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By Jane van Velsen in Social Media Marketing

“ROI on Social Media? What bloody ROI?”

It’s only the first week of January 2012 and already I’m hearing the same refrain as 2011! “How do we calculate the ROI on social media in marketing?”

When you begin using social media in your marketing strategy or as a stand alone campaign, it is hard to determine how those numbers of followers and ‘likers’ stack up against delivery of a return on investment.

We have clients who ask us this regularly so here’s some clarity for you.

Measuring social media ROI is very difficult for a few reasons. The first is that it is very hard to use social media trackers for individual sales and the second is that social media is not a direct sales channel, it’s a relationship marketing tool.

Although difficult it can be done using a combination of direct marketing stratagems like offer codes linked to specific landing pages in your ‘hub’ (a blog or website to run all your social media activity through.)

This, however comes after you have built an audience or community to ‘market’ to. It’s no good running a specific offer or promotion until you have a loyal following and that takes a while.

For any social media agency to offer ROI they will need parameters which you all agree at the outset eg: a % increase in audience month on month.

You may also assign other parameters like: percentage traffic driven to a specific landing page.

Monitor online visibility by looking at the number of mentions (share) of your brand and links to your site using tools like SocialMention. Put Google Analytics on your ‘hub’ and measure traffic source. Use social media monitors like KLOUT to determine your brands popularity via social media. Check your Facebook insights to see ‘share’ figures and ‘post views’ When you have an audience or community worth marketing to, remember to apply the same rules you would in traditional marketing: have a strategy – Determine content – Reward loyalty – Engage regularly and relevantly.

Track your results and learn from them. For a social media consultant or agency to do this for you they need to have a relationship with your website/blogsite manager and designer or full access to the site, access to all your online profiles, a copy of your marketing strategy and a ‘point’ person to get material from eg: videos, photos, posts, tips. In fact your social media agency becomes part of your marketing department.

If you’re choosing a social media agency, look for one that has its roots in marketing and advertising and understands that synergy. They also need to understand search engine optimization.

Running individual campaigns within social media is easier to measure in terms of ROI. For example.

Let’s say you have 40 000 Facebook ‘fans’ on your business page and 25,000 on your Twitter Profile. You have an email database of 12,000. You want to tell them all about a special offer you’re running to buy XX at a discount of 20% and you want to record the click-throughs and the take-up of the offer.

The first thing you do is build a landing page on your ‘hub’. Why? It’s the only way to track results.

Your ‘hub’ should have analytics on it so that page can be monitored in terms of where the traffic is coming from and whether or not a sale is made or a visitor is sent on to a purchase page.

You can assign a ‘special offer’ code to your ‘tweet’, ‘post’ or ‘update’ that is specific to that tool, a time limit, an offer. You can also add a link that takes the recipient to that landing page. It may be that you only use one social media tool per campaign but remember to measure apples with apples!

The difference is this is a specific social media driven offer campaign not a generic visibility campaign.

We think it is this lack of understanding that causes a lot of problems when clients think about proving ROI in sales terms.

In terms of generic social media in marketing to build an audience, you can use recent research that tells you that increased online visibility through engagement on social media tools like Twitter, Facebook and bookmarks will give you increased sales.

Bain and Company recently declared that “Customers who engage with companies over social media are more loyal and they spend up to 40 percent more with those companies than other customers” in their study “Putting Social Media to Work.”

Wendy Clark is the senior vice president of integrated marketing communications and capabilities at Coca-Cola Inc. where she stated that an independent group verified that Coca-Cola fans on Facebook (36 million +) were twice as likely to consume coke and 10 times more likely to purchase.

I’d like to know that about my audience. Wouldn’t you?

James Caan of Dragon’s Den fame looks at it purely from a financial gain point of view.

This is why we use social media for our clients.

Jane van Velsen is the founder of the Social Media Shop Ltd. Jane still uses the principles of direct marketing and relationship marketing that she was taught at O&M Direct over 16 years ago. This social media agency offers online training through video tutorials, full service social media management and set up as well as full day workshops.

