Tuesday, December 8, 2009

New Marketing StrategyImage by Intersection Consulting via Flickr

To Promote Your Brand Use Social Media

Author: Phyllis Zimbler Miller

You're missing out on valuable and free marketing platforms for your brand (book, business or product) if you think Twitter, Facebook, and other online social media communities are only for teens.

Further, if you're not on social media, you're risking losing your own potential clients/customers to those smart businesses people who are utilizing social media.

Which social media platforms you focus on depends a great deal on what your brand is. Here are seven excellent reasons why you must use social media no matter what you are promoting:

Reason 1: It's the most cost-effective online advertising.

The current most popular social media platforms being used for business are free: Twitter.com, Facebook.com and LinkedIn.com. (LinkedIn does have an upgrade that costs, but it's not necessary to get this upgrade.) And this is "relationship" marketing to targeted markets. "Free" is definitely more cost-effective than spending money on online advertising techniques such as Pay Per Click or banner ads.

Reason 2: You can have global reach with social media.

The world is now a global marketplace. Why not reach this global market? Many of the most popular social media platforms have this global reach, and you can see this clearly illustrated on Twitter. At any time of day or night you can see real-time "tweets" from people in Japan, England, the U.S., India and many other countries.

For example, if you have a book that might appeal to anyone in the world who reads in English, why limit yourself to just promoting in the U.S.? Thanks to Amazon these people outside the U.S. can buy your book even if it is only available in U.S. stores.

Reason 3: You can attract targeted groups of people as potential clients/customers for your brand.

Social media enables you to join groups of people with the same interests and goals. On LinkedIn and Facebook you can join groups as varied as Children's Book Writers to eMarketing. If you choose groups to join based on your brand, you'll be putting yourself in front of the exact groups of people you want to reach as potential clients/customers. This can pay off in increased sales for you.

Reason 4: You can use the community aspect of social media to form your own community.

Once you are active on social media platforms and have people who are your followers (Twitter), your friends (Facebook) and/or your connections (LinkedIn), you can start your own groups of highly targeted interests. You can create a niche market in your brand, book or business and share your knowledge with others who join your community.

These people can become your loyal followers, friends and connections - and they can help spread your marketing message to their followers, friends and connections.

Reason 5: You can use social media to establish your expertise.

People like to do business with people they know, like and trust. By sharing your knowledge for free online with the people in the social media groups you belong to, you can establish yourself as an expert. This can pay off in increasing potential clients/customers' trust in you.

And you can also receive invitations for blog "interviews" or BlogTalkRadio show interviews or podcasts. And these interviews lead to more free exposure for your brand and more free promotion for your expertise.

Reason 6: You can use social media to find cross-promotional partners.

Amazingly in the world of social media, people who would be considered competitors in the off-line world are teaming up to provide products and services to their combined clients/customers.

And these clients/customers are very responsive to these cross-promotions (often called joint ventures) - especially when introduced to a second expert by a first expert they already know, like and trust.

You and your cross-promotion partner can each get access to the other person's "list" (the names of interested clients/customers collected at a website) and thus you've greatly expanded your potential client/customer pool.

Reason 7: With a few keystrokes you can announce new updates of your activities.

Your updates on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn take seconds - and you've announced to your followers, friends and connections what you're doing or what you're offering or what you're speaking on. And there are even online applications that allow you to update your status across several of your social media accounts at one time. So it is as easy as 1-2-3 to keep in front of your potential clients/customers.

In conclusion, once you become active yourself on social media platforms, you'll find many more reasons to promote your brand, book or business on social media in order to attract targeted potential clients/customers. And you'll look back at your pre-social media days and wonder how you ever did marketing without using online social media.

