Too Busy For Social Media Marketing Could Be Fatal

I have a friend who runs a nationwide “traditional” business, and business has been down, like it has been for most people. I suggested that he add some social network marketing initiatives, and his answer was he is “too busy.” He is not alone, according to a recent study, which concludes that only 47% of companies use social media today for marketing, despite the fact that 78% of executives polled feel it’s critical for success.

What’s the problem? It seems to me that there is abundant proof in the marketplace of the financial returns to both large and small businesses, the low cost of entry, and the ubiquity of social networks. Dell announced years ago that it had earned $3 million in revenue from using Twitter, and other businesses report daily on increases in web traffic up to 800%.

I suspect that a good part of the problem is that startup and small business owners still don’t know where or how to start. They don’t know if they should move to social networks for lead generation, branding, customer loyalty, or for direct marketing and e-commerce. My advice is to pick one, start slow, and spread out as you learn. Here are some specifics:

Create a business profile on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. A business profile starts with a business account using your company logo as your picture (avatar), rather than your photo or a picture of your cat. If you are in consulting, you are the business, so use a professional headshot. Don’t mix your personal and business profiles or messages.
Develop a marketing strategy specific to this media. Don’t use the same message on Twitter you developed for email blasts and postcard blitzes. Social media demands two-way communication, rather than outbound only. Read everything you can about viral marketing. It’s not free, so budget appropriately, but not excessively.
Start social networking with peers. Pick a base, such as LinkedIn or Facebook, to be your community, and work the territory, much like you may have learned to work a room of peers at a tradeshow or convention, or local business organization. Find out what other people are doing, and what works for them. People love to share what they know.
Experiment with social media tools. The basic tools are the platforms like Twitter and Facebook. But don’t stop there. There is TweetDeck to help you use Twitter, and YouTube for video sharing. A most valuable tool is WordPress or TypePad for blogging. You need these to add the human element to your business or service.
Proactively learn from the experts. Maybe it’s time to sign up for a few free Webinars, or even invest in an expert consultant in this area. Successful people don’t wait for their kids to teach them about new technologies, or wait to be the last one on the block to try new things. It’s all available for “free” on the Internet, but your time is a valuable resource.
Define relevant metrics and measure. That means first take some baseline measurements of, for example, lead arrival rate today, and costs associated with your current media marketing. If you don’t have this baseline, you will never know if you are making progress. Then continue to measure and learn what works, at what cost.
If used correctly, I guarantee you that social media marketing can improve your business with new leads, by bringing traffic to your website, creating a buzz around your product or brand, creating inbound links to increase your search engine ranking, and improving loyalty and trust with your customers. How could you be too busy to work on these things?

Of course, if you found this blog though your own initiative, I have to give you credit for being ahead of the pack. So print it off and deliver it to a friend who is not so high-tech. My challenge to you, then, is to kick it up a notch! When is the last time you produced a video for your business, or a podcast, or sponsored a contest with free gifts? Or are you too busy?

Obama Set To Actually Use Social Media Himself for 2012 Run

If there is one thing that the recent Twitter scandal surrounding NY Rep. Anthony Weiner did it slowed the use of social media by politicians. If there was ever a silver lining in an otherwise pathetic situation this may have been it. PC World reports



The “Weinergate” scandal caused a significant drop in tweeting politicians. According to VentureBeat, after the scandal “the number of tweets by Republican members of Congress dropped by 27 percent, while those of Democrats dropped by 29 percent.”

Of course, the US is gearing up for yet another fun filled presidential election process that promises to be full of promises which in turn usually means its full of something else too but that’s beside the point. President Obama established his ‘mastery’ of the social media arts in the last campaign and possibly won the election with the base of voters he motivated through online channels.

Expect more of the same this time. In light of recent political Twittertastrophes though the campaign is reigning in the control as noted on the president’s website

Starting today, you’ll notice something new about President Obama’s Facebook page and his Twitter account, @BarackObama.

Obama for America staff will now be managing both accounts, posting daily updates from the campaign trail, from Washington, and everywhere in between. You’ll be hearing from President Obama regularly, too; on Twitter, tweets from the President will be signed “-BO.”

Why make the change?

As the President said when he launched this campaign a few months ago, he’s focused on doing the job we elected him to do — so he’s counting on all of us to lead this organization from the grassroots up, helping to shape it as it grows.

That’s nice.

Of course, my first question is “Who had control of this before last Friday?” We all knew that the tweets previously were not done by the President but this announcement seems kind of odd considering there are currently 8.75 million Twitter followers for the president’s account. I suspect many think they are hearing from the president himself (a testament to the intelligence of many Twitter users). The NY Times clears that up a bit

During the 2008 campaign, Democratic National Committee staffers wrote all the tweets to the @BarackObama account, according to a White House spokesman.

Why hasn’t Obama tweeted before? There’s a Washington culture of letting the underlings handle mass communications. While many Hollywood celebrities passionately type their own status updates, it’s more common among politicians to let employees manage their social media accounts.

As for Facebook? That’s really donation central. Here’s the landing page for the Facebook presence and it’s all about the benjamins.



So as we gear up for an election season here in the states that is sure to be heated, what will likely be one of the most active participant sports will be the watch to see who sticks their social media foot in their mouth the furthest. You know it’s going to happen. Heck, all it took was one weiner to press a wrong button and the wheels were ejected off that wagon.

Will a bigger fish go down in history as social media’s poster child for what not to do? Stay tuned. I bet we’ll have a weiner winner sooner than later!

IBM Aims to Bring Social Media Into Compliance

IBM (NYSE: IBM) is promising to deliver a solution that will enable companies to include information from social media platforms in their regulatory compliance reports.

Compliance capability is "fundamental to reducing a barrier that many companies have encountered as they look more closely at using social media for business process integration," Alistair Rennie, IBM's general manager of collaboration solutions, said in a teleconference on Monday.

