Category: Social media

Direct Sales & Home Party Plan Marketing Information : How Can Social Media Benefit My Business

Posted by admin – June 28, 2009

Patricia Kagwiria Makhulo asked:


The astute and very pleasant Direct Sales Consultant, known by the handle The Traveling SalesWoman, asked the following question of me?

You were the person who encouraged me to join Twitter, and I’m so grateful for that!  Can you share some further thoughts about Twitter and why home party business owners should join in that conversation?

Are you are brothers and sisters fan?  If so you have not missed the obvious connection between Sarah Walkers’ Greenotopia company and its’ many references to social networks and social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter!

And if you don’t know by now, you are no-one if you are not on twitter.  I was amused to find that my vocabulary  has changed considerably over the past year!

I am  Youtubing, plurking, Facebooking, tweeting, blogging, linking, MySpacing, texting and a host of other things too!  All these are some of the most popular social media sites and as you can see things can get pretty hairy, so I definitely recommend that you have a social media system.

Direct Sales Home Party Marketing Tip: Any task you do more than once NEEDS a procedure, system or checklist!

Before Bill Gates, no one had a personal computer!   One man single handedly revolutionized the world with a dream…his dream was that every home would have a computer!  His dream was to provide value to every single household in the world!

Even after Bill Gates created such an incredible tool, that gave rise to the Internet, Easy Online access & E-Commerce; it STILL amazes me just how many people refuse, are afraid and/or have not taken advantage of the power of the computer and the Internet! Computers as far as I am concerned are the best social media tools (of course for the obvious reason without one you cannot access social media ?, yep)!

I told the travelling saleswoman that social media and social networks are all about relational capital.  And like any thing social media marketing is an art form. The question I often get asked by home party consultants and direct sales reps. Is why don’t they buy my product.  The answer is simple, you have written a check, which came back with the red stamp mark, insufficient funds! (thanks Martin Luther King Jr. for that one).

You see people buy because:

i)    they know you,

ii)    they trust you

iii)   they believe that you have the solution the problem which the face and

iv)   for status

People don’t buy a product, nor do they buy a feature and the benefits are as they are decided upon by the story they tell themselves.   Your juice drink mwy help me loose weight.  But the story I am telling myself is that I am going to look sexy, finally that size 0 pair of jeans that I have seen on display for a year will be mine.  I am going to get hit on by men….you get the picture?  So if your pitch is not in line with my story…

How does all this fit into social media and social marketing?  Simple, you are building relational capital, by depositing in the bank of getting to know you, getting to know all about you!  And you are not only doing it with one person, no you are reaching out to many in one shot!

There are people on these sites that follow you, there are those that interact with you and those that want to see what you are about.  The cool thing about social outlets is that you are King and Queen of your own little internet real estate  King/Queendom!

Social media and social marketing is all about building that relational capital that gives you the all access pass to make your direct sales pitches to those who are ready, able and willing to hear what you have to say, and have the money to spend on what you have to sell.  Do not under-estimate the power of relational capital! 

How else do you think Pres. Barack Obama did it?  I will be holding a special in a week or so about “the Pres. Obama Social Media Effect : How You Too Can Go From Zero To Hero!

For more on social media, and how to use it effectively, just google “social media blog!”



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Internet Marketing Using the Social Media Strategy

Posted by admin – June 14, 2009

William Potts asked:


Social media implies that you facilitate a two-way discussion, rather than a one-way bombardment of marketing messages. In short, this means that you stay engaged and in a discussion with visitors.

Social Media sites come and go like the wind. It seems like every 5 seconds some entrepreneur is just around the corner with another Digg or del.icio.us knockoff.

Hoping that whatever maneuver they can bring to the table will make them this week’s hot topic or at least clever enough to catch the eye of whomever might have some money and want to absorb some wicked bit of code or an entire social media community.

Social media (or new media) involves a LOT of things, a lot of tech, and could need a lot of resources (not necessarily money). When you say you do social media, and you want to launch a network of some sort, does that mean the entire process is done in-house?

Social media marketing can bring traffic and links to any website. Too often, marketers overlook the value of social media and tend to stick with traditional methods, while the younger generation of webpreneurs has employed social sites as an every-day strategy.

Social media is gowing at a such a rate that domains, websites and blogsites will increase in value due to the increased demand for webspace. The social aspect is driving the net into new territory and expands exponentially because of its viral nature.

