Social Media - Part 2

Is Social Media Marketing Right For My Business?

September 2, 2010 By InternetMarketingStrategyforMen Leave a Comment

When radio stations first went on the air, people were introduced to a new media for their entertainment, such as movies, magazines, television and the Internet. It did not take long for companies to realize the potential of what is now called “traditional media marketing” to generate brand exposure. For at least half of the past decade, people have been using social networking sites and reading blogs for entertainment. Recently, companies started realizing the unique potential of advertising in social media. In fact, not too long ago, “social media marketing” became a coined phrase according to Google Trends. In 2009, the phrase’s popularity has already grown 4 times faster than it did all of last year.

There is something different about social media marketing though; communicating through social media is extremely cost-efficient and the process involves far fewer steps than other forms of advertising. Both a commercial on television and a blog written by your company have the potential to reach audiences globally at the same time. At the speed that social media marketing is becoming a social norm for companies, in the near future, it will be common for most companies to be involved in some sort of social media. Today, if a company is operating without an e-mail address or a Web site, they seem out of touch. Soon we can expect the same for companies who choose not to participate in social media. There are many pros and cons to social media. The following is a list of pros and cons to help your company determine if social media is right for you. The pros

Social media marketing helps improve the relevancy and organic search engine results of your company’s brand. Your company can reach target audiences that traditional marketing cannot. Social media marketing has become one of the simplest ways to humanize your company, while at the same time generating brand loyalty. Creates client interaction, making it easier to tailor your products and services to your customers by listening to their needs and concerns. Offers another way to learn more about your target audience and gain new target audience prospects. Social media marketing is extremely cost-efficient (even when outsourced to a marketing agency) when compared to traditional media marketing. Adds transparency to your company, offering consumers an open perspective of your business.

The Cons

Social Media Marketing demands commitment; once you have an audience, it is up to you to cultivate them and keep them interested. With the aspect of transparency, anything you publish is open to the public. Without the ability to repress reader’s comments you are open for potential scrutiny. ROI is delayed most of the time. Social media is viral, but it still takes time. This is something that should be thought of as a long term marketing effort when deciding if your company should engage in social media.

With all of that being said, simply publishing a Facebook Fan Page and posting a few random tweets about your company isn’t going to get your company the viral exposure for which you’d hope. Before beginning your social media marketing campaign, you need to formulate a plan, choose your target audience, decide what each social network will address and set your goals. One of your goals should be to spread knowledge about your company and your industry, the kind of knowledge that your followers will feel inclined to spread to their friends. For examples of social media efforts you can view Agency Creative’s social media links below:
http://www.facebook.com/AgencyCreative
http://www.twitter.com/AgencyCreative

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: Business, Marketing, Media, Right, Social

Facebook Phone Wins Phone Of The Year 2009 – What Will Win In 2010?

September 2, 2010 By InternetMarketingStrategyforMen Leave a Comment

As we come to the end of the Mobile World Congress, this year’s ‘Best Mobile Phone’ has been announced: the little Three INQ1, the Facebook phone itself. Let’s take a look at how it won, and look forward to what will take its place next year…

Three INQ1 – the Facebook phone is phone of the year

There’s no denying that the Three INQ1 is something special. It has precisely none of the smartphone functionality you get from the big boys, and yet, it managed to beat them all off, to win the title of Phone Of The Year. That’s some achievement, but when you look at what the Three INQ1 will do, it’s actually not that big a surprise. There’s a reason why this little beauty is nicknamed the Facebook phone. Many manufacturers have noticed the popularity of social networking, of sites like Facebook and MySpace, but no phone has had the same level of integration the INQ1 has.

Take, for example, its phonebook. A standard feature across all mobile phones, and something that doesn’t inspire admiration, right? Well, in the case of the INQ1, it does, as it’s more like a living, evolving entity. It automatically updates your contacts with their newest Facebook pics, and status, so it’s constantly changing to keep your social network up to date. Combine that with one-button access to Facebook, and simply the best social networking access seen on a mobile phone, and you’re onto a winner. As I said, it’s glaringly obvious why it’s called the Facebook phone, and that alone is why it was able to hold back the big boys, and claim the award for itself.