IBM is expected to formally announce the new solution -- called "Actiance Vantage for IBM Connections" on Tuesday, the opening day of the Enterprise 2.0 conference taking place this week in Boston, but the solution won't be available for purchase until the third quarter of the year.


A Social Media Cloud
In addition to unveiling its regulatory compliance offering, IBM also plans to use the Enterprise 2.0 stage to announce plans for opening a data center that will offer cloud-based social media solutions to companies in the Asia Pacific Region. The center, to be based in Japan, is scheduled to start turning on social media platforms for Asia Pacific customers by September.

The seeds for the regulatory compliance solution were planted as far back as January 2010, when the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority -- a watchdog agency for U.S.-based securities firms -- issued guidance on the importance of monitoring and tracking information passed through corporate social media sites for purposes of regulatory compliance, Rennie said.

Social media content is like all other content created by companies, meaning it's subject to the same rules, laws and customs, he pointed out, citing a February 2011 report from Gartner (NYSE: IT).

"By the end of 2013, half of all companies will have been asked to produce material from social media websites for e-discovery," the Gartner report states. "So, enterprises need an overall governance strategy for all applications and information, and this strategy should include content created on social media."

A Blended Solution
Against that backdrop, IBM is partnering with Actiance, a supplier of e-security and compliance applications, to develop its social media compliance offering. The solution will blend Actiance's e-compliance capabilities into IBM's Connections platform, which offers a range of tools for building and managing social media channels such as blogs, wikis, forums and virtual communities.

Once it is available, the solution will be a major advancement for companies in regulated industries that have struggled with how to maintain a certain level of security and integrity around important data that might be floating through corporate social media channels.

"We continue to see social media growing as a tool for business transformation," Rennie said. "It's difficult to find a customer that doesn't want to take advantage of the potential of a social business environment, but -- as is the case with every major technology change -- we continue to run into questions about managing security and risk."

Real-Time Data Tracking
Actiance Vantage for IBM Connections will address those issues, Rennie explained, by giving companies tools to monitor, track and analyze data generated in social media posts and conversation threads.

"This all takes place in real-time," he noted. "I can't overemphasize the need to track this information in real-time. The pace at which information moves in a social environment is unlike that of most traditional collaboration environments."

The new IBM solution will give users a dashboard through which they can monitor social media traffic and pick out bits of information that need to be saved for purposes of regulatory compliance, Rennie said.

"With the Connections technology, every piece of communication is auditable," he explained. "We also are using advanced analytics that will allow for recommending that users view content they might not have found on their own."

For the past two years, IDC has listed IBM as the leading producer of revenue from social media software, and Rennie believes these new offerings should help it maintain that position

Social Media Return On Investment? A different perspective

Do "likes" and retweets add up to sales? Who knows? And who really cares? We're in the I Love Lucy era of social-media marketing, a golden age of unaccountability.

THIS YEAR, AUDI RAN the first-ever Super Bowl commercial to feature a Twitter hashtag. Did you miss that watershed moment? Don't feel too bad: The hashtag -- #ProgressIs, a take on the carmaker's line "Luxury has progressed" -- flashed on the screen for just a second, near the end of a surreal and entertaining ad that featured millionaires trying to escape from a minimum-security prison, and a cameo by, who else, sax man and Lite-FM staple Kenny G.

In addition to pushing the hashtag on TV, Audi purchased a Promoted Trend ad from Twitter, and it hired Klout, a startup firm that combs through Twitter and Facebook in search of the most "influential" people online. Klout helped Audi find more than 1,100 people to reach out to about the campaign -- 200 of them received an Audi travel mug and flashlight. Klout's Audiphiles tweeted more than 12,000 times about the hashtag, creating a viral chain of Audi-related chatter online. The company then chose the best tweets containing #ProgressIs; the winner, @jetsetbrunette, won a trip to California to test-drive some Audis, and she also got to choose a charity to which Audi donated $25,000.

But what did Audi get out of all these influencers' tweets? Did the Twitter campaign prompt anyone to consider buying an A8, say, or to go into a dealership to test-drive one? Did seeing the #ProgressIs tweets at least inspire an outpouring of positive brand feelings toward Audi?

The company doesn't know. "Today the equation to measure that doesn't exist," says Doug Clark, Audi of America's general manager for social media and customer engagement. Audi has a full-time team monitoring its presence on social-media sites, it's constantly posting new content, and it has even held special events for the most devoted members of the online Audisphere. The best Clark can do to suggest that all this work has paid off is offer a study by Visibli, a social-marketing analytics company, which recently found that Audi has the most "engaged" fans of any entity on Facebook. Audi's more than 3 million obsessives apparently outshine even Justin Bieber's minions in their willingness to click the like button.

Clark concedes that, so far, he doesn't have any numbers to prove that all this engagement has resulted in, you know, selling more cars. Amazingly, the company isn't too interested in finding out, either. For Audi, Facebook and Twitter "are places where we know tech-minded consumers are active, where they're seeking to engage with the brand," Clark says. "But can I say that a fan is more likely to buy an Audi? No."

Audi, like almost every major brand in the world, is jumping onto Twitter and Facebook in a big way. EMarketer estimates that 80% of companies will participate in social-media marketing this year, nearly double the number of just three years ago. All of them are feverishly working to get consumers to "engage" -- to "like," to tweet, to comment, to share. And they're spending a tidy sum to do so. According to BIA/Kelsey, a media consulting firm, companies spent about $2.1 billion on social-media advertising in 2010; the number is projected to grow to nearly $8 billion in 2015.

The gold rush has inspired a wave of tech startups, like Klout, that are looking to help firms navigate the tricky social-ad scene. These companies promise to monitor and measure the impact of Facebook and Twitter campaigns, and to find the best ways to boost those efforts. Despite this technology, though, social-media marketing often feels like a throwback to the golden age of TV: At least so far, marketers can't predict or measure the impact of their campaigns with anything near the precision they're used to elsewhere online.

