Social Skills in the World of Online Marketing

Social skills. There is such a thing isn't there? When it comes to marketing within the growing online community, these same "social skills" apply, only they are called social media skills.

Gary Vaynerchuck—a repudiated and sometimes denounced sommelier—is, despite his personality pros and cons, wine's social media celebrity. He has over hundreds of thousands of followers on twitter and promotes himself across all platforms including web TV where he hosts his own show. Vaynerchuck, seeing the developing social media phenomenon, turned a $3 million per year business into a $60 million per year business with its help. As he told CNN during an interview a few years back:

"If you put out quality content and use things like Twitter and Facebook to shake hands, to bring people to your content, all of a sudden you have eyeballs. If you don't understand that eyeballs turn into cash, then you don't understand business."

He has now become not only one of the most popular wine celebrities in the United States, but a social media buff giving lectures and presentations about online marketing. So, what is it about him that makes him so successful? His philosophy behind the social media. He sees it as a tool for interacting with and hosting the public:

"You have to treat it not as a presentation but by working the room. When you go to a cocktail party, you're not always talking about business...[these tools] are just a translation from the real world. Use it to communicate."

In the interview on CNN, Vaynerchuck shares his passion for the social media, as well as "socializing" tips. His main lesson? Interaction, status updates, and responding to the public: "Marketing has changed, business has changed, personal brand has changed. Its a two way conversation now, it's not just we dictate, people want to interact and I interact a lot. People want to touch and feel their brands, their celebrities, their products."

Take a look at his video for more:



Even CNN finds this blooming social media network a phenomenon. Apparently, it is the social network that poses the greatest challenge to cable television. In an article about these challenges, US CNN President Jon Klein addresses the main concern: "Everyone in the media business is actively loooking for multiple revenue streams, that's no secret." He believes that the more places CNN exists, the more they can drive traffic to "link back to something on CNN".

So how does one get multiple revenue streams for their brand or service? We have examples and advice—now we'll observe how businesses deploy. Read the next article to see how Pacifica Perfumes works their brand with these multiple platforms.