10 Small Business Social Media Marketing Tips

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

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

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

1. Facebook

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

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

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

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

2. Twitter

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

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

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

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

3. Company Blog

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

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

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

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

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

4. LinkedIn

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

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

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

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

5. Participate On Other Blogs

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

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

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

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

6. Mobile Social Networks and other Local Strategies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

7. Comments and Conversations About Your Company

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8. Multimedia

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

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

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

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

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

9. Maintain Brand Consistency

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

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

You should also evaluate your email and web presence strategies. For example, are you using a Gmail email address when you can very easily be using a custom email address with your company name as your domain? Compare: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it — which looks more professional? Similarly, are you hosting your blog at WordPress.com instead of on your own custom domain? Little details can make a difference.

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

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

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

10. Leverage Combinations of Social Media Tools

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

Social Media and SEO: 5 Essential Steps to Success

Originally published on Mashable, the Social Media Guide

Lee Odden is the CEO of TopRank Online Marketing and editor at Online Marketing Blog.

Now more than ever, company marketers are charged with improving performance with fewer resources and shifting marketing budgets from traditional to digital tactics like SEO and social media. There are significant benefits from combining search engine optimization and social media marketing tactics ranging from increased social network discovery via search to the ability to attract links for improved SEO.

Making the most out of combining SEO insights with social media marketing tactics can be accomplished with a roadmap that identifies the audience you’re after, the goals you’re trying to reach (and can measure) as well as a strategy that sets the stage for the tactics you’ll use to execute your game plan. Read on to get a better understanding of how SEO and social media complement each other and a step by step guide for creating a social media roadmap.

The benefits of SEO and social media

From a marketing standpoint, you can look at the benefits of SEO and social media two different ways.

First, implementing a social media marketing program without optimizing content is leaving money on the table. Useful social content (blog, video, images, audio) that cannot be discovered via search is a lost opportunity to reach an audience that is looking.

For example, The Student LoanDown, the popular blog about student loans and college financing from Wells Fargo, identifies 29 keywords in its Keyword Meta Tag and doesn’t rank in Google’s first page for 26 of them. Those that do rank are variations of the blog’s name.

While there is a generous amount of cross linking within posts, a basic blog template optimization effort leveraging keywords and other minor adjustments could improve search traffic for this site substantially – without any compromise in content quality or user experience.

Social interactions and media sharing amongst social network participants create the kind of content that can improve a brand’s visibility within search results through profiles, videos, blog posts, or other media. A good example is Stormhoek wines’ first page Google rankings including blogs, Facebook and Twitter

On the flip side, implementing SEO programs without leveraging the content distribution and linking benefits of social web participation makes link building for SEO an uphill battle. The nature of the social web encourages participation: sharing, voting, commenting and linking. Popular social content gets exposure, traffic and can result in a substantial number of relevant inbound links.

The famous Blendtec iPhone video has attracted over 6,000 links resulting in a top ten ranking on Google for the word, “blender.”

Content + Links = Search Engine Success.

Social media roadmap

However you look at it, SEO and social media work well together as long as there is a framework for doing so. One way to build SEO and social media programs efficiently is to follow a social media roadmap:

1. Find the audience; understand their behaviors, preferences, methods of publishing, and sharing. Most companies that are involved with the social web in the channels where their customers spend time have a good sense of where to start. Many companies are ahead of the game by tracking their audience via social media monitoring software that identifies keywords, conversations and influencers such as those pictured in the Radian6  screen shot below.

2. Define your objectives. Objectives are often driven by marketing or sales, and SEO has long been directly accountable to substantial improvements in web sales. Social media is not direct marketing though, so different objectives and measurements apply. The role of SEO in a social media effort is to directly influence discovery of social communities or content via search. Do a search for Zappos on Google, for example, and you’ll easily find more than shoes: Twitter, Blog and a YouTube channel are all on the first page of search results.

Indirectly, social content can boost links to website content, improving search traffic and online sales.

3. Establish a game plan. The game plan for reaching objectives in a combined SEO and social media effort will often focus on content and interaction, since it is content that people discover and share. Whether a keyword-focused strategy for reaching goals means publishing new content or creating an opportunity for consumer-generated content, it must involve proactive promotion and easy sharing amongst members of the community.