Social media - as understood in a Web 2.0 context and has enabled us to play more effectively than was practical previously, on a global field.

Social Media has released us, freed us: and we won’t go back. Social media has been a great resource for both ideas and traffic for my blog. If you work and get noticed in social media and it gets passed around that’s a great way to promote your work.

Social media seek’s (in theory and in word, at least) a different kind of influence: peer review and approval. The medium and the form of discourse that it supports are wide open.

Social Media is a Branding Exercise - while social media sites can send you a lot of traffic very very quickly they can also be excellent places to do branding. Every time a reader or potential reader comes across you on a social media site the more you reinforce your brand.

Social media marketing is actually becoming necessary but it has to be done right. It is about the weight of numbers and it will bring some honesty, ethics and accountability back to doing business.

Social Media is conversational media in all its interactive forms including text, video and spoken words - whether face to face, over the Internet, over the airwaves or via mobile technologies such as iPods and cell phones.

A Social Media Club is intended to be a place where amateurs and professionals can come together to learn from one another, to understand each other and to work together on the things that make meaning in their lives - their personal passions, their professional endeavours and their noble pursuits.

Social Media, doesn’t even really exist as a subset of media. Everything is social now, we just expect it. Social media companies will race to provide metrics that show impressive results, but that’s not necessarily a good thing, especially given the ways measurement may shape investment and in turn shape the evolution of social mediums.

Social media campaign’s go far beyond the traditional agency model of media planning and buying. So do advertisers they actually get into the game and get their campaign’s out there.

Social media is changing the way online businesses advertise because control of the message is shifting to the consumer.

Social Media Optimization (SMO) is a new term that was recently coined by Rohit Bhargava and has since been taking on life of its own. SMO tactics can drive huge amounts of people to a website and can also determine whether a startup, website or idea will make it or not.

Social media will be the optimal place to market especially with a recession. Social networks are a rich source of HIGHLY niche audiences and therefore are highly target-able.



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Social Media Optimization Has Made the World a Smaller Place

Posted by admin – June 11, 2009

Steve Waganer asked:


Socializing is known to be the best way to get the latest news and the hottest gossips on just about everything. So if it works for people there is no reason why a social media platform should not work for online sites on the web. Internet as we know it today is one of the biggest platforms for interaction and knowledge sharing. It is no wonder therefore that social media optimization is one of the most popular methods for enhancing the visibility of the site and giving it a higher ranking on the search engines. Search engine marketing firms often employ various methods of social media optimization for their online clients. The process involves carefully planned and laid out strategies that keep in mind the strengths and weaknesses of the client and are implemented accordingly.

Social media optimization is a method of generating publicity through online processes, communities and websites. The internet savvy people today frequent a number of websites that act as a social media optimization platform. The videos uploaded on sites like ‘you tube’ and the various sites offering blogging facilities, forums and discussion panels further enhance the effect of social media optimization. The social media optimization uses the technique of viral marketing to spread their word across the web. The main idea is to get people talking about a product, service or idea. The word of mouth then serves as the publicity vehicle thereby popularizing the website that is most talked about by the internet users. Social media optimization utilizes the techniques of social book marking, video and photo sharing and blogging.

The term social media optimization was coined by a person called Rohit Bhargava and he also suggested some guidelines as to how websites can reap the maximum benefits from social media optimization. The main emphasis is to be laid upon increasing the link-ability of the website and also encouraging the inbound links to the site in question. Social media optimization also stresses the need to make tagging and book marking of a site an easy process. Once a visitor to the site can easily book mark it and go back to it as and when required he is bound to achieve a comfort level with the website. This is in turn would make him recommend the website to other acquaintances thereby serving the inherent purpose of social media optimization.

Social media optimization platforms also face the common problem of spam and this might cause inconvenience to a group of users. However the advantage in this scenario is that the users on a social media platform are usually active participants and hence they can easily delete and block the spam as and when it is placed. Some media platforms have specifications about qualifying matters into relevant data and spam and have taken precautionary measures to avoid influx of spam in the website. Social media optimization has reached a high level in recent times and the growing popularity of platforms like Facebook and Orkut show positive indications for this phenomenon. As the internet community becomes wider social media optimization is becoming a crucial tool for the websites across the globe.



