By Vivian Friess, Marketing Manager
Dos, Don’ts and How-To’s
We are embracing social media. But remember, it is very personal, and is not a mere marketing tool. Think of it as a great way to establish direct contact with your customers, one-to-one, in a casual environment, without a heavy sales pitch. Build some good will, and then present your product.
Here are some suggestions:
Facebook
If you don’t have a Facebook community page, it’s a good time to start. Set a casual tone, and don’t be afraid to show your personality. Share photos, videos and announcements to keep your fans engaged. It is not about the number of posts you make, but the quality and relevance to your community members. Consider creating a “page box” to use as a diary. Here you can record your activities leaving up to the Summer Fancy Food Show and the sofi Gold judging there. Here is a sample post:
April 14, 2010
Just received an email from NASFT – we’re officially a sofi Silver Finalist! We’re so happy and want to share our excitement with you. Find our sofi winning product in retail stores, snap a picture, send it to us, and we’ll send you a free gift. And don’t forget to come and see us at the Summer Fancy Food Show, we’re going for the Gold!
Keep your posts simple. Throw in a special offer on occasion or highlight a promotion surrounding your sofi product. That’s right, your sofi product. Don’t forget, relevance is key. Your marketing objective is to boost your visibility as a sofi Silver Finalist, your company and your products.
Did you know that we captured the sofi Awards judging April 14 -16 with real-time tweets from the NASFT Twitter @nasft? 
Many of you tuned in for up-to-date news and information directly from our kitchen and offices. Keep tweeting us! We’ll retweet and reply to help get your message in front of our near 3,000 followers.
Use hashtags! For example, “#NASFT” is associated with the Fancy Food Shows, if you’re exhibiting or attending, include “#NASFT” in your tweets to help others find you. “#sofi Awards” is for the Awards–use it whenever the awards are the topic or if you’re tweeting about the Summer Show. These hashtags will increase your exposure.
I don’t want to overwhelm you with too much information. Hopefully you find this post useful and we’re always here to help. Email me or tweet me if you have questions.
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dppurcell
Great starting point to remind people the Social Media is not a replacement for a marketing tool. Peoeple expect to find help, information and networking in social media.
The focus should be on addressing the other persons needs in an educational, helping way. Putiing it out there so to speak will oranically bring people to your business.
There is a marketing concept called “The Benefits Ladder”, it articulates Features, Benefits and the consumers Derived Value from the Beleif or Emotional connection the get from your brand.
Social Media is a great way to vet out the consumers emotional connection and appeal to their need to reinforce that emotional connection with helpful information, leads to other areas of knowledge, etc.
All the best!