50 Ways Marketers Can use Social Media to Improve Their Marketing

1. Add social bookmark links to your most important web pages and/or blog posts to improve sharing.

2. Build blogs and teach conversational marketing and business relationship building techniques.

3. For every video project purchased, ensure there’s an embeddable web version for improved sharing.

4. Learn how tagging and other metadata improve your ability to search and measure the spread of information.

5. Create informational podcasts about a product’s overall space, not just the product.

6. Build community platforms around real communities of shared interest.

7. Help companies participate in existing social networks, and build relationships on their turf.

8. Check out Twitter as a way to show a company’s personality. (Don’t fabricate this).

9. Couple your email newsletter content with additional website content on a blog for improved commenting.

10. Build sentiment measurements, and listen to the larger web for how people are talking about your customer.

11. Learn which bloggers might care about your customer. Learn how to measure their influence.

12. Download the Social Media Press Release (pdf) and at least see what parts you want to take into your traditional press releases.

13. Try out a short series of audio podcasts or video podcasts as content marketing and see how they draw.

14. Build conversation maps for your customers using Technorati.com , Google Blogsearch, Summize, and FriendFeed.

15. Experiment with Flickr and/or YouTube groups to build media for specific events. (Marvel Comics raised my impression of this with their Hulk statue Flickr group).

16. Recommend that your staff start personal blogs on their personal interests, and learn first hand what it feels like, including managing comments, wanting promotion, etc.

17. Map out an integrated project that incorporates a blog, use of commercial social networks, and a face-to-face event to build leads and drive awareness of a product.

18. Start a community group on Facebook or Ning or MySpace or LinkedIn around the space where your customer does business. Example: what Jeremiah Owyang did for Hitachi Data Systems.

19. Experiment with the value of live video like uStream.tv and Mogulus, or Qik on a cell phone.

20. Attend a conference dealing with social media like New Media Expo, BlogWorld Expo, New Marketing Summit (disclosure: I run this one with CrossTech), and dozens and dozens more. (Email me for a calendar).

21. Collect case studies of social media success. Tag them “socialmediacasestudy” in del.icio.us.

22. Interview current social media practitioners. Look for bridges between your methods and theirs.

23. Explore distribution. Can you reach more potential buyers/users/customers on social networks.

24. Don’t forget early social sites like Yahoogroups and Craigslist. They still work remarkably well.

25. Search Summize.com for as much data as you can find in Twitter on your product, your competitors, your space.

26. Practice delivering quality content on your blogs, such that customers feel educated / equipped / informed.

27. Consider the value of hiring a community manager. Could this role improve customer service? Improve customer retention? Promote through word of mouth?

28. Turn your blog into a mobile blog site with Mofuse. Free.
Learn what other free tools might work for community building, like MyBlogLog.

29. Ensure you offer the basics on your site, like an email alternative to an RSS subscription. In fact, the more ways you can spread and distribute your content, the better.

30. Investigate whether your product sells better by recommendation versus education, and use either wikis and widgets to help recommend, or videos and podcasts for education.

31. Make WebsiteGrader.com your first stop for understanding the technical quality of a website.

32. Make Compete.com your next stop for understanding a site’s traffic. Then, mash it against competitors’ sites.

33. Learn how not to ask for 40 pieces of demographic data when giving something away for free. Instead, collect little bits over time. Gently.

34. Remember that the people on social networks are all people, have likely been there a while, might know each other, and know that you’re new.

35. Tread gently into new territories. Don’t NOT go. Just go gently.

36. Help customers and prospects connect with you simply on your various networks.

37. Consider a Lijit Wijit or other aggregator widget.

38. Voting mechanisms like those used on Digg.com show your customers you care about which information is useful to them.

39. Track your inbound links and when they come from blogs, be sure to comment on a few posts and build a relationship with the blogger.

40. Find a bunch of bloggers and podcasters whose work you admire, and ask them for opinions on your social media projects. See if you can give them a free sneak peek at something, or some other “you’re special” reward for their time and effort (if it’s material, ask them to disclose it).

