There are many strategies out there today on how to use social media marketing.  From driving more traffic to your website to engaging with friends, fans and followers.  Whatever your social media objectives are and whichever strategies you decide use, there are definitely some key aspects that can “make or break” your social media efforts. 

I call them the “ATES” of Successful Social Media Marketing and I have listed the best and worst of them below: 

The 4 Best ATES – Do These 

LocATE – The first thing any person or business needs to do when deciding on a social media strategy is decide who you are trying to communicate with.  Will it be more social or business oriented, male or female, young or old, etc.  From a purely business standpoint, deciding on your “target market” will point in the right direction on which social media sites to spend your time on. 

Once you decide that, you need to then try to find the right people, conversations and groups to engage.  For example, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter all have internal search functions that can help you locate people with specific backgrounds, interests and even geographic locations. Once you find a person or group of interest, simply follow, connect or befriend them. 

ParticipATE – Making friends online is not much different than making them in person.  The more you put into any type of relationship, the more you’ll get out of it.  Translation…make sure you spend the time to nurture your “friendships.”  How?  Join in the conversation – give advice, feedback, useful information, answer and ask questions, re-tweet, give thumbs up, bookmark pages, leave comments on posts, etc.  These are not hard to do and don’t take a lot of time, but can really help you gain respect within your “community.” 

AllocATE – This really goes hand in hand with participation.  You need to allocate enough time to your social media effort in order for it to give you whatever results you are looking for.  Social media is a courtship not a “one-night stand.”  I know many people are concerned that it can take up too much time, but that can only happens if you let it. 

There are ways to systemize and automate the process but not the message.  There are ready available tools and applications that can help you and many of them are free.  These include such things as TweetLater, TweetDeck, Ping.fm, Friendfeed and many more.  You might also want to consider using Virtual Assitants (VAs) to manage some of your social media tasks.  Just remember, there is only one you and you should never outsource your own “voice.”  

IntegrATE – If you are going to use social media as part of your marketing, you need to be sure to integrate it into your overall marketing plan.  Social media should be in addition to, not instead of other forms of marketing.  Fast and easy ways to get started?  Place social site widgets on your blogs, websites and e-mail signatures.  Use Twitter as a way of answering consumer questions or Facebook as a way of announcing live events or webinars.  Uploading short videos to YouTube or staring a Blog are both things that you can do for free but can drive a ton of traffic to your business. 

The 4 Worst ATES – Don’t Do These 

DominATE  Social networking is not about being the life of the party and dominating the conversation.  Posting 50 tweets in 5 minutes to take up all the space on the screen to get noticed will certainly do so, but you’ll also loose followers.  Good friends listen to others and don’t dominate the conversation.  

AlienATE – Goes hand in hand with dominating the conversation.  In this case I am talking about social networkers that are only there to sell, sell, sell.  All their messages are “buy this me and you’ll get rich” oriented.  If every conversation you participate in is about you and what you have to sell, make no mistake, you will alienate your friends and lose followers.  Can you make posts and comments about your products and services?  Of course, just don’t make them the only thing you ever post and post them infrequently. 

ProcrastinATE - If you don’t have a social media marketing strategy, what are you waiting for.  Social media is NOT a fad and many of your competitors are already engaging with your customers and prospects.  You don’t have to be an expert to at least get started.  Sign up for a Twitter and Facebook account and observe what others are doing.  Get educated on the basics and progress from there.  You can get my free e-book “7 Steps to Social Media Success” to get you started. 

ComplicATE:  Some people get so overwhelmed with social media that they do nothing.  You talk to one person and they love Ning, Plaxo and StumbleUpon.  You talk to others and they swear by FastPitch, MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn.  Which are the best for you?  The ones where your potential clients, friends or fans with mutual interests hang out.  Go where your clients, customers and prospects are. 

It’s not about quantity so much as it is quality.  It’s better to really engage in a few strategic sites and do it well, than have dozens of sites and never engage in any. 

For more information on how you can integrate social media into your current marketing efforts go to http://www.streetsmartsalesandmarketing.com/SocialMedia.htm 

To Your Social Media Success,

Dave

Business networking sites like LinkedIn and Plaxo are sprouting up like so many weeds all over the Internet. If you have held out joining these networks, thinking their popularity would blow over, I’ve got some bad news for you: they aren’t going away. It’s time to join up.

