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In this age of social media, it’s all too easy to get stuck focusing on just one aspect of social media.  To make social media really work for you, though, it’s important to focus on all aspects — to find all possible avenues of value within your social media efforts.  Here are some ways to expand the value of your social media campaigns.

• Use it internally. Two of the biggest challenges for businesses are communication and asset loss.  You can improve both of those using internal social media.  Whether you choose to set up a private company blog or wiki, or use a social intranet, you can use social media within your company to improve communication.  You can also use it to bring the knowledge your employees have out of their heads and into a place where it’s accessible by others, thereby reducing your asset loss when you lose an employee.
• Use it for research. There is so much to learn on social media.  You can learn about your target market and what they think about your company and products.  You can also use it to learn what your competitors are doing, as well as what your target market thinks of their companies and products.
• Use it to build brand advocates. Wouldn’t it be nice if you had people in the world who were so excited about your company, they couldn’t help but suggest you to everyone?  Good news — you do!  You transform your existing customers into brand advocates by fostering the sense of community in your social networks.  They’ll share everything they can about your company and products with everyone they know in the social world!
• Use it for customer support. Social customer support is a growing trend among businesses, and we think it’ll just keep growing!  Keep an eye on what people are saying about your company, and when you find someone who is displeased, address them directly and see what you can do to make them happy.  A happy customer might tell a few people, but a dissatisfied customer will tell many more — by directly addressing and fixing the problem, you’ll earn respect and some new customers!

Admit it, you’ve been following the Charlie Sheen debacle.  Even those of us who don’t “do” pop culture have tuned in to see what will happen next.  I’ll admit it — I’ve followed the tiger blood-filled warlock on Twitter “just to see.”Back in December we talked about DecorMyEyes and their founder’s negative publicity campaign.  Charlie Sheen’s recently train wrecked life is, in a way, a bigger, louder version of the same strategy.  So what can we learn from Charlie Sheen?

Publicity is publicity. When it comes down to it, if what you want is for people to know and remember you, how you draw their attention is irrelevant.  Good or bad, if your publicity is enough to draw the eyes of the world, you’ve accomplished your goal.

Negative publicity is more effective. At least when it comes to getting attention.  I guarantee you that more people know Charlie Sheen now than before his breakdown.  Recently Sandra Bullock has been in the news for donating $1M to recovery efforts around the world.  It’s a beautiful act for which she deserves recognition — and yet, had she been caught in some compromising position, it would be all over every news channel and media source and everyone in the world would know about it.  That’s just the way of the world.  People love to watch train wrecks.  Think about reality TV shows.  People don’t watch Jersey Shore because it’s quality entertainment.  Even with specific regard to social media, when a company accidentally sends out an unprofessional tweet, it’s all over the news — and gains them more followers.

Negative publicity will kill your business. Or will it?  When all this stuff with Charlie Sheen started happening, I thought, “That man will never work again.”  And yet, here he is with a new TV show in the works.  When it came out and was all over the news that Taco Bell uses questionable meat, I thought, “Surely people will stop eating there.”  But no.  As contrary to reason as it may be, it just doesn’t work that way.  Taco Bell is running a damage control campaign to recover from the debacle, and it’s working brilliantly.

But what does any of this have to do with building a business with customers who trust you and believe in your quality product or service?  Maybe it’s a tactic for you to try.  While I wouldn’t recommend it, I’d be interested to see the results.  More likely, though, it’s just good information about the way the world of publicity works!

What do you think — is Charlie Sheen’s train wreck of a life a true breakdown or a brilliant marketing ploy?  Would you ever use negative publicity to garner attention?

Otherwise entitled, “Where Are My Sales Already?  Yeesh.”

We have the amazing opportunity to work with so many incredible clients.  It’s part of what we love most about this kind of work.  Many of our clients are new to social media, and so we’re often asked some variation of the same question:  “Just how long is this social media thing going to take?”

As you already know from reading our blog regularly (wink), 2010 was the first year business as a whole completely embraced social media, spending more on digital advertising than print advertising for the first time in history.  So, there’s a lot of hype about social media right now.  The rumor is spreading like wildfire that social media is the be all and end all, easy and free marketing technique that will not only save your business in this questionable economy — it will bring you lots of customers and big bucks while you just sit back and watch it all roll in.

While we are obviously the first in line to tout the benefits of social media marketing, those are not them.  It’s just not true that the simple act of creating a Facebook page or Twitter account is like a giant “ON” switch in the Cloud, opening the flood gates of effortless financial and entrepreneurial success.  Here’s what is true:

1) Social media and online marketing are just like any other form of marketing. Would you put a bare-bones advertisement in the newspaper, then proceed to sit by your phone waiting for it to work?  Absolutely not.  This is no different.  Social media and online marketing must be an integrated part of your overall marketing strategy, and they must be engaging.

