With social media marketing gaining rapid speed in the world of business, both big and small, you want to be prepared to use it, and do so correctly. Social media marketing can make a significant difference within a small business that has minimal budget funds.

Before signing up for every social network on the market, you should have a plan in place. You’ve written your business plan, now it’s time to create your social media marketing plan.

1.       Decide Where To Become Involved

Most companies assume that they should be relevant on every social media platform out there. This is a wrong assumption, and one that can hurt your business, rather than help. You should be choosing a platform that works best with your business model and targets your audience.

If experience is an issue, using a platform you are familiar with is recommended. Regardless of what social media sites you are affiliated with, it’s most important to be current, fresh and relevant. However, you do have a number of options.

• Facebook- The most popular social networking site, with over 800 billion users world-wide, you can be sure that you’ll reach customers. With Facebook, you can reach your customers on a level that is familiar to them.
• Twitter- Many may consider this the second most popular social networking site. Twitter has been the site of many breaking news stories, some that have damaged the reputation of popular companies. When you are able to be a part of the conversation, you have the opportunity to guide a negative conversation in a positive direction, instead of watching it spin out of control.
• Pinterest- While this site is just recently coming into the limelight, its popularity is finding its way into the business world. Pinterest explicitly states that businesses are not allowed to use their accounts for direct advertising. Though you may immediately think otherwise, this can be a positive stipulation for you. This gives you an opportunity to reach your customers on the level of the average user, as opposed to looming, un-relatable, marketing machine.

2.       Make a Time Commitment

While 59% of businesses only spend about 1-5 hours per week on social media efforts, according to the Social Media Marketing Report 2011, it is becoming increasingly more evident that this may be due to a lack of knowledge or skills. It was reported that long time users dedicate 6-16 hours a week.

• If you don’t have the skills or knowledge, build a learning curve into your plan. It is critical that you use your social media outlets correctly. As a small business you can reach out to a variety of resources to learn from, such as tutorials or friends.
• If you have extra spending in your budget, consider hiring a social media consultant. With a social media consultant you can be sure that you’re getting quality work, catered to your business.

3.       Make It Worth Your While

If you’ve decided to dedicate a significant amount of hours in the workweek to creating your online presence, you want to see results. Simply signing up will not bring you traffic, new customers, or more business. To make an impact there are a variety of suggestions you should bear in mind.

• Stay current: Customers don’t want to search out your Facebook page to find stagnant information from last year. With more than 60 million status updates happening every day, you need to keep up.
• Be Exclusive: Users want exclusivity. They expect to be compensated for their loyalty. You should be providing breaking news about the company, offers for your Facebook fans or Twitter followers, and frequent deals or coupons.
• Engage: Being on social networks is about interacting with your customers in a way that is familiar and comfortable. According to Facebook, more than 250 million photos are uploaded every day. Offering deals for those who pin or upload pictures of themselves using or buying your products is a strategic way for them to connect with your page and product.

4.       Plan To Measure Your Results

Once you’ve put in the hard work, you want to see your results. There are a variety of ways to assess your ROI, effectiveness of customer engagement, etc. Social media monitoring allows you to assess how your customers see your brand, how they are finding you, and what they are searching for. Programs like Radian6 and Google Analytics offer you extensive monitoring services, which will give you an accurate picture of how your efforts are paying off.

Social media marketing can have a profitable impact on your business.  By creating a social media marketing plan, you are setting in motion an important aspect of your marketing efforts. While many companies have an online presence, not very many are able to use it to their advantage. If you make the time investment, it is likely you’ll see significant results.

About the Author: Jessica Sanders is an avid small business writer touching on topics ranging from social media to merchant services. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including credit card processing for b2b lead generation resource, Resource Nation.

Photo Credit: Watt_Dabney

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Big businesses have always had an advantage when it comes to reaching customers. This was because of their big marketing budgets and their ability to utilise large long-term contracts. Whilst these advantages have not disappeared, they do not matter as much anymore and there is a simple reason for this: Social Media. Social Media has enabled the smallest of companies to compete with the largest of companies and it is all free. This article will consider how you can make your business look bigger and more prosperous than it actually is through the use of clever network management and free social media.