A big congratulations, then, to the team behind the Facebook phone; you heartily deserve your award!

2010 – which phone will become phone of the year?

With the Three INQ1 Facebook phone scooping the title this year, it’s time to look forward and try to make an educated guess as to what will win in 2010. The first, obvious contender is the Idou, from Sony Ericsson, a phone so new it doesn’t even have a proper model number yet. However, even at this early stage, the Idou certainly seems to have the chops to make it the biggest phone of the year. Certainly, the first phone that has both a 12 megapixel camera AND the first build of the new Symbian Foundation operating system just can’t be ignored! It’s going to face some stiff opposition, though, because right out of leftfield is a phone that includes a sleek operating system unlike anything seen before, and even tighter Facebook and social networking integration than seen on the INQ1. That phone is of course the Palm Pre, and its sheer ‘new-ness’ could land it the top spot. Only time will tell, but one thing’s for sure: it’s going to be an exciting year for mobile phones!

Expert on mobile phones, having worked in the industry for over 7 years.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: 2009, 2010, Facebook, Phone, Wins, Year

What is the True Value of Social Media Marketing?

September 1, 2010 By InternetMarketingStrategyforMen Leave a Comment

What exactly is social media marketing?

” SMM combines the goals of internet marketing with social media sites such as Digg, Flickr, MySpace, YouTube and many others. The SMM goals will be different for every business or organization, however most will involve some form of viral marketing to build idea or brand awareness, increase visibility, and possibly sell a product or service. SMM may also include online reputation management. Most online communities don’t welcome traditional direct or hard sell techniques so an effective SMM campaign will require more finesse to execute properly. SMM campaigns must be targeted to the community you want to reach with a message that appeals to them. Some common ways of achieving this are with authoritative information, entertainment, humor or controversy. “ -Wikipedia 2007

Social media marketing can be thought of an indirect method of marketing your business. It is a powerful process which utilizes the principles of traditional marketing to programs with social ends that ultimately promotes your business through social media channels. Social media marketing is the new wave of online marketing and might be considered an indirect method of marketing. Traditional marketing focuses on immediate sales and gets right to the point. This is who we are, this is what we do, this is why you should buy our product or service, now buy it. The length of traditional sales cycles vary within industries but the goal is always the same – close that sale. Social media marketing has the same goal but the means to the end are very different. It is generally frowned upon to try to do sell your product or service on industry forum sites, for example. Those forums are in place for the exchange of ideas, knowledge and networking. Most forums have a separate advertising section where businesses can pay for advertising. The idea behind participating in forums is to establish yourself as your industry expert. Sharing your knowledge and learning from those in the same industry or your target market results in exposure for you and your business. If you provide helpful information, make constructive comments and ask appropriate questions, you will be offering value to potential customers and they will, eventually, come to look for more value from you. Naturally, your ultimate value is in the product or service you are trying to sell. The inherent problem with social media marketing is that it takes a lot of time and effort to achieve the eventual desired result – that being the sale. Many business owners either don’t have the time to devote to something that does not provide immediate desired results (the delayed gratification theory) or they are resisting utilizing the powerful social media marketing available options specifically because of its indirect approach to sales and the time it takes to see results.

Social media marketing is really no different than social networking off the internet. When you attend a trade show or a company event, you are networking in a social environment with the desired result being to increase your customer base. Companies that sponsor golf outings, company picnics and other social events, often invite employees, customers and potential customers. What do these three groups of people do at these events? They socialize and network. Although some may develop friendships at such events, the main reason for and ultimate goal of such events is to increase the bottom line – meaning the company’s profits. The Internet offers massive sources for networking through blogs, forums, communities and of course the immense number of social networking sites like Facebook, Bebo, Dzone, Gather, Ryze, Squidoo, Tagged, Xing and many, many more. The networking concept is the same; the platforms are exponentially greater and different. The vast number of sites can be overwhelming (http://traffikd.com/social-media-websites/), so it is a good idea to focus your social networking on sites that are specific to your industry as well as some of the larger, widely used generic sites like Facebook, Plaxo, Linkedin, etc. I prefer to use the sites that are more business-oriented like Linkedin and Plaxo – but that is a personal preference. To me, my Facebook profile has information and photos that are more appropriate for friends and family than business associates, but there are those who don’t agree. Again, that is a matter of personal preference.