2)  Social media is only successful if you act like you’re creating a real relationship with your consumers. Because, in fact, that’s exactly what you’re doing.  There’s a reason it’s called “social” media.  In real life, would you think it reasonable to meet someone in a public place for the first time, then expect them to immediately give you all their contact information, follow you around and be loyal to you at all costs?  No way!  It’s no different on social media, but if you’re expecting immediate results with minimal effort, that’s what you’re asking from your consumers.  Connecting with your consumers on social media is just like being in a real life relationship.  There must be a reason for you to connect to begin with, then you must prove that you’re an engaging, trustworthy and worthwhile friend.  That takes both time and effort.

3)  Trial and error are the only way to find your sweet spot. Every business is different, every market is different and every consumer is different.  So, the social marketing techniques that work for one business will not necessarily work for another.  It takes time to find the perfect online marketing recipe for your business, because you are unique.  You have to try one approach, give it time, measure results, then adjust your efforts…and then rinse and repeat until you’ve achieved perfection.

So, just how long will this social media marketing thing take, anyway? As a general guideline, expect your initial social media marketing efforts to take at least 6 months before you see any kind of response from your consumers.  Obviously, this number can vary greatly, and the more you promote your social media in real life to your current and prospective customers, the better.

Have you found these things true in your business’s social media efforts?  Let us know in the comments!

This time of year, the internet is rife with predictions and resolutions for the new year. There are so many out there, and so many good ones, that we haven’t felt compelled to repeat much of the information, choosing instead to share them with you via our Facebook and Twitter accounts. There is one resolution, however, that is so incredibly important, we wanted to not only repeat it, but highlight it for you, so you’ll implement it into your online marketing strategies this year. What could possibly be that important, you may wonder? Well, here it is:

Tell people about your social media sites.

When we are new to the social media game, it’s tempting to setup our social media sites, then sit back and wait for people to flock to them naturally, as we inevitably expect. Unfortunately, this is one of those situations where myth wins over education for folks who are new to social media. While you will, of course, get a few followers naturally, you have to actively work to build the rest. If you’re one of our clients, we do much of this for you. But, just as social media is an addition to your marketing strategy and not the whole enchilada, building social media followers must be done offline, as well as on.

Think about it this way: when you built or commissioned your business’s first website, did you just put it up and wait for people to find it? No way! You told people about it. You put it on your invoices, letterhead, business cards, vehicle magnets, t-shirts, and absolutely any other place that came to mind. You have to treat social media the same way. To build your social media followers with quality and quantity, you absolutely must tell people about it in real life, every chance you get. That means, you put your Facebook and Twitter addresses on your invoices, letterhead, business cards, vehicle magnets, t-shirts, print newsletters and anywhere else that comes to mind. There’s no such thing as overdoing it, because the more people that see it, the more likely they are to follow you.

This resolution has an added bonus, too. When you tell people about your social media sites offline, or in real life, you will, for the most part, be telling people who are already customers and clients — people who already love you. There’s no need to sell to them; they will follow you because they already utilize your products or services. These same people will be a huge asset to you online, because they will be the ones with brand loyalty. They will be the ones most likely to share your posts and suggest you to their friends. And that, in the end, is really what the social media game is all about.

Last week, Google unveiled a revolutionary new way to use the computer – cloud computing.  In case you missed the awesome video we posted on Facebook and Twitter last week where a precocious group of 10 year olds explained the cloud, the cloud is basically the most expansive idea of the internet. It’s not only websites and email, it is also internet-based file storage, applications and much more.

Google’s revolutionary idea is a new operating system that makes computing entirely cloud-based. That means all your files are stored online and all your programs are web applications (“apps”) used within your browser. Google has released their new cloud-based operating system on a notebook known as the Cr-48 in a pilot program, allowing users to test functionality and report back to Google.  Similar notebooks are expected to be released for sale to the general public in about 6 months, and they are projected to be more affordable than desktop-based computers.

So what does this mean for your online marketing campaign?  A move toward cloud-based computing means more people will be online all the time. It means even more people will join social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. It also means the general public will gain a better understanding of the idea of social networks and other things happening online. And that all boils down to more exposure for you and better results from your online marketing campaigns!

What do you think? Sound off in the comments!

Here is something we see everyday – company websites that don’t produce results. It doesn’t matter if they have or don’t have good curb appeal. It doesn’t matter if they have or don’t have good structure and easy navigation.  What matters is they’re really doing nothing to increase your business.

If that‘s not bad enough, now you want to start using social media marketing (probably because everyone says you should).  One of the primary goals of social media marketing is to drive traffic to your website.  What’s wrong with this picture?  Increasing traffic to a site that’s already proven ineffective.  We have coined a term for this.  We call it I.M.S. –Illogical Marketing Syndrome. Don’t fall victim to it.