Social Media Marketing Resources

5 Social Media Productivity Tips

2012-01-13T17:35:00.000-08:00

When is the last time you asked someone how things are going and didn’t get this response: “I’m so busy!” In fact, that is the only answer I think I’ve heard over the last two years.

Everyone is busy, including you. Instead of using “I’m busy” as an excuse (though true it may be) to let your social media profiles go untouched; try out a few of these tips to help make yourself more productive:

Make a Recurring Calendar Reminder – Set aside (and limit yourself) to 30 minutes every day to update your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. with just a quick post. Maybe that post is a link to an interesting article or a note about a restaurant you’re headed to. Regardless of what it is, make sure you’re posting regularly. Otherwise, what is the point of having an account?
Quality Over Quantity – Set up Google Alerts for a topic that you care about. Post links to those articles for your friends and colleagues to read. This is a great way to ensure your content is valuable.
Skim Quickly – Avoid rabbit holes when reading your timeline or newsfeed. Skim for the most interesting information and “Ctrl + Click” the links you’d like to go back to when you’re bored during your lunch hour. Oh, and remember to “Like” (on Facebook), “+1” (on Google+), or retweet (on Twitter) your favorite posts. ;)
Install Apps on Your Phone – I’m going to go out on a limb and make the assumption that you, like the majority of the United States, have a smart phone. Install the app for each of the social media sites you have profiles on. This makes maintaining and updating your profiles a breeze.
Respond When You See It – If someone comments on your page or tweets at you, respond when you see it. This ensures you’ll remember to respond and let’s face it, everyone loves a quick response.

New Year Goals, Not Resolutions

2011-12-31T21:32:00.000-08:00

2011 for me personally has been a year of immense growth and change. I moved across the country, met a lot of new people, changed jobs, and completed two textbooks.

I’m looking forward to what 2012 will bring and instead of making resolutions that I will inevitably fail to stick to, I’ve decided to set goals. I don’t plan to reinvent myself overnight, nor do I want to. I’ve spent a good deal of time thinking about what these goals should be and I hope you will find something you can borrow for the New Year both online and offline.

1. Once a week, do something that pushes you out of your comfort zone.

Online: Join a new group on LinkedIn and post a question you’ve been dying to get the answer to. Connect with someone in your field that you’ve never met and start a dialogue.

Offline: Go to a social event alone. Yes, I said alone. Force yourself to interact with people you’ve never met before. It will be worth it.

I’m cheating. I’ve already started working on getting out of my comfort zone in 2011. I spent nearly 14 weeks living out a suite case as a vagabond of sorts traveling around the west coast. This was something that sincerely threw me for a loop as I’m the type of person that values my personal space (having a place of my own, etc.). It was frightening and liberating all at once and I recommend it.

2. Moderation.

Online: Be wary of jumping into every social media platform available for your business and personally. This is a quick way to spread yourself too thin and maintain only a moderate presence (at best), thus, losing out on a lot of value of these platforms.

Again, cheating. I’ve recently deleted a number of accounts I had on some social media platforms that I simply didn’t have the time to engage on.

Offline: Ask yourself, do you really need that last slice of pie? Instead of the old “I’m going to eat healthy this year! I’m going to work out every day!” do something realistic, make a point of sneaking in a little exercise and eating a little less every day.

I recently tried to run three miles every other day. I was exhausted all the time as a result because I pushed too hard too fast. Instead, I walk to and from work every day and try to take a walk during lunch. I’ve been in much better health and I don’t feel exhausted 24/7.

Simple, right? Two realistic goals for 2012. What are your goals for the new year?

How will I find the best Social Media Marketer available?

2011-10-10T12:21:00.000-07:00

It has been a long while since I’ve posted a blog. A lot has happened over the course of June, July, August, and September.

Lime Kiln Point, San Juan Island

We (three coauthors and I) finished the first college textbook on social media marketing. It will be available March 2012. Keep an eye out for Social Media Marketing: A Strategic Approach.
Since the beginning of July I’ve been working (remotely) as the Director of Communications for Own Point of Sale.
Travel. In June, I drove up and down the east coast in my visit to Cape Cod and flew to Ann Arbor, MI to meet with Own Point of Sale. Then, during July I flew from Washington DC to Spokane, WA to visit family. In August/September, I spent a couple of weeks in Los Angeles, CA, flew to Portland, OR, drove from Portland through Seattle, WA to visit the San Juan Islands, and flew to Ann Arbor, MI for work. I then flew to Washington DC (my former home) packed my things and made a cross country road trip to move back to the best coast (I mean, west coast). ;)

To say the least, it has been an adventurous couple of months but I have not forgotten about social media by any means. During this time I also attended a few small business professional meetings and had a chance to answer some questions about social media and how to hire someone to handle social media for your business.

One question and answer I felt was worth sharing:

How will I find the best Social Media Marketer available?

First, avoid “Experts” – more specifically, don’t go for the self-proclaimed expert. Look to recommendations from previous clients and employers to tell you if they have expertise in the field. It seems today that everyone with a Facebook profile or Twitter page is calling him/herself a social media expert, guru, diva, etc. The truth is, the field is so rapidly evolving that no one can legitimately claim to be a social media expert (platform specific sure, but the field is far too broad).

Instead, it is best to look for someone with prior hands on experience actually doing social media marketing for a company or client. Odds are, you’d be better off with someone who has maintained social media pages as an intern than any of the “experts” out there. I have heard from too many people how they hired an expert and came out with very little executable knowledge of how to improve their company’s social media presence.

Second, post the job listing to a social media platform like LinkedIn Jobs. Finding and applying for the job through a social media platform shows that he/she does have (at least) a base understanding of social media.

Third, conduct an online background check. Look at all the pages he/she provides you with links to and even ones that he/she doesn’t. Read the content posted through his or her blog, Twitter, and corporate pages that he/she has managed. So, what are you looking for? You’re looking to see two things: (1) is he/she using proper grammar (avoid people who use slang, that is not how you want your business portrayed) and (2) can he/she phrase things succinctly (with social media platforms like Twitter, there is a character limit and your employee has to be able to convey your message with the fewest words possible).

Sharing Your Location Online - Secure?

2011-05-18T07:55:00.000-07:00

There has been a spur of applications and social sites like Foursquare that allow and even encourage you to share your location. It seems as though many people believe, “This is totally secure, I just want to tell my friends where I am!”

