More companies are now committed in building an online profile to help improve their online competitiveness. You begin, commit to worrying about social media tools last, not first. Why? Because tools will change. They always do. There was a time when Netscape seemed invincible. Yahoo, too. Myspace also. If you fall in love with tools, you’ll constantly be changing directions, with no real plan to guide your way.

If you’re looking to create a sustainable, effective social media presence, then you should be able to answer these 7 questions to successfully have a social media platform in place.

1. What’s Your Pitch?
Can you describe what your company does in 120 characters or less?

2. What’s the Point (Goal) ?
What type of program is this? Awareness, Sales, or Loyalty? Pick one.

3. What’s Your Relationship with Your Audience?
What does your audience know about you today?

• Nothing
• Aware of you, but never acted
• Acted once
• Repeat actions/enthusiasts
• Advocates

Pick up  two of these segments to focus upon, but make sure they are adjacent on this scale. It’s too confusing to have a strategy that targets advocates AND people that have never heard of you. That would be two strategies, not one.

4. How Does Your Audience Use Social Media?
Using the Forrester Social Technographics Ladder, understand how your target audience (as defined by gender, age, and geography) uses social media. If your audience skews older, you may not want to engage in a lot of “make a video” contests, since that segment indexes low on the “Creator” scale.

You can play with the Social Technographics Ladder data right here:

5. What’s Your One Thing?
What’s the soul of your brand. What’s the one thing that defines you – and it’s not features and benefits. Volvo = Safety. Apple = Innovation. Disney = Magic. What’s on the other side of your = sign?

Note: This is not easy to figure out. You may need to engage in some brand anthropology, and have an agency help you find your one thing.

6. How Will You Be Human?
Social media is about people, not logos. How will you let down your guard? If you’re a small company, congratulations, this should be pretty easy. If you’re a big company, how can you act small again?

7. How Will You Measure Success?
Lots of ways to measure social media success, so make sure you determine your key metrics BEFORE you get started. I recommend picking three solid metrics to track. Appropriate metrics differ based on what your objective is for the program. See the slide deck for details. Now, you can worry about tools, and outposts, and social media tactics.

Speak with your Social media Consultant to devise a plan to leverage the right strategy.

Source :TechTrends

Do you know that your employees are using Facebook during the business/working hours even when it is prohibited at your workplace? Facebook has suddenly become a website that people especially the young people cannot do without (Even our President wants to engage the youths on Facebook).?

Many have argued that Facebook is a major distraction at work place, making many not to work but to Facebook.Even if they are restricted from visiting the website on their computers at work; their mobile phones are readily available to update their status on it. The site is so addictive that most people have considered it a time-waster, yes, but I personally think otherwise because I cannot get online without going to my Facebook so is many.
The truth is you have to be focused on what you want from the site because if you don’t know how to use this medium to your advantage it can be a big time waster especially taking up reasonable man hours that would have been used in productive venture at work. The addictive nature of the website has made it impossible for people to do without it. So what do you do as to profit from this necessary evil if you want to call it that?

This article is meant to help you understand how to use Facebook to your advantage. I can rightly say here that the best thing to do is to get an Internet Marketing Consultant to incorporate Facebook into your marketing strategy through a thought-out plan.

Social Networking and Social Network Marketing

The fact remains we deeply, innately, in every aspect both in professional and personal life need to be connected. We naturally form social or business groups based on affinities and expertise. We gravitate to others with whom we share interests. Most of us belong to real world networks that formed organically. Not surprisingly, these days such networks have rapidly migrated to the online world. New technologies are playing a big role in our ability to connect with people and also stay connected. We now live in an inter-connected or wired world where success can be attained based on the amount and quality of people you know who also know you and have interest in what you do and our personality. This is the social media era.

Social media are new communication tools for businesses to leverage on to promote and build their brands, such tools and applications are Facebook,twitter,linkedIn,wiki,blogs,mobile apps etc. They help businesses reach, engage a large number of potential buyers who will in turn reach back to you immediately making the media very interactive, They are effective and also inexpensive. This has lead to a method of marketing your brand using these social networks called Social Network Marketing (SNM).

Social media marketing is basically centered on efforts to create content that attracts attention, generates online conversations, and encourages readers to share it with their social networks. The marketing message spreads from user to user and resonates because it is coming from a trusted source on the network, as opposed to the brand or company itself.

Major corporations like Coca Cola, Apple, Dell, and Pepsi etc are actively involved in social media marketing in promoting their brands. One Nigerian brand that is fast leveraging these social media is GTBank.I see their presence on Facebook, wikipedia, Youtube, flickr etc.Have you watched the recent Pepsi advert for FIFA 2010 World Cup in South Africa on Youtube? That advert has been viewed by several millions of people within a short period surpassing any TV viewership over the same period of time; this is the power of social media which I want your organization to use.

