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by: Karin Boode
I get this question all the time. Everyone seem to be able to see the value of Social Media, but very few understand how to use it effectively in their business.
I was talking about this exact topic to a friend of mine the other day, and he challenged me to proof that I understand how to do it. I accepted the challenge and now I need your help to safe my face.
The good thing is that you will be the one that benefits from all of this. Here is what I plan on doing for you. If you are willing to work with me I will get you started using social media. In order to get my power strategy all you need to spend is 2-5 minutes of your time, depending whether you already have a Facebook account or not.
I will give you my personal best strategy in return for your cooperation. And that is not all, I will continue to add value for you. I will do that over time, so you don’t get overwhelmed by too many instructions in too short a time span.
If you think that is fair and you have a few minutes to spare I would appreciate it if you could click on the picture below. That will take you to the instructions. 3 very simple, easy to follow steps. Take a look:
I had a great experience the other day on twitter as I was trying out a new twitter tool and thought I would tell you about it to underline the reach of power twitter has. First a little intro. Twitter is the fastest growing micro blogging and perhaps social media member community going today. 64% of users are between 25 and 54 yrs old with 20% of users are 55+. People communicate in short messages no longer than 140 characters long. It is a way of exchanging info as to what you are doing, reading, or thinking multiple times daily with people who want to hear about it. Twitter keeps its numbers closely guarded and has yet to monetize its service but hundreds if not thousands of twitter tools and twitter automation software programs have been created and are making money.
News can spread around the world in a matter of seconds because of it. When the earthquakes hit China, people on the streets knew about it before the government could control what info went out. When the plane went down in the Hudson River, people driving by tweeted and broadcast it to the world before news broadcasters had heard.
These events underline the power of social media and were a wake-up call for many including the news media and the Chinese Government. I would suspect that these groups would keep a close pulse on new twitter tools and twitter application software to help them source information the fastest now if they aren’t creating their own.
The other day I was trying to learn how to use a new feature in a twitter tool I was exploring so I could group my Social Traffic team in a list and easily find what they were doing. For the life of me I could not figure it out. Some of these twitter tools or twitter automation software programs are great but there is of course a new learning curve with each one. I thought I would ask the twitterverse to see if anyone knew the answer for this particular twitter tool and would help me out. I tried a couple of un-targeted questions to the world with no tweetback.
I decided I would ask a specific person who I thought would know and hoped that she was around and noticed my tweet. @AlohaArleen is a very active twitter user who is both followed by and follows many people. I had seen her around a lot and also seen some of my colleagues interact with her.(clue) I have had a few interactions with her myself and she was quick to respond always with great info.(clue) I intuitively knew she would be able to help but could not recall exactly what her business was.
@AlohaArleen quickly responded that she does not use twitter tools because she has too much traffic back and forth they always crash on her so could not answer my question. To help me out however as a service, she put a series shout outs to her 80,000+ followers and asked if anyone using the twitter tool in question could help me. Within seconds several people showed up who were familiar with this particular twitter tool and asked how they could help. Some could some couldn’t but they took their time based on their trust of @AlohaArleen and responded to her call. How cool is that!
This is just a fun little story but think of how it applies to your business. You can get and provide instant answers to questions to people who want your services. You can find out what they are wanting and how they want to be communicated with. If you help them out you will gain their trust. Nourishing this you may even get an evangelist or customer from them.
Twitter is an easy entry point to the social media world. It is like being at a cocktail party or networking event. Tidbits of info are shared. If you find the conversation worth developing you may exchange details and move to another tool like, a website, email, skype or phone. As I already mentioned there are numerous twitter tools and twitter automation software to save time through automation or organization of efforts.
I came to learn Twitter through Simon Ford’s Social Traffic training course. I met Simon Ford on FB when I first started on Social Media. He slowly started to engage me in conversation and helping me out. His Twitter module got me up and running. Here is a short clip you can watch now:
The Social Traffic course walked me through getting started which included getting clear on who I was and who I was looking for. Simon always underlines the importance of group participation and learning/helping each other out. Add value first to build relationships of trust. Find leaders and learn from them. The twitter tool I was exploring helps when following multiple accounts as well as grouping people into categories of interest. It saves time when searching for the leaders you want to exchange with.