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The Advantages Offered by Social Media Marketing to Any Internet Marketing Campaign

Posted by admin – June 7, 2009

Bob Withers asked:


Social Media Marketing is the process of promoting your website or business through social media channels and it is a powerful strategy that will get you links, attention and massive amounts of traffic.

Social Media Optimization has been defined as the process of refining a website (optimizing it) so that its awareness and content are easily spread through social mediums and online communities by users and visitors of the website.

Social Media Marketing is a great addition to any traditional SEO work that you do, but it’s not a substitute. It’s an excellent way to get people to come to your site to take a look at what you have to offer and it isn’t difficult to implement. It’s fast becoming one of the most effective ways of marketing online.

Social Media Marketing is the new buzzword online, and social media sites are becoming increasingly more popular. It’s a very effective way of attracting links to your site and is very cost effective when compared with paid advertising and other forms of online marketing. And the rewards can be much greater.

Social Media Marketing is a great way to build long term sustainable, natural social media traffic and search engine rankings. Social networking in particular, creates a conversation with your target audience, providing you the opportunity to virally market your website through the chatter that can be created.

Social Media is better than branding and customer service because of the interaction it provides with your customers. It does not provide instant results and it will take some time before you will realize its effectiveness; however, its power lies in its ability to engage the right kind of participants and is about maintaining your brand and your reputation.

Social Media Marketing provides an easy way to build back links but it certainly doesn’t replace making titles unique or setting up a good internal linking structure. Another way to view social marketing is as word of mouth, but at the speed of sound.

Social Media also afford the long-term opportunity for companies to develop and use online networks for providing information their customers find interesting, or amusing, or useful. Social media shouldn’t be about how many people you can engage, but about how engaged can you make those people.

It changes the dynamics of not only marketing but business and Social Media marketing campaigns can include a variety of components and platforms.

It’s important to remember you can’t simply launch a Social Marketing campaign and assume your target audience will find you and engage in a conversation. It takes time and effort to establish a relationship and eventually gain the trust of the target audience.

Social Media can help you achieve results, either directly, by delivering information that leads visitors to your site, or indirectly, if the links provided are found by the search engines and give your pages a boost in regular search engine rankings.

Social Media Marketing isn’t intended as a replacement for traditional marketing and is not the final frontier of marketing, as we know it, but offers many advantages to the Internet Marketer.



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What is Social Media?

Posted by admin – June 1, 2009

Kimberly Bock asked:


What is Social Media, according to Google:

These are the results for “define social media”..(these definitions may vary with time)



A category of sites that is based on user participation and user-generated content. They include social networking sites like LinkedIn or Facebook, social bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us, social news sites like Digg or Reddit, and other sites that are centered on user interaction.

The term social media describes media that is posed by the user and can take many different forms. Some types of social media are forums, message boards, blogs, wikis and podcasts. Social media applications include Google, Facebook and YouTube.

Software tools that allow groups to generate content and engage in peer-to-peer conversations and exchange of content (examples are YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, MySpace etc)



You’ll notice, as you read through each definition, that you’re receiving explanations by examples.

Social Media not new, it’s a buzz term by marketers. It has existed for numerous years.

In fact, the first email ever sent, the first website ever created, the microblogging tools we use, commenting, and every other form of interaction with people on a global scale or in your backyard by way of the internet, has been by the use of what is referred to as Social Media today.

What is Social Media, according to Wikipedia:



Social media is the use of electronic and Internet tools for the purpose of sharing and discussing information and experiences with other human beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio.

This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and “building” of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences.

What is Social Media, according to other ndividuals:

You say, “Certainly the well known authors have provided clear definitions.”

Let’s take a look:

Robert Scoble says, “Compare it to what’s come before.”

Chris Heuer says, “Social Media is redefining how we relate to each other as humans and how we as humans relate to the organizations that serve us. While it is commonly represented by blogs, podcasts, vlogs, wikis, user generated content and social networks, it is not about those specific things as much as it is about what happens around and because of those things.”

Mark Dykeman says, “Social media are the means for any person to:  publish digital creative content; provide and obtain real-time feedback via on-line discussions, commentary, and evaluations; and incorporate changes or corrections to the original content.”

What is Social Media Really?



Social Media is a verb. An action term. Not a noun.

“Media” is and always has been the singular form of “Medium” which means storage and transmission tools used to store and deliver information or data.

Add the word “Social” and it means you & I interacting, communicating, exchanging information..SOCIALIZING.

