by Mike E. Belicove

Social networking sites and services such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have followed the same path to the business world that blogs did only a couple years ago: They're all online hangouts that evolved into sophisticated branding, lead generation and sales tools for business. And with the right approach, they are an ideal way to quickly--and cheaply--promote your startup:

Facebook offers several applications and advertising solutions for promoting your website, products and services. For example, you can create a free group based on any topic and invite customers and Facebook members to join. Group content, which is usually created by Facebook members, lacks hard-core marketing messages and makes a strong soft-sell tool.

Creating a Facebook page for your company means you can share information about your business with Facebook's 220 million members. As they interact with your page, stories linking to your profile are shared with their friends--so news about your business can go viral.

You can also pay for premium advertising, which allows you to target those who are the best match for your brand. For information about paid advertising and other business solutions (many are still free), click the advertising link at the bottom of any Facebook page.

I recommend starting with a Facebook page that can function as your home base, then expanding from there.

On Twitter, instant messaging meets social networking as members share what they're doing right now. Each post or "tweet" is limited to 140 characters, and can be done via computer, cell phone or desktop app like Seesmic.

Tweets have a short shelf life, so don't expect them to drive substantial sales or replace a website or blog. Twitter is better for company announcements, spotting trends, conducting polls and posting on new products, services and in-the-moment specials. Visit Twitter.com to get started, and remember to include strong calls to action in your tweets.

LinkedIn provides a more traditional platform for business networking and is more useful for business-to-business relationships and harvesting talent. You can create a company profile to use as a research tool that helps other LinkedIn users "find the right companies to work for and do business with." Are you Socially Acceptable?

Most social networks enable you to integrate your website or blog, to some degree, with the network. On Facebook, for example, you can use the "connect" feature (on the advertising page) to connect your startupís site to a memberís Facebook account.

For LinkedIn, you can add a button to your website or blog that will let visitors click to your profile. Just go to LinkedIn, click Edit My Profile, then Edit Public Profile Settings. Under Public Profile, click Customized button to access HTML code to put into your website or blog.

To link to Twitter, simply add a Twitter button to your site that links to your Twitter URL. Google "twitter button" to find a good selection.

Mikal E. Belicove is a market positioning, social media and management consultant specializing in website usability and business blogging.

http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/technology/article/use-social-media-to-elevate-your-companys-online-cred-mikal-e-belicove

Over the last number of years, social media companies, and the tools they have developed, have received ever increasing column inches in the business press. It seems when real news is sparse business columns get used up telling us how the latest social media tool is being used by a large company or a quirky celebrity to do something fuzzy like generate awareness or grow their brand.

Naturally as an internet advisory company, these articles are of interest to us and we are constantly trying out the new technologies mentioned. However when we discuss social media tools with our clients they are not interested in hearing about the new features the latest social media tool offers. Small business wants to know one thing: how can social media add value to my business. The problem with articles on social media is that they don’t address the issues of delivering value to business.

Thankfully this area of the internet is maturing and we are starting to see the emergence of some approaches that promise to deliver value from social media.

The first thing to recognise is that every business is different, with different products and services, and even more importantly with different customers, with different behaviours. To get value from social media a company needs to begin with this understanding.

Forrester Research outlines a simple framework for implementing social media in its latest book “Groundswell”. It is called POST which stands for People, Objectives, Strategy, Technology. This is an approach we favour.

People: Begin all social media initiatives by analysing the people. What is your target market? How are your customers segmented? Once you know who they are you can start to understand how they interact on the internet and with social media in particular? Forrester Research has developed a social technographic s ladder to describe customer behaviour in relation to social media. It recognises six types of profiles: creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators and inactives. You need to understand where your customers fit on the ladder. This will tell you whether they are ready to embrace a social media initiative and, if so, how they are likely to engage with it.
Objectives: What are the business objectives of the social media initiative? Are you looking to build your brand? Do you want to listen to what your customers have to say? Are you looking to generate sales via social media? Forrester lays out five key objectives of social media (all related to interaction with the customer): listening, talking, energising, supporting and embracing.
Strategy: What is your strategy? How do you want to change your relationship with customers as a result of social media? Every business will have different strategies. However every business should have a strategy and a tactical plan outlining how you are going to achieve this strategy?
Technology: Interestingly, and as with all good technology projects, the technology comes last! Only when you know what you want to do with the technology should you begin implementing it. As with all technology implementations, have a good process to ensure you choose the right technology provider and implementer (we recommend developing a functional specification matrix, or at the very least a simple decision matrix (see http://www.bua-tools.com/decision_matrix/).