By Julie Ann Ross in Social Media Marketing

socialmediamktgSocial media marketing is more than just spreading a marketing message through social networking tools like Twitter or Facebook. It is about brand management and defense on those same social tools, and turning that defense into marketing opportunities. In many cases, social media marketing will often transcend the typical marketing communication messages and campaigns, because it comes from sources other than the marketing department.

The customer service department is an unlikely place for social media marketing to happen, but because of the public nature of social networks, it can be a great place for brand defense and word of mouth marketing to happen, all because the customer service department is on the ball and handling customer complaints.

Here is an example of how social media marketing usually works.

1) A customer has a complaint with their satellite service provider. They send a tweet out, which is seen by their 750 followers: “Channel 213 is out, and right before the big game. Stupid satellite company. Been sitting on hold for past 30 minutes.”

2) The satellite company is monitoring Twitter, and they respond with a message of apology and an offer to help. They may even offer to call the customer themselves, or ask them to send a direct message outlining the problem.

3) After a few direct messages back and forth, the satellite company is able to diagnose the problem. It is something wrong with the company’s equipment. In the meantime, they tell the customer to switch to an alternate channel which is carrying the same game.

4) The customer is very happy. Not only does he feel heard, but he is now able to watch the game. He tweets out, “Satellite company just told me to switch to channel 271 for the game while they fix the problem. They will have the old channel up and running by halftime.” (This is brand defense.)

5) The customer’s friends are also interested in watching the game, so not only do they switch to the new channel, but they retweet the message to their own friends. This also tells other viewers where they can find the new channel (this is word of mouth marketing).

But the biggest benefit this has is in social media marketing. By telling his friends and followers, the original customer spreads the message (word of mouth marketing) that his satellite provider was responsive and helpful (brand defense).

Their customer service response became a social media marketing function, because the customer told everyone about it. His friends and followers – who he has a relationship with, and who trust him – are more willing to listen to him if he ever recommends that satellite provider.

This is because people have begun ignoring traditional marketing messages, preferring instead to believe their friends and social media connections for recommendations. The lesson for brands that want to use social media marketing is that they need to have trusted relationships with their customers. It means they have to communicate with them in something more than advertising slogans and special offers.

Brands that successfully use social media marketing talk with their customers about things other than just their product or service. They answer questions in their industry, help customers solve problems, and even recommend them to other companies to find solutions.

Proper social media marketing makes companies someone more than just a faceless marketer whose only interest is the bottom line. It makes them evangelists and advocates for the customers. It also shows that the company is willing to look out for their customers, listen to them, and have their best interests at heart. And so who do the customers buy from? The companies that show more interest in them than in their wallets.

Ultimately, social media marketing is about forming relationships with customers and potential customers. It takes more work than billboards and brochures, but it has a better ROI and can even improve sales where traditional marketing cannot. Social media marketing is becoming a more popular channel for companies, because it can encompass more than just traditional marketing. Customer service, public relations, and even research and development are all social media marketing channels now.

Article by Julie Ann Ross. With 20 years in marketing, advertising and 10 years in internet marketing, Rostin Ventures is on the cutting edge. Combining Social Media Optimization with more traditional SEO and SEM methods, Rostin Ventures is a consulting firm specializing in enhancing clients’ online presence and managing their public relations online. SEO, SEM and ORM, Online Reputation Management, are combined in this successful formula. http://www.RostinVentures.com

By Brent McCoy in Social Media Marketing

socialmedia2When you go about marketing your online business through social media, there are a few basic guidelines you should aim to follow. These can be applied to forming connections in social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter, as well as in social bookmarking services like Digg, StumbleUpon or Reddit – although, perhaps to a slightly lesser extent.

Being a success through social media is all about leveraging connections, and accepting the fact that no website is an island. If you are completely self-absorbed and only socialize with others for your own benefit, then you will have a hard time building a loyal following. These next few tips will help get you moving in the right direction, so you can grow your network much faster by using social media.

