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A few days ago I bought some Girl Scout cookies. Thin Mints to be exact. I love them. My family does too. A mom and dad sold them to me outside of a hardware store while their daughter was holding a big "Get Your Girl Scout Cookies Here" sign. They are marketers...and you probably are too.
Marketing isn't just for the professionals. A few people are marketers all of the time, but most people are marketers sometimes. This isn't anything new. What's new are the tools that are available to the occasional marketer. Social media tools let the occasional marketer be just as successful as the professional marketer.
If you're a professional marketer and are trying to figure out social media for your business, this might concern you. If you're an occasional marketer, this might excite you. The barrier to great marketing isn't access to the tools nor the size of the marketing budget. The playing field is nearly level on those things for the first time ever.
The new marketing success factors are time, passion, experience, transparency, flexibility, knowledge, energy, eloquence, creativity, authenticity, and endurance. If you have even a few of these things about whatever your marketing (whether you're professional or occasional) you're more likely to win. If you can combine those things with content people will find valuable, you're very likely to be a social media marketing success.