That being said, the simple and understandable definition of Social Media is..(drumroll please)

“The use of internet platforms and tools which enable interaction and communication between users.”



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Use the Power of Social Media Promotion to Supercharge your Traffic

Posted by admin – May 31, 2009

Casey Markee asked:


We all know how important it is to have a content-rich website. Promoting these sites across the internet has in the past involved everything from search engine optimization to paid keyword referrals to link popularity campaigns. However, one of the most effective and relatively new methods to promote content-rich web sites these days, is through social media promotion.

What is “social media promotion” you ask? Simply, as defined by Wikipedia, social media:

“describes the online technologies and practices that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with each other.”

Part of the Web 2.0 revolution; another catchphrase describing the new generation of web sites that have users that submit their own text, video and picture content; social media promotion can take many forms.

Usually, these technologies and practices take non-search engine forms and can involve such technologies as chat forums, message boards, blogs, podcasts, and wikis. Simply, social media can be considered ANYTHING that you can use to build a community to rally around. A well-run social media campaign can drive huge amounts of traffic to a website and can determine whether a new idea, website or startup ultimately takes off or not.

There are literally dozens of social media sites active across the internet today. Below are brief overviews of what I would consider the five most popular:

Digg (http://www.digg.com) the big boy of social media sites. Digg was formed initially with a tech focus and is still the end all for all tech or computer specific content items that you wish to pull across to the masses. Digg has however become so popular that its scope has now expanded to cover most any item of interest.

del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/) a close second to Digg in the area of backlink generation. The primary purpose of del.icio.us is to store your bookmarks online; in that regard, it’s actually more community-focused then Digg. The ability to store your bookmarks online and add more from anyplace in the world, actually encourages cross-linking among site members who share similar interests. This in turn allows you to promote your own content to a shared community with similar interests, generating those much needed backlinks for site promotional purposes.

Technorati (http://www.technorati.com) the recognized authority on what is going in the world of weblogs. The main strength of Technocrati is the ability to keep tabs on your online visibility. The site allows you to keep tabs on who is linking to you, where you are being mentioned online, what kind of progress your site is making, and how your competitors are doing in comparison. The site can be indispensible if you routinely visit a lot of blogs and want to be updated on them when their content changes.

Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org) online only since 2001, Wikipedia is now the world’s largest reference website on the planet. The content of Wikipedia is free and collaboratively written by people all around the world. This site is so popular that a search of most terms will display a Top 5 Wikipedia result in Google. It is worth noting that if your website is not already one of the strongest entries on the web, a listing on Wikipedia could actually “outrank” your own website. Therefore, make sure this result is actually truthful and complimentary, whenever possible.

Facebook (http://www.facebook.com) primarily driven by young adults, this social media site now numbers over nine million users and is still growing. Facebook helps you keep tabs on member profiles, at least those you can access. Recent changes to the site have made it very marketing friendly and a must-use if you have a college friendly product you wish to publicize. Members can purchase “facebook flyers,” which starting at $5, can be displayed 10,000 times a pop. Pricing increases based on frequency and number of days shown. Facebook groups are also very popular and very loyal, find something that connects with your group or the site and the results can be highly viral.

Getting your content noticed on these sites isn’t easy, but there are ways to prepare your content in such a way as to be considered “social media optimized.” This SMO approach is becoming a new concentration area for current SEO firms and can involve any of dozens of different approaches.

Here are five effective SMO rules that you can implement immediately when preparing your content for future social media campaigns:

1. Make your site linkable - also known as increasing your linkability, make it easy for outside parties and social media sites to link to your content. This can be done in a variety of ways, the easiest being to establish a blog on your site. If blogs aren’t your thing, maintaining free white papers, content-rich articles and resource pages that contain lots of useful links in one place, are great ways of increasing the linkable nature of your website.

2. Make bookmarking or social tagging easy - adding bookmarking buttons has been around for awhile. Go beyond this, though, by including a “delicious this” text link at the bottom of a post, and a Digg button near the top of the article. This format has been shown to be the most effective for generating votes for your content.

3. Start participating today - join the conversation on your site or in your site niche today. Start blogging on your own or make it a point to visit leading forums that target your audience and join the discussion . Answer some questions, provide some needed advice, and drop some “buzz” about your site at the same time; you won’t be sorry.

