3 Ways Your Business Will Benefit from Social Media Marketing

Social media sites have been around for about 10 years now, but it really was only about 6 years ago that people started to use them for marketing. Social media has exploded in the past year as marketers realize the benefits of social media for marketing.

The 3 reasons why your business will benefit from social media marketing platforms (SMM) from sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn:

1. Cost effective marketing: SMM is much a low cost/no cost way for you to gain additional online exposure. There are opportunities to advertise on social media sites as well, and the cost is much lower than traditional advertising and much more targeted that traditional and online ads.
2. Link Popularity: At Google - the search engine where everyone wants to achieve top rankings, it's all about links - particularly incoming links from other popular sites. By uploading compelling, engaging, informative content on popular networking sites like Facebook, you can increase the probability of people linking to your content from their pages or websites. These quality links earn more respectability and trust for you, and that often means higher ranking on search engine results that lead to more clicks to your site.
3. Quality Secondary Traffic: Web sites with content that's related to yours may link or post your articles on their site. This is a strategy that many Web site marketers use to add value to their site for site visitors. These same marketers may also "tweet" something they see on your site. This all drives a secondary source of traffic that also may increase your site popularity with Google.

Not everyone feels ready to take on social media marketing - mostly because they don't know where to start. Attending a hands-on workshop or getting help from a social media expert will help you get started and keep going.

Click here to get the latest small business social media marketing tips.

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Personalize Your Facebook Address

As of midnight, June 13th, Facebook members have been able to register personal Web addresses for their personal pages. This is an effort to help people find people better and to create more memorable Facebook addresses. Before, member addresses were long (and not business card ready) and included numbers and symbols. Now, the address can look more like this: facebook.com/carolsanger (that is my real personal profile) instead of this http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Beverly-MA/The-Web-Division/188185830499 (my business fan page). No way that long address is going to fit o my business card.

Now, I am more interested in having one for my business page, and I can do that ... as long as I have more than a thousand fans. I'm thinking that won't happen for a while, after all I'm not a top publishing company or brand. Perhaps Facebook will change that rule before I achieve the 1,000 mark. It might happen, and I remain optimistic about that eventuality.

Most of the people I know don't have a thousand fans either. However, you can still do this for your personal profile. When you arrive at your Facebook home page there will be a message at the top of your wall with a link. Just click on the link, choose a name that's available and you're set to go.

I followed those steps and then received a link to do the same for my business page, but the page got stuck and I couldn't get the link back. I refuse to give up. I'll keep searching for a way and will post to this blog when I get the answer I'm looking for. Until then the line between my personal and business Facebook pages will be blurred.

Twitter Law

Since I first signed up for Twitter, I noticed that there were a number of celebrity accounts. Many of those accounts were set up by other people - other people not even associated with the celebrities, also known as "fake celebrities". You know, sites like "hugh_jackman" (aka: the Fake Hugh Jackman which is acceptable) instead of "RealHughJackman" only they claim to be the real deal. I always wondered how people could get away with this, after all, isn't this essentially stealing someone's identity?

A great example of this practice is the recent law suit by Tony La Russa, manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, against Twitter. A number of fake tweets were made in La Russa's name; apparently they weren't bad tweets but one did state something questionable and Mr. La Russa didn't like the fact that inpersonators were making any tweets in his name.

The Twitter gang claims that they've been on to this, and that the law suit wasn't necessary, but as a result of the legal action they're now requiring a verification process for celebrities, professional sports stars, government agencies and more. I hear that during the verification process, several accounts have been closed because the person/s who set them up did so under false pretenses. However, this is still in what they call an experimental phase.

According to Biz Stone, a founding father of Twitter, The experiment will begin with "public officials, public agencies, famous artists, athletes, and other well-known individuals at risk of impersonation. "

I'd like to see this happen for businesses as well. We all need our identities protected. Otherwise, someone can start a twitter account that looks like a "real" business and say all kinds of things - for good or for bad. And it's the bad I'm concerned about. Social media and online reputation work hand in hand and each business needs to know if there are other twitter accounts with their business name as well as the comments that are made by others. The main objective is to uncover negative comments and respond quickly to them and this reputation management is and will continue to be a challenge as long as others can freely post whatever they want, true or false, online. (This is a topic for another post and article.)

Twitter plans to offer the verification process for other not-so-famous people in the future, but it's not clear when that will happen. According to Biz Stone, they hope to eventually verify more accounts but that due to the resources required it will start with a small group and potentially grow from there.