4. Create a tactical mix. The tactical mix for a social media marketing effort is based on doing the homework of finding where the desired audience spends its time interacting with and sharing content. Whatever the tactical mix is, it’s an investment in time and relationships – not a short term “link dump” to promote optimized link bait. Much of the content creation and promotion for a social media marketing effort happens within the tactical mix and, of course, that means optimizing content for keywords.

Whether content is created by marketers as part of a social destination like a niche community or a promotion vehicle such as an interactive ad, keyword glossaries become useful for writing headlines, deciding on anchor text for links and outreach activities like blogger relations.

5. Measure your goals. Goals measurement should roll up to the specific objectives, both direct and indirect. Leveraging both social media monitoring services as well as web analytics can provide marketers with the insight to improve results. Radian6 and Webtrends have recently announced a partnership that will bring web analytics and social media analytics together all in one interface. In the meantime, marketers can use specific measurement tools to monitor the effect of their social web participation as well as the search engine performance of SEO efforts.

Extend the value of your investment

By involving SEO insight in a social media marketing effort and vice versa, marketers, public relations professionals and advertisers can extend the value of their investment. Well optimized social media content marketing efforts can attract new network participants via search. News content that experiences distribution via social news and bookmarking channels can facilitate links to company website content directly and indirectly. Advertisers that fund social media campaigns can continue to realize the traffic benefit from keyword-optimized interactive content long after the campaign has ended.

Originally published on Mashable the Social Media Guide

Written by Dallas Lawrence

How Facebook Can Become a Money Making Machine

Dallas Lawrence is Chair of the Social and Digital Media Practice at Levick Strategic Communications, the nation’s top crisis communications firm. He blogs on emerging digital media trends and best practices for social media engagement on Bulletproof Blog. Connect with him on Twitter @dallaslawrence.

Social networks have truly come of age in the last year. No longer viewed as lonely outposts for youthful college slackers, the reach of these platforms has grown exponentially. Today, more than two-thirds of the world’s Internet users visit the social networking sites that reel in billions of eyeballs every 24 hours.

Yet, despite the staggering growth of social networking, determining how to monetize social media platforms remains a tough code to crack for even the savviest of companies. As such, identifying new revenue models will be instrumental in kicking off the next cycle of the social networking phenomenon in 2010.

If Anyone Can Do It, Facebook Can

Facebook ( ), social networking’s acknowledged leader, has surpassed every platform on the market today, corralling more than 350 million unique users globally. If any social network is poised to design a winning formula for successful revenue streams in 2010, it’s Facebook. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has set an aggressive agenda for the company, publically stating that he “expects social networks to become as essential as web browsers and operating systems,” and he has set the lofty — yet entirely realistic — goal of 1 billion users worldwide.

In the less than five years since it expanded beyond scholastic audiences, Facebook has not only grabbed the lion’s share of users, it has engaged them like no other platform on the Internet. The average Facebook user visits the site at least once a day and spends an astounding 55 minutes engaging friends and family –- statistics that another Zucker (Jeff) would probably kill for over at NBC.

While translating such popularity into dollars and cents isn’t easy –- especially in an industry whose users have grown accustomed to getting something for nothing –- Facebook could potentially provide a monetization template that would revolutionize social networking as we know it.

The Next Level of Advertising Revenue

Advertising has traditionally provided the simplest means of generating revenue. PricewaterhouseCoopers reported in October that Internet advertising revenues totaled $10.9 billion for the first half of 2009. It’s been estimated that Facebook alone took in $435 million of that total. But for a site with nearly half a billion users, a quarter of which spend more time within the network than watching television, these numbers represent just the beginning potential.

First, Facebook needs to admit to itself that it is in the business of selling ads. By better managing its advertising network, intelligently expanding its marketing options, and developing workable social ads that leverage the branding power of friends and connections, Facebook can begin to capture its rightful share of online ad revenues. The final piece is to increase awareness and understanding of Facebook ads among corporate decision makers.

