Young People Tweeting More and More

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007359

Status update services catch on with Gen Y

More evidence of Twitter uptake among young people comes from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. According to a September 2009 survey, 33% of online adults ages 18 to 29 use a status update service, a significant difference from the research firm’s previous poll on the subject.

This meant young adults were more likely to tweet than users ages 30 to 49, who had previously been considered the core group for Twitter.

 

Overall, Pew found that 19% of online adults used Twitter or another status updating service. This is higher than eMarketer’s estimate of 11.1% of adult Internet users; however, eMarketer does not include the use of other status updating sites in that figure.

Status updaters were more likely to belong to other social networks in addition to Twitter, and users with multiple Internet-connected devices participated in services such as Twitter at a higher rate.

 

Several other researchers have found Twitter skewing younger in 2009. Sysomos reported that in May, 66% of users who disclosed their age were under 25, and another 15% were ages 25 to 29. AndcomScore Media Metrix found that 13.5% of Internet users ages 18 to 24 visited Twitter in July, up from just 0.3% a year earlier.

Ten Things Social Media Can’t Do #socialmedia

Posted by B.L. Ochman on 11.02.09 @ 10:23 AM

http://adage.com/digitalnext/article?article_id=140128

mid the endless pronouncements about social media — often shortened to “social” these days by consultants trying to sound like they know what they are talking about — is the reality that social media is not a solution, or a sure bet.

 

Social media can’t:

1. Substitute for marketing strategy.
   A Twitter campaign or a Facebook page that announces your weekly specials is not a marketing strategy.
2. Succeed without top management buy-in.
   Social media requires a way of thinking that includes willingness to listen to customers, make changes based on feedback and trust employees to talk to customers.

    

   The culture of fear (of job loss, of losing message control, of change) is ingrained in corporate cultures. Top management has to want to change.

3. Be viewed as a short-term project.
   Social media is not a one-shot deal. It’s a long-term commitment to openness, experimentation and change that requires time to bear fruit.
4. Produce meaningful, measurable results quickly.
   One of the complaints about social media is that it can’t be measured. But there are many things that can be measured, including engagement, sentiment and whether increased traffic leads to sales.

    

   Those results can’t be produced or measured in the short term. Like PR, social media marketing often produces its best results in the second and third year.

5. Be done in-house by the vast majority of companies.
   A successful social-media campaign integrates social media into the many elements of marketing, including advertising, digital and PR. Opinion and theory are no match for experience and the best social media marketers now have more than 10 years of experience incorporating interactivity, blogs, forums, user-generated content and contests into online marketing.

    

   You need strategy, contacts, tools, and experience — a combination not generally found in in-house teams, who often reinvent the wheel or use the wrong tools.

 

 

6. Provide a quick fix to the bottom line or a tarnished reputation.
   Social media can sometimes provide quick results for a company that’s already a star. When a well-loved company like Zappos or Google employs social media, its loyal fans and followers pay attention.

    

   However, there’s a lot of desperation in a lot of corporate suites these days, and many companies seem been convinced that a social-media campaign can provide a quick fix to sagging sales or reputation issues. Sorry, nuh, uh.

7. Be done without a realistic budget.
   Building a site that incorporates interactivity, allows user-generated content and perhaps also includes e-commerce doesn’t come cheap from anyone who knows what they are doing.

    

   Even taking free software like WordPress and making it function as an effective interactive site, incorporating e-commerce and creating style sheets that integrate with the company’s branding, takes more than time. That takes skill, experience, and money.

8. Guarantee sales or influence.
   Unless your effort can pass the “who cares” test — and most simply can’t — your social media efforts will fall flat.

    

   And unless you know how to drive traffic to your contest, video, blog, event, etc., you’ll have little more than an expensive field of dreams.

9. Be done by “kids” who “understand social innately”
   You can climb Mount Kilaminjaro without a sherpa guide, but why would you? Experience and perspective can make the trip easier, or even save your life.

    

   Companies trying to run social media without experienced consultants waste time, money and reputation on their efforts. And then, sadly, many decide that this new-fangled approach doesn’t work.

10. Replace PR.
    No matter how great your website, video contest, blog, Twitter strategy, etc., you still need publicity. Or you may end up with a tree falling in the forest and nobody hearing it.

Why #Restaurants Should Get on Board with #SocialMediaMarketing

By Allison Perlik, Senior Editor –Restaurants and Institutions

http://www.rimag.com/TalkBack/Comments?talk_back_header_id=6631517&articleid=ca6661655&article_id=6661655

Stories abound of enterprising restaurateurs finding new customers by posting promotions on Twitter or garnering thousands of fans on Facebook. Understandably, however, not all foodservice operators are convinced that social-media tools such as these are a viable way to boost business.

But try this on for size: Nearly one-third of Americans use social-media Web sites and tools at least twice a week, according to the 2008 Business in Social Media Study from Cone, a Boston-based marketing and branding consultancy. Additionally, more than half of social-media users say they feel a stronger connection with the companies and brands they can interact with online—and feel better served by them.

