About 230 packed the conference at the Holiday Inn, including reps from Bank of America, Duke Energy and Piedmont Natural Gas. Walmart sent three from its Arkansas headquarters.

Keynote speaker David Armano told a spillover crowd that businesses on social media today are like teenagers experimenting with sex: They don’t know what to do, but they really want to do it. Then they’re disappointed when they finally get to do it.

Armano is with Dachis Corp., a new social media consulting firm in Texas founded with $50 million in venture capital. He closed his talk by telling businesses to look beyond this teenage phase.

“It’s time to grow up,” Armano said. “Social media is here to stay. In five to 10 years we won’t even be talking about this stuff.”

He compared the change happening now to when e-mail became commonplace.

He cited Best Buy’s use of social media to allow sales employees to share expertise and best serve customers in all of its stores. So if a customer in one state has a question about a computer modem, a sales rep in another can help. Representatives from utilities Duke and Piedmont said they are looking at using social media for a variety of customer service needs rather than just alerting them in emergencies.

Charlotte’s Kathleen Hessert – famous for teaching Shaquille O’Neal to tweet – told a crowd that knowing how to post on social media and knowing the right way to represent your company are two entirely different things. Social media have boomed, and many businesses must play catch up, she said. “It took 50 years for TV to build the audience social media has in five,” said Hessert, who runs the consulting firm Sports Media Challenge from her six-person office at N.C. 51 and Carmel Road.

Bank of America vice president Sidney Echevarria, one of several BofA managers at the conference, said he believes social media can help in “flattening the organization,” so expertise can be shared throughout. Many people know how to use Twitter and Facebook personally, but using them within an organization requires new strategies, he said.

Jason Keath, who organized the conference, plans a follow-up event in Charlotte, and is planning events in Nashville and St. Louis.

Read The Full Story Here, Enjoy

...Please Tweet This Post & Also Follow Us On Twitter.com 

They are:

1. Who: Are the people who will see this advertisement the kind of people who are likely to give you their business? And,

2. How many? Will the advertisement reach enough people to have a noticeable effect?

Social media allows you to have a clear cut answer to both of those questions. Since so many aspects of current social media are niche interest based, which is to say that they focus on people with a shared hobby, knowledge base, or frame of reference, you can easily locate the clientele who will be most likely to give you their business.

In terms of how many, well, you don’t have to take my word for it – just look at the numbers. Or mention the word “Facebook” in a crowded coffee shop and see how many people recognize it!

Statistics show that a third of the American population visit social media sites at least once a month. A third is about 33%. Compare that to last year’s studies, which showed that 18% visited social media sites monthly, or the year before, which showed 15%.

One thing becomes instantly clear: social media is gaining in popularity, and it’s gaining quickly.

It used to be that “new innovations” belonged to the young, but these days adults get on the bandwagon too. The above stats are for adults. Children and especially teens would show much higher statistics.

Studies show that 54.3 million Americans use instant messaging on a daily basis. For the first time, social networking has surpassed instant messaging, becoming the most popular way of keeping in touch in our modern era. Are there any things more popular than social networking and instant messaging? Watching videos and shopping online.

All of this is fantastic news for the small business. It means that:

· You have a free, extremely popular, and widely accessible method of reaching out to clients around the world.

· The people you reach are not only ready but eager to make purchases online (more than 70 million Americans made online purchases last year)

· You have a golden opportunity to establish yourself as a respectable, honest, and trustworthy business before a client ever sets foot in the door (whether
that “door” is figurative or literal)

· You client base is constantly expanding, more than doubling in size since last year.

Given all of these statistics, it not only makes sense for small businesses to avail themselves of social media sites, it’s foolish not to. Whether we like it or not, this is an increasingly online world. Without a digital presence, you’ll have a difficult time maintaining or increasing your sales and services. Fortunately, none of this is as difficult as it first seems.

...Please Tweet This Post & Also Follow Us On Twitter.com 

There’s a very strong distinction in those two statements.

So when you embark on any social media endeavor, keep the following principles in mind:

· Be specific: Don’t waste your time on sites that won’t cater to your customers.

· Be aware that everything is public: Your Facebook page, for example, has just become part of your “brand,” part of what identifies you to the public. Post your status one day as “so hungover,” and you may see your business drop severely (or, depending on the market, increase!).