In conclusion, The POST approach will ensure organisations adopt a business oriented approach to social media that will ensure value is delivered to the organisation. For more on Social Media and the forrester tools outlined above visit www.buaconsulting.com/social_media

Twitter grew 3,000 percent in April. Facebook hosted 61.2 million visitors in March. LinkedIn counts 20 million users worldwide.

With a potential audience that big, it’s no wonder savvy entrepreneurs are looking to unlock the secrets of social media as another way to get the word out about their businesses. Free access to many social media accounts (and potential clients) just adds to the allure. 

But is social media right for your business? Could it be a free substitute for a traditional (read: expensive) advertising plan? How much time should be spent in the care and feeding of all those profiles? The answers may surprise you.

“Traditional advertising and marketing is not dead,” says Olivier Blanchard, business strategist and principal of The Brand Builder Marketing. Blanchard advocates integrating social media into a more traditional marketing and advertising plan, “so you can have a healthy mix, much like a diversified investment portfolio.”

Though the platforms will differ based on the type of business, Sarah Granger, founder of a technology communications strategy firm Public Edge, encourages small organizations to have a solid website, e-mail list and a contact database before venturing into social media. 

Blogs: Write Your Way to Success
If you want to build customer loyalty, Kristi Colvin says start blogging now.  “Many platforms allow you to blog comfortably,” says the chief creative officer at We Heart and Twitterface. She recommends Tumblr for smaller businesses, “because it is customizable, extremely easy to learn to use, and has an additional component that allows you to follow people and re-blog their content easily.”

Colvin believes blogging takes disseminating information about a company a step beyond formal press releases, ads, marketing brochures and websites. “That is where the magic happens in social media.  A well-managed blog invites peoples’ perspectives and provides an opening for real relationships to be formed which is a critical aspect of great customer service, and a good user experience. It can be a stepping stone to brand attachment,” she says.

That attachment doesn’t have to equal a huge time commitment, but expect to spend an hour or two to knock out a post. The rewards are immediate: Blogs that are refreshed regularly get a boost in search engine rankings. “It also helps to establish you as an authority,” says Blanchard who suggests writing during evenings or on weekends to maximize regular working hours.

Twitter: To Tweet or Not to Tweet
Granger says she used to advise companies to start with a blog, but now suggests getting on Twitter first.  She also advocates engaging in conversation. Connecting with a business owner on Twitter “produces the necessary personal touch so many clients and customers prefer,” she says, and offers a time management tip for those tweeting entrepreneurs. “[Free] mobile tools such as Tweetie and Tweetdeck can make it a lot easier to keep up with the ongoing conversation,” Granger says. That way, a company announcement of a new product or promotion could be tweeted with a link back to details on the company’s blog or website, all while standing in a latte line.

The rapid-fire conversations on Twitter have the added bonus of giving entrepreneurs who’ve built a network, “instant answers to questions, feedback on brand elements, product ideas, etc.,” Colvin says.

YouTube: Be a Star
Another way to capitalize on the fast pace of social media is by posting videos on YouTube. With a little creativity and relatively low overhead (Flip video cameras can be had for as little as $100) uploading a short clip can be a rapid way to test the market. “Release freebies to capture a niche. Then find the demand and create the product,” says Steven Weathers, who documents his adventures in China on YouTube.

As founder of American English Circle, and producer and host of Foreigner Perspective, Weathers uses videos to help the Chinese learn English and to give Westerners a glimpse of life in Asia. By hiring students he spends around $10 per finished minute of video, less if he tapes himself. 

To learn how to create good content Weathers suggests watching some viral videos. The payoff? “You will reach a wider audience than with network TV,” says Weathers.

LinkedIn: Business Networking Made Easier
A glowing recommendation is a gold star for any type of business, so why not collect and post them for all to see?  It’s easily done on LinkedIn.  Creating a profile allows an entrepreneur to create an online career history, then to connect with others they’ve worked with. Obtaining a recommendation from a former colleague or existing client may help sway a potential investor or customer. 

