Social media is made up of online communities where people collaborate with each other, share content and in general they are a collective influence or a collective wisdom.  Let’s examine the lifecycle of interaction in social media from a marketer’s perspective.  In general it is comprised of these four components:
Engage
Listen
Interact
Measure

Engage

When embarking on a social media marketing strategy the first place to start is to identify the communities that are meaningful to your business (fish where the fish are).  Once you find them, you must engage them.  You visit social media sites and you find people with common interests and you connect with them.  The social media sites you use may vary according to your industry and geographic location. 

Once you engage people, then you must give to them.  This is a concept that I have found many marketers don’t get.  The reason is that marketing 1.0 is about pushing your message out and asking for something in the form of a lead or some other conversion we can measure.  In social media marketing we must first give to get.  When you give of yourself you are getting engaged in your community…Remember, social media marketing is a natural extension of our desire as humans to be social creatures.  You offer your opinions and your thoughts wherever and whenever the opportunity presents itself.  But, you always do it in a giving way.  Do not – I repeat – do not ask for something in return.  You would not do that at a cocktail party, so don’t dig yourself a hole and do that in a social media situation.  People online can be very unforgiving. 

In summary, just have a giving attitude in social media and you’ll find many friends and you’ll build a good reputation for yourself and your company if your online identity is tied to your company. 

Listen

Engaging and listening are very closely tied to each other but there is a distinction.  I argue that one of the things you can measure most in social media is that which you learn when you listen online.  Listening can be incredibly informative.  Listening to your community is part of the wisdom of the community.  Often there are thought leaders in your community who have good insights to offer.  Your online friends will send you links to articles, blog posts, videos, photos and generally content which can give you valuable insights which you may not have otherwise found.  Listening also lets you tap into market intelligence.  Listening can also result in some of the most measurable assets in social media marketing.

Interact

When we engage our community we give of our insights, we listen to their insights, ideas and opinions.  When we engage with our community we interact with them.  In your career you’ve earned the right to (finish this sentence).  Earning the right to do something in any business circumstance means you have the authority, credibility or know-how.  When you interact with your audience you should have some credibility.  You may be building your credibility with your community.  Or, you may have it from day one based on your recognized accomplishments in your industry.  Interacting with your community can take several forms.

First I’ll touch on personal interaction. We are not robots.  We are people with interests and personalities.  In social media it is very common for people to let their hair down and share things about themselves or their personality.  I personally enjoy seeing comments from people I follow online about the photos they’ve taken, their daughter’s wedding, or whatever personal tidbit it may be.  If you’re wondering what this has to do with marketing – everything!  Opening discussions in business settings often are about something other than business.  Social media affords us the opportunity to be ourselves and gain insights into people in our communities.  Don’t be all work and no play or you’ll be perceived as boring and only interested in advancing your business cause. 

Marketing interaction in social media can be very effective but it must be approached carefully.  Posting links to blog posts or articles and asking for reaction is an effective way to interact. Even if people don’t respond, you’re still interacting with your community by sharing content.  Responding to other people’s comments or content they share is another effective way to interact. 

Measure

Measuring results is one of my favorite topics in marketing.  The reality is that in recent years, measuring results has become increasingly sophisticated at a quantitative level.  And, there is also an element of qualitative measurement that is somewhat more difficult to measure, though very possible.  As David Meerman Scott tells us in his book The New Rules of Marketing & PR, not everything is measurable in social media marketing.  But measuring results can be achieved in a combination of qualitative and quantitative ways. 

This topic alone warrants its own blog post.  For now, I’ll list some of the tools you can use to measure results:
Blogpulse
Buzzmetrics
Google Analytics
Google Webmaster Tools
Google Alerts
Gooble Blogsearch
Radian6
Technorati
Trendpedia
Trendrr

Measure results in social media is a topic that warrants more coverage, so I’ll write more on these tools in another blog post.

This blog post is an edited excerpt of my (yet to be named) book on social media marketing to be published in the first quarter of 2009.

If you have any comments on these guidelines, please share them.

Tags: David Meerman Scott, measuring social media results, social media marketing, The New Rules of Marketing & PR

You may know that I am writing a book on social media marketing.  I am planning to complete it by end of year and publish it around March 2009.   

The purpose of my book is to explain in plain English what social media marketing is.  My target readers are small and medium size businesses.  The people I am writing for are mostly marketing managers and executives.  As I travel and speak at conferences most business people I meet still do not understand social media marketing (SMM) basics and how to develop winning SMM strategies that deliver ROI ($$$).  My book will explain how SMM has evolved, basic SMM concepts, and provide guidelines to develop SMM strategies.  It will also cover the risks and benefits of implementing SMM strategies. The book is especially targeting people who don’t have Fortune 1000 budgets.  

