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How’s Your Social Media Swing?

July 7, 2010 By Sean Nelson 13 Comments

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. [Read more...]

Filed Under: LinkedIn, Social Media/Networking, Tips/Questions, twitter Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

The New LinkedIn Inbox

June 4, 2010 By Sean Nelson 8 Comments

I woke up this morning and saw that LinkedIn finally aded the new inbox to my account.  I first saw the inbox about 2 months ago and wondered when it would be released to more people.  Most of my client’s still have the old inbox, so if you have not been upgraded be patient.  It should roll out over the next couple of months.

Here is a video of the new Inbox. [Read more...]

Filed Under: LinkedIn, Social Media/Networking Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Top Moments in Social Media

May 24, 2010 By Sean Nelson 5 Comments

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.

  1. 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.

  2. 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. [Read more...]

Filed Under: LinkedIn, Social Media/Networking, Tips/Questions, twitter Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Is Your LinkedIn Email For Sale or Trade?

May 18, 2010 By Sean Nelson 10 Comments

I’m fairly open about how people connect on LinkedIn. You want to be an open networker, I’m with you. You want to be a closed networker, hey if it works for you great. Whichever way you choose you still have a obligation to those you connect with to guard the information you have gained through the connection. It really would not be cool to do something like downloading your contacts to a csv file and then trade your file with others like Topp’s Baseball cards.

Here is a LinkedIn message that I received (I’ve chosen to remove the identifying information. I have left some references so that you will recognize the message should you receive it) [Read more...]

Filed Under: Linked Out, LinkedIn Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Social Media, Cheesecake, and Paying Attention: $5.99 to Create a Fanatic

April 29, 2010 By Sean Nelson 5 Comments

shaamomanger cheesecake Social Media, Cheesecake, and Paying Attention: $5.99 to Create a FanaticWhat’s a customer worth to you? How many times will they buy? What’s their average purchase in terms of dollars? What’s the value if they go from a customer to a fanatic and generate ongoing word of mouth with everyone they know?

I recently posted a question to a LinkedIn group “Is Twitter Noise or an effective Business Tool?” The responses are mixed, though more see it as an effective business tool. But many say they just don’t get it. I think those that don’t get it just haven’t taken the time to think creatively and strategically about how to put to use the ability to communicate and engage with potentially hundreds or thousands of potential prospects, customers, and fanatics.

So let’s look at a success story. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Social Media/Networking, twitter Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Social Media Short on Miracles

February 14, 2010 By Sean Nelson 8 Comments

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. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Social Media/Networking Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

The Missing Social Media Ingredient

February 6, 2010 By Sean Nelson 7 Comments

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. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Social Media/Networking Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Social Media Sonar blog Wins Blogoff II Contest

January 11, 2010 By Sean Nelson 12 Comments

blogoff2 Social Media Sonar blog Wins Blogoff II ContestActually the blog wasn’t competing but I was using two posts that are currently listed here: “The 7 Worst LinkedIn Mistakes and Their Fixes” and “Are You a Lion, Turtle, HoundDog, or Alley Cat – What’s Your LinkedIn Connection Strategy”.

Here’s a press snippet:

“Blog-Off II, a blogging contest offering social media enthusiasts and professionals the opportunity to be independently assessed by judges and statistics on their capability of implementing the fundamentals of social media marketing, came to a close with the announcement of the winner on December 24th.  This years winner, Sean Nelson author of the Social Media Sonar blog, was able to beat out an impressive collection of 28 bloggers representing 6 countries.  During the 12 day contest. Sean’s two posts generated over 8,000 visits and over 200 comments, with an impressive time spent on each post of 6:17 and 5:09 (that’s minutes:seconds).”

What’s not covered in the results above are the several hundred comments that were made in LinkedIn groups where I posted a link to the articles in a Discussion Post and as a News Article. [Read more...]

Filed Under: LinkedIn, Social Media/Networking Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

The 4 C’s of Social Media

January 4, 2010 By Sean Nelson 28 Comments

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. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Social Media/Networking Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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