For example, every executive in America today understands the value of purchasing Google ( ) ads –- and that didn’t happen by accident. Google understood that what caused it to dominate online search wasn’t going to ultimately position the company as a global corporate powerhouse valued at nearly $200 billion. Google’s aggressive marketing, communications, and lobbying shops have worked to ensure every ad buyer, political campaign, marketing executive, and public relations flack knows the value of the service and has direct and easy access to account executives who explain the much worshiped “ROI” Google ads provide.

Today, Facebook stands on the precipice Google inhabited just before it became a top money-maker. By taking a page from the Google playbook, and aggressively marketing — and explaining — its power to influence buying decisions, Facebook ads could become as essential to 21st Century marketing as the yellow pages were in the 20th Century.

E-Commerce – Stop Sending Customers Away

The launch of Facebook as a true e-commerce site holds immense potential as a business solution and could forever change the way we shop. Online purchases through the first three quarters of 2009 totaled $98.3 billion according to the Department of Commerce. For the majority of companies selling products online who are also engaged on Facebook, opening Facebook fully to direct e-commerce transactions will dramatically change how businesses advertise and how consumers buy goods online.

Consumers and companies would flock to a Facebook storefront for one simple reason: We do everything else there. Imagine an integrated, one-click solution whereby your friends see your recent purchases (because you were incentivized by the brand to share your information) in their feed and are able to simply point, click, and purchase the same item.

With a few adjustments, companies can make timely offers of birthday gifts for friends, travel arrangements for event items, or the latest music from favorite artists –- and make the sale without forcing the user to leave Facebook or put in new login information.

Rather than driving their 350 million users away from the platform to “close the deal” with retailers and purchase the item on an external platform, Facebook could benefit financially by charging companies a percentage of sales, a fixed rate to have a storefront, or from increased advertising opportunities.

Premium Subscription Options

Finally, whether users like it or not, Facebook will do itself a long term disservice if it does not consider premium subscription options. Users (whether they are corporations or teenagers) are amenable to paying for even the simplest features and functionality, as evidenced by the success of Facebook gifts.

Nothing good in life is free. It’s a stark, mature reality that Facebook (and its users) need to face in 2010. By leveraging economies of scale, Facebook can churn a sizable profit without alienating users. Would you pay one dollar a month to share higher-resolution photos or upload higher-quality or longer videos? Last month, 2.5 billion photos were uploaded to Facebook. Even if only a quarter of the site’s active users opted for premium options, this one change would generate more than $1 billion in annual revenues.

Improving advertising, developing an e-commerce platform, and adding subscription services will not only generate the revenue necessary to make the transition from highly adopted to highly profitable, it will open revenue streams — as Google did before — for the next generation of digital develop

1. More and more people are online more and more regularly. In this current economic downturn you need to find the ever-elusive customer. It is a fact that the average person is spending more and more time online. The number of people doing so also increases daily. You must find them and engage them. Traditional advertising just isn’t working the way it used to. Magazine and newspaper subscriptions are way down because websites are providing the news much more quickly and in a more affordable manner. TV and print advertisements have become expensive and consumer review sites like yelp.com are changing the way people think and shop.

2. Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, and Youtube are now mainstream. The largest and most successful social media campaign was used to elect President Obama. This goes to show that a complete and focused approach to social media can move mountains. Manage your personal life and business fan page on Facebook. Maintain your professional network using Linked In. Take your company viral by building an aggressive Youtube channel. Find and engage online communities that share your interests on Twitter. These are a few of the most popular social networking sites. It has become absolutely critical to implement some, if not all of them to achieve a strong online presence.

3. Social Media will improve your relationship with customers. We all know that social media is a great PR and branding tool that allows companies to self-promote in a relatively inexpensive fashion, but IT’S NOT ALWAYS ABOUT YOU. Social Media offers a great way to learn more about your customers. Extending a “personal face” to your company encourages customer interaction and can result in customer loyalty. Listen to your customers, respond to their comments, and let your personality reveal itself through your conversations. Loyal customers will spread the word about a brand if they like the person or people who represent it.

