for W3c validation

Marshall Kirkpatrick (former TechCrunch writer) posted a fantastic post titled “social media for marketing what weve done at splashcast so far” on his personal blog yesterday. I spend quite a bit of time thinking about Social Media Marketing for Zillow and I think all of his advice is right on the money. We are following a very similar model with Zillow Blog as Marshall is with the Splashcast Blog. This quote really hits the nail on the head as crucial to growing a successful corporate blog —

Finding the balance between marketing and conversation. It’s no secret that the SplashCast blog is trying to convince people to use our product, so we don’t hide that. We do however try to make our posts compelling enough to be interesting on their own merits, regarding general interest topics, whether you care to try SplashCast or not.

Marshall also pointed to another fantastic perspective on social media over at POP! PR Jots, titled “Healthcare PR and Social Media.”

To me, the single most important thing you can do to be successful with Social Media Marketing is “Be REAL.” Personalize everything. CARE about & respect your readers’ time. If you don’t care about those that you are talking to, it will show. Always put yourself in the shoes of those you are trying to reach and ask the question “would this resonate with me?” Every now and then, random companies send me press releases or impersonal “pitches”, but they get deleted within 10 seconds of me opening the e-mail. Sometimes I read them through just so I can chuckle at their stupidity (they don’t understand social media & how to reach bloggers).

So, do you think you are using social media effectively?