Social Media Management for Celebrities

Ebook on How to Make Money by Managing Social Media for Celebrities and Famous People. Work With Famous Celebrities Who Will Pay You Handsomely Just For Spending Time On FaceBook & Twitter! Available as an eBook as well as Audio Mp3.

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Social Media for Consultants

Definitive guide for business to business consultants to learn how to leverage social media to develop a brand and connect with potential clients.

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Social Media Coaching Center

Social media is hot, but it can be confusing and time consuming to learn all this stuff. The Social Media Coaching Center walks you through with step-by-step tutorials, reviews and strategy tips to make your social media strategy successful.

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What the Heck is Social Media?

Because of the new developments of technology and the way people communicate with each other, a now form of media called social media, has emerged. Basically it's media that is shared or communicated through social interaction. However, this type of social interaction is mostly done online or with the use of the Internet. If in the past, media was communicated by means of a monologue style of deliverance, social media uses actual dialogues between the audience and media provider.

The different types of socialized media are concept, media and social interface. Concept social media refers to those that are in the form of art, information and meme. Whereas there is also physical, electronic or verbal social media. While social interface media refers to social media that is either intimate, direct, uses community engagement, is social viral, electronic, broadcasted, syndicated or physical media.

There are various forms that this new media is expressed. These are either by way of concepts or slogans that are designed so as to make sure that they are on the awareness of the audience at all times. Grass roots social-media meanwhile is done by speaking to the audience publicly, setting up installations, doing performances or making demonstrations.

There is also social-media in the form of electronic media, wherein the media can be shared; there is electronic media that is syndicated as well as social media that is done via search algorithm techniques. Meanwhile, print media is media that is meant to be circulated as well as distributed and redistributed.
Social media is distinct from industrial media, such as newspapers, television, and film. At the same time it is relatively inexpensive and has accessible tools that enable anyone (even private individuals) to publish or access information, industrial media generally requires significant resources to publish information.

Examples of industrial media issues include a printing press or a government-granted spectrum license.
In order to fully understand the concept of social media more intimately, let us compare it with traditional forms or media. The more traditional forms of media are mainly broadcast or mass media. Although both forms of media, traditional and social, are able to effectively reach a wide audience in almost all parts of the world, media that is social is more accessible to people of all classes.

The reason why social media is infinitely more accessible is because it has tools are often free or available at a low cost. For example, the Internet is now being offered at a very low price to most audiences. In fact, many people are able to access the Internet for free, because of the availability of free wireless internet access in most places or locations today.

Meanwhile, traditional forms of media require subscriptions, such as cable television, magazines, newspapers and the like. Therefore, if there is a choice between having to shell out money for information or getting it for free, as with social media, the general audience will choose to get the information they desire for free.

Moreover, in order to engage in traditional forms of media, expertise and great skills are required. People expect more from people who write articles in newspapers and magazines, as opposed to someone who writes down his daily thoughts in an online blog. Therefore, there are less inhibitions and restrictions when it comes to expressing oneself in the realm of social digital media.

Social media is also oftentimes more updated and more accurate than the information that traditional media offers. The reason for this is that social media is released almost as soon as it is typed or uploaded online. And if there are any mistakes or corrections to be done, it can easily be corrected right away as well. There is no need to wait for the printing press to publish all those newspapers and magazines anymore.

Peter Humleker is the Founder and President of Miami Internet Marketing. We specialize in helping local small businesses explode their website traffic using the Internet, Mobile, and Social Media marketing. Get our free report, "7 Profit Killing Mistakes Small Businesses Make" at our website Miami Internet Marketing dot com!

Rules Of Social Media Optimization

Before you can put any of these rules to use, you may want to understand a little more about the differences between social media marketing and social media optimization.

SMM = Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing is strategically using the big social sites to spread your brand name or drive traffic back to your web presence.

SMO = Social Media Optimization

Social Media Optimization is adding key elements to your websites or content that make them easy to spread across the big social sites.

Rohit Bhargava Developed Social Media Optimization Rules 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5

1. Increase your linkability

Linkability is the willingness of other websites or articles to link back to your site. One way to increase your natural Google listing is to increase how many authority sites link to you, so to increase your linkability with social media optimization is to make your site more informative and useful to others. You can do this in many ways; blog, white papers, press releases, keyword targeted articles, RSS feeds, etc. This is the most important step in Social Media Optimization and should be your first priority.

2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy

The act of tagging is to bookmark the website to social bookmarking websites. For example, if you like the content or services provided at a website you tag it. This will show others that you approve of this site and they will check it out, making viral traffic. To include social media optimization tagging on your site, you can add tagging links such as Digg, Del.icio.us, Technorati, etc. Also, add the tagging links to other pages in your site (not just the homepage) and when visitors click the tag button make sure that there is a suggestion box to help your visitor list a relevant tag and notes.

3. Reward inbound links

As I mentioned before one way to increase your natural listing with Google using social media optimization is to get more back links. You can do this by rewarding people/websites that link to you (inbound links). Inbound links are links that send people to your site from somewhere else. One way to reward people for linking to your site is to have a "Recently Linked" that lists all of the websites that have linked to you.

4. Help your content travel

Social media optimization focuses on providing useful content to your market. When you publish content such as an article, video, or audio file you must help it reach as many people on the web as possible. You can do this by submitting to relevant high traffic websites. When the word gets out about your great content (no matter what format) you'll receive backlinks to your site.

5. Encourage the mashup

To mash up is to use two websites content and mash them together. For example, Youtube makes it easy to mash their content (videos) onto your site. In addition, because it is so easy you have added a video to your site that has a Youtube logo on the video as well as a link back to you tube. So to encourage a mashup with social media optimization is to make it easy for other websites to use your content and reference it to drive traffic back to your site.

Jeremiah Owyang Developed Social Media Optimization Rules 6 and 7

6. Be a User Resource, even if it doesn't help you.

One thing all visitors appreciate is honesty. With social media optimization you should include links to other websites that will help your visitor reach their goal or find the information they want. Do this, even when it doesn't benefit you. By linking to competitors or information not created by you, you reap the benefits of having the all inclusive information on a particular topic. In the end, more people will link to you because you have lumped all information (or links) on a topic on one location.

7. Reward helpful and valuable users

Valuable users are your best friends. A valuable user can be determined in many ways; they may send traffic to your site, add valuable content to your site, or assist visitors at your site. No matter what their doing, if it benefits you, your site, or your service you need to reward them. This could be by sending a personal message thanking them for their dedication. Other ways to reward your valuable users is to create reward systems, advertise for them or promote their efforts on your homepage.

Cameron Olthuis Developed Social Media Optimization Rules 8, 9, 10, and 11

8. Participate

With Social Media Optimization you can participate by joining on the conversation about your topic (or targeted keyword). Simply posting articles and sharing content isn't going to keep the buzz going. You should continue to share information on other websites. This participation will share your knowledge with more people. One way to do this is to find people that are blogging on your topic and to give input on the conversation. Also, participate in forums or other social groups that are discussing your topic. Read comments on your articles, videos, and audios and respond to them.

9. Know how to target your audience

Social media marketing is about sharing content/information. Not everyone is interested in your topic, so be sure to do your marketing research and post your information and knowledge where it will be understood and appreciated.

10. Create content

Content is considered to be any form on information that benefits a visitor. Content can be a white paper, article, video, audio, widget, the list goes on. Your job is to find a piece of content that will spark interest in visitors. No matter what market you enter there is always a form of content that they will share with others. Find out what it is and give it to them. This will in turn have them coming back for more useful content. If this happens, then you know that your social media optimization is successful.

11. Be real

Internet users are searching the web for specific content. If you are providing content that links back to a website, be sure that the website is relevant. You will not be rewarded for coaxing a visitor to a site that has nothing to do with the content they just read (or watched depending on the type of content you provided).

