Why are joining a social media network?

Is your social media expert helping you identify which networks to join?

Understanding the audience you are trying to reach is half the battle in social media marketing. If you are trying to reach soccer fans, chances are you are not going find many in the baseball forum. For that matter, if you want to discuss how great Ayn Rand is, you will not make much headway with readers of Micheal Moore.

There are three major types of social networks - business, personal and communication. Notice I didn't say "marketing?" Some may combine aspects of all three (Twitter) while others are more singular (LinkedIn).

And even though you may call yourself a social media marketing guru, that doesn't mean you can "market" your way across all three types in the same way. In fact, every network has a point or a purpose and if you're missing it, then you're missing out.

Business

Social networks that focus on business are your LinkedIn's, your Biznik's and all of those local listservs and forums that people participate in as part of their online business networking.

The purpose here is to do business, not to share pictures of your kitten or that fantastic dancing robot video you found on YouTube. It's also not the place for relentless marketing. In other words, don't spam people.

Personal

I would describe Facebook as an example of a personal network. Some people may use it for business networking, but that's not the point of it or the purpose.

Instead, it's private and most people create Facebook accounts as individuals, not businesses. Basically, it's your space to be yourself, talk to your friends and family and share those kitten photos. If you're using Facebook to bombard your "friends" with product announcements and sales pushes, you're going to find yourself very friendless, very fast.

Communication

This is where it's all about sharing what you know and your take on what you know and what other people you know know (have I lost you yet?). By definition, Twitter would fall into this category though the micro-blogging platform has evolved to embrace aspects of all three. Blogging would be another example.

Remember, the onus here is on the communication. So, if you don't have anything valuable to share or you waste your audience's screen time with pitches and spam, you'll lose them quickly. Go ahead, make a post about your new product, but also share that interesting industry-specific article you read last week.

Social networks weren’t designed for marketing. They were designed for networking and each designed for a specific type of networking. Approaching all of them with the same marketing strategy is like trying to build a house with a Leatherman – sure, all of the tools are there, but that doesn’t mean it can be done.

Paul is the President of Professional Blog Service. PBS works with clients making strategic investments into business blogging, social media and search engine optimization.

Has the slow economy pushed more people to social media?

Slow Economy and B2B Social Media

B2B social media and b2c social media are playing a big role in the slow economy. Like the Depression of the 1930s, misery loves company. Today, company is finding itself on business blogging sites, Facebook and Linkedin.

They say a man is rich who has friends. What about a company with fans?

There aren’t many internet users who remember seeing Charlie Chaplin’s movies when they debuted in theaters. Thanks to the internet, though, just about any user can watch Chaplin ham it up as the Tramp who faced many of the same challenges as his original audience.

During the Great Depression, poor folks watched the poor guy do his best to find a job (and keep it), fix up his house (err, shack), and woo the lady of his dreams. The audience had something in common with Chaplin’s characters, so they got the jokes, and the jokes brought them all together.

Of course, the Depression was no joke.

During these modern days we’re slogging through our own recession that doesn’t offer much to laugh about. A lot of Americans are facing those same struggles with work, housing, and even relationships. Just like Chaplin’s films portrayed the angst of those times, more and more people today are sharing the anxiety and worry of these modern times. Only we’re not doing it with slapstick and silent movies. We’re posting on blogs, sharing photos, and twittering.

.com-miserating
According to a recent trend report from Netpop Research LLC, online social networking has almost doubled since 2006 while the economy has only weakened since then. Netpop reports that about 3 out of 4 web users are personally sharing over the internet by contributing to blogs, rating products, uploading photos. etc.

Today about 29% of US broadband users communicate with each other specifically through social networking sites. Tough times do bring people together, and the results of this report point to even more online sharing as these recession days continue.

What This Means For Business
Commiserating with like-minded people can bring relief and comfort, but it can also impact our decisions. We aren’t sheep, blindly following anything willing to lead, but when every penny counts, it’s good to know how friends made similar choices.

While we’re updating microblogs and profile photos, we’re also rating products and declaring ourselves as fans of certain services. While we’re connecting through online chats, we’re also bidding at online auctions and sharing the scoop on great deals.

Netpop’s research revealed that social networkers currently spend more money online than “non-contributors,” and that they are likely to rely ever more heavily on the recommendations of their fellow networking media participants as this recession intensifies.

