• 95% of new media users believe companies or brands should have a social media presence.
• 89% believe that they should interact with their consumers in this space.

If you have to ask whether or not you or your company should be engaged in social media, go back and read the two statistics above.

Your customers and prospects are telling you that they want you or your brand to have a LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other types of social accounts. They are also telling you that they want you to engage in conversations with them.

One of the questions I get asked by business owners often is “why would someone want to connect, follow, or friend ‘my company’, ‘my brand’, ‘my product’, etc.? People using your product or service already have some level of attachment to it. Social media just allows them to have a deeper attachment. If they have a question, a comment, or a concern they like that they can reach out and communicate that message directly.

One of our client’s is Copeland’s New Orleans Style restaurants. Here are some comments from people that follow Copeland’s on Twitter:

“Going to enjoy some bow-tie pasta spinach artichoke dip @CopelandsATL with the in-laws. Oh yeah!”

“Chillin’ at @CopelandsATL with @MissTikiBaby for drinks and desserts White Russian and White Chocolate Bread Pudding #dying”

“Hands downs @CopelandsATL has the best brunch!!!”

“@CopelandsATL I’ve had the fried crawfish its great. Goes great w/ a cheesecake Napoleon w/ the rum sauce/ pralines”

Some from Facebook

“We LOVE Copeland’s. And we love our Saints!! Come on North Cobb County. Let’s get a great crowd to show up for Superbowl Sunday for the Saint’s WIN! ?I want to be with a huge group of fans at the Kennesaw Copeland’s, watching on the big screen, eating some great food like shrimp and grits!”

There are more comments, tweets, retweets, photos posted …all from people who want to share their experience with a restaurant. I’ve seen similar results with Political Candidates, Business Coaches, Insurance Brokers, Chiropractors, and a number of other businesses.

People want to be heard and if you make the effort to engage them in the social networks where they interact, they’ll talk. Often what they say will be positive thoughts and opinions about your business.

I’ll end this with two more statistics that I think are relevant.

• 51% of respondents saying that social media has influenced their online transactions.
• 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations

These two statistics reinforce the value of others posting positive messages about your company and how that can impact the purchase decisions of others.

If you’re still wondering if you and your company can benefit from social media, then I’m not sure what I can say that says it better than the statistics above. Its not so much a question of can it work but more a question of how are your going to make it work.

You need to become your own VP of Getting It Done!

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.

If you need help or assistance with developing and implementing a social media strategy call (404) 939-7186 and ask for Sean, send an email to results@sonarconnects.com, or visit the SONARconnects site.

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, but In the end its more a matter of 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.

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.

Sean Nelson is a Partner in SONARconnects. If you have questions you may contact him at (404) 939-7186 or sean@SONARconnects.com

Back in 1998 I started building my first website for an Insurance company. The CEO had heard that in one of my graduate school classes I had had to submit a class project using html. He decided that I was just the person he was looking for to build the companies first website.

It was true that I had used html in that project, but all I really did was sit next to a project member while he copied snippets of code from a book to create our first web page. At the time I started creating the companies website it was cool and cutting edge to have a website but it wasn’t necessarily viewed as a business requirement. That would change over the next year.

In 2010 I think we’re at a similar point. Social Media/Networking is still viewed by some as not a business requirement but I expect that will change over the next year. Some will do so because they get it, others because they fear getting left behind. Even if they’re not sure what it is they might be left behind by.

To start off the new year I’m going to discuss what I call the 4 C’s of social media. These are the four concepts we focus on with our clients.

Communities
Traditional advertising and marketing is about interrupting. Social media is about sharing and interacting. You have to have someone listening in order for interactions to happen.

The interesting thing is that people want to interact. The following statistics make that clear.

• 78% of social media users interact with companies or brands via new media sites and tools, an increase of 32% from 2008.
• 95% of new media users also believe companies or brands should have a social media presence
• 89% believe that they should interact with their consumers using social media

Its important that you build communities on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter that are made up of your prospects and clients.

Content
Content is King. Its been that way since cavemen began writing on walls. Since then only the means of delivery has changed.

One of the mistakes I see is companies jump into using social media and immediately begin communicating sales messages. A sales message here and there is likely fine but when its all you do…Houston we have a problem.