“Web 2.0 is all about going to where your customers are, because they’re not just going to come to your dot-com site and spend time,” says Van Vandegrift, president and emerging-media consultant with Matrixx Pictures, a Santa Monica, Calif., production company whose clients include Austin, Texas-based Schlotzsky’s Deli.

The real opportunity of social media, for foodservice operators and any other business looking to connect with its audience, lies in reaching consumers where they’re already interacting: microblogs (such as Twitter), social-networking sites (such as Facebook) and sites for sharing videos, photos and opinions.

Not only do these tech-based avenues offer a forum for one-on-one conversations between brands and consumers, but also they give customers the chance to choose how they want to receive information from the company, says Crosby Noricks, a social-media strategist with Red Door Interactive in San Diego. The Internet-presence-management firm’s clients include locally based buffet chain Sweet Tomatoes/Souplantation.

Given its low cost of use compared with traditional marketing vehicles such as print, television and radio, social-media marketing can be a good fit for foodservice operations of all sizes, whether the goal is to drive traffic and sales or strengthen brand awareness and loyalty.

“For smaller chains like us, it’s an easy and inexpensive way to reach our customers,” says Stacey Kane, director of marketing for California Tortilla, a 37-unit fast-casual chain based in Rockville, Md., that builds buzz—and sales—with Twitter- and Facebook-driven promotions such as Secret Password Day (see “Follow the Leaders” on page 37 for details). “And it’s a way to reach people instantaneously. There’s no big backup on producing artwork or a radio spot. You have the idea and you can send it out.”

Going Social Anywhere and Everywhere #socialmedia

OCTOBER 30, 2009

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007352

Tweeting while driving

Despite the slowing growth of Twitter after its explosion earlier in 2009, many users still cannot get enough.Crowd Science reports that in August 2009, although only 27% of Twitter users posted daily, 46% checked for updates every day. Almost one in five social media users reported using Twitter in the past week.

Although 60% of Twitter users reported using only their computer to access the service, microbloggers are highly mobile, accessing social media from the washroom, the car, the theater and even during a religious service.

Twitter users were more likely than other social media users to feed their addiction from every location but school, including hotels, libraries, public transportation and restaurants.

A September 2009 study from Retrevo found that among those under age 35, 39% of Twitter users and 27% of Facebook users checked the sites at least 10 times every day.

The under-35 crowd dramatically outpaced older users in usage from different locations. Younger users were more than twice as likely to check Facebook or Twitter at work, and more than four times as likely to do so while driving—not to mention their propensity to “kiss and tweet.”

10 Small Business Social Media Marketing Tips #SocialMediaMarketingTips

October 28th, 2009 | by Ross Kimbarovsky

http://mashable.com/2009/10/28/small-business-marketing/

Ross Kimbarovsky is the co-founder ofcrowdSPRING, a community of 43,000+ graphic designers that helps small businesses from around the world with graphic design needs. You can follow Ross on Twitter@rosskimbarovsky and @crowdSPRING.

Capacity – especially to plan and execute effective marketing strategies – is a big challenge for every small business. In this post, I’ll offer 10 suggestions for how small businesses can supercharge their marketing efforts by leveraging social media. For each suggestion, I will discuss a basic strategy – for those who simply want to get their toes wet, as well as an advanced strategy – for those who want to spend a bit more time and go a bit deeper in their social media marketing efforts. These tips are based on my experience leveraging social media marketing for my company, crowdSPRING.

I suggest you begin by outlining clear goals for your social media marketing efforts and figuring out how you’ll measure success. Once you’ve outlined your goals, let’s look at 10 great ways you can begin to leverage social media for your marketing efforts.

1. Facebook

---

 

Facebook offers exceptional, low cost marketing opportunities for small business. Facebook now has over 300 million users, and while that seems like an outrageous number for small businesses to be targeting, Facebook offers a very powerful platform on which to build a presence. If you’re not already active on Facebook; you should get started right away.

Basic Strategy: If you haven’t signed up for Facebook yet, you absolutely should as soon as possible. Once you’ve signed up, you should also consider securing your company’s username. Be aware, however, that if you reserve your company name for your personal account, you won’t be able to use it for your Business Fan Page (more on those in the Advanced Strategy), so you may want to create a Page before registering your company’s name. Fan Pages have special rules regarding usernames, which you can read here.

You should do one other thing: search for your competitors and evaluate their Facebook presence. What types of Pages have they built? How many fans or “friends” do they have? Spend 15 minutes (per competitor) looking at their posts, photos and/or videos to understand how they’re using Facebook.