Additionally, Kimberly LeRiche of JK Virtual Office Resources says, “LinkedIn provides the opportunity to connect with others who are also looking to create partnerships or to collaborate.” LeRiche also notes that LinkedIn has incorporated additional social networking capabilities such as special interest groups and open discussion threads. Digests from these groups can be delivered by e-mail to scan or read in-depth, depending on interest in the topic and how much time there is on hand.

The Bottom Line
Time is money, but Weathers says it’s all about how you manage it. “Previously wasted down time like sitting in taxis for 20 minutes or standing in a bank line for 10 minutes is now spent on my mobile phone, bouncing between Twitter and Facebook. It's getting easier and easier, and for branding an entrepreneur, I think it's golden.”

No matter what the platform, Blanchard says the true value of social media is found in the conversation.  “You are not necessarily going to get 150 comments per day, but you are engaging a potential customer or client in the way you wouldn’t in an ordinary day.”

Interesting read from a different perspective than the previous post.

http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/davenport/2009/04/is_twitter_for_serious_marketer.html

A few months ago I was speaking at a marketing conference, and after I spoke on marketing analytics, there was a panel on social media. Larry Weber, who started and then sold a very successful PR firm (and who is on Babson's Board of Trustees), was asked whether there was a role for analytics in social media.

"Frankly, I'm tired of analytics," he said. "I got into social media in part to get away from analytics." Well, honesty is good, but I didn't see then — and don't now — how you can do serious marketing through any medium without metrics and analysis. Twitter and other social media may be fun, but are they really serious marketing tools?

I thought of this again recently while grading some of my MBA students' papers about an IT strategy for Welch's, the grape juice people. A couple of the student groups suggested that Welch's should embark upon a Twitter initiative. Okay, they get a point or two for being au courant. And to the students' credit, most suggested that it was a low-risk, low-return marketing approach. Still, I couldn't imagine which customers would decide to follow Welch's tweets about its grape juice and other associated products. The busy moms who form Welch's core customers? I don't think so.

Do serious marketers spend a lot of time and energy on Twitter campaigns? I doubt it. Sure, go ahead and play around with it — it doesn't cost much. But I defy you to do serious brand management in 140-character messages. I defy you to prove that Twitter users are your typical customer — unless you sell bubble tea or something similar — or that their tweets are a true reflection of their relationship with your company.

Let's face it — Twitter is a fad. It has all the attributes of a fad, including the one that people like me don't get its appeal. It has risen quickly and it will fall quickly. It's this year's Second Life — which, you may have noticed, nobody is talking much about anymore. One Daily Telegraph article that did talk about it noted, "While the site is still beloved by geeks and the socially awkward, Deloitte's director of technology research, Paul Lee, says it has been "virtually abandoned" by "normal" people and businesses." Ouch!

I had a conversation with an influential business editor the other day that confirmed some of my predilections about Twitter. He said he was "unfollowing" (defollowing?) those who tweet a lot — "It's just become a burden to read them," he said. I, who issue nary a tweet, am clearly sitting in the catbird seat. You have to wonder about a technology when those who use it aggressively are shunned.

I'm not as negative about the business and marketing potential of some other social media. For example, because Facebook and MySpace offer the promise of monetizing social networks — though they haven't done so yet, to my mind — they are not to be easily dismissed. And wikis clearly have some value, or Wikipedia wouldn't be so useful. Yet I haven't seen too many wiki success stories within firms, and the ones that do have value don't involve marketing. One smart knowledge manager, Sukumar Rajagopal at Cognizant, told me that he thought successful wikis within companies required that participants in them have strong network ties, and that's not always easy to orchestrate. Another pharma executive who had experimented with them suggested that they require substantial human curation (facilitation and editing) to be successful — which, come to think of it, Wikipedia does too.

One conclusion I've come to is that we should unbundle the concept of "social media," because some of its components are much more useful than others in a business and marketing context. Facebook? I suspect it faces prosperity, over time. Second Life? On life support. Twitter? In the long run, not worth a tweet.

What do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts, but please restrict them to more than 140 characters.