4. Meet the Haters head-on! And don’t forget about disgruntled customers… Some companies argue that engaging in Social Media will open the door for naysayers and haters to rant negatively about the brand. This is a dangerous misconception—the doorway to knock a brand opens with the business! People are talking online whether or not you are listening. Some of them might not be saying nice things, and you can be sure others are listening to what they say. Consumer review websites like Yelp and Amazon are ever more popular, presenting hundreds of opinions about products and services. What if 77 out of 100 reviews for your product are negative? Social Media can and should be used as a customer service platform. A loyal customer is much more valuable than a once-in-your-lifetime customer, so it is important to address the issues that your customers are having. A complete Social Media strategy will incorporate a system to monitor your online reputation by scanning blogs, social networks, and comments for keywords related to your brand. Don’t let the Haters take the floor and keep it. Get out there and defend yourself and show your customer service savvy.

5. Social Media is here to stay. One of the biggest misconceptions about Social Media is the presumptuous assumption that its popularity is a fad. First of all, watch this video from Socialnomics.net. There is some controversy about some of the statistics and their context, but the video is well done and for the most part lends itself to Social Media’s permanence. Also, check out Marta Kagan’s presentation on slideshare: What the F**K is Social Media?. The point is that Social Media is here. It’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Therefore, if you aimming in it, then your business may soon be in hot water.

6. Your competition is actively engaging your target audience using Social Media.

One common diagnosis we are seeing pop up in droves is SOCIAL MEDIA OVERWHELM.by Lorrie Thomas

Social Media Overwhelm is when you see all the tempting accessories (see image icon overload left) that you can try, then get overwhelmed (where do I start?  How do I have time for all this stuff?), then all social media marketing stops altogether.  Shoot, I get dizzy looking at the icons in this blog post and I live, eat and breathe this stuff!

You gotta pull yourself together in time for the new year so you tap the power of social media marketing w/o getting Social Media stunned…it’s all a little ADD-esque if you ask me!  Yes, there are a lot of great social media options out there, but before you run screaming off the ledge, here is a healthy dose of web marketing therapy to help you get underwhelmed with all the social media marketing options out there.

How to avoid Social Media Overwhelm and Use the Power of Social Media to Win BIG:

1. Go back to marketing 101 - who is your target market, what is your marketing strategy?  I personally love FriendFeed, and I recommend it to some of my solo-entrepreneur clients who mix their personal and professional passions, but I wouldn’t suggest it to a business to business (B2B) client.  You have to THINK FIRST BEFORE YOU DRINK THE SOCIAL MEDIA KOOL-AID.  Ask youself if a particular social media outlet will help you reach your current and prospective customers so you can connect and serve them better, if not, move on!

2. Use social media streamlining tools like HelloTxt so you can do one message and hit ALL your social media set-ups.

3. Prioritize.  Put your energy where it counts.  If Facebook work equals more friend bombardment than client connection, BREAK UP WITH IT AND SEE OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA.  Put your energy where it counts.  All marketing has to be tested, optimized and re-evaluated.  Respect your time and put your energy where it counts.

4. Be ready to commit to social media.  It does take work, I’m not going to deny that.  Think of social media marketing as a lifestyle.  Just like exercise and eating right, you want to engage in social media as part of your marketing mix…add it to your routine and it will become part of your routine.

5. Use social media marketing to give your existing work legs.  So many marketing patients don’t realize how connected all the web marketing tools are (that IS why we call it the world-wide-web you know!).  You do email blasts, that same content can also live on your site.  You do a great educational blog post, then that can get messaged out to your readers via tools like twitter.  When marketers look at all the web marketing options as separate, unconnected tools, you better believe that overwhelm will hit!!  Use all your web marketing in unison for web marketing maximization!

Social Media can be an amazingly valuable marketing tool…if you keep your mind in a place of calm, quiet focus and invest in tools that matter and support one another.

 by Lorrie Thomas

When I am asked about social media and get the “what do I do with social media for marketing”? question, I stop the conversation and suggest that the brain get re-trained to think of social media as an interactive Rolodex.

We don’t “tweet” to make millions, get on Facebook to win new accounts or get on LinkedIn.com to get venture capital.

We use social media to make, build and sustain relationships!

Marketing is all about maximizing relationships - what makes social media marketing such a remarkable asset to organizations it’s ability to manage relationships and stay in touch for life.