Regardless of what you sell someone out there is looking for information about it. They want to be informed, educated, and even entertained. If they like your content they will like you. If you share good content consistently over time they will likely begin to trust you.

Social media provides great vehicles to share video, photo’s, written, and audio content.

Conversations
The difference between traditional advertising and marketing and social media is the difference between talking at someone and talking with them. If you’ve built the right communities and are sharing the right content conversations should naturally happen.

There are different levels of conversations. A comment on a blog post, a retweet, a comment on your LinkedIn or Facebook status are all forms of conversations. Tou just need to be sure you are tracking these responses and reply back.

Even something that seems as trivial as a “Thumbs Up” on a Facebook wall post is a positive. The important thing is you put out a message or content and someone chose to respond.

These conversations and those among others will have an impact. These two statistics support this.

• 51% of respondents saying that social media has influenced their online transactions.
• 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations

Conversion
The final piece of the puzzle is for the preceding steps to lead to conversion. If you’ve taken the time to develop a strategy than all of the pieces should work together to lead to this point.

One of the mistakes that I see is that companies indiscriminately send people to their home page. While that may help you build site traffic it may not necessarily help you with conversion.

If you’re communicating about a product or service why not funnel any responses into a Landing page. Seth Godin has been talking about landing pages since 1991 and lists five actions that the page can generate:

• Get a visitor to click (to go to another page, on your site or someone else’s)
• Get a visitor to buy
• Get a visitor to give permission for you to follow up (by email, phone, etc.). This includes registration of course.
• Get a visitor to tell a friend
• (and the more subtle) Get a visitor to learn something, which could even include posting a comment or giving you some sort of feedback

Your home page can generate these five same actions but its not designed to focus on one of these five actions specifically. Sending them here is like sending them to a neighborhood rather than a specific location.

Wrap Up
The 4 C’s are important if you want social media to work for you. There are different ways to build communities on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. There are different ways to communicate messages on each. The conversations are even different.

Focus on applying the first three to each of the networks and begin to see the Fourth C happening a little (maybe a lot more) frequently.

What do you think?

If you need help or assistance with developing and implementing a social media strategy call (404) 939-7186 and ask for Sean, send an email to results@sonarconnects.com, or visit the SONARconnects site. (What no landing page?  For now a comment is all the conversion we’re looking for.  Plus read some of the other articles and focus on learning.)

September was a busy and productive month with 7 posts, including the first three parts of my 10 part LinkedIn series “Can LinkedIn Work for You?”.  This month also included a primer on Twitter speak and a graphic detailing the social media/networking process.

Here’s a review and links to each article.

3 Steps to LinkedIn Success

Even if you’re not at the head of the list, only 24% of LinkedIn users are deemed “Active Users”. So once again the opportunity is out there. You simply need to focus on these three areas starting out to find success with LinkedIn.

Enhance Your Networking with LinkedIn (part 3 of 10)

The core of LinkedIn revolves around connecting to other business professionals. Networking exclusively on LinkedIn, though, ignores the human element of face to face interaction. How do you use it to enhance your other networking?

Do You Speak Twittinese?

Social networking and social media are introducing new languages in order to communicate. For those of you still working on speaking the native language of Twittinese, I offer this basic primer course.

Why Are You On LinkedIn? (Part 2 of 10)

In Part 2 of the 10 Part Series “Can LinkedIn Work for You?” we start with a question…“Why are you on LinkedIn?” LinkedIn takes time and effort to produce results. Without this answer “How do you know what actions you should be taking?”

LinkedIn User Guide

Why do only 25% of LinkedIn members use the site on a regular basis? Because most don’t know what to do after signing up. If you haven’t figured out how to use LinkedIn these resources will help.

Can LinkedIn Work for You? (part 1 of 10)

The first article in this 10 Part series asks “Can LinkedIn work for you?”. There are over 45 million people now on LinkedIn but only about 25% are active users. These articles will provide tips and strategies to more effectively use LinkedIn.

Social Media Process in a Picture

Yesterday I wrote about 6 tools that we use at SONARconnects to create and implement social media/networking strategies for ourselves and our client’s. This got me to thinking about how to simplify things by laying out the process in a graphic.

