Your Personal vs. Your Business Brand

By Patricia Wilson-Smith

By now, if you own a small business, you already know that you should be on Facebook. Check. And you know that by now, you should have a Twitter account. Check. And maybe a..blog..thingy. Check. But do you really know why?

Well, if you're like me, you've been personally using these and maybe a few other social networks for some time now - and as the months and years of hanging out online have passed, you've amassed a respectable network of 'friends', all waiting with baited breath for your next clever post. Hee-hee - like my latest from FaceBook this afternoon:

'I just said "thank you" to a voice response system - am I crazy, or just very well-raised?'

Clever stuff like that. And our friends and family soak it up like a sponge, right? Of course they do - because you've somehow, after hundreds of updates and tweets, managed to build a sense of community around yourself that keeps it all going.Cool, right? Imagine if you could do the same for your small business!

 

No need to imagine, because of course, you can. With a little bit of planning, and some patience, your business can spawn the same kind of loyal following, and turn that following into new revenue and more customers for your business. Let's face it - ever since Dell's famed multi-million dollar increase in revenues was attributed to their Twitter activity, businesses large and small have plunged head first into the social networking malaise, with kick-ass results.

 

So what do these businesses know that you don't?

 

It's simple. It takes more to be successful marketing online than putting up a FaceBook page and waiting for the masses to flock to you. Like the carefully crafted community of friends you've built around you personally, you have to have a better, even more well-crafted strategy for how you will engage your customers online - a real step-by-step plan for building a community around your business.

 

The good news is, social networking makes it inexpensive and fun to do so. Anyone can create Facebook fan pages for their business, as well as create any number of other accounts on any of a dizzying array of social networks choices. Part of creating a sound strategy, however, means making sure that you're on the right social networks - the ones where your current and potential customers can be found. 

 

For example, if you're a record label and you're trying to break a new artist, you almost certainly need to establish a presence on MySpace - but cultivating a FourSquare presence? Maybe not so much. And if you sell products and services and you want to get the word out quickly about sales or other deals, Twitter is a perfect choice - a blog would work too, but better in conjunction with Twitter and Facebook. Get the idea?

 

And you must, absolutely must find a way to build a community around your brand, by giving your social networks reason to engage with you online. Whether its free and helpful information, or discounts on your products, the experience you give customers online must be substantive - simply setting up accounts all over the place and blasting daily specials to all who will bother to read them won't cut it - just like there are people who want to be a part of the community you created around your personal brand, there are people who are interested in what you have to offer that may want to be a part of the community that naturally springs out of your business' brand.

 

The other good news is - if you have no idea how to get started, there are many professionals out there who are willing and able to help. You know your business best - running it is your main gig. Don't be afraid to leverage a social media management professional to help you take your business online via the magic of Web 2.0! 

 

Whether you know it or not, you've likely developed a digital footprint over the years. Years of posting comments, downloading music, sharing photos and videos online - has created a virtual view of you that says a lot about who you are. You need to do the same thing for your business, before someone does it for you, and a proactive and comprehensive social networking strategy can help you do just that. Get behind the wheel of your business' brand and drive it into the 21st century - your revenues and new customers will thank you for it!

Are You Taking Advantage of The New Social Media Marketing?

By Carl Gerber

With the advent of Social Media everything has changed. An online community of Twitter or Facebook users can make or break your business with their iPhones. Your company or service may be getting hundreds or thousands of good or bad reviews on the new mobile sites like Gowalla or Foursquare, either building up your reputation or tearing it down without you even knowing it. Social Networking sites are growing exponentially. A Social Media Manager can help you build a positive presence and increase your customer base.

Facebook markting – in 2009, the population of Facebook surpassed that of the U.S.A. If Facebook were a nation, they would have 100 million more people than the U.S’s 300 million. The impact of this on marketing through Social Media is staggering. Big corporations are quickly catching on to the power of Social Media Marketing, which includes Twitter marketing. For the first time, in 2010, ending a 23 year run, Pepsi Cola pulled out of advertising in the Super Bowl ditching it for Social Media. The phenomenal growth of Social Media (texting, blogging, networking)has the attention of every major company. Social Media Management has become an essential component in today’s business.