Loren Baker developed Social Media Optimization Rules 12 and 13

12. Don't forget your roots, be humble

It's easy to let popularity get to your head. When you become the shining star in your market be sure to recognize those that helped you get to the front of the pack. (this ties into #7 a little)

13. Don't be afraid to try new things, stay fresh.

Any one on the internet knows how quickly things change. Keep up with new media content, new types of websites, and new interests in your market. By staying on top of new information you can maintain top rankings.

Lee Odden developed Social Media Optimization Rules 14, 15 and 16

14. Develop a Social Media Optimization strategy

Social Media serves multiple purposes. You need to identify what your purpose is and then publish content that will promote that purpose. Some purposes for Social Media Optimization include: branding, reputation, charity, increase traffic, build reputation, increase sales, credibility, etc. Make sure that as you develop content that you are publishing and creating with that purpose in mind.

15. Choose your SMO tactics wisely.

Of all the content available on the web only about 10% of people on the web are content creators. The other 90% are consumers and are willing to share your content. Make your content easy to consume and spread. Also be sure to create content that will have the most impact on your original purpose (which could be any of the following: branding, reputation, charity, increase traffic, build reputation, increase sales, credibility, etc).

16. Make Social Media Optimization - SMO part of your process and best practices.

We all know that there are specific Search engine optimization tactics that every website should include. Just as you include keywords in your title tags and keywords in your H1 tag, you should find ways to include social media optimization aspects into the building of your website. This can be small details like including social bookmark tags on your site or encouraging incoming links with the "recently Linked" list I covered in #3.

17. Don't be afraid to let go of a message or idea and let others own it.

Finally, when you create a movement, spark and idea, or develop a new topic don't be afraid to let others run with it. Collaboration is key. Others can improve upon your original idea and give you credit for the start. Be sure to give credit where it's due.

Justin Brooke started with just a $2/day marketing budget and grew his business past 6 figures in just 1 year. At just 25 years old he has been Vice President of a multi-million dollar company and nominated "Best Marketer of 2007" by the American Business Awards. Justin's award winning social media optimization company wants to handle your social media marketing needs.

Web 2.0 Marketing Made Easy With These Top 10 Social Media Sites!

In the last article we discussed how web 2.0 marketing can be a valuable asset for your business. We talked about web 2.0 marketing, social media services and marketing by social media, how it is the new phenomena of the decade and how you can use it to spread knowledge, gain trust, build relationship and gain more new clients.

Today we're going to talk about the top 10 social media sites, how they play a role in web 2.0 marketing, and how you can easily build accounts with each of them, along with our personal ranking chart and how marketing by social media to these top 10 sites can help you begin expanding your business.

1. Digg.com - After in depth analysis, we decided Digg, in terms of article marketing, social media marketing, and expanding your presence on the internet, to be ranked higher than both Facebook and Twitter. Here's why; Digg is a social bookmarking site that let's you easily setup an account, connect it directly to both your Twitter and Facebook accounts, and bookmark links with embeded urls that direct back to web pages, articles, social sites, videos and blogs. Digg has been around since 1998, and has a page rank of 8. Digg receives millions of visitors every single month. When you are marketing by social media, using Digg as a social media site is crucial to your success.

General posting capabilities - 10

Account setup - 10

Google pagerank - 8

Activity - 9

Spam Friendly - 9

Overall User rating - 9.2

2. Facebook.com - Facebook by far has been the fastest growing full capacity social media site thus far. Currently they have over 400 millions users worldwide with over 50% of them active on a daily basis. Facebook has a fully capable user interface with applications, blogs, comment posting, friend adding, video uploading and more. Adding friends on Facebook is easy. Building lasting relationships is a bit more challenging, but critical. Adding comments each day to your own page can be seen by your friends, which virally transcends out into the community and can eventually be seen by thousands and thousands of potentially interested prospects. But be careful, once you get up towards 5,000 friends, Facebook will prevent you from gaiNing any more friends, and at that point you will need to create a fan page where you can post from and invite friends to give you positive feedback.

General posting capabilities - 10

Account setup - 8

Google pagerank - 10

Activity - 10

Spam Friendly - 7

Overall User rating - 9

3. Twitter.com - Twitter is the newest and fastest growing web 2.0 marketing platform known to date. Twitter doesn't have the expansive user interface and full personal networking platform that Facebook does, but it's simplicity and fast posting capabilities make it a site to be reckoned with. Twitter was developed with a simple idea that asks, "what are you doing?" This idea turned out to be such a gold mine, that now social networks left and right are adding the "what are you doing" feature to their interface. This feature allows you to inform people about what kinds of recipes you offer, products you've tried, websites you read or promote, and so on and so forth. With the url shorteNing services like biturl, you can turn your long website addresses into short links allowing more room to pass along your message to your followers.

General posting capabilities - 10

Account setup - 8

Google pagerank - 9

Activity - 10

Spam Friendly - 6

Overall User rating - 8.6

4. Ning.com - A lot of people don't know about Ning sites, yet even more are learNing about them everyday. If you don't know, Ning is a simplified social network platform that allows you to open your own social network based on any topic of your choice, and build a community of members within the site. Ning allows you to fully customize your user interface and member's pages, connect with Twitter and Facebook, upload blogs, photos, pictures, and add applications to make the network more interactive for your members. For web 2.0 marketing, sigNing up with a Ning site is easy, fast and free. Currently to open your own social network is free, but we believe that by July of 2010 they are planNing to convert all sites into paying sites for the moderators, with plans less than $5 per month and up to $50 per month, still allowing members who sign up to join for free. These Ning sites are customized to your specific target market place, just be careful that you follow all of the moderators rules for that site, because they will ban you at the click of a button if you're off beat, and it's not easy to persuade them to let you back in.

General posting capabilities - 9

Account setup - 8

Google pagerank - 8

Activity - 9

Spam Friendly - 7

Overall User rating - 8.2

5. Delicious.com - Delicious is a social bookmarking site that is excellent for web 2.0 marketing and marketing by social media. Its user interface is simple, easy and elegant. You can insert keywords and descriptions to your liking. Their social media services allow you to bookmark and embed links into keyword phrases which link back to your website helping your organic search ranking in search engines. Delicious is a must-use social media site when marketing by social media.

General posting capabilities - 9

Account setup - 7

Google pagerank - 8

Activity - 8

Spam Friendly - 9

Overall User rating - 8.2

6. Current.com - Current is a wonderful social media platform, capable of helping your website to attract more new visitors through both bookmarking capabilities and article marketing capabilities. When marketing by social media, Current brought some of our articles to the first page of Google within only days after uploading them. Current is great for implementing article marketing into your organic SEO process and web 2.0 process.

General posting capabilities - 9

Account setup - 7

Google pagerank - 7

Activity - 9

Spam Friendly - 8

Overall User rating - 8

7. Propeller.com - Propeller is a full service bookmarking social media site, allowing you to generate backlinks by inserting keyword phrases into your posted urls. Propeller is easy to setup, expansive and extremely active. It is one of the top growing and page rank social media sites out there and definitely falls right into place as one of the top 10 social media sites for marketing by social media and web 2.0 marketing.

General posting capabilities - 9

Account setup - 7

Google pagerank - 8

Activity - 8

Spam Friendly - 8

Overall User rating - 8

8. Ezinearticles.com - Ezinearticles is strictly for article marketing, but it is vitally crucial and powerful for implementing successful web 2.0 marketing tactics. When marketing by social media, and article marketing, ezine articles is a phenomenal website. With many years of experience and a strict posting guideline, they limit their publishers to informative and helpful content only. This allows their site to stand out and attract more interested readers compared to many other article marketing sites. The social media services they offer are free, and with only a few good articles you can have dozens or even hundreds of new visitors within days or weeks reading your articles and visiting your website.

General posting capabilities - 8

Account setup - 7

Google pagerank - 6

Activity - 8

Spam Friendly - 8

Overall User rating - 7.4

9. Stumbleupon.com - Coming in at number nine on our top 10 list is an innovative social media sharing site that allows you to submit favorite pages, articles, videos and so forth into the members area, and when others submit, or "like" the same page, the number of "likers" or "submitters" goes up, which of course that page then gets more exposure. The innovation comes by their downloadable tool bar allowing you to seamlessly browse across the internet and when you see a page you like, you simply click the little Stumbleupon icon and the site then gets added to your favorites.