· Be creative: Marketing and online business are a dime a dozen these days. The only way to stand out is to find a niche, an angle, or a method that no one’s tried yet. For example, inject your personality with humor, or be so falsely serious it becomes funny. Just about any creative approach can garner huge success these days, whether it’s a video game reviewer who hates everyone and everything, or a clothing sales site that’s almost a social
networking extravaganza in and of itself, you’ll find that creativity is the key to both success and longevity.

· Treat crisis as opportunity: Some users quickly delete comments that reflect poorly on them or their products. You can see why, but it’s a big mistake – the person who made those comments will just turn around and badmouth you everywhere else, and the fact that you deleted his original comments will seem to confirm his complaints. Instead, take a lesson from many large companies who monitor social media sites for mentions of their name. When they find a complaint, they immediately post offering to help with the problem. Now the internet wide complaint has become an internet wide example of this company’s caring and consideration!

The important thing, once again, is to create a strong personality and then respond through that personality’s eyes – but with a constant eye to the professionalism and credibility you want to establish, whatever form that may take.

Hope you enjoyed these 4 simple but ‘Powerful’ principles, If so please leave a comment.

Enjoy your day

...Please Tweet This Post & Also Follow Us On Twitter.com 

Then here are some tips on how you can improve your social media marketing today.

Maybe you are not using social media the right way for your business. While there are no hard and fast rules for using social media, there are certain things that companies must remember when using social media.

One of the first things a company must remember is that because there is no single right way to use social media, a company can use them differently from how other companies are using them.

The best way for a company to gain benefits from social media is to have a “plan of attack”, a game plan on how social media can be integrated into the whole marketing and PR plan of the company. Improving your social media marketing requires an understanding of what you want to achieve by using social media and a clear plan that can be implemented effectively.

Social media marketing is not that different from traditional marketing- the whole process requires careful planning and creativity.

Next, social media marketing takes a lot of time. It requires active participation from the company. In a study that was conducted several months ago, it was revealed that the companies that benefited the most from social media are the companies that really used social media regularly. These companies usually have individuals or teams to manage their social media accounts.

Of course small companies may not have the resources to hire full teams for social media marketing but small companies still have the option of hiring a virtual assistant to serve as their social media representative. By having a dedicated worker focusing on the social media tasks, the company can be sure that it has an active role in various social media.

The more time you spend on social media, the stronger image you are able to build online. A strong online presence can mean a lot for a small business. If you want to improve your social media marketing, you must increase the time you spend on your social media activities. The more time you spend listening and talking to clients, the more useful social media become for your business.

Read The Full Story Here, Enjoy

...Please Tweet This Post & Also Follow Us On Twitter.com 

From mom and pop shops to the largest international corporations, using a social media platform to “join the conversation” and market products and services, is fast becoming the marketing venue of choice.

Whether or not you have chosen to participate for your business, chances are that the “conversation” has started to happen about you.

The question is, how long are you going to wait to join in?

Many businesses have found themselves pulled into the fray by fans and detractors alike, then discovered they were not prepared for this avenue of marketing when they attempted to enter. Others jumped in without a plan or understanding of the medium, and soon paid a price for that lack of understanding.

Lack of understanding is a bad way to start

As increasingly businesses and corporations advertise for employees to take on their social marketing operations, they mistakenly search for candidates with long backgrounds in the medium. Job postings seek “five or more years experience in social media” along with a lengthy background (5 or more years) in the marketing field.

Get The Full Story Here, Enjoy

...Please Tweet This Post & Also Follow Us On Twitter.com 

Most companies are embracing social media—but too many are wasting their efforts through sloppy management.

More than 70% of companies are already using social media; many are planning to increase their spending on social media across the coming years. Whether for learning from customers, building their brands or a range of other hoped-for outcomes, companies are clearly diving in.

Unfortunately, few have thought very hard about managing these initiatives. In a classic case or “ready, fire, aim,” companies are committing resources to social media efforts with very little process behind them. The result? A hodgepodge of unrelated initiatives, wheels re-invented and resources wasted.

