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What is Social Media and Social Media Marketing?

September 7, 2010 By InternetMarketingStrategyforMen Leave a Comment

The internet is where people now go to get information on products, services, businesses, locations, directions, etc.  The internet is also where people are talking to each other about all of these things.

Social media is the communication between both individuals and groups – in all kinds of ways – all over the world wide web. The social sites that we use to engage in conversations are our marketing tools.  Tools will come and go, but this advertising and marketing method is here to stay.  Remember that the internet is still very young, and every day new people are getting access.

Social media is an opportunity for people to talk directly with major brands in a way that was never available before.  And small businesses can use social media exactly the way much larger businesses are doing – right now there is nothing to hold any business back from participating.

The cost of social media is measured more in terms of time than it is in dollars.  In order to effectively join this new way to market a business, and have success with it, there has to be a consistent and sincere effort to engage on the popular social networking sites as well as industry specific locations.

Advertising and marketing is no longer about pushing out a message, in the form of an advertisement, to a general crowd or even a targeted market.  People do not want to be ‘sold to’ anymore.  Prospective buyers want information, referrals, testimonies, and conversation about a brand, service, or products.

Social media is about attracting a crowd, pulling them in to your message, by engaging them in conversation, posting valuable (helpful) content online, entertaining, educating, enlightening their market.

And it’s not only enough to provide this great content.  The other part of Social Media is the marketing of the message:  Social Media Marketing.  Helping the content to be seen to an even wider audience is achieved by consistent efforts to market the messages in strategic (non-selling) ways.

Promoting your business online using online social channels can include answering questions, listening to concerns, establishing relationships, asking for feedback, and building brand awareness.  The most effective way to utilize social media marketing is to constantly be in touch with the conversation that is already happening about your brand, and responding to it in a sincere way.

There are multiple returns for social media marketing efforts.  In addition to achieving a wider reach for your content that results in more visits to your website, there are search engine optimization benefits.  Social media sites are now receiving top search engine listings so that even more people find your business when going to Google and other search engines to find your product or service.

So there is a plan for Social Media and there is a plan for Social Media Marketing.  Both plans should be worked on a daily basis.  There are optimal ways to do each, and we plan to cover that here on this blog.

Takeaway:   Social Media is sharing information online.  A business can participate by posting content in all kinds of creative ways to engage new people to the product or service that is represented – not to sell, but to use the social space on the internet to facilitate communication that will lead to sales.

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Vicki Zerbee, Social Media Consultant and owner of YourWebSiteMarketingService.com & Wellness Coach and Owner of AntiAgingByDesign.com, is an internet Entrepreneur who specializes in personal contact and welcomes the opportunity to meet you.

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Social Media Marketing Company: Maximizing the Opportunities Presented by Social Media Platforms

September 6, 2010 By InternetMarketingStrategyforMen Leave a Comment

Social media marketing is a whole new approach to market your products and promote your brand among the netizens. Although originally social media was started to promote unlimited information and knowledge sharing among the netizens, of late it has been transformed into a platform for marketing and promotion of activities. Social media internet marketing uses social media platforms such as social networking sites, internet forums, blogs and so on. The major advantage of social media marketing is that it is an economical yet effective way of taking your products to the targeted audience. When your products or brand becomes the cynosure in the social media circle, you can benefit from free publicity.

When used effectively, the social media can generate a strong amount of interest even for relatively unknown products and services. And such effects can be brought about by a social media marketing company . Such a company helps you in formulating a social marketing strategy with an aim to promote your brand, create loyalty, and expand your customer base. The focus is on minimizing the investment and maximizing the returns. Such a company first studies your business before creating the plan. Some notable areas where it helps you in your social media campaign are social networking profile selection and development, blog research, blog commenting, viral video promotional campaigns, online brand reputation building and management, community outreach programs etc.

As such, a social media marketing company gives direction to your campaign and makes sure that every available opportunities presented by the social media platforms is maximized. Sometimes, a campaign which stems from an amateur enthusiasm can do more harm than good to your reputation. If the social media platform presents opportunities, it also has a flip side to it. If you can use an internet forum to promote your brand the same forum can be utilized to attack your reputation. A professional approach takes care of all such possibilities and how to tackle such situations. You can also look out such professional service providers offshore. Outsourcing social media marketing requirements is not new anymore. Many companies in India offer such services.

This article is written by a technical writer, working at Synapse Interactive, a social media marketing company offering best SEO Services .We offer Social media internet marketing services at affordable rate to worldwide clients.For more details on SEO services Contact us .