General posting capabilities - 8

Account setup - 7

Google pagerank - 7

Activity - 7

Spam Friendly - 8

Overall User rating - 7.4

10. Diigo.com - And last but not least, we have Diigo, a social bookmarking site with expansive capacities and an ever growing member base. The user interface is simple and easy to manage. There is a wide range of social media services and capabilities, and though the site is still in beta mode and started in 2005, it seems promising.

General posting capabilities - 8

Account setup - 7

Google pagerank - 6

Activity - 6

Spam Friendly - 8

Overall User rating - 7

With this list of top 10 social media sites, web 2.0 marketing and marketing by social media will be easier and more productive for you. Maintaining your social media sites, and adding fresh new relative content on a continuous basis is the key to successful social media marketing. Good luck!

Sincerely;
Nate Crane
Part of The SaW Team - Saw is a firm that offers advertising and marketing tools, education, vehicle graphics, banner printing, web design and signage for small, medium, and large businesses.
For other articles and resources see:
Vehicle Graphics San Diego, Banner Printing San Diego

Tips on Writing an Effective Social Media Marketing Request For Proposal (RFP)

About a year ago, I wrote an article with guidelines on writing a website design and development Request for Proposal (RFP), which received a great response. Now I think it's high time to do the same thing for those wishing to engage an agency for Social Media Marketing and other Online Marketing and Advertising consultation and implementation.

Below are my suggestions of how to prepare an RFP for social media projects, retainers and campaigns. I also suggest doing research online and viewing other Request for Proposals to see what works best for your organization. Keep in mind that whatever format you choose will determine not only how long the responses are, but also what type of focus you are looking for from the respondents. Each section of the RFP is outlined below, along with some explanation and suggested questions. Have fun!

Information about your organization and project

Introduction

The purpose of this section is to give a brief overview of the company issuing the RFP and the social media project or desired work relationship between the company and the vendor. Provide as much information as you feel is necessary to allow vendors to prepare an accurate proposal. If you feel that there is certain proprietary or other information that you do not wish to make public, require a Non Disclosure Agreement be signed before receiving that information. This may limit the participation of vendors, but it is oftentimes necessary to protect private information.

1. Company Overview

Organizational history
Your business objectives
Your company's history using social media or reasons why your organization intends to begin to participate in social media

2. Overview of Project

State the project objectives and how they relate to the business objectives stated above. Explain the type of vendor relationship desired i.e. Project-based, Agency of Record, etc. Explain the current involvement your organization has with social media channels and how they relate to both your organization's primary presence and any related campaigns
Explain the social media channels you wish the campaign to involve, unless you are looking for suggestions of which to use, then please specify that to the vendors
Explain how the project fits into your overall marketing strategy (online and offline) and if there is another vendor involved in other aspects of your Advertising and Marketing initiatives
Explain the measurable outcomes you would like to see
Explain the duration of the work - is it a temporary campaign, or an ongoing organizational marketing platform?

3. Overview of Audiences and Stakeholders

List primary audiences for the company, i.e. demographics, psychographics, etc
List primary information needs of each audience group
Identify if any market or audience research will be necessary in the execution of the campaign

4. Overview of Response

Make it clear the type of response you are looking for:
Are you looking for a hypothetical approach, or an explanation of the vendor's process of how they will come to create your campaign. Many times a hypothetical approach is not the best way to approach an RFP process simply because a vendor will be missing several key pieces of information that might negatively affect their ability to propose a specific solution. We suggest looking for more general responses and weighing the effectiveness of past client work heavily

Guidelines for Proposal Preparation

In order to give all qualified vendors a level playing field, it's important to set up an easy to follow schedule for both when your RFP is issued, when and to whom questions are allowed, and when and in what format responses are required
Specify the date the RFP was issued (Month, Day, Year). If your RFP is publicly listed, it will help those searching for RFPs on Google or by other methods to find relevant Request for Proposals
An optional requirement is to specify that all interested vendors register their intent to submit a proposal by a certain date - usually within 1-2 weeks of the RFP issue. This is a good way to limit the potential number of vendors who respond if you anticipate a large volume of proposals and would rather receive a smaller amount
We recommend allowing a question and answer period that ends at least 1 week before the proposal is due. It is up to you whether to allow questions by email, conference call or individual phone calls. We do recommend that you share all the questions (and answers) with all interested vendors in order to keep things as equal as possible. Always specify which format -phone call, email, and to whom these questions should be addressed. We recommend identifying a single person in your organization to be the point of contact. Just make sure vacation schedules, etc don't interfere with this process, and if there is any other reason why the primary point of contact might need to be out of town during the process, specify a secondary point of contact
Responses from issuer to be sent by 20XX in the following formats (specify whether electronic submissions, hard copies or both must be either emailed, mailed or hand-delivered)
On the basis of the replies to the RFP document, a short list of potential vendors will be selected and this group will be asked to present demonstrations of their capabilities and vision for the project. These meetings will be completed by XXth, 20XX
Awarding of the contract to selected Vendor by XXth, 20XX
Work to commence by 20XX and to last until (if applicable)

Vendor Questions and Qualifications

The following is a series of questions that, if applicable, we suggest you ask the vendors submitting proposals. Some may not apply, but it is a great idea to get as much of an idea of the vendor's approach and philosophy on social media as possible. Compare the responses both among each other, and to the research and reading that you have done to make sure that the vendor is up to date with the latest thinking and best practices.

COMPANY DETAILS

Company name and parent company name
Ownership structure
Years in operation
Mailing address (headquarters)
Other office location(s)
Primary phone
Fax number
Website and blog URL
Primary point of contact (name, title, phone and email address)
Total number of employees
Number of vendor employees whose primary function is social media
Current client list with those engaged in social media work identified
Percentage of total revenue that is social-media related
Three references for social media work including; company name, primary client name, contact details and brief explanation of services provided
Any potential conflicts with existing vendor client base and this RFP
Senior social media staff bios and links to social media profiles where applicable
Please provide a complete list of relevant social media platform and technology partners
References from clients currently engaged in social media work with the vendor

CAPABILITIES & EXPERIENCE

List all social media and online marketing capabilities
Do you have any proprietary tools or products related to social media?
Please list any experience you have with integrating social, paid and/or earned media
Is there a specific industry or type of work your firm specializes in?
Please list and provide links to primary social media communication channels for your company (i.e.company blog,Twitter account, Facebook group, blogs authored by principals, etc.)

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING STRATEGY

Please outline your social media strategy process
Which stakeholder groups do you typically include in a strategy engagement?
Describe the final deliverable of a strategy engagement
What is your approach to risk management in social media?
How do you incorporate existing applications, websites, microsites and newsletter programs into your overall social media strategy?
How do you ensure compliance with client legal requirements?
Please describe your approach to integrating across client marketing, customer service and corporate communications departments. Please provide an example of your work in this area
How do you approach adapting a traditional brand into a two-way dialogue?
Please provide a case study of your strategy work that resulted in a social media initiative and the business results achieved

REPUTATION MANAGEMENT & SOCIAL MEDIA MONITORING

What is your brand/reputation monitoring process (i.e. proprietary tools used, methodology, etc)?
What is your opinion on automated sentiment analysis?
What technology do you use to assist in online monitoring?
How long (on average) between a potential issue being posted online and being flagged to the client?
What volume of mentions has your organization handled in the past (e.g. 2,500 mentions per week)?
What is your quality assurance process to ensure that the large volumes of data gathered in the monitoring process are handled efficiently and representative of the overall online conversation?
Please detail your methodology for handling online crises
What services do you provide in support of online crisis management?
Please describe the structure of your crisis management team, including bios and relevant experience
How do you assess which mentions require immediate responses and which do not?
Please outline your general approach to sourcing and responding to comments
Please provide a case study detailing your work for the purposes of managing reputation or online crisis management, including outcomes and lessons learned
Please include a sample of your monitoring report format and/or a link to appropriate dashboards (specifics should be removed)

METRICS, MEASUREMENT & REPORTING

What methodology do you use for measuring the success of your social media programs for clients?
Please provide specific examples based on past work
Have you developed any proprietary metrics? How have you applied these for clients?
How have you defined Return on Investment (ROI) from a social media perspective in the past?
How do you take data points generated from various social media channels and measurement tools and combine to give an objective/comprehensive view?
What is your approach to server analytics and community analytics for program measurement?
Do you have the capability to measure cost per lead or cost per acquisition? Please provide an example of a project on which you have done so
What platforms are you unable to measure accurately, or able to provide only limited measurements from?
Please provide a sample of a measurement document or final report (specifics should be removed)
What percentage of the budget do you recommend be dedicated to metrics and measurement?