The book will also provide select case studies.  I am in search of small and medium size businesses who have been using social media marketing strategies with any measure of success.  If you fit this description and you are willing to participate, I would ask your permission to use your company as a case study assuming that I am comfortable it will serve the purpose of the book as outlined above.

Below are a series of questions I would review with you.  If you prefer to respond to the questions in email, that is fine or we can arrange a phone conversation at your convenience. 

Short description of your business including relative size of your company for frame of reference for my readers.  Include the types of companies you compete against.
What is your social media marketing strategy?
How did you develop your social media marketing strategy?
How much time, effort and resources (people and budget) do you apply to your social media strategy?
Did you test any portion of your SMM strategy?
What have you learned?
What failures and successes (ROI) have you realized?
Have you made any changes to your SMM strategy?
What’s next in your SMM strategy?
What would you do differently if you were starting from scratch with your SMM strategy?
 

If this isn’t a fit for you, but you know of a business that may be a good case study for my book, please feel free to pass this along or send me the referral.

Bernie
bernie@findandconvert.com

Tags: social media marketing

Google is attempting to communicate updates to how they crawl dynamic URLs.   In a blog post in Google Webmaster Tools on Monday the author says “If you want to serve a static URL instead of a dynamic URL you should create a static equivalent of your content.” 

Yes!  We’ve been saying this forever.  What’s new about this?  Nothing!

The blog post goes on to say: “It’s always advisable to use static content with static URLs as much as possible, but in cases where you decide to use dynamic content, you should give us the possibility to analyze your URL structure and not remove information by hiding parameters and making them look static.”

In other words, don’t try to game Google.  Yes again!  White hat SEO best practices have always been about giving the visitor what they want and giving search engines what they want - the truth.

Isn’t it interesting that effective SEO strategies are just like the basic principles of life?  Tell the truth and you’ll always be better off. 

Bottom line - static URLs are still best for best organic search engine rankings.

Got a different opinion?
 

Tags: dynamic URL, Google, SEO best practices, static URL

The annual ConnectWise Partner Summit was held in Orlando this past week.  I had the privilege of attending, exhibiting and speaking.  Here are some of my thoughts from the event.

As a web marketing/social media guy, it’s very refreshing to attend a conference outside my industry.  ConnectWise is a valued client whose vibrant community of clients (appropriately called Partners) is very loyal.  Over 700 of their partners attended this year’s Partner Summit in the face of a weak economy.  ConnectWise partners are IT solution providers many of whom provide managed services.  They use ConnectWise software similar to the way manufacturers use ERP software.  ConnectWise software runs their business. 

Most of the topics in the breakout sessions pertained to topics to help ConnectWise partners become more efficient running their IT solutions business.  I conducted two breakout sessions entitled Social Media Marketing for the Rest of Us.  Each of my sessions was very interactive with lively conversations.  Some of the memorable commentary included these:

Amy Kardel shared how they rebranded their company from a generic computer-centric name to Clever Ducks.  They are building an online community to help with their recruiting efforts and strengthen their “clever” brand.  Way to go Amy!

Jason Beal from Ingram Micro recognizes the importance of co-branding himself and his employer in social media and wisely devotes time to it.

Laura Aronson from MLANS couldn’t contain her excitement about re-purposing existing content for a blogging strategy and using her partner’s skills for a podcasting strategy.

Joe Pannettieri, Editorial Director at Nine Lives Media Inc. introduced me to his wildly successful MSPMentor, the leading web destination site for IT professionals in the managed services market segment.  Joe is a frequent speaker and acclaimed blogger.  I think Joe and will get along really well!

Jon Schram, President of ThePurpleGuys has successfully used LinkedIn for networking and can point to new clients resulting from it.  I really liked his purple shirt too.

The professional development experience briefly summarized here was awesome.  But, I must admit that the highlight of the ConnectWise Partner Summit for me was the entertainment on Thursday night.  The team from Drum Café entertained the crowd of about 1000 people by leading us in harmony to a spirited African drum symphony.  Everyone in the audience was given a drum.  The team leader orchestrated us with her arm motions and passion without uttering a single word.  The fact that (for the most part) the audience was in harmony with the drummers on stage was astounding.  This exercise was billed as a team building exercise, and that it was!  It lasted about an hour.  The next morning my wrists were sore.  I’ll remember that event a long time.  If you ever get the chance to see (and participate) with the Drum Café, do it!  You’ll thoroughly enjoy it.