1. Become a Trusted Field Expert

Blogging will allow you to establish yourself as an expert in your field. By providing free and accurate advice you will create an ideal relationship with your customers and trigger an increase in email opt-in communications. This method will help to generate leads for your sales team and demonstrate that you are capable in your field.

Additional benefits come through the promotion of your site through Search Engine Optimisation. Google and other search engines provide great website ranking benefits to those who write blogs.

2. Build a Custom Facebook Page

Facebook provides a huge potential market but it is important that you approach this area correctly. Your Facebook page will need to offer the customer something which will make them want to return to it. Include interesting discussions, engaging materials and relevant information about your business. By including an email communications opt-in on the page, you will be able to generate a greater customer contact list.

3. Professional Videos

Video marketing is easy. What was once out of reach for most small businesses is something which can be produced at a very low cost now. The advent of Youtube allows you to present your business to the world through the medium of video. Video hosting is free, so all that you need to do is create the material to place online. Website visitors who watch an online product video are 85% more likely to make a purchase than those who don’t, so it is wise to seriously consider this option.

4. Give It Up For Free

By providing e-books, tips, guides, and other methods of free help, you will be able to demonstrate your expertise and convince potential customers that your business is the right place to go. Customers are far more likely to utilise a business which has offered them a high quality free trial than they are to trust in an unknown and untrusted source. Providing free services is a great way to generate custom.

5. Dominate the Search Engines

Part of your business’ IT service should focus heavily on Search Engine Optimisation. Social media channels will enable you to optimise your SEO ranking. The number of times that a link or video that you have created has been shared will directly impact on the prominence of your company in search engines. If you can make it so that your business is the first result for your industry keywords then you will be able to easily and effectively get a step ahead of the competition.

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Friends sneered at you when you said that you are going the entrepreneurial way. You quit your job in that MNC to build this dream product. Now the product is finally out in the open but how do you find takers for your product.

 Needless to say, being a startup you always have this financial question mark staring blankly at your face. Keeping in mind the limitations, startups can easily use these three tools to market their product. It is working for us and if you do it right, it will work for you too.

Social Networking might be passé but networking is not :

Start by using your own personal contacts and their contacts. Ask your friends to try and use your product. Talk about your product when you meet each other during social gatherings. You somehow have to ensure that the optimism you have for your product, gets communicated around. And all said and done, Facebook and Twitter are still one of the best ways to talk about your brand online.

Data Visualizations:

A picture is worth a thousand words. People might not be interested in your 1000 words article but they would love to see a nice graphic communicating the same idea. Try exploring infographics to market what your product stands for, what problem it seeks to solve, industry trends in your market, etc.

Blogging:

This is an effective way to make yourself heard online. Post articles that you think your target market would be interested in. Try and establish yourself as the thought leader in your industry. Encourage the idea of blogging within your organization. Ask employees to contribute their own take on things.

All the best and have a rocking year!

About the Author: Shilpi Choudhury is an Inbound Marketing Specialist and Business Blogger based out of Bangalore, India. She is currently working for DiscountPandit, Bangalore, which is a deal search engine that provides users a faster, simpler and a comprehensive deal search experience.

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Twitter has a new look, and some observers are calling it the single biggest overhaul the site has received at once in its five year history. The update is one that aims to unify both the presentation and functionality of the microblogging service across all platforms, essentially simplifying the experience for the user. This latest move has kept the internet community busy discussing the implications, so lets take a look at the new tools the redesign offers social marketers.??

Enhanced Toolbar

The change you will probably notice first lies in the toolbar. You will now see the following section categories at the top of the interface:??Home – Shows you the tweets posted by the people you follow on Twitter. This category keeps you up to date with the information that matters most to you.??Connect – This new section keeps you connected with the conversation. Through Connect, you can see who is following or mentioning your brand, endorsing your posts, or retweeting and sharing with friends.??Discover – Hence the name, the Discover section helps you find relevant and useful information via Twitter. The results you see are tailored to your location, network, and other areas that match your interests.??Me – This section the “Profile” section found in the old Twitter design. Here you can introduce yourself to the world of Twitter and even communicate with others through tweets and direct messages.??