What's more interesting is that brands truly don't seem bothered by this. Being on the leading front of marketing while not having to account for their efforts liberates them. "We're trying different ways to help us better understand the 'value' of a Facebook like," says Brad Shaw, Home Depot's VP for corporate communications and external affairs, echoing several other social-media marketers. "But at this point, revenue is not the intent." Applied to social media, William Goldman's famous line about Hollywood would go something like this: Nobody knows anything, and they don't care. You're forgiven for wondering: #ProgressIs? #Really?

RANK AND FILE




LATE IN 2007, JOE FERNANDEZ, a young tech-obsessed guy, had to get his jaw wired shut for three months while recovering from surgery. The only way he could communicate with his friends and family, he says, was through Twitter and Facebook. But he found his medically imposed silence to be a revelation, rather than an ordeal. "I could tell people my opinion on anything instantly, and the people who trusted me were acting on what I said," Fernandez says. "It hit me that for the first time, word of mouth was becoming scalable and -- even more important -- the data about all of these interactions were available."

Fernandez quickly began working on a way to tie all these data into a comprehensive picture of each of our online lives. What he came up with was Klout's signature product, the Klout Score, an integer from 1 to 100 that summarizes every person's influence online. The score is determined by a number of factors -- including how influential your followers are and how many people retweet or respond to things you say online. It has become, in some circles, an important measure of influence. People are reputedly putting Klout Scores on their résumés, and a few brands, such as Las Vegas's Palms Hotel, are using Klout to identify potential online VIPs for preferential treatment. Justin Bieber, of course, is the king of Klout: He has a perfect 100. Everyone else is second fiddle. Barack Obama gets an 87, the Dalai Lama gets an 86, and Jay-Z struggles with a mere 67. (For the record, I earn a 64 -- good enough for "thought leader" status and probably the only time I'll be this close to Jay-Z in any public ranking.)

Klout has now amassed enough data to measure the influence of 75 million people online, and it can slice and dice these numbers. For instance, Fernandez says Klout can identify the most influential people who talk about sneakers in Seattle, or the most-listened-to tweeters on skin-care products in San Francisco. When companies come to Klout looking to target those influencers, the company can track how their messages echo across the social-media landscape. How many extra tweets did Nike get by focusing on those Seattleites?

But what Fernandez can't track is what happens when people read all those comments or tweets: Does the marketing change anyone's feelings about Nike? "I think we'll get there eventually," he says, musing that over time, brands will give Klout -- and other social-data-analysis companies -- sales information to correlate with online chatter. Still, the problem won't be easy to solve. For one thing, social-media marketing, unlike search ads, catches most customers when they're far away from making a purchase decision. This makes it menacingly difficult for firms to determine what ultimately led to a purchase. Was it something you saw on Twitter or Facebook three weeks ago, or was it the drive-time radio spot you heard this morning?

Wildfire CEO Victoria Ransom is bringing corporate Facebook fan pages to life via contests and sweepstakes. | Photograph by Robyn Twomey



That gets to the second reason that social-media marketing hasn't yet proved itself: So far, advertisers aren't asking for any proof, and that limits the ability of firms like Klout to figure out if what they're doing really works. "My life becomes a million times easier if I can show that if you spend $1 with us, you get $1.10 out," Fernandez says. But for many big brands, the amount of money being dedicated to marketing on Facebook and Twitter is small compared with the rest of their advertising expenses. "For a lot of our clients, what they're spending with us is coming out of their 'experimental' marketing budgets," he says. In other words, they don't feel much pressure to account for their efforts. "No brand is challenging us on this. We challenge ourselves way harder than any brand does."

One current alternative is to embrace less sexy, but more Internet-friendly, direct-response advertising models. "Sweepstakes, contests, and coupons have always been popular, long before the Internet was around," says Victoria Ransom, CEO of Wildfire Interactive, another Silicon Valley advertising startup. Like Klout, the three-year-old firm was founded by accident. Ransom and Alain Chuard came upon the idea while running their previous company, a global adventure-travel firm. They wanted to expand their firm's Facebook presence, "but we realized pretty quickly that we were going to have to give people a reason to become fans of our page," Ransom says. The company had run sweepstakes on its site before, but it found that translating those to Facebook wasn't very easy. "We figured we weren't the only ones facing that challenge," she says. The company created a way for all kinds of businesses to create their own promotional applications on Facebook. "Within a few weeks, we'd received calls from both Kayak and Zappos," Ransom says. "We went, 'Oh, maybe this will be bigger than we thought it would be!' "

Wildfire's twist is making sweepstakes and contests social. They're built as Facebook apps, and they're promoted widely on Twitter. Ransom says that Wildfire can often track the success of its campaigns by integrating with its customers' transaction databases. For instance, the firm recently ran a promotion for Jamba Juice that allowed people to collect a "lucky" coupon from Jamba's Facebook page. You'd only find out the value of the coupon if you took it to a Jamba Juice store, and some of the coupons would pay out cash prizes of up to $10,000. The campaign drove tens of thousands of people to Jamba Juice locations; every time someone used one of Wildfire's coupons to make a purchase, the smoothie chain could credit that customer to the promotion.

Still, Wildfire's campaigns suffer from a problem that's common with social-media marketing: Because they're so new, and because they often depend on catching uncertain viral cascades, their performance is difficult to predict. "If we put a dollar in the Google machine, we know exactly what's going to come out," says David Sobie, VP of business development at HauteLook, a Nordstrom subsidiary that runs a members-only, daily-discount fashion site. Sobie has run many campaigns with Wildfire, and he says, "We're often surprised -- things that we didn't think were going to take off have been incredibly successful. And others, where all the metrics suggested that something should have been successful, have turned out not to be."

Klout CEO Joe Fernandez, right, is creating an “influence graph” for social media and then adding brands to the mix. | Photograph by Robyn Twomey



NOT LONG AGO, I was offered a tour of the customer-service department of the future. It's a bright, gleaming space; costs almost nothing to operate; and boasts the friendliest, most knowledgeable representatives in all of American commerce. Where is this call center? And who runs it?