For Small businesses who have never tried online advertising - Google is offering $75 of free advertising to get them started on online advertising -

https://services.google.com/fb/forms/stimulusoffer/

see press release below

http://www.google.com.au/press/pressrel/20090422_smallbusinessstimulus.html

The offer is only open to companies who have not used Google adwords before and the offer can be accessed at:

https://services.google.com/fb/forms/stimulusoffer/

The 2009 Digital Outlook Report from the Razorfish agency in the US makes for interesting reading.

Download the report below:

Digital Outlook Report 2009 - Razorfish (6223 KB)

http://twitter.com/buaconsulting

You can now follow us on Twitter at the address above.

interesting article written by  Chris Poley at 

http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=705&doc_id=170113&


 
With a slumping economy and rising unemployment, consumers have dramatically cut back on discretionary spending, making it even clearer that some industries are just not accepting their business models as broken and in disrepair.

Indeed, revenues from Internet sales continue to grow, while those of some traditional brick-and-mortar companies continue to contract.

Who's most in denial? Let’s take a look at three industries for which the Internet has put the traditional way of doing business in particularly obvious jeopardy:

Apparel retailers became 2008’s poster child for insolvency. Clothing accounts for 8 percent of all retail bankruptcies, with a 50 percent rise in the July-through-October quarter, up from first-quarter figures, according to The Economic Times. In a poll released December 30, the Top 40 Retail Satisfaction Index showed further evidence of clothing retailers’ absence from the Internet jackpot. Only Victoria’s Secret (#14) and The Gap ( #35) made that list.

The evidence indicates that the faster clothing retailers move online, the better off they’ll be. Traditional stores have suffered with low inventories and shrinking profit margins. Brick-and-mortar companies must pay rent, employee wages, insurance, real estate taxes, and utilities, among other expenses.

Publishing is suffering from both cost and content issues. The newpaper business is in disarray, and book publishing giants are cutting jobs and costs to remain in business.

Is it possible that the publishing industry needs to be restructured for a completely new business model, or can online and offline publishing coexist?

Sort of, says Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody: How Digital Networks Transform Our Ability to Gather and Cooperate.

“I don't think there are completely new business models,” Shirky says. “The models are what they always were. One axis is ‘producer pays, reader pays, or third-party pays,’ and the other axis is ‘payment is mandatory, or payment is voluntary,’ and all six possible combinations will work for some pubs.”

The music industry has been challenged for years by peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing among networked computers. Pirating music for private consumption still hangs in the balance of a Supreme Court ruling. Digital downloading is at an all-time high but cannot offset the 20 percent annual decline in CD sales.

“The music industry has and will continue to become more dependent on revenues from downloadable content... and the industry has been scrambling to find new ways to capture revenues from the market,” says Alex Reese, an intellectual property attorney out of San Diego who has represented recording artists.

So far, traditional record firms haven’t found the balance of copyright, royalty, consumer payout, and quality that will make Internet downloading a true alternative to CDs. Like publishing, they continue to cling to old models.

But none of the above industries can afford to look back. Instead of longing wistfully for times before the Internet’s challenge, they must focus on their core businesses more than ever and avoid associating their products with the ways in which their products are delivered.

It can be a major challenge. Newspaper publishers, for example, may harbor visions of a resurgence in delivery methods that drove news delivery for over 200 years. For them, Clay Shirky warns: “Remember, all that's going away is newsprint, which is already a minority form relative to the Web. Don't let the nostalgists bend your ear.”

There is a common thread that seems pervasive among these struggling industries: the inability to adapt to the changing socio-economic environment. But they must embrace the Internet, instead of competing with it. There is a better mouse trap, plain and simple. Deal with it!

A recent statistice was recently presented to me out of BRW (thanks Bill!) about small businesses with websites.

Of 774,000 small businesses with 10 or more people, 40% have no website. That is quite an astounding number in this daya age. One wonders of the other  60% what number are actually getting any value from them.

If a company doesn't have a website or has one that adds no value one can imagine how many other activities in their businesses are either on old software or are being performed manually. Clearly those that are embracing new internet technology in their business can gain enormous competitive advantage on over 40% of their industry.

Food for thought in the current climate where every advantage counts.

Interesting slide presentation by french company Faber Novel on Google....