That’s why business owners need to get involved in social media. Reaching out to their existing customers who are already participating in venues like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.com will bring them into an ever-increasing network of contacts on the same wave length.

Just as Cate Riegner, VP of Research at Netpop Research, LLC, noted, “Brands that experiment in social advertising now will be in the best position to leverage these important media channels when the economy turns the corner.”

And, rest assured, this economy will indeed turn the corner, just like Chaplin always bounced back from that slapstick fall.

Paul is the President of Professional Blog Service. PBS works with clients making strategic investments into business blogging, social media and search engine optimization.

Business Blogging Mistakes

Blog Marketing mistakes made by business

Marketing should not be the motivation when blogging for business. Conversation with your customers should be the cornerstone of blogging for business. It is ok to talk about what you do with readers. It just has to be done in a way that speaks to them and their selfish needs, not yours.

Before you rush into business blogging there's something you should know:

Business blogging does not work in a vacuum

Every week someone calls us and asks if we can just ghost write blog articles for super cheap for their business blog. There's a name for these spammy business blogs, and it sounds like something that grows in that goo that accumulates in the drain pan under the fridge: splog.

Splogs are blogging's answer for the guy at the fair who yells “Hey you, with the face! Step right up...” So, after discovering that our future client has a splog, our first question is, well, if we are just writing, how is the blog being promoted? The answer from our prospective client is nearly always:

“We don't care about that. We just have the blog around to mop up on some keywords on Google. It needs lots of new content, but we don't really care what it says. We just want Google to index it.”

After we take a look at the prospects blog, we usually find three things are true about the aforementioned business blog:

1. It's written by fake people. Not real people with pen names, but fake as in department store mannequin with a bad wig and big sunglasses.

2. The content isn't personal (it's written in third person), usually isn't well written and isn't tracking in the search engines for keywords that actually get traffic. It's usually just more spammy content that will end up on page 8,500 in Google's search results for a fourth rate keyword.

3. The business blog is screaming fire in an empty theater at three in the morning on a Sunday after the popcorn ran out. It gets 20 clicks. Per month. Meaning a visitor is more likely to be a hacker's spider looking for unpatched scripts than a person, anyway.

Cheaply written business blogs which are put up for an audience consisting of a search engine spider and a ranking algorithm don't work very well if you are trying to actually market.  To engage, you have to actually communicate with people. Which raises the biggest mistake that people make when they start business blogging: failing to be genuine.

Blogs which are written by real people that can be called on the telephone are the most effective if you want good marketing.  That does not mean you have to write the article, but it does mean that every blog post needs to be your ideas, and said in a way that is personal and genuine.

Why? Because, people do business with people. It's that simple.

What are you going to do when someone calls and asks if Mr. Fake Person can speak at a trade show or come on a sales call? Hire an actor? Good luck with that.

Think about it.

People do business with people. People network with people. Sites like Facebook and LinkedIn connect people to people. It's called social media for a reason, and the blog is the foundation of it all.  Spammy business blogs are anti-social.

Paul is the President of Professional Blog Service. PBS works with clients making strategic investments into business blogging, social media and search engine optimization.

Manage your Social Media Campaign

We have our networks, but now we need to manage our Social Media Campaign

Social media campaigns require some work and activity to make them successful.  We have found the b2b social media networks where our customers, prospects and peers enage. What tools are out there for effective social media management.

In the previous post we outlined a few things to consider when choosing social networks to participate in. Now that you've made your choices, it is time to manage them.

Step 2: Managing Your Social Networks

To start, you’ll have to manually add all of your profile information. You can begin with the basics and fill each of these out over a period of time. Ideally, you want to be updating all of your social profiles about once a month. As you get involved with each social network you will see what type of profile information is necessary to attract the best relationships.

Try making a spreadsheet of all your social networks. Your column headers should be the social network name and URL, your user name, password and finally, the last date of update. It will help you stay on track of all of your profiles.

TIP: Be sure your profiles are similar on each network you choose to participate in. People are leery of chameleons who have a different "facade" in each community. Also, I think it is important to get connected to services that essentially become "profile aggregators" like Disqus, Gravatar, BackType and coComment. These services collect your various presences, show how actively and intelligently your social participate is and are quickly becoming important as credibility tools.