1. Get To Know The Culture: Before you get too trigger-happy and start sending friend requests or following people all over the place, get comfortable with how people interact in your chosen network. Find out what people respond to and get a sense of the language and etiquette people use when communicating to each other. Generally people will sense a spammer from a mile away, and most often it’s because spammers don’t interact in the same way as normal people do (or most times, not at all). If you want to avoid looking like a spammer, then learn to follow this communication etiquette.

2. Don’t Grow Your Network Too Fast: Another thing that could make you look rather bad is attempting to grow your friend or follower count too quickly. Having 10 followers when you follow about 500 will make people think twice about what you’re on the site for, and they probably won’t want to know you. If you grow your friend count at a more natural rate then it’ll look a lot better, and you’ll get many more people interested in connecting with you in the long run. Also, another key to being successful with social media is having a good quality following – not just quantity. Having 50 friends that you’ve taken the time to become closely acquainted with (and turn into loyal followers) is better than a few hundred that only serve to clog up your list.

3. Show Interest In Others: One way you can grow your network really quickly is to simply show that you’re interested in what others are doing – not by sending out a stock email, but by reading a person’s profile, visiting their website and sending them a personalized message to show that you care about their ambitions. This will get the majority of people you send requests to accepting them, or people you follow to follow you back – hence, avoiding too much of a hit-and-miss approach for growing your network.

4. Respond To Comments: If someone writes on your wall, or mentions you in a tweet, take the time to write back to them. This reassures people that there is an actual person sitting behind your account, and helps grow the trust that followers have in you. Obviously it can become a little difficult to keep up with everyone once your network gets really big, but in the initial stages you should try to do what you can to make each of your followers feel extra special.

5. Share Content From Other People: Re-tweeting or sharing content that other people post can do a lot to increase the trust and interest that your followers have in you. First, it indicates you are on the site to participate as a normal person would, and are not just there to send people to your own web links. Any relevant content you share adds value to those you share it with, and most of the time they will love you for it as much as if you had created the content yourself. Secondly, it hints to your followers that if any of them created a quality piece of content, then there’s a chance that you might take the time to share that as well.

6. Learn From Others: If you are still unsure about what you should be doing to succeed in social media, then one of the best things you can do is take a look at those who are already successful to see how they do it. Visit the people in your niche who have loads of friends or followers and watch how they interact with their network. Get to know the various techniques they use and you’re likely to find a way you can use them to grow your own following as well.

Article by Brent McCoy. Millionaire Studio is an online entrepreneurship blog that features articles on online business, blogging, marketing and social media: http://millionairestudio.com/

By Jessie Andrews in Social Media Marketing

smmWhy believe an advertisement if you have the advantage of social media? Might you have confidence in an advertisement over your pals suggestions and critiques?

Naturally you wouldn’t! Therefore, I believe Social media marketing stands out as the most sincere form of marketing for your enterprise.

Let’s address some important issues for your company:

1. Do you know what folks are saying about your business on Social media web sites?

Every day I log into Facebook and Twitter and take a peek at what my buddies and friends are saying. It is not uncommon for my pals to write-up critiques, positives, negatives and feedback regarding an experience with a nearby business.

Surely you’ve observed Facebook status updates quoting points like “Wow! That fresh Maccas burger is the best” or “Many thanks to TNTS for their amazing assistance regarding my financial planning” and even “I really like Minilink. It saves me an hour or so travel every day!.” On the other hand, I’m also positive you have observed remarks including “Never heading again to XYZ restaurant on Cathedral St ever again. Cuisine was awful and waiting staff ended up being impolite” or “I cannot believe how bad the service ended up being done on my small vehicle by XYZ” or perhaps “Don’t visit Jim’s. They are too expensive and very over-rated.”

So do you know what individuals are alleging about your business? Can you deal with the concerns or thank individuals for beneficial suggestions? All of those reviews and assessments are greatly valuable to your organization. They are able to help you make knowledgeable decisions about specific items, personnel, solutions etc.

This sort of data is completely invaluable to the good results of your organization.

2. Why is Social media so truthful and why is it essential to your enterprise?

Did you know that 78% of peer critiques affect folks to believe what they are saying whilst on the other hand, only 14% of individuals believe a commercial? The reason is simple – people think what peers say a lot more than they believe a sales pitch, or an enterprise advertisement.