Advanced Strategy: You may already have a personal Facebook account, but how do you extend that presence for your business? You have several options. You can register a Business Account – which is designed for a very simple presence on Facebook. There are many limitations on such accounts (read the FAQ here), however, so you’ll most likely prefer to have a Business Fan Page. A Business Fan Page lets you create a page where customers or fans of your business can register as a “fan” — expanding the presence of your business (because your updates will also flow to their pages). You might also want to consider running hyper-local ads on Facebook.

2. Twitter

---

 

Twitter has grown tremendously over the past year. For some small businesses, it offers an incredible marketing platform. BusinessWeek’s recent profile of 20 ways businesses use Twitter might give you some ideas about how you can leverage Twitter for your business.

Basic Strategy: If you haven’t signed up on Twitter yet, you should sign up today and reserve an account in the name of your business. While you might ultimately tweet in your own name, you’ll want to have the option to tweet from a business account. More importantly, you don’t want your competitors to register your business name. Twitter has put together a simple guide to help you understand what Twitter can do for business. You can also check out Mashable’s Twitter Guide.

Next, you should spend 15-30 minutes on Twitter’s homepage, doing basic searches to become familiar with the type of content available on the service. For example, if you are operating a small gift basket business, do some searches for various terms and phrases such as “gift basket,” “gifts,” “gift basket business,” etc. You should also search for the names of your competitors to see whether they’re on Twitter and if they are, how they’re using it. And don’t forget to search for your small business name – your customers may already be talking about you! Once you become comfortable with the content that’s already available and how your competitors are using Twitter, you can begin thinking about a strategy for how you’ll leverage Twitter for your business.

Advanced Strategy: To truly leverage Twitter, you’ll want to learn and use a few more advanced tools. This includes desktop and mobile Twitter clients like TweetDeck, Seesmic, and Tweetie. Desktop clients give you more flexibility and more control over your Twitter strategy than you’ll have on the Twitter website. Among other things, you’ll be able to pre-define searches (so that you can monitor certain keywords, including your business name) and group people you follow so that you can minimize the noise and focus on the real content. You might also consider using a web tool likeTwitterfall, which will allow you to define (and color-code) various custom searches that you can review from time to time, and also to follow trending topics. For example, I use Twitterfall to identify helpful graphic design and industrial design resources to share with the crowdSPRING community.

3. Company Blog

---

 

Although there’s more attention focused today on social networks than on company blogs, blogs continue to offer great value for small businesses.

Basic Strategy: At a minimum, you should consider reserving a domain name for your blog – if you don’t already have a custom domain for your business. If you’re comfortable enough to set up your own blog, that’s generally the best way to proceed – although this requires a bit more technical knowledge (many hosting providers offer a 1 step easy setup for blogs that will automatically installWordPress for you). You can also setup a blog directly at WordPress.com (it’s easier to do, but you don’t have full control over everything that you would on your own site).

One easy alternative is to set up a simple blog at Posterous – a place to post stories, photos, videos, MP3s, and files. There are pluses and minuses to all of these options – you should take some time to compare them and do what makes sense for your business. I caution you only about spreading yourself too thin.

Advanced Strategy: Now that you’ve decided to start or improve your small business blog, how do you build an audience for it? It all starts with great content. Decide on a focus for your blog, and write awesome content that people will enjoy. For example, some months ago at my company, we decided that we wanted to write more about small business issues, so we’ve been writing original posts focusing on issues affecting small businesses. Think about your expertise and more importantly, think about the things that you’re interested in writing about. A blog requires a long term investment of time (and resources), and you don’t want to be stuck writing about things that bore you.

You’ll also want to consider how you can make it easier for your readers to help promote your content. For example, install helpful plug-ins, such as a TweetMeme button, which makes it easy for people to retweet your posts on Twitter. Don’t be afraid to experiment with plugins to add to the functionality of your blog, but keep it simple. You want to keep the blog focused, and easy for your readers to use.

4. LinkedIn

---

 

LinkedIn is a business oriented social network for professionals, and it’s huge, with nearly 50 million users from over 200 countries.

Basic Strategy: Once again, you’ll want to at least reserve your business name (or your personal name) so that others can’t use it. Similar to the way you might start exploring Facebook and Twitter, you should look around on LinkedIn to see how your competitors are using the service. You might also look up your customers and connect with them.

Advanced Strategy: LinkedIn has some powerful features that most people don’t use. For example, you can encourage your customers, clients or vendors to give you a “recommendation” on your profile. Recommendations are useful because they’ll make you and your business more credible with new customers. If you’re a roofer, for example, ask your customers to recommend you after a successful job. You’ll find such recommendations useful – particularly since your LinkedIn profile will come up high in search engine results. I recommend that you read Chris Brogan’s post from last year discussing theelements of a good LinkedIn recommendation.

Another strategy involves the many subject matter groups on LinkedIn. Find some groups that have a connection to your small business and become involved in the conversations. Answer questions when you can, and help to establish yourself as knowledgeable about specific topics related to your business. There are many small business and general marketing groups that will be very useful resources for you, and if there isn’t a group that interests you, consider starting one.