41. Learn all you can about how NOT to pitch bloggers. Excellent resource: Susan Getgood.

42. Try out shooting video interviews and video press releases and other bits of video to build more personable relationships. Don’t throw out text, but try adding video.

43. Explore several viewpoints about social media marketing.
Women are adding lots of value to social media. Get to know the ones making a difference. (And check out BlogHer as an event to explore).

44. Experiment with different lengths and forms of video. Is entertaining and funny but brief better than longer but more informative? Don’t stop with one attempt. And try more than one hosting platform to test out features.

45. Work with practitioners and media makers to see how they can use their skills to solve your problems. Don’t be afraid to set up pilot programs, instead of diving in head first.

46. People power social media. Learn to believe in the value of people. Sounds hippie, but it’s the key.

47. Spread good ideas far. Reblog them. Bookmark them. Vote them up at social sites. Be a good citizen.

48. Don’t be afraid to fail. Be ready to apologize. Admit when you’ve made a mistake.

49. Re-examine who in the organization might benefit from your social media efforts. Help equip them to learn from your project.

50. Use the same tools you’re trying out externally for internal uses, if that makes sense, and learn about how this technology empowers your business collaboration, too.

Social Media Optimization Techniques

SMO or social media optimization is a system in which by using the attributes of
search engine optimizations your web site is optimized amongst the most
happening online communities. This can either be done by strewing links all
across the community website to facilitate backlinking or by strengthening the
interaction podium by writing numerous blogs and constantly updating their
content. This will serve to recreate interest in your blogs amongst your regular
visitors and have them coming back for more; though with additional company.
This therefore is a more effective method of drawing traffic to your website.
So by now it is clear that if you have to popularize your brand you need to
popularize your website. The guidelines below will simply help you a little in that
endeavor.
Join a social media platform, for example---Digg, Delicious, twitter, facebook or
Technorati. Besides the obvious advantage that your website will be looked up
as a very ‘in-thing’ it will also improve the ranking and stature of your page in the
tech community.

Tag your article in the correct way to increase visibility. Don’t be stupid enough,
to tag an article as Acne when it deals with the more specific issue of acne scars.
Make your voice heard and opinion counted, by the tactful use of tagging.

Focus on quantity as much as you would on quality. Keep on adding articles and
white pages so that you give your visitors more than enough to chew on. If you
do not update your website regularly they will soon lose interest to visit your site
in the long run. This tactic therefore assists in adding to the linkability of your
website.

The most significant requirement is to provide for methods that simplify ‘tagging’
and ‘bookmarking’ for your customers. This can be done if you provide easy
quick buttons or ‘add to del.icio.us’. Allow for tag lists and notes for links to
cumulate visibility.

Reward the incoming links as a sort of inducement to make them come back for
more. This will not only bring in the existing customers but also pull in more
traffic, who would want to get rewarded as well.

Offer downloadable files from your website in the forms of downloadable pdf. files
,audio and video files and make them available to your customer either for free or
at a negligible cost. An additional propaganda mechanism can be by sending
their copies to various other websites.

Social media optimization has immense potential of escalating the ranking of
your website to great heights. Let us now move over to the other technique of
social media marketing.
So I hope by now you’re convinced of the power of social media marketing and
also what’s it and how it works. If you’re determined to make it big this 2009, you
must make full use of social media optimization. Indeed there are several social
network sites only but in the next chapters, I have discussed about the top 7
social media namely – Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Myspace, linkedin, Squidoo,
podcasts and how you can use each of these and generate more traffic to your
business.

Social Media: Still a Mystery to Most Small Businesses

The barriers for most small businesses using social media are:

• Time and education: It takes time to read and learn about the ever-changing, growing tools online, and most business owners don’t have extra time to devote to this. I hear it every day, and as a small business owner myself, I certainly understand this constraint. Small businesses have limited resources and must focus on revenue development and all that comes with running a business. Social media can help a small business tremendously, but most owners have not had time to get up to speed.
• Lack of resources: It takes a dedicated effort to employ social media tools. Most companies can hire help, but many simply don’t have the extra resources to do so.
• Reluctance to embrace new media: A lot of people are just flat out skeptical of social media. There are legitimate reasons to ignore it, especially if you are in a regulated industry (banking, insurance, finance, etc.), as some governing entities such as the SEC have policies against any use of social media for work. I think that will change soon, as I’m already seeing some large organizations issue new policies on social media use.
• Generational: Most people would be surprised to know that the average age of a Twitter user is between 40 and 55. Age isn’t an excuse to avoid social tools, but it is often an explanation.