It's online. And it's run by you. Lithium, a 10-year-old company based in Emeryville, California, builds and hosts online discussion forums for companies to let their customers help themselves, and it's one example where social media already seems to be helping companies pay the bills. For companies like Comcast, which have high-profile rapid-response complaint centers, Lithium's technology has revolutionized customer-service operations, usually an expensive part of the business. CEO Lyle Fong estimates that Lithium's work revamping AT&T's online community resulted in AT&T saving 16% on telephone customer support in January 2011 compared with 2010.

We're a long way from Bieberville, but this being social media, no one wants to talk just about minimizing call volume. At Home Depot, Lithium powers a vibrant discussion site where customers discuss home-improvement projects and the products and instructions to use them. "We can look at how your users interact with each other on your site," Fong says, "and we can tell you, 'Hey, here are your community members who are going to be your most passionate fans, and if you treat them right, they're really going to give back.' " At Sephora, another Lithium client, the discussion site has become a place where some of the company's most feverish fans -- women who spend 10 times more than the typical customer -- log many hours offering advice to everyone who comes along.

Sephora hasn't calculated all the additional sales that this system has generated, nor the labor it might be saving now that its best customers, rather than employees, are answering people's beauty dilemmas. Bridget Dolan, Sephora's VP of interactive media, says that at some point, the company may decide to do just that. Right now, though, "we aren't saying, 'Does every dollar we spend turn into revenue?' " she admits. "No one here is hounding me for the ROI."

Social Media Recruitment Tools

Back in the day, big organizations with fat budgets spent a lot of money on recruiters — sometimes with good results. But what if you want to or have to do recruiting personally.

Since time is the only resource more scarce than dollars, recruiters are always on the hunt for slick new tools and apps that can address the labor-intensive process of finding and hiring great people. With the advent of social media and cloud apps, there are some great new solutions out there. From automated applicant responses to upgraded versions of old recruitment standbys, there’s a new guard of socially focused recruiting tools designed for your every hiring need. Here are a five to take note of.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. The Resumator

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


What it is: Applicant tracker, social recruiter, email replacer

How it works: This tool helps hiring managers keep real-time tabs on where their job listings are posted and who’s looking at them. Upload a job description to the site and it automatically posts it to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. After that, The Resumator tracks candidate resumes, and applies its own algorithm to rank applicants on a five-star scale. Better yet, it takes care of a part of the hiring process that often gets shortchanged — sending automated email replies when resumes are received and when a candidate must be declined. It also has a Twitter-like “What Makes You Unique” feature, where applicants describe what sets them apart in 150 characters or less. It’s a great way to quickly get a sense of the candidate’s personality.

Cost: $49 to $399 per month, based on volume


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Jobvite

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


What it is: End-to-end social web recruiting and tracking tool

How it works: Jobvite is an SaaS platform that delivers a seamless and social recruiting process before, during and after the interview. It leverages the very best source for great hires — your own employees — by allowing them to see your company’s open jobs and send targeted invitations to their friends on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Once their friends or contacts get into the pipeline, the referring employee can track the interview process. The tool also matches prospective candidates with job listings based on matches found in their social profiles, providing a way to find qualified “passive” candidates that, frankly, are more likely to be the folks you’ll want to hire.

Cost: $500 to $10,000 per month, based on company size

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. LinkedIn Talent Pro

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What it is: Extra access to the world’s largest professional network

How it works: If your and your employees’ networks come up empty on a key hire, it might be worth paying for access to qualified candidates that are outside those existing connections. Before you hire a recruiter, consider spending some money on LinkedIn Talent Pro. A Talent Pro account provides access to virtually everyone on LinkedIn and includes helpful extras like premium talent filters and expanded profiles. Subscribers can receive up to 15 notifications per day when Talent Pro finds a match among candidates that meet your stated criteria for the role. Because LinkedIn users consider their profile to be their “work self,” candidate searches based on job-related keywords can yield nicely targeted results.

Cost: $399 per month for an annual plan, or $499 on a month-by-month basis


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. BranchOut

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What it is: A Facebook app that allows users to easily network within their social graph

How it works: Most businesses ask for references from candidates they’re considering for hire, but BranchOut users can get broader insights, since the app collects feedback from the candidate’s own network on questions like, “Would Jeff make it to work in a snowstorm?” or “Would you want Nina as a boss?” BranchOut also makes it easy to connect with people in your extended social graph, and tap into their personal experience with potential candidates. Although still somewhat limited by the fact that only a small percentage of Facebook’s 500 million users include their job history in their profile, BranchOut can help reveal helpful contacts in your network and lead you to your next great hire — or wave you off from a bad one.

Cost: Free for users and recruiters, but charges $99 to post premium job listings


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5. InternMatch

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------





What it is: Match.com for companies looking for student interns

How it works: InternMatch is a recruiting service solely focused on part-time or unpaid internships. It’s a super-early stage company that debuted at a 500Startups demo day I attended last month, so be aware that they are only covering California, Washington and Oregon at this point. The service benefits from its tight focus, and also provides a lot of free advice and templates that can help any organization be more successful in recruiting and managing a college intern effectively. In my experience, the right intern can yield a really high ROI, but more often they become a very expensive “go-fer.” InternMatch raises the odds that you get the former.

Cost: $99 per listing, with a money-back guarantee if you don’t hire a new intern within 90 days


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

These tools make it easier to efficiently tap all of our increasingly digital networks and communication tools to find great hires. They should help you broaden your search, more efficiently harness your and your current employee’s social networks, and stay organized in the process. Whether you’re hiring for a startup or looking for summer interns who can do more than make coffee, these tools can help without costing an arm and a leg.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Famous LinkedIn Profiles - Social Media vs. Social Networking

Seems like everyone has "social media" in their profile these days, or at least about 600,000 on LinkedIn do (search for social media on LinkedIn to see). This got me wondering about the difference between two terms we all use a lot to describe Internet-based applications: Social Media and Social Networking; what is the difference? Social media allows anyone to broadcast content that others can discover, share, and comment on, while social networking allows people to connect around shared interests. Both types of software are used as part of broader marketing campaigns and both generally rely on viral marketing to bring in new users and so can grow at exponential rates.