They’ve a feeling of confidence in suggestions and reviews more so, than your enterprise. They understand that you will continually praise your products and services, puffing that ‘you are the best’, ‘you have the cheapest prices’ and ‘you really are a market leader’. Consumers don’t wish to know about all of this. They want evidence! They want outsider information!

Shoppers are willing to reward and criticise. It really is straightforward to publish a tweet or update a Facebook status showing an encounter with your organization. Many social networking members write-up info that is regular to daily existence i.e. “on my way to work.” They are the form of customers who definitely are not inconvenienced to publish about dealings with you. More than half of Twitter and Facebook customers put up daily – so be conscious of what exactly is said about you!

3. Social media marketing coverage drives Search Engine Optimisation (Seo)

Search engine optimization is quite simply a strategy or number of techniques used to generate your enterprise to a higher rank on major search engines, like Google. Such exposure creates further site visitors to your website, increased sales and ultimately, an elevated bottom-line.

Social media marketing will support drive your Search engine optimization. Prolonged communications on Social media marketing sites will entice interest in your enterprise. Without having Social media interactions, it’s virtually unattainable to improve your Seo. The 2 move together and so are both critical to web marketing methods for your business.

Incorporating a powerful Social media marketing and Search engine optimization technique is just not a simple course of action. In very competitive industries, it could consider some months before highest outcomes are achieved. For the strategy to be sustainable, it requires ongoing focus and optimisation.

In the event you want help with Search engine optimization or Social media marketing, make sure to contact a professional. Some of your rivals currently have set up Search engine optimization and Social media methods in place. Make sure not to fall any further behind. Now is definitely the time for you to act.

For more information on Internet Marketing in particular, SEO and Social Media, you should contact an expert. Visit Jessie Andrews at www.genzwebsolutions.com.au for more details.

By Julie Ann Ross in Social Media Marketing

socialmedia2Social media marketing has many myths and untruths surrounding it, usually spread by people who have no knowledge whatsoever of social media marketing and how it works. These are some of the most common myths that abound, and some possible responses to use when faced with them.

The Company’s Customers Do Not Use Social Media

This is a common myth, and one that continues to astonish a lot of social media marketing professionals. Some companies do not use social media at all, yet they profess to have the knowledge of their customers’ social media habits. The best way to find out if customers are on a social network is to join it and upload the customer email list. If no one is truly on there, the company can avoid it and never use it again. But if at least 20% of the list is on the network, the company should use that network and engage in social media marketing.

People Might Say Bad Things About The Company

People are saying bad things about the company already. The only difference is that by not being on social media, the company cannot know how big the problem is. Social media marketing professionals can recite case study after case study about companies that were caught completely unaware about a problem on social media for weeks or months, until the mainstream media called to ask about it. The only way to see if people are saying bad things on social media is to be on social media.

Social Media Is Not Mainstream

There are 170 million Facebook users in the United States – nearly half the population. Very few things have that level of participation, except television, radio, and newspapers (and newspapers are dwindling). By ignoring a social media marketing opportunity like Facebook because of the mistaken belief that it is not mainstream, companies are ignoring a large part of their target market.

Of the 81 million Gen Yers in this country, 96% of them are on a social network of some kind. In fact, many of them do what they can to avoid mainstream advertising, by recording TV shows and skipping the commercials. However, they can be reached via social media marketing methods, like Facebook ads. Furthermore, social media marketing professionals can also specifically target their ads to Facebook users, based on their age, sex, relationship or job status, and even geography. Companies can reach women in their 50s who live in Florida, or single men who are between 18 and 24, living in a large city. Rarely, can mainstream media achieve such targeted results.

Social Media Results Cannot Be Measured

Actually, the advantage social media marketing has over mainstream marketing is that it can be easily measured with different social media monitoring tools. Not only can these analytical tools measure where something is being said about a company, it can measure the sentiment of the message, to see if it is positive, neutral, or negative.

Website analytics can even determine how many people arrive at a website, what steps they followed to get there, what pages they visited while they were at the website, and even if they made a purchase. This means that not only can social media marketing pros monitor the traffic to a particular website, they can determine what online mediums are having an impact on sales. Mainstream advertising cannot do that.