If you are on Facebook, you will likely update your photos, status and more.  On LinkedIn, you will update your job status, position and email address.  With Twitter, your contact base will grow and if you are part of the active tweepulation, then you’ll be able to connect forever.  It’s never about using one social media tool - it’s about using several social media tools to build your credibility, visibility and relate-ability.

Your current and prospective customers will use social media differently (some like tweeting, some are big on blogs) so be in several places and keep current so the people that are seeking you out can find you.  In this ick economy, more people are using LinkedIn to reconnect with colleagues to get that next job or reach out to contractors since they are managing more work with fewer resources.

Business cards are sooooo 1982 - use social media as your online Rolodex to stay in touch (and get rid of those old-school biz card holders!)

Originally published in The Busy Woman's Answer to Social Media, Lena West

Blogs are great way for you to build visibility for your company and services. They allow you to connect with people like never before.

But so many people just post content and forget there are myriad ways to leverage this digital literary tool.

Here's one way: use your blog as your business card.

Grab a cuppa, sit down and write what's called a "cornerstone blog post." This would be a blog post that shares your expertise about a topic--exactly as you see it. If you're a management consultant, you might write a cornerstone blog post that addresses the No. 1  question you get from your target market all the time. There has to be one question that people always ask when they find out what you do for a living. Figure out what that is, and write a blog post addressing that question. It can be long or short: The point is to provide value in your answer and to actually answer the question.

Take the permalink of that blog post and create a bit.ly URL for it. The normal permalink will be too long. Be sure to sign up for a free bit.ly account so that you can track the link and how many people click it. This is a big point. If you miss this, you miss a good chunk of the value to you as a marketer. Because if you don't track the link, how will you know who's clicking? The answer is, unless you dig into your blog stats, you probably won't. Not good. So sign up for the free bit.ly account, OK? OK.

Guess what you do next? Soon--very soon thereafter--you'll meet someone who asks you the same question you wrote the blog post about. You'll tell her BRIEFLY about the blog post (don't tell that person everything or there'll be nothing for her to read and learn) and let her know you'd like to send her the link. Ask for her business card and promise to send her the link because you know it will be helpful to her. DO NOT PROCRASTINATE ON SENDING THE LINK. If you do, you'll look like a loser. The key is to build rapport by helping that person right away.

When you send the link, let her know that you'd love to know what she thinks about it and that you'll ping her in a few days to get her feedback. And then FOLLOW UP like you said you would.

Using your blog like this does three things:

Sharene Lewis, Pi Design

Ramp up your online marketing. Develop successful email blasts with smart, useful content and send them to all of your existing customers. Let them know how valuable they are to you during tough economic times. It is fast, inexpensive and measurable. Don’t bore them with newsletters stating facts they already know about your company. Give them free information that you know they will find interesting. Or create fun online coupons that they need to go to your site to download.

All it takes to be THE e-mail that gets opened is some creative thinking. Your message will stand out from all the rest when you follow these six easy tips.

A quick glance, a click of a mouse. That’s all it takes to bring someone to your web site and make them a new customer. Pi Design is passionate about helping you find branding solutions that grab their attention—from logo to web site design and from brochures to trade show graphics. If you want your materials to be remembered call Pi Design now to set up a consultation.

©2009 Pi Design. All Rights Reserved.

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Consumers are searching for your products and services online.  Is your website getting found?

Originally published on Hubspot

The Internet has profoundly transformed the way people learn about and shop for products. Ten years ago, companies reached their consumers through trade shows, print advertising, and other traditional marketing methods. Today, consumers start their shopping experience by looking on the Internet, in the search engines, the blogosphere, and social media sites. In order to remain competitive, businesses’ websites need to be found online by the consumers already searching for the products and services that you sell.

Businesses must get found online by the consumers searching for their products and services in the:

Search Engines

Blogosphere

Social Media

Part I: Outbound vs. Inbound Marketing

The Internet has changed the dynamics of the business world. For the past decades, marketers have used “outbound” marketing techniques such as trade shows and print advertising, where marketers push out a message far and wide hoping that it resonates with a few individuals. These outbound marketing methods are becoming less and less effective for two reasons:

People are getting better at blocking out interruption-based marketing messages.