Embedded Tweets??

One of the most interesting tools to accompany the Twitter redesign is the embedded tweets feature. This option can be accessed directly from the new interface. The actual process is pretty much like embedding a YouTube clip, meaning you copy a snippet of HTML code and paste it into the web page where you want the tweet displayed. Perhaps the best thing about embedded tweets is its seamless integration with Twitter’s new partners Posterous and WordPress. If you use either of these services, you can have your tweets automatically embedded by simply copying the code and dropping it into your web page – no cut and paste required.  ??

Brand Pages??

Following in the footsteps of rivals Facebook and Google, Twitter has decided to introduce its very own brand pages. Similar to the feature offered by other networks, these pages will give social marketers the ability to promote their brand on the platform. You can have a promotional tweet on display at the top of your page, and even choose which tweets the user sees upon visiting your page. This is one of the most exciting new tools to accompany the redesign for obvious reasons. Twitter is currently testing the new brand pages with a select few brands, including Chevrolet and Coca Cola.??The redesigned Twitter is slowly being rolled out to the user base. For now, the update is only available to mobile users, though the company says all users will be able to experience the new and improved service over the coming weeks. Adapting to change can often be difficult, but in the case of Twitter, this looks like change both users and social marketers will come to embrace.

About the Author: Aidan Hijleh is a freelance copywriter and serves as the Non-Profit Partnership Liaison for Benchmark Email. Aidan advocates free email marketing services to assist with the flourishing of grassroots organizations.

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Establishing a solid customer-base is crucial for any start up or small business owner—after all, without any customers/clients, you make no money and without any money your small business will crash and burn. While hiring a strong marketing team can help you acquire a good number of costumers, this route can be pretty expensive. And naturally with any small business owner, funds are tight. But there are few things you can do on your own to help build your number of customers that is relatively cheap or even better, free. To learn how you can increase your clientele and help ensure the success of your business, continue reading below.

1. Do Research

First and foremost you need to get in touch with the needs of your target audience. You could be selling the most innovative product or service known to man but if you don’t know how to appeal and relate to your target audience’s wants and needs, your campaign may fall flat. For example, could your audience be hesitant about taking a chance on you because they are hard up for cash? If this is the case you need to directly state how your product or service is beneficial to your customer despite their economic hardship, which leads us to out next tip—

2. Offer Exclusive Deals

The truth of the matter is that consumers are always looking for a good bargain, especially now (during the holidays). To appeal to the masses, offer some discounts and exclusive deals to new customers or offer a promotional limited time-only offer to people already on your email list serve for example. You can offer an immediate discount or a next-purchase discount, you can offer a 2-for-1 deal, offer free shipping and handling, or even offer a free consultation or an introductory class. The goal is to find a way to persuade new costumers to try your product or service because the deal is irresistible (and of course superior than your competitors.)

3. Get on the Social Media Map

This is crucial. If you do not know how to use popular social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to self-market your business it’s time you learn now. Right now. The power of social medial isn’t going to dwindle anytime soon and these free tools are a great way to reach your target audience and establish your brand free of cost. In fact, even those that refused to give-in to social media in the past will be jumping on the bandwagon come the New Year. According to statistics, 40 % of surveyed small business owners said they finally plan on using social media in 2012.

4. Be Mobile and Tablet Compatible

If you’ve created a website or blog to get your name out there that’s a great start but it isn’t enough—it’s the age of the smartphone and the tablet and consumers must be able to access your website/blog through these devices. Your site has to be compatible. While some platforms will automatically convert, others do not and you may need to download a special plug-in like WpTap to make your blog compatible. And you’re going to want to make your site convert. After all, some experts predict smartphones and tablets will replace the laptop one day and since the latest figures say one-third of the U.S. population owns a smartphone and uses it for its remote mobile access, you don’t want to risk missing out on a pool of smartphone/tablet- using costumers.