Congratulations to Christy Sacco of ConnectWise for planning and executing a superb partner conference! I can’t wait for next year’s ConnectWise Partner Summit!

Tags: ConnectWise Partner Summit, Drum Cafe, managed services, social media for the rest of us

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1785)

This podcast summarizes a session I recently conducted at the first annual  Inbound Marketing Summit September 8th in Cambridge, MA.  The event was sponsored by Hubspot, the providers of the industry’s leading inbound marketing system and WebsiteGrader.com.  There were about 300 people in attendance and through the use of social media the event reached nearly 100,000 people. 

I conducted a session called “Closed Loop Marketing.”  A link to the presentation slides are available here.

The keynote speakers were David Meerman Scott and Seth Godin both well known authors, bloggers and speakers.  They didn’t disappoint with their clever insights into contemporary marketing. 

Here is one of my “take aways” from each keynoter:

Scott: “you can’t measure everything…what is the ROI of putting on your pants in the morning?…of the receptionist?…the guys cutting the grass in front of the building?”  His point is that the way we measure contemporary marketing is not the same as it used to be.

Godin: “when you look at a cow, it’s pretty boring, but if you color it purple people notice it.”  His point is that marketing has to stand out.  It needs to be different and attention-grabbing to cut through all the bad marketing which clutters our brain every day. 

My session covererd the four pillars of closing the loop between marketing and sales:

1) Key Relationships: marketers must know each of the executive stakeholders and their measurement criteria and be aligned with them to effectively measure results (see Scott’s point above).

2) Strategies: know behavior of your target market, design proper messaging, listen to online communities, allocate resources wisely, think “small” (long tail strategies)

3) Best Practices: “eat lunch with stakeholders,” know your competition and industry thought leaders, propagate your content, test, measure, revise (TMR), don’t be afraid to experiment.

4) Measurement Strategies: measure leads, sales, “buzz,” brand, cost-per (fill in the blank).  Use tools to measure ranging from manual calculations, free or inexpensive tools, to elaborate and costly tools based on your budget and marketing programs.

In this session I placed a lot of emphasis on rolling out marketing programs that are well aligned with key stakeholders and that your measurement strategies agree with your key stakeholder’s goals and criteria.

The full presentation videos for all the sessions from IMS08 will be available on the Inbound Marketing Summit Website in the near future.  I also recommend you check out the full Flickr slideshow on the Inbound Marketing Summit at  www.flickr.com/photos/tags/ims08/.

How do you close the loop between marketing and sales in your business? 

Tags: closing the loop between marketing and sales, David Meerman Scott, Hubspot, Inbound Marketing Summit, Seth Godin, social media

This past week I attended the Inbound Marketing Summit in Cambridge, MA (September 8th).  It was the first annual event sponsored by Hubspot and co-sponsored by many fine Internet marketing product and services companies.  The event was well attended by Hubspot clients from around the world as far away as Israel.  There were many interesting sessions on topics ranging from SEO, blogging, viral video, podcasting and social media.  I gave a presentation on closed loop marketing.

My week was majorly distracted by an event which I’ll not forget.  While it was a major distraction, it pales in comparison to the personal trauma people are experiencing in Texas with hurricane Ike.  So, let it be known that I have perspective on the significance (or insignificance) of my personal event.

On Sunday night (September 7th) I was copied on an email from my webmaster to my hosting company.  Apparently, the volume of traffic on my blog had grown so much that the load it was putting on the shared server where my website and blog were hosted exceeded my hosting plan limits. 

Though I run an Internet marketing agency, I don’t have an advanced degree in data center/hosting management.  But, it seems to me that if a client’s website or blog is exceeding its hosting plan, the prudent thing to do is to notify the client and give them a reasonable time period to take appropriate action.  The hosting company (Surpass) could’ve contacted me to explain the situation and required me to upgrade my plan.  Honestly, even if they gave me an ultimatum to upgrade or move, I would’ve made a prompt decision probably to upgrade my hosting plan.  All they had to do was communicate.

But, noooooooooooo! Surpass shut down my webite.  They didn’t notify me.  They just shut it down!  When we submitted a ticket in complete disbelief they wrote a long winded email about how the load from www.findandconvert.com and www.findandconvert.com/blog was excessive and it jeopardized the other websites on the shared server.  I repeat, all they had to do was communicate and sell me an updgraded hosting plan.  Is that so complicated? 