Simon is definitely a master at building online communities and I will continue to learn from and apply his knowledge to mine. Following Simon’s Social Traffic teachings I have been able to find great leaders such as @AlohaArleen. I will certainly be keeping a close watch for her on twitter. If I can help her out one day I will. In the meantime I am grateful for her help AND for the fun I had getting it. In less than five minutes I gathered the information needed, applied the knowledge and met a bunch of new people.
I realize that the title holds a very loaded question. I decided to leave it there anyways, because it covers the topic under discussion the best. What I want to talk to you about today is a contest that is starting next week. It is a social media contest, in which the members of specific teams work together to drive social traffic to a specific page. The team that gets the most people to sign up on that page wins.
What is there to win?
Good question. The answer is… a lot. The top 3 teams will earn a percentage from the sales of a social media course that is sold during the time of the contest. I will tell you more about the course in a follow up post, but for now lets focus on the contest. Here is how our Social Media Boomers are going to operate. We will teach you social media strategies to drive traffic to the site in question. As a result you will learn some very powerful ways to drive targeted traffic to a web page and at the same time we will stand a chance of making some serious money.
What if I don’t know anything about driving traffic to a website?
Not a problem. As I said above we will teach all the members on the team how to do this. You do not need any experience at all to join. All that is expected from you is that you commit time to execute the strategies. This means that you should allocate probably about a half hour to an hour (the more time the better of course) every day to the contest. If you can do this we would love to have you on our team. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, that if you join our team we will continue to work with you to make you as successful as we can for years to come!
What do I need to do to let you know I am interested?
If you are interested you can do one of three things. You can sign up for our news letter through the form on the left, you can send an email to socialmediaboomers@24.7webmail.com or you can leave a comment underneath this post. It is that simple. We hope to talk to you soon!
More info
If you want to read even more about this contest you can visit this Soul Searching Contest page.
Google Friend Connect is Google’s attempt to join the social media landscape. With millions of websites now using the widget, it looks like they may have succeeded. Google Friend Connect allows your website to function as a social network. People can join, leave comments or start a dialogue. As a result, visitor interaction is encouraged by the widget, which is great for both the visitor and the owner of the site. Watch this video to get more detail on Google Friend Connect.
Now that you have watched the video: if you would like to try out what it is like to join a community through Google Friend Connect, I encourage you to join our community. Go to the bottom left corner of the screen and you will see the Google Friend Connect toolbar. Simply sign in (using your Google account username and password) or join by creating a new account. It is that easy! Once you are in, feel free to ask any questions you want. DeeJay, David, Joao, Jeff and I (Karin) are all here to help you get the most out of social media.
TwiMailer may not be the BEST name for this service, but its functionality — what it does for Twitter users — catapults its name to the stratosphere of the truly useful. The site describes itself in wonderfully succinct terms:
Tired of shallow e-mails from Twitter when someone follows you? Want to know more about the people who are following you? Twimailer is a free service that delivers that information right to your inbox!
See the magic happen in this short demo:
TwiMailer is owned by Steve Espinosa and was designed by Aaron Irizarry. GREAT job, Guys. Thank you. Products like this put meaning into the term: Utility Software!
During a recent interview on the morning Today show, Channel Nine – Sydney, a much respected Australian advertising executive, Mr Rob Belgiovane from the agency Belgiovane Williams Mackay, who had just returned from the Cannes Film Festival, was asked by the interviewer Carl Stefanovic – “Rob, what was the latest buzz at the Cannes Film Festival?”
The answer was very interesting: “Besides the films, the latest rave and talk is all about Social Marketing and Social Traffic. It was on everyone’s lips and basically was the talk of the Festival.”
He went on to talk in general about the emergence of Social Media platforms such as Google, YouTube, FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Disqus and others with the message being that these are the mediums of the future. Quite profound comments from such a well respected and successful Australian advertising executive.
