Social Media Sonar Blog» Facebook

Can Your Facebook Presence Be Hijacked?

Sean Nelson — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 12:43:54 +0000

Do you have a Places or Community page for your business? If so you may be at risk of your information being hijacked.

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I were looking for a place to eat on Lake Lanier, a lake just North of Atlanta. I went to Google and searched eventually clicking on a Facebook page link for Pelican Pete’s (PP’s). I went to their page to find out more information on PP’s and in the process discovered a potential flaw or potential issue to businesses relying on Places and Community pages on Facebook.

As you can see in the video below I had the ability to go into the PP’s page and edit the basic information including Tags, Address, Phone Number, and URL. Why is this an issue?

For starters let’s look at a hypothetical situation that is reasonable. Let’s suppose that I make money by using Google AdSense to display relevant ads on pages. With the ability to go into certain Facebook pages and customize the URL, I can set up a number of money making pages in Facebook by hijacking ignored Facebook Places pages and placing links to my pages with AdSense running on it.

In the case of PP’s, I simply would create a website called LakeLanierToDos.com. Under the domain I could then create a page called /pelicanpetes and place the relevant information about PP, but in the sidebar include Google Ads for other Lake Lanier businesses. Something like this:

Now imagine if you did that across 1,000 sites how much revenue you might generate by hijacking ignored Facebook places pages. Watch the Video.

Think its just the little guys who could be hijacked? Here is a Facebook Places page for a local Starbucks in Alpharetta, GA that I was able to go in and edit their info.

So what can you do to avoid your Facebook presence being hijacked:

Create a Company, Brand, or Product page that you have 100% control of. Avoid Community and Places accounts.
Claim you Place. If you look below the photo in the left bar on the Places Page you will see a text link that asks “Is this your business?”. Click on the link and claim your business. From what I have seen verifying the business doesn’t prevent the ability of someone else editing your info and URL.
Merge the Places Page with Your Company, Brand, Product, etc. page. This appears to be a good idea that has disappeared for the time being. Facebook may be changing the process and planning on reinstating the process once completed. Last info I saw (on 8/2/11) was that Facebook was not responding to questions sent on this topic. Google+ anyone?
Create a Company, Brand, Product page, then claim your Places page and delete it. If you can’t merge the Places page then kill it.

I’d like to think that Facebook would see this post and correct the issue. But in the real world Facebook likely knows about the issue, has decided it doesn’t really care or that it isn’t a big enough issue, and has no plans to address it. Social networks move at their own speed, based on their own priorities, and I’ve yet to see one that really cares what their users think. They may exist to help the rest of us be social, but they themselves really are more interested in figuring out how to make money rather than having a conversation with you or me.

Social Media Sonar provides the following four resources for FREE… 1. The Blog, 2. The Online Marketing/Social Media Blueprint, 3. Conversion Rate Optimization Guide, 4. Resource Center. If these help you implement your own online marketing program, great. We love helping people. If you decide you need some help, great. We love new clients. Contact Us if we can help you.

Online Strategy Using Social Media

Sean Nelson — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 17:14:10 +0000

Strategies are like excuses. Some people have them some people don’t. Some are good and some not so good. Some are so good that you file it away should you need it in the future. Today I offer you an online marketing excuse of a strategy that incorporates social media.

2 Parts of the Strategy

The strategy that I’ll layout has two parts to it: 1. Build a Cohesive Social Brand; 2. Syndicate Content. Then as you can see in the video I’ll show you how the two components work together. The goal is to generate an impact in your social media marketing while also looking to benefit from being indexed by search engines. Its a push / pull strategy that relies on one key component …quality content.

In today’s post I’m going to walk through part one. Tomorrow I will add part two, Syndicating Content. Of course you can watch the video and see everything at once.

Cohesive Social Brand

There are thousands of social media and networking sites out there and you could drive yourself crazy trying to sign up for everyone. You should focus on establishing a presence on the major sites and then add in some specific sites that fit your niche. Each of these components should use similar color schemes and design elements so that they are cohesive in look and feel.