The Corporate Executive Board has found that the best companies recognize that social media are just another set of promising tools and as such are to be understood, mastered, and used efficiently. Importantly, they also recognize that how they manage their social media efforts depends on where they are in the journey from initial discovery to mainstream use. That journey has three stages:

• Discovery: At this stage, the organization is just finding out about the potential uses (and risks) of social media for its purposes and making initial forays. The goal: understanding (”could this work for us?”). Since few resources are necessary at this point, companies don’t need heavy managerial oversight. But they do need downside protection. Clear, well-communicated policies on everything from information sharing to appropriate language is in order.

• Experimentation: As an organization does more with social media, the importance of learning efficiently becomes urgent. At this point, companies need tighter oversight and coordination of efforts. There are a number of ways to create that kind of transparency and sharing, ranging from steering committees to tiger teams” to social media czars. These bodies should develop and steward a learning agenda for the firm’s efforts, using each initiative to deliberately increase the institutional knowledge of social media use.

Measurement standards also become more important at this stage. The best companies settle on a consistent set of measures for similar initiatives, using that data to test and learn over time. Metrics like track-backs, for example, can clarify better or worse social media vehicles for a given objective.

• Adoption: While few companies currently find themselves in this stage, those that do loosen their managerial posture, moving away from oversight toward support. Here, the role of any central or dedicated management body should be one of education, coaching and provision of expertise. Some firms are building centers of excellence, repositories of people and knowledge about using social media. Metrics should shift here too, tailored for assessing efficiency and effectiveness of specific initiatives.

The short story: Social media isn’t a fad about to fade away; it’s a good idea for your organization to learn how to use it to your advantage. The best companies will learn faster and get more out of social media by aggressively managing their efforts.

Read The Full Story Here, Enjoy

...Please Tweet This Post & Also Follow Us On Twitter.com 

Answer: Social media can be a powerful tool for B2B marketers and business owners. It can be used effectively to monitor prospects, drive referrals; create new business opportunities; and attract the right talent and more… Although the effectiveness of social networks (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) may vary by industry, LinkedIn seems universally effective for B2B marketing.

In B2B industries, nothing is more valuable than the quality of your relationships. Whether you realize it or not your success in business depends on your ability not only to establish key relationships, but to leverage, influence and add value to your relationships.

Create new business opportunities

Social networks, such as LinkedIn are like muscles. The more you use them, the more you’ll get out of them. The power of social networks is founded on its size and strength. The trick is balance these two aspects of your network. When it comes to networking, size matters. LinkedIn is a great place to connect with everyone you know professionally and personal contacts that are willing to share connections with you.

LinkedIn users with a free subscription can search and access a portion of social network’s 34 million members based on their connection count. This includes: their immediate connections; second degree contacts (friends of friends); and third degree contacts, and people with a mutual connections. You don’t have to have a huge network to reap results. For example, people with more than twenty connections are thirty-four times more likely to be approached with an opportunity than people with less than five.

Look at the networks of your most satisfied customers. Identify prospects who may have similar needs and use your relationship with the satisfied customer to fuel your contact. This can be done by contacting the prospect directly and highlighting your shared contact (aka satisfied customer). Or, you can ask your satisfied customer to make an introduction on your behalf.

Great networks take great amounts of effort. Think of the most successful people you’ve ever known and they will always seem to know the right person to call on in any given situation to influence or effect the desired outcome. This type of influence doesn’t just happen. It results from years of painstaking social networking.

Drive referrals

Social networks generate referrals. LinkedIn is the most powerful B2B referral network in the world. If you do a good job, one customer might tell three to five of her colleagues, family and friends about you. Using LinkedIn, these results are amplified. When someone writes a recommendation for you on LinkedIn, their entire social network is notified. And, the information is immediately available for the customers and prospects that view your LinkedIn profile.On social networks, you promote your network, and your network promotes you.Solicit LinkedIn recommendations from satisfied customers. Ask them to describe aspects of your working relationship that they value most. Choose customers who have a flair for writing. Don’t be afraid to ask customers to write about specific projects or company characteristics: your creativity, your ability to solve problems, your leadership, etc. Ideally, you’ll want a series of recommendations that compliment each other If someone writes a recommendation you don’t like, you’re not obligated to display it. And, LinkedIn provides tools that let you request updates to recommendations.

Write unsolicited recommendations for businesses you have worked with. This generates goodwill on behalf of each recipient – which strengthens your network. As an added benefit, you’ll often get a recommendation in return.