In my opinion, when the mainstream media and advertising power brokers clearly recognise the power of Social Media/Marketing at such a prestigious event as the Cannes Film Festival it is, without doubt, proof positive that those who are in on these developments now will certainly reap the benefits and rewards of Social Media in the months and years to come. Web 2.0 is definitely here and proven by the big players who are now seeking to dominate that market.
Without the emergence of gurus such as Simon U Ford and his excellent book, Social Traffic, it would be very difficult for ‘newbies’ to grasp the depth of this new phenomena. Simon Ford stands out from the rest because he actually takes the time to explain, in depth, all facets of Social Media Traffic and Marketing. He has exceptionally well produced videos, blogs and numerous posts across all the Social Media platforms. Simon offers a rails run to make it easier for new arrivals – newbies – to get onto and understand how to handle all these new methods of communication.
The fact that Simon Ford, and his rapidly expanding global group of evangelists and mentors, could beat Google at their own game–by having his YouTube videos rate at the top of Google Friend Connect–is proof positive of his emerging status as a world authority on Social Media.
Perhaps the most endearing fact is that Simon encourages group participation and that there are numerous highly skilled people you meet through Social Traffic. All these people are both very willing and able to help one-on-one, through group Skype chats and/or other forums such as webinars etc — by openly sharing their collective knowledge in high performance groups. For someone like myself, (I’m over 60, and definitely a few slices short of a full loaf) this has been absolutely invaluable.
It’s a very delicate balance. Gone are the ‘old school’ face-to-face hard sales methods. Now through internet marketing one must establish trust in an online relationship by proving the extent of ones knowledge before even thinking about selling or promoting products. Simon Ford is definitely the master in relationship building!
As the old saying goes “You gotta be in it to win it.”
Someone once asked bank robber Willie Sutton why he chose to make his living the way he did. He replied: “because that’s where the money is.”
The same holds true for social media. Why should you and your company be involved in it? Because that’s where the people are. More and more people are forgoing traditional media. Instead, they want to talk about a product or event before spending their money. They want as much information as possible before they buy something. They want to hear from the most authoritative sources. They turn to social media for that information.
What smart marketers know is that social media is allowing people to form communities. A community can form around a cause, an event, a product or a company. But it is a community where people talk to each other. There are conversations going on right now about your brand. You should be part of it, but whether you are or not, the conversation is going to happen. What you want to be is the host, determining the conversation’s directions and subjects. As the host, you want to give people the best reason to join circle.
Many companies are starting to get it. It can been seen in the remarkable growth of social media in the marketplace.
Consider these examples:
• Forty-two million American women use social media tools on a regular basis, according to a recent social media survey by BlogHer, the women’s blog network, along with iVillage and Compass Partners. That’s over half of all adult American women, according to an article in Small Business Trends. As they spend more time with social media, women are spending correspondingly less time with traditional media; 39 percent less time on newspapers, 36 percent less time reading magazines, and 30 percent less time watching TV, the article noted.
• The 35-year-old to 54-year-old demographic led the growth of Facebook in 2008, with use jumping by 276 percent, a study conducted by iStrategyLabs found.
• Small businesses across the United States are finding social media levels the playing field for them. They can now compete with much larger companies in building awareness. Implementing a social media plan costs a lot less than traditional methods.
I could go on about what is happening in social media. But, I suspect you are more than a little overwhelmed by all of the social media choices out there. Right now, I have over two dozen social media websites bookmarked on my web browser. A lot of people would see that as confusing and wonder I need that many different sites.
Let me use a somewhat lame analogy. I used be a professional bicycle mechanic. I still do a lot of work on bikes. I have a very large tool box with many specialized tools. Each does something different, from tensioning a brake cable to installing pedals. I need them all. Owning a just a few would severely limit my ability to do what has to be done on my bicycles.
The same is true for social media. Don’t think of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Digg and all the others as individual sites. Instead think of them as hammers, wrenches, screwdrivers, and pliers. You need a complete set of tools to do any job. You need a complete set of sites to do a campaign.
Of course, just having the tools, as opposed to knowing how to use them, is a very different thing. Just signing up for Twitter and tweeting about a client is not, in and of itself, going to build much brand awareness.