5. Hire Ambassadors

Lastly you can hire someone to utilize the traditional “word-of-mouth” marketing technique by hiring someone closely related to your target audience. For example, if you created a product that is specifically tailored to college-aged students, then you can hire a few students at the campus nearest to you and get them to tell their friends and other students how great your products or service is. You wouldn’t have to pay them much (or you could offer free merchandise instead for example), but it’s a great way to dig in deeper and go straight to the source.

Of course these aren’t the only things you can do to expand your costumer-base, but it’s a start. Do some research and investigate all of the other resources that are available to you to ensure that you find costumers and keep them coming back.

About the Author: This guest post is contributed by Katheryn Rivas, who writes for online universities blog.  She welcomes your comments at her email Id: katherynrivas87@gmail.com.

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There are umpteen ways to use video for business, ranging from stylish, high-priced ad campaign commercials to complex landing page pieces fashioned to pull someone into a sale. What are the best types of video for Small Business owners that can be created cost-effectively and published rapidly and produce leads? Here are the Top Eight.

Intro Advert

Well-known and regularly underused, the video Intro to the Business is a short, 5 minute or less (2-3 works well) homepage introduction that tells who you are, what you do and why customers should care. This can be done using a description in a commercial packed with lots of movement shots of the shop floor, the office, and products; a talking head of the CEO to a blank camera; or use the 3rd party point of view of a genuine Video interview (see below) Business FAQ. Development fees can vary from FREE (CEO riffing into a webcam) through a few hundred dollars to thousands for a videographer shot commercial. Google doesn’t care; either will index well given the suitable keyword tags. The question you have to answer is, what is going to be quickly informational, interesting, and referable (as in Re-tweeted).

The Demo

Specific to demonstrable merchandise, especially ones that move, like machines, toys, electronic devices, and, considering the medium, software. These again should not run on too long but can be lengthier than an introductory commercial. A software-based demonstration may take up to 8 minutes, but you should be able to say it in less time than that. When it comes to demos, in some cases less is more. Most often either a narrative led demo showing only products or a spokesperson paced demo (think QVC or Home Shopping Channel) works the best. Just be sure to show the BEST features of your product and lay out consistently (3x) how this solves an issue for your customers.

Professional Abilities

This is very similar to a product demonstration and works best for suppliers, especially those in developed countries, trying to demonstrate their remarkable technology will in reality cost less money or offer better quality product for a customer engaging them with a contract for recurring services. Machine shops and laser houses prefer this stuff, showing automated machinery cutting steel while a dude with a hardhat and safety goggles oversees the process. This can run 5-10 minutes max. The key here is, make sure that your capability really is something special (as in a True Competitive Advantage that others don’t have) and that your video captures its uniqueness.

Company Spotlights

This is more of a tug on the heartstrings video that features either what your company has achieved that is remarkable or what your employees have done for your company. If it’s about the company, it MUST be validated by 3rd party reference, as in an accolade won from a prominent registrar (Best in Class, Malcolm Baldridge quality), a status attained (ISO 9001 certification, etc.) or a cat saved from a tree on the news. When talking about employees, the old Employee of the Month style headline adds a nice human factor and speaks to what your company values in its people, and that can make a big difference to customers with the same value system. For these types of videos, keep them short (2-4 minutes) and keep them current, specifically for the employee notoriety videos. An Employee of the Month presupposes that next month, we’ll see another.

Video Landing Page Combo

I could write pages on this and to be truthful, I’m not a professional at it, but I am sure you’ve experienced pages that have these videos. These are designed to be hands-free on the part of the vendor of a product or service, meaning, don’t call me, take the steps explained on the video. That means enter your email address to get something for FREE in exchange for authorization to advertise to you, or register for the thing (whatever it is) right now! Just like text-only sales landing pages, these are long-form videos, with Squeeze Pages (get the email address) videos varying from 3-7 minutes, and Sales Pages running all the way up to 30 minutes (that is too long in my opinion, with 10-12 being adequate). The most important stuff here: curb options to only this with no other on-page interferences and make multiple calls to action to the viewer.