However, the good news is that joining these networks can do wonders for your business. They are great places to connect with former colleagues and find new people to bounce ideas off of. We have reached a point where you can’t really, in terms of business, afford not to be part of the appropriate business networks for your field. Here are the top five reasons why you need to become part of online business networking groups yesterday!

1 – Enhance Your Credibility
Putting a professional profile on business networking sites enhances your credibility in two ways.

First, it shows that you understand new marketing initiatives and can navigate around the Internet, harnessing its power for good in the business world. That might seem like a no-brainer, but it is important for potential clients to see that you are clued in to the way business works now.

The second way that posting a professional profile to a business-networking site can help your business credibility is that with many sites you can have your credentials verified by third parties. Your previous employment credentials, academic credentials and your professional affiliations can all be verified. That removes the ambiguity of a resume that has not been checked by outside sources.

I think all of us can remember how resumes without verification have surfaced during things like political campaigns and have been proved to be less than accurate.

2 – Improve your Reputation
The personal networking that these websites facilitate allows you to with LinkedIn, in particular, connect with or be “recommended” by others, who, by virtue of connecting with you or recommending you, solidify your standing in your particular professional field.

These people can write testimonials about your work and vouch for your contributions in your field. Interacting with others in your field, participating in the conversation and becoming better known will increase and improve your reputation.

3 – Publish Testimonials of Happy Clients
In addition to your website, Professional networking sites are great places to publish testimonials from happy clients. If you do not have testimonials, now is the time to request some! Most customers are more than happy to agree, especially if you include contact information, such as a website, for their business as well. Your testimonials are likely to get many more views on this type of site as people scan profiles in certain areas.

4 – Link to Your own Website
Links from professional and business networking sites to your website are high in quality and can result in more traffic to your website. These links improve your search engine ranking, which always helps to gain new customers. In addition, any place that you can have your website information displayed helps spread the word about your business.

If you do not have a website, it is a good idea to start one, even a simple website or blog that you update frequently. You can put more information on your own website than you generally can on a networking site. Also, a website is increasingly seen as an indicator of credibility in and of itself. You can display testimonials, samples, and your resume and provide an additional means for potential clients to contact you.

5 – Allow Prospects to Interact with You
A good way to get more business is to provide an easy way for potential prospects to interact with you online. If you feel unsure about giving your contact information to random strangers (and who wouldn’t, really?), professional networking sites online are a good way to have a third party help moderate and filter contacts for you. You do need to provide some kind of access, and receiving emails through a double blind system helps keep spam out of your primary inbox, and helps you keep your contacts categorized.

Joining business networking websites is easy and can bring great rewards for the little time you must spend to keep your profile and communication up to date. Find one and join!

To Your Continued Success!

Dave

#1 – Are you Ready and Committed to your Social Media Marketing Plan?
Once you begin your social media marketing plan, you have to go, no holds barred. It is all or nothing because when people become part of your social media circle, they will expect you to interact with them on a regular basis.

Doing social media the right way is like being in a committed relationship. Your social media connections will start to know your rhythms and habits and expect for you to be available for conversation and help. But, you don’t have to be the only social butterfly enacting your social media plan. You can enlist others from your organization to help, as long as you give them clear guidelines. Before you get rolling on your social media initiatives, consider the following to make your plan.

#2 – What are your Social Media Marketing Goals?
Some people enter into the social media with the goal of accumulating as many “friends” or connections as possible. Does that remind you of the popular kid from high school that was all style and no substance? (Yeah, me too) In order to have success with your social media ventures, you need to make sure that you have style and substance.

Just like any other marketing strategy, you need to start your social media efforts with an outcome in mind. Do you want to raise band awareness? Do you want to sell things? Are you going to offer coupons? Do you hope to drive traffic to your website or a landing page? Social Media marketing can help with networking or with link building, or a combination of both. You just need to establish your objectives in order to make the most of your time.

#3 – Who will Manage your Social Media Marketing Efforts?
You will find, once you begin your social media efforts, that they can take a large amount of time. To really make your brand visible in the social media sphere, you may want to find an assistant to help you that you can trust to be the voice of your brand. The good thing about social media is that it can be viral. The bad thing about social media is that it can be viral. Every single post, comment or interaction on the Internet must be something that you, yourself can back up.