1. Blog: In this strategy the blog is the most important piece. It allows you to generate content to share across all of your networks to engage your communities. You can use WordPress, Blogger, or any number of blogging platforms. My personal choice is WordPress but you choose whichever works best for you.( Social Media Sonar blog )

Focus on writing great content that does one of several things: educates, solves, entertains, informs, etc. You want to publish content that is going to be consumed by your prospects or clients. Be sure to optimize your posts with a short to the point title that includes keywords, include relevant keywords in the body, anchor text links where appropriate, include an excerpt, and tag the article with targeted keywords.

2. Facebook Micro-site: Facebook is the 800 lb gorilla these days in social networking, its too big to ignore. Simply creating a business page is the minimum, but you need to take it a step further. Turning your page into a micro-site allows you to move beyond simple wall posts.

You can create a Welcome page, an offer page that shows people that have not liked your page your offer details and to people that have liked your page how to fulfill that offer, and additional pages that highlight products, testimonials, etc. Of course Facebook also includes standards such as Discussions, Photos, Videos, etc.This is a new page that still needs work on building a fan/Like base, but you can see how I use the offer page to let people know they can download free social media guides, but only do so after clicking the “Like Button - Social Media Sonar Facebook page.

Also I have updated the page to the new Facebook layout (tabs are gone and links to pages are on the left side below your profile photo) which everyone will need to do by March 11th. Also I used the Static FBML app to build these pages which is also going away on March 11th, though existing pages will be grandfathered in. Be sure to add the app to your page before then and create a couple of blank pages with it for later use if needed.

3. YouTube: Google loves video and so should you. On top of my priority list is to create about 25 videos to add to my channel over the next 3 months. You have the option of customizing your YouTube skin to continue your cohesive look and feel. I’ve used mine to add in two promotional boxes and my social links. ( Social Media Sonar YouTube channel )

4. Twitter: As a continuous stream Twitter works best for me as a way to share my blog content and to find other content based on a topic search. It can be used for much more than these two but I’ll leave it to you to determine how it best works for you. You can add a custom skin so once again you want to make sure that you carry over your brand elements to your custom skin. ( @seanenelson )

5. LinkedIn: LinkedIn has been my favorite social network but Facebook is closing in as equally relevant for me. I love the new enhanced LinkedIn company pages and groups have always been a key resource. When it comes to dollars produced LinkedIn has generated the most ROTI (return on time invested), closing in on $100,000 over the last three years. (Social Media Sonar Company page )

Be sure to look at the different pages to see how the components work together to present a cohesive social brand. And remember that these are the components you need to have but not all that may be relevant for your business. Tomorrow I will post part two but until then you can watch the video to see how it all works together.

Social Media Allows David to Out-Market Goliath

Sean Nelson — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 20:28:24 +0000

Ten years ago LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook did not exist. Twenty years ago hardly anyone had a personal computer. Thirty years ago Cable Television was just starting to come into it’s own. Forty years ago you had 5 channels or less on TV dependent upon how well the tin foil on the rabbit ears worked. What you know today will change tomorrow.

Most of our client’s are small to mid-size companies that cannot match up against their larger competitors in terms of money, labor, and resources. To out-market the competition they have to out-smart them.

In a recent article Malcome Gladwell discusses how David’s can improve their chance of beating Goliaths. Normally David is successful less than 30%. But, when David understands that he cannot compete on Goliath’s terms (think normal industry practices) and chooses an unconventional strategy, the success percentage more than doubles.

Recently someone asked what it is that Social Media Sonar does. Our answer was that we help David out market Goliath using traditional advertising, marketing, and social media.

We still believe that traditional means of marketing including direct mail, radio and television ads, and even newspaper ads have their place. Social media, though, allows us to cost effectively build a community of people, communicate one to one or en masse, engage in conversations, generate leads, and drive revenue.

It is understanding how it all works together in a comprehensive strategy that makes it work. You can choose to use traditional advertising and marketing, social media, or both.

What’s the Point of Social Media?

Sean Nelson — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 13:04:56 +0000

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself that question? How did you answer it? What if we ask someone else? Are they likely to give the same answer or a different one?