Yesterday I wrote about 6 tools that we use at SONARconnects to create and implement social media/networking strategies for ourselves and our client’s.  This got me to thinking about how to simplify things by laying out the process in a graphic.  Below is the result of that exercise.  I hope it helps you see the overall picture.

Does this help you see things more clearly?
.

Many people use the term “Social Media” to represent the vast array of social networking sites, social media sites, and tools available.  What we’re really talking about is the Social Web.  The Social Web is made up of Social Networking and Social Media.

Social Networking is about sharing the conversation.  Social Media is about sharing content.  Combined they form an effective toolbox to grow you business.

Sharing the Conversation
There are hundreds social networking sites available and you could spend unlimited time trying to determine how to use each.  I’m looking to use social networking in as efficient manner as possible so I focus on two networking sites and one hybrid.

The two sites that I use are LinkedIn and Facebook.  Both allow me to build communities of people, engage and interact with them, and communicate to on an ongoing basis.  The results may include branding but the end goal is always monetization.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a natural fit from a membership perspective.  The average household income per member is $109,000, close to 80% have attended college, and 49% are decision makers.  The average LinkedIn member is a great prospect.

LinkedIn is a somewhat closed environment and it takes time and effort to build the right communities and typically most of our communications are indirect in nature.  I want those in my networks to see the messages I deliver over time and to get to know, like, and trust me so that when they have a need for the services I provide, I’m top of mind.

It also doesn’t hurt that you have the ability to prospect and then see how you connect into each opportunity.

Facebook
Things are much looser on Facebook.  Building communities of the right people still takes time and effort but you can reach out to others without some of the restrictions on LinkedIn.  I still primarily communicate with indirect messages, but it just seems easier to do on Facebook.

Most of my prospects live in Atlanta and the Atlanta network on Facebook has over 1.8 million people.  If I can engage the right ¼ of a percent, that’s 4,500 people to communicate my message to.

Twitter
The hybrid is Twitter.  Twitter is a microblog which seems like it would be part of the social media side.  But there is a community aspect in terms of those you follow and those that follow you.  Relationships do develop and you can build a significant community of people.

Twitter to me represents a great communications tool.  At any point I can tweet a message that will be seen by a percentage of my followers and a percentage of non-followers through the public timeline.

If I build a community of 10,000 followers then at any point that I tweet a message it has the potential to be viewed by a percentage of my followers who are online at the time.  Not everyone will be online and see the message.  But if I consistently tweet two times a day, every day for six months, then I should be able to place several messages in front of the majority of my followers during this time.

The goal is to communicate the right message that is viewed by a number of followers at the right time.  It’s a numbers game and I trust that stars will align often enough to be an effective vehicle to drive traffic and eventually business.

Sharing the Content
The internet is nothing more than a super database of content that people search through to find relevant information.  Your goal is to provide valuable content that can be found.  If they find your content, they find you.

YouTube
On the Social Media side YouTube allows you to share video content.  The site drives a tremendous amount of traffic and can be an extremely useful tool.  The ability to tag your videos with keywords allows you to gain exposure to a targeted audience.  You simply need to know the keywords your prospects use to find services such as yours.

Another benefit is that in video you can communicate your message in a more engaging format than with simple print.  A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a good video is worth a million.  You can demonstrate expertise, convey an image, and create a mood.  Do it creatively and you may find that not only do people want to view your “commercial”, but they share with those they know.

Flickr
Flickr is simply a photo sharing service.  The key to Flickr is the ability to tag photos with keywords.  Once again you simply need to know the keywords that your prospects use to search online for your services.

Flickr isn’t the most important part of the puzzle but it does play its part in creating your Digital Footprint…which we’ll discuss shortly.

Business Blogging
The final tool that I use to communicate with prospects is a business blog.  Most people have websites and they should.  A website establishes a presence.  It allows you to list your products or services, it can provide educational or information content, and drive sales through ecommerce features.

Most websites “tell and sell” but don’t really do a good job of communicating.  Blogs on the other hand are perfect for communicating to and engaging with your visitors.  A business blog should convey what your business is about through what it talks about, the information it shares, and the interaction with those posting comments.

The SONARconnects website is designed to tell people who we are, the services we use to help our clients, and how to contact us.  On the Social Media Sonar blog I’m more interested in providing valuable content to people, engaging in conversations, and building trust over time.