The latest trend in advertising is to tie celebrities and authoritative voices into interactive advertising campaigns, although arguably this isn't all that new since advertisers have been using celebrities to market their products for years, known as the "celebrity endorsement". SocialMediaMarketing.com describes a case study where they recruited influential bloggers to lead as ambassadors as part of a large scale marketing campaign. Say Media took this one step further when they acquired the Typepad blogging platform last year. This is social media.
There is a special case of social networking I'd like to zero in on for this blog posting: What happens when famous people use social networking tools? In some cases such as the examples I give below, I think these people are trying to use social networking platforms as if they were social media platforms, and in my opinion, this usually fails spectacularly. Barack's campaign is one notable exception, but that was unique because his campaign invented a new way to use social networking tools, and I'd hesitate to call this either social networking or social media. I think we need a new term for this. Any ideas?

I recently discovered that a number of famous people appear to have their own LinkedIn profiles. At least I'm assuming these are real as I expect they would have been torn down if they were fake. Here are my personal favorite examples of celebrities trying to use LinkedIn as if it were a social media platform. I've just requested a direct connection with all of them. If I get any responses, I'll come back and edit this blog posting and let you know who let me in!

Sarah Palin's profile is just downright funny to read - her summary ends with such badly written English, you have to wonder how this could still be here online, but there it is:


"My fellow Americans, come join our cause. Join our cause and help our country to elect a great man the next president of the United States. And I thank you, and I -- God bless you, I say, and God bless America. Thank you."
Bill Gate's profile is awesome in it's conciseness. With only 38 connections it's pretty clear Bill is not using LinkedIn for its social networking capabilities. I'm guessing he wanted to try it out at some point and just abandoned his account. Maybe he thought his profile description would be a good way to describe himself to the LinkedIn community.
The man does not need to say much in his profile. He calls the Gates Foundation, the largest foundation in the world, "A humble initiative", and Microsoft, one of the most dominant software forces in history, "A small monument". A bit of false modesty? He never finished college though, so I don't know. One of his public recommendations appears to be this comment which probably wasn't meant to be public so I am a bit surprised that he'd post this:

"Great job on your promotions. Please contact executive assistants at MAP92112 @ gmail.com to work out details of future promotions."


Like Gates, this guy doesn't need to say much. His job description for being President simply says, "I am serving as the 44th President of the United States of America." This is the complete opposite of Bill's profile: millions of connections - over three million on facebook alone. This is not social networking in the sense that most people think of when they think of LinkedIn, yet at the same time, he never posted anything new on his LinkedIn profile so there could not have been much social media going on either. I think this was something else, neither social media nor social networking; it was a badge his fans could put on their profile to show their support to their own network.




Talk about not needing to say much, Britney has the shortest profile of the group. This is the entire profile:
Summary

It's Britney Bitch!
Specialties
Dancing and singing

With only 23 connections and not being open to accepting new connections, I'm guessing she's not using LinkedIn. I think the only reason she has a profile there is to provide a link to her real fan site.

Half of UK businesses ban social media at work

A study has revealed that almost 50% of UK companies prohibit employees from using social media at work.

The research, carried out by Lewis Communications and HCL Technologies, found that from the 2,500 businesses surveyed, 48% ban their workers from posting updates on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites.

So, whilst previous research has shown that social networking should be encouraged at work as it boosts moral and improves productivity, it seems that many companies still take a dim view of employees mixing business with pleasure.

And in a week that sees the very act of tweeting brought into the legal limelight with the super-injunction cases, it’s worth considering why businesses are still afraid of social media.

Most companies are comfortable with staff taking ten minutes out for a cup of coffee, a cigarette or a chat in the canteen. So what’s wrong with staff posting the odd status update or firing out the occasional tweet?

There seems to be a notion that employers are worried about sensitive information leaking to the outside world, or employees writing detrimental things about the company. But people can leak information or bad-mouth their employer outside of work hours anyway, so I don’t think that’s the real issue here.

It’s the seamless integration between work and social media that is really concerning companies. It’s all too easy to get distracted when a steady stream of tweets and status updates are arriving in via a minimised browser. Moreover, it’s difficult for employers to know when this is happening, whereas walking off for a coffee is more noticeable and transparent.

And then there’s the issue of smartphones. Even if employers block certain websites at work, most people these days have mobile access to social networks.

So, a blanket ban does seem a little absurd. Surely a ‘during allocated breaks or lunch-time’ approach would suffice, with employees’ contracts clearly stipulating that anything bad written about the company on a social networking website (either during working hours or otherwise) will lead to disciplinary procedures.

People should be trusted to manage their tasks effectively. If employers feel the need to force people off social networking sites completely at work, it’s akin to them saying they don’t trust their staff. Not the best way boost morale in any workforce. What do you think??

How to Monetize Social Media

Companies are not only getting the word out about their brands using social media such as Facebook and Twitter but are also making money.


Many business executives have not found sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Myspace, and Linkedin useful in making money. Building genuine online relationships that are also good for the bottom line is not so easy. There is a lot of trial and error. But while monetizing social media is difficult it is not impossible. There are companies that are getting the word out about their brands using social media and are turning a profit.

Take The New York Jets. The NFL team launched their Ultimate Fan social game in September 2010, which was the first revenue generating Facebook app to be backed by a pro sports team. The application lets football fans do online what they would normally do at home and in stadiums—root for their favorite teams and players, predict game scores, and hold a virtual tailgate party with other fans from across the globe. Ultimate Fan has since lured four major sponsors integrating their brands: MetLife, Motorola, SNY and HotelPlanner.com. This year, 10 percent of Jets sponsorships include a social media component; the team is planning to bump it up to 50 percent by next year, according to a spokesperson.

