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The Positive and Negative Sides of Social Networking [Guest Post]

By Mike Sansone on May 25, 2012 in Social Media with 4 Comments

by Jessica Thompson of Directly.me

Social networking has become an integral part of our lives and we cannot resist staying away from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn etc. As the social networking sites grew enormously in popularity a huge number of small and big businesses, celebrities, nonprofit organizations and government departments have got engaged into activities on these portals. The internet storm that originated as fun now plays vital role in influencing behaviors and decisions.

According to a recent survey, American people spend more than 22% of their time in using social networking websites. Although people find these websites essential for retaining ties but there are several negative effects that social networking can have on a society. Let’s look into the both sides!

The ease and simplicity of communication and the spontaneous way of understanding technology where it helps building better relationships with people, customers and business partners also let’s many unnecessary and non productive activities to run on the platform. Some people may call it fun, but excess of fun is also hazardous. It’s great to have people in your network who share interests and hobbies, but spending too much of time on useless conversations is never a good idea.

Many of the businesses are getting benefits from social networks to connect to their clients, costing nothing but time and energy, but at the same time, there’s a huge number of spammers exploiting the resources.

Every good thing if it’s used excessively turns out to have negative effects and so is the case with social networking. With several negativities that social networking can bring, there’s huge benefit for individuals as well as for businesses. Staying away from social networking sites may turn you socially backward, but sticking to the social networks only may outcast you from normal and a healthy life.

Staying moderate is a simple solution to all the problems and so the use of social networks needs moderation too. No social network is bad; it totally depends on how you use it, i.e. it’s up to you, whether you use it for wasting time or generating income. Knowing and using a social network for a specific purpose can help identifying your need and the best solution for it. Facebook is great to stay connected to friends and family, LinkedIn is best for hiring talent and professional networking, Directly.me is the best way to target an audience and make sure that they listen to you and Twitter can be used to instant feedback. Find out what exactly you want to do at a social network and you won’t waste time ever!

How to Increase Your Tweet Appeal

By Mike Sansone on May 18, 2012 in Social Media with 3 Comments

HOW TO INCREASE YOUR TWEET APPEAL

Evan Bailyn’s Top Five Tips to Increase Twitter Followers Instantly

Internet Entrepreneur and bestselling author Evan Bailyn keeps celebrities Tweettastic, making literally hundreds of thousands of people follow his celebrity clients – from soap opera queens to rock stars – with very simple tricks he uses every day.

Drive traffic to your website, increase visibility and revenue with Evan’s top five tweet tips!

1. Make a move – Tweets are 140 characters for a reason – provide information that is direct and to the point. Your tweet is like a headline that grabs the reader’s attention and incites them to action. Make it clear what you want your followers to do (whether it’s sharing an article, re-tweeting to their networks, or visiting a website), but above all, make it appealing.

2. Work your strengths – Become a resource by consistently focusing on one or two subjects. People will follow you because they learn from you. So if you are a baker, talk about butter, cream and cupcakes all day long — this is why your fans will tune in and, in time, share your expertise with others.

3. Keep the conversation going – People come to social media sites to feel like they are a part of something, not to be promoted to. For this reason, success on Twitter is not just about how many followers you have, but also with how engaged they are with what you have to say. Like all social media, Twitter is a two-way street – you want to ask thought-provoking questions to engage discussions, but you should also connect with others by taking part in discussions yourself.

4. Choose your moment – Know when your followers are most active, and make sure you are tweeting then. The goal is to strike a balance between lively interaction and endless flood of tweets – too few makes it hard to maintain a discussion; too many will force your followers to choose between their time and you (time usually wins).

5. Be yourself – Unless you’re a celebrity, most people don’t care what show you’re watching or how long the line at Starbucks is. They will care about is a unique perspective. Your tweets should be meaningful and relevant, not just empty status updates. Include links to articles or blog posts to give depth to your tweet, and invite comments to keep the conversation going. Ultimately, be genuine and thoughtful. Sincerity is attractive over any medium, even in 140-character doses.