Internet marketing is not a new field – it is more than 20 years old – but there are still plenty of myths that surround it. And until these myths are disproved and social media marketing joins traditional marketing as an accepted and effective marketing channel, social media marketing pros will continue to fight this battle on a daily basis.

Article by Julie Ann Ross. With 20 years in marketing, advertising and 10 years in internet marketing, Rostin Ventures has refined video seo practices for distribution in social media. http://www.rostinventures.com offers video seo, social media marketing and online reputation management services that are affordable and drive search engine ranking through Social Media Optimization, Online Reputation Management, Social Marketing and web 2.0 communities and resources.

By Julie Ann Ross in Social Media Marketing

SEO2Social media SEO has increased in importance, thanks to some changes in Google’s algorithms, most recently the Google Panda update. What Google Panda has done is made social media connections a bigger part of their SEO algorithm – in other words, the more connections a person has, the more likely some of their material they have read or recommended will show up in the person’s search engine results page.

And social media SEO looks like it is going to become more important with the introduction of new tools like Google+.

For example, Craig is looking for information on vacuum cleaner repairs. If Craig is not logged in to Google, or does not have many connections, Google will present him with the most objective posts that rely on the typical search engine optimization techniques. He will most likely be presented with the best optimized site about vacuum cleaner repairs.

But, if Craig is active on social networks like Twitter, is connected to a lot of people on Google+, and even has someone in his Google Contacts list, Stacy, who has a keen interest in vacuum cleaner repair shops, then anything Stacy has said about vacuum repair is going to appear on Craig’s search engine results. If Stacy has left a comment on a vacuum repair page, or shared a vacuum repair blog post, or even written a vacuum repair blog post herself, then her results will show up on Craig’s page.

This will have two positive effects on social media SEO. One, the more connections a business has with potential customers, the more likely they are to show up on the search engine results page. And two, people who write blog posts about vacuum repair can finally show their faces in public without being embarrassed.

Social media SEO takes advantage of the connections between a searcher and their networks, because people tend to believe and trust testimonials and opinions of their friends more than they do of complete strangers. But they believe and trust testimonials of complete strangers over the information provided by traditional marketers.

The implications of this for traditional marketers is that they may no longer bark at their customers with new special offers and promises of big savings and crazy prices. Customers are no longer looking, at least on social media, for typical marketing behavior. They are skipping TV
advertisements, leaving commercial radio for satellite radio and Internet radio, and blocking ads on websites with software, all to avoid being slimed with traditional advertising methods.

These days, customers want relationships with their companies. They want to hear from companies they trust, and that have provided value to them in the past. They want to connect with companies that will not send them constant advertisements or pester them with needless communication. They would rather work with companies who help them answer questions, solve problems, and help them fix issues.

This means that for social media SEO to truly work, businesses need to connect with potential customers via social networks like Google+, Twitter, and Facebook (if appropriate), and communicate with them in the manner they want, not the way the marketing department thinks it should be. The businesses need to create a valuable newsletter, add people to their email list, and ask them to add the business email address to their white list. They also need to frequently write blog posts that address different questions and problems these potential customers are facing.

As these businesses connect with these customers via social media, it also means the business will show up with a high search rank whenever these customers do a search for a topic the business can handle.

Article by Julie Ann Ross. With 20 years in marketing, advertising and 10 years in internet marketing, Rostin Ventures has refined the social media SEO Expert Formula. http://www.rostinventures.com/ offers social media marketing services that are affordable and easy to access and are combined to build the formula that drives search engine ranking through Social Media Optimization, Online Reputation Management, Social Marketing and web 2.0 communities and resources.

By Brent McCoy in Social Media Marketing

socialmediamktgWhen you go about marketing your online business through social media, there are a few basic guidelines you should aim to follow. These can be applied to forming connections in social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter, as well as in social bookmarking services like Digg, StumbleUpon or Reddit – although, perhaps to a slightly lesser extent.