Now, here are some tools you can use

B2B social media marketing and what to consider

B2B Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing has been around for a very long time.
What is to B2B social media is the largest demographic can only be found there. Traditional marketing outlets like newspapers, television and sometimes magazines are not the common place for Generation Y or millennials hang. Business blogging has to adapt to the way they now consume information. Challenge is figuring out what Social Media networks you should join.

There are literally thousands of social networks out there. You can’t join them all, nor would you want to.

So, which ones should you join?

When you spread yourself too thin over too many networks, you run the risk of being unable to properly maintain your presence on all these channels. You could also find yourself associated with a social network that has a lame image or that disappears as quickly as it appeared.

How do you prioritize? Easy…

Fish where the fish are. Go where the users are. Just like a blog with no comments or a message board with no posts, a social network with no users has little value. This seems obvious but is often ignored because many less experienced marketers decide to place all their chips on a little used "up and comer" hoping to be on top when the masses convert to that social network. Problem is, the conversion rarely happens.

Social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter have millions of active users. While, many “gurus” might scoff at marketing on these well established social networks, don’t be persuaded. Usually, these guys are trying to point you away from the obvious in a clever attempt to sell you some unconventional “wisdom”. Go for the safe bets because people are there, actively participate in what is a massive marketing opportunity for your brand.

With that said, there are situation when some major players should be avoided and opportunities in the new or lesser known communities... if you know what to look for. And yes, choosing the right social networks to join goes way beyond user numbers – here are a number of other factors you’ll also want to consider…

Step One: Choosing Social Networks

Site Credibility and Reputation

If you’re a Fortune500 CEO you really have no place putting yourself on MySpace (unless you happen to run a company where the target market is teens). A site may have a million users, but if they’re not your market then it’s not worth going there.
For example, think about a marketing consultant. He’s going to get more contacts and worthwhile links from maintaining his LinkedIn, Facebook and even Twitter accounts. But, he probably won’t see any returns from investing hours of time into his MyDogSpace account (a social networking site for dog lovers).
However, if he can build a presence on StartUpNation, he could get tons of great small biz consulting work form a relatively small network.

Ask if it’s Relevant?
Of course, another type of consultant could be barking up the right tree setting up a profile on MyDogSpace.com if he happens to provide consulting service for dog breeders and trainers. Why? Because the other users on that site are relevant, they fit into his niche. Obviously, right! Then why don’t more folks find these social networks and engage?

The Site’s PageRank
Despite what some say, we feel that PageRank is still critical to improving and controlling your Google (and other) search engine rankings. That means, if possible, you want to sign up for and invest your time on social networks that have a high PageRank value with lots of visitors.
For example, try googling the names of some of your friends. You’ll often find that if they have a LinkedIn, Twitter or even Blogger account, these profiles will be on the first page of their Google results. That’s because these sites have significant PageRank (6 or higher).

The Site’s Staying Power
If you don’t think a social network has staying power or enough users to keep it running through this rough economic storm, don’t waste your time setting up a profile and building up a community.
Being an early adopter can pay dividends, but then again you may just be wasting your time. If you go with a new social network, do so only if your gut tells you it is unique or compelling enough to be around in a year.

Make a Social Network Checklist
Before you invest hours of time into developing an online profile for yourself or your business, run a potential social network through a personal checklist. Ask questions like does it fit my niche? Are my current contacts using this site? Are there groups the site that I could join? How many users does it have? What’s the PageRank? Will joining this site benefit or hinder my brand?

Think of Every Profile as an Introduction
First impressions are important, so you want to avoid spreading your brand too thin. Ideally, you want every social network profile that you or your business has to be up-to-date and functional. Nothing says “deadbeat” like a profile that hasn’t been updated since 2006 or at least deleted.
You should also think of every social profile as a potential first introduction, the first handshake with a new acquaintance. Is it limp or firm and steady?

Each profile may be a bit different, but you want them all to put forward the image and information that is congruent with your brand or blog.

Paul is the President of Professional Blog Service. PBS works with clients making strategic investments into business blogging, social media and search engine optimization.

Branded Social Media Networks

In an effort to control their social media participation, brand managers often consider creating their own social media platform for customers and prospects to join. Challenge with this approach is you have to change their behavior. The biggest challenge with humans is getting them to change their behavior. The only company that seems to successfully challenge human behavior is Apple. Not everyone can be Apple Computer.

One of the chief features of social media is the ability to participate in a larger community without needing to reinvent it. The idea with social media marketing is that your reach can be extended by publishing on existing social sites.