Be known as an expert

Being an expert on LinkedIn will boost your credibility and build goodwill with prospects. To do this, visit the ‘Answers’ area of LinkedIn to view questions from other LinkedIn subscribers on a variety of topics. Answer questions related to your indusry and personal area of expertise. When you provide the best answer to a question, the submitter can identify your answer as ‘best.’ If you provide the best answer enough times to a topic, you’ll be designated as an ‘expert’ by LinkedIn.

Know your customers — and competition

Linked is a great CRM tool for B2B. You can track the activities of prospects, competitors, and customers and use the information you learn to fuel successful contacts:”LinkedIn is a rich source of information for your sales team about the prospect, so I put it in another class,” said John Rasco, president and founder of RefreshWeb. “What you have to realize about social media marketing is that it’s seeding information for people to find. It’s not a broadcast medium for promotions.”

Find talent

Use social networks to create relationships with prospective employees before you need them — especially if your B2B industry requires a lot of specialized education. Identify thought leaders and skill practitioners in the industry by monitoring their activity on LinkedIn, Twitter and contributions to industry blogs. By creating relationships before you need them, you’ll loose less time when you are ready to add an employee or need to replace an existing employee.

Read The Full Story Here, Enjoy

...Please Tweet This Post & Also Follow Us On Twitter.com 

The person’s Twitter profile might position the person as fun-loving and open to networking, while the blog might be colder than a tombstone inscription with no way to interact (no comments enabled and no email address).

Whether your brand is fun-loving and open or cold and non-welcoming, it should be consistent across the Internet.

How to establish an integrated message across all social media platforms:

Step 1: Decide on your core brand or positioning – what is your Unique Selling Proposition that makes you stand out from your competition.

Step 2: Evaluate and revise where necessary your Web site/blog to reflect this brand. Think of your Web site/blog as your home base from which your rockets ships will launch into social media space.

Step 3: Begin with one or two social media platforms, such as Twitter and LinkedIn, and engage based on a social strategy developed to promote your brand. Be sure to have your blog posts support this social media strategy.

Step 4: Expand your social media strategy to more social media platforms, always ensuring that the strategy you use on these new platforms supports your previous social media platform strategy.

While these steps may seem simple, they are not. They require integrated planning, development, and implementation.

...Please Tweet This Post & Also Follow Us On Twitter.com 

A recent survey of 172 marketeers found that 66 percent of respondents were utilizing social media in 2009, up from 20 percent in 2007, according to the New York-based Association of National Advertisers, which conducted the survey with BtoB Magazine and mktg., a marketing communications firm.

While the numbers keep growing, it’s important for companies to understand how to effectively optimize social media platforms and avoid some of the more common mistakes in order to best maximize their online branding efforts, experts say.

“It isn’t enough just to have an account,” explains Denise Wakeman of DeniseWakeman.com, a Los Angeles-based online marketing/blogging consultancy.

“The key is participation.”

If you’re not interacting and communicating with your audience, then you’re wasting your time, she notes.

With that said, here are a few social media marketing mistakes to avoid if you want to make the greatest impact:

INCONSISTENCY: If you commit to a social network, then stay visible to your audience by regularly tweeting, updating your Facebook page, etc., says Debbie Weil, a Washington, D.C.-based corporate social media consultant and author of “The Corporate Blogging Book” (Portfolio; $23.95). If you’re not consistently providing useful and/or relevant information to your audience, they’ll lose interest, she says.

BEING TOO ELUSIVE: Make sure when people go to your social networking page they see more than just a company logo. Attach a name and a face to your profile/description, Weil says. “Be a person,” she says, noting that even cable giant Comcast ties a face to its Twitter site, @comcastcares, by posting a photo and contact information for its twitterer-customer service manager, Frank Eliason.

BEING TOO SELF-PROMOTIONAL: Too often, companies use social networking sites to just tout themselves, says Hilary Topper, author of “Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Social Media, But Were Afraid To Ask” (iUniverse; $27.95) and president of HJMT Communications, a public relations and social media firm in Westbury. It’s OK to promote your company, but it shouldn’t be the main focus, Topper says. “If I tweet five times a day, one in five might be promotional,” she says.
connections

* Facebook Inc. Facebook Inc.
* National Collegiate Athletic Association National Collegiate Athletic Association
* Google Inc. Google Inc.
* LiveJournal
* John Quincy Adams John Quincy Adams

MAKING IT ALL ABOUT BUSINESS: You’re trying to use social media to create conversations and relationships, so don’t be afraid to get a bit personal, Topper says. “There’s a balance,” she notes, adding that there’s nothing wrong with showing your human side with some personal posts.