Being a success through social media is all about leveraging connections, and giving in to the fact that no website is an island. If you are completely self-absorbed and only socialize with others for your own benefit, then you will have a hard time building a loyal following. These next few tips will help get you moving in the right direction, so you can grow your network much faster by using social media.

1. Get To Know The Culture: Before you get too trigger-happy and start sending friend requests or following people all over the place, get comfortable with how people interact in your chosen network. Find out what people respond to and get a sense of the language and etiquette people use when communicating with each other. Generally people will sense a spammer from a mile away, and most often it’s because spammers don’t interact in the same way as normal people do (or most times, not at all). If you want to avoid looking like a spammer, then learn to follow this communication etiquette.

2. Don’t Grow Your Network Too Fast: Another thing that could make you look rather bad is attempting to grow your friend or follower count too quickly. Having 10 followers when you follow about 500 will make people think twice about what you’re on the site for, and they probably won’t want to know you. If you grow your friend count at a more natural rate then it’ll look a lot better, and you’ll get many more people interested in connecting with you in the long run. Also, another key to being successful with social media is having a good quality following – not just quantity. Having 50 friends that you’ve taken the time to become closely acquainted with (and turn into loyal followers) is better than a few hundred that only serve to clog up your list.

3. Show Interest In Others: One way you can grow your network really quickly is to simply show that you’re interested in what others are doing – not by sending out a stock email, but by reading a person’s profile, visiting their website and sending them a personalized message to show that you care about their ambitions. This will get the majority of people you send requests to accepting them, or people you follow to follow you back – hence, avoiding too much of a hit-and-miss approach for growing your network.

4. Respond To Comments: If someone writes on your wall, or mentions you in a tweet, take the time to write back to them. This reassures people that there is an actual person sitting behind your account, and helps grow the trust that followers have in you. Obviously it can become a little difficult to keep up with everyone once your network gets really big, but in the initial stages you should try to do what you can to make each of your followers feel extra special.

5. Share Content From Other People: Re-tweeting or sharing content that other people post can do a lot to increase the trust and interest that your followers have in you. First, it indicates you are on the site to participate as a normal person would, and are not just there to send people to your own web links. Any relevant content you share adds value to those you share it with, and most of the time they will love you for it as much as if you had created the content yourself. Secondly, it hints to your followers that if any of them created a quality piece of content, then there’s a chance that you might take the time to share that as well.

6. Learn From Others: If you are still unsure about what you should be doing to succeed in social media, then one of the best things you can do is take a look at those who are already successful to see how they do it. Visit the people in your niche who have loads of friends or followers and watch how they interact with their network. Get to know the various techniques they use and you’re likely to find a way you can use them to grow your own following as well.

Article by Brent McCoy. Millionaire Studio is an online entrepreneurship blog that features articles on online business, blogging, marketing and social media: http://millionairestudio.com/

By Terri Seymour in Social Media Marketing

webinarToday’s technology allows us to connect with and form relationships with people all over the world right from our home or office. A webinar is a great way to do this because of all the tools and technology available to us. A webinar is just like a seminar only it is done online via your computer. Webinar is short for web-based seminar and they can be very instrumental in building your business.

Webinars can help your business by allowing you to train your recruits and/or sales team. They can also be useful in building relationships and generating sales leads.

Producing a successful webinar does take some work and you need to know what you are getting into. There are several styles of webinars including a single speaker, guest speakers, interviews, panel discussions and also interaction from the audience.

A successful webinar must be efficiently planned out. You need to determine what tools you will be using, what style you will be producing, arranging schedules, deciding whether you will be charging for your webinar, etc.

If you plan on having people from all over the world attend pick out a time that is most convenient for all time zones. If you are having guest speakers, confer with them on their schedules. Mid-week and midday seem to be the best times to schedule a webinar.

Deciding what tools and or visuals you will be using in your webinar. Visuals such as flash presentations, charts, graphs, slides, etc., are always effective in helping people focus on what you are saying and keeping their attention. Because you are not there, face-to-face with your audience, you should have other visuals available for them. Also, have a photo of yourself available so people can visualize you while you are talking.