If this is your rationale, think again. Yiannis Kakavas, a graduate student at Germany’s Technischen University developed an application called “Creepy.” This application aggregates geolocation information from your tweets, Facebook check-ins, and other geolocation information that you share to create a map of where you are. Disturbing isn’t it? This application was created as a cautionary tale to posting your location online. In addition to this application, a whole website has been created to remind people of the danger of sharing your location online. This website is PleaseRobMe.com. It simply aggregates publicly shared check-ins from various sites and applications. It’s becoming far too easy to determine where people are thanks to these check-in functions.

Someone I've never met who added me on Foursquare.

As a personal experiment, I decided to set up a Foursquare account and mention just one location I had been to (after the fact, so it didn’t register as a check-in) and see how many people would add me. Note: Adding me give me access to all of your check-ins. After just a few months, I have 29 people (two I’ve actually met) who were willing to share all of their check-ins with me. What is the benefit of sharing your location with someone you’ve never met? The answer to this question still eludes me.

I can see from a socializing standpoint how this might seem like a great service. What a convenient way to find out where your friends (the ones you know in person) are and meet up! But there can be a downside as proven by the application Creepy and PleaseRobMe.com. The phrase “buyer beware” comes to mind here. It is really up to us as users to be weary of what we share online and who we share it with. If you’re still dead set on sharing your location, be sure to set your check-ins to private and don’t add people to your Foursquare profile (etc.) that you’ve never met.

I'll be taking a vacation soon and believe me, you won't know where or when I'm gone until I return. No check-ins for this gal. ;)

For more information on this topic, check out these articles:

How Location-Based Social Networking Gets Creepy

An App For Stalkers: 'Creepy' Geo-Locates Based On SocialNetworking Activity

Are We All Asking to Be Robbed?

LinkedIn: Get on board or lose out!

2011-04-09T13:51:00.000-07:00

Here is a fantastic Info Graphic that really shows the importance of getting on LinkedIn:

[Source: OnlineMBA.com]

(Courtesy of http://www.onlinemba.com/blog/linkedin/)

Why you should have been promoting this Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T18:26:00.000-08:00

Ah yes, Valentine’s Day, a.k.a. the pseudo holiday.

It has been a while since my last post, but I thought it would be appropriate timing to discuss social media holiday promotions. Why are they so darn effective? No, this is not going to be a rant about how much I hate corporate America for over-hyping such holidays. In fact, I love corporate America.

If you are a business and NOT running a contest, discount, or giving away freebees through social media today, you are missing out.

A few reasons your business should be doing something to celebrate the holidays:

1. Facebook, Twitter, etc. have the highest amount of traffic on holidays

- Why is this? Working people are at home. Most companies give their workers the day off when there is holiday (not Valentine’s Day specifically). Those workers find themselves with extra time on their hands and typically spend it on the social networking sites that they are discouraged from going to during the work day.

2. People are in a good mood (the holiday spirit)

- As a social media marketer, it is our job to cease the opportunity by giving sales, freebies, etc. to build on this ‘holiday spirit.’

3. People are looking for gift ideas

- Provide the means to satisfy this need! Create a contest, giveaway, etc.

Starting to see a trend? No, it is not take advantage of your customers or prospective customers!

Bottom Line: Use this time of year to your advantage to build customer loyalty through catering to their mood and situation. Who knows, maybe you will help make one of your customer’s holiday just a little bit brighter.

Here are some examples of holiday promotions that I'm working on:

www.facebook.com/RoboForm

www.facebook.com/GoodSync

What promotions are you running this Valentine's Day?

A New Year's Resolution You Can Stick To!

2010-12-31T12:28:00.000-08:00

Forget these resolutions. Make one you can stick to!!

With 2011 right around the corner, it is the perfect time to make a new year’s resolution for your social media efforts!

Let’s say you’ve got a few accounts started and have been maintaining it for a few months. You might be asking yourself, now what? Just keep tweeting? Just keep posting information? Wrong. It is easy to just keep passively maintaining accounts on various platforms (Twitter, Facebook, etc.). After you get a few accounts up and running there are three words that should immediately come to mind.

Monitor. Measure. Tune.

Don’t have a new year’s resolution yet? Here is one that you can actually stick to! Make a resolution this year to monitor, measure, and tune your social media strategy frequently.

At a minimum, every few months you should assess your progress in social media (e.g., look at growth in followers, comments, responses, etc.). Then, tune your marketing plan based on the feedback to optimize goal achievement. Reevaluate and adjust your social media marketing plan to account for the ever changing nature of consumer tastes and the social web. For example, if the number of followers on your Twitter account is declining, you can adjust your content to more closely match your target market’s interests. If the number of responses to your tweets is declining, you can adjust your strategy by asking a question at the end of each tweet that inspires people to respond. In short, planning and executing a social media marketing campaign is a never ending cycle. You should constantly monitor and tune your strategies to maximize the impact of your campaign.

Here you will find more information on the topic:

(Notice: the last step for the social media strategies is monitor, measure, and tune)

2011 Prediction: Facebook will not be the only game in town!

2010-12-23T18:39:00.000-08:00

PREDICTION: Facebook will not be the only game in town come 2011; be ready to take advantage of marketing opportunities on new social networks!

FYI: I realize this is longer than my usual post, but bear with me. Facebook's recent domination means I have a lot of ground to make up.

The infamous leak of 100 million Facebook user pages in July of 2010 caused a scare among users and created what may turn out to be a golden opportunity for potential competitors. A security researcher, Ron Bowes, created a script that downloaded the information that users chose to make publicly available from the Facebook User Directory. Hence, this alleged leak was actually nothing more than the collection and publication of user information already made public by 100 million Facebook users.

Facebook also suffers a host of other privacy concerns including: (1) Facebook’s complex security settings leaving users unaware of their personal data being public, (2) hackers have repeatedly defeated Facebook security to harvest user information, (3) a growing number of Facebook applications provide easy access to member data, and (4) Facebook’s own connect buttons make user information readily available to other sites. The net result is that user privacy on Facebook is virtually nonexistent. With security being brought to the forefront of users’ minds, it is an ideal time for a security-conscious social network. One prime candidate, although still in Alpha, is Diaspora. This new social networking site touts the not so subtle security slogan, “Share what you want, with whom you want.” They stress user ownership of all content shared with friends. Other social networks are in the works for release in early 2011 as well, like Google Me.