Vlogs

All about providing information this one is. It comes in the form of a training video, which is easily done for things like software applications using screen capture software, or talking head explaining something she knows, and typically is the Expert Interview (I’ve done a bunch of these in my blog, see sample). The objective is expert positioning for your company while giving real value for the view. These videos can run from 5-30 minutes or longer (think of a book author interview), but I prefer to keep them between 7 and 15 minutes (Youtube has a 15 minute max until you are a recurring video poster). Keys to success are to set the subject matter to avoid rambling, don’t provide fluff with a sales pitch to get more, and include some written text fore and aft of the video to set it up and summarize.

Testimonies and Personal Examples

Very self-explanatory here, this is 3rd party Reliability Building 101. Take the same things that marketers value about written examples and testimonials and put them on steroids. This definitely MUST be a person unrelated to the business telling about what the company did for him or her, and it can NOT be anonymous (just like those absurd made up reviews you see, “JL from Tampa says …”). Use discretion if the person doing the talking is not good on camera. It shouldn’t make a difference but it does. He doesn’t need to be Ben Affleck, but he can’t be a stiff either. These run no more than 3 minutes in length and follow my rules for great reviews. Quality can’t be second-rate, but a webcam with acceptable quality can be used properly, as the subject matter of the person’s referral is the crucial piece.

Video Interview

I saved this one for last and, as you surely know by now, Smart Company Growth does these in bundles for the right type of clients. Video dialogues work well for any business that wants to put a human face on its product, so consider if that is you. They work incredibly well when your organization has these three qualities:

1. No physical merchandise– That’s right consultants, lawyers, accountants, financial advisors, IT people and anyone else offering professional services, I’m talking to you. You sell intellectual property and that is hard to show by showing a video shot of your report (although you can show results charts, but the people who can use this method the most, financial advisors, usually have rules preventing it).
2. Trust is the key to business– Same group, right? If you’re an attorney, how can you start to break the trust hurdle down without ever meeting someone? Show some face time with the 3rd party credibility that comes from being interviewed.
3. Sameness in Brand– If you look at your rivals’ websites and they look like yours does– competent yet non-distinguishable– you’re a good candidate for a video interview to set yourself apart. Again, this is why professional service firms fall so nicely into video interview candidates.

For advertising purposes the longest video interview (we call them SmartVu) we do is about 12 minutes. That’s pretty thorough. The shortest you can reasonably do with any bona fide dialog is about 2-3 minutes. The crucial success variables here are that the interviewer is good and that the structure of the content is planned beforehand. An unconvincing interviewer will lead to a lame interview and weak video. A sound interviewer with planned content will create genuine questions that represent you in the very best light. Although I cannot convince all of my clients of this, DO NOT READ FROM A SCRIPT! If you’re a subject matter specialist on your product or topic, a good interviewer’s questions will lead to natural responses with you looking right into the camera. Script readers have their eyes averted to wherever the script is located and come across as wooden, with only the skilled few able to fool people into believing they are responding ad hoc.

There is a time and place to use any of the 8 best types of video promotion for your small business video. The information here should serve to generate ideas on what type of video you can produce for your own video marketing and video SEO crusade to turnout excellent results.

About the Author: Karl Walinskas is the CEO of Smart Company Growth, a business development firm that helps small to mid-size professional service firms build competitive advantage in an online world of sameness.  He is author of numerous articles and the Smart Blog on leadership, business communication, sales & service, public speaking and virtual business, and Getting Connected Through Exceptional Leadership, available in the SmartShop.  Get your FREE LinkedIn Profile Optimization eBook & Video Course, Video Marketing video and course, or Mastermind Groups e-course & video now. 

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Photo Credit: Denim Dave

You know your business should leverage social networks, but its daunting when you have zero followers, zero fans, zero members, zero connections.  The good news about social networks is we all start at zero, so even those businesses with thousands of followers now, sat and stared at those big zeros too.  The key to getting fans is to get your business “out there.”  Where ever you are, you just have to start and here is a list of 30 strategies that get impressive results when you need to create fans from scratch. 

Attract

• Craft a contagious profile.  In 160 characters, people decide if they want to follow you or not.  Make it wow!
• Post pictures, tag them and ask for comments or captions. Pictures highly like-able and share-able.
• Post videos and ask for comments and shares. Videos are compelling!