The average person is inundated with thousands of outbound marketing interruptions per day and is figuring out more creative ways to block them out, including caller ID, spam filtering, and on-demand TV and radio.

The Internet presents quick and easy ways for consumers to learn and shop.

Instead of flying to a trade show across the country, for example, a consumer can go the Internet to research and purchase products or services.

Today, consumers are going to the Internet to start their purchasing process. In order to remain competitive, busi­nesses need to utilize “inbound” marketing techniques to “get found” by the consumers searching for their prod­ucts and services online.

Outbound Marketing

telemarketing, tradeshows, direct mail, email blasts, print ads, tv/radio ads

Interruption

Inbound Marketing

search engine marketing (SEO & PPC), blogging, social media

Permission

Part II: Get Found Online: Search Engines

Consumers most frequently go to the search engines to research and purchase products and services. Is your website getting found by consumers looking for you?

Organic Search is Best

There are two kinds of search results: paid results and organic (or natural) results.

Paid results are those listings that require a fee for the search engines to list their link for particular keywords. The most widely used form of paid listing is Pay Per Click (PPC), where you pay each time someone clicks on the link in your advertisement. The price increases with the competitiveness of the keyword.

Organic results are gathered by search engines’ web crawlers and ranked according to relevance to search terms. This relevance is calculated by criteria such as extent of keyword match and number of links into that website. Ranking in the organic search results is better because not only is it FREE, but research shows that people click on the organic results 75% of the time and paid results only 25% of the time.

How Does Google Decide?

Google and the other search engines rank websites in search engine results pages according to relevance to the search terms. This relevance is calculated by looking at both on-page factors such as the content on your site and off-page factors in the form of inbound links to your website. Off-page factors are the biggest influencers in your website’s ranking in search engine results.

Get Found Online: Search Engines - How To

STEP 1: Find Keywords

·         Search Volume – Given two different keyword phrases, optimize for the one with the larger number of searches.

·         Relevance – Choose keywords that your target market is using to describe and search for your products and services.

·         Difficulty or Competition – Consider your chances for ranking on the first page of Google for that keyword phrase. Look at the sites ranked in those first 10 slots, their authority and relevance to search terms, and gage if you will be able to overtake them to secure a spot on that first page.

STEP 2: On-Page SEO

·         Place keywords in the page title, URL, headings, and page text.

·         Optimize your page description for maximum click-through-rate when your site ranks in Google searches.

·         Place keywords in other “invisible” places on your site, including meta-keyword tags and alt-text on images.

STEP 3: Off-Page SEO

·         Build more inbound links from other sites into yours. Each link serves as a recommendation or a reference to tell the search engines that your site is a quality site.

·         Build more links within context, i.e. those with valuable keywords in the link anchor text (the text that is hyperlinked to your site). Link anchor text provides context for the search engines to understand what your site is about.

·         Build more links from trusted websites. Just as references from well-respected friends and experts offer more value, so do links from trusted and well-respected websites.

·         Link-building tips:

o    Submit your website to directories like the Yahoo! Directory and Business.com

o    Communicate with others in your industry through blogs and other social media

o    Create compelling tools (such as an interesting calculator) and content (via a blog, for example)

STEP 4: Measure & Analyze

Track number of inbound links, keyword rank over time and compared to competition.

Measure real business results: number of visitors, leads, and customers from SEO.

Part III: Get Found Online: Blogs

What is a blog? A blog, or weblog, is a website that allows for regularly posted content or articles.

·         Blogging is Inbound Marketing

·         Blogging helps with SEO

·         Blogging helps with social news and networking sites

·         Blogging is permission centric

·         The conversation has already started… it’s time that you’re aware of it and develop a strategy for engaging in it and using it for marketing

Get Found Online: Blogs - How To

STEP 1: Read

·         Search for other blogs in your industry using Tech­norati.com or BlogSearch.Google.com.

·         Read and subscribe to blogs via RSS (Really Simple Syndication) or email – RSS allows users to subscribe anonymously and consume content however they want.

STEP 2: Comment

·         Contribute to the conversation via a comment.

·         Increase the value of the article – share an example, add a point, add a useful link, disagree, ask a question.

·         Why?

o    Engage in the community

o    Get noticed by other bloggers and blog readers

o    Get links back to your blog

STEP 3: Write

·         Find the right blog software for you.