Are you taking advantage of the new Social Media, which is in many ways free or much less expensive than traditional advertising methods?

Read more: http://socialmediapathways.com/#ixzz10LYjulKu

It's not Facebook's fault you got robbed...(The Pros and Cons of Geo-tagging)

 There've been a few stories in the media this week about a rash of burglaries. Apparently, the burglar was able to learn what houses would be empty because of Facebook statuses and geo-tagging.

 For those who don't know, geo-tagging is a way to include actual geographic metadata location information to your websites or photos. Say you own a restaurant and on your website is a photo of the restaurant. I get a glimpse of your fantastic looking food and must drop everything and eat their immediately (melodramatic I know, sorry its lunch time). Geotagging allows me to find out where you are and get to you easier. We both win. Its also a great for those times when you are like "I'm really in the mood for some coffee, where's a coffee shop around here?" By plugging in your address into a maps site or phone or your car's GPS its gonna pull up the closest coffee shops. It will often times even show you how to get there.

 There are definite business benefits to geo-tagging. Used carefully and creatively they can be a fantastic addition to business digital media network. Contact us at Online Media Interactive (shameless plug) and we can show you how to make them work for your particular business. 

 Personally speaking though, the technology scares me a little. It's available in many of the new cell phones and Twitter and 4square are among the social media networks that utilize the technology. I'm not sure I want everyone knowing where I am all the time. For safety's sake, you have to be careful not to give too much of your personal comings and goings away.

 Here are a few tips for safely using social media:

1. Be careful friending people you don't know. If someone you don't know and have no mutual friends in common with sends you a friend request exercise caution when accepting it.

    2.   Don't  announce you are going away on vacation in status updates and tweets. If you absolutely must brag    about the killer two week vacation you're taking, use your privacy settings to ensure that only the people you trust and know will see it.

    3.  Wait until after you are back home to post those great vacation photos. Taking photos and instantly uploading them to Facebook or Twitter can alert potential thieves that you away.

    4.  Twitter gives you the option to include your location in the tweets you send out. Depending on the Twitter application you use this may be a default setting or something that you have to disable. For safety's sake consider disabling this location setting.

   5.   If you are making plans with people for the evening over Twitter or Facebook use the inbox and direct messaging features. Don't make these plans on your profile walls. Direct messages and inboxes are private. Walls can be seen. The great thing about doing this on Facebook is that as long as everyone you are messaging is on Facebook too you can write one message that includes them all.

Do you all have any additional suggestions on how to use social media safely? Or have you had any horror stories about someone who was victimized? Let us know.

What Viral Video Can Do For Your Business (The Phil Davison Lesson)

Surely you've seen this...



 We here at Online Media Interactive, spent a good fifteen minutes of our staff meetings last week laughing at it. Once we were finished making fun of it we had to acknowledge what a video like that actually says about the world we live in. This video is an excellent (and pretty hilarious) example of the impact social media has. Ten years ago, Phil Davision would have given that speech and only the 100 or so people in that room would have seen it and been talking about it.

 In today's Web 2.0 world, almost a million viewers have seen that speech. Many of them far removed from Stark County. Davison has made the rounds at Good Morning America, the speech has been all over cable and late night television.

 Viral video is a fantastic Web 2.0 and social media marketing tool for your business to consider. Depending on how creative and resourceful you are, videos can be produced relatively cheaply. Sites like YouTube, Google Video open your business to global marketing opportunities. Viewers are also allowed to comment on videos which offer you a way to gauge customer feedback and to engage them if you'd like.

 Davison didn't win the treasurer nomination, but to paraphrase his speech he turned difficulty into opportunity. The possibilities are endless for him and they can be for your business too.

Tell your friends and tell your neighbors.

