Missouri Vs. Florida

Having lived my entire life in Missouri, I am now splitting my time between Columbia and Delray Beach, Florida. I have started shooting and editing my first project in Delray Beach. Delray Beach has a population of about seventy thousand, although the towns along the lower Atlantic coast seem to run into each other. Miami is 60 miles south, Fort Lauerdale, 30 miles south, Boca Roton, 5 miles south, Boynton Beach, 4 miles north and continuously up to Palm Beach, Mar-a-Lago and beyond. As someone who has spent most of my career in advertising, here are my initial impressions of the market. The radio stations are like the towns on the Atlantic coast, they butt up against each other. AM radio is mostly Spanish speaking with a few religious stations sprinkled in. FM has a wide mix of genres; county, hip-hop, contemporary, oldies and a few talk stations, much like mid Missouri. Television stations locations are mixed down the coast. There are so many tourists and retirees in the area that I would find it very hard to initiate a successful radio or television campaign. I believe that social media marketing is the most productive way to reach a targeted audience here, the same as I believe it is in Columbia, MO. Connecting with Facebook, Linkedin and other social media sites is a must. A mixture of video, still posts (or as I call them, "digital billboards") and theme driven content is the key to success. "Content, content, content", has replaced the old traditional ralling cry of, "location, location, location".

It is also important to use social media sites that share information. For instance, a restaurant wants to be listed on any sites that share information about dining. A social media marketer must know how to make these connections and use common sites like Facebook effectively.

In the 21st Century more and more of the population is becoming internet savvy and the future is bright for the entrepreneur that utilizes advertising capital in social media to reap it's greatest return.