If history proves anything, Facebook’s ‘monopoly’ is temporary. Looking at the last decade alone, there were two cases in which the public feared a company was ‘taking over’ the internet. In early 2000, people panicked that AOL was taking over. Ultimately, AOL faltered, chief among the reasons was a single-minded focus on mining the then lucrative Internet dial-up access business. MySpace is another example: officially launched in 2004 and by 2005, MySpace was the king of the Internet, with a base of nearly 80 million users. News Corp. purchased MySpace in 2005 and immediately tried to monetize it by inserting advertising into nearly every aspect of the user experience. MySpace peaked in 2007, with 150 million users, but due to the barrage of ads, it plummeted to 109 million users by mid-2010. The moral of story is that Internet titans come and go.

BOTTOM LINE: Why should this matter to businesses? The answer is simple.

Keeping an eye on these emerging social networks enables a company to be in on the ground floor, seizing market share, and reaping profits from a growing customer base. Given the large user base Facebook has acquired, businesses should continue to market there, but remain vigilant for other valuable social network marketing opportunities. The importance of diversification in marketing efforts also holds true for social media marketing. Focusing marketing efforts entirely on Facebook could prove to be a dangerous strategy in 2011.

Twitter Tragedy - Must walk before you run.

2010-12-05T13:07:00.000-08:00

The idea that all you need to do is create a Twitter account for a business and tweet occasionally, is a dangerous one. While measuring an ROI on social media marketing can be difficult, that doesn’t mean you can or should forget about setting goals. As an example, the apartment complex I currently reside in launched a social media campaign back in August, “We’ve gone social!” and they promoted their accounts (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) with fliers and t-shirts, which was not a bad start. But as the last few months passed by it became evident that they did not create any goals for their Twitter page.

So how do you avoid tweeting 174 times and get not a single follower? You establish definitive and measurable goals. Social media marketing goals include: improving brand awareness, search engine rankings, relevant site traffic, and conversions performance (e.g., sales for a product or service), as well as reputation management and engaging with consumers.

The challenge for some of these goals, such as engaging with consumers, is to make them specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely (SMART). The following are examples of SMART goals for four popular types of social media: image and video sharing sites, social networking sites, blogs, and microblogs (Twitter).

Image and Video Sharing Sites:

30% growth in the number of images or videos viewed within four months
10% increase in the number of subscribers to your channel or stream within four months
20% increase in average rankings of images or videos by viewers within four months

Social Networking Sites:

20% growth in the number of friends within five months
30% growth in the number of comments within five months
40% growth in the number of posts and comments in discussion groups within five months

Blogs:

20% improvement in the ratio of posts to comments (i.e., visitor's comments/posts=conversions) within six months
40% growth in total number of views within six months
10% growth of RSS subscribers within six months

Microblogs (Twitter):

20% growth in number of followers within 30 days
30% growth in the number of retweets (message amplification) within 30 days
10% increase in click-through-rate (CTR) of the links posted in tweets within 30 days (Hint: Observing which types of links garner the highest CTRs can help you tune your tweets to provide what your consumers with links they are interested in and, hence, further improve your CTR.)
5% increase in Web site conversions (e.g., sales) from tweet links within 30 days

Avoid wasted effort by establishing definitive and measurable goals.

Don't Get Stuck in a Social Media Rut!

2010-11-20T12:18:00.000-08:00

If you're looking at using social media for promotion, odds are that you have already defined your target market. Taking on or ramping up your presence on social media means that you need to keep a close eye on each platform (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) that you’re using. Each social media platform has distinctive features and means of communication.

It is easy to get lost in the “tactics” aspect of each platform and forget to adjust your strategy. The tactics only mindset of “I’m using Twitter so I must tweet once a day” is a dangerous one. Simply posting a tweet once a day without having a strategy or structure of evaluation will get you nowhere fast. So, how do you avoid getting stuck in this mindset of what tactics will I use? The answer lies in what I like to call the 8 C’s of the Social Media Marketing Mix.

By keep in mind the 8 C's of the Social Media Marketing Mix for each social media platform, you will avoid getting in a rut with your social media marketing efforts:

Categorize social media platforms by target market relevancy (i.e., the ones where your target audience resides)
Comprehend the "rules of the road" on the platform by listening and learning how to behave, successfully spark conversation, and engage and energize the participants
Converse by acknowledging and responding to other users of the platform, always remembering to be a contributor, not a promoter
Collaborate with platform members as a means of establishing a mutually beneficial relationships with the platform participants
Contribute content to build your reputation and become a valued member, helping to build the community
Connect with the influencers, so you can enlist them to help shape opinions about your product or service
Community creation enables you to build discussion forums where consumers can suggest product ideas and receive customer support.
Conversion of strategy execution into desired outcomes (e.g., increased brand awareness, website traffic, sales, etc.)

In the event you have not established a target market, here are some resources that will provide more information on how define your target market:

Five Steps to Defining Your Target Market

How To Find And Sell To Your Target Market

Biggest Social Media Marketing Blunders in 2010

2010-11-04T16:23:00.000-07:00

Many consider 2010 to be the year of "social media." It is also the year that many large corporations had major social media blunders. Some were the result of over reaction to social media attacks by organizations like Greenpeace (see the Nestlé case study below). In addition, Greenpeace effectively used Dove's own social media marketing campaign against them to pressure the parent company Unilever to reduce the use of palm oil from Indonesia, which destroys the rain forest (details below). Other corporations needed no help in shooting themselves in the foot. Perhaps the biggest social media disaster (not to mention ecological disaster) in 2010 was BP (British Petroleum) botched social media and search engine marketing campaigns in reaction to their massive oil spill in the Gulf. Imagine asking for help using social media platforms like YouTube, then turning off the comment feature! Naturally, the social Web did not take these types of patent attempts at manipulation laying down (for more, read "The Counter BP Social Media Campaign").

Of course, P&G’s PR response to the backlash against the introduction of a new Pamper diaper that may cause rashes is the quintessential example of breaking the Prime Directive of social media marketing: be honest and transparent. In an attempt to quash the panic about the new diaper, P&G "recruited" four influential "mommy bloggers" with a trip to Cincinnati to meet with company experts for a briefing, and then these new advocates for the product started blogging positive reviews, without being completely transparent about their compensation. Indeed, these bloggers may be violating Federal Trade Commission (FTC) laws regarding endorsements and testimonials. Worse yet, it appears that some of the posts may have been written for them to nothing more than well crafted propaganda.

Even Southwest Airlines, known for its social media savvy, got taste of what happens when you of lapse in customer service in throwing celebrity Kevin Smith off a plane for being too fat to fly in one seat. Smith's Tweets about the incident were not only widely read and hilarious, but a PR nightmare for the airlines (see last link for the scoop).