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Small business advantages of social media marketing

September 5, 2010 By InternetMarketingStrategyforMen Leave a Comment

We all are aware of the impact of social media websites. A huge amount of people have been participating in social media websites and this has resulted in increased investment in the growing field of social media marketing. A large number of small businesses today have started using social media ideas and strategies in their goals. This is because of a number of reasons.

Social media websites include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace etc. Many small businesses have become a part of these sites and have created their profile pages intending to get more traffic and new customers. It is important to remember that you cannot attract traffic just by creating a profile page; you have to actually be involved and participate in a community.

Social Media Marketing is the marketing strategy used to create content for your website and displaying it on Social News and Bookmark sites. The techniques of social media marketing can benefit websites and help them to grow very quickly. Here are some of the advantages of social media marketing for a small businesses:

1.    More awareness about your brand: If you are able to create a successful social media marketing campaign, there will be a lot more talk about your brand online. When users are appealed by your message, they will spread it across which will be more effective than traditional methods.

2.    Quick results: If your message is on the front page of a major news, social video and bookmark site, you will be able to drive large amounts of traffic instantly. It is not necessary that the traffic will result in conversations but momentum will be created in the right direction.

3.    Cheap prices: Social media marketing can be used as a replacement for conventional advertising and this is possible at a pretty lower price. With social media marketing, you do not need to spend huge amounts of money like you would have had to with the traditional mediums like newspapers, magazines, television, radio and many more.

4.    Improves ranking on search engines: Social media marketing campaigns have an effect on search engine rankings. A huge amount of back links can be attained which improve your ranking on search engines.

5.    Compatible with other mediums of advertising: If you start a social media marketing campaign, it does not mean that you need to stop you traditional methods of marketing. Social media marketing can be used along with traditional advertising and marketing.

6.    Role of influencers: Through social media marketing, initiators and influencers reach audiences and encourage them to choose your brand. A person will always prefer to buy something that people recommend rather than just blindly make purchase from a faceless company.

7.    Sidestepping and blindness: The age old methods of advertising online such as banner ads have almost lost their significance. Social media marketing has the capability to attract large amounts of traffic to your website without the help of traditional methods of advertising because of the increase in ad blindness.

Learn more about using social media marketing to help increase your business online visit RGV Computer Consulting they have a free report which outlines all the necessary steps you must take to make it online in today growing social media.

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Tools to Include in Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

September 4, 2010 By InternetMarketingStrategyforMen Leave a Comment

You own your own business and you offer products and services. How do you get people to buy what you are selling? That’s easy. You create a buzz about your offerings and you communicate through your social media marketing strategy.

Accomplishing this has absolutely nothing to do with magic. There is no fairy dust that you can sprinkle to cause the members of your target market to automatically start coming in droves to your website. In fact, what works well for one business may not necessarily work for another business. Creating a buzz involves social media and marketing that is spread by word of mouth.

When you first start designing your social media marketing strategy, there are several tools that you should include to make the strategy successful. In our article Developing Your Social Media Marketing Strategy, we discussed the importance of a strategy and how it is key to the success of your business. In this article, we are discussing the tools that you should consider using to implement the strategy.

The following is a list of some of the more useful and effective tools that will help you create a buzz for your business:

Social media networks: Social networks are an excellent way to offer and share your knowledge as well as to build and maintain relationships. There are many popular social media sites that you can take advantage of and at List of Social Networking Websites, you will find a list of some of the most popular.
 
Photos: Sharing photos as part of your social media marketing campaign has a similar, positive effect as videos with regard to the visual aspect of it. People like to be able to connect the name with the face. Some great photo sharing websites are Flickr, Memeo and Photobucket.
 
Videos: Online videos as part of your social media marketing campaign have become very important. Videos are an effective tool in a social media marketing strategy because many people react more favorably when they are able to see you and listen to what you have to say than merely reading what you have written. Also, a lot of people don’t have the patience or the time to read a lot but when they are watching a video that you have made, it is received more easily. Two of the more popular video-sharing sites are YouTube and Vimeo.
 
Blogging: Blogs are a wonderful tool when it comes to social media marketing. The reason that blogs are so effective is that, if they are optimized properly, they can drive a high volume of traffic to a website. An effective blog will be instrumental in creating internal links, content that is always fresh and appealing, active community, and website traffic that has nothing to do with the search engines. Always ensure that the content that you offer is enticing to your audience and that they find it helpful and informative. Some of the more popular and more widely used blogs are WordPress, Blogger and Typepad.
 
Microblogging: In the same manner that blogs allow huge opportunities to promote your business, microblogs do the same thing. Those opportunities are a result of both consistent content and good-quality optimization. Two popular microblogs are Twitter and Posterous.
 
