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.