For discussion purposes, let’s consider traditional (or direct) marketing to be a one way communication channel and social media marketing to be a two-way communication channel. In traditional marketing, a business might send you a direct mailer, an email, or you might see an advertisement in a magazine. These types of marketing campaigns cost the business a whole lot of money and don’t always result in large volumes of sales. Now consider participating in two-way conversations on forums, blogs and other social networking sites. You, as a representative of your business, are engaging in “conversations” with your prospective clients and hopefully providing valuable content (content is King in social media marketing). Over time, you and your business will become more visible (as you increase your online presence), your reputation and value will increase and in time, your prospective clients will know who you are, the value in what you are selling and where to find you.

I always like to put myself in the other person’s shoes to understand where they are coming from. I don’t purchase anything before going on the Internet to find everything I can about the product or service I am considering buying. I read the reviews as well as what is being said about the competitive product or service. This being said, why would I expect anyone else to not do the same? If you think about social media marketing in these terms, its value, albeit a time-consuming process, may become more apparent to you.

It is important to keep in mind that social networks consist of loyal and engaging large audiences. Social media marketing can greatly benefit any business as it compliments your brand (an incredibly important topic in its own right), business and online profile. However, social media marketing takes time and serious dedication but the ultimate return you will receive will be well worth the time spent.

Whether or not a business owner embraces the value of social media marketing, there is no escaping the fact that the Internet is the new frontier for marketing. Social media has taken on a life of its own and if you have not jumped on the bandwagon, you are missing the boat. Social media marketing can greatly benefit any business as it compliments your brand, business and online profile.

Julie Weishaar is a highly qualified marketing professional with 10+ years in marketing communications, branding, event planning, public relations and Internet marketing.

http://www.newhorizons123.com

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: Marketing, Media, Social, True, Value

How To Use Facebook To Explode Your MLM Business Online!

September 1, 2010 By InternetMarketingStrategyforMen Leave a Comment

Is your MLM not growing as fast as you hoped? You need more leads? You’ve heard and read about social networking but don’t totally know how to make it work for you.

Here’s how you can use Facebook to generate leads online and explode your MLM

1. Join Facebook… If you haven’t already done that.

2. Decide what “Niche” you want to work in.

For my Facebook Group “MLM On A Shoe String Budget – EASILY Get 50 To 100 FREE Leads Every Day”, I’ve obviously chosen the niche of “Online MLM”.

3. Now you need to generate a list of friends.

There are several ways to do this, but asking the Friends of “Online MLM Guru’s” to be your friend is a good way to get started with targeted, qualified prospects who are already working to build thier MLM.

Go to Google and search “MLM Guru” and then search for them on Facebook – you want someone with more than 500 friends.

Go to “Facebook Search” and search for MLM (or your niche, like “weight loss” for example) and find a guru that has a Facebook presence.

OR… Find a group in your niche with more than 200 members.

Invite the members of this group or the friends of the guru to be your friends too.

Just click on “View Friends” and then click “Add as Friend”.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

It’s very important to include a brief – maybe 2 or 3 line invitation message with your friend request and to vary this message every 5 to 10 requests. Otherwise the Facebook crawlers will cite you for inappropriate activity and send you a warning and eventually shut down your membership if you persist.

For the moment they are allowing this level of activity.

Don’t do more than 20 to 25 at a time and you probably shouldn’t do more than 50 a day if you want to be a responsible Facebook member.

If you do 50 a day and 10 become friends then you will get 300 friends a month.

4. Start a GROUP with a title , that contains search keywords like mine does, so other Facebook members can find you.

5. Open your Group and click “Invite People to Join”.

A list of your Friends will appear at the top right hand side – click on your friends and a list will be created. Remember to do no more than 25 at a time here too. Facebook monitors how much time you spend on a repetitive activity.

Create a nice brief little invitation message – remember to include your “Group URL” and send off the mesage to 50 friends a day as we discussed earlier.

Once you have members in your group you can click the link “Message all Members” and send out your sales and educational messages.