To learn more about some of the bigger social media marketing blunders of 2010, check out these resources:

Got an article published in Changing Careers Magazine!

2010-10-19T17:04:00.000-07:00

Also can be found on page 27 here:

http://www.changingcareersmagazine.co.uk/2010issues/Issue15/pageflip.html http://www.changingcareersmagazine.co.uk/2010issues/Issue15/pageflip.html

Writing the First Textbook on Social Media Marketing!

2010-10-10T09:59:00.000-07:00

I’m thrilled to announce that I recently signed the contracts to write what should be the first textbook on Social Media Marketing. I will be coauthoring the book with Nick Bormann, Krista Neher, and Donald Barker. Each of us has expertise in our field, which I believe will mesh to create a textbook that will be suitable for undergraduate and graduate programs alike. Together we bring a wealth of knowledge of social media, textbook writing, and economics to the table.

A little background on what drove my father (Donald Barker) and I to pitch the idea of a Social Media Marketing textbook to Cengage Learning:

(1) I’m currently teaching a course in Social Media Marketing through Spokane Falls Community College and have to use a trade book to teach the course. While the book I found is adequate, I really wanted to find a book that covered all the platforms and provided strategy.

(2) There are a multitude of trade books about Social Media Marketing on the market but nothing quite right for a classroom.

(3) With many community colleges and graduate programs starting to offer courses (and some certificates) in Social Media Marketing, it seems like a perfect opportunity to fill the need for a textbook on the subject.

Our textbook will have an emphasis on strategy. In addition, the book will provide a variety of case studies and cover all the major social media platforms. With hard work and a little luck, we hope to have this book published in one year’s time.

Listening - the Start of Social Media Reputation Management

2010-09-21T10:50:00.000-07:00

In August of 2009, a customer service catastrophe befell Maytag, when the popular author, blogger, and mom, Heather Armstrong (known as "Dooce"), vented her understandable frustration with poor customer service by tweeting to her million plus followers the nightmare she experienced in attempting to get a brand new $1,300 washing machine fixed. With her new baby laundry piling up, Dooce chronicled her repeated attempts to get Whirpool (Maytag's parent company) to fix the faulty washer. After a final clash on the phone with snide customer service representative, she advised her immense Twitter following to NEVER BUY A MAYTAG! (You can read a summary of the tale by Dooce at Containing a capital letter or two).

This story became so emblematic of the power of social media that in the recently released, "Empowered," the authors (one of which coauthored the bestseller, "Groundswell") opened the book
with the tale. Although Maytag monitored Twitter for negative comments about its brand, the company failed to engage with the customer and solve the problem in timely public manner. The moral of this story is that listening to the social Web is not enough, a company must respond quickly and transparently, when its reputation and brand are under attack.

Indeed, "Empowered" followed the Maytag reputation disaster with how Best Buy avoided the same type of problem with its Twelpforce. In this second tale, a buyer of new iPhone encountered terrible customer service at a Best Buy, when his iPhone broke. The dissatisfied customer tweeted about the problem and was almost immediately contacted by the Twelpforce, a rapid Twitter response team pioneered by John Bernier. The problem was fully resolved, quickly and publicly, turning a potential Maytag-situation into a big PR win for Best Buy. Again, the message is clear, listening to the social Web is a good start, however, rapid and transparent action is a must to ensure that a company's reputation not only remains intact, but improves.

To discover how to accomplish this task on Twitter, check out the resources below:

Careers Opportunities in Social Media Marketing!

2010-08-27T11:41:00.000-07:00

How hot is social media marketing (SMM)? According to the CMO Survey, sponsored by the Duke University Fuqua School of Business and American Marketing Association, social media spending is expected to grow by a whopping 300 percent in the next 5 years!

What does the rapid growth in social media spending mean for jobs in the field? The Social Media Influence report, The State of Social Media Jobs 2010, found that, “The number of social media job postings has increased by more than 600 percent to over 21,000 in the past five years.” Moreover, the demand for social media marketers is expected to continue and expand rapidly, as more corporations embrace social media as viable marketing strategy. Admittedly, in relative terms, the number of SMM jobs is still small compared to traditional PR, marketing, and advertising positions. Despite the diminutive size, social media jobs are where the rapid growth is occurring, while the conventional positions are shrinking or stagnant.

To learn more about the career opportunities in social media marketing, check out the following resources:

Next Big Thing in Social Media!

2010-08-16T11:37:00.001-07:00

HTML clipboard
Image by anaclaradallavalle

Recently, I took some time to examine past trends in information technology. It was interesting to see what the experts have forecasted over the last couple of decades. So, how accurately have past pundits been in predicting the course of new information technologies? Back in the 1970s, expert systems were going to revolutionize the way businesses were run, acquiring and preserving corporate know-how in decision-making software. It turned out that expert systems were simply too "brittle" to capture the knowledge necessary to make decisions in complex real world situations. The limitations of logic-based machines caused them to "breakdown" when attempting to address the messy circumstances that human thinking effectively deals with every day.

Nonetheless, it is worth pointing out that there have been significant technology predictions that eventually bore fruit, such as automated speech recognition. In general, however, history hasn't been kind to futurists, especially those that have forecasted huge technological leaps in short periods. As an example, some social media pundits envision human-machine interfaces, making the Internet (and social media) an integral part of our minds (--talk about an "electronic leash"!).

With the above caveats in mind, enjoy the following provocative speculations about the future of social media.

Admittedly, most will likely turn out to be wrong or take longer than expected, and perhaps the most important ones will go entirely unforeseen by the experts. I look forward to hearing your reactions to these forecasts and, of course, your own predictions about the future of social media.

Promoting Your Business with a YouTube Video!

2010-08-09T08:20:00.001-07:00

Okay, admit it, most of you have sneaked a peak at YouTube videos like the one showing Bruce Lee playing ping pong with nun-chucks.

Image by Dr. LoveMachine

Beyond being fun, YouTube can also be a powerful marketing tool for your business. However, you must produce something of interest that will not only attract viewership, but provide value to your company. In addition, you need to effectively promote your video on YouTube. Is it worth all this effort? YouTube is now the third most popular site on the Web, so--in a word, the answer is YES!

The following resources explain how to tap into YouTube's marketing power for your business:

Creating Engaging Social Media Content!