---

5. Participate On Other Blogs

---

 

It might seem counter-intuitive for you to spend your valuable time by participating in discussions on other people’s blogs, but the payoff can be very valuable. Remember that it takes time to build a reputation and establish your credibility, and you can’t always expect everyone to come to you. Sometimes, you have to go out and build your own credibility and reputation.

Basic Strategy: Identify 2-3 blogs in your industry, or those that focus on small business, and get into the habit of regularly reading the content and participating in the discussions. Whenever you can, try to add value by sharing a personal story about what has/has not worked for you. Get to know the writers – they’ll be valuable contacts for you. One strategy for identifying good blogs is to use Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop, which is a directory of popular blogs across many different subject areas. For example, for blogs focused on crafts, you might follow this page on Alltop. If you want to participate in blogs focusing on small business issues, you might start at Technorati’s list of the Top 100 Small Business blogs.

Advanced Strategy: Once you’ve spent some time on other blogs and have participated in discussions, you’ll find that you’ve built a level of credibility and trust, based on your participation. You should consider reaching out to the blog owners and asking whether they’d allow you to guest post an article on their blog (kind of like this post). This is a nice way for you to get in front of a bigger audience, and many blog owners will invite guests to post from time to time. Agree on a topic in advance and provide a draft of your post sufficiently in advance of the publication date to give them an opportunity to review.

Alternatively, ask if they would consider guest posting on your blog. Since you’re looking to attract more readers (and more potential customers), either option works well for that purpose. Don’t worry so much about going after the A-list blogs right away. There are many excellent blogs and it might take a bit of time to build your reputation to such a level that you’ll have opportunities to post in the top blogs. That doesn’t mean you should wait, though – make opportunities for yourself and offer to guest write whenever you can find a new audience. I recommend you read How To Guest Post To Promote Your Blog from blogging expert Darren Rowse.

6. Mobile Social Networks and other Local Strategies

---

 

Yelp publishes millions of reviews about local businesses. Foursquare is a combination city-guide, friend finder and competitive game. It allows users to “check in” by cell phone at a local venue and announce this via other social networks such as Twitter.

Basic Strategy: Yelp, Foursquare, and other mobile social networks can be powerful marketing channels for small businesses. You should at the very least register accounts on the popular services and get to know them. If you have a restaurant or a retail store, for example, you’ll want to get to know Yelp pretty well. You can set up a business account on Yelp (no cost), which will let you answer questions about your business, track how many Yelp users view your business page, add information about your business, and announce special promotions. Similarly, you’ll want to sign up with Foursquare to take advantage of local advertising opportunities. Using Foursquare, you’ll be able to push promotions to potential customers who’re in the vicinity of your business.

You should also consider other local strategies. For example, you can add your business to Google Maps, or update your listing to include additional details. You can do the same on Bing.

Advanced Strategy: If you believe that your business can truly benefit from a presence on Yelp, Foursquare, or similar networks, you’ll want to do more than just register accounts with those services. For example, Yelp allows you to include a website URL for your business. Nearly all sites will let you upload photos to your profile, and photos will make your profile more trustworthy.

You can also proactively use Yelp and other similar services to promote your business. Ask your customers, friends and family who have used your services for a review on Yelp. You can encourage reviews by running promotions or discounts – offering free appetizers, for example, to a customer who will write a review about their meal at your restaurant (or to one who already wrote a review), or a small discount to a customer who hires you for carpentry work and mentions that they found you through Yelp.

Similarly, you can find ways to promote your business using Foursquare and similar networks. If you have a TV display in your store connected to a computer, you can display the people who are checking in. You can offer specials or discounts to the person who visits your location the most (this is similar to frequent buyer cards that many businesses have used for years).

Don’t forget to also consider how you can improve your use of other basic local strategies. For example, many small business websites are optimized for specific keywords or subject areas, but are rarely optimized for local searches. If you have a gift basket business, you’ll want to be sure that users searching for gift baskets in your geographic area will find you.

---

7. Comments and Conversations About Your Company

---

 

Whether or not you are a party to the conversations, people will talk about your company. How do you monitor and, when appropriate, join those discussions?

Basic Strategy: There are five simple steps you can take today to begin paying attention to conversations about your business.

First, set up Google Alerts. Google Alerts are free email updates from Google search results about any topic you’re interested in tracking. For example, I track, among other alerts, the names of our competitors, the name of our company, and certain other terms I believe are important to my business. Anytime Google adds something to its index that mentions my company or the other terms I’m tracking, I receive an immediate email notification with a link to that item. Alerts can be set up for web, blog, news, video, or groups searches.

Second, review the results in your web analytics data. At my company, we use Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a free tool from Google that provides detailed and very useful information about your website traffic and the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. When we run social media campaigns, we’ll often attach tracking tags to those campaigns so that we can properly monitor them in Google Analytics. This is important because without such data it will be nearly impossible for you to evaluate the success of your social media marketing efforts. But analytics are important for another reason: they’ll tell you which sites are sending traffic to your site.