About Evan

Evan Bailyn is an internet entrepreneur, bestselling author, and child advocate. He is primarily known as a search engine optimization expert, having used his ability to rank at the top of Google to build and sell five businesses, including one of the largest children’s websites online. His first book, Outsmarting Google, debuted to rave reviews in mid-2011. Its sequel, Outsmarting Social Media, comes out in early 2012.

Evan is the founder of The Evan Bailyn Foundation, which promotes emotional awareness in children. His Facebook page, which encourages people to be true to themselves, gained over 100,000 fans in a year, making it one of the most popular non-celebrity pages on Facebook.

Currently, he offers marketing services through his companies, First Page Sage and Good Media Co. Under his tutelage, clients have established the predominant websites in their industries, become New York Times bestselling authors, and grown multimillion dollar product lines. His voice can be found on the social media pages of celebrities worldwide.

Evan has been interviewed on ABC and Fox News and featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, The International Business Times, and Crain’s. He is a frequent speaker, having keynoted numerous social media conferences, including Digital Hollywood and Social Media For Nonprofits.

Grappling with Google Plus

By Mike Sansone on April 27, 2012 in Blog Coach, Social Media with 0 Comments

The grappling I’m doing is internal and has less to do with Google Plus and more to do with my own work habits and schedule.

Google Plus gives us an outstanding set of tools – and they continue to add new tools and improve what’s already there.. I’ve been using Hangouts as a forum for meetings (individual and group sessions) – and that’s been fantastic.

The quandary for me is how and what (and when) I should post. Others I work with share similar battle stories. I pulled back for a bit to watch, and learn, and consider.

I’m not real keen to just share a resource with a two-word reason (“Catch this” or “So True”). That’s for Twitter, right? I also don’t want to always be promoting my own stuff all the time (70-20-10).

Maybe this formula will work when sharing items on Google Plus:

My Version of the Title (in Bold)

A take-away or money quote from what I’m sharing (in Italics)

A few sentences about the piece, the author, or subject. Less than 100 words;
More than two words.

“Why This is Important (or Valuable) to _____________” (in Italics)
A sentence or two.

#hashtag or +attribution or +hat tip

–

And a link to the resource (article, image, video, etc).

While in some ways I’m glad Google Plus doesn’t allow for scheduling of posts, in other ways I wish they would so I could compose and schedule for later. With that in mind, I can still schedule time to compose most of the post and then format and add links when I can publish it live.

I think part of the reason many are using Google Plus like they use Twitter or Facebook – is that’s what they’re used to doing. And then the question becomes “Why?” do the same thing in different places. Google Plus is different (and better in many ways) than Twitter and Facebook. I also think Twitter and Facebook are very different and should be used differently.

We’ll see how this goes, my new Google Plus posting process. I believe it will add value to those who read and I know it will be valuable to me in articulating thoughts about certain things.

Hey, grappling is good. Grappling knocks at the door of breakthrough.

How do you Google Plus?

Stakeholder Matrix: The Best Way to Prevent a Social Media Crisis [Guest]

By Mike Sansone on April 26, 2012 in Marketing, Social Media with 0 Comments

by Katleen Richardson

Frustration in Crisis Reputation management is one of the trickiest aspects to spreading your message, especially in this age of social media where what you say is instantly broadcast to thousands (if not millions) of people.

We live in a world where news (or other gossip passing as news!) can spread within a blink of an eye – take the earthquake on the east coast last year. A tweet from DC reported the quake before it even reached NYC!

The challenge nowadays is to be proactive when making strategy decisions involving social media. This requires that companies and individuals practice due diligence when it comes to predicting how people will react to the things they say and do. Too may people focus their reputation management on damage control when the damage has already happened.

We need to shift our focus to preventing damage, followed by remediation strategies in case it does happen. The best way to put a practice of prevention/remediation into place is with a stakeholder matrix.

Let’s take, for example, the launch of a new product within your company. There are many stakeholder groups that might have an opinion about this, including customers, the press, environmental protection groups, consumer safety groups, and, if applicable, your shareholders. What possible issues could any of these groups have with your product launch? Make a matrix where you map each stakeholder group against the possible risk factors. This can help you see more clearly what the potential ramifications of a decision are.