2010-08-02T13:25:00.000-07:00

Image from Jack Bogdan

Perhaps the most important tenant of social media marketing is participation. Participating in the social Web can take many forms, including creating and maintaining your own blog, commenting on other blogs at places like Blogger, contributing to discussion forums and groups, such as on Yahoo! Groups, partaking in social networks, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, developing compelling YouTube videos, sharing images on Flickr, collaborating to produce Wikipedia content, ranking, tagging, and sharing your favorite sites on bookmarking services like
delicious and StumbleUpon, and using Twitter to converse with your potential customers.

So, how do you create engaging content that really "connects" with your audience on the social Web? The following resources provide a variety of ways to spark conversations on the social Web:

Putting Twitter to Work for Your Business!

2010-07-26T14:13:00.000-07:00

Image by hellvetica

It is not readily apparent to many businesspeople how to use Twitter to influence consumers, build brands, gather customer feedback, or do much of anything beyond following the daily shopping habits of a supermodel or movie star. However, since this microblogging platform has over 190 million users, with a likely 50 million users by yearend, Twitter's popularity alone makes it worth investigating as a social media marketing tool.

From small companies to mega-corporations, businesses are finding innovative ways to use Twitter to inexpensively and precisely target consumers, informing them of new products and services, and even providing product support. Take for example Microsoft's Twitter-based customer support for Windows 7, which offers real-time responses to consumer questions about Windows 7.

On the other end of the spectrum is the comparatively diminutive Web site BBGeeks, which used Twitter to "further its brand, get traffic and gain backlinks," as documented in a highly informative and detailed case study. Regardless of the size of the company, consumers must be willing to "follow" them on Twitter. The resources below present a variety of ways to accomplish this goal, as well as many other ideas for using Twitter to promote your business:

Creating a Social Media Marketing Plan

2010-07-19T08:57:00.001-07:00

Image by juhansonin

Business planning is perhaps that single most important action you can take in improving the chances of success in a new venture. The same goes for social media marketing--creating a well researched and carefully thought out plan will lay the foundational cornerstone you can use to build a winning social media campaign.

A social media marketing plan consists of (1) listening to the social Web to identify your target markets and a baseline of your current Web presence, (2) establishing definitive and measurable goals, (3) designing innovative strategies to achieve these milestones, (4) selecting the appropriate social media to effectively reach your target markets, (5) crafting compelling content to attract and influencing your audiences, (6) making sure your products or services live up to their promise, (7) monitoring and measure your progress on a regular basis, and (8) reevaluating and adjusting your SMM plan to account for the ever changing nature of consumer tastes and the social Web.

The following resources explain how to put these steps into action:

Overview of social media marketing planning:

Implementing Social Media Marketing Campaigns!

2010-07-12T00:00:00.000-07:00

Image Gary Hayes

These days, everyone seems to be a trumpeting a new wiz-bang social media marketing strategy guaranteed to pump up your company's online presence. Consultants crank out social media marketing books and experts abound with advice. The bottom line is that like with any marketing effort, social media marketing campaigns must be carefully planned, executed, monitored, and tuned. The following resources provide some insights about how to accomplish these tasks:

Corporate Blogging!

2010-07-05T10:42:00.000-07:00

Image by Ivan Walsh

Contributing to the social Web is the quintessential element to any successful social media marketing effort. These contributions can range from developing a persuasive product or service YouTube video to setting up a company fan page on Facebook. One method gaining popularity is the corporate blog. A corporate blog provides a way to directly interact with your customers to craft a company personality, convey your company values and beliefs, empower customers, gather invaluable feedback, generate excitement about new products or services, and generally enhancing your company's presence on the social Web.

However, producing a corporate blog can be tricky. The key is to offer value, while not beating the consumer over the head with the "company line." You want to be informative, while avoiding the appearance of simply spouting "company propaganda." In addition, you a want to be personal, modest, and most important--tell an intriguing story. The majority of corporate blogs have trouble attracting viewers. By telling a story, you not only attract viewership, but encourage comments.

The following are useful resources for establishing an effective corporate blog, while sidestepping common traps and hazards:

Career Opportunities in Social Media Marketing!

2010-06-29T09:20:00.000-07:00

Image by Nicci Chicago

To learn more about the career opportunities in social media marketing, check out the following resources:

Using Wikipedia to Promote Yourself!

2010-06-22T09:23:00.000-07:00

Given the effort required to contribute to Wikipedia and follow the many rules and restrictions, why would anyone (especially a business) take the time to become a respected member of the Wikipedia community? The answer is simple--it is establishes you as an online authority and helps endow you with credibility in specific subject categories.

To achieve this status, however, you should keep in mind that the bottom line is to contribute, don't spam.

The following resources offer tips, guidelines, and suggestions how to become an accomplished Wikipedian, along some words of caution:

Social Media vs Marketing

2010-06-16T14:56:00.001-07:00

Image by davefleet

Joe sat in the meeting, dreaming wistfully of the days when he job as marketing director consisted entirely of identifying a market segment with unmet needs and organizing his company's marketing mix (products, distribution, pricing, and promotion) to satisfy those unmet needs better than his competitors. In other words, the good-old-days. Now this
twenty-something social media marketing consultant was telling him how his company's reputation and carefully crafted brand image were being threatened by something called the blogosphere.

With each additional word from her, the last wisps of Joe's illusion of control over medium and message evaporated, leaving him only with the cold reality of the new order--the social Web. However, all is not lost for the Joe's of the world--if they realize and capitalize on the fundamental differences between traditional marketing and social media marketing. The very definition of conventional marketing screams the word control. In the past, the marketer control everything from the decisions of who to target and how to distribute to which mediums and messages to push out. But social media is like the Wild West, where the will of the crowd rules, with mob deciding what to discuss, where to discuss it, what to say, and when to say it.

Nonetheless, by understanding the shift from control to influence, marketers like Joe can gain a foothold in a new dream--one where he can defend and possibly even enhance his company's reputation and brand image by contributing to the social Web with transparency, honesty, and a willingness to listen to the negative comments and address them in a timely manner. By relying on participation instead of interruption (i.e., advertising), Joe might be able to gain a far deeper respect for his company and its products that through conventional promotional methods.

But first, Joe must come to grips with the differences between traditional marketing and social media marketing. To help Joe (and other marketers), I have gathered together a collection of resources that explain in detail these differences. I look forward to hearing your comments about these differences and your own views of how social media and traditional marketing differ.

Social Media Marketing Ethics

2010-05-23T09:15:00.000-07:00

Image by Wonderlane

In the "good old days," marketers and public relations professionals could have "ethical lapses," and employee less than the most scrupulous methods in obtaining results for their companies, clients, and themselves, with little chance of getting caught. No longer...