CLIENT EDUCATION & TRAINING

Do you offer social media training services for clients? If yes, what formats are they available in?
What internal processes do you have in place to ensure that your staff is kept current on social media innovations and best practices?
How do you measure progress and evaluate training effectiveness?
How do you recommend that clients keep up to date on the latest social media innovations and best practices?

SOCIAL MEDIA AND OTHER DIGITAL CHANNELS

What are your design, creative and community management capabilities?
What percentage of your staff is dedicated to building and deploying social media solutions versus management and consulting?
Please describe your experience with the following platforms and tactics:

- YouTube or similar video sharing sites

- Blogs, Podcasts, Vodcasts, Forums

- Content Management System (CMS)

- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

- E-mail Marketing

- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing(SEM)

- Facebook Pages, Apps, API integration

- Mobile application development

- Twitter

- News sharing sites (i.e. Digg, Reddit, etc.)

- Virtual Worlds and Augmented reality

- Photo sharing (i.e. Flickr) and other content sharing sites (i.e. Scribd, Slideshare, Delicious, etc.)

- Social Media press releases(SMPRs)

- Crowdsourcing or Wikis

- Real world events organized via social media (e.g. Tweetups)

- Ratings/Customer service sites (i.e. Yelp, ePinions, etc.)

Please provide examples of social media channel development work completed within the last two years

COMMUNITY AND INFLUENCER OUTREACH (SOCIAL PR)

What is your process for identifying influencers within various social media channels?
How do you determine and define "influence?"
What is your outreach process for communicating with identified online influencers?
What tools and approaches do you use for Influencer Relationship Management? (Third-party, proprietary,etc.)
How have you integrated Influencer Outreach with traditional communications and/or marketing campaigns?
How do you approach seeding conversations within stakeholder groups?
What is your exit strategy with influencers once the initiative is completed?
How do you ensure authenticity and transparency when conducting outreach on behalf of a client?
Please provide a case study of an online community outreach project

CLIENT SERVICES & PROJECT MANAGEMENT

How is a typical client engagement with your firm structured?
How do you structure your account teams?
Please outline your internal communication structure. If your account staff is separate from your project management staff, please detail how these teams work together
If you are selected to provide social media services, who will be assigned to our business (please provide names, titles and short biographical notes)
What percentage of senior staff involvement is structured in to your projects? What role do they play?
How are your projects priced? Using an hourly rate? Blended agency rate? If the former, please provide a rate card
What change management practices does your agency employ?
What reports will be provided to the client in order to communicate project milestones and overall project health?
What is the frequency of these reports?
What is your process for gathering business requirements?

Writing a Request for Proposal (RFP) is a good first step when considering Online Marketing and Social Media work as it takes thoughtful planning to specify and construct an effective, integrated campaign. A well thought-out, quality RFP is essential to a successful endeavor because it helps you to focus on your goals and exactly how to achieve them.

Greg Kihlstrom is the Chief Creative Officer at Carousel30 Interactive in Washington DC, an award-winning digital agency offering online advertising and marketing services as well as interactive design and development for social media, websites and mobile applications.

The Complete Novice's Guide to Social Media

Introduction

This article is intended to be a very straightforward guide to Social Media and everything that Social Media encompasses including blogs, social networks and forums etc. It is intended to introduce both newcomers and perhaps even some more experienced people to the world of social media.

So, what is Social Media?

So, what is this social media that has the Internet buzzing with excitement? Well, Wikipedia (an interesting form of social media in itself) describes it as:

"information content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies that is intended to facilitate communications, influence and interaction with peers and with public audiences, typically via the Internet and mobile communications networks."

This can encompass not just text and information based services like blogs etc, it can also contain image and video based services such as Flickr and YouTube for example.

Social media instigates a sense of community, making users feel connected with each other through participation and communication via many forms of media. Technorati, a blog submission service, has over 133 million blogs indexed, displaying the staggering rise in popularity of people wanting to be heard and connect to each other.

Social Media and your Business

Social media can benefit any type of business and if approached correctly, can help build relationships with consumers and other companies through networking and raised awareness of your service.

With social media you can easily speak directly to your customers, using Twitter to gather feedback on customer satisfaction, raising awareness of a recently launched product through Digg or using YouTube to promote your move into a new office location for example.

An example of a company using social media in a great way is Starbucks. Starbucks created a whole new website and blog centred around customer suggestions for their service. A user would go onto the website and suggest a way Starbucks could improve, everyone registered on the website would then vote their favorite ideas and then Starbucks would post on their blog regarding which ideas they liked and how they would be actually implemented into the Starbucks service.

Companies are always thinking of better ways to run there service, social media gave Starbucks a way to connect with millions of existing customers and gave those customers an opportunity to build on the Starbucks service in a way only they could know how.

Burger King launched a Facebook application which encouraged users to 'sacrifice' 10 of their facebook friends in return for a free Whopper burger. It was taken down by Facebook not long after launch citing privacy concerns, however in the relatively short space of time the application was live, it gathered over 20,000 users and consequently over 200,000 friends were sacrificed in the name of free burgers. This social media example was well built, was easy to share and gave the user the incentive to network with friends which made it very popular in the short space of time it was available.

These are only two examples of successful social media solutions by companies on the Internet, companies like Sun, Ford, Dell and IBM are all currently reaping the benefits of using blogs, twitter accounts, Facebook pages and other social media tools to connect with customers and make there companies more transparent to consumers. Social media, blogs especially, aren't going to disappear overnight. They now act as invaluable customer service methods with the ability to conduct informal discussion with your customers and let them get to know more about you and your company in an inexpensive way.

Establishing a social media presence for your company gives you the ability to reach potentially millions of new customers through Facebook, Twitter, Digg etc, many of which may have been unreachable without a presence on these networks. Having profiles on the various social networks gives you the maximum potential to raise awareness of your brand, gain more visitors to your website and the capacity to convert those targeted visitors to customers.

Social Media in Numbers

2,000,000,000

searches through the Google search engine every day

1,360,652,987

tweets on Twitter as of March 2009

700,000,000

photos added to Facebook every month

900,000

blog posts every 24 hours

38,040

diggs the most popular bookmark on Digg has received in the last 12 months

412.3

years it would take to watch all of YouTube's content as of March 2008

13

hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute

Social Media Forms

Although social media can come in many forms, it has its main ones:

Blogs

The most well known of 'obvious' social media forms. Blogs act as a frequently updated hub of contextual information where users can get involved and give their input through comments.

Forums

The oldest form of social media, in use before the term 'social media' was made popular. Internet forums act as areas for online discussion, usually centered around certain topics.

Content Communities

Content communities differ from usual forms of social media in that they allow people to share and use particular kinds of content that blogs and forums don't fully concentrate upon such as images (see Flickr), interesting bookmarks (see Digg and del.icio.us) and of course video (see YouTube).

Micro-blogging

A relevant newcomer in the social media world. Micro-blogging combines blogging and social networking in that it allows people to update small amounts of content online through web-based, desktop and also mobile clients (see Twitter).