We’re also likely to give a different answer than people at the top social sites would give. So lets look at the point of several sites.

LinkedIn: To help professionals network and deepen the relationships they already have or are just developing.
Facebook: It’s changed in scope from its origins but Facebook allows us to engage with our friends and families on a more personal level sharing experiences, video, photo’s, etc.
Twitter: Twitter lets us stream micro thoughts to others and see what others are thinking or up to.
You Tube: Allows you to post to share experiences, entertainment, outrage, etc with others.

**Scot Allen’s response does a better job of describing the above tools. It’s worth the read.)

When you read through these descriptions there is a huge component missing if you are a business person. At no point in the descriptions does it say that any of these top sites were created to help you sell some product.

Billboards were created to sell products. Commercials are produced to sell product. Print Ads, radio ads, etc ……… So we have a set of tools that were not created to sell products and a set that were developed to sell products. What’s the problem?

Well for one people have started tuning out the channels designed to pitch them on a product or service. Second, everyone is so gaga over social media that there is simply too much buzz to do nothing. So what are you going to do?

Quit using the same tactics in social media that you used in advertising: This is a channel that doesn’t want to be sold to …directly. Indirect means of selling can actually work very well.
Quit expecting results overnight: This doesn’t mean that you can forget about ROI or other useful measurement, it just means you have to have some patience. If I want to send 1 million emails I buy an email list. If I want to reach 1,000,000 people in social media I need to build up my communities over a long period of time.
Understand what it is you have to offer someone who chooses to connect, follow, or friend you. If I am a consumer in your target market and I choose to follow you what’s in it for me? Why should I engage or stick around? Here a hint … it needs to be at least one of these – interesting, exciting relevant (per Michael Yoder) , or valuable.

I used to list 5 or 10 things whenever I wrote a post like this, and I could list a lot more of things to do and not do. But, this is social networking so the giving and receiving should be equal or at least constantly changing like a see-saw.

So I’ve started the conversation with these three. Its up to you to keep the conversation going by adding your thoughts and ideas as comments.

How’s Your Social Media Swing?

Sean Nelson — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 03:59:49 +0000

I’ve heard it all. Social media is the greatest evolution in marketing to its the biggest waste of time and money. I agree with both. Its not the tool itself but how it is used.

If I had Tiger Woods’ golf clubs I would still suffer the same severe handicap. I do have a Ken Griffey Jr. autographed Louisville Slugger but I’m not likely to do more than stir air if I faced even your average major league pitcher. Its not about the bat or the club; its about the swing.

Hitters in baseball have batting coaches and even Tiger has a swing coach. Today we’re going to take a look at some basics to craft your social media swing.

Club Selection
Each hole that a golfer plays consists of weighing different factors to determine which club gives him the most likely chance to succeed. On a par 5 the Driver is likely to come out of the bag first. On shorter holes its maybe a Wood or an Iron.

In social media your club selection includes things such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, You Tube, Flickr, Blogs, Websites, Landing Pages, Digg, Stumble Upon, 4 Square, PR Web, and the list goes on and on. You just need to choose the right club that will help you best put the ball in the cup.

Unless a golfer hits a hole in one each hole is likely to involve multiple club selections. The same is true for social media. When you craft your strategy you should be able to determine which of your social media clubs can help you achieve your goals.

The Right Swing
I normally hit my pitching wedge about 120 yards with a full swing. If I’m only 90 yards out I’m going to go a little easier on the swing. If I need to quickly get over a tree I’m going to play the ball towards the back of my stance. I vary my social media content in the same way, dependent upon the shot or response I’m looking to craft.

You really have a tremendous number of opportunities to craft content. Some of your options include Tweets, Wall Posts, Notes, Events, News Articles, Discussion Posts, Blog Posts, Video, Podcasts, Photos, Press Releases, Apps, and more. In golf the swing is the most important piece and in social media its understanding your communication options and crafting content that allows you to share value.

Ratings and Attendance
Professional athletes earn a lot of money for the skills they have mastered because fans buy tickets or the products they endorse. Look at the attendance differences at PGA events over the last 10 years when Tiger woods entered a tournament verses when he didn’t play in an event. There was a definite difference in perceived value.