As social media expert Brian Solis has said: “The conversations that drive and define Social Media require a genuine and participatory approach. Just because you have the latest tools to reach people, or have played around with them, doesn’t mean you can throw the same old marketing at them. And, it doesn’t qualify you to attempt to do so without first thinking about why and how, as it relates to the people you’re trying to reach.”
As another social media expert Simon U. Ford has pointed out, social media is made up of social networks, blogs, vlogs (video podcasts), podcasts, social networks rich media platforms, distribution channels, and micro?content and content aggregation. Each of those areas is made up of many different applications. It is confusing to a newcomer.
Ford is perhaps one of maybe a dozen people who have solved the puzzle. He has made very effective use of social media. He has coordinated events, sold EBooks and run very effective campaigns.
Right now, social media is kind of like Oklahoma during the land rush. A lot of people are trying to stake claims. Not all of them are going to succeed. It will take awhile for things to be sorted out.
Today I had the distinct pleasure of running across and listening to a TED presentation by a woman who’s TOTALLY in Love with Words. She’s a professional lexicographer — happier than a pig in dung! It’s amazing. Watch this, now please and tell me if you don’t agree that this woman is having the time of her life talking about words. Check out the name of her domain, shown at the end of her talk. Kudos to you, Mrs. McKean!
For more on what has come out of Erin McKean’s evangelism, take a look at this recent TED interview.
If you took the time to read the McKean interview you know that Ms. McKean has realized her dream of finding that bigger pot for dictionaries.
What message gets YOU excited? What topic actually lifts you off your feet when you think about it; have a chance to participate in it or introduce someone to it?
We, here, are Social Media Evangelists: soup to nuts, from the crowns of our heads to the soles of our feet! What type of evangelist are you? We’d LOVE to know! Leave a comment. We’ll respond back to you. In the meantime,
When you are looking for an answer to the question “how is web 2.0 impacting search engine optimization?”, you will find that there are a lot of “gurus” who will tell you not to worry about the social media sites. They have used SEO very successfully for several years and they claim that you don’t need social media sites to rank well in Google.
Let’s take a closer look at how the social media could impact SEO. The first thing that comes to mind is backlinks. Every time you bookmark a page it links back to your site. Since the bookmark describes the page that is bookmarked, the link text is highly relevant and likely contains the keywords that you would like to rank high for in the search engines. Those same gurus have told us for years how important it is that the link contains the keyword(s) you would like to rank for.
So, why is it that they resist the social media and claim that you don’t need social media to rank high in the search engines? One reason, a valid one, is that some of the social bookmarking sites have switched to no-follow tags, which means that the search engines will not follow this link back to the source and therefore, you will not receive a one way link back from this site.
This is only a partial reason though, since not all social media sites have no-follow tags. Those sites that do not use no-follow tages do give you an easy oportunity to add a lot of one-way links with highly relevant keywords pointing to your pages.
Furthermore, the social media sites have gotten so big that ranking high on those sites is very valuable and will result in a lot of traffic from other people that are using the same social media site. Actually, some of the social bookmarking sites that have implemented the no-follow tags have lost some of their power players. This makes it much easier for the rest of us to rank high on these sites.
If you wonder if the social media sites may not be here for the long haul, just ask yourself how anyone is going to stop all the conversations that are going on online these days. The truth of the matter is social media have brought the web to life and you should use them for valuable backlinks, now and in the future. Just make sure that you don’t limit yourself to one social bookmarking site, just in case there is a change in the search engines.
The real underlying power in Social Media is a new customer experience model.
Here, Axel hits the nail SQUARELY for there is no more important concept in the entirety of the Social Media Landscape than this one. It is amazingly obvious, or should be, that everything must revolve around what the customer/client comes to a particular vendor or service provider for; what experience; what fulfillment.
Simon took the Sidney, Australia back-packer industry over completely — to the tune of a 97% occupancy rate because he understood his clients were more interested in buying experiences and memories than a soft bed or coach! With that in mind, he changed the back-packer business model and made history. Prospects actively competed to become one of his back-packer clients! David tells of some of his early days with Simon.
