I was speaking to someone the other day about the ‘advent’ of ‘Social Media Marketing’ and found myself saying “But Social Media Marketing is just what we’ve always done, isn’t it? Forums, mailing lists, groups of like minded people – we were doing these things 10+ years ago!”
And it’s true – or at least *I* think it is.
It’s sad to see so many people running scared of Social Media, worried they’ll get it wrong, worried they don’t know what they’re doing with this new and fancy technique of marketing their business / website. When really, it’s not that different to what most people have been doing all along.
In 1996 I didn’t take part in forums so much as email mailing lists and bulletin boards – a similar concept, just a little simpler. There was no Facebook, but there were social forums around that people used to promote their business as much as themselves. OK, so we didn’t have Twitter, but promoting yourself in your email signature was a big thing at one point.
What I’m trying to say is that Social Media Marketing isn’t a big and scary beast you can’t tame. It’s mostly common sense and thought, wrapped up in a little bit of planning and a lot of tracking.
You might not always get it quite right, and sometimes you might feel as if it’s a bit of a waste of time, but at the end of the day, if you can’t afford a so called ‘expert’ to help you, then trial and error is as good a strategy as any, in my opinion 
photo credit: Capture Queen ™
The important word is ’social’, it’s about people. The fundamentals of communication are nothing new, you need to be relevant and interesting, new tools do nothing to change this. If you are comfortable talking to people, you should be comfortable with social media… and with so many good people around to help you with the technology, it shouldn’t be at all scary.
While the concept of social marketing remains basically the same, the internet has completely altered the format. In response to Bryony’s comment that social marketing shouldn’t be scary, I would say that what intimidates many people is the internet not the social marketing. Twitter, blogs, Facebook, and other social media tools are foreign to many computer unsavvy people and leave them frustrated and discouraged; however, given the proper tools and understanding these people would find internet social media as enjoyable as the original type!