FAILING TO ENGAGE: Spark conversations by posting relevant links, articles, commenting on other people’s sites, etc., recommends Arthur Germain of Communication Strategy Group, an East Northport-based brand marketing agency. “Listen to your prospects and customers and have a conversation,” he says. Posting photos can be a great way to engage your audience, too. The Inn At Fox Hollow understands this and has a photo gallery on its Facebook page, as well as links back to photos on its main Web site through specials it posts on Twitter. The Woodbury hotel launched a new Web site last year and also has a blog, general manager Franklin Manchester says.

COLLECTING FOLLOWERS & “FRIENDS”:Some businesses base their success on the number of friends or followers they have in their social networks, Germain says. It’s less about numbers than about trying to build a relevant community and having good conversations with people, he says.

HAVING NO BLOG: A blog can be a great place to direct social media traffic since it’s more conversational than a corporate site. “Your blog is your home base,” Wakeman says.

...Please Tweet This Post & Also Follow Us On Twitter.com 

I’ve suggested which type of brand works best in each channel.

Blogs:

Generally, blogs work better for B2B brands because they require a certain level of prior knowledge and interest. The effort required to follow blogs generally means that the audience already has an interest in the industry. That is why there are so many industry-based blogs.

B2C brands can still take advantage of 3rd party blogs; but generally don’t get the ROI required to justify maintaining their own blog

Micro-Blog:

For a similar reason, B2C brand’s likely won’t find the value in maintaining a micro-blog. However there are exceptions, and this particular channel is evolving.

B2C brands are starting to exploit micro-blogging for customer service. Additionally, some B2C brands are figuring out ways to integrate the real-time functionality of micro-blogging platforms into their marketing efforts.

I maintain, that at the present time, this channel is still better suited to B2B brands; but I can recognize that it has value for B2C brands.

Social Networks:

There are many types of social networks; many niche social networks are specifically designed for B2B brands, and, therefore, are better suited for them. (e.g. LinkedIn)

Excluding those social networks that were designed for a niche market; I suggest that social networks are better suited for B2C brands. The reason is that brands can take advantage of being introduced to their potential customers through their friends.

People have the ability to ‘discover’ brands their friends like. Additionally, many social networks offer in-network multimedia communication options. Example: Facebook allows you to create a dialog with your audience through images, video, text, and interactive applications; while Twitter allows you to create a dialog using text & links only.

B2B brands definitely should take advantage of social networks; but many social networks are better suited for B2C brands.

Video Sharing:

This channel was close to being equally suited for both types of brand; but due to the nature of many recent viral video’s and video channels, I suggest this channel is better suited for B2C brands.

Again, it would be a mistake for B2B brands to ignore the potential of this channel; but this channel is often used as functional support to a B2B campaign; rather than the crux of the campaign. (A great exception would be the BooneOakley linked Youtube video set)

Social Bookmarks:

Easy to maintain, and easy to integrate into campaigns. Although these bookmarks might be used more by B2B customers; the SEO opportunities, and findability support makes them just as useful for B2C brands.

In my opinion a good social bookmarking strategy is rare, but could be powerful. If you examine the engagement options available through sites like delicious, stumble upon, and digg; you’ll quickly realize that many B2C campaigns do a very poor job integrating this channel with their campaigns. The potential is there, but unrealized.

Image Sharing:

Again, it might seem that this channel is made for the B2B market; but I’ve seen many great B2C campaigns that involve image sharing sites. Although not as engaging as video sharing sites, image sharing is quick and easy to use.

The integration of image sharing in B2C campaigns helps me conclude that this channel is just as good for the B2C market as the B2B market.

Podcasts:

In the same way blogs are better for B2B brands; I suggest podcast are better for them as well.

Again, there have been B2C branded podcasts that discuss relevant issues to their target audience; but they rarely produce the ROI required to produce them. Many B2C brands that attempted to produce their own podcasts have discontinued their efforts in favor of sponsoring a 3rd party podcast.

Important, Don’t Forget To Take a “Look at The Chart” Read The Full Story Here, Enjoy

...Please Tweet This Post & Also Follow Us On Twitter.com