4. Reward helpful users - helpful or valuable users to your site that contribute noticeably to the site’s content and audience should be recognized and rewarded. This can take the form of a simple PM thank-you or a note on the forums themselves. The result of this is two-fold: you keep these valuable community members on your site, and you gain vocal champions of your site to outside members and sites they in turn visit.

5. Reward inbound site links - obviously the more inbound links your blog and site can generate, the better. This is still the singular method by which a site rises in the search rankings. Reward linking sites by providing them a permalink to use and listing them on your site in return. This simple act of acknowledgement provides the return gift of visibility and is never a bad thing.

The role of social media promotion to drive content is a continually expanding field. Even an examination of the main sites referenced above doesn’t begin to cover the viral social content impact of such popular social media mechanisms as YouTube videos or Flickr photo slides and galleries.

If planned and implemented correctly, social media promotion can be invaluable. The site visitor is in command, so why not start building a relationship with them, even if it’s on their terms?



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Using Social Media Responsibly

Posted by admin – May 31, 2009

Scott Lindsay asked:


Social media websites remain an interesting mechanism for mining marketing potential if for no other reasons than social media is so, well, social.

I came across an ezine recently that encouraged visitors to visit a celebrity social media site for an interview that was particularly compelling. Prior to posting the ezine the owner also posted several appropriate comments in both the blog and guest book. They were also listed as one of the celebrity’s friends. This may be considered groundwork for social media marketing potential.

One click on their photo and the visitor who came to find out more about the celebrity can find out more informal information about the business and the owner that originally sent them to the social media site.

This savvy business owner comes away from this gentle nudge to a celebrity social media site inextricably linked to the celebrity because of a few simple posts. Some visitors will likely view the site owner in a different light (for better or worse).

The combination of uses for social media sites is astounding. If there were no marketing potential in social media why do you find so many record labels, book companies, recording artists, authors and comedians with their own unique social media site? Many of these sites will also include video streaming to further interest the site visitors.

It is a unique twist to discover a link based on little more than inference (i.e. this celebrity is my friend) and the marketing potential such inference suggests.

Social media sites can become a bit like online play areas, but they can also be presented in an attractive way that is informal enough to be inviting without being so formal as to be detract from the playful nature that is suggested by the term ’social media’.

If you can develop a popular social media site you will be pleased to see how many links visitors access and how often your blogs are replied to. There also remains a very real potential for friend requests (additional links back to your social media page - then to your primary website).

It may be advisable to at least do a cursory check on any and all that submit a friend request. You don’t have to know everyone who is on your friends list, but there are some good reasons to do a bit of investigating. Some who ask to be your friend may be a business that is in direct competition with you or it could be individuals who have an agenda that may only become evident through guest book posts.

If you ever become uncomfortable with someone you have welcomed as a friend you need to know that most social media sites allow you to remove a person from your friends list and even ban them from posting on your social media page. This may be important to know if you ever see material that is offensive or derogatory.

Social media can be an important marketing tool. Make sure to monitor your social media site and proceed responsibly.



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Cultural Voyeurism and Social Media

Posted by admin – May 15, 2009

Brian Solis asked:


Sociology - The study of human social behavior, especially the study of the origins, organization, institutions, and development of human society.

About a year ago, I wrote an article entitled Social Media is About Sociology and not Technology. The recognition of people versus the tools is now more critical than ever. Although, it still isn’t necessarily embodied in many of the words and work shared by fellow Social Media Marketers.

Less talk, more learning and action are required.

There’s no shortage of people who understand and present existing and emerging Social Tools for us to use as a mechanism for “engaging” in “conversations.”

Participation after all, is marketing right?

Let’s change that.

Informed, mutually beneficial, and genuine participation inspires relationship marketing.

However, many purported Social Media experts are merely engaging in cultural voyeurism at best. They look from afar and roam the perimeters of online societies without ever becoming a true member of any society. This means, they don’t truly understand what, where, or why they’re “participating,” only jumping in because they have something to say and have access to the tools that will carry it into play. This is unfortunately a representation of the greater landscape of Social Media Marketing and it’s time to take a step back and study the sociology of Social Media in order to keep communities intact and unaffected by outsiders.

The future of communications requires the consideration of sociological principles when integrating Social Media into the marketing chemistry. This is one of the most important points where we simply need to stop and think about things. As in all of marketing, the most effective campaigns start with listening, reading, watching, and observing. In the world of Social Media, this is not an option. It’s dependent on Sociology and the study of people and cultures online before we even think about engaging them in conversations.