50 Ideas for Using Twitter for Business

By Chris Brogan

(Source: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/50-ideas-on-using-twitter-for-business/)

First Steps

1. Build an account and immediate start using Twitter Search to listen for your name, your competitor’s names, words that relate to your space. (Listening always comes first.)
2. Add a picture. ( Shel reminds us of this.) We want to see you.
3. Talk to people about THEIR interests, too. I know this doesn’t sell more widgets, but it shows us you’re human.
4. Point out interesting things in your space, not just about you.
5. Share links to neat things in your community. ( @wholefoods does this well).
6. Don’t get stuck in the apology loop. Be helpful instead. ( @jetblue gives travel tips.)
7. Be wary of always pimping your stuff. Your fans will love it. Others will tune out.
8. Promote your employees’ outside-of-work stories. ( @TheHomeDepot does it well.)
9. Throw in a few humans, like RichardAtDELL, LionelAtDELL, etc.
10. Talk about non-business, too, like @aaronstrout and @jimstorer.

Ideas About WHAT to Tweet

11. Instead of answering the question, “What are you doing?”, answer the question, “What has your attention?”
12. Have more than one twitterer at the company. People can quit. People take vacations. It’s nice to have a variety.
13. When promoting a blog post, ask a question or explain what’s coming next, instead of just dumping a link.
14. Ask questions. Twitter is GREAT for getting opinions.
15. Follow interesting people. If you find someone who tweets interesting things, see who she follows, and follow her.
16. Tweet about other people’s stuff. Again, doesn’t directly impact your business, but makes us feel like you’re not “that guy.”
17. When you DO talk about your stuff, make it useful. Give advice, blog posts, pictures, etc.
18. Share the human side of your company. If you’re bothering to tweet, it means you believe social media has value for human connections. Point us to pictures and other human things.
19. Don’t toot your own horn too much. (Man, I can’t believe I’m saying this. I do it all the time. – Side note: I’ve gotta stop tooting my own horn).
20. Or, if you do, try to balance it out by promoting the heck out of others, too.

Some Sanity For You

21. You don’t have to read every tweet.
22. You don’t have to reply to every @ tweet directed to you (try to reply to some, but don’t feel guilty).
23. Use direct messages for 1-to-1 conversations if you feel there’s no value to Twitter at large to hear the conversation ( got this from @pistachio).
24. Use services like Twitter Search to make sure you see if someone’s talking about you. Try to participate where it makes sense.
25. 3rd party clients like Tweetdeck and Twhirl make it a lot easier to manage Twitter.
26. If you tweet all day while your coworkers are busy, you’re going to hear about it.
27. If you’re representing clients and billing hours, and tweeting all the time, you might hear about it.
28. Learn quickly to use the URL shortening tools like TinyURL and all the variants. It helps tidy up your tweets.
29. If someone says you’re using twitter wrong, forget it. It’s an opt out society. They can unfollow if they don’t like how you use it.
30. Commenting on others’ tweets, and retweeting what others have posted is a great way to build community.

The Negatives People Will Throw At You

31. Twitter takes up time.
32. Twitter takes you away from other productive work.
33. Without a strategy, it’s just typing.
34. There are other ways to do this.
35. As Frank hears often, Twitter doesn’t replace customer service (Frank is @comcastcares and is a superhero for what he’s started.)
36. Twitter is buggy and not enterprise-ready.
37. Twitter is just for technonerds.
38. Twitter’s only a few million people. (only)
39. Twitter doesn’t replace direct email marketing.
40. Twitter opens the company up to more criticism and griping.

Some Positives to Throw Back

41. Twitter helps one organize great, instant meetups (tweetups).
42. Twitter works swell as an opinion poll.
43. Twitter can help direct people’s attention to good things.
44. Twitter at events helps people build an instant “backchannel.”
45. Twitter breaks news faster than other sources, often (especially if the news impacts online denizens).
46. Twitter gives businesses a glimpse at what status messaging can do for an organization. Remember presence in the 1990s?
47. Twitter brings great minds together, and gives you daily opportunities to learn (if you look for it, and/or if you follow the right folks).
48. Twitter gives your critics a forum, but that means you can study them.
49. Twitter helps with business development, if your prospects are online (mine are).
50. Twitter can augment customer service. (but see above)

What else would you add? How are you using Twitter for your business?