About the Author:

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is an Internet business consultant whose company website has lots more useful advice like this. Download her free report on "The Top 3 Internet Marketing Elements" to enhance your own Internet marketing experience -- download the report now from www.TeachMeBranding.com

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - To Promote Your Brand Use Social Media







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Sunday, December 6, 2009

Statistics: Business Blogs Make Business Sense

Social Media Marketing & PR 2.0 by Extanz.comImage by Yann Ropars via Flickr

Blogging is apparently good for business.
Anecdotally, bloggers and business owners can point to increased enquiries, improved visibility and growing reputation. Logically, creating new content via a blog increases your chances of getting found by search engines and creates more information to be shared via social media.
Logic and anecdotes are cool, but if you’re going to invest some time and money into blogging a few cold hard facts wouldn’t go astray either.
continue reading Business Blogs Make Business Sense
Hubspot: Study Shows Small Businesses That Blog Get 55% More Website Visitors
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TweetGrid - Social Business




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Top 10 Social Media Golden Posts: Rules, Tips & Know-How’s!

Social Media Marketing Madness Cartoon by HubSpotImage by HubSpot via Flickr


At Thoughtpick, they don’t claim to be social media gurus – However, @thoughtpick place a great deal of time and effort researching and analyzing the most up-to-date and informative news, reviews and advice to bring to you a better, more beneficial social media experience.
Looking forward to hearing your opinion regarding Thoughtpick's golden list. :) Continue here







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Wednesday, December 2, 2009

10 Commandments of Social Media

Social Media LandscapeImage by fredcavazza via Flickr

Great post and sound advice from Robb Clarke and Noupe!
"Following these Ten Commandments of Social Media will not only make you a better user of social media sites but they will also make your friends and followers appreciate you that much more. They aren’t hard to follow."
Give these "10 Commandments of Social Media" a go
Let me know what you think, maybe you've got some to add!












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How to Apply For A Google Wave Sandbox Account | eHow.com

Zenbe Shareflow vs Google WaveImage by louisvolant via Flickr

The Google Wave is all the talk recently. At the Google I/O conference in May of 2009, the Wave was presented as a limited developer's preview. At the present time, Google is accepting applications from the general public to obtain what they call a "sandbox account". The Google Wave Sandbox is a developer's preview in which anyone who is granted access can take the API code, modify it and use it for pretty much anything they want. You can incorporate the Google Wave Api into just about anything. The Google Wave is a mash up of Twitter, Facebook and all of the blogging sites rolled into one. By
continue How to Apply For A Google Wave Sandbox Account | eHow.com

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How to Ride Google's Wave | eHow.com

Google WaveImage via Wikipedia

Google Wave is an open source client that connects social networks, applications, and protocols. It combines instant messengers, blogs, and other communication outlets into one user interface. This application makes the Internet a hyper-personal productivity machine, interweaving all networks and applications into one hub.By Z Padmore
continue here How to Ride Google's Wave | eHow.com



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Maximize the Return on your Advertising Spend | Nielsen Wire

Today’s tough economic marketplace, coupled with highly price-conscious consumers, is forcing companies to take a look at which marketing activities maximize their return on advertising dollars. Nielsen has developed eight guiding principles to show marketers how to increase ad effectiveness.

With consumers becoming increasingly price conscious in a highly competitive marketplace, maximizing the return on their advertising spend is more important than ever.
Ensure ad dollars are allocated to activities that best maximize sales…

Marketing return on investment (ROI) is the amount of sales achieved for every dollar spent on marketing/advertising. In today’s tough economy, measuring this return is vital to ensure that ad dollars are allocated to those activities that best maximize sales. The steps necessary to achieve the greatest return differ across brands, and an evolving tailored strategy is necessary.
see "Maximize the Return on your Advertising Spend | Nielsen Wire"
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Olivier Blanchard Basics Of Social Media Roi

"The what, why and how of Social Media ROI: Business definitions, methodologies and situational narrative. This presentation's purpose is to clarify what ROI is and isn't within the context of Social Media and offers a basic explanation of how to tie Social Media activities to real ROI"
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Sociofluid