6. Post to your “What are you doing now” message at least 3 times a day and comment on others pics and videos.

Duplicate your efforts by turning your group messages into articles and publish them on Ezine Articles – that’s what I just did here.

How do you do that?

Pretty simple. You join Ezine Articles and some of the other article directories like Go Articles as an author, read the submission guidelines, clean your message up a bit and post it for publication.

The first couple take a while as you learn the ropes and after that it’s easy.

If you would like to know step-by-step How To Explode Your MLM Business Online then visit: “The Jim Keayes MLM Lead System”

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: Business, Explode, Facebook, Online

Who Should Manage Your Social Media Marketing?

August 31, 2010 By InternetMarketingStrategyforMen Leave a Comment

In the light of the soaring popularity of Facebook and Twitter with consumers, most businesses know they had better get involved. In fact, we have moved past the early days of questions challenging the validity of social media as a marketing medium — it’s for real folks. Now the question on everyone’s mind is “Who.”

As in, “Who should manage our social media marketing?”

And almost before they have finished the question, 10-20 “social media experts” will chime in with the answer (while possibly raising their hands):

“Ooohhh, ooohhh, pick me! Let me do it!”

In fact that is just the kind of thing giving social media consulting a bad name right now. Just as there were a lot of hacks in Web site design 10 years ago and a lot of overnight SEO experts 5 years ago, today there seems to be a proliferation of “Social Media Consultants.” A recent USA Today poll revealed that there are more Social Media Consultants in the United States than there are Republicans. And last weekend I was driving through rural Ohio and saw an interesting image: http://is.gd/5imkV. A small bait shop operating out of a trailer and offering “storm doors, live bait and social media consulting.”

In an effort to help wade through the many options of social media consulting, I spoke with some respected social media folks and got their take on the question: “Who Should Manage Your Social Media?” Are you hoping for a simple answer? Sorry, there are 4 firmly entrenched camps on this one.

1. Your Public Relations Firm Should -

I have a bit of a bias here. In the 90s, I left Bowling Green with my newly minted Public Relations degree and started working at a dot com startup in the energy industry. I thought it would be a good idea to pitch people on Geocities who wrote about energy topics to get them to cover what we were doing at Energy.com. No one called it social media marketing then, it was just applying public relations and media relations skills to the Internet. I have had both Internet marketing gurus and public relations experts tell me that your PR firm should not be in social media and that the two tactics are fundamentally different.

I disagree.

In both media relations and social media communications, your PR firm is working to influence an influencer to say good things to an audience. I asked a highly regarded social media influencer and PR pro about this. Here is what they told me:

“Working with an established agency for social media strategy makes sense because of the talent, expertise and resources we can bring to the table. For example, we have tools and relationships with vendors that a solo practitioner or smaller agency simply wouldn’t have access to. We also surround each client with the best minds for the job, bringing together a good mix of senior and junior staffers for ongoing brainstorms. An agency with a strong reputation for great ideas, client service and results-driven, award-winning campaigns is also in the best position to attract, recruit and retain the very best talent from around the country. Ultimately, whether you’re talking about traditional PR or social media and PR2.0, it’s all about the people.”

2. Your SEO Firm Should -

After all, it all is about online traffic and search engine rankings, right? At least, that is what a lot of SEOs will tell you. And to a large degree this holds water. A strong social media presence means credible and diverse in bound links, which is great for search rankings. That being said, I do find that some SEO companies view social media with the same analytical eye they use in writing title tags and miss the human aspect. I would argue that social media is about human relations and has a secondary benefit with search engines, not the other way around.

3. A Specialized Consultant Should -

In Columbus, Ohio there is a guy named Bob. He works for a used car salesman. Recently, Bob was laid off from the car lot, heard a story on NPR about Facebook and is now a social media consultant? Beware of Bob.

With a careful eye and some background research, you’ll find there are some great consultants focusing on social media who have proven their worth. In Columbus, Ohio there is a guy named Lewis Howes who is the man when it comes to LinkedIn. You would have no trouble finding a whole lot of people who would endorse his work. I asked Lewis why his clients like him so much, he explained:

“The reason individuals should work with a specialized consultant with regards to using LinkedIn is because the opportunity cost for learning how to effectively use the networking tool to achieve your professional goals is much greater when one spends hours watching video tutorials, reading blogs, and going through the etiquette mistakes of not knowing how to contact others, or become actively involved. Using a specialized consultant will be more beneficial because they can work with you on a personal level and provide specific instructions on how to achieve your goals. An individual also usually charges less than a larger firm, and is usually more personal.”