There’s a difference in the people who contact me through the website compared to those who contact me after reading the blog.  The website prospects are contacting me because a service I provide interests them, where those from the blog are contacting me because through the blog they have come to know, like and trust me.  They still have a need for a service I provide but the conversation starts from a position of trust.

Wrap Up
Back in the early 2000’s I used Pay-Per-Click campaigns to communicate my message to prospects at the right time…when they were searching for a need based on a keyword.  For a while it was cost effective generating $5 for every $1 I spent.  Over time the economics changed as more competition came online and competed for the keywords.  As a small business I simply couldn’t compete dollar for dollar with the larger companies.

That’s when I turned to social networking.  I can compete on cost because most of the sites are free.  I only needed to out think and out hustle the larger companies.  That’s much easier than competing based on dollars.  (note:  for some client’s we still conduct Pay-per-click campaigns where the ROI makes sense)

There’s also what I call your Digital Footprint.  Most of the activity that you conduct on the various sites is googleble, meaning it gets picked up and indexed by Google.  Over time with the right activity you have the ability to capture front page real estate on Google for specific keywords.

These are the six tools that I use on an ongoing basis.  The key is to build your communities, engage in conversations, build trust, and communicate your message so that when the time is right you’re top of mind with the prospect..

What are some other social networking/media tools that are working for you?

If you need assistance we provide training for the six tools listed above and we provide ongoing management of social media strategies.  Call me at (404) 939-7186 or visit the SONARconnects site for more information.

Sean Nelson

If you read this blog often you probably wouldn’t know that I’m actually aware that there are other sites out there.  I use various social networking/media sites but write about LinkedIn because that’s what I know best.  As time moves on I hope to start bringing in some thoughts on the others.

I recently took a look at the ranking of several social networking/media sites and thought they were interesting.  I’m not exactly sure what the rankings and stats mean but I’ll share them.

These results were taken from Alexa.com and include site statistics and demographic data.

Site Rankings: (membership included in parentheses – rough estimates in some cases)
YouTube (100.9 million viewers per month): 3
Facebook (165 million):  4
MySpace (80 million):  11
Twitter (8 million):  20
Flickr (7.5 million):  30
LinkedIn (42 million):  82

Google is number one.

Minutes Per Day Spent on Site
Facebook:  25.6
YouTube:  22.5
MySpace:  19.8
Twitter:  8.6
LinkedIn:  6.5
Flickr:  4.8

Sites Linking In
YouTube:  489,059
MySpace:  335,770
Facebook:  258,619
Flickr:  236,171
Twitter:  169,785
LinkedIn:  55,771

Not sure about all of these but I find it amazing that LinkedIn has less that 56,000 sites linking in to it.

Demographics - relative to the general internet population how popular each is with the listed demographic

Age:
Facebook:  18-34 (ex – Facebook has a higher share of 18-34 year olds than the general internet population but a lower share in the 45+ age group)
Flickr:  18-34
LinkedIn:  25-44
MySpace:  18-34
Twitter:  25-44
YouTube:  18-34

I would expect LinkedIn to have a older user base and not surprised that Twitter does as well.  What’s interesting is that none of the sites seems to be doing that great with the over 45 internet user.

Education:
Facebook:  College Graduates and Graduate Degree
Flickr:  College Graduates and Graduate Degree
LinkedIn:  College Graduates and Graduate Degree
MySpace:  Some College
Twitter:  College Graduates and Graduate Degree
You Tube:  College Graduates and Graduate Degree

Not much difference noted here, with MySpace being the only one doing better with those who attended college but did not graduate

One thing that I do not go into is that in each of these categories some are stronger than the others.  Alexa user a bar graph with no numerical notations so while you can see who is stronger in a particular demographic I did not see how to quantify it.

Wrap Up: I’m not sure that the above statistics provide much relevance.  I think the most telling stats are the rankings and the time on site.  One thing to keep in mind is that all of the sites are pretty open as far as users with the exception being LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is primarily used by business professionals which is a smaller population than the others.  LinkedIn has been working on the 18 to 34 market recently launching a microsite dedicated to recent graduates – http://grads.linkedin.com/.

If you’re bored go to www.alexa.com and you can check out the stats on these and other sites.