What does this mean to us, the small business owner? The larger companies will most likely be verified before we are. Therefore, we need to be proactive. Search twitter for your own name and your business name to see what you find. If there's someone else out there tweeting under your name, report it to twitter right away. Twitter has closed down accounts in the past and I'm sure that they will take complaints seriously.

Social Media Marketing Program Summary

The 5 week social media marketing program at the Peabody Area Chamber of Commerce concluded today.

We wrapped up with a basic overview of YouTube and different ways to use it for marketing other than creating and uploading videos, as well as a review of tools to save time when updating various social media sites.

The best news for everyone who attended was about a status management tool that streamlines the updating process - that is one post sent to multiple sites. Ping.fm is a beta version online status manager that streamlines postings. With Ping you can write one post and send to twitter, facebook and your blog with just one click. What a great time saver!

At this time, there is an issue getting it to work with facebook pages, but it works fine on the profile. What that means is that posts for your business facebook page may not work. The company is working on this.

Hellotxt is an alternate program to try as well, also a beta version. Set up is quick but the same facebook issue appears to be occuring. That's what beta is all about though - developing, tweaking out the bugs and then full launch.

Use one of these tools and social media updates won't seem so overwhelming and time consuming and you can begin your social buzz campaign in less time.

Managing All That Social Media - Part 1

Part 1: All Those Different Logins!

I suspect if you are anything like me you are overwhelmed with all the new social media sites you are now managing. And I bet that remembering passwords and usernames is a royal pain. Since no two sites are alike when it comes to creating your logins, it can be virtually impossible to remember it all. You can write it down but that's not a great solution - have you noticed that when you really need that login you cannot remember of find it?

In addition to the dozens upon dozens or more logins I need for business, I also have two Twitter accounts, a Facebook page, 4 plus blogs and a Linkedin account now. The Twitter ones drive me nuts because I cannot remember which is which when is comes to logging on.

Alas, I have a found a program that has made my life a lot easier. Last Pass is a Firefox browser Add On that's an online password manager and form filler that stores your previous username/password combos as well as new ones. It can even create a password for you - and you don't have to remember it because the program will. It will also auto fill forms for you. I have a bit of a challenge with that on occasion - only because I have multiple accounts at a site - but overall this is working great.

Although everything is encrypted, I won't store any banking passwords or other super sensitive one - I'm still a skeptic when it comes to that - but for everything else this is a great tool that I highly recommend.

If you have Firefox installed, go to Tools > Addons > type in Last Pass in search box and follow the instructions.

You don't have to have Firefox though, you can also visit the site at lastpass.com and download to use with Internet Explorer.

Getting Followers for Your Blog

During the eBlogger workshop we didn't have time to get into the more intermediate and advanced blog features - we only had time to cover the basics of setting up a blogger account and review blogging best practices. However, once you start and commit to blogging, you'll want to do and know more and questions will come up. One of the first will be about getting people to follow your blog.

First, it starts with an invitation. The quickest way is to copy your blog address (youblogname.blogspot.com) and email it to people you want to reach. Then put your social media tools to work: Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. Ask people you know to visit and follow your blog. Then, of course, you need to post interesting and relevant information for your target audience.

I'd like to start this process with this PACC group blog. At the top of the right column you will see a gadget name "Followers", and you'll notice there are one - me. This is a new blog created for the workshop group. So please follow me. Once I have a following I'll remove myself from the list.

Click the follow button just below "Followers"


If you have a google account (you have one if you have gmail) you can follow using google friend connect. If not, there's a text link beneath the box with logos where you can set up a google account.

Once set up or in, you can choose to follow publicly or privately as well as set up your options - do check that out while you're in there. (You can change setting at any time when you visit my blog.)

Let's use this area to further discuss and share ideas about social media marketing and blogging.

After we get the blogging routine down, I'd like to offer a follow up blogger workshop during which we'll cover some intermediate to advance blogging topics and will discusss that with Deanne.

Make blogging fun, commit to twice a week and get a few followers and I think you'll be hooked. Remember, blogs with traction improve online visibility.

Happy blogging!

Pope2You

The Pope is up with technology. Yes, THE Pope Benedict XVI himself. First he created the Vatican YouTube channel this past January in an effort to "help establish relationships with Catholics from around the world".

Now he's on Facebook and he's looking for friends - and this after warning that while Facebook and other social media sites give us a way to foster friendships and understanding it also "can isolate people and marginalize others".

Visit the Pope online and get the Facebook application.

I think the Pope and the Vatican are quite progressive. They are thinking outside of the box as they try news way to bring followers back to the fold.

The Social Business Card

So you're on Facebook now ... and Linkedin and a variety of other places. You might even tweet and if you are reading this blog you are blogging or will be soon.