In case you don’t know…

Facebook is the fastest growing social networking website on the Internet today with over millions of users world wide, founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004 with fellow computer science major students and his roommates Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes at Harvard University. It is a free-access website organized by city, workplace, school, region to connect and interact with people. With the young and upwardly mobile population of the society as active users of the portal.

Looking at the impact of Facebook on its users, it is highly regarded as the new media, which affords great interactivity and personalization.

Let’s Do Facebook (Strictly for Business)

Facebook as a social medium affords the opportunity for individuals, businesses, organizations to network with friends, fans, customers, prospects and people from different countries and backgrounds, by sharing personal information, pictures, videos, articles etc. It has the ability to connect your business with customers and also to your customers’ friends. This is the viral nature of Facebook which businesses should leverage on (read up the principle of viral marketing in my book: How to Create Unlimited Internet Wealth

This has lead to a new method of promoting businesses and brands online known as social network marketing; this is quite effective because the platform helps businesses to engage with customers and prospects directly.

It can be difficult for businesses in Nigeria to figure out how this great marketing tool can help them, because of lack of this information on how businesses can leverage the strength of Facebook to drive traffic to their businesses Facebook can help your business have new customers who are searching the product or services you offer, like I have always said, people get online searching for a solution to their problems, the platform with its tools and applications helps you connect and engage the customers with your brand, you can also create a community around your business, it helps you promote your website, articles, product, services, events, articles, contact and other things which will boost your business.

Create a Facebook Page for your Business

To start promoting your business on Facebook, the first step is to create a Page for your business; this is quite different from a personal profile. Do not create a personal profile for your business. Profiles are for people, Pages are for businesses. Facebook is building significant new functionality for businesses, and all of this functionality is only available to Pages.

There are a few differences between Business Pages and Personal Profiles:

Pages allow you to designate multiple administrators, so that you can have multiple people help manage the account, and if one of your administrators leaves the company, you can still have control over the Page. Pages are, by default, public and will start ranking in Facebook and public search like Google.com.Bing.com results. Pages are split into different categories (local businesses, brands, musicians) that help you get listed in more relevant search results. Personal profiles have friends, which require mutual acceptance, whereas anyone can become a fan of your Page without first going through administrator approval.

A Facebook page for your business serves as the hub of your marketing presence on Facebook, Facebook pages rank very high in search engines when you use relevant keywords to your type of business, create an engaging page because the success of your marketing lies on that.

How to Create a Page

To create a page log on to www.facebook.com/pages/create.php. (You must be logged in to create a Page.) Fill out your Page like you would a Profile. Click on “Edit Page” or “Edit Information” on the Info tab to add information about your business like your website, a short description, products, mission statement, Vision and so on. Add your logo as the photo for your Page. Take advantage of some of the features of business Pages like the discussion board to engage your fans.

Choose a category. Most companies will be in the” Brand or Product” category. The category will help you rank in more relevant searches and provide relevant info fields on your Page. Choose a name for your Page. In most cases, this should be your company name. Now create your Page and click “Publish” button to make your Page public.

As the administrator, your name and profile will not show up anywhere on your Page. You are the behind-the-scenes manager. When you post new information or respond to a discussion thread, it will appear to be posted by your company rather than you personally. You can designate multiple administrators as well to help with the maintenance of your Page. In addition to being the administrator of your Page, you will want to become a fan. Once you become a fan, you will be listed among all the other fans on your Page and all the Pages of which you are a fan will show up on your profile –giving your business more visibility to your network.

Promote your Page

You do not just create a Facebook page for your business and leave it at that; you need to continuously promote your page for more users to become your fan. You need to engage your fans too until they become your customers. Facebook has over 33,000 applications that can help you do this more effectively.

Always update your profile with fresh pictures, videos, add interesting content to your page. Add poll, contest, and articles to your page. Leverage the viral nature of Facebook through the news feed which gives you update of your fans and friends.

Send email to your existing customers and introduced your Facebook page to them. Blog about your Facebook page too.

You can also integrate Facebook connect on your website; this will help increase your engagement with your fans by spreading information and updates about your visitors’ activities with their Facebook friends.

Add Facebook share link to your website, this makes it easy for your customers to share information about your business with their friends.

Create regular Facebook events for promotions you are running on your product or services, events you have that will be of relevance to your fans; the good thing about this is that the events page will be automatically promoted on your Facebook page for your customers, fans and prospects to see. With this you can determine the number of people that are interested in your product or service, the friends of your fans will also see such promotion.