The advent of the social Web has made dishonest marketing and PR practices difficult, if not impossible, to perpetrate--without eventual detection. For example, a 2006 Osterman Research report (commissioned by BoldMouth) found that it was commonplace for companies to “incentivize” bloggers and influential discussion forum users to post positive reviews about a product or service. These incentives often took the form of giving the blogger the product or service for free in exchange for a glowing assessment.

However, in today's online world, where Google records almost every scrape of information, including social news and gossip, such deceptions are usually uncovered, resulting in massive condemnation by online communities that not only cancel out any gains made by the unethical behavior, but likely cause irreparable harm to the reputation of the perpetrator. When an individual garners this level of mistrust and negative publicity, it is almost always guarantees a detrimental financial impact.

Moreover in October 2009, a WSJ article revealed that, "New guidelines released by the Federal Trade Commission say bloggers must disclose any money or freebies they receive in exchange for writing product reviews." The rules extend to Facebook, Twitter and other social media portals. Bloggers who choose to continue to take payola for favorable reviews risk not only being ostracized by the very communities they need to survive, but now face running a foul of FTC rules and the consequent legal repercussions.

So, it turns out that in social media marketing, mom was right, "Honesty is the best policy." By creating authentic and genuine content, disclosing who are in online conversations, and being transparent (revealing any interest you have in products or services), you will gain the respect of the community where you operate and eventually the members will trust your opinions, which vastly improves your odds of influencing people into making purchase, subscribing to a newsletter, and so on (i.e., conversions).

The resources below provide further tips on how to be a successful social media marketer by following ethical behavioral guidelines:

Using Flickr to Promote Your Business!

2010-05-07T09:05:00.001-07:00

Image by Voj

Flickr is an image sharing service, where many artists and photographers upload their work for free. It is owned by Yahoo!, which Terms of Use explicitly prohibits blatantly exploiting Flickr for any commercial purposes. As an example, uploading a photo that advertises your Web site, company, brand, product, or service would violate this agreement and would likely anger the active Flickr community.

So, how can a business or individual use Flickr to promote themselves? By becoming an active Flickr member and contributor, you can use the following strategies to reap marketing benefits without stepping on anyone's
toes. First, you can use your Web site address (e.g., www.SocialMediaMarketingResources.info or
www.MelissaBarker.com ) as your Flickr screen name, which makes every image you post an advertisement for your Web site. Second, create image tags (descriptive keywords) that include your company, brand, or product name.

Third, include your company information in your Flickr profile. Fourth, link all the images you post on Flickr back to your Web site or blog. That way, people who find your photos can follow the link back to your site, which can increase traffic and, hence, your search engine rankings. Finally, post your images using the Flickr Creative Commons (CC) license, which encourages Web site owners and bloggers to use your images to spice up their sites. The CC license requires sites that use Flickr images to credit their creators by linking back to their Flickr "photostreams." This provide yet another method to promote yourself or your company on Flickr.

The following resources provide details and many more ideas for using Flickr to promote your Web site, company, brand, product, service, or blog:

Targeting Social Media Markets

2010-04-21T11:40:00.001-07:00

Image by partymonstrrr

Perhaps the least discussed and most misunderstood topic in social media marketing is the identification of who your social media audience. There is even disagreement about whether this topic worthy of discussion. Some argue that it makes no sense to attempt to segment your market because those interested in your content will naturally (organically) find you on the social Web, while others believe properly targeting your audience is the key to success in a social media marketing campaign.

As an example, Forrester Research has developed a sophisticated Social Techno-graphic Profile, which classifies market segments not only by traditional demographic and geographic means, but also by the roles people play in social media, such as content creators, critics, collectors, joiners, and spectators. This approach to target marketing social media participants is carefully explained and supported with cases by Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li in their book Groundswell. The power of this model rests on the notion that once a company identifies their audience's makeup and level of participation in the social Web, then the organization can optimize its efforts by focusing on the social media platforms where potential customers are likely to hang out and tailor its approach to the type and level of involvement the target market is likely to engage in.

Whether you see targeting in social media marketing as a waste of time or a valuable tool to avoid wasting time, the following resources will provide insights worth your time. I look forward to hearing your ideas and opinions on the subject.

Social Media Marketing Success Stories

2010-04-03T10:44:00.001-07:00

Image by ThomasThomas

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything
that can be counted counts." -- Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein had the above message hanging on a sign in his office at Princeton. Why? Because he understood (better than perhaps anyone else) that not everything can be quantified. Success in social media marketing certainly falls into this category. No amount of number-crunching can guarantee a home run in every social media marketing campaign. In other words, trial-and-error will always be a necessary part of any social media effort.

So, how can you increase your odds of success in your social media campaign? One way is to look at what has worked for other companies, organizations, and individuals. The following links provide a plethora of social media marketing success stories and case studies. I would love to hear what you think is the most important lesson these stories and studies have to teach us about how to be effective and efficient. In addition, if you have a story to share, please share it with us!

Using Bookmarking Sites to Promote Your Business!

2010-03-18T21:43:00.000-07:00

by Problemo

Social bookmarking is a way to store, manage, and publicly share your favorite Web site links (bookmarks), much like using Favorites or Bookmarks features in an Internet browser. Benefits of using a social bookmarking site include tagging (adding descriptive words to links), voting on links (which ranks them by popularity), and search other people's bookmarks for sites that match your interests.

To use a social bookmarking site, you must register. Popular social bookmarking sites include Delicious, StumbleUpon, Digg, FuzzFizz, Netvouz, Newnooze, Jumptags, and Wikio.

By having quality, relevant, useful, and unique content on your Web site or blog, you can gain votes, which will move your links up in the social bookmarking rankings. Just like with search engine results, higher rankings can translate into additional traffic to your site or blog and, hopefully, more conversions (e.g., sales, subscriptions, etc.). Another strategy to improve your site ranking is to have your friends vote for your site links.

In addition to promoting your site and increasing Web traffic, you can use social bookmarking rankings and tags to spot who is online and what they are interested in. Identifying niche markets with unmet needs and organizing your marketing mix to reach those niche markets and satisfy their unmet needs is not only a smart business strategy, but essential to surviving in this economy.

The following resources provide a variety of ideas and suggestions for using social bookmarking sites to promote and increase your business:

Creating Compelling Social Media Content

2010-03-02T08:44:00.000-08:00

Image by Martin Kingsley

Write it and they will come. Well, not really. Before attempting to create compelling content, you must think about how people will find it. Most Web site traffic comes through search engines, though, recommendations on social portals are playing an increasing role in attracting attention. Clearly identifying the nature of your content with a relevant title and using the right keywords in the piece are a good start at search engine optimization (i.e., getting ranked well in search engine results).