My advice in working with an individual consultant? Check references and look at their past employment history. Having 1,000 followers on Twitter doesn’t mean a person can help your company build a social media communications plan.

4. You Should -

A growing number of people in the Internet marketing world are stressing the idea that the best person to manage the social media interaction and marketing efforts for your company and brand is YOU.

Grassroots social media efforts work well for brands with limited budgets, those who may have complex business models, or those with rules and regulations that prevent them from implementing and executing large scale strategies and tactics. It boils down to having the right people within your organization who are passionate about building relationships and educated about doing so in the online space. After all, your customers are doing business with your people first and foremost, not your logo.

These employees are going to intimately know your business inside and out as well as who your customers are and what they expect from you. Consider the ramp up time and monetary resources it would take to bring a large PR agency or independent consultant on board to learn about your business and your customers. To put it into perspective, think about what it takes to do this with a brand new employee. It’s a very similar process.

Bill Balderaz is the president and founder of Webbed Marketing, an Internet marketing and social media marketing firm with more than 40 clients world-wide, including several Fortune 500 companies. Prior to founding Webbed Marketing, Bill worked with some of the largest publishers in the world, including Standard and Poors, McGraw-Hill and Thomson Gale.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: Manage, Marketing, Media, Should, Social

Seo Tips Leveraging Facebook in Google

August 31, 2010 By InternetMarketingStrategyforMen Leave a Comment

Hi there,

everyone knows the massive pulling power of facebook on the web. Though till recently, it has not had any great uses for internet marketings as it lacked the search engine pulling power no great viral pulling power..

Now this has all Changed. Facebook has implemented PAGES!!

Why am I so excited about this?

1. We now have the ability to name the pages we create on facebook.com. Facebook.com is an amazingly powerful website in Google. Now we have the ability to leverage this awesome power by creating Pages, just like the one you are on now. Meaning, we can put the title of our page at the top of any page we create in Facebook. The title Is one of the main factors in determining a listing in the Google.com Search Engine.

2. Putting our great keyword rich title on the page, also creates an internal page on Facebook.com using these words in the URL of the page. 2nd massive bonus Having your niche in the name of the internal page is another strong factor into getting listed highly in the Google.com Search Engine.

These two points above are enough to be able to target nice long tailed keyword phrases, and have them ranking highly in Google

3. The Viral Aspect mentioned above.

See the little Flag icon on these facebook pages

There is the link

Become a Fan.

Your Viewers have the opportunity to become a “Fan” of your facebook Page. This is where it really gets interesting.

By becoming a fan of this page. Whenever you update this page with more SEO Tips or content based on your page. Your facebook wall will be updated. So I now have an excellent medium to distribute this SEO Tips Information.

Plus whenever you update your page, each of your fans walls will be updated with this update to your page. This is where the viral component happens big time. Not only is the update on your fans pages, but each of your fans friends will be alerted to this update on your page.

So on top of utilizing the massive power of facebook in google, you get this additional viral component, all driven via free search engine traffic.

Peter Drew is the Author of

SEO Tips Using Facebook. Get the rest of his

SEO Tips here, and become a fan.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: Facebook, Google, Leveraging, Tips

Go Mobile! Take Your Social Media Marketing Efforts to a Higher Level

August 30, 2010 By InternetMarketingStrategyforMen Leave a Comment

By now, most businesses know how vital social media marketing is for their bottom line. From keeping a pulse on your customers’ experience to branding your company to promoting your products and services, social media marketing allows you to do so much for so little.

Yet, one of the main complaints businesses cite about staying on top of their social media marketing efforts is the time involved to do so. They feel that someone has to be tied to the computer 24/7 to make the effort effective. Fortunately, with today’s mobile applications and technology, social media marketing is being reborn as a mobile experience – a mobile social media marketing initiative, so to speak.