In social media people will engage with you or your brand if they perceive value. Your job is to understand the value that your prospects are looking for. It could be white papers, applications, tools, or information presented in articles or blog posts. It also might be discounts, coupons, or special offers to those who follow, friend, or connect with you.

Fail to understand and deliver the value your social networks are looking for and you’ll spend a lot of time with little to show in return.

Be the Ball
If you want to use social media successfully then you need to have a plan. Too often companies simply start tweeting or connecting without a defined purpose. Its easy to be a hacker; being a professional takes a lot more time and effort.

Social media can make a difference or it can be a huge waste of time. Its how you use the tool that will determine if you break par.

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Top Moments in Social Media

Sean Nelson — Mon, 24 May 2010 04:50:14 +0000

I was doing some research the other day and decided to see if I could find the definitive moments in social media. I was able to find numerous yearly top 10 reviews but didn’t have much success finding a list from the early 2000′s to today. So even though I didn’t find ”the” top moments, I did find some moments that I think would at least be on the list for consideration.

iPhone is Launched
Prior to the iPhone launch cell phones could access the internet ..the iPhone just did it phenomenally better. From the touch screen, to the emergence of apps, to actually being able to read a website on a smart phone, the iPhone took mobile by the hair and dragged it from cool to useful.

It didn’t take me long to pass my Blackberry on to my wife so that I could sport an iPhone.
Iran Election Protests
There have been revolutions and protests in closed nations before. Twitter though gave a face to the Iranian elections protests, allowing previous restricted content, photos, and stories to make it past the media monitors and filter to the masses.

Lack of a free press is no longer a hindrance to the truth being told or shown.
1st You Tube Video
America’s Funniest Home Videos, still running after 21 years, proved that people would engage in home made content. You Tube took it to another level allowing your average Joe to record a video from his cell phone and share it potentially with the world. What was once a site focused on entertaining video content has now become the number two search engine in the world. If you want to know how to do something, what better way to learn then to watch a video of the process.

It all started with a 18 second video talking about why elephants are cool …because they have really long trunks.
2008 Presidential Elections
In the 2004 presidential elections Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, and LinkedIn were just getting started or had not even launched. What a difference four years made. Love him or hate him you can’t deny that Barack Obama and his campaign truly leveraged the new tools available to them. After the 2008 election, election politics have entered a new era.

I can’t wait until 2012.
Facebook Allows Non-college members
Facebook was successful as a social network for college and high school students, but at some point it was destined to hit a growth wall. Opening up membership removed any restrictions and from August of 2008 to August of 2009 Facebook added 200 million members. Facebook’s fastest growing segment is currently females age 45 to age 65, likely joining Facebook to keep up with children and grand children. Businesses and professionals have also jumped in head first, and its proving its value to drive bottom line results.

Now we just need to come up with a better solution for businesses other that fan pages or community pages.
2007 SXSW Launches Twitter Over the Tipping Point
In a stroke of genius the folks at Twitter placed two 60-inch plasma screens in the conference hallways, exclusively streaming Twitter messages. Hundreds of conference-goers kept tabs on each other via constant tweets, panelists and speakers mentioned the service, and the bloggers in attendance spread the word. During the event tweets per day went from 20,000 per day to over 60,000 per day. The conference and buzz generated from it gave the service the traction it needed to grow.

Three years later over 4 billion tweets were sent in the 1st quarter of 2010.
TGIF Fan Woody Promotion
In September 2009 TGIF launched their Fan Woody promotion promising a free hamburger to every new fan if they reached 500,000 total fans by September 30. They quickly passed that goal and added over 1 million new people. In the process they generated a ton of exposure from the press, bloggers, and individuals passing the promotion on to friends and family.

TGIF showed its possible to quickly build a mass following with a great offer. The next step is to show that they can continue to engage and sustain their new fans.
LinkedIn Adds Functionality to Groups
LinkedIn groups have been around for a while but initially they were little more than places for members to join. There really wasn’t much functionality to the groups. In November of 2008 that changed. They added the ability to post discussion questions and news articles. Another key addition was that they finally added the ability to search for groups, making it easier for people to find relevant groups to join.