The Jets also communicate regularly on Twitter. They even advertised a Twitter-based contest to win tickets to their 2011 AFC playoff championship game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Jets are able to engage with their fans and make them feel like they are part of the team. They are leveraging social medial to capitalize on their fans' passion for the team and their willingness to share that fervor.

Like many companies, your social media efforts have started small and grew organically. To capitalize on those efforts to generate sales and revenues you need to have a team of people dedicated to your social media presence. You also will need a deep understanding of your audience, a creative vision, and a way to measure results in order to execute a successful strategy, says industry experts.

Here are some ways your social media can be monetized.

How to Monetize Social Media: Build Brand Awareness

The first step is to use traditional media or word-of-mouth advertising to drive awareness and traffic to your Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Linkedin or Myspace pages, says Jamie Turner, author of How to Make Money with Social Media. Unless you already have a recognizable brand like Nike or Apple, your brand needs to develop social media magnetism before you can look to make any money. You also need to create circular momentum across many platforms when designing your social media campaign, says Turner. By providing multiple channels for users to talk with you, you let customers choose the channel that they are most comfortable with, he adds; and by doing that you increase the likelihood that they'll connect with your brand in any number of ways.


How to Monetize Social Media: Engage Your Audience

Social media is about having a dialogue. When you have a dialogue with a customer or prospect, the communication is much more fulfilling and much more profitable, says Turner. The PETCO brand has developed a strong presence in social media. The pet store chain has a YouTube channel, its Facebook page generates a lot of discussions among pet owners, and there's lots of activity on its PETCO Scoop blog, which has received hundreds of 'likes' and comments. PETCO's customers are true pet lovers and treat their pets as part of the family. The company tries to keep conversation going by aiming Facebook and Twitter posts so that there's an explicit question to answer, or at least a specific piece of information to which people can react. Industry experts stress that you have to know your community and know how to take part within that community and through that create great content or conversation that will raise awareness and increase sales.

How to Monetize Social Media: Offer Special Promotions

Dell Computers exemplifies a company that is selling products using social media. Its Twitter page, @DellOutlet, offers discounts exclusively to followers. Dell might tweet 15 percent off any Dell Outlet laptop or desktop with a special coupon code entered at checkout so they'll know which tweet you are seeing. @DellOutlet also points you to a specific web page. There is some interaction in terms of chats with tweeters. @DellOutlet has garnered more than 1.6 million followers and generated more than $2 million in incremental revenues for Dell. Traditionally, Dell would have spent a lot of money running print ads. Today, they can write a 140-character promotion to reach customers.

PETCO is yet another example. The company provided a promo code to their customers for $40 in free shipping. The person who shared their code with the most people won a $500 PETCO gift card. About 40 percent of the sales that resulted from this promotional push came from new consumers. The desire to save a few bucks drove loyal PETCO customers to connect with the larger pet owner community and spread the word about the store via social media.

Measuring Social Media Effectiveness & Engagement

Using social media effectively, specifically for business, is not merely a popularity game – at least not anymore. At first, that was how we (business owners, marketers, communicators, etc.) measured the effectiveness of our efforts on sites like Twitter, Facebook and the like.

These days are gone – or they should be. No more “spray and pray”. No more throwing information, media like photos and video out on the Web and *hoping* someone looks at it, like your target audience.
Testing and measuring are all part of evaluating the effectiveness of a program. This goes for marketing, communications or public relations, advertising, etc. So why would we not do it with social media? If we aren’t tracking engagement or online interactions, sharing, retweeting, etc. how can we really know what’s going on with our brands online, our consumers online, etc.? We can’t.

If you aren’t tracking or monitoring your online engagement yet, start now.

Having trouble convincing your boss this is a valid path to take in communicating on behalf of the company? Track your efforts for 30 days and present it to them. Numbers, data and trends don’t lie. You can do this.

There are a myriad of tools available to help track what’s happening on your/your business’ social network. Some of them can be quite pricey and are generally set up for larger organizations. Don’t be discouraged though! You can do this on your own, without the cost.

We don’t just want to measure how many fans or followers we have, but what we are doing with them. It doesn’t matter if your company Facebook page has 2,000 “likes” or “fans”, if none of them are commenting, liking, posting or sharing with you. They could have hidden the page from their stream or just tuned out. By measuring you’ll know!

All you need is Excel and some of the backend data readily available as admins on your various social media accounts. Set up the spreadsheet with the far left column as the account platforms. Starting from top to bottom you’ll list them all – Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Digg, Vimeo, LinkedIn, etc. You can even include the company blog if you have access to that.

Then, across the top row you’ll plug in your measurement categories. These should include some or all of these, or at least a close variation:
- Audience (This is fans, followers, subscribers, readers, etc. depending on the platform)
- Activity (This is what YOU’VE done – posts, comments, uploads, etc. during the given measurement timeframe)
- Engagement (Here’s where we start getting some real information – user comments, likes, linkbacks, shares, conversations or DMs on Twitter, mentions, RTs, etc.)
- Web Traffic (Available from your site tracking system – think Google Analytics – How many visitors to your Website came from each platform?)
- Lead Generation (What the bosses care about. Connect with your sales team or incoming call coordinator to start tracking where customers come from. DON’T accept “internet” – ask them to be more specific as to which page, if possible.)

Armed with information, you can now make decisions as to which platforms works best for your company, what areas might need improvement or where they may be an opportunity.

Start tracking, testing and measuring today. Your effectiveness is guaranteed to improve.

Social media replaces phone on the road

A whopping 80% of travellers in a new study say they access social media sites throughout the day, while more than 60% now use social media to reach family and friends on the road. As many as 39% say they can’t live without social media, with one-third of users logging on multiple times an hour. The results show clearly that social media has become the number one contact tool while on the road.

Waiting for word from a loved one on the road? Don’t sit by the phone. These days, chances are they’ll keep in touch through social media, according to a survey released yesterday by Sheraton Hotels & Resorts.

More than 60% of respondents in the global social media study use social media to stay in touch with family and friends while traveling; more than a third (36%) say they’d rather log on than make a call to share good news.