Continuously interact with your customers on your page, join in discussions and use that forum to answer any question they might have, for this to be effective, assign a staff that will be updating your page and interact with your prospect like I have explained.

Your business can sponsor the development of an application on Facebook, which will appeal to your fans.

Advertise your Business on Facebook using Engagement Ads and Apps.

Advertising on Facebook helps you reach millions of people. Facebook ads allow you to promote your business, get more fans for your business Page, and drive more sales. To achieve the best result, your advert should be well crafted by an expert.

Measuring the performance of your ad campaign is easy. Facebook has built-in analytics to help track ad performance in terms of number of impressions, clicks, and click through rate. Multiple ad variations can be run at the same time and ads manager helps you determine which ad deliver the best results for your business. This helps you get the best from your advert campaign.

From the analysis you can measure the total number of fans, group members, and/or friends, level of engagement and number of conversations with potential and current customers and fans can also be determined. Facebook’s built-in analytics, Insights, lets you track valuable metrics such as page views, wall posts, discussion threads, and photo views.

The overall marketing effectiveness of your page, the number of visitors from Facebook to your website that convert into leads and customers can be determined.

Following these metrics over time can help you measure the ROI of using Facebook and be more focused about how to use Facebook effectively to market your product or service. Some applications of Facebook can also help you advertise your product and service effectively.

I believe with this information you will incorporate Facebook marketing strategy into your existing marketing plan and explore this new medium for your business advantage. Contact me for further guidelines on how to use other social networks like Youtube, wikipedia to promote your business. So, is Facebook a Social Networking site for you and your business or a Social notworking site?

As usual, reading my favorite SEO site and stumbled upon a great post with very useful links.

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

• Google May Finally Disclose AdSense Split … If You’re An Italian Newspaper, That Is
  How much money does Google keep for itself from AdSense ads that publishers carry? Unless you’re a big publisher, Google — which preaches “data liberation” — doesn’t say. But thanks to an anti-trust investigation in Italy, Google may share how much it keeps. At least, that is, to Italian newspaper publishers.
  It’s a simple enough thing [...]
• Twitter’s Trending Topics Algorithm Updated To Show “Immediately Popular” Trends
  Mashable reports that Twitter has confirmed they changed their trending topics algorithm last week. Twitter’s Trending Topics, which later allowed localize trends, shows the most popular subjects being talked about on Twitter.
  Twitter said they now not only look at what is most popular, but what is “immediately” most popular on Twitter. Meaning, the [...]
• Enterprise SEO Tools, Part 1: The Browser
  Everybody loves tools! For search marketers working on any level—a 10 page site or a 10 million page site—tools are essential. They save us time, they help us diagnose issues, and they give us a peek into what our competitors are doing. They can even give us a peek into what the search engines are [...]
• Getting Started With Mobile Paid Search Advertising
  After several years of lying in the weeds, mobile advertising has significantly picked up steam. It finally makes sense to understand how to effectively use and deploy mobile paid search marketing campaigns. In this article, I’ll provide some basic tips related to paid search mobile marketing. In my next article, I’ll suggest several ad copy [...]
• Learning Local Search Via Twitter
  We’ve sifted through the best tweets from the latest LocalU conference to get the latest on local seo and local search marketing.
• Openbook: See What People On Facebook Share To The World
  Want to see what people share on Facebook with the entire world — perhaps without realizing it? There’s a new site that makes this easy, Openbook.
  Look At The Embarrassing Updates!
  Last week, I explored the issue of how Facebook’s own “Posts By Everyone” search feature revealed people who might be sharing material they didn’t intend for [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Changes to Yahoo! Mail Options: Disposable Email Addresses, ymailblog.com
• Google and Intel in web TV launch, FT.com
• Web Browsers Leave ‘Fingerprints’ Behind as You Surf the Net, Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Y! Answers is heading to San Francisco…, Yahoo Answers Blog

Business Issues

• TechCrunch wasn’t invited to Google Zeitgeist. Apparently we’re seeing too much of eachother., TechCrunch

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Says It’s Shipping 65,000 Android Phones Daily, paidContent.org
• Android 2.2, Google TV Expected at Google I/O This Week, eWeek
• Google Refreshes Android Market Website – It Inexplicably Still Lacks Search, TechCrunch
• U.S Mobile Data Exploding, Revenues Top $12.5B In Q1, Verizon Now World’s Largest Mobile Data Operator, Mobile Marketing Watch

Link Building

• 10 Link Building Tools Reviewed, wiep.net
• Easy Step by Step Way to Use Youtube for Link Building, Search Engine Journal