The best assistants to help with social media initiatives are people who are honestly and sincerely passionate about your brand. They also understand the company’s overall “voice” in promotional materials and communications. They need to be good problem solvers and decision makers, understanding when they can handle a problem that might come up, and when they need for someone else to step in. When you find this person, watch their efforts for a while, and then let them run with it. Check up occasionally to make sure your goals are being met, and brainstorm new strategies and arenas to pursue.

Word of Caution – your assistants should not “be you” on these sites. That goes against everything “holy” about social networking. You should be using them more to update events pages, group announcements, handling customer service related issues, etc.

#4 – How Much Have You Budgeted for Social Media?
The best part about most social media initiatives is that they are free; except for the time it takes to participate in the forums, etc. If you decide to hire an assistant to handle specific parts of your social media efforts, be sure to allocate the appropriate funds to do so.

Aside from the salary, the only money you might spend to participate in social media efforts is to advertise on social sites although at this point though the effectiveness of these ads is debatable. In addition, you may also want to upgrade to professional status on such websites as LinkedIn, FastPitch, etc.

Overall, it is much better to produce a good product and then connect with your friends, fans and followers than to advertise on these sites. Social media marketing takes a high degree of commitment and time, but it offers benefits that are worth the nominal cost.

#5 – How will you measure your success?
Marketers are all about measuring and it is difficult, if not impossible, to measure direct activity to success with social media marketing. However, it is pretty hard to know whether a multi-million dollar billboard in Times Square helps the brand very much either – in terms of direct sales.

Social media marketing can still produce a high ROI, but in this case, ROI is “return on influence” versus return on investment. Return on influence essentially means, how did your social media efforts affect your brand. Are people talking about you or your company? Are they “re-tweeting”, attending your events and joining your groups? Are you engaged in conversations about who you are, what you do and how you can solve problems. All of these things eventually lead to increased sales.

I would suggest that you start, first, to measure activity – put together metrics for activity in social media. Set goals or schedules for blogging, amount of content bookmarked, commenting to other blogs, tweeting, etc. Once you have been social media marketing for a while, you will be able to survey your customers, review your web traffic and “clicks” and see if certain methods are working better than others.

I would argue that, if you are not into social media marketing at all right now, just starting will be a big success! Get out there and get your feet wet. You’ll have nothing to measure if you don’t start.

Discover how to unleash the power of
Social Networking. Learn from 10 leading
experts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter,
Podcasting, YouTube, Squidoo and more!

In this economy, companies big and small are
looking for unique, effective and inexpensive
ways to find more leads, get more referrals and of
course increase sales.  Social media is an
easy and affordable way to do just that if you
understand how to use it.

Most companies know they should be doing
something with social media marketing, but
many just don’t know what to do or how to get
started.

This 2-day “crash course” focuses on
social sites and strategies that provide the
highest ROI in the shortest amount of time.

Just take a look at the list of industry
experts speaking at this event:

+ Facebook – Shama Hyder
+ LinkedIn – Chip Lambert
+ Twitter – Dan Hollings
+ Podcasting – Paul Colligan
+ Integrating Social Media – Matt Bacak
+ Social Bookmarking  – Dr. Ron Capps
+ Expert Marketing Using Social Media – Nancy Marmolejo
+ Linkbait Marketing – David Carleton
+ YouTube – Mike Koenigs
+ Squidoo – Bill Wardell

If your sales have been down or you just
want to get more, believe me, this is not
an event you want to miss!

The Workshop Will be Held on:

February 27-28
8 AM – 5:30 PM
Marriott Hotel & Spa
900 Newport Center Drive
Newport Beach, CA 92660

To Register or See a Detailed Agenda Visit:
http://www.IncreaseSalesWithSocialMedia.com

PS – Register early and get 7 hours of MP3
audio of the December 2008 social media marketing
workshop.

To your continued success,

David Carleton

With the advent of such websites as LinkedIn, Facebook,
MySpace, Twitter, etc. many are calling Web 2.0
the Social Media Revolution.  It’s time to demystify
social media marketing

Social Media Myth #1 – Social Sites Are Just For Teenagers

Nothing could be further from the truth.  While there are
some sites like MySpace and others that were originally
created to cater exclusively to teenagers, many of them
are now attracting older participants.

And although there are literally thousands of social
sites out there today, once you determine the goals
and objectives of your social media efforts, you’ll
be able to narrow down the list to a select few that
will concentrate on your target market.  