It’s important to remember that while social media is a powerful tool for marketing, people also use social media to express displeasure and to band together against things they disagree with. In the long run, it is much easier to prevent a crisis than to have to leap in with damage control measures after the fact, and sometimes damage control is a “too little, too late” situation.

That’s not to say, of course, that you should never take a risk of causing a stir. Obviously with any decision you make, there are likely to be at least some people who don’t like it. The point of the stakeholder matrix is not to eradicate conflict entirely – that would pretty much be impossible. The goal, rather, is to measure the potential benefits of a decision against the potential pitfalls, and make informed decisions based on a thorough analysis of possible outcomes.

In addition, you can use a stakeholder matrix to help you decide how you will deal with any social media issues that crop up. What if if you’ve decided to go forward with a decision that you know will make a particular group unhappy? You can be prepared ahead of time to remedy the situation, instead of being taken by surprise, and that puts you in the strongest possible position.

–

Katleen Richardson of Marketing AdvantEdge is an experienced leader who builds integrated strategies combining research, data analysis and creative thinking. She has delivered successful solutions for the publishing, financial and telecommunications industries, as well as for conference and training companies, and professional associations. Her approach is to design customer focused, cost-effective solutions based on cross functional collaboration and results-based metrics.

Photo on Flickr by zachklein

How to Use Social Media to Generate Leads Exclusively for Large Enterprises [Guest]

By Mike Sansone on April 24, 2012 in Marketing, Social Media with 1 Comment

by Dave Mathew of StepByStep

According to a research 65% of Fortune 100 companies have presence on Twitter, 54% use Facebook for business and 50% use YouTube as one of the marketing mediums. This engagement of businesses with social sites definitely has spending associated with it. Forrester estimates $3.1billion spending on Social Media by 2014. Social Media for large enterprises being relatively new brings challenges for marketers; an interesting fact is that almost all managers spend about 2 hours/day online to find information and 50% of the information is not what they were looking for!

Well, the change has already started with success stories of Dell, HP and Cisco known to most of the people in the industry. It’s not about Social Media tools that bring you the success, but your objectives. Once, objectives are clear, the choice of tools get much easier! It’s, however, most important to listen to the conversations in relevant communities before defining objectives.

How to Use Social Media to Generate Leads for Large Enterprises:

Before Taking Social Media Campaigns Live; differentiate your product/service from competitors by giving your target audience just a single reason to contact you once they hear about you. Be sure that your website is fully functional and you’ve devised the procedure to measure ROI for your efforts.

Generate & Syndicate Content: It must be customer-centric, engaging and urging calls to action. Do not just focus on textual content; Consider Videos distribution over Youtube, MetaCafe, DailyMotion and other platforms, presentations on Slideshare, infographics etc.

Approach Influencers in the Industry: For you to build a community and gain trust it’ll take time, so leveraging industry influencers on Social Media cannot only save time, but will give you maximum results in minimum time. You may want to check Audi sales Q7 TDI through Guy Kawasaki, Shoemoney’s Free Shirt Friday and Capital One’s Launch via Zynga Games.

Get Noticed by Social Media Giants: TechCrunch, Mashable and others are always ready to share news, innovations, success stories and failures of startups and large enterprises. There’re only two ways to be talked about by them, i.e. create news or get connected to one of their editors.

Be part of Social Media Events: Keep an eye on local social media events as well as Webinars. Attending such events opens doors for strategic partnerships.

Build Affiliates Network through Social Media: Don’t just focus on getting Twitter followers and Facebook fans, instead wrap the efforts with your affiliate marketing plan. Use paid and free both options to promote affiliate campaigns and must get email subscriptions!

And at the end, do keep a benchmark for measuring ROI effectively!

