him on Twitter at @jonreed or @getuptospeed and find links to him on the other social sites he uses at www.getuptospeed.biz.

Forget everything youve heard about marketing. Put away those marketing plans, cancel that magazine ad, and stop buying mailing lists. Traditional marketing doesnt work. Its expensive and ineffective. In todays attention economy, people screen out magazine ads, they Tivo out TV ads, ignore billboards and throw away your carefully crafted direct mail campaign with the rest of the junk mail. They spend more and more time onlineespecially on social networking sites. While youre trying to attract new business, theyre updating their Facebook profiles and tweeting their every thought on Twitter.

If youre a small business owner, this is good news. You can go where your market is and save money by focusing your marketing efforts online. If you can make your products or services easy to find online, youre halfway there. This book will show you how to get started right now with the new online marketing tools.

This book has a focus on the new marketing: the new low-to-no cost online tools like blogs, podcasts, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. These are not simply the latest online marketing tools, but a fundamentally new approach to marketing. But this is not a trend-chasing manifesto for seeking out the latest shiny new online toy. The focus is firmly on your marketing strategy, rather than on the tools for their own sake. Not every tool is right for every business. And although it covers the wide range of the new tools available, it puts them in the wider context of online marketing: building your website, using search engine marketing, and creating a winning email campaign are equally important. Many of your activities on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc., will be aimed at driving traffic to your website, or encouraging people to sign up to your email newsletter. These things work best together.

What we are witnessing is nothing short of a marketing revolution. Instead of indiscriminately shouting sterile corporate marketing messages at people who may or may not be interested in your product or service, today you can find people who are already interested in what you have to offer, by tapping into online communities of interest. In todays competitive marketplace you need to be findable. You need to go where your customers are and engage them in a two-way dialogue.