Integrate

• Create a twitter background that gets opt ins.  Add your web address and blog url in the left panel so people know other places to find you.
• Include a link to your website in you Facebook About box.
• Add hot links to your website and blog in your Twitter profile.
• Use links on email blasts that take readers to your social networks.
• Incorporate your Twitter handle and Facebook page in your email signature

Give

• Guest post on bigger blogs. Use twitter to help build buzz.  Tag the blog in your original post so their followers see it.  The day that it goes live, be sure to search it on twitter and respond to every person who replied or retweeted it.
• Guest post on teleseminars and webinars.
• Comment on blogs where your customers are spending their time.
• Reply to every comment you receive.
• Reply to @mentions.
• Write a testimonial for someone else.
• Do a vendor case study.
• Say yes to every interview or writing request.
• Profile other people on your site and make them look fab.  They’ll be sharing that link for sure!

Partner/Collaborate

• Look for ways to partner with competitors and pitch it.  What else does your target customer want? What do you offer that your competitor doesn’t? 
• Look for ways to partner with big shots and pitch it.  What can you add to their offerings?

Promote

• Have a pay-what-you-can-day.  Post it everywhere and ask that people share your link.
• Hold a contest. Offer your product or service in exchange for testimonials.  Tell people they get bonus points for sharing your contest on their social networks.

Engage

• Start commenting on other blogs.
• Build relationships instead of self promoting.  Try these conversation starters. 
• Ask questions with simple answers.  What’s one word to describe (your industry)?

Encourage

• Tell people you’re up to something new and encourage them to tell others. Give links and make it easy. 
• Call in favors.  Ask your friends to share what you are working on.  Again, give links and make it easy.
• Do live speaking engagements. Ask people to tweet and post in real time about the event and include your twitter handle or tag your business..
• Put calls to action on everything. 
• Ask for testimonials.  Follow these 7 power questions.
• Keep posting.  You’ll simply remind people you are there.

Social Networks give incredible opportunity to get your business “out-there.”  Incorporate a few of these strategies when and where you can.

*Comment here and let us know what you are trying.  You never know who might find you!

About the Author: For more actionable ways to create communities of fans who love what you do and happily share it with their friends, visit www.katrinapadron.com

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Social media, a social instrument of communication is a phrase which is very popular nowadays in search engine marketing world. It changes the way of communication between individuals, organization and communities. Social media unlike the regular media is a two way street which allows you to communicate in response to the content in the media. Using social media determines the level of your website reach to people. In this blog let us look at those different types of social media which will aid you in optimizing your website for maximum results.

Social Networking Sites

Social networking websites help companies on a long term basis as they find the opportunity of getting a fan, follower or subscriber on a social media platform. On Twitter you get someone to follow you or connect with you in LinkedIn or subscribe to your YouTube channel- all these help to keep lines of communication open for a long time even after they are away form your website. To achieve maximum communication, make sure you set up an interactive profile page. You need to have a strong social media profile which shows in the top results for your name, website and blog. This will increase your brand’s visibility and yours too. If you intend to create a fan page in Facebook, let it be unique and content fresh. Add the social media buttons or the plugins (as we call them) in the home page of  your website. These will help you interact, comment and build relationship. Also, you need to plan much ahead for the logo to be added in the Facebook page for a power brand.

Include the Facebook Like Box

Facebook Like Box is a social plugin through which you can attract a lot of visitors and get likes for your website from them. By adding a like box you create a page for your website and invite likes. People tend to believe when their friends like, support or promote something. Your visitors can “Like” your website with just one click and from the Like Box you’ll get to see how many people liked your website.

Add Facebook Like Button to Share

You can add the Facebook Like button or the Retweet button of Twitter in your website to help your visitors share the content in other networks easily. 

Link Your Blog With Your Website

You can integrate your blog into your website and pull the recent posts as links to your Home page. Many businesses choose to build their website on a blogging platform like WordPress. By doing this you can improve the interactivity of your website by pulling your blog posts from your Home page.