As more people realize and embrace the fact that social media marketing is a real time experience rather than a “wait till I get to my computer” experience, they’re taking advantage of the processing power today’s mobile phones have to offer. So while real time does mean you have to have your computer with you at all times, that computer is now your cell phone, not your laptop or desktop.

Why should businesses focus on mobile social media marketing? Consider this: Right now around the world, 1.1 billion people use the internet, 1.4 billion people watch television, and 2.2 billion people use mobile phones. So if we look at the power of social media going mobile, we quickly see that it has the potential to be more powerful than television watching, simply because it’s interactive and with you at all times.

The Driving Forces

Both technology and people are driving the prevalence of mobile social media. One of the basic human needs since the dawn of time is to connect with others. Additionally, today’s increased processing power, bandwidth, and storage available on mobile devices enables people to have better audio and video capability on their phones. This means people can communicate with their phone more effectively, in a way that goes beyond your basic phone call. And any time technology allows you to communicate and connect better, you have a revolution. From smoke signals to telegraphs to telephones to cell phones to the mobile social media, all are evolutions that cause revolutions.

Other driving factors include globalization and localization. Globalization means you can now connect to the world with your phone. You don’t need a laptop or a television to see news feeds from around the world. At the same time, it’s local. You have access to local events and happenings. With permission, you can see where your friends or employees are at any given time. So your phone can deliver much more than just weather forecasts; you can also know what’s going on around you at all times.

The Case for Mobile Social Media

Because the phone was designed for two-way communication and social media marketing is a two-way dialogue, it’s a natural extension to have cell phone applications for mobile social media – programs for your cell phone that allow you to view and post to various social media sites.

With mobile social media, we’re no longer just sharing information; we’re disseminating knowledge in an organized way, getting feedback, and gaining additional knowledge to help us grow. Between text messages, tweets, blogs, and other social media posts, we’re seeing a shift in how people discover, read, and share news, information, and content. We’re learning information in real time before the evening news or morning paper reports it.

If your company is using social media marketing but has not yet gone mobile with it, you must do so right away. Here’s why:

It expands your internet footprint. You can only monitor and respond to so many Facebook, Twitter, and other social media posts from your desk. However, when you can post from your phone, you can say what’s on your mind whenever you want. As such, you expand your internet footprint and make it easier for prospects to find you. It improves your search engine rankings. Each post you put out on the social media networks points back to you or your company. That increases your listings on search engine results. So where you might have been listed 1,000 times, you’re now listed 3,000 times. It establishes you as the expert. When you can post your information and ideas at any time, it will happen more often, which builds your reputation and credibility. It improves communication and feedback. Many companies are monitoring people’s tweets on Twitter and posts on Facebook. If they notice people who have problems with their company, products, or services, they find out about it right away and make changes in real time. This, in turn, builds positive relationships with customers. It drives a steady stream of prospects to your business. All of the social media sites are becoming business friendly, enabling you to create a business-oriented presence. As they’re becoming more business friendly, they’re going to be very mobile friendly. It’s the next iteration. It fuels content generation. Because you’re micro-blogging and doing Facebook entries, you’re creating content and getting it out there. And since content is king these days, you definitely need a way to keep your information flowing into your prospects’ and customers’ hands. It supports decision-making. You can make better decisions if you’re monitoring what’s going on in social media about your industry, marketplace, etc. And when you get these updates directly to your phone, you don’t have to wait until Monday morning when you get to your office to make a big decision. You can make it and implement it in real time.

Go Mobile Today

In short, the mobile era takes all the benefits of social media marketing and puts them in your hands at all times. It also frees you from your computer so you have more time for other activities.

As the business world evolves, our ways of communicating with prospects and customers must evolve too. Remember, it used to be about distributing content; now it’s about getting people’s attention and engaging with them. It used to be about gaining shelf space; now it’s about gaining mind share. It used to be about mass marketing; now it’s about niche marketing. It used to be about trying to control your customers; now it’s about using influence and reputation to generate desired results. When you incorporate your mobile device as a key way to achieve your business objectives and attain these benefits, you open your company up to a whole new world of sales and profits.