Social Networks

Social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Bebo etc allow the easy creation of personalised web page accounts that facilitates communication between users.

The Distribution of Social Media

People only have a certain amount of time to check their favorite websites, this mightn't even include blogs or social networks. Couple this with the fact that people seem to be working longer hours than ever these days and also using blackberrys and iPhones to work away from the office, and you're faced with a daunting task of attracting people to your blog or website.

One remedy to this has been the introduction of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. RSS feeds allow a user to effectively 'subscribe' to a website or blog, meaning they are notified through a newsreader when new content is available.

RSS saves people a lot of time when reading blogs and website updates, meaning communities can grow and become more valuable to both the user and author saving both parties time and money.

Social Networks

Joining a social network usually involves creating your own web page with information about yourself, be it personal, professional or otherwise and you then connect with other people on that network.

Although most of these networks are relatively young in their age, a selection of them are very popular and have changed the shape of the Internet for the near future at the very least.

MySpace

After launching in August 2003, MySpace became the most popular social networking website in the United States in mid 2006, attracting well over 100million account holders.

MySpace has largely built it's popularity based upon its comprehensive music service where bands can upload tracks directly to their profile for fans to listen to, even launching it's own record label to release music from MySpace upon.

Bebo

Bebo is a popular social networking tool with more emphasis on the younger user than its competitors. It is also geared towards colleges, schools and other educational institutes which is where Bebo has found it's niche. It was purchased by AOL in early 2008 for over £400million.

Facebook

First available to University students, facebook was opened up to the public (people over the age of 13) in 2006 and it's userbase has skyrocketed ever since.

The service allows you to join networks and groups of organisations, sports teams, location specific groups etc and also offers developers the chance to write applications for the service at no charge

Facbook currently has over 235million account users.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has it's own niche in the social networking world in that it is targeted solely toward the working professional.

LinkedIn allows you to create your own career profile and network with past and present workmates and is mainly used for career-orientated networking and job / project searches.

LinkedIn has approximately 40million users.

Friends Reunited

Friends reunited is a social network based upon the theme of reuniting and connecting with former (and current) classmates. It is identified as the first social network to achieve prominence in Britain, surviving the dotcom bust.

Blogs

A blog (standing for web-log) is a type of website maintained by an individual or company that is commonly updated with news on latest events, opinions, reviews and any other material the author deems worth of publishing.

With recent developments in blog hosting technology, it's possible for anyone with a basic knowledge of the internet to create and run their own blog using platforms such as WordPress and blogger.

Topics

The reason blogs are so popular on the Internet is because they act as a hub of information for any given topic. This can include website design articles (see a list apart), celebrity news (see TMZ), politics (see Huffington Post) and technology news (see techcrunch).

Although some blogs contain posts around a number of topics, the most popular ones have a defined theme and user base.

Comments

Almost all blogs have a comments structure in place allowing readers to submit their views on that blog or article. Comments act as a networking tool in itself, with many people growing the reader-base of their own blog or website through the clicks they receive from commenting on other peoples blogs.

Forums

The Internet forum is the relative grandparent of the social media family, evolving from the bulletin board style of networking which was popular in the early years of the Internet.

Like blogs, forums can be about any number of topics and attract people mainly looking for information and discussion around a particular theme or subject. Where the two mediums differ are that whereas blogs are usually the views / news from one individual or company, forums act as a discussion venue where many discussions are ongoing at once in different locations called 'threads'. Also, a blog has a clear owner, again that may be an individual or company depending on the blog itself but a forum is effectively ran by its members.

Many forums have been running from the early days of the Internet and have thus gathered a huge amount of members, Gaia Online has over 16million registered members and is one of the most popular on the Internet.

Content Communities

Content communities don't particularly adhere to typical social network frameworks, as they aren't particularly intended for networking between people using the usual means. Two examples of this are Flickr and YouTube.

Flickr

Flickr is an image and video hosting website where people can create a personal account and upload photos they have taken. It's also used by bloggers and webmasters as an online photo storage system, where they can host all of their images in a searchable database. As of late 2008, it is claimed that Flickr holds more than 3billion images.

The social aspect of Flickr comes into play through the creation of various subject-orientated groups where users can comment on relevant images that have been uploaded.

YouTube

Youtube is the largest video hosting website on the Internet with well over 120million videos currently hosted through its service. Youtube members can upload their own footage, create channels / playlists of their favourite videos and share them with friends.

Youtube has quickly become one of the largest websites in the history of the Internet with more than 6billion videos viewed on the service in January 2009 alone. Before the public launch of YouTube in 2005, there were very few methods of video-orientated social networking available via the Internet, YouTube changed this with the ability for its users to dictate its content through the uploading of personal video.

Microblogging

Microblogging is the latest in the way of social networking, combining blogging, instant messaging and the popular status updates of the Facebook service into one neat package.

Popular microblogging services such as Twitter allow a small (in Twitters case, no more than140 characters) text based 'update' to be published on your twitter page and to those who are 'following' you.

Although it is a web based format, over 90% of 'tweet's published via twitter are by mobile, desktop or instant messaging applications. Twitter is largely used by the web industry as a way of passing useful links to one another, as well as a very quick and easy networking tool between account followers.

It has recently began to attract a lot of press attention due to the amount of well known people using the service. President Obama used Twitter in the run up to the election to keep voters informed of his campaign, connecting to a completely new audience to previous candidates.

Conclusion

Although Social Media is a relatively new factor on the Internet, the advances we have seen in a short space of time have been staggering. Two to three years ago MySpace was the service everyone was using to connect with each other, who would have predicted that within 24 months there would have been a service in Facebook that overtook it as the Internets leading social networking tool.

The future of social media is an exciting one, and we could see some interesting developments even in the short term such as the adoption of the mobile social network. Although a lot of people are using Social Media on mobile phones already, this number is expected to increase significantly in the near future with the development of more and more clients for social networks on mobile phones.

Social media is expected to evolve and grow into exciting new services and shows no signs of dissapearing any time soon. The potential for growth and monetary gain for businesses is too great for them to ignore social media, helping spread news of services and offers to hundreds, if not thousands, of friends in an instant. Some companies aim for that kind of promotion and never reach it, some pay millions to get it, with social media, it is in everyones grasp.

A company that neglects both social media and the benefits of search engine optimisation is shielding its services away from millions of potential customers.

Opening your company up to social media services allows you to connect instantly with new people, couple this with a comprehensive search engine optimisation plan and you are in a perfect position to attract new customers and network inexpensively.

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What Do You Know About Social Media?

What do you know about social media? Before you answer that question, let me tell you that you know more than you may think. Social media is simply another way for us to communicate and connect with one another. If you are a smart communicator and understand the power of connections, you already know a lot about social media.

Ashton Kutcher said "One person's voice can be as powerful as an entire media network," once he surpassed 1 million followers on Twitter, beating CNN. He described this achievement as the "democratization" of the media. I have to wonder. Wasn't the media democratized before? What makes it now a "democracy" because one man can reach 1 million people?

Perhaps democracy and democratization are the wrong words (even though it sounds catchy). What social media has done is unleash the power of communication and connection one person at a time. Communicating one-on-one always had a powerful effect on us because it enabled us to connect with one another. Everything you read and hear about social media requires connection and building relationships. Remember when communication consisted of three choices?

1. Face-to-Face

2. Telephone

3. Handwritten letter

When given these three choices, we selected face-to-face interactions when we knew we had to make a special connection with someone. Telephone connections happened when we did not need as much intimacy or when distance prevented us from making face-to-face contact. We resorted to the letter as the least personal form of communication.

Today, we have many more choices. Nonetheless, our decision-making process remains the same. How much connection, how much intimacy do we need in order to communicate our message? CNN does not care about intimacy; they care about getting the news broadcasted to many people at once. Amazingly, social media also broadcasts news in much the same way CNN does. But, because the source comes from a "friend", a "follower", or a "connection" we are more likely to believe it. In the past we could eyeball the communicator during a face-to-face interaction to determine truth. Today, we must depend upon building relationships that create trust and that create believability.