Fix a Video

Add a video which tells about your products or services explaining how customers felt after using your products. You may also add a “How to” which would give instructions on how to use your products and the source to get assistance if required.

Social Bookmarking

Make use of the bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon, Digg and Delicious to add your new content and bookmark them. These websites have the potential to drive a  lot of traffic to your website in a short time.

About the Author: Linda has been writing on latest technlogy for quite sometime. Her interests include mobiles, gaming seo and more. She has written many articles on airbnb clone, etsy clone, yipit clone and many more.

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According to a recent study from MarketTools, nearly one-fourth (23 percent) of companies provide customer service and assistance to clients via Facebook, while 12 percent turn to Twitter for such activities.

The study goes on to note that while 34 percent of the executives polled reported they were aware of customers utilizing social media to discuss their business and its products and services, fewer than 25 percent of these executives claimed that their businesses “always” get back to these customers.

According to a spokesperson for the company, “Companies are increasingly embracing social media as a way to interact with their customers, though they are missing an opportunity to incorporate this feedback into a voice of the customer program. Organizations that use enterprise feedback management solutions are able to analyze feedback gathered through social media channels, along with feedback gathered through more traditional channels, to uncover insights to help improve business processes that lead to higher overall customer satisfaction.”

Some other numbers from the study note:

• Thirty-three percent of executives report that their businesses have a better focus on utilizing social media as a channel to obtain customer feedback when compared to the same time a year ago;
• As for what parts of their company are using social media, 44 percent cited public relations, 42 percent noted corporate marketing, while 34 percent stated product marketing and customer service/support;
• For the nearly 70 percent of companies sporting an active presence through social media, 48 percent are active on Facebook, 24 percent on Twitter, and 17 percent through their own business blog;
• Twenty-two percent reported that their company’s CEO oftentimes participates in social media on behalf of the business. Facebook is the social media channel of choice, used by 68 percent of the CEO’s, followed by 44 percent that participate through the company blog, and 35 percent who are active via Twitter.

If your company has been slow to the switch when it comes to using social media through your marketing efforts to interact with customers, keep a few things in mind:

• Active usage of social media allows you to interact with customers and potential customers in real-time. Whether it is a product/service question, a concern, or even a complaint, there is no replacing the immediacy by which social media venues provide;
• More and more consumers are using social media to obtain information on products and services, purchase items online and talk about their experiences. It only makes sense to have a social media presence so that your business can stay one step ahead of the competition;
• While some business leaders feel that social media is a fad, all signs point to it being around for the foreseeable future. To disregard SM now is only allowing your company the opportunity to fall further behind the competition, competition that in many cases are using social media on a daily basis to reach out for more business.

Whether it is to promote products and/or services online, respond to questions and concerns about your business or just follow the industry tides to see where you need to be, using social media in your company’s marketing efforts is more important than ever.

Are you a social or anti-social marketer?

About the Author: Dave Thomas, who covers among other subjects’ background checks, writes extensively for Business.com, an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.

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There is not much in contemporary business that deals on more equity than your business reputation. Stock prices rise and fall because it, and the media boiling point is reached at surprising speed for either good and bad praise or hostility about businesses worldwide. The first step to managing your online business reputation is to be able to keep track of what is being said about you, by whom and how often. If it’s all great, it’s all good friends. Business worldwide both large and small duel every day using the double-edged, sword of Internet power. You need to know about the negative comments too, and naturally, if nothing is being said about your business online, well, that is a problem all in itself.

Buzz or Sting?

From a marketing perspective, we have the ability to reach more people in remote corners of the world than ever before, making use of the remarkable reach of the Internet to connect with our blogs, videos, and shopping carts that have no physical limitations. The flip side of that coin is that we now inhabit a world where anonymous people can go for their 15 minutes of fame as impromptu authors, video producers and critics, and that can spell trouble for your company.

Google, Yahoo and other search engines give tremendous validity to sites like Wikipedia and RipOffReport.com in the spirit of full disclosure, especially on big business. Trouble is, fact checking ain’t what it used to be if indeed it happens at all. Loud online voices providing great buzz on your goods and services can give a fantastic bump albeit unjustified by reality. Bully for you! The sting of acrimonious haters can cost you prospects, customers and dollars to an incredible extent also.