Once Internet denizens find your blog post, article, Facebook page, etc., you need to work at getting them to invest the time to read the content. The easiest way to draw people in is to give away something for free within the post, such as product discounts, MP3s (songs), and so on. Okay, you are buying readership, but in this case the ends do justify the means!

Another approach is to provide useful tips, such as the "Best of...", Worst of...", "Top 10...", or "Five Questions People Forget to Ask..." Or offer a collection of valuable resources (like this blog? ;-) and perhaps the biggest hook, tell a story that stirs emotions (e.g., the small business that beat the odds, the product that deliveries amazing value, etc.).

The following resources explore lots of other valuable tips and suggestions for generating compelling content:

Driving Conversation with Article Directories

2010-02-17T13:17:00.000-08:00

Image by vikram.prashant

Article directories are another incredibly effective way to promote your Web site for free. Article directories are public content depositories, where you can submit articles and Web site owners can pick them up for placement on their own sites. Since there are tens of thousands of ezines (electronic magazines) and other content-heavy sites, the requirement is a never ending for a fresh stream of articles to attract viewership, links, and gain high search engine rankings.

You can generate a large number of relevant links back to your site or blog by writing unique articles and submitting them to these article directories. If you follow the rather strict and lengthy submission guidelines at these article directories and create timely, catchy and well-written stories, your articles are likely to be approved and made available for use by ezines and other sites. If you include links back to your site in the articles, this can create hundreds, even thousands, of inbound links to your site or blog, which can help improve your ranking in search engine results. Ranking at the top of Google search results pages can translate into significant traffic increases to your site or blog and, hence, conversions (i.e., sales, subscribers, viewers, etc.).

The following resources explain why and how to use article directories for promotion:

Putting Podcasting to Work for Your Company

2010-01-26T13:01:00.000-08:00

Image by miss_rogue

A podcast is a series of prerecorded audio or video files stored on your Web site that users can subscribe to and receive on regular intervals. For a business, a podcast provides the unique opportunity to increase your reach and visibility in promoting a brand, product, or service, as well as building customer loyalty. However, podcasts are only useful if you have something of value to say or show and are willing to dedicate the resources to produce high-quality content.

Whatever your business, a little careful thought (and some inspiration) will help you find creative, attention grabbing, and interesting ways to present your topics using audio and video podcasting, which can help you promote your business. For example, if you sell nuts (the kind you eat), you might create a video podcast series that begins with the care and quality that does into growing your delectable treats, followed by podcasts showing the processing and then the colorful packaging of your assortments. Be sure to make the video (or audio) podcasts fun as well as informative.

The following resources provide suggestions for using podcasting to promote your business, along with examples of the best podcasts:

Using Google Alerts to Monitor the Social Web

2010-01-04T08:09:00.000-08:00

This year has seen an explosion in growth of the social Web. According to a recent study from Forrester Research, more than four out of five online adults in the U.S. now participate socially. Nielsen Online estimates that, "Twitter alone grew 1,382% year-over-year..." and Technorati indexes more than 100 million blogs, with over 100 thousand new ones appearing each day.

With such astronomical increases in social media, how can a company hope to navigate through this ever expanding sea of content to find and track its presence online? In my last post, I showed you how to use RSS to monitor the social Web. Now we turn our attention to Google Alerts, which provide a highly focused and targeted means to keep tabs on mentions of your brand and products.

Google Alerts automatically search the Web, videos, images, audio, blogs, and so on to find and notify you of new content via the Google Reader or email updates, avoiding the need to conduct these searches manually. To set up Google Alerts, simply to to Google, click the more link, even more link, and Alerts. The screen shown below appears.

To use Google Alerts to monitor the social Web, perform these
steps:

In the Search terms text box, type in the keywords, phrases, and other operators necessary to locate the content you seek (--just like you would do in a normal Google search). For example, if wanted to keep tabs a new mentions of a brand name like Hershey's Chocolate, you could enter: "Hershey chocolate". Of course, you could narrow the search to spot negative comments about the brand by adding perjorative keywords, such as "sucks," "poor quality," "inferior," "tastes bad," and so on. Or the
inverse, if you want to focus on finding positive remarks, then you could include such keywords as "tastes great," "quality chocolate," "tasty treat," "yummy," etc.
The default setting for the type of media to be searched is Comprehensive. The other media options are News, Blogs, Web, Video, and Groups. However, you will almost always want to leave the media type selection set to Comprehensive, unless the number of results are excessive. In which case, you should set up separate Google Alerts for each media type.
Choose how often you would like receive alerts, "as-it-happens," "once a day," and "once a week." In this fast past business climate, “as-it-happens” is the most appropriate.
The last step is to enter the email where you want the alerts sent. If you want to manage multiple alerts or receive your updates in your Google Reader, then you will need to create a Google Account.
To complete the process, click the Create Alert button.

You can also use Google Alerts to monitor your competitors' brands and products. You can also use this service to measure your personal Web presence.Google Alerts offer one of the quickest and least expensive ways to monitor a social media marketing campaign.

The following resources provide further details regarding Google Alerts and other social media monitoring tools:

Using RSS to Monitor Your Social Media Campaign

2009-12-11T19:44:00.000-08:00

Image by damien_nissa

It is likely that today's vibrant and growing social Web would not exist without RSS. RSS (short for "Really Simple Syndication" or alternatively "Rich Site Summary") gives you the ability to selectively subscribe to automatic updates from a staggering number of sources, including more than million blogs, microblogs, social networks, video and file sharing sites, news sources, and so on. Without RSS (or a similar service), it would be necessary to manually visit each of these sites to discover and read new content, thus, vastly restricting the possible scope and magnitude of the social Web.

RSS has been called the modern day "Online Paperboy." RSS lets site owners syndicate and, hence, distribute content automatically. It enables the delivery of updated RSS documents, often called feeds or channels. These feeds notify you about everything from new blog posts to recent music releases. As a consequence, most high traffic Web sites offer an RSS feed to their sites. Typically, the feed appears as a button labeled "XML," "RSS," or "Subscribe To." Since you must click this button to subscribe to an RSS feed, chances are good that the content you receive will satisfy your needs and tastes. So why should a business use RSS to monitor a social media marketing campaign? The most obvious answer is to track progress in achieving campaign goals. By using RSS to subscribe to the sites where you have concentrated your efforts, you can observe the results with an RSS Reader (also called a News Aggregator or News Reader). An RSS Reader usually displays the titles and brief descriptions of fresh content, making it simple to skim the list, find and click a relevant item, displaying the entire article, post, or video. Popular RSS Readers include Google Reader, Bloglines, and My Yahoo!--as well as built-in RSS Readers in products like Microsoft Internet Explorer.