Daniel Burrus is one of the world’s leading technology forecasters and business strategists, and is the author of six books, including the highly acclaimed Technotrends, which has been translated into more than a dozen languages. He is the founder and CEO of Burrus Research, a research and consulting firm that monitors global advancements in science and technology-driven trends to help clients better understand how technological, social and business forces are converging to create enormous, untapped opportunities.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: Efforts, Higher, Level, Marketing, Media, Mobile, Social, Take

About Facebook

August 29, 2010 By InternetMarketingStrategyforMen Leave a Comment

Facebook is a social network that utilizes Web 2.0 platform. Facebook is one of the top ten applications in social networking sites in the world. This stared as a social experiment that was originally designed to keep the lines open for friends who are physically apart. With Facebook, profiles are created and updated with thoughts, photos, comments, etc. People can be invited to be in the list of friends. Once a person is invited, he can get to view the profile.

Gaining popularity with the younger generation and college students, Facebook helps in connecting with friends and family who happens to be a member of this social network.

Facebook have the following features:

Search for people on the Facebook network and invite them to be part of your friend’s list Make photo albums and upload photos so people can view them Leave private messages, post public messages or notes Upload videos to the profile Play games with other Facebook members Become a member of a Fan Club or group Chat with those on friend’s list who are online

Facebook is for everyone. Adults, students or teenagers can use it. For business owners, it is a great way to do networking connections to the group who has a potential targeted client. This social network is free making it accessible for everyone.

The site is also utilized by business owners to create a customer base. Business owners invite people to be part of the friends’ list then announcements or product updates are made using the message facility or the public postings. Just imagine with one method, the announcement can go a long way to hundreds of people easily and with no cost. Customers and clients can interact with business owners too by sending private messages or placing comments.

Almost everyone is into Facebook. Be it for personal or business social networking. Have a Facebook profile now and experience firsthand the power of this social network.

Therese Prentice is a Social Networking Expert, Joint Venture Broker, Certified Marketing and Business Coach
Tools and Resources for Lifestyle Entrepreneurs…

http://www.socialnetworkingqueen.com

http://www.theoutsourcesquad.com

http://www.inthelivingroom.com

http://www.amazingsilverjewelryparty.com

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: About, Facebook

Social Media Marketing Now Required for Business Growth

August 29, 2010 By InternetMarketingStrategyforMen Leave a Comment

Social media interaction can mean different things to businesses. Some choose to use the platform for customer service and to announce news. Others want to focus on things like: building brand loyalty, networking, getting feedback, or deepening relationships. While the ultimate (social marketing) goal is to do more business, social media is not about directly selling a product or service.

Whatever focus the business chooses for social media, it is all about engagement: online conversations with people who are interested in some way about the product or service the business represents. What is important is to learn how to communicate with people inside the places they hang out online.

From Twitter to Facebook or youtube, to bookmarking communities or industry specific groups, there are many places to find prospective customers. The key point to understand is that social media is about being social, engaging in conversation, and providing value.

Today, people want to find more information about products and services they are considering to buy because there is more of it available to access than ever before. They want to talk to other people in social sites they belong to about products or services they are interested in and get feedback from these people they trust, and they even want to connect directly with company personnel.

All of this is available today because of social media. CEO’s are blogging and have Twitter accounts. Companies have staff participating in conversation in social sites, some all day long. In fact, every day that a company or business does not participate in social media, is another day that their competition, national or local, gets ahead of them.

It is not enough to have a web site. A social media presence is becoming a requirement. Part of the decision to start a social media system must include a commitment to be active with it. It won’t be effective if it is set up and forgotten.

Social media also includes blogs that are active with new posts and comments. Blogs, and forums also, exist for every market or industry and are great places that businesses can go to engage with people who have similar interests and to use them as a tool to gather a social following for their business.

This is accomplished by participating in the conversation in these blogs and forums, being helpful by providing answers to questions and being part of the conversation. Each reply that is made contains a link back to the business website where people can go and begin to track what the business is doing.

When trying to understand the scope of social media, there are three types of destination sites: content sharing, content publishing, and social networking. Note the first two are centered around developing and syndicating the content, and the third involves people talking about the content. Valuable content is the only kind that will be rewarded with referrals and loyalty.