THE Keyword for Small Businesses

What do you think is the most often used keyword today in business? This isn’t a trick question or a trick. It is in fact the word, “keyword”. Think about it. There is so much instruction about SEO and online marketing that revolves around how people browse the web, particularly, Google. That means regulating what keywords you use to advertise your webpage and be found, trying to mirror what people are searching for and in a unique enough way to minimize competition. Consequently we have long tail keywords which are phrases like “How to winterize your boat” so that when someone does ultimately look for that, our page or Adwords ad is right there to be discovered.

To keep track of your online reputation, keywords are also what you use to determine who and what is being said about you. The easy way to do this to begin with is obviously to Google your company name. You’re going to find your web pages surely, but if there’s bad stuff out there you’re going to see that too. If it falls on page 1 of Google returns, you have a developing situation.

Remembering to do that weekly or every few days is something that just isn’t top of mind. Here are three devices you can use to effortlessly check out the real-time chatter.

Google Alerts

Google alerts enable you to select keywords relative to, in this case, your business name and Google will email you instances when they come up online as indexed by the Google browser. Go to www.google.com/alerts to set this up. Depending on the size and online notoriety of your organization, you can adjust the frequency of these email alerts from daily to weekly. There are a couple of refining options. Picking type = ‘Everything’ will monitor all the buzz about whatever keywords you type in, comma delimited. For most small businesses, a weekly notification should be sufficient.

Here are some points for what you might want to monitor to see what your customers might find:

• Your business name, including any divisions or alternative names as it applies
• Your competition
• Frequent misspellings of your organization name
• Your flagship product names, part numbers and trade names
• Your key executive names– bad juju on your top people will reflect badly on your company

Social Oomph

Google Alerts monitors the Google database. Social Oomph (www.socialoomph.com) allows you to track tweets. You should create a free account and then go to Monitors\/Keyword Alert Emails on the left hand menu. You are allowed to set up to 50 keywords or phrases to rake the tweet-o-sphere for and email you summaries either daily or every twelve hours.

The keyword tips are the same as for Google Alerts. The cool thing about monitoring Twitter chatter is that it has a very real-time element to it. If hostility is being spread, you may have the capability to join the current conversation and correct the record or counter the conversation when it is at its most harmful and influential to your business reputation.

LinkedIn Signal

Signal is a tool currently under development by LinkedIn in conjunction with Twitter, using a similar search on discussions groups, shares and posted answers. Access it by logging into LinkedIn and going to www.linkedin.com/signal. This is a bit cumbersome with the filters and for most results, search for your name and company without the filters box checked. This is specifically useful for product launches or branding efforts you might have to see if there is a buzz on LinkedIn among professionals. Unfortunately the search box appears to have no Boolean capability to add multiple search terms separated by commas or expressions like’ +’ or ‘OR’.

If you’re in the consulting or professional services field this may be one where you save your searches and check routinely back, as these are folks who traffic LinkedIn. This is still in beta and isn’t particularly advertised by LinkedIn, and has a limited universe of professionals (those in LinkedIn who allow public view of their conversations) and will tell you more about trending topics than give you an overall analysis about what is being said relating to your business. I’d recommend playing with it to see if it is useful to you, but use the alerts in Google and Social Oomph to monitor the bulk of chatter.

Now that you’ve set up ways to more simply keep track of the online discussion about your business, you need to develop a strategy to displace and counter inaccurate dialogue and tell your company story. More on that next time. In the meantime, post the tools you use to take the online pulse about your company.

Author Bio

A hate page, Ripoffreport or Wikipedia lie can sink your business reputation.  If your company needs strategies to fix yours, check out business reputation management services.  Karl Walinskas owns Smart Company Growth, a firm that helps businesses grow through sparking sales and controlling expenses and cash flow.  He’s been published for years on better leadership, communication, and marketing practices for small business and authored the book, “Getting Connected Through Exceptional Leadership”.  You can read the Smart Blog for small business growth to learn more tips you can use today.

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