Third, search Facebook. In August, Facebook rolled out a real-time search engine (the search box is on the top right of any Facebook page). One effective way to take advantage of Facebook search is to search for your company’s name to see who is talking about your company and what they’re saying. In several months, you’ll be able to search Facebook updates directly from Bing, which will be integrating Facebook public updates into Bing’s search results.

Fourth, search Twitter. You currently can search Twitter for real-time results (if you’re not logged in, just go to Twitter’s homepage). One easy way to monitor conversations about your company is to search for your company’s name. You can also currently do this on Bing, which is indexing Twitter updates. Very soon, you’ll also be able to search Twitter updates (and other social media content) via Google’s Social Search (Social Search was rolled out to Google Labs recently, as an experimental product). You can also use Twitter clients like TweetDeck or Seesmic to save searches and monitor in real-time whenever someone uses a specific word or phrase in a tweet.

Finally, take advantage of services that will, similar to Google Alerts, push data to you. I use and like BackType, which is a real-time search engine that indexes online conversations in thousands of blogs and social networks. I use BackType primarily to keep up with conversations in blogs. Every day, I receive emails from BackType with links to comments that include the keywords I’m monitoring. Without these alerts, I would be unable to monitor so many blogs, and my ability to respond to posts about my company would be very limited.

Advanced Strategy: If you’re having trouble keeping track of your various search strategies, you should consolidate your efforts and leverage one of the many applications that will help you monitor the social web. I have not personally used these services, but they appear to be held in high esteem by knowledgeable people who have. For example, truVOICE provides keyword monitoring of the social web with an emphasis on blogs and forums, while Radian6 pulls in a lot of information from the social web, analyzes it, and provides consumer sentiment ratings for your brand. A good resource to learn about paid social media monitoring tools is Mashable’s post Top 10 Reputation Tracking Tools Worth Paying For.

In addition to monitoring, you’ll need to decide how, when, and where you’ll engage in conversations. It’ll be very difficult for you to engage in conversations everywhere, so you should spend some time learning the various networks and deciding where you should focus your efforts. Looking at your website analytics data — if you own an online business — will help a great deal because it’ll help you to better understand where your traffic is coming from. If much of your traffic originates from Twitter and Facebook, for example, you’ll want to spend more time on those services.

---

8. Multimedia

---

 

Multimedia (video, photos, audio) is a bit more complicated for many small businesses to execute, but can provide excellent social media marketing opportunities.

Basic Strategy: YouTube has been constantly evolving and adding features that make it an attractive social site for small businesses. Although you don’t have to produce videos to participate onYouTube, you should consider whether simple videos can help your marketing efforts. For example, if you’re already posting videos to your blog, you can upload them to YouTube to reach a broader audience, and embed the video content in your blog posts. YouTube has also been adding more comprehensive activity updates for its users and has made pretty powerful analytics tools available so that you can evaluate the effectiveness of your video content.

Similarly, you could start a Flickr account for your business and post photos of your customers or your products (or both). Flickr offers a place where people can share photos with others, but also has discussion groups, many focused on local markets, that offer additional opportunities for you to market your business. You can also consider setting up your own Internet radio talk show usingBlogTalkRadio, which is another way to use multimedia to speak directly to your customers. Get creative with it — own a restaurant? Start a call-in show for people to ask cooking questions. Are you a piano teacher? Perhaps you could start a show to talk about classical music.

Advanced Strategy: Advanced strategies using multimedia are complicated and typically benefit from using experienced consultants. One effective way to leverage video, for example, is to create content that has the potential to become viral. While I don’t believe you can set out to make a viral video (an incredible amount of luck is typically involved), there are a number of things you can typically do to build awareness about your small business using viral video (these strategies are beyond the scope of this post). Once you’ve created good content, you’ll want to distribute it using as many social networks as you can.

When you consider how you can leverage social networks, think about whether each network provides an audience or a technology solution (or both). For example, YouTube provides both a huge audience and a solution for uploading video files. Flickr can also provide both an audience and a technology solution, but not for every business. While your customers might not be on Flickr, you can still use Flickr as a place to store and tag your photos, and then distribute those photos to other social networks where you prefer to invest more time and effort.

---

9. Maintain Brand Consistency

---

 

We’ve discussed only a small handful of social networks. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of others, and new ones spring up every day. That means that your customers will have many different ways to find you. But they won’t find you if your brand is scattered across social networks using different usernames and profiles. Let’s review some strategies for making sure that your brand is consistent across social networks.

Basic Strategy: Usernames and user profiles are already showing up in search results. Do a search for your company’s name on Google right now — if you also have a Twitter account with the same name, odds are pretty good that the Twitter account will appear very high in the search results. This means that having a consistent username across the various social networks is very important. At a minimum, if you haven’t registered your company name on the major networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.), you should do that today. For many small businesses, their user accounts on social networks will be the highest ranked pages in search results.