Businesses have taken notice of the explosive growth and influence of social media. There are daily success stories (just Google to find them). By participating in social engagement with the goal to ‘give’ and not to ‘sell’, companies and brands who are active with social media efforts are reporting very successful results.

Let’s get back to the original question posted: Why should a business have a social media marketing system in place? One of the most prominent reasons would be that, even though social media is not about selling, it does give a business the opportunity to reach a target audience that are potential buyers or re-buyers of their product or service.

Another important consideration is in regard to the other way that people look for a business online: through the search engines. Part of social media involves maintaining a website that gets updated with new content often. Search engines reward that. Also, search engines Google are now giving the social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, bookmarking sites and others, first page listings.

A social media system should also be integrated with the business’s overall marketing and communication strategies because they can promote each other. Offline advertising can point viewers to the online presence, and the social ‘word of mouth’ component in communities online can spread quickly and become very powerful in many places both online and offline.

The bottom line is that social media marketing has benefits that can no longer be ignored. First page listings of a business website, or its blog or social site, in Google and other search engines can bring lots of new visitors to a business website. Social engagement within a social media system is already proven, and is the marketing of the present and the future.

It is worth repeating the fact that social media is primarily about engaging with people through content the business provides (written, audio, video), giving value to the conversations taking place online, and not contain a sales pitch. Content that educates, enlightens, or entertains, will lead people to what the business represents.

Giving someone a reason to want to hear more from the business (valuable content), making it easy for them to find the business, building their trust and loyalty, and ‘caring’ – can deliver massive success to a social media marketing system.

We can help you participate in social media by evaluating your business website along with your goals for engaging with prospects and customers online. A social media marketing system will be developed for your business by a team that knows and understands how social media can help you grow. To learn more, visit http://yourwebsitemarketingservice.com.

YourWebSiteMarketingService.com

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: Business, Growth, Marketing, Media, Required, Social

Facebook Blocked at your Work – Do not be Afraid, There is a Solution at Hand. We Tell you About it Here.

August 28, 2010 By InternetMarketingStrategyforMen Leave a Comment

How you can use Facebook hidden for your boss.

Lots of managers have blocked the use of Facebook on work. But, have no fare there are ways around this.

Lots of us have experienced that the employer has put in a veto and said that there is not allowed to use Facebook during working hours.

And of course in some cases this can be understandable. Lots of workers spend hours on Facebook if they get the chance, and not all are as good to spend the extra hours after regular working hours to compensate for this.

Well, there are those who should have spent 2 minutes to check the inbox of their email, and would gladly sit the extra 15 minutes extra to compensate for this.

For those there is salvation near, the use of the net service MoDazzle is worth to check out.

The possibility of having Facebook on e-mail is here.

Modazzle let you use e-mail as a communication link towards several net services including Facebook. Other services that can be used are LinkedIn, Google Maps (!) and Stock Quotes.

The concept is as follows;

You register on www.modazzle.com, and on your profile page you register user name and password on Facebook. Ok, you say, here it is, giving away both id and password is a no good. Well it is a certain risk of course, but you have to judge pros and cons here and take the chance or not to give away these details to a third party. MoDazzle promise of course to keep this to themselves and not give away to any third party nor misuse this themselves. Ok, if you take the chance here is how it goes.

You can send an e-mail to Modazzle to performa various actions on Facebook. Here are some few examples of what you can do.

Send a blank e-mail to fbreadinbox@modazzle.com in order to get a reply on e-mail to read all unread messages on Facebook.

Send a status message in the subject field of the e-mail to fbprofilestatusupdate@modazzle.com in order to update your Facebook status.

Send a blank e-mail to fbwhoisonline@modazzle.com to see who of your friends are online.

Send an e-mail with the subject field peter:What’s up?: You want to join for a meeting tonight? to fbsendmessage@modazzle.com to send a message to Peter with the subject What’s Up?” and the content ” You want to join for a meeting tonight?”

You will find the list of all email options for communication here: http://modazzle.com/cms/services.jsp

To look into the service itself you can use this link: http://modazzle.com

Well, just remember to compensate for the lost time you use on Facebook then, ok?

Stig-Arne Kristoffersen

An explorer

www.lulu.com/stig

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: About, afraid, Blocked, Facebook, Hand, Here., Solution, Tell, There, Work

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