How to get started if you want to add a social media strategy to your marketing toolkit:

• Read, read, read. There are some excellent blogs (like this one) and other resources online that can tell you all you need to know. There is no “magic wand” that will do this for you. If you really want to jump in, you have to do the reading yourself. You can hire it out of course, but the ideal results spring from the business understanding social media and embracing it, even if it means only monitoring at first. Let’s take the Judy McLellan Team for example (@JudyMacTeam on Twitter). Judy hired my firm to help with a real estate marketing and PR strategy that included the use of social tools. At first, we did some of the tweeting and posting. But now, you can find Judy out selling homes while using her iPad and iPhone to tweet and spread information about her listings.
• Pick one tool and learn that first. For me, it’s Twitter. Once I understood Twitter, I moved on to learning about some other tools. I think by mastering one tool, small businesses can see results faster. Let’s take Cheffie’s Cafe (@Cheffies on Twitter) as the next example. We helped Cheffie’s Cafe spread the word by using Twitter, along with traditional PR during the previous few months. A good Twitter strategy is key to a successful PR campaign.
• Look at what your competition is doing. Get online and do a little research to see what your competition is up to in the social space. Let’s take OrthoMemphis, a successful orthopaedic practice in Memphis that adopted social media long before its competition did. We have helped OrthoMemphis (@OrthoMemphis on Twitter) use social media tools to not only market their sub-specialists (knee, hips, and shoulders), but also to launch OrthoStat, its acute care walk-in clinic. Combined with direct mail, PR, and patient communications, Twitter and Facebook have been tremendously helpful.
• Get a social media policy in place and communicate it to your organization. There are some great examples online and free resources available. I suggest any small business that wants to use social media tools have a policy in place just like a media policy. Talking online is like talking in the newspaper, and it’s important to have a strategy and know the dos and don’ts of posting online. Good examples are Coca-Cola, Kodak, and Intel. (A list of these can be found on my blog.)

5 Things You Need to Know

Here are five key insights into the digital native generation that will help you understand how best to leverage their distinct worldview to achieve your business objectives.