Overall, survey respondents ranked social media somewhere near air and water as a must-have in their lives. Four-fifths of respondents said they access social networking sites throughout the day, while 39% said they “could not live without” social media sites. One-third of respondents said they log in multiple times each hour. Habits barely shift on the road. One fifth of respondents say that they check social networking sites multiple times throughout the day while traveling.

The global study was conducted by Studylogic LLC, which surveyed 4,204 people via phone in the USA, UK and China. Sheraton recently completed the roll-out of its signature offering “Link@Sheraton experienced with Microsoft,” a technology-driven social hub that keeps travelers connected 24/7 at nearly 400 hotels around the world.

Social Networking Blurs Lines between Business, Pleasure
Careful what you post. Before meeting a new business contact, more than half of those surveyed check out their new contact’s social networking profiles (54%). Nearly 60% say they have not hired a candidate based on a negative impression from a social-media profile. More than half (54%) of respondents say they know someone who has been fired for something said or posted online.

Regardless of pitfalls, social networking’s popularity as a networking tool continues to grow. More than half of all respondents (56%) agreed about the importance of doing business with people active in social media channels; 55% use online social networking to meet new business contacts and maintain current ones.

And many use social media to mix business and pleasure – literally. More than half of those surveyed have arranged a romantic interlude on the road using social networks, with men more likely to do so (45%) than women (40%).

Fact or Fiction?
Don’t always believe what you read. Nearly 70% of respondents say they aren’t honest on social networking sites; 27% of those fib “a little,” 21% flat-out “lie,” and 20% admit that their postings are total fabrications. Women are more inclined to tell little white lies online; men were more likely to be 100% honest (46%) versus their female counterparts (18%).

Who Are People Visiting While on the Road?
More than 50% of all Sheraton guests use the Link@Sheraton during their stay. Facebook is the most visited site at the Link@Sheraton, with 75% of Link users logging in during their stay. More than 60% of those surveyed (62%) find that social media makes it easier for them to meet people while traveling for work.

Social Media as a Travel Planning Tool: 64% say yes
64% said they use social media to make their travel plans and within the 25-34 year old participant group, the number is even higher; 76% look to popular social media sites to plan their next getaway.

”Along with the bigger shift toward social media from other forms of communication, what the survey drove home for us was that an experience like Link@Sheraton isn’t a luxury for guests, but a necessity,” said Hoyt Harper, SVP and Global Brand Leader for Sheraton Hotels & Resorts. “They expect total connectivity.”

Designed as a social environment, The Link@Sheraton invites guests to interact with each other while they check their email, research local attractions and even print boarding passes using free Wi-Fi and Internet-enabled computer stations. It also features a Link@Sheraton Café, televisions and daily newspapers.

Social networking to replace email by 2014

The business benefits of social software platforms will lead to email being replaced as the primary means of communication by 2014, according to analyst Gartner.

Increasing business use of tools such as Twitter and Facebook has resulted in more demand for such systems, says the firm, which predicts that 20 per cent of organisations will use them as their key communication medium by 2014.

Greater security, the availability of the so-called “white-labelled” social networks and more tolerance from organisations allowing use of personal accounts at work are among the factors influencing the business uptake of such tools, says the study.

"The rigid distinction between email and social networks will erode as both become more developed. Email will take on many social attributes, such as contact brokering, while social networks will develop richer email capabilities, " said Matt Cain, research vice president at Gartner.

"While email is already almost fully penetrated in the corporate space, we expect to see steep growth rates for sales of premises and cloud-based social networking services," he said.

The analyst also predicts that in the next couple of years more than half of global businesses will be engaged in some sort of microblogging, with more control and security features, though standalone enterprise use of Twitter-like tools will have less than five per cent penetration.

And only 25 per cent of businesses will routinely use social network analysis to improve performance and productivity through 2015, according to research.

The study adds that more than 70 per cent of IT-led social media projects will fail as technology departments tend to provide an IT solution rather than a social solution that targets specific business value. Gartner says that businesses will need to develop better skills to be able to develop adequate social media solutions.

Gartner also predicts more activity around the development of mobile-based collaborative tools over the next few years.

"As more organisations consider replacing desk phones with mobile phones, they may wish to anchor their collaboration tools also on the mobile phone," said Ken Dulaney, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.

Using Social Media for the Success of Small and Medium Businesses

If there’s one aspect small and medium-sized businesses should look into, it’s social media marketing. And it is proving to be an integral part of today’s business landscape, adapting to the rapidly evolving socially-aware Web.

Word-of-mouth has been transmuted to real-time tweets. TV reportage has been elevated to live Web streams and on-demand videos. Generally pandering advertisements have been turned into messages especially targeted to specific members of the brand’s client base.

All these have set the stage for newer practices and technologies, bringing in much brand and product-driven successes than traditional marketing tactics could ever hope to achieve. True enough, social media has proven to be a stable marketing platform, so if your company has yet to jump onboard the dynamic phenomenon that is social media marketing, you are missing out on a lot of its great benefits.

Follow the Market
According to a recent study titled “What Do Americans Do Online,” social media has risen as the number one American pastime, beating all other online activities. In fact, the Internet Advertising Bureau agrees, even claiming that “If you’re not on a social networking site, you’re not on the Internet.”

Indeed, a massive social migration is taking place and this shouldn’t come as a surprise with celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Ashton Kutcher driving social networking sites to massive popularity. As such, social media is where the consumers are, and that is where you should set your online marketing focus on.

Ramp up Your Presence
Unless you’re carrying a pretty popular brand, it may not be easy to find you online. So take the extra step by introducing your company and your products to social media by setting up a blog and then creating profiles on Facebook and Twitter, among others. That way, people who like your products can easily find and connect with you online—and you can even pull in untapped markets through their own contacts. These can also serve as effective search engine optimization tools to drive significant traffic to your Web site and help boost your client base.

