Why You Don’t Need a Social Media Strategy, with Jennifer Koon, Michael Mackenzie Communications
Jennifer Koon: [00:00:00] You know, the struggle around social media – and I relegate this back to when people, for sure, were doing this years and years ago – is social media is simply a channel. And so, when you’re building your marketing strategy, you make decisions about, “Do I want to be on the radio? Do you want to be on TV? Do I want to be on an outdoor? Do I want to go word-of-mouth marketing, event marketing? What’s the channel I’m going to use to basically execute against my strategies?
Jennifer Koon: [00:00:25] Social media is a channel. And so, when people come to you and say, “I’m going to build a social media strategy for you,” they’re wrong because they have jumped over the idea of, “I need a business strategy and a marketing strategy first.” And social is just the way we get it out there.
Jennifer Koon: [00:00:39] At the end of the day, I run into people all the time who say, “I’m everywhere. I want to be on every channel.” You can’t afford to be on every channel. It’s not realistic. It’s not supportable. And it doesn’t make any sense because, ultimately, you need to go back to the basics of marketing and think about, “Okay. Who are we trying to reach? What are we trying to tell them? And how often do we need to be in front of them? And if social is the channel for that, then which one? And how do we go about kind of doing that?”
Jennifer Koon: [00:01:06] And so, we really work with clients to help them figure out how to use social as a bigger part of their overall marketing strategy. Sometimes, it means they’re doing a lot. Sometimes, it means they’re doing a little. And there are cases where they’re not doing any at all because of FINRA or whatever that makes it difficult for them.
Jennifer Koon, Founder and Principal, Michael Mackenzie Communications
As the founder and Principal Consultant of Michael Mackenzie Communications, Jennifer Koon is the chief strategist, business development officer, contributing copywriter and head bottle washer.
Prior to forming Michael Mackenzie Communications in 2001, Jennifer served as a PR and Field Marketing Manager for Microsoft Corporation, a role she landed because they liked the Direct Mail and Database Marketing experience she had gained working for smaller software companies and in an agency environment. In addition to developing direct marketing and sales support programs, Jennifer has produced and promoted hundreds of seminars, product launch events and trade shows as well as managed public relations and community affairs initiatives. Jennifer has an extensive copywriting repertoire – writing on average more than 50,000 words each year for clients representing a broad range of high tech and technically complex services and products.
All total, Jennifer possesses more than 25 years experience developing and deploying strategic marketing communications programs that drive image, enthusiasm and revenue. She has a bachelor’s degree in Creative Advertising from Southern Methodist University and a master’s in Marketing Communication and Information Technology from Florida State University.
She is a member of the American Marketing Association, the Public Relations Society of America, the Technology Association of Georgia and has served on the host committee for the High Tech Ministries Prayer Breakfast for 5+ years. She is also a member of the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce, the Leadership North Fulton Class of 2011, a graduate of the City of Roswell Education Program (CORE 2019) and was the elected parent representative for the Local School Governance Councils for both Elkins Pointe Middle School and Roswell High School. Jennifer and her husband live in Roswell, Georgia. She has two sons who attend the University of Mississippi. She is an active member of Roswell United Methodist Church and she counts among her hobbies reading, swimming, photography, retail therapy and watching minor league baseball and college football.
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Listen to the complete interview on North Fulton Business Radio here.
The “One Minute Interview” series is produced by John Ray and in the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link.
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