Post a question on your website, you get a few responses. Pose the same question to LinkedIn you get many, many more answers.

Which raises the question: Why do corporations and brand managers keep trying to make their own social networks? It really doesn't make sense, but

Using Linkedin in your Social Media Campaign

Linkedin is an underutilized social media tool.

Linkedin is one of the best social media tools out there to connect to your market. For business to business marketing, you will probably find the people are you looking for on Linkedin.  Before you do though, consider some of the Does and Don'ts of how to use it.

Don't: Use Your Work or Primary Home Email as Your Public Email
Get a Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail account, unless you really like spam with your email. LinkedIn provides some protection to your email address, but it does give your email to first degree connections and the owners of groups you join.

Do Understand How LinkedIn Search Works
LinkedIn has millions of users.  LinkedIn's search system is critical because it is what helps you find people and what powers the "people you may know" tool. The search tool is limited to:

• First level connections - your friends.
• Second level connections - your friend's friends.
• Third level connections - your friend's friends friends.
• People in groups with you
• A random sample of the rest of the database - and you do not get to see names.

In short: the more connections you have, the easier is to find people you are not connected to.

Do Have a Strategy
Quantity over Quality
The idea here is to connect with as many people as possible so you have access to as many LinkedIn users as possible. This generally means accepting connections from anyone who wants to connect with you.  If you are a marketer, serial networker or recruiter, then the quantity should trump quality.

Quality over Quantity
If you don't need max our your visibility of LinkedIn's database, then the best way to use LinkedIn is to focus on quality. Connect with people that you know or who have a reason (beyond being a prospect) to know you.  If you do purue quality, you should connect with a few "superconnectors" (people with thousands of connections) to gain access to more people in LinkedIn's database.  It will be very hard to find people you know if you only can see 23,000 people compared to 453,000 people.

Do: Join groups
Groups allow you to find people with simmilar interest quickly.  Joining in discussion is a great way to meet new people.

Don't Spam Groups
On LinkedIn there are two kinds of spam: blatant self promoting advertisements and blatant attempts to get more connections.  Take a minute to look at a discussion group before your post a message and make sure the group has posts like the one you want to make.

Do: State that you are open to connections if you are.
If you want to grow your network quickly, tell people that you are an "open networker," or even become a LION (LinkedIn Open Networker).

Don't break Outlook with your fabulous name.
LinkedIn allows people to download their freinds and their friend's email addresses.  If you make a fancy name like ">>>Bob "The NetworkGuru" Smith<<<" it will make a first impression.  But the second impression will be that you can't be found in outlook because your first name doesn't start with ">" it starts with "B."

Paul is the President of Professional Blog Service. PBS works with clients making strategic investments into business blogging, social media and search engine optimization.

Enter The Conversation in Social Media

I often make fun of buzzwords and will admit that social media is one of them. Social media is the new craze in our world. With mobile phones, tablets like the iPad, our personal entertainment options have increased it seems x10. It seems to be impacting all ages too, not just kids. I was visiting friends in Michigan and a 60 year old guy discovered Youtube. He watches it all the time. Now, he is using other tools to stay in contact with friends and family around the world. Social media is about conversation.

People's lifestyles are changing. Gone are the days of people mindlessly watching TV. Newspapers are dying. Radio no longer delivers the soundtrack of our lives. Somewhere along the way, people decided the remote control wasn't good enough.

What's left? The Internet. Portable Media Players. Video Games. Cell Phones. TiVo... Devices that give people back control of their life. Devices that people control the content on, and have firm control of the power switch.

What does that mean to your marketing? Opportunity. And it's not about branding. Or your image. Or even engagement. It's about starting a conversation. It's about helping people find what they are looking for. It's about taking what you do, what you make and letting people discover, desire, own and control it.

Take a hard look at your existing marketing and ask yourself a few questions:

What do you do that helps customers understand your brands, products and services?

What do you do that helps you understand your potential buyers?

Are you talking? Are you listening?

Or are you entering into a conversation?

Positive relationships rarely happen without conversation. Negative relationships happen easily and often without dialogue. The question is, do you have an ongoing conversation or are you just one more reason to turn off the tv, put down the newspaper, silence the radio and fire up the iPod?
Discussion:

What have you done lately to strike up a real conversation with your customers?

Paul is the President of Professional Blog Service. PBS works with clients making strategic investments into business blogging, social media and search engine optimization.