Compare webinar software so you can get the features you will need. I’ve heard good things about (although I have not yet tried them) Microsoft Live Meeting, GoToMeeting, and Adobe Connect.

Do not turn your webinar into a sleep inducing lecture. Encouraging audience participation is a good idea as it gets people more interested and excited about what you are teaching them or explaining to them. Use a chat function to take questions and comments from your audience and/or trainees. You can also think of some activities to engage your audience. Get your participants to share via discussions, polls, feedback, questions, storytelling and more.

Contact participants before the event. This can be important because it can help you to assess what topics and points of interest to cover in your webinar thus getting better results.

Once you have the style, tools, pricing, schedule and everything else decided be sure to “rehearse” your webinar. This can be crucial in the success of your event. You want everything to flow smoothly and all activities, speeches, presentations, etc., to fall into place so be sure to do a few practice runs to make sure all is well.

Now that you have your webinar all planned out and ready to go, you have to promote it. You want to give yourself several weeks to get the word out about your webinar. And of course you will want to take advantage of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. to let everyone know about your webinar. Send an announcement to your mailing list/subscribers. Announce the webinar on your site. Use online event calendars such as Full Calendar, Events Setter and webinar announcement services such as Seminar Announcer. You can also promote it via print newspaper event calendars, TV network event calendars and other event calendars online and offline. Don’t forget about your email signature and your article resource box.

Webinars are very effective when done professionally and effectively so put the time, work and practice in to make yours one of the best ever!

Terri Seymour has over twelve years of online experience and has helped many people start their own business. Visit her site for free articles, resources, information, resell ebooks and more. Sign up for the RSS Feed for a free business ebook with MRR. http://www.SeymourProducts.com

By Mark Hunter in Social Media Marketing

socialmedia2Social media has blown onto the scene the last couple of years with the popular websites of Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and many others. Nobody can tell for sure what social media will look like five years from now, but what everyone can agree upon is that the concept of using the internet to socially communicate is not going away.

For salespeople, an important question is, “Can social media help in negotiating?”

My answer is, “Yes, it can.” I’m not saying you should directly negotiate with another person by way of a social media (although I suppose there might be exceptions where this is possible). What I am saying is that social media is a perfect tool that someone can use to help frame a situation or build their on-line reputation before the negotiations even begin.

Negotiations are won or lost in two critical areas. The first is the period of time leading up to the start of the negotiations, when both parties are preparing to negotiate. The second is at the end, when the two parties are working out the details of the negotiation.

With regard to social media, I am not an advocate of conducting business negotiations in public. The reason I feel this way is because it is important throughout the negotiation process to maintain respect and integrity for everyone involved. This can be very hard to ensure if stuff is being thrown around for others to read and see. This is the reason I say the best use of social media in negotiations is before the negotiations even begin.

Using social media before negotiations begin allows you to establish the context of who you are and what your expected outcome might be. Best example of this is Donald Trump. He uses social media tools and the media in general to let everyone know who and what he is.

Trump’s goal is to make his brand known, and his brand really is himself. He wants his brand to appear favorable. He does this by coming across as a shrewd businessperson, and he uses social media to further this persona. On the one hand, this gives him an upper hand in any negotiations. On the other hand it also alerts everyone who might be planning to do business with him that he most likely is going to be very tough.

Conversely, a person who has used social media to cast a tough but fair image is billionaire investor Warren Buffett. The image he has crafted in social media and the media in general is one of a very smart long-term investor known for making quick deals based on how he sees a situation. The result of this image is many people might be far more willing to enter into negotiations with Warren Buffett under the belief they would be treated more fairly than if they were negotiating with Donald Trump.

The examples I use are extremes, but you see the picture. This is why I am a very strong believer that anyone who is planning to do any amount of negotiating with others needs to make sure their internet image is the one they want.

Use social media sites to position you and your company in the manner you want to be seen by others. Be active in how you do this. If you’re not active yourself, other people may craft an image of you that is not accurate.

If you are about to enter into negotiations with another party over a business contract or anything else for that matter, the other party likely will “Google” your name or company to see what they can learn about you. (This is a very common practice).