Paid Search & Contextual

• Coffee break with clients – AAA and Razorfish improve user experience with Ad Sitelinks, AdWords Agency Blog
• Gilt Groupe, Groupon, and avoiding SEO, Scott Rafer’s Blog
• Google Restricts Ads for ‘Cougar’ Sites, New York Times

Searching

• 10 Things that Make Search a Semantic Search, Hakia Blog
• Dive deeper into Techmeme’s top sources and introducing the Mediagazer Leaderboard, Techmeme News
• Google To Offer Encrypted Web Search, Search Engine Roundtable

SEM Industry

• Another Successful “Local University” in the Books, Small Business SEM

SEO & SEM

• 5 SEO Tactics That Make You Look Like a Douche, line25.com
• API and Dataset Cheatsheet – Building Quick & Dirty Tools, SEOmoz
• How To: Properly Buy An Existing Domain For SEO Purposes, Daily SEO Tip
• Universal Search – Digital Asset Optimisation, Bruceclay.com.au
• Wordpot: Another Keyword Suggestion Tool to Add to Your Arsenal, Search Engine Journal

Social Media

• How to use social media optimization to get quick traffic, Pandia
• Stream Twitter on Your Website Using JavaScript, RustyBrick
• Twitter Marketing Strategy: 5 Steps, Online Marketing Blog
• What backlash? Facebook is growing like mad, Fortune Tech

Video, Music & Image Search

• YouTube Shows the Number of Likes and Dislikes, Google Operating System
• At five years, two billion views per day and counting, YouTube Biz Blog

Recent Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• Hosting With GoDaddy? Might Want To Rethink That Decision.
• Common Online Business Mistakes by Michael Gray, Alan Bleiweiss and more!
• Four unique social bookmarking gems

Article by  Barry Schwartz

What is the hottest mobile trend for 2010? The answer seems obvious. It’s Foursquare, the Twitter of 2010, the leading location-based social network which, with a game aspect, encourages people to explore their neighborhoods via their smartphones, share their visits with local attractions, events and businesses and gives them rewards when they do so.

Further than that, Foursquare, which in April 2010 reached a million users in just over a year of existence, is driving new online strategies for businesses. It offers them multiple ways to attract customers and gain qualitative and quantitative feedback on their establishment. If you own a “physical” retail business such as a shop, a restaurant, a bar, a hotel, etc,. find 6 ways to use Foursquare in order to boost your sales and increase your customers’ loyalty:

1. Are you listed?
First thing to do is visit Foursquare website and search for your business to see if it is already listed. If yes, make sure the information presented is correct and complete. You will need to create a personal account in order to correct your information or add your business.

2. Offer “Specials”!
Businesses can offer discounts or special offers to reward people who “check-in” their establishment and develop stronger relationships with their customers. There are many ways to treat your customers with Specials: Some of them are the “check-in specials” that help you reward the customers that reach a specific number of visits or the “frequency-based specials”.

3. Give tips!
You can give your customers tips in order to enhance their experience within your business. If you own a restaurant, you can leave tips about the day specials, the best time to come for a drink, the things to do in your establishment, etc. It is definitely a fun and creative way to attract customers!

4. Learn about your business
FourSquare offers business analytics that makes it possible for business owners to see how customers interact within their businesses. Additionally it helps them improve their services, since they can read the reviews about what customers like, what tips and comments they leave, understand their needs etc.

5. Reward Majors!
The person who “checks_in” the more frequently in your business in a period of two months, reaches the “Mayor” status. Offer the Mayor something really special to reward him for his loyalty, like “free drinks” or give him the power to be a creative part of your team by choosing the music you will play or a theme for a special night, etc. Not only you will make your Major happier, but also you will increase the competition amongst your customers in order to de-throne the current mayor and take his/her place!

6. Interact with your customers
Foursquare gives you the opportunity to get closer than ever with your customers, since, not only you will discover your best customer by checking his Mayor status, but through the game, you will interact with all your customers and acquire a friendly reputation.

Most of all, always keep in mind that Foursquare is a game which gives businesses the chance to be creative and build relationships with the customers. If you adopt the Foursquare philosophy, your customers will inevitably talk about your business and reward you back for your services.

It has become a well known fact that social media is here to stay. With Facebook officially turning six years old recently, combined with the site surging past MySpace in Monthly Unique Visitors, it seems like a good time to take a little deeper look at the social networking giants. In the image below, we’ll look at the comparison between the major social networking sites against 4 main factors: CUSTOMER
COMMUNICATION, BRAND, EXPOSURE TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE and SEO

Made by Drew McLellan found via dailybloggr.com. Click the image for a slightly bigger version or download the full screen PDF.