·         Blog functionality: Make sure to use your own business URL (blog.mycompany.com), not a sub-domain of someone else’s URL (myblog.typepad.com) – most blog software allows you to do this. Also your blog software should allow for email and RSS subscrip­tions as well as integration with social media sites.

·         Analytics functionality: To truly measure the success of your blog, your software should allow you to report on email and RSS subscribers over time, measure visitors and leads generated, and track search engine keyword rank over time and compared to competitors.

·         Support and expertise: If you are new to blogging, you may want your software provider to provide technical support, education and marketing expertise on how to succeed with your blog.

·         Draw in readers with your blog article titles.

o    Funny: “GoDaddy’s 16-Step Checkout: Brainless Marketing At Its Finest?”

o    Enticing: “12 Quick Tips To Search Google Like An  Expert”

o    SEO: “Free Advertising on Google”

·         On frequency: General rule of thumb is to blog at least • weekly to maintain steady readership and continue your SEO efforts.

·         Blog topic ideas:

o    List of 5 ideas, trends, or thoughts

o    Publish a list of links

o    Take a recent experience and share it

o    Answer questions you received recently

o    Comment on other blog articles

o    Turn a press release into a blog article

·         Promote your blog.

o    Email friends and family

o    Replace email newsletter with blog

o    Trade guest articles with similar blogger

o    Promote on social media sites: digg, reddit, StumbleUpon, Facebook, LinkedIn

o     

STEP 4: Measure & Analyze

·         Track number of blog visitors and subscribers, SEO rankings, Technorati blog rank.

·         Measure real business results: number of visitors, leads, and customers generated by your blog.

Part IV: Get Found Online: Social Media

What is social media? Media (content that is published) with a social (anyone can add to and share it) component. Social media is like a business networking reception without the constraints of time and space.

Social Media is Inbound Marketing

·         Social media helps with SEO

·         Social media promotes your blog

·         Social media is permission centric

·         The conversation has already started… it’s time that you’re aware of it and develop a strategy for engaging in it and using it for marketing

Get Found Online: Social Media - How To

STEP 1: Guidelines for Engagement

·         Meet people and start conversations, become a real member of the community – don’t join to just advertise your products.

·         Add value to the community – answer questions and help others.

·         Ask questions – trust others’ advice.

STEP 2: Publish, Share, and Network

·         Publish: Everyone can publish anything for everyone

o    Publish everything you have anywhere you can

o    Monitor what others publish and promote it

o    Empower your customers to publish

·         Share: Anyone can promote anything to everyone

o    Monitor what’s being shared about you

o    Find where your audience hangs out

o    Promote valuable content, yours and others’

o    Product content your audience will love

·         Network: Anyone can connect with everyone from • anywhere

o    Make friends – find your existing connections and • build new ones

o    Be helpful – answer questions, share interesting • content

STEP 3: Measure & Analyze

·         Key metrics to consider are: number of blog visitors • and subscribers, del.icio.us bookmarks, inbound links, Facebook fans and activity, friends on Facebook or LinkedIn, votes for blog articles, posts in forums.

·         Measure real business results: number of visitors, • leads, and customers generated by each social media effort.

Grade Your Website

See how your website stacks up in terms of its Internet marketing effectiveness. Get your free report from HubSpot’s WebsiteGrader tool.

www.WebsiteGrader.com

Part V: Marketing Resources

Website Grader (www.websitegrader.com) – Useful tool for measuring the marketing effectiveness of your website, get a free custom report in seconds with advice for your website

Marketing Sherpa (www.marketingsherpa.com) – A great resource for case studies and insights into marketing tactics

HubSpot Internet Marketing Blog (blog.hubspot.com) – Articles about business strategy and inbound Internet marketing

Web ink now (www.webinknow.com) – Online thought leadership and viral marketing strategies from award-winning author David Meerman Scott

HubSpot (www.hubspot.com) – Internet marketing software that helps you get found by more prospects and generate more qualified leads and sales

Part VI: Contact Us

HubSpot

One Broadway, 10th Floor

Cambridge, MA 02142

1-800-482-0382

www.HubSpot.com