Bookmarking: Social bookmarking is a social media marketing tool that allows online users to search, organize, share and manage bookmarks of resources on the web. Some of the more widely used bookmarking websites are: delicious.com, Digg, Diigo, Fark, Mixx, MyBlogLog, Newsvine, Reddit, Propeller, Slashdot.org, Yahoo!, StumbleUpon, and Buzz.
 
Presentations: Another excellent way to get your brand noticed is by offering presentations on interesting and informative topics in your niche or industry. Presentation-sharing websites are becoming more and more popular these days. Some of the best ones are: SlideShare, Scribd, MyPlick and AuthorSTREAM.
 
Forums: If you are looking for a new way to market your products and services, as well as a way to interact with other colleagues and customers/potential customers, use an online forum. You will see very valuable results if you engage your online audience for your brand and your business.
 
Podcasts: Podcasts are a social media marketing tool that is used to promote your brand and your products and/or services. If you are interested in podcasting, you should check out Blip or RadioPodcast.
 
Wikis: As I am sure you know, wikis are online encyclopedias. Wikipedia, AboutUs, Pbwiki (PBworks.com), Citizendium and Wetpaint are all informative and useful.
 
Monitoring your brand: It is extremely important for you to understand the positioning of your brand in the market. Some great websites that you can use for this are: Buzzlogic, ReputationDefender and Radian6.
 
Ratings and Reviews: One of the best ways for you to find out how your website is viewed by other people is through ratings and reviews. You can go to Yelp or GetSatisfaction to help you with this.
 
Widgets: If you are trying to promote your own brand, you can create personalized badges using unusual widgets on Twitter, Facebook and other social media channels by using SpringWidgets or WidgetBox.

Conclusion

The various tools that have been discussed are important for the success of your social media marketing campaign. Bear in mind that in order to really create a buzz around your brand and products and services, you also need to publish your content on business directories such as EzineArticles, eHow, Google Docs, IdeaMarketers and Yahoo Articles Group. If you do this, you will be gaining even wider exposure and creating even more buzz. Remember that it is important to choose the mix of social media channels and business directories that work the most effectively for you.

Always remember to be proactive in your marketing approach rather than reactive. It is important to constantly let people know that you are not just a brand and some products and services. You are a human being who has their best interest at heart and you have a solution to their problems.

Michael Cohn is the founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CompuKol Communications, a consulting company specializing in developing communication strategies for small businesses that require expertise in promoting a unique business voice and vision on the Internet.

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Social Media Marketing-Carrollton Online Marketing-Find Best

September 3, 2010 By InternetMarketingStrategyforMen Leave a Comment

Title: Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing is the process of promoting your website and/or business by using social media channels. It is a powerful strategy that will get you massive amounts of traffic. Social media marketing will make your business more profitable by getting more traffic and becoming more known.
Most people do not know about social media marketing, do not know how to use it or do not believe in the value that social media marketing can bring to any site or business.
Local Search Texas uses social media marketing to help companies dominate their local competition. With Social Media Marketing, a company can receive large amounts of visitors and those visitors will continue to come back if you have good products or information. Social Media Marketing can also create secondary traffic which is like a referral base. Websites have your links, people see them, click on them and you have a new visitor.
When you have your links in the Social Media Marketing Networks, you will develop an authority by having a large number of natural and permanent links from a trusted domain. Search engines trust these and they dominate in the search engines.
If a link remains on the homepage of a Social Media Marketing site, or the first page of a search engine, people will usually think that this site is worth checking out and they will go to this site.
When you are entering your information into these Social Media Marketing Sites, you need to make sure that the information is interesting and that people will have interest to keep coming back or to take a further look into what you are all about.
Social Media Marketing gives you natural links, your website is exposed to large groups of people and it is different from paid advertising. It does not interfere with other methods of getting traffic to your website and it fits perfectly with any advertising campaign.
Social Media Marketing depends upon the correct information being given to the people that are searching for it. You want to have information that interests people and continue to put out information that is of interest and that will bring people back for more.
You may not get immediate exposure overnight, but within a short amount of time, you can have unique links everywhere. The world cannot get enough information to satisfy them. They always want more, especially when it is a subject that they can relate to or know of someone that can relate to it. We are always hungry for more knowledge and information. Depending on your users, you can have a significant increase in sales.
By using videos, blogging, articles and so forth through your Social Media Marketing, you can advance and see a whole new avenue that you never imagined.
The old ways of selling on the internet are long behind us, we are moving on to a new way and anybody that does not follow will eventually fall behind. Social Media Marketing is the new path to sales and enhancing a business. For more information, go to www.localbusinesssearchtexas.com.

Local Search Texas uses Social Media Marketing to help local businesses dominate over their local competition.

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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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , , , ,
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