Here is what we do know about social media:

1. Our young people are connected. Today's youth understands social media; they live and breathe it every day. They use the tools as ways to share with their friends. As kids, we used the telephone. Today's kids use cell phones and MySpace. When you put the cell phone with MySpace, you get Twitter. To any young person, the power of Twitter is a no brainer.

2. Social media brings on two-way communication. Where email was one-way communication that was often not instantaneous, Twitter is two-way and instant. Furthermore, with Twitter you can have instant two-way communication with virtually thousands of people at once.

3. Social media enables people to deepen connections and relationships. I could correspond with you quickly through email. But, through Facebook I learn what you look like, what you like to do on Sunday afternoon, who your favorite actors are, and where you love to eat. Through Facebook, I find out that your dog has been sick or your child won a top honor at school. Through Facebook I learn who you are and what makes you tick.

4. Social media is here to stay. The way we are communicating is in a revolutionary change and that change centers on social media. Traditional advertising and broadcast media must adapt to this new step-child. In fact, Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter, said, "Journalists who embrace the new media will thrive; those that don't won't."

5. Social media is forcing changes in marketing and sales. The way we discover, evaluate and purchase products and services is experiencing a major insurgency. Word of mouth purchases come not from the neighborhood pharmacist but from what our friends tell us on Facebook or what we hear on Twitter.

6. Ashton Kutcher taught us that the way we hear about news and events is also changing through the social media. The fact that CNN wants 1 million followers tells that a major network recognizes the power of a social networking tool like Twitter.

What are the things we do not know about social media?

1. Where is social media taking us? Where will we be in 5 years? No one has a clue.

2. Which media tools will survive? Is Twitter a passing fad? Will the little bird be eaten by the big cat, Google? MySpace is already on the decline. What about Facebook? My hunch is that each of these tools will find the right niche. MySpace will survive for the very young. Twitter in some form will survive for instant message type communication world-wide.

3. How will social media affect advertising, public relations, marketing, and sales? My guess is that broadcast, intrusive advertising as we know it today, will not survive. For some products (not many) it will continue in some form. Social media adds a new component to the "marketing" mix. By doing so, traditional marketing efforts must adapt. Time will show us how and who will survive.

4. What's next? We now have Web 2.0 which means an interactive Web. It's much more engaging to read a blog in which you can comment than to read a static website. For that reason blogs have soared in popularity. What will Web 3.0 or 2.5 or whatever look like? I'm sure there are some guru's out there who can share what they see in their crystal balls. But, for most of us it remains a mystery. The challenge is to be ready. Two things we can count on: we are on the cusp and there's more to come.

As a communications expert, all this excites me. Social media provides new opportunities to communicate and to connect. The fun part is joining the party. What are you waiting for? Now that you know that you do know something about the social media, and you also know that no one knows what's next, come join us! See you on Twitter.

Joan Curtis, EdD is founder of Total Communications Coaching where she specializes in helping smart, capable professionals move ahead in their careers by becoming skilled communicators. She also provides personal coaching to empower people to be dynamic public speakers. Join her virtual group, Speak Up for Success, and become a dynamic speaker in six weeks! Learn more at http://www.totalcommunicationscoach.com/teleclasses.htm.

What is Social Media Marketing?

As far as price is concerned, there is no other low-cost method out there that will deliver a large number of visitors, whom can come back to your website again and again.

Whether you are selling products or services, or just publishing content for ad revenue, the efficiency and benefits of social media marketing is an unmatched method that will make your website profitable over time.

Social News Websites:

The benefits of a social media website vary, but a proven method is creating viral content and promoting it through social media channels. Link Baits, otherwise known as content created for the purpose of getting people to link to it, are a great start. Successful link baits are not hard to accomplish - you just have to know how to do it. Creating high quality content and then getting it listed on social media websites like Digg and StumbleUpon will lead to a number of benefits for any website.

There are two methods to this madness:

Primary and Secondary Traffic: Primary traffic is the number of visitors who come directly from social media websites. Secondary traffic is the referral traffic that come from websites that link to your content and ultimately send you visitors back to your website.


High Quality Links: Social News websites, like Digg or Reddit will get you a large number of links - that have the possibility, with high quality editorial content, to bring you traffic and ultimately raise your ranking in search engines.

There is no secret to this. As SEO has taking a bashing over the past few years - many SEO firms and specialist battle back and forth on the importance of keywords, Meta tags, link purchasing -you name it, they have fought over it. In the end though, the secret isn't that hard to uncover, quality content, sewn together with valuable keywords and building inbound links, are the three components to placing your website in the top of search engine results.

When a website receives a large number of natural, permanent links from trusted domains, search engines begin to trust you. After gaining this trust, you continuously build upon it to either gain ranking or maintain it. And if you begin to optimize your website and begin link baiting - you can easily start ranking for competitive keywords, which in turn, bring you search engine visitors.

Continue this method of marketing and your website will undoubtedly increase its traffic. Many bloggers and Webmasters will see an article on Digg or del.icio.us and trust its usability and then reference through a citation link.

Even new websites that start with little traffic or trusted links - will find social link baiting to their advantage and can quickly establish a reputation and begin to build upon it. But just remember, it's the quality of the content that ultimately matters. Content is still king and always will be when it comes to online marketing. Optimizing it in a number of ways will quickly gain you the trust needed by search engines to rank highly, and ultimately deliver the traffic you need to your website.

The Naysayers Are Out There

They're out there. The Naysayers. The ones who adamantly agree that social media marketing is a waste of time and brings in useless traffic, leading to visitors quickly leaving after they clicked upon a website. Bounce rates are inevitable - even to your most loyal customers, they aren't always going to be interested. But don't mistake bounce rates for a lack of interest - if your entire website is relevant to the general interest of a social media website, there will always be a handful of users who will begin to track your website for future content.

Don't forget about the secondary traffic either, which I think is more important in the end. General websites or blogs with the same interest will link to your content because it helps add value for their users and readers alike. Most of the time, this is done naturally on a daily basis.

Primary traffic might come in larger volumes, but secondary traffic build links from other websites and ultimately delivers their traffic to your website. This help build your brand, establish your presence online, ultimately making it more valuable in the end.

Why you must consider Social Media Marketing?

You could ignore the power of social media marketing, who needs it? After all, you could stick with link exchanges, banner purchasing, editorial ads and search advertising. You certainly could, but why would you?

Social media marketing:

Is natural. Not only do you get natural links back to your website, it is also is exposed to large groups of people in an unpredictable fashion.
Successfully mastered social communities can be a great source of web traffic that helps boost your ranking and add to your already established search engine results.
It's a low-cost/high return business model. If you do it yourself, costs are limited and the only time and expense you have involves hiring freelancers to do it. Ultimately, the benefits exceed the cost - it would take you thousands of dollars to purchase links, which some search engines penalize you for doing now, or are starting to. Social media gives you all of the above FREE!
Social Media optimization and marketing normally won't interfere with any methods of getting traffic to your website. This new level of marketing will only add to your already established campaigns - and most of the time, exceed them.

So How Does This Make Me Money?

Directly? It won't - that is not how this method works. Your site needs to perpetuate itself and build upon its established exposure. The more supporters you have, the faster word spreads about your website. And social media websites deliver more traffic on a daily basis, compared to all other web communities. Because social media websites can be leverage for links and better search engine rakings, they ultimately increase your website's potential. For example, you will be able to price ads higher or generate revenue from any paid business model.

The Blog Secret

It is as simple as it sounds, an excellent blog will bring you traffic and sales you need to succeed. There is a secret to blog writing and marketing thereafter - it's very simple. Instead of creating numerous blog posts that ultimately go nowhere, just one excellent blog post, which is then pushed through social media channels and emailed to other bloggers through email pitches.

You can write just one post and get a enormous amount of links and traffic to your website through the use of social media.