In addition to watching for positive feedback, you can use RSS to spot negative comments that can quickly snowball into a consumer uprising. In this day and age, companies simply cannot afford to ignore what is being said about them on the social Web. Just ask the folks at Kryptonite Bike Lock Company. In the classic Kryptonite saga, where someone on the bikeforums.net forum posted how to open a Kryptonite lock with a Bic pen. Then came a video showing how to pick the lock with a pen. The story of this flaw quickly spread to other social media sites, until it was picked up and published in The New York Times! The Associated Press syndicated the story, spreading it to dozens of other media outlets. Imagine the cost to the Kryptonite Bike Lock Company in terms of lost sales and bad PR.

If the company had been monitoring the social Web, it might well have been able to respond to this flaw early on and stem or even prevent the tide of bad press. The moral of this tale is that it is critical for marketers and public relations professionals to listen to the social Web, looking for mentions of their company, brand, product, or service. This is no longer an optional activity.

The following resources provide great insights about how to use RSS to track your social media marketing campaign progress:

History of the Social Web

2009-11-16T00:10:00.000-08:00

Image Credit: ocean.flynn

Just when did social media begin? Some would argue with the telephone, but(even with the advent of three-way calling) vocal conversations remain primarily a one-to-one medium, while social media is fueled by many-to-many communications. In the late 1970s, Bulletin Board Services (BBSs) came into existence, allowing users to exchange messages by connecting to standalone computers.

However, it was not until the emergence of the Internet that a common means became available to access a social platform. In 1979, UseNet became a popular way for Internet users to post articles and respond in hierarchically-organized newsgroups. BBSs, such as CompuServe and Prodigy, grew into important social media platforms. In the 80s, the number and type of social media on the Internet continued to expand, such as discussion forums and dating services, but it wasn't until the first decade of the third millennium that real explosion of social media hit.

The following resources detail the amazing journey of how social media became the phenomenon it is today:

Definitive (lol) Definition and History of Social Media

The History of Social Media in a Blink

The History and Evolution of Social Media

A Brief History of Social Media

Social media's history and trajectory

Using Wikis to Promote Your Business

2009-11-01T08:56:00.000-08:00

Image by Sérgio Savaman Savarese

A Wiki is software that enables people collaborate on creating interrelated topical documents.The best known instance of a Wiki is Wikipedia -- a popular online encyclopedia built through community participation. Business can also benefit from Wikis, by facilitating and encouraging the collaborative production and sharing of company documents, files, and knowledge among management, employees, customers, and suppliers. Product documentation, teamwork, and project management are ripe areas where Wikis can make immediate and substantial contributions to improving collaboration, knowledge sharing, and positive outcomes.The resources below offer insightful advice in effectively putting Wikis to work in your business:

HOW TO: Use Wikis for Business Projects

How to use wikis to collaborate, brainstorm and share knowledge

Would Your Business Benefit from a Wiki?

Collaborating through wikis

Start an internal wiki for your business

Start using blogs, wikis in your organization

A Small Business Guide to Wiki

What is Social Media Marketing?

2009-10-19T09:24:00.000-07:00

Image by marttj

Social media marketing (SMM) uses social media platforms to positively influence consumers toward a company’s brands, products or services. In other words, the goal of social media marketing is to create a “buzz” online, so that complementary content about a brand, product or service goes “viral,” with consumer-generated media endorsements spreading like wildfire across the Internet (--think of a highly watched YouTube video extolling the virtues of a product or service).

It is not hyperbole to say that social media marketing is fundamentally changing the way businesses communicate with consumers. In fact, social media marketing has become so powerful it is now driving search engine results. Today, people are using highly accessible social media tools to find, create, and share content online. Social media enables people to collaborate and form consensus opinions, connecting and forming relationships in ways never before possible. This presents a new challenge and opportunity for business—to positively influence this ongoing conversation about the company’s offerings.

Think of it this way, social media marketing is the 21st Century digital “word-of-mouth” advertising. However, instead of discussing a company’s offering in person or over the phone, Internet users have turned to social media platforms to express their opinions. Popular social media platforms include blogs, (which can be found using blog search engines such as Technorati and BlogPulse), micro-blogs (e.g., Twitter and Jaiku), social networking sites (e.g., Facebook and LinkedIn), video and image sharing sites (e.g., YouTube and Flickr), podcasts, bookmarking (e.g., del.icio.us and StumbleUpon), wikis (e.g., Wikipedia), and social network aggregators (e.g., Mybloglog and Plaxo).

Some useful resources for defining and better understanding social media
marketing:

Measuring Social Media Marketing Success!

2009-10-13T09:15:00.000-07:00

Image by Tresijas

At some point, the decision to use social media marketing or convincing someone else to do so eventually comes down to justifying the expenditure of resources and time. This typically involves measuring the success of the effort. Measuring the effectiveness of using social media to promote a business can be done both qualitatively and quantitatively. Most people feel more confident and comfortable with numbers, so social media metrics dominate, such as Return on Investment (ROI), Web analytics, and other similar quantitative assessments.

The following resources provide a variety of useful methods and tools for measuring the success of social media marketing campaigns:

Social Media Marketing Training Needed Now!

2009-10-03T22:30:00.000-07:00

Image by Say It Social

As the global recession wears on—cash-strapped companies continue to slash marketing, advertising, and public relations budgets and positions—with one highly notable exception—businesses spending on social media marketing has skyrocketed and continues to escalate at an unprecedented rate. The movement to social media has quite simply become a stampede, with social networks such as Facebook recently topping 300 million users, LinkedIn surpassing 40 million users, and Twitter, with 23.6 million users, grew by 900% over the last year!

According to the 2009 Digital Readiness Report, “…most organizations are considering hiring social media specialists.” However, despite the urgent, massive and growing need by business for social media marketing specialists, the number of people being educated in social media marketing falls far short of demand. Unfortunately, universities and community colleges have been slow to create social media marketing courses to meet this seemingly recession-proof career, leaving a vast educational vacuum and incredible opportunity for a forward thinking institutions to fill this gaping hole.