Instead, they shut down both my website and my blog.  Over the course of the rest of the week of September 8th, I arranged to purchase a dedicated server plan with another host, migrate the website and blog with the proper set up and configuration.  These details took the entire week.  I was tirelessly supported by Peter Konstantakos of KDM Consultants through the entire week.  My website and blog went live again about 6pm on Friday September 12th resulting in being down the entire business week of September 8th. 

As I mentioned previoulsy, I attended and spoke at the Inbound Marketing Summit this past week where I networked with many fine people, some of whom may have attempted to visit my company website or blog this past week.  What a great first impression that surely made (NOT).

I’m sure people understand the situation.  So, in the grand scheme of things (after all, my family and I are not in the middle of a hurricane) it’s not that big a deal.  But, I must admit I am truly amazed at the horrible customer service experience from Surpass.  I truly question their business intelligence.  In addition to my negative experience, this blog post and whatever viral affect it may have can cost them dearly for being so shortsighted.

I believe there are two lessons here.
1) If you’re blogging consistently, keep a close watch on the affect your blog has on your hosting plan.
2) Consider your communication plan with your customers if/when they have a serious setback with your company.  Turn lemon into lemonade by going out of your way to communicate and make the situation right no matter what.  Surpass did anything but that.  I will forever steer people away from this hosting company as a result of my negative experience.

I truly hope the people of Texas are blessed with safety in the path of hurricane Ike, and that we witness the outpouring of the human spirit for aid and assistance.

Tags: blog hosting, hurricane Ike, Internet marketing agency, Surpass

 

 Introduction to Twitter: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1468)

This is a repost of the Twitter video from http://www.findandconvert.com/blog/2008/introduction-to-twitter-video-podcast/.

This format is for users of iTunes and iPhones or iPods.  Feel free to comment on either post.

Tags: Introduction to Twitter, iTunes, Twitter

Internet marketing is comprised of organic search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising and social media marketing.  Many marketers don’t use pay-per-click (also called SEM).  Other than for some of the most competitive keyword phrases in your market niche, you are best served driving traffic from organic search engine rankings.

I argue that marketers should be actively working on their Internet marketing plan on an ongoing basis.  This isn’t a self serving comment as much as it is just reality.  It’s true that a new SEO plan for a website which has not previously gone through the conventional SEO process requires some heavy lifting that usually takes months to complete.  But, once it’s complete, it’s NOT done. 

To think you do SEO as a one time activity is the biggest Internet marketing myth on the planet.  I’ve actually read that and I’m amazed that people can actually think that. 

Search engines crawl your website regularly and ongoing. Imagine if search engines just crawled your website once then never again.  You wouldn’t like that would you?  You want credit for your great new content and for the new incoming links you’ve received over the past weeks, months and even years. 

Search engines crawl websites because they are in the business of providing search results to you and me based on the most relevant content and incoming links.  A website that was less relevant last week may be more relevant this week due to new content and links.  What if your top competitors have made their websites more relevant to your favorite keywords in the past week?  They will probably move up in search engine rankings.

So how can anyone actually believe that once you set up your SEO plan you are done?  That’s like saying once you roll out a marketing campaign, you’re done.  Or, like saying once you go to the gym and exercise, you’re done.  Or, once you …………ok, you get my point by now.

Earlier I stated that Internet marketing includes social media.  If you have not yet acknowledged the importance of social media in your marketing strategy, I urge you to.  Social media has allowed your prospects to learn more about you and your competitors than ever before.  The good news is you are less dependent on outside media to deliver good content to your prospects and customers.  And, the good news (there is no bad news here) is you get to do it as often as you want without needing a Fortune 100 marketing budget. 

The second Internet marketing myth point I’m making is that any business of any size (down to the sole proprietor) can deliver a great message using social media.  If you don’t have your own blog (which you should consider) visit popular blogs in your industry and post comments with your insights and thoughts.  Visit the websites of the main publications in your industry.  They probably have a blog where you can also post comments and see what people are talking about.

These Internet marketing myths can be summed by saying that working on organic SEO in part through active social media marketing can take time and effort, but the choice is do on an ongoing basis or not.  If you don’t you run the risk of being out-marketed by those competitors of yours who are.

If you have an experience to share pertaining to ongoing Internet marketing strategy success, please post it in the comment below.  Share it with us!  The world awaits your input…

Tags: blog, internet marketing, pay per click advertising, PPC, search engine optimization, SEO