With these changes groups became a valuable way to connect on LinkedIn and to extend your reach. If you belong to the top fifty groups on LinkedIn you would be able to reach out and communicate with 4.7 million people.
Naked Pizza Drives 20% of their Business Using Twitter
A pizza restaurant with a Twitter account isn’t that exciting, but when you add that they credit Twitter with driving 20% ($200,000) of their revenue it makes you pay attention. Naked Pizza started tweeting in April of 2009 and within a few months had built up a significant local following. A one day Twitter promotion drove 69% of that days sales.

The key to their success is that they have focused on building their local following, communicating engaging messages sprinkled with promotional offers, and tracking every sale to determine which resulted from tweets. It doesn’t hurt that they created a all-natural, reduced-calorie, multi-grain, probiotic pizza that is not only healthy, but tastes good.
Broken Guitar Leads to 10 Million Bad Impressions
Dave Carroll’s guitar was damaged by baggage handlers with United airlines. When the airline refused to replace or pay to repair the guitar he took his case to court …the You Tube court. Dave wrote three songs about the experience and made videos for each which he put on You Tube. Those videos have now been viewed by 10 million people.

Hmmm, $3,500 to replace a guitar or 10 million bad impressions. Its getting harder for companies to hide from bad service.

If I had enough time I could easily list another 10 or twenty moments, but I do have a real job. If I had to choose my favorite it would either be Naked Pizza or David Carroll’s videos. I work with small businesses so the Naked Pizza story resonates. Plus being from New Orleans its nice to see more good news coming out of the city.

As a consumer I love that Dave was able to take a situation that was out of his control and take back control. In true lemons to lemonade fashion his simple protest became the differentiator that has broke his career into a new level.

What are some moments that you think could be added to the list? (be sure to include a link if available)

4 Twitter Statistics to Encourage Tweeting

Sean Nelson — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:54:07 +0000

I was doing some research this week reading various blogs and news articles and decide to write down some of the statistics that caught my eye. A set of these statistics focused on Twitter and how people are using the service to take action.

43% Follow Brands on Twitter Looking for Deals and Offers
One of the first things we do with a new client is ask them the following question, “If I follow you on Twitter, what’s in it for me?”

Now we know that some people will follow a business back to help build their own network. But, what about others. Are you providing value to them? What will capture their attention?

Coupons, discounts, special offers are a great way to engage customers and prospects. We recently ran a promotion with Copeland’s Atlanta where they gave away $50 gift cards to the first 5 people that walked into a location and said “Best Brunch in Atlanta”.

The promotions was publicized using Twitter, which then fed into their Facebook account. “It was a great way to generate buzz about our restaurant, while also providing value to those who choose to connect and engage with us online.”, stated Bill Goudey, one of the managing partners.

“One of my favorite experiences was with a customer that ordered one of our Deep Fried Cajun Turkeys for Thanksgiving. She tweeted that she just ordered her turkey and that next time she hoped to have the money to also order one of our cheesecakes. When she came in to pick up her turkey I was waiting and gave her a cheesecake. She broke down crying. That moment happened because she chose to follow us and we paid attention to our followers. It’s powerful”, relayed Glen Helmstetter, a fellow managing partner.

Are you providing value to those who choose to follow your business?

23% Find the Content Interesting
This statistic definitely struck home. One of the ways I love to use Twitter is to search for tweets on a topic. In the past I might have used Google, but Twitter has become my primary first source for content.

Twitter searches per month (19 billion) outnumber Yahoo (8.4 billion) and Bing(4 billion) monthly searches combined. Google the King of Search currently has 88 billion per month.

If you’re looking for a website Google is still likely your best option. But if you’re looking for specific content Twitter is a viable alternative.

Its also a great way for me to share new posts that I write with those following me. Plus when a number of people retweet the message new people are introduce to my blog and I gain a number of new followers.

Are you using Twitter to search for and share great content?

24% are current customers
Your customers want to engage with you. They want to know that their voices can be heard. Many companies send out newsletters to stay in touch with their customers. You can create an online newsletter and use Twitter notify your existing customers of the latest newsletter, and also reach potential prospects.