1. They live publicly online. Without a doubt, the notion of privacy didn’t change overnight with the advent of the Internet. For better or worse (or for lack of a better word), we’ve seen an evolution of privacy. It was once the norm to keep one’s dirty laundry tucked away out of site. This gave way to a generation that would share from the relative privacy of a therapist’s couch. More recently, we have witnessed the era of trash-mouth talk shows and reality TV. However, with the digital native, businesses must address the expectations of a generation raised in social networking environments, in which they routinely share every detail of their activities and opinions with a potentially limitless group of friends. Tip: Often, businesses are hamstrung by outdated notions of privacy. They fail to recognize and capitalize on the digital native’s openness. We need to understand the native’s natural inclination to live publicly to guide these activities so that they are consistent with our business objectives. We can also build business models that leverage on this openness, both in the way we structure our employee activities as well as customer interactions.
2. They share knowledge. Once we recognize that the natives are living their lives out loud, we can begin to understand how this behavior is shapes all aspects of their lives. Despite a good deal of hyperbole about social media and marketing via Twitter and social networks, as many as 50 to 75 percent of organizations limit or ban the use of social networks while on the job. What this demonstrates is not simply a fear of exposure through inappropriate use of social technologies, it shows a distinct lack of understanding of how to effectively manage and channel the knowledge sharing inclination of this generation. Tip: Beyond crafting guidelines to regulate the appropriate use of social networks on the job, proactive use of socially mediated, open, collaborative ways of working can help companies capture otherwise transient knowledge assets. The old adage was that knowledge is power; for the digital native knowledge shared is power.
3. They believe transparency yields trust. Because digital natives live publicly and value knowledge sharing, organizations that demonstrate a similar level of openness will be the ones that attract and retain them as employees and customers. Digital natives make new friends, followers, and fans every day. However, it is important to keep in mind that it takes a lot of work to maintain the kind of genuine relationship required with the digital native. If digital natives dislike your brand, they will make it publicly known. Luckily, the reverse is also true. Today’s ultra-connected consumer, raised to share and monitor sentiment, may seem like a fickle friend, but that’s only if organizations don’t stay involved by listening, responding, owning up, and doing the work it takes to maintain a genuine, long-term relationship. Tip: When it comes to attracting and retaining this generation as employees, it is essential to recognize that today’s best employees are also monitoring opportunities and discussing employers online. For recruiting, this can provide insights into who the best, brightest, and most social media savvy are. And for employee retention, employers can leverage these same tools and tendencies to make sure they are competitive in the market and respond to concerns in order to attract and retain the best and brightest.
4. They are timely, not time managed. While most people are painfully aware that the line between “at work” and “off duty” is increasingly blurred, for the native this will be taken to a whole new level. The digital native will move beyond what previous generations called a work/life balance to a new sort of work life integration. For the digital native, work and social activities are ever present—they travel with the native anywhere and anytime. Digital natives may log more hours at their computers during the course of a day than those in previous generations, but they switch back and forth between work and leisure in short bursts. Though this may strike some managers as inappropriate, it helps to realize that while an older worker might head to the break room or a co-worker’s desk to clear his head, natives are more likely to “info snack” or catch up on a quick burst of Facebook updates. Tip: Moving forward, companies that emphasize collaboration, learning, and socialization will see key benefits in comparison to companies that focus solely on productivity. The native doesn’t need to play all day to be happy. However, there’s no reason that work inside an organization can’t be constructively influenced by the expectations of our younger workforce.
5. They believe in interactions, not transactions. Social networking, social media, social . . . with all this socializing, one might begin to wonder how any business ever gets done. Suffice it to say, it does, and it will continue to do so. However, organizations that develop good social skills will have a competitive advantage over those that remain socially inept. One quality that will be essential for business success going forward is recognizing that this generation is not interested in traditional transactive business models, which are based upon exchanges of money for goods annd services. This is a generation that is interested in interactions. Tip: Unlike a transaction-based system, an interactive one is based upon social currency. The fact is that all aspects of business will need to embrace interaction, from marketing and CRM to product and content creation. This generation doesn’t just want to do business with companies it views as friends; it wants to do business with itself and expects to see its ideals and objectives reflected in the companies it chooses to do business with.

Social media is evolving as a force

Social media is evolving as a force—if not THE force—in modern marketing. As e-commerce and social grow together, websites like Twitter, Facebook, and the young Google+ are becoming the playground for experimental marketing. This is creating new challenges for marketers, buyers, sellers, and others within the social ecosystem. As innovations—such as Facebook’s “Sponsored Stories”—show, there are plenty of up-and-coming ways to turn social media into a powerful marketing medium.

The modern social media strategist must be part technologist and part behaviorist. As marketing leaders, we must be willing to experiment with and implement technology while studying the changes in human behavior that come with new and evolving social media adoption. As our experts stated above, we are in the midst of foundational change. Who’s brave enough to create social media’s future?

10 Common Mistakes

Mistakes to avoid and amendments made to improve and promote a Social Media Marketing Blog:


1. Writing the Wrong Content
Always write relevant content and topics to your BLOG.


2. No Introduction
Always introduce first.


3. Not Promoted Through Social Media
Always Promote your Posts or Blog via Social Media Sites.


4. Poor Grammar
Avoid using poor grammar be simple but correct.


5. Mixed Up Content
Never mix up contents in your blog.


6. Not Enough Photos
Always use photos/images to explain as the sayings one single image can tell what thousands of words can't.


7. Not Studying Analytics
Always observe and study Analytics e.g. GOOGLE ANALYTICS about your Blog/site.


8. Posting at the Wrong Time
Always choose right time to post right content.


9. Not Linking Content
Always link contents to each other.


10. Always Sign Off
Always remember to sign off once you have posted the contents/posts.