If you have a physical store, you can also invite your customers to visit, shop and sample your products. To do this, you can have your location listed on geolocation services like Facebook Places, Yelp, Google Places and both Foursquare and Gowalla. These sites will allow you to include contact details, embed maps, photos and would allow subscribers to rate and review their visit; thus increases mentions online.

Better News Distribution
Naturally, as the number of followers grows on your social profiles, you can offer your demographic different ways to receive news updates about your products or any promotion you may have. With its easy accessibility and scalable publishing capabilities, social media offers many great distribution platforms like blogs, live chat rooms, multimedia streams and social networking status updates.

Most notable of these are Facebook’s News Feed and Twitter’s stream. Because they deliver your message in real-time, you provide your followers with the freshest updates as they come, and they can react immediately—by taking part, asking questions or by spreading your message to whoever they think would be interested in their own circles. These services would also let you embed relevant photos, videos and links to give better context to your message.

Improve Social Engagements
Traditional marketing tactics would dictate that we appeal to a majority of people within our demographic. Social media marketing, on the other hand, lets you target factions of any given group, or even specific individuals. By responding to comments on your Facebook’s Wall posts or on your blog’s entries, you can address the general needs of your audience and directly engage with individuals. And this can reflect positively on your brand, showing that you’re there to listen and can also serve as an extension of the customer service hotline.

While these will keep your followers informed, you can up the value your presence offers by also showing your own personality and share other relevant content online you think others will find interesting and useful.

Enhance Your Reputation
As with the nature of social media, everyone online is given a voice. And with it, they freely express their opinions about anything, whether they are singing their praises about a company or harshly criticizing it for its bad service. And this is one unavoidable fact that happens to all brands—whether you’re a top brass institution in your industry with a global presence, or a local cottage industry with a small but loyal customer base. In this regard, social media is just the tool you’ll need as you manage your reputation online.

You can level the playing field using its many messaging platforms, addressing concerns, clarifying issues and thanking commendations as they come. You can publish a response to a rising concern on your blog, link to it from Twitter or Facebook and maybe produce a video to assure your customers of your stance and the series of actions you will take to resolve the issue.

Tweet your way to a job? Maybe

Mitchell Strobl is your average college junior at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., but the way he landed his new job is distinctly 21st century.

“I came across this Web site [through] a link that was posted [on my Facebook wall],” said Strobl, 20. The site lined up with his interests perfectly, and after contacting the president of HuntingLife.com, he was soon hired to become a writer and then a product reviewer for the hunting and conservation news site.

Stories like Strobl’s are rare, especially in a job market as tough as this one. The U.S. economy lost 95,000 jobs in September, and the unemployment rate is 9.6%, according to the Labor Department. As a result, new graduates and young professionals are trying new tools to improve their chances of finding work. Read more on U.S. economy sheds 95,000 jobs in September.

“Social media is a great way to learn about different employers as well as build professional networks that will help create opportunities and open doors,” said Holly Paul, PwC’s U.S. recruiting leader. “I do think now that social media is so prolific and being used by students that…it’s an additive to what they’re doing to connect with other individuals that can help them in their job search.”

A month ago, the buzz about finding work via social-media sites hit a new high. After creating YouTube Instant, a replica of real-time search engine Google Instant for searching videos on YouTube, a 19-year-old Stanford student received a job offer via Twitter — even less than the 140-character limit — from Chad Hurley, co-founder and chief executive of YouTube.

While the success stories generate a lot of excitement, and may prompt some job seekers to rely solely on social media, career experts say that’s not a smart move.

“You really have to be careful with Twitter or Facebook, because it can seduce you into an informality that can really backfire,” said Lonnie Dunlap, director of career services at Northwestern University. “I do think that the traditional methods have to be there. And they have to be very well done. You can get someone’s attention through LinkedIn, but your goal is to get an interview.”

And keep in mind that the hard-copy resume and cover letter are far from obsolete. Mary Spencer, director of career placement at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, said she’s seen an increase in employers asking for paper rather than electronic portfolios at job fairs.

Also, a problem with social media such as Facebook and Twitter is that they may reveal too much personal information to potential employers. Paul, of PwC, oversees new hires and she said social media can cause an unnecessary mix-up of work and personal life. Her suggestion is to keep certain types of social networks completely personal — she says that’s how she uses Facebook — and other types completely professional, such as LinkedIn.

She said job candidates who don’t use social media aren’t likely to be penalized for that by prospective employers. “I personally don’t think that we’re there yet. The employer isn’t there yet,” she said. “The issue with students not using those [methods] means that they are not using a channel and an avenue right there in front of them for free.”

Tips to improve your chances
The degree to which your job hunt on social-media sites is successful may depend on the type of position being sought. For instance, most public-relations firms already connect to people through Twitter and have designated Facebook pages. Same goes for corporate communications positions. However, Kevin Nicols, the chief executive of a small publishing company, said that a search for any job — entry level and professional — can be enhanced through social media.

Three years ago, Nicols started two LinkedIn groups in the San Francisco Bay Area; they now have about 1,500 members. He said social networking is a tried and true method that has worked for him, as well as many of the people in his group. With social media, applicants are able to connect with people within certain companies who can act as an advocate for them within the company.

Nicols offered the following tips for using social media to enhance your job search:

•Become an active participant on a social network.

•Find people within your desired industry and let them know you’re searching.

•Once you become introduced to someone online, even though that might “soften the blow of cold calling,” don’t forget that meeting people face-to-face is still the ultimate goal.

•Practice what Nicols calls “good job karma” — rather than just asking for help from others, do your part to give back and help others out.

Finally, don’t forget that it’s not always as easy as some make it seem. Brittany Sykes, a recent graduate of Penn State University, has been on the lookout for a public-relations job in the entertainment industry since May. Sykes, 22, said she hasn’t had too much luck, although she follows many PR firms on Twitter and has seen a fair amount of job postings.

The job search can be challenging, she said, but the use of social media is bringing a little hope in her search. “I get stressed out sometimes when my parents drive me crazy [about finding a job]”, she said. “But I get really excited when I make some type of connection.”