Social Media Myth #2 – Social Media is Just a Fad

When the Internet first arrived on the scene, it was all
about providing information and selling “stuff”.  And
while that is still a large part, Web 2.0 is all about
users interacting with each other and consumer generated
content.

When 6 out the top 10 websites in the world are social
sites and they are getting 1 billion visitors a month
and growing, I guarantee this is not a fad. This is
Web 2.0, the future!  And the best part is, that you
have the opportunity to learn about it and get involved
in it while it is still relatively new. 

Social Media Myth #3 – Social Strategies Are Just for Big Companies

The Internet is the great equalizer.  You are what your customers
and prospects see, hear and read on line.  If you make great products
or provide great services and you can reach the right audience
through a compelling social media strategy, then your company
will benefit with more exposure, higher brand awareness and of
course increased sales.

My advice is not to worry about what the big boys are doing,
do what you need to do to grow your business and believe me
you need to be doing social media marketing.  Social media is a
great “guerrilla marketing” tool that you can take advantage
of and start reaping the benefits from very quickly.

Social Media Myth #4 – Social Media Marketing Will Cost a Lot
of Money to Implement

The good news is that creating and implementing a social
media-marketing plan does not have to cost a lot of money.
As a matter of fact most social media websites cost nothing
to join.

Now don’t get me wrong, as with anything, you’ll certainly
have to devote an adequate amount of time and resources to
be effective, but in actual hard dollars and cents, your
investment can be quite minimal.

Social Media Myth #5 – Social Media Marketing is Primarily
Used for Finding Friends and Sharing Video and Photos

While YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and other similar sites are
indeed used to find friends and share experiences, photos
and videos, many savvy marketers are finding that they can
connect with groups, users, fans and enthusiasts.

How? By providing free information that members might find
useful or enhance their experiences.  These types of sites
should not be overlooked as a way to open 2-way dialogs
with your target market

Social Media Myth #6 – You Have to be a Marketing Whiz or Computer Geek to Effectively Use Social Media

Once again, not true.  If you can surf the Internet, buy a book
on Amazon and read blogs, you have the skills needed to benefit
from social media.  Frankly, the most important thing you need
to help your company get involved in social media marketing is
the desire to learn and the time to implement some very basic
ideas and strategies.

Now, are there more advanced features on some of these sites?
Sure, but even those can be applied by just asking current
users or reading instructions that many of the sites themselves
provide.  I’m telling you, this is not rocket science!

To learn more about social media marketing go to
http://www.IncreaseSalesWithSocialMedia.com

To Your Continued Success,

David Carleton

What is Social Media Marketing and How is it Different
Than Traditional Marketing Strategies?

Now that our new president elect in place, many experts
refer to some of his followers as Generation “O” because
Obama reached out to new constituents using the power
of social media marketing.

Marketing is no longer a one-way conversation.  Consumers
are talking back in record numbers and giving their opinions
on everything.  From politics, to music to what they buy and
who they buy it from.  Almost anyone can now produce and
publish articles, pictures and video and send it out to a
global audience within a matter of seconds with the simply
“push of a button” and for zero cost!

Social media marketing is a method of promoting your brand,
product, service or company by making your presence known
via a variety of social media networks.

Social media marketing is much more viral than traditional
forms of marketing because users now become content producers
by posting blogs, writing articles, leaving short comments
and messages. This relatively new marketing allows you
to enter the minds of your consumers and prospects and
have a real conversation and/or tell them a story about
your company, products or services.

The bottom line is that consumers trust referrals from
friends more than they trust advertising.  In this case,
friends are those they’ve met and built a relationship
with within their specific community or network.  And even
though they’ve never met, a bond and level of trust has
been built up over time and multiple interactions and
“conversations”.

Social media websites are changing where consumers are
getting their information before, during and after they
buy products and services.  According to a 2008 Harris
Interactive Poll, 54% of Americans do not trust the media.
In a different study conducted by Nielson, 78% of survey
respondents said they trusted, either completely or somewhat,
the recommendations of other consumers.

To learn more about social media marketing go to
http://www.IncreaseSalesWithSocialMedia.com

To your continued success,
 
David Carleton
President, Street Smart Sales And Marketing

http://www.StreetSmartSalesAndMarketing.com