Social media marketing is not a secret, but to do it correctly and monetize your brand, and bring in the new traffic you need to succeed - it takes know-how and the willingness to 'give in.' Everyday, I speak with someone who has interest in social media marketing, but are just not sure of how it might work for them and figure it may not be worth the investment. And that is the exact reason why people don't pursue social media marketing, because they are unaware and are not sure to approach it .

Simply put, to ignore this new branding technique of social media marketing, would just be foolish.

By VWI Media

http://www.vwi-media.co.uk

What is Social Media? A Guide to Profiting From Social Networking

SM is an umbrella term that encompasses the technologies and the activities that people use to share experiences, ideas and information with each other. The term is still evolving. The term "SOCIAL MEDIA" most often refers to activities that integrate technology, social (or human) interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio - better known as "user generated content" [an example of UGC would be videos on YouTube.]

Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowdsourcing (crowd outsourcing), and voice over IP, to name a few.

Examples of social media applications are Google Groups (reference, social networking), Wikipedia (reference), MySpace (social networking), Facebook (social networking), Youmeo (social network aggregation), Last.fm (personal music), YouTube (social networking and video sharing), Second Life (virtual reality), Flickr (photo sharing), Twitter (social networking and microblogging) and other microblogs such as Jaiku and Pownce.

--- What is Social Media Marketing (SMM)?

SMM is where you use social media networking and user-generated content platforms to promote a product, service or content. SMM typically involves creating and participating in a "conversation" with the target audience, rather than blatantly advertising to them.

SMM can also include creating and promoting viral content that is meant to be shared by users. Many marketers are not comfortable with the lack of control over social media but when approached properly, social networks can be extremely effective channels for building product evangelism, reputation management or corporate branding

--- Why is it becoming so popular?

I believe it's simply because it mirrors our true nature. We are gregarious by nature and for once we are able to use technology easily to reach out and connect in new and exciting ways. It's still all so new too, there are new frontiers popping up regularly and it's a bit like the early Internet "gold rush" days during the 90's

--- Is every Social Media site for every entrepreneur?

They might not think so, but it is. You do it naturally every day, SM online is simply the same thing applied technologically.

--- How does a business owner determine which site is the best match for them?

Good question. Not all SM Sites are equal. I typically advise people to think "classical marketing" and don't let the 'flashing lights' fool you. Visit the site, pat attention to the conversation. "Lurk" for a while. Ask a question, see what happens. Each environment has its own rules. Blunder in and start shouting and you'll get flamed. Respect the environments 'sub culture' and you'll do fine. An obvious example of this in action is a site that caters to "gamers" - you instinctively know that if you're selling insurance you would have a tough time in that environment. Like I said, think like a classical marketer.

--- Are there some "best practices" steps to starting and maintaining your SMM sites? And how do I make social networking work for me?

- Social Media Marketing

Many a company has forgotten the old maxim, "Act in haste, repent at your leisure..." The same warning should be applied to companies rushing to get in on the social media marketing wave.

If you hear things at work like "We should have a blog," or "Let's join Facebook," I suggest [respectfully] that maybe you are about to make a whopper of a mistake.

Here's why...

- Backwards is bad

You are starting your social media strategy design backwards - and this will lead to trouble.

In any other business endeavor we start by figuring out what we want to accomplish. Social media technologies are not magical. They're just tools too. It's time to stop doing social media marketing because it's trendy and instead do it because it works!

- 4 Things to Remember

(1) The web is about people. You need to know your audience. Understand their capabilities, their hangouts online, their language and behaviors. If you're targeting business travelers then consider rating and review sites for example. Just don't guess...

(2) Figure out what will be different when you are done. This is the "why" behind your plans. Do you want to create a close knit community or a product testing ground. Understand the motive's behind your actions.

(3) What outcomes and objectives are you seeking to achieve. Consider the end result and how you will measure it. A fuzzy or fluffy end result is almost as bad as not specifying one at all. How will you measure success?

(4) What technology to choose. Only answer this question when you've completed the others because then you'll know with clarity and confidence.

In conclusion, if you recognize classic business planning and management principles amongst these notes you'd be correct. The game may have changed, but the rules are still the same. Plan first, then act with confidence.

--- How long is this new type of marketing going to take to master?

The actual skills are quite simple - you likely already have them mastered. What you need to learn is the PROCESS. That takes a little time, but frankly not that much.

--- What if I don't know many people to invite to my network?

No problem. Answer this question "If you are the ANSWER, what was the QUESTION?" Armed with that answer you can locate groups of people who would need what you offer. You can then invite them to participate and you can SHARE your knowledge and expertise to PROVE you are the answer to their problem. Use your favourite search engine to locate these people - simply type in the QUESTION or problem. Remember, if people knew the answer they wouldn't be looking :)

--- How can I get business through SMM?

It's a funny thing when I'm asked this. We do it daily, so I marvel at the fact people think it's different online. Sure there's a layer of technology in the mix, but it's still about people getting to know people. Remember the old maxim, people buy from people they like and trust.

SMM simply enables (or should I say empowers) you to do this more effectively.

--- Why Most Brands Fail on Social Networks

A new report from JupiterResearch sheds light on what many online marketers suspected for quite some time. Most brands are failing to make impact on social networks...

Naughton's Law states: "We invariably over-estimate the short-term implications of new communications technologies, and we grievously underestimate their long term impacts." Every brand should be online in the best way, know its consumers, and maximize the benefit of its online offering to those consumers.

Here are some startling facts from the report:

- Startling Facts:

(*) The average branded social networking page has only 6,494 friends.
(*) Many advertisers are still building branded social networking pages that broadcast content rather than inviting users to interact.
(*) "Most advertisers simply don't know how to market properly within social networks." - JupiterResearch

- New Research Suggests:

(*) You should promote your SM pages with paid adverts rather than relying on viral marketing to get the message out. Building viral buzz is harder than you think.
(*) You need to engage users on the page. Even simple forms of engagement, such as contests, on average doubled the number of friends acquired by each branded page.
(*) You must also appeal to social networkers' love of multimedia to get noticed. Social Networkers are twice as likely to visit a branded page focused on media content than a branded page focused on products.

--- How does the non-writer do this type of marketing?

It really shouldn't pose a problem. The 'Net is vast and there's room for each of us to be AUTHENTIC. Even behind the shield of a computer many of us seem able to sense a scoundrel or someone "putting on airs".

If you can email you can do SM. If you can talk you can SM. If you have a pulse... you get the idea.

--- Do the Social Media Marketing sites have fees to pay?

Typically NO. I advise you to initially avoid any sites that ask for payment until you know precisely what you are paying for. There are some good fee based sites out there, but the good ones also offer a free version too - start there if you wish. Let the results determine the level of investment you are prepared to make.

--- Are there some sites that you would recommend for business people?

LinkedIn.com
eCademy.com
SelfGrowth.com
Ning.com - 'create your own' Social Media website.

--- Will I have to spend hours a day keeping in touch with all of the people who write to me?

You will need to invest time and energy in your online marketing. Whether it's YOU that does this or one of your staff is entirely up to you. But you cannot expect a "set and forget" solution to something that is inherently human.

--- How can I protect myself from "weirdoes?"

Be careful. Don't give away sensitive or private information online. You will always be exposed to some degree to odd people. I get some very odd emails and propositions, however you need to remember this is business, and although you are using "personal skills" to network online, never forget that.

--- How can I come across as a professional on these sites, and is it possible to do "real" business this way?

Yes. Publish a professional PROFILE. Show you are a professional and act accordingly and you will be perceived as such. Include family photos of you dressed as a clown at your kids birthday party at your own peril. Remember, online your "goofs" are eternal and will haunt you forever. Online reputation is area you need to tread carefully within. It's a bit off topic, but that's why I tell teenagers that they should be very careful about the pictures and posts they put on these social websites. Because in a few years the recruiters will be Googling them and this will be part of their "resume" and frankly it can be a career killer before it even starts.

--- Why do some people seem to get good results and others just get discouraged?

As with all things in life some people quit too early. Social Media Marketing and Social Networking takes time. It's like any relationship you develop with another human, rushing to the finish just gets you slapped... Metaphorically and literally too!