You should also evaluate your email and web presence strategies. For example, are you using aGmail email address when you can very easily be using a custom email address with your company name as your domain? Compare: restaurantname@gmail.com with john@restaurantname.com — which looks more professional? Similarly, are you hosting your blog at WordPress.com instead of on your own custom domain? Little details can make a difference.

Advanced Strategy: Things get a bit more complicated when you consider that there are many different social networks, and it’s tough to predict which of them will become popular and which will fail. Use a service such as namechk or KnowEm to see whether your username is available on dozens of popular social networks and if it’s not, to see which username could be registered across all social networks.

Maintaining name consistency is important, but isn’t enough by itself. You’ll also want to make sure that your brand speaks with a common “voice” across the social networks. This may be easier said than done. Social networks differ in significant ways from one another and present unique challenges for interacting with customers and potential customers on those networks.

Speaking with a common “voice” doesn’t mean that only one person should execute your company’s social media marketing strategy, but it does mean that everyone who speaks on behalf of your company in social media reflects your brand in a consistent way. I recommend you read Shel Israel’s recently published book “Twitterville,” for excellent tips and stories focusing on how large and small businesses can develop a consistent voice in social media.

---

10. Leverage Combinations of Social Media Tools

---

One of the best ways for small businesses to leverage social media marketing is to use various social networks in combination with each other.

 

Basic Strategy: At a minimum, you should do several things today to cross-market across the various social networks you’re most likely already using. Here are three suggestions:

First, connect your Twitter account to Facebook so that your tweets will appear in your public updates on Facebook. This will let you leverage your time on Twitter to also update your Facebook fans.

Second, connect your LinkedIn profile to your WordPress blog. LinkedIn allows you to publish, in your profile, synopses of the most recent blog posts on your blog. This application will automatically update your LinkedIn profile with your most recent blog posts.

Third, integrate Twitter tools into your blog. I like and use the TweetMeme retweet button on my blogs to make it easier for users to tweet about the blog posts. I also use the ShareThis tool to enable readers to quickly share content on multiple social networks.

Advanced Strategy: Advanced strategies require careful planning/execution and appropriate tools. In nearly all cases, your goal is to maximize the value of your content. For example, if you’re posting videos on YouTube or Vimeo, you can blog about those videos on your company’s blog. Then, you can tweet about the blog posts on Twitter (which I assume is integrated with your Facebook account). This way, you’ve taken one piece of content and found a way to leverage it across multiple social networks.

You’ll also want to consider ways that you can optimize the distribution to multiple social networks at the same time. Leverage tools to help you do this. For example, Ping.fm lets you update multiple social networks all in one go. Keep in mind that not all social networks will make sense for every business. Learn which networks are best for your business and find ways to leverage combinations of those networks to make your marketing more effective.

---

Conclusion

---

Social media marketing can be a phenomenal marketing channel for small businesses. I hope that the strategies I’ve outlined above provide a starting point for you to explore how you can leverage social media marketing for your small business.

 

And if you have additional resources to share or other helpful advice that’s worked for your small business (or thoughts about things to avoid), please take a minute and leave a comment. We’d love to hear from you.

Retailers Get Ready for Social Shopping Experience

OCTOBER 26, 2009

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007347

Online shopping is more than just transactional

People have long shared product opinions with friends and family through word-of-mouth. Today, social media tools enable consumers to extend their connections and conduct commerce in powerful new ways.

As people spend more time on social networks, retailers feel pressure to be there as well. Twitter is a hotbed of experimentation for retailers that see it as a channel for customer service, promoting the deal of the day and more. Facebook and its third-party developers are creating e-commerce applications on the site. Meanwhile, retail Websites are bolstering their social commerce features.

“While user ratings and reviews are a mature form of social commerce with proven benefits, e-commerce on social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, is in an early stage,” said Jeffrey Grau, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, “Social Commerce on Facebook, Twitter and Retail Sites.” “People are spending more time on social networks and are able to conduct more of their regular activities on these platforms. E-commerce on social networks has barely tapped that potential.”

But forward-thinking retailers want to bring their Web stores to the environments where their customers like to spend time. As a result, almost three-quarters of the merchants in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide have a presence on at least one of the major social networks or social shopping sites.

Social network users are a highly coveted group of consumers. Across all age brackets, they were more likely than average to make an online purchase, according to a May 2009 survey by Anderson Analytics.

What’s more, social network users are sharing recommendations with greater frequency than generally expected. A Q1 2009Razorfish survey of social network users found that some 29% reported sharing their views online at least every few weeks, while 10% said they made such contributions at least every few days.

“Leading companies know they cannot afford to wait for customers to visit their sites,” added Mr. Grau. “They need to place their virtual storefronts where their customers congregate. This implies the nature of e-commerce is shifting from a transactional experience to a social one.”