You might have added your social media links to your Web site, email newsletters, email signatures and blog. Yet I bet you haven't even thought about how these new addresses could, and should, be listed on your card - am I right?

The "traditional" business card has gone social. All the regular contact information is still required, but with social media we now need to add more. (As if we have room for it all!)

I'm redoing my card layout so that my social media addresses and badges (the little logos associated with the social media sites) as part of my contact information. For me, however, this no small project because, well, it's complicated ... the card that is. It's a folded, 2 color card that's printed both front and inside and I have a blank area on the back of the card where I currently hand write notes and other things. It takes a while for the printer to print, dry and fold my card, so meanwhile, I'm creating a sticker to put on the blank side of the card (I hardly ever write notes anyway and haven't seen anyone else do it either). However, the card of my future needs a more professional look, so that's the next thing on my list. What about you?

Banks Tweet & Post

Bank of America and Wells Fargo are just a couple of the big banks that have adopted twitter for customer service. The word is they are still working on how to do it efficiently and frequently, but they have some forward thinking people who are giving it a good shot.

Citigroup is on facebook. I heard on NECN that their last post was February 23rd though. I bet that since the television news report this morning that someone from a more local branch (as in state-side) will update it and I don't think canceling the account is a good idea for them. Here's the clip:



As for me, I'm so busy I usually forget to blog, tweet and update my facebook. So who am I to talk?

Social Media for Business Secret?

Today's still operating Boston Globe has an article in the business section about a recent Social Media Breakfast - this is a real monthly event that was founded in Boston and is now global, according to the "Blog Filter" story. A young author and social media specialist at EMC, Dan Schwabel, shared his story about personal branding which can inspire business and corporate branding as well. He spoke about how his blog, podcast and published articles grabbed the attention of EMC who then hired him to do the same for them. He's quoted as saying, "Use the content you create to stimulate conversations, promote other people, and everything comes back to you." To some, that's the secret of social media success. Yet, it isn't really a secret at all.

I see this as two things most of us have been doing for years:

1. sharing information (content)
2. sharing resources (referrals)
   

Content: Those of us in the SEO world (search engine optimization) have been talking about using content to build a brand for as long as we've been talking about SEO. Not just content, but content that is relevant, timely and interesting. Content was and is most important because it engages people when it's done properly.

Referrals: Many of us often share resources with people we know. We make recommendations and people listen. We talk about books, programs, workshops, vendors and much more. And, again, people listen. I also call this the golden rule of business - you can eventually gain from what you give.

The only thing that's changed since content was declared king is social media. Before, in the not so old days (like, a year or two ago), we were talking about social media and user generated content but it wasn't as popular in the small business segment. Certainly, there were people participating, early adopters that understood the value. I'm talking about micro and small business specifically, not the companies with marketing departments and marketing budgets and staff that could dedicate the time to write a gazillion articles and build a big brand. I'm talking about companies like ours, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs and small companies that don't have time to think about the next great thing. They are busy in the trenches doing business they way they know how.

Social media was largely ignored by the majority of small business owners. How can I say this? Because I've been presenting workshops and seminars on Internet marketing for years to that very same audience. The social media "conversations" started with Web 2.o which, at the time, was a very mysterious concept and ter. When I touched on social media one of two things would happen: either eyes glazed over about this new way of marketing or people just didn't understand how it could work for them and asked for the next topic.

But social media isn't really new. Social media is really just good old fashioned word-of-mouth (WOM) dressed up with a new name and addressed using new tools.

The only difference between today and the old days of WOM is that it's no longer a one way message delivery system. With the help of the Internet, many can interact in real time and share experiences/information with and influence a larger audience.

Once upon a time we called it Guerrilla Marketing, a term coined by Jay Conrad Levinson. Now we call it social media marketing because the content can be shaped by the reader, the participant, as the conversation develops.

The rules are the same for social media as they are for word-of-mouth marketing:

• Know what your company represents and define your various marketing goals and objectives.
• Know your target audience and understand what they want.
• Use social media to start the conversation and invite your audience - your customers, prospects and referral resources - to join the conversation.
  
• Share your passion, your knowledge, your expertise to engage your audience.
  

Social media isn't a magic bullet or secret sauce for business. However, it can spread the word a lot faster than the old way of spreading the word, and the word can catch on with many more people than you expect. That's the difference; it's not a secret.

So if you're wondering how social media can help your business and think it's something that's something new, novel and requires a new way of thinking, you're sort of right. But there is no secret as it's all about building traditional word-of-mouth marketing with modern communication tools. If you can think of it that way, you can remove the mystery and embrace social media to your business building marketing strategy.