Social Media Tools for Large Enterprises for Generating Business Leads:

Remember that whether your target audience is buying online or not, they do research online for sure. Don’t just focus on building social profiles, but create awareness about your products/services and make sure that queries about your products and services are well answered on most visited places online. Including content marketing in your plan can best serve the purpose. Make better use of Wikipedia, Hubpages, Step by Step and EzineArticles for answering queries of your target audience!

Key Activity: Twitter Workflow

By Mike Sansone on April 23, 2012 in RSS Feeds, Social Media with 0 Comments

One of the key (business) social media activities in my day is sharing some of the better resources I find on Twitter. I budget an hour a day (maybe 90 minutes) because really, that’s all I have time for.

While I’ve offered the ‘how and why I tweet’ in-depth elsewhere, here’s a thin slice:

Support & Service: The resources help the clients/customers/partners I serve professionally
Social Proof: I’m able to spread some genius of the colleagues, creators, and other curators
Self Serving: I like to research, share (and be a resource)

Here’s my workflow heading into and around Twitter (times estimate depending on the rest of the day).

4:30am – A quick nod of thanks for previous ReTweets or other mentions. I group these together for two reasons: a cleaner stream and I can send thanks to everyone in usually a couple of these notes. While I’d love to thank everyone individually – neither time nor my reasons for tweeting lend to that practice for me. Time elapsed: 2-5 minutes

5:30am – Start scheduling tweets from various resources (my private Twitter lists, RSS feed, Alltop, email, Topsy searches). I use Buffer, Timely, and HootSuite depending on when I want the tweet to publish. If I can schedule 8-15 tweets at this sitting I’m happy. More on how I use these tools in an upcoming post. Time elapsed: 15-20 minutes

Mid-morning – Check feeds and my private Twitter list of “Aces” and schedule a few more tweets. The “Aces” are my favorites including those folks who often RT me. Because of my “be the resource” mantra – I don’t share just to share – but to be a resource to one of my customer segments: clients and colleagues. Time elapsed: 10 minutes

Mid-afternoon – Check feeds and my private Twitter list of “Business Resources” and schedule a few more tweets. Since by this time of day a lot has been published, this takes a bit longer (or I split it and continue later that night). I also check to see who has mentioned me so I can respond. Time elapsed: 20 minutes

Good night – Really, this is time for “chit-chat” stuff – and I’m sad to say I don’t do this enough, but alas – time. I check on newsy items (another private Twitter list) and star some RSS items for tomorrow’s sharing. Time elapsed: 10 minutes

So as you can see, it adds up to just over an hour or so. Small, bite-sized tastes of Twitter.

Do you have a plan, framework, or workflow for your Twitter?

Image source: Icon Archive

Creating More or Better Customerships

By Mike Sansone on April 18, 2012 in Marketing, Social Media with 4 Comments

“The most pertinent reason to engage in social media marketing for your business is to get more business.” ~ Jay Ehret from Why Social Media Marketing

Customer Transactions Business owners can be a funny group of people. Especially when they forget that they own a business.

As we begin to introduce the idea of using social media as part of their business, some of them straight out ask how it will benefit their bank account. They’re looking for the ROI, right? Fair enough.

And then it bites them. The “social” bug. They never get around to asking for the order. Or the lead. Or the appointment. Or the referral, share, testimonial, contact info . . . Nothing.

Stories are great. Keep on telling and sharing them. Still, at some point, invite the prospect (the reader) into the business as a customer.

Sharing a story about an event? At the end of the post, point to the next event.
Explaining how your company crafts customized widgets? Point to a form or a phone number to set up a customized widget meeting.
Doing a series of posts? Turn them into an ebook or publish the series on a landing page.
Offering a coaching tip? Somewhere in the post, show how the reader can start getting your coaching for themselves.
Celebrating one of your customers and their story? Show others how their story can be told (or newly created).

If you’re not doing these types of things now, a good practice might be to list an inventory of the ways or things you can market on your blog or with a custom tab or button. If appropriate, write a post about it or create a landing page. Now you have something to point to, right?

If you’re having a tough time putting together such a list, A Discovery Meeting might be the next step.

Photo on Flickr by Alan Cleaver

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