Again, Social Media is about sociology and not technology. This is about people and the cultures that shape respective online communities.

Is Social Media, we’re reminded that “listening” is the key to engagement. In Sociology, this is referred to as observation. By observing, either directly or virtually, we become Social Scientists in order to feedback intelligence and insight into the marketing loop.

Two basic types of observations exist:



Unobtrusive. The observer is detached and does not take an active part in the situation.

- Observer as participant. Observer admits their role and just observes the situation, behavior and interactions.

- Complete observer. Observer hides their true identity.

 

Participant. The observer joins a group and studies as an inside member.

- Complete. The observer hides their identity. There are a number of problems with this type of observation: ethical, is it morally right to use such methods? By joining the group the observer may alter its behavior and culture; and going native and adopting the norms and values of the group.

- Participant as observer. Here the observer does not hide their identity and is truthful about their goals and objectives.



 

Most Social Media Marketing initiatives I have observed (whether I was asked to assess a company’s program specifically or simply watched a very public campaign as a student), have not observed much more than the “latest and greatest” tools that can get them in front of bubbling and active social networks and communities.

 

This is the equivalent of setting up camp next to a village because you have the tools to do so and expecting the village to integrate you into their society.

It just doesn’t work that way.

Sociology provides us with an understanding of how social forces shape individual attitudes and behavior. Sociologists study society and social action by examining the groups and social institutions people form. In Social Media, these communities take the form of social networks and the communal groups within them. People form associations, friendships, and allegiances around content, objects, products, services, and ideas. How they communicate is simply subject to the tools and networks that people adopt based on the influence of their social graph – and the culture within.

Sociologists also study the social interactions of people and groups, trace the origin and growth of social processes, and analyze the influence of group activities on individual members and vice versa.

The basic goal of sociological research is to understand the social world in its many forms. Social Media, and marketing in general, could only benefit from intelligence. And at the very least, it removes the risk of “marketing at” people and instead naturally shapes a more honest, intelligent, and informative approach.

Quantitative and qualitative methods represent two main types of sociological research. Quantitative methods, such as social statistics or network analysis, investigate the structure of a social process or describe patterns in social relationships. Qualitative methods, including focused interviews, group discussions and ethnographic methods, reveal social processes.

Social Media is much more than user-generated content. It’s driven by people in the communities where they communicate and congregate. They create, share, and discover new content without our help right now. They’re creating online cultures across online networks and using the Social Tools that we learn about each and every day to stay connected. And the societies that host and facilitate these conversations cultivate a tight, unswerving and mostly unforgiving community and culture. As Shel Israel describes it, people are populating Global Neighborhoods.

Technology is just that, technology. The tools will change. The networks will evolve. Mediums for distributing content will grow. The tools will change, but in most cases, people don’t.

It starts with intent and the realization that the communities you wish to reach are not “audiences.”

You simply can not get answers or run a meaningful Social Media program through cultural voyeurism.

Social Media Marketing requires observation, which will dictate your engagement strategies. It starts with combination of using Social and Traditional tools to discover, listen, learn, and engage directly with customers to help, not market, but indeed help them make decisions and also do things that they couldn’t, or didn’t know how to do, before. And, most importantly, the lessons learned in the field should in turn be fed into the marketing department to create and run more intelligent, experienced, and real world initiatives across all forms of marketing, PR, sales, and advertising.

Read, Transforming Customers into Evangelists: The Art of Listening and Engagement, to learn more about how to listen and observe.

Today Social Media Marketers state that conversations are markets and markets are conversations. This is the foundation for conversational marketing.

But what does that really mean?

Instead, let’s look at it this way.

Conversations are feeding communities and communities are markets for relationships. Relationships are the new currency in Social Media, and as we all know, relationships need cultivation and value from both sides in order to grow into something of value.

In this world, engagement is a privilege. Trust and loyalty are the rewards.



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How The Internet Business Can Make Money With The Social Media Sites

Posted by admin – May 9, 2009

Juhani Tontti asked:


Understanding the big picture, the business concept, of the social media sites is crucial, because it gives you the idea how to utilize them for your internet business. What is their driving force?

1.What Is A Social Site?

As we see, the term is built of two words: media, which means advertising distribution channel and social, which means a group of same thinkers inside some bigger group of people. It also means the interaction between the group members. Both parts are very useful for the internet business marketing and actually belong to its basic vocabulary.