The other party is going to read all they can about you, and what they read, may impact how they choose to negotiate with you.

Some people may like to believe that social media does not have a place in the professional business world. Sorry, but that is old-school thinking (or maybe I should say, “That is so 2009 thinking!”) Today, search engines capture everything, and people expect to find out everything. When someone can’t find something on the web, they become that much more suspicious.

Finally, don’t think for a moment the web is going to become any less powerful in the years to come. Just the opposite is true. It’s going to become more powerful. The sooner you accept the reality that you need a solid social media strategy, the better. The strategy of what you post, how you position yourself and so forth is up to you. Choose wisely and be consistent.

Always remember that the respect you show to others and the integrity you live by are priceless. If you build your social media strategy around respect and integrity, you’ll be well on your way to positioning yourself properly for today and tomorrow.

Mark Hunter, “The Sales Hunter,” is a sales expert who speaks to thousands each year on how to increase their sales profitability. For more information, to receive a free weekly email sales tip, or to read his Sales Motivation Blog, visit www.TheSalesHunter.com. You can also follow him on www.Facebook.com/TheSalesHunter, www.Twitter.com/TheSalesHunter and www.LinkedIn.com/in/MarkHunter.

Mark Hunter, “The Sales Hunter,” www.TheSalesHunter.com, © 2011

By Cathy Quel in Social Media Marketing

socialmediamktgYou most likely are making use of social media to keep in touch with your friends and family but did you know that you can use social media as part of your marketing plan? Do you know the benefits of using social media as part of your marketing plan?

As a small business owner, this type of marketing can certainly draw traffic to your site and then clients to your business. It is a great tool for building a targeted, responsive list. And yet, where do you start with social media and exactly how involved do you need to get?

If you want to grow your business and start increasing your client database, social media is your least expensive and fastest approach to take. Here are three quick ways to get you started in your social media marketing plan.

Utilize LinkedIn to Develop Your Client Base

- First, you should create a real interesting profile for your company and in the interests section, you will want to use your best keyword phrases.

- Make sure that should you have a blog and put the link to your blog in your profile. This is a good method for people to find out just who you are as well as what your company is all about.

- Put your client list into relevant groups and start communicating with them.

- Utilize LinkedIn as a way to recruit clients for your business and also to get your message out there.

Utilize Facebook to Promote Your Business

- Create groups in Facebook and interact with those groups regularly.

- If you are submitting content to article submission sites, some of these directories have areas where you can place your Facebook and Twitter facts. Then, every time you submit an article to the directory, the directory will instantly publish your post on your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

- If your group members and clients have Facebook pages, make comments on their pages. Assist and address their inquiries.

- Make “friends” with others in your niche topic area

Just keep in mind, when you are making use of social media sites for business, building a very good relationship with your friends is more crucial compared to the quantity of friends you have. As you increase your Facebook friends list and converse with your clients frequently, you will see internet traffic increase to your internet site.

Make use of Twitter to Increase Your Business Presence in Social Media

- Utilizing Twitter, you’ll want to generate lists which are specific to particular topics and you’ll need to join lists that have to do with your topic.

- A good suggestion for Twitter exposure is to give away a weekly report on your theme. Don’t forget to include a “Please Re-Tweet” or an RT so that people will spread your information throughout the web.

- Utilize the # hashtags and follow people where appropriate.

Some recommendations when starting to use your social media marketing plan:

1. Don’t invest a great deal of time on the social media sites. Only spend about 15 minutes or so on each site.

2. Your daily approach should be to make good and related comments on good and related posts. Remember to use images.

3. Grow relationships with your followers and gather your own friends with your opt-in pages.

4. Don’t neglect your picture, a professional picture, on your pages. Those who use social media sites want to see who they are corresponding with.

In summary, social media sites should be part of your business marketing plan. The thing to remember is to build strong relationships with people but not to invest lots of time doing it. Just begin small and let go from there.

Would you like to learn more about using Social Media to increase your business? If that is the case, download my free Social Marketing Guide here: http://workonlinesuccess.com/Free-Reports/Socialmarketing.html Visit my website at http://workonlinesuccess.com

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