In addition your customers are a great source of retweets, which introduce your messages to their network. Any customer communication you send out using email or mail can be tweeted. You provide an alternative way for your customers to interact with you, plus Google is indexing the content.

Are you leveraging your existing content to share on Twitter?

4% are Seeking Service Support
Before social media if you had an issue or a complaint you were left to call a 1-800 number, fire off a email, send a letter, or post a comment in an online forum. The first three of these kept the conversation between you and the company. The forum was at least a way of sharing your discontent.

Companies are starting to pay attention and use Twitter to resolve issues. Comcast has done a great job with their @comcastcares twitter account, actively searching out tweets from customers with complaints. They then try to resolve the issue online.

The fact that someone complains or makes a negative post isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In the past if a customer was unhappy you might never know, and lose a customer. With Twitter if they complain you at least now have an option to resolve the issue.

Over time I expect that the % of people using Twitter for service support will grow. Are you paying attention to your own buzz, positive and negative?

Wrap Up
Statistics can help you understand how people are using the available social media tools. Using the above statistics can help you plan you Twitter strategy so that you are focusing your efforts.

The world is listening, people are responding, and Google is indexing. All you have to do is tweet and retweet.

Social Media Short on Miracles

Sean Nelson — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 19:24:52 +0000

And now a special announcement: Social Media does not produce miracles and will not work for you if you do not know what it is that you do (very well I hope) and what messages you want to communicate to deliver your compelling offer or interesting (people actually want to consume it) content.

Having 5,00 Twitter followers will not make it happen automatically. Those 1,000 Facebook friends you have, most do not personally know you. The same if you have over 500 connections on LinkedIn. Doesn’t mean that they can’t become customers, it just means you won’t sell them based on your winning personality.

So let’s set the stage.

Marketing: Management process through which the goods and services you offer move from concept to the customer. Its doing business in terms of customer needs and their satisfaction.

As a practice, it consists in coordination of four elements called 4P’s:

Identification, selection, and development of a product
Determination of its price
Selection of a distribution channel to reach the customer’s place
Development and implementation of a promotional strategy

Advertising: A form of communication intended to persuade its viewers, readers or listeners to take some action. It usually includes the name of a product or service and how that product or service could benefit the consumer, to persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume that particular brand.

Getting down to Business
I’m going to assume that you have a product or service and that you have determined your pricing strategy. Social media is the channel you’re using to reach you customer.

That leaves us at the point of developing and implementing a promotional strategy. Since you have been selling a product you should already have a promotional strategy. You simply need to determine if that strategy will work with social media or if it needs to be tweaked.

Direct sales messages often are not effective in social media unless you have an established brand. Companies such as Dell, who generated over $1 million dollars in sales using Twitter, have an advantage in that people already know, like, and trust them to some degree. They simply had to put out compelling offers to drive business.

What if you’re a s small local business and not a national brand? You’re going to have to work a little harder and a little longer. You need to establish your bona fides. One of the best ways to do this is by sharing compelling content with your community.

Consider a CPA that is looking to use social media to drive new business. Based on the size of our tax code there is obviously a lot of information available to share. Its important for our CPA to know who he is specifically targeting and the content that engage this audience.

Using social media he can communicate and share in a number of ways:

Twitter: Tweet to

Drive traffic to blog posts
Drive traffic to website content including white papers, case studies, an online brochure, video, audio, and other relevant documents
Provide access to forms
Drive Registration for Events
Share Tips
Put out coupons, discounts, and offers

Facebook: (profile account not Fan Page)

Integrate tweets in Wall Posts
Feed the blog into Notes
Add Video
Add Photos
Post Events and send Invites
Tap into applications for even more options

LinkedIn

Feed Tweets into Status updates
Use Applications to add video, documents, slide shows, and the blog to profile
Use Groups to share the blog through News Articles
Start Discussion Posts
Conduct Polls
Schedule and share Events

YouTube, Flickr, and Blogs allow more sharing of content.

Using these tools our CPA can go from an unknown to establishing himself as a trusted resource. He just needs to be active and consistently share value.