---

The full report, “Social Commerce on Facebook, Twitter and Retail Sites” also answers these key questions:

• What is the outlook for social commerce?
• How are marketers engaging customers on social media sites?
• What social shopping features are retailers adding to their sites?
• Which retailers are paving the way in social commerce?

Facebook Offers Real-Time, Highlight Reel News Feed for the Homepage

By: Clint Boulton
2009-10-24

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Web-Services-Web-20-and-SOA/Facebook-Offers-Realtime-Highlight-Reel-News-Feed-For-The-Homepage-298115/

Facebook Oct. 23 changed its homepage again, offering users a highlight reel view of the most interesting activity that’s happened in the last day and a real-time view that shows users what is happening now. This move takes on an interesting light in the wake of Microsoft’s announcement at Web 2.0 Summit Oct. 21 that Bing would begin serving up public Facebook status updates. Facebook also tweaked the Suggestions section to let users help their friends find their friends, or upload pictures and video. Facebook is also prodding users to help their friends become more active on the site, displaying a “progress bar” below their profile pictures on their profile.

Facebook Oct. 23 delivered the previously reported home page changes, offering users a highlight reel view of the most interesting activity that’s happened in the last day and a real-time view that shows users what is happening now.

Facebook began offering the real-time feed in the home page in March. Now it has moved the Highlights section from the right-hand rail to the middle, so that users can toggle back and forth between the fun and the fresh at the click of a button. Facebook engineer Raylene Yung explained:

“News Feed picks stories that we think you’ll enjoy based on a variety of factors including how many friends have liked and commented on it and how likely you are to interact with that story. Once you’ve caught up on what you missed, you can click through to “Live Feed” to see what’s happening right now.”

Users can edit what appears in the Live Feed view by clicking “Edit Options” at the bottom of the home page. Why is the News Feed view a highlight reel?

Facebook explained on its developer’s blog that News Feed serves up popular content, determined by an algorithm based on interest in that story. The idea is to boost engagement, and thus, the likelihood that users will spend more time and see more advertising.

This move also takes on an interesting light in the wake of Microsoft’s announcement atWeb 2.0 Summit Oct. 21 that Bing would begin serving up public Facebook status updates. Facebook, hungry to capitalize on Twitter’s success in providing up-to-the-minute information, clearly sees the real-time as the big time.

Based on feedback from some of its 300 million users, Facebook also brought back features, such as when friends have been tagged in photos or have become fans of Pages, and when they RSVP for events, or join groups and make new friends.

Yung allowed that while it can be “disruptive when things are moved around,” the social network put a lot of testing with small user groups and thought into the changes.

She’s right about the disruptive part; many users are venting that they hate the changes at the I Automatically Hate The New Facebook Home Page group.

Does Facebook have a mini-revolt on its hands? It’s tough to tell, as many users also complained about the addition of the real-time News Feed in March. People as a rule tend not to like changes in services with which they have become comfortable.

The question then is: Will people become comfortable before the cries of discontent force Facebook to return things to the way they were? Read more about the changes on TechMeme.

Meanwhile, Facebook also offered another less reported, but still interesting change that lets users crowdsource advice on how to navigate the vast, sometimes nebulous frontier that Facebook has become.

The Suggestions section in the right-hand corner of the homepage has been refreshed to let users help their friends, well, find their friends, or do other Facebookian tasks like upload pictures and video.

Facebook is also cleverly prodding users to help their friends become more active on the site, displaying a “progress bar” below their profile pictures on their profile. This could effectively guilt users into becoming more active, which will be good for Facebook, if embarrassed users don’t revolt.

“Facebook is only useful and relevant if you can connect with friends that matter to you, and so we already use this space to show you other people that you may know and want to share with,” wrote Facebook product manager Naomi Gleit.

“Now you also will begin seeing new Suggestions about people with whom you are already friends, including those who are new to the site. For instance, we may suggest that you help a friend by suggesting friends for him if he’s only connected with a few people so far.”

ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA TRUMPS TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING

Real-Time Tweets and Facebook Updates Reach the Biggest Audience

October 21, 2009 – After detailed research and training, the staff at RealTime Outsource has finally found the key to boosting client profits and customer satisfaction in California: online social marketing.

It’s no secret that Twitter, Facebook, and WordPress have captured the attention of millions of Internet surfers. However, not all users are searching for the latest gossip from pop stars.  Tons of them hunt for information on new products they can use, and the savviest companies have taken advantage of this knowledge with RealTime Outsource’s help.  The social media management company creates short Twitter posts, Facebook notes, and articles for online viewers to see.  Their goal?  To make customers aware of the products and services available to them, and to create an interactive marketplace.