So social media means communication place, which is established for people, who has the same interest or hobby, where they can change ideas and share benefits. If you think your own internet business this sounds just great!

Wikipedia puts it in this way:

“Social Media is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into content publishers. It is the shift from a broadcast mechanism to a many-to-many model, rooted in conversations between authors, people, and peers.”

It is important that social media uses the crowds and their own will to connect information in a manner they want. So the social media sites are voluntary and extremely interactice, which gives lots of benefits for their members in the form of internet business forums, message boards, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and videos. Funny thing is that social media sites are driven by users, they make the content.

2.How To Grab Attention In The Social Media Sites?

When people participate in the social media, they act in interest groups, which is natural. In the internet business marketing this is called segmentation. If an internet business marketer wants to grab attention on the site, he has to stand out from the crowd. The requirement to be different is the same than in other mediums.

Social media sites are like open markets, where you as one participant build your own brand, your own expertise, which attracts some of the group of the same thinkers and a part of these interested people want to visit your website. In a way the question is about pre selling job, but never about advertising.

If the social media site has exactly the same content or idea than your internet business site has, then it can be a lead producer for your website directly or your website can even be able to sell the products to the visitors. In case of the leads, it gives your internet business site a great opportunity to approach them later with several emails or newsletters.

The competition in the social media sites requires that you need the AIDA process: attention, interest, desire and action. It is a process which needs planning, because the sites are full of personal messages. The most important thing is your promise: what is so useful in your offer?

The social media sites offer a great place to build your own brand, which is a multistep process. It is all about information, about influences and about feelings towards different actors. Social media marketing also involves the process of promoting and spreading ideas among targeted internet business audiences. Social media marketing can also be used as a calculated tactic to nurture feelings or goodwill towards a specific website or internet business.

Social media marketing is a strategic and methodical process to establish your influence, reputation and brand within communities of potential customers, readers or supporters.



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Social Media Optimization is a New Way to Promote Your Website, Product or Service Online

Posted by admin – April 26, 2009

Bob Withers asked:


Social Media Optimization is an internet marketing technique that includes a number of methods to promote your product, service, business, or website on social media.

Social Media Optimization is associated with search engine marketing, but differs in that the primary focus is on driving traffic from sources other than search engines, though improved search ranking is also a benefit of successful Social Media Optimization.

Social media optimization is similar to viral marketing where word of mouth is created through the use of networking in social bookmarking, video and photo sharing websites.

It is still very much in its infancy and is only one element of being everywhere online. Social Media Optimization is essentially based on quality, or how good is my content?

It presents businesses with a way to connect and interact with their customers and prospective customers that was never available to them before. It is interacting with consumers wherever they are online and in whatever format they want the interaction to take place.

Social media optimization is all about creativity, finding creative ways to get your message out there and using creative tools to have your content easily found, distributed and shared online. It is about improving the linking structure of your website to make it highly visible in social media searches.

Social media optimization is the latest buzzword that is capturing the attention of webmasters and is simply the practice of ensuring that a website, article, or video is primed to become a part of the social media network. Social media optimization is utilizing these social media sites and the social media networks to popularize a product, a service, an organization or a concept.

It’s an excellent technique for website promotion and gives your Website and business more visibility and instant results. It is the process of distributing your content across all available Social Media networks and enhances your internet presence by effectively using these media, including social networking, social book marking, blogs, wikis, groups, and other social sites.

Social media optimization is driven by the technology of Web 2 and is all about forming groups of like- minded people and sharing information. Social Media Optimization is more than just writing content for the purpose of garnering links to your website.

It’s about optimizing your pages to help them connect with online communities and is defined by Wikipedia as a way to optimize websites so they would be more easily connected or interlaced with online communities and community websites.

According to Wikipedia: Social media marketing (SMM) combines the goals of internet marketing with social media sites such as Digg, Flickr, MySpace, YouTube and many others.

Social media optimization (SMO) and Social Media Marketing strategies are employed by empowered Search Engine Optimization to promote the site through the use of networking in social bookmarking, social networks, video sharing sites and photo sharing sites.

Social media optimization is a set of methods for generating publicity through social media, online communities and community websites.

The evolution of social media optimization will take some time in coming and has yet to reach its full potential but has the opportunity to replace Search Engine Optimization as one of the top Internet Marketing strategies in use today.



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