If you’re looking to use social media to grow your business it comes down to knowing what you do, who you help, and what message you are trying to communicate. As you build trust through sharing value (your content) you’ll position yourself to have an audience that is willing to act on your offers and calls to action.

The Missing Social Media Ingredient

Sean Nelson — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 13:08:06 +0000

Social Media is everywhere. They talk about it on the news and radio, there are articles in newspapers and magazines, and searching “Social Media” on Google returns 194 million results.

If you want to learn more about it there are hundreds of thousands of blogs, podcasts, and videos available to review. There is no excuse why you cannot figure out how to put social media to work for you. Well maybe one excuse.

That excuse is the missing ingredient in most people’s social media strategy and its “Time”. You can’t learn time and its a limited resource. You either have it or you don’t. Or you need to find or create it.

You really have three choices if you want to get serious about making social media a part of your marketing efforts.

You can learn it from scratch by simply diving in and figuring things out.
You can tap into the knowledge of others through classes, books, workshops, blogs, audio, and podcasts.
You can outsource your efforts.

Regardless of which you choose you will still have to invest some time and money.

Learn it From Scratch:
For the most part this is how I originally learned social media. The benefit in this method is that by building your knowledge through trial and error you learn it from the inside out. Its sort of like working your way up from bag boy to CEO, you have a better feel for all of the moving parts. Its also costs nothing but your time (what’s not getting done while your doing this?).

In the first year of trying to figure out LinkedIn I estimate that I invested over a thousand hours. My path was a little abnormal because I was doing research for my blog and for writing my first LinkedIn book. How much business and sleep did I lose in that first year?

I’m certain that I lost out on a lot of opportunity that year, but based on the results since I’m confident that it was time well spent. I went from 0 social media inbound calls to 3 to 5 per week. At a minimum thats 156 leads calling me over 52 weeks.

Tap Into the Knowledge of others
There are some times in the past and still today that I take a step back and invest in my education by buying a book, reading blogs, and watching videos. This has helped me shorten the learning curve on Facebook,Twitter, and the other tools I utilize.

The positive is that I’ve decreased the learning curve, spending more time working on my business. I’ve decreased my time but my costs have increased a little. The money I spend on time, tools, and resources is a good investment.

You need to do your research though before investing your money. Not every resource is worth the dollars you spend. You may find that you spent your dollars on a resource that provided information you could have obtained for free by searching the FAQ’s of the different social media sites.

Outsource Your social Media:
Your last option is to let someone else handle your social media. The benefits to outsourcing your social media is the same as outsourcing any work task …you can focus on what it is that you do best. To save the time though you’re going to have to spend some money.

I’d like to believe that the sole reason our client’s chose to outsource their social media to SONARconnects was because we were able to articulate how we would help them create and implement a social media strategy. A huge part though is that they realize that without outsourcing they don’t have the time or knowledge to handle it on their own.

One of the ways we’ve been able to develop new clients is by telling people exactly what they need to do. In our workshops we show people how we use each of the tools so that they can walk out an immediately get started.

What we find though is that after they go back to their office and begin following our instructions, a significant number call us within next two weeks. They realize that while they now know what to do, they lack the time to consistently do what it takes.

Wrap Up
Over the last two years social media has played an important role in my marketing efforts. Its expanded my ability to network, connect, engage, educate, share, and communicate to grow my business. It can do the same for anyone that is willing to invest the time and/or money.

You simply need to determine whether it makes more sense for you to spend time or money to put it to work for you.

Note: There are thousands of social media/networking sites so its important to spend your time utilizing the tools that will give you the most bang for your time or buck. We recommend that you start with some or all of the following: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and a blog.

Is Twitter Noise or a Valid Business Tool?

Sean Nelson — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 05:04:54 +0000

I’ve talked about the tools we use with our clients in the past, segmenting them as social networking tools (sharing conversations) or social media (sharing content). The reality is that on social networks you can share content and with the social media tools you can have conversations. The one that splits the difference is Twitter. Its the one that many business people don’t get.