According to company motto, real-time outsourcing succeeds only when you understand the power of the audience.  When dealing with over one million viewers per day on these gigantic media hubs, that’s a lot to understand.  The talented writers at RealTime Outsource are dedicated to matching the client’s needs with the customers’ interests, taking the burden of market research out of the client’s hands. This outsourcing method has already worked for local companies in the Fresno DMA and the surrounding areas.

After boosting traffic and customer interest for its pilot clients, RealTime Outsource is hungry for more and ready to expand.  The social media management company is prepared to optimize the online marketability of any company. To request services, visit the website at http://realtimeoutsource.com

If you’d like more information about this topic, or to schedule a consultation with Travis Huff, please call us at 559-905-0956

Contact:

Travis Huff

Phone: (509) 905 – 0956

E-mail: travis.huff@gmail.com

Loyal Visitors but Small Share from Social Sites #facebook #twitter

OCTOBER 22, 2009

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007346

Coming back for more

Visitors are good, but loyal visitors are even better. Where can you find them?

According to research by ad network Chitika, social sites Facebook and Digg are more likely to send returning traffic your way than search engines such as Yahoo!, Google and Bing.

More than one-fifth of users referred to a site by Facebook visited at least four times in the course of a week. Less than 12% of Google-referred visitors were as loyal.

Visitors coming from Twitter were the least likely to return among the sites studied.

Still, social media sites are only sending a tiny fraction of traffic. An earlier Chitika Study concluded that “the overwhelming dominance of search engines is facing little, if any, threat from social networks.”

The company looked at the top sites sending traffic to the publishers in its network and found that Google alone accounted for 76.13% of referrals.

Taken together, search engines made almost 98% of all referrals, while social networking sites made up just 0.55%.

Twitter in particular—despite the hype—was low on referrals, and falling. In July, Twitter was No. 24 on Chitika’s list of top referrers, with 0.05%. By September, it had moved down to 44th place, with just a 0.02% share.

Yes, You Can #Outsource Social Media Marketing #realtimeoutsource

Posted by Virginia Nussey

http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/archives/2009/10/yes_you_can_out.html

here are times when it seems the only fact people can agree upon is that they disagree.

And so it goes that on a single panel during a major Internet marketing conference, two speakers regarded for their expertise and experience can disagree on such a fundamental level.

During the presentation Social Media: White Hat vs. Black Hat at Search Engine Strategies New York this past August, Search & Social’s Dave Snyder and MarketingProfs’s Beth Harte sat feet away from each other at a table at the front of a room. And yet a chasm filled the space between their differing opinions.

With more and more companies becoming aware of the concepts of social media marketing and how SMM can contribute to business goals, more and more Internet marketing firms are making SMM training, services and consulting available.

Which raised the debate that has since divided the Internet marketing community: To outsource SMM or not to outsource SMM, that is the question.

As reported earlier this month by The Wall Street Journal, the demand for social media consulting services is there. And while services come in many different shapes and sizes, there’s an across-the-board question that has to be answered before a company commits to a consultant. To what degree will SMM outsourcing work for my business?

One argument goes that since social media is where people communicate, everyone involved is best served if they are sincere and speak for themselves. Panelist Beth Harte also described this effect, which I reported in my liveblog coverage of the event:

Beth has an issue with ghost blogging and ghost tweeting. They don’t know enough about your company. Some products and services are very complex, and an agency will never know enough about the product to produce content that’s compelling to the community. And if you approach it as just putting in the buzzwords, the community will sense the BS.

But, as with anything else, this issue isn’t black and white, as explained by panelist Dave Snyder (and as summarized by me):

Unlike search where there’s a guideline set in front of you, the community guides the social ethics. It’s really important to understand how to utilize each platform. Each community has its own guidelines. There’s spam, then there’s automation, then there’s conversation. It’s different shades of gray. Look at how the community for each platform reacts to different marketing tactics.

In truth, we’re all human and we can all relate to the gripes Internet users face while on their social networks. And we can almost as easily avoid being the source of such annoyance if aware of the trap.

Who better to avoid social media traps than those armed with community experience, a complete understanding of platform terms of service, and standing clout with the audience? There’s no one more equipped than a social media marketing professional in these areas.

The disagreement may stem from a misunderstanding between parties that when social media marketing is outsourced, ties between the social media presence and the organization are cut off. But since when did anyone expect that they could set and forget social media marketing?

As with all outsourced services, communication between client and agency needs to be constant and flowing. The client must always be an active participant in their organization’s social media presence, suggesting topics of interest, exciting announcements to share, and their sense of the industry’s pulse. The agency must be proactive about making sure the message and language fits the audience’s expectation, seeking out clarification when uncertain and receiving client approval when appropriate.

There are no rights and wrongs in social media marketing — it’s about what works, what resonates and what builds community. The company president doesn’t insist on tackling every task within the organization. She relies on her trusted members of her team to do the job right. Likewise, the client-agency relationship is one of members of the same team. And communication, understanding and cooperation are keys to any successful relationship — social media or otherwise.