Also, success online isn't about one big thing, it's about a cluster of little things done consistently with focus and commitment. The strongest trees take the longest to grow. Online things happen a lot faster, but still there is a time commitment, think 6 to 12 months and you'll be thinking along the right lines.

--- Is there a "fast start" strategy once I sign up for a Social media marketing site?

There is. Create a professional profile. Publish some content establishing you as an expert in your field. The 'readers' will approve and so will the search engines. Explore the active or "hot zones" within the SM site, pay attention to the type of communication and then dive in. Give first. Build kudos and credit before you try asking for anything.

To keep up, use technology to "feed" your SM presence from your other sites like your blog or website. I use technology to syndicate and publish my content to all my SM sites with the push of one button. It makes connecting and staying up to date a breeze.

Remember to invite your friends to join you. Add a promotional button on your "other" sites - for instance if you decide to join Twitter, you can put a "Follow Me" link on your website. Connect, Communicate and Commit. Now 'rinse and repeat.'

--- Extra Topics...

- The 16 Rules of Social Media Optimization

Social Media Optimization (SMO) is a set of methods for generating publicity through social media, online communities and community websites. Methods of SMO include adding RSS feeds, adding a Digg or Share This button, blogging and incorporating third party community functionalities like Flickr photo slides and galleries or YouTube videos. Social media optimization is a form of search engine marketing (SEO.)

Social media optimization is in many ways connected as a technique to viral marketing where word of mouth is created not through friends or family but through the use of networking in social bookmarking, video and photo sharing websites. In a similar way the engagement with blogs achieves the same by sharing content through the use of RSS in the blogsphere and special blog search engines such as Technorati.

Rohit Bhargava was credited with inventing the term SMO. His original five rules for conducting Social Media Optimization have grown to 16 (as of today.) For reference, here is an aggregated list so far:

1. Increase your linkability

2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy

3. Reward inbound links

4. Help your content travel

5. Encourage the mashup

6. Be a User Resource, even if it doesn't help you

7. Reward helpful and valuable users

8. Participate

9. Know how to target your audience

10. Create content

11. Be real

12. Don't forget your roots, be humble

13. Don't be afraid to try new things, stay fresh

14. Develop a SMO strategy

15. Choose your SMO tactics wisely

16. Make SMO part of your process and best practices

Much of what is listed here is common sense, some say it just Web2.0 marketing. Whatever you may think it's definitely good advice no matter what. I'm just pleased we are taking the subject seriously now and promoting strategic content creation as an important aspect in the mix.

- 15 Social Media Facts That You Should Know

(1) Approx. 3 out 4 people in North America use the web
(2) Women are a growth area online.
(3) 44% of the Internet users are between the age of 35 and 54.
(4) Approx. 3 out of 4 people in North America use social networks.
(5) They spend an average of 6 hrs a month on these social networks and view more than 800 web pages.
(6) 51% of social network users are female - they also consume about 200 pages more than men and spend an extra 2 hours online.
(7) Canada is a Facebook nation, the USA is a MySpace nation.
(8) 65.7% of Canadians use Facebook each month spending an average of 350 minutes and consuming 725 pages of content.
(9) 35+ is the biggest age growth sector on Facebook.
(10) Online video and multimedia has grown over 300% in North America.
(11) The average length of a video online is 3.4 minutes
(12) 89% of all Internet users have watched a video in the past month.
(13) 57% of all videos are consumed on YouTube.
(14) Blogs reach more than 60% of all (online) people in North America. Blogging is growing at almost twice the rate of the Internet.
(15) Social networking and multimedia has a reach of more than 80% of the North American population.

Bottom line, if you are not engaged in social media conversations with your marketplace, then you face a very uncertain future. As I'm fond of saying "Be Found, Be Noticed or Be History!"

You can also visit us at http://www.a1adminsupport.com for more info on how we can help you grow your business.

Social Media That Will Drive Your Business

Your business can not afford to be without Social Media. Depending on your business or service, on the internet, Social Media or Social Networking starts with a good SEO compatible website then selecting the best forms of Social Media.

Examples of Social Networking would be online communities such as MySpace and Facebook; these are very popular social networks of personal profiles, groups, blogs, photos, music and videos. Flickr is also commonly used today to share photos and YouTube is extremely popular for video sharing. There are other different forms of Social Media or Social Networking such as, internet forums, message boards, weblogs, podcasts, linking and blogging.

Social Media has different characteristics from traditional media such as newspapers, television, books and radio. The bottom line, social media depends on interactions between people or groups of people. An audience can participate in social media by adding comments, bookmarking or posting links, sharing files (websites, photos, videos, etc.), collecting connections or even just reading and following links. Content in social media can be text, graphics, audio or video. Several of the formats can be mixed and usually available via feeds, enabling users to subscribe via feed readers, and allowing other publishers to create.

Social Media Optimization or SMO is a process where content gets more widely distributed across all available Social Media networks. SMO refers to professional services that can improve a website by including or adding links to various services so webpages can be easily saved and submitted. Social Media Optimization includes good content writing that is unique and informative. SMO services can popularize your website via multiple social media outlets and off-page work can include getting involved in other blogs, forums, and niche networks or communities.

Search Engine Marketing or SEM involves utilization of all Social Networking platforms to brand your product or service website using techniques of effective mechanics and communication to the end user and consumer. By getting your website well-known on all the different social media networks, you are spreading the word about your company to all the search engines as well seeing as they crawl through all those social networks.

Social Media Marketing or SMM is marketing to achieve branding and internet marketing using Social Media or Social Networking. Social Media Marketing would be lost without effective and proven Social Media Optimization. This usually involves a campaign which differs for every business or organization but will build brand awareness, increase visibility and get feedback with dialog to possibly sell a product or service with measured results.

For more information about social media check out What is Social Media? or to contact us about our SEO or professional web design services, please visit our website: http://www.seocompatibledesign.com

Why should I use social media for their marketing efforts?

There are many reasons why you should use social media in their marketing efforts. More and more people continue to enjoy the benefits that come with this type of marketing. The following are some of the main reasons why this strategy should be used in their efforts. Reason number one why you should always consider this form of marketing is because it is free. Free advertising is definitely a plus for everyone wishing to expand and grow their business. The use of blogs, networks such as Facebook and Twitter are all free avenues or social media to permanently adapt to serve you at no cost.

Another reason why marketers all choose to stick with social media is the fact that you may experience rapid results. For example, to create a website or blog, you can get thousands of people to view it in a single day and there is no comparison with other forms of marketing. For this reason, those who have opted to have business online are growing by the minute and this is definitely an encouraging turn of events for the future for marketers is brilliant.

Another good reason why you should use the social media marketing efforts is the flexibility that witnessed. You can direct your chosen audience and they have other options when you want to change the audience. For example, there are networking sites social news sites and the list goes on. It is on you to choose what you want to capture for its market niche. Flexibility in marketing is gold. It is also a form of advertising that gets easier over time.

For example, there are many bloggers who will start slow but over time his initial effort will make things easier as you increase the number of readers. There is a sense of hope and optimism which is crucial in any marketing campaign. This form of marketing will help you to get valuable links. These inbound links mean that your blog or website is getting more traffic over time, and this is the basis of every success in social media advertising. They are well aware that the personal brand is crucial if you want to succeed in business. Social media marketing will help develop a brand that see you to drive your business to greater heights. A brand name can easily develop and certainly an added advantage.

Due to the valuable links, their search engine rankings will rise. This is what they want online business by what they can maximize their potential. There are many other reasons why you should use social media in their marketing efforts. It is essential to mention, so not require too long and you can easily promote your business. The future is a social platform provided by Internet - you don't want to be left behind. This is the time to consider this great option and see how it will work for you; they will be not disappointed.

Mario remedies is a coach counter and business to help entrepreneurs improve their bottom line. Learn how to take your business to the next level and take advantage of the latest business advice visiting EliteAccountingPro.com.

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