There are two ways to use social media.

Maggie Fox is the keynote at Social Fresh Tampa today. And she is talking about ways to broadcast. Big Brands only understand advertising, so social media becomes another vehicle for advertising. Her formula is to combine Earned PR with Paid Advertising and syndicate it through the Brand’s channels.

It’s not a big concept. It’s just using an Earned piece of publicity and re-purposing it over and over. Syndication means that your company – every company – is now a media organization. You have a chance to control the message — in a way. (On social networks, you only have the illusion of control.)

Best quote from one panel: “Advertising is the tax your business pays for being unremarkable.”

The other way to use social networks is to engage your marketplace. Listening is the important first step. The second step is to create compelling content. The final step is to engage your audience. Interact with them.

My rule of thumb is re-tweet two tweets; tweet two interesting(and hopefully original) items; and reply to two things daily.

The number of followers is irrelevant (unless you are a Big Brand). It’s the number of listeners that you have that is significant.

Give them something to listen to. Give them something to repeat.

Tell them a story about you, your product or service, your employees, your charity, your customers. That’s human interest.

You need to be a story-teller and a good listener.

If you are a small business, you probably want the second way. If you are a big Brand, you are probably trying to figure out how to capitalize on the first way (Earned+Paid+Syndication). It boils down to advertising versus WOM. Word-of-Mouth is the friend of small business.

I have clients that like me have a blog here, a website or 3 over there, a twitter account or 2,  a Facebook fan page and personal account, and some other online properties. Whatdo you do with all this online marketing?

Here are the Top 3 Online marketing Assignments

1. Have an overall plan for the entirety of your online marketing.

2. Have a plan of attack for each platform.

3. Execute by scheduling time.

In some ways, all of your online messages should be aimed at one theme. An editorial calendar to let you know that in January you will be talking about this one subject or charity or purpose all month in some way across the online world. In February or in the second quarter, it can be another theme or subject or case study. Or it can be the same one all year long.

Note: You want to be speaking about the same keywords across all platforms to tie you to that keyword. (Usually we call this SEO, search engine optimization).

When you have disparate internet properties – more than 1 domain name for example or you blog on wordpress – you have to find a way to tie the properties together. Maybe it’s a blog roll box, a contact page, an about us page, a where-to-connect box, etc.

Note: This is linking it all together. Your theme based on keyword(s) will tie it all together.

Many companies want to be everything to everybody. That’s fine if you are GM, Subway, Nike, Coke or McDonalds – and have their marketing budget. But you don’t. So the more finely tuned your message is, the better.

The more targeted your message is to a very specific audience, the cheaper and easier it is to market to that niche.

This is the third (and likely last) in a series about Gary Vee’s book, Crush It. (First one, 2nd one).

So you read the book, get a blog, start filming some video, writing some content. Now what?

The average blogger doesn’t make peanuts off Google Adwords, so that isn’t going to be your monetization strategy. Ads? Well, when you get to 25,000 page views per day, you can talk to sponsors about ads and CPM. So what does that leave?

One thing is affiliate product links.You can sell other people’s products on your blog or website to make some affiliate dollars.  [NOTE: Under new FTC rules, you have to identify that you are an affiliate now. ]  Some people do very well with this. Many do not.

The other is selling your own product or services. Ah! But you don’t have any. Right.

Also, do you have corporate structure set up? Do you understand the tex implications of being self-employed – even as an affiliate because you do have to claim that income. (The company paying you is claiming it pays you).

If you have your own product, how do you produce and ship it? What about accepting credit cards? Do you have Business Liability insurance? Does your Home Owners Association allow you to run a commercial business out of your house? Are their zoning laws or other county or state regulations that you need a permit or certificate for? How will you collect and pay sales taxes?

One of the reasons businesses fail is because more than half of running a business has nothing to do with the “FUN” part. There’s admin, bookkeeping, payroll, taxes, insurance, HR, accounts payable, accounts receivable, etc. When you had that W-2, there were other departments that handled all that. You just did your job. Now you are that company – every department – and it will eat up your day.

You know what else I forgot? Sales. You are now the Chief Sales Officer of Brand You. That’s probably not what you thought you would be doing when you got started.

Things to think about for certain.

Two resources: E-Myth by Michael Gerber and SCORE.org, a group of retired execs that help small businesses.