LinkedIn is easy. Its a business professional social network that in simple terms is online networking. Facebook is more of a social interaction tool but with over 350 million people there are consumers and business people on it. And its easy to interact.

Twitter though is just noise right? The misconception is that its a bunch of people tweeting about their latest coffee conquest. The reality is… that happens, and a lot of people are ready to tell you the latest money making scheme. But there is also a lot of great information being shared by individuals and companies. And its a valid business tool.

Here are some thoughts on the business use of Twitter.

You Need a Plan
Like anything in life if you want to mazimize your results you need a plan. (Thats a Social Media plan and a plan for Twitter’s role) You ned to understand what you will tweet about. How often will you tweet. When will you tweet. Will your tweets seek to brand you, drive traffic, or both.

Most business people I know have the same problem …not enough hours in the day. If you don’t have specific times set to tweet you’ll likely find that after a week you missed some days. I use a Tweet schedule to lay out the tweets for our clients. I schedule two tweets a day for every day of the month.

My schedule is simply a spreadsheet with 6 sheets. On the first four I layout seven days broken into two hour increments. On the fifth I have 3 days for the 29th, 30th, and 31st. The last sheet is where I put the 62 tweets I write. I then add the tweets I’ve written into the schedule.

Over the month I will release a minimum of two tweets each day. If something else is wortth tweeting I’ll send it as well.

Target the Right People
There are over 25 million people on Twitter and numerous tools to target users by location, industry, tweet words, words in bio, etc. I use these tools to build a list of followers that fits each client.

You have to get your message in front of the right people to have a chance.

Keep in mind that if you want to add followers you’re going to have to initiate contact. On average for every 100 people I follow, 35 to 40 will follow back. You also need to make sure that your ratio of followers to following stays somewhat in balance.

If you’re following 1,000 people and 800 are following you thats fine. Keep in mind that as you follow more people you’re going to have to remove those that do not follow you back to keep your ratio balanced.

A good ratio break-point is 1.5 Follow significantly more people than follow you and people will wonder why others are not following you back. If you’re following is significantly lower than the number following you and you may be seen as self-interested.

Here’s a good timeline to follow: Add followers and give them three to five days to follow you back. After three to five days remove those non-followers, reciprocate with those who followed you, and follow more people.

Communication
Twitter can be the hub of your social media communication efforts. You can feed your tweets into the LinkedIn status feature, post your tweets to your Facebook account, and even to your Facebook Fan page.

On LinkedIn you can control which tweets update your status through the us of a LinkedIn hashtag. For our clients we only send tweets that are going to be relevant whether on twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook. If you using Twitter for business purposes then you should be able to do the same.

I’ve seen lists of the different types of tweets but for me I classify tweets as a branding tweets, traffic tweets, or informational.

A branding tweet communicates a message without a link. It might be a quote that I like, or it might be simply asking a question.

A traffic tweet is one that includes a link and the purpose is to drive someone to click on the link. This works great for sharing blog posts, articles, or driving someone to a landing page.

Informational tweets allow me to share information with others that was created by someone else. It might be a interesting article I found, a cool application, a great social media tool. etc.

The majority of your tweets should share value.

Slow Your Tweets Down
Tweets on Twitter have a short shelf life. How fast tweets move depends upon the number of followers a person has. A tweet to someone with a couple of thousand followers may only be on that persons first page for 15 seconds.

Two ways you can slow your tweets done is by filtering them into LinkedIn and Facebook. On LinkedIn your tweet will show in your status update until your next tweet. On Facebook that tweet is visible on your wall for three or four days if you’re tweeting twice per day.

When I review the click from tweets I often find that Facebook and LinkedIn produce more responses than retweets.

Wrap Up
Twitter is a great way to communicate to large numbers of people. There is a lot of noise, but if you listen close you’ll hear a lot of great information being shared. One thing I do is periodically use the search function to find tweets about a topic. This allows me to stay on top of what others are saying about social media, LinkedIn, Facebook, and a number of topics that interest me.

If you’re trying to figure out how to use social media to drive busines, Twitter is a tool that should be in your toolbox. It may take some time to get used to it but you’ll find that its a great resource to communicat, to share, and to learn.