It’s the Holy Grail of interactive marketing: getting “social media influencers”—the ones with the voice and the reach, the ones to whom everyone else listens—to endorse and promote what you’re doing.

Recently, my company managed to inspire 60 such influencers to participate in our event, called The Influencer Project, and they even took it upon themselves to help spread the word.

People like Social Media Examiner’s own Michael Stelzner, Guy Kawasaki, Robert Scoble, Gary Vaynerchuk, David Meerman Scott, and others all signed on. We were grateful beyond belief.

Some of the brightest minds in social media spoke at The Influencer Project.

Why’d they come on board? And how’d we do it?

First Things First: No-one Cares About Your Brand

It takes creativity to inspire others.

Many of us who are new to the social media space want influencers to “get behind” our brands, products and special events.

We think we can just reach out to them, and if we have a great thing going on, they’ll naturally want to endorse what we’re doing.

It’s an honest mistake, usually, but it does backfire—or at least, it won’t get you the results you’re looking for.

Of course, if you have deep reserves of cash, you may be able to afford paying handsomely for a big name to review your product—although, to be sure, that can get into very tricky ethical territory and is a delicate issue.

But for the rest of us—for those who don’t have tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on “influencer outreach”—we have to be a little more creative.

In fact, we have to get rid of the very idea of “trying” to “get” a social media influencer to “back” our brand.

Instead, we need to create innovative ways to inspire not only well-known influencers, but also large numbers of participants, to join a project, a cause, an initiative. And that takes a different kind of thinking—one that I’ll explain below.

How to Inspire a Social Media Influencer

The thing is, no-one wants to be your salesperson—unless they are, of course, being paid to sell your products. But everyone—social media influencers included—wants to be part of something that’s bigger than them, that’s creative and that brings new ideas into the world.

So, without any further ado, here are my 5 creative ways for inspiring web celebrities to come on board with what you’re doing:

#1: Don’t Ask for an Endorsement

Don’t ask them to endorse a product or site. Instead, create a project—related to, but independent of, your brand—that they can get behind. Think about the “Yes We Can” video that will.i.am created for Barack Obama’s campaign.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsV2O4fCgjk

Regardless of your political leaning, there’s a lesson here. Yes, will.i.am’s a celebrity. And yes, Hollywood is known for bringing other celebrities on board political campaigns. But that’s not the fundamental point. The point is that there was a cause, an initiative, a project that people wanted to get behind, that inspired them to act—and they did.

This is what you need. You want to create something that many people will join. A cause, a vision.

#2: Make it “Memetic”

Memetic means that it has a meme-like quality. Well, what’s a meme, you ask? In its simplest definition, a meme is an idea that spreads from person to person, one that’s so “catchy” that people almost can’t help but to spread it.

“Yes We Can” was a meme.

A meme is bigger than a brand. Just Do It is a meme. No Fear is a meme. The Red Bull Flugtag is a meme. It’s something that people can identify with, make their own and share with others. If you’re simply trying to strong-arm a social media influencer into singing your brand’s praises, good luck. But if you have a project that has memetic quality, then you’re on the right track.

#3: But Make it Values-Driven, too

A meme unto itself isn’t enough. Sure, you could get lots of YouTube video views by trying to replicate something like a funny hamster, but you won’t be enrolling people in a vision.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8Kyi0WNg40

In other words, you won’t be providing extraordinary value—to the end user or to the influencer.

On the other hand, if your project provides overwhelming value and is memetic, then you’re not only sure to inspire people, you’ll also be making the world a better place.

It makes business sense, too. Simply trying to make a campaign “go viral” for the sake of going viral is far riskier than creating a project that offers tremendous benefit. In our case, we provided users with more than 60 helpful tips that they could use to increase their digital influence in 60 minutes. They heard from luminaries they respected.

Everyone won. There was no attempt to manipulate people to act on our behalf for a hollow goal. It was values-driven all the way around.

#4: Reduce the Barriers to Entry

There are two things all of us have an increasingly short supply of: time and attention. Unless you’re Apple or Microsoft and you’re offering a blogger a sneak peek at your new product, asking someone to write a whole blog post about you—or, for example, do an hour-long webinar to your not-quite-robust-enough-yet list of subscribers—is going to make getting a “yes” a lot harder.

In our case, we only asked for 60 seconds of the speaker’s time. The proposition was often met with enthusiasm. “Sure, I’d love to do a 60-second interview!” It was fun, short and interesting. There’s no way we would have gotten 60 busy people to do full-hour interviews each right off the bat. So we made it radically easy for them to say “yes.”

But that’s only part of the picture: we also made it incredibly easy for the audience to say “yes.” For only an hour of their time, we were going to give them 60 tips from 60 experts. Not a bad deal. And that’s exactly what we heard from participants: it was completely manageable and reasonable to take one hour to learn from so many people.

So don’t just reduce the barriers for those you want to headline your campaign, also make it easy for your intended audience to participate.

#5: Be Creative, but Err on the Side of Accessibility

When describing his company’s financial practices, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff said that while his software-as-a-service platform may have been revolutionary, his bookkeeping methods were as traditional as they get.

Similarly, I believe that it’s important to let your creativity and imagination run wild, and to create something new—for example, to take a conventional idea (say, marketing conference) and challenge it (the shortest marketing conference ever). But I see far too many campaigns that feature weird, wild and avant-garde stuff without making it accessible to the end users.

The “60-in-60″ idea was new. But it wasn’t “43-in-68.” We didn’t ask them to speak for 10 seconds. We didn’t request that they sing, dance or rap. In other words, it all made sense—both to them and to the audience. “60 tips” is still an attractive value proposition, and participants felt that they truly benefited from the advice.

But the other side of completely inaccessible and avant-garde is utter banality. Think of the typical webinar, conference or jargon-ridden special report. Sure, those can be great as ongoing lead-generation sources, but not as a way to get noticed and build digital influence rapidly.

So even though I’d recommend erring on the side of accessibility, I still want to challenge and encourage you to come up with something innovative.

Now the Ball’s in Your Court

Hopefully, these tips have given your creative faculties some juice to explore what you can do to inspire social media influencers—and your target audience—to join your cause.

What do you think? Have you had success recruiting influencers? Put your comments in the box below.

One of the great things about blogging is how easy it is to set up a blog on any of the multitude of blogging platforms. While there are many options for building your blog, one of the most popular platforms is WordPress.org.

However, what you get when you set up a WordPress blog can be pretty basic depending on the theme you choose. To make your new blog sing and work for you, it’s a good idea to install some key plugins.

Photo credit: Shutterstock.com

Plugins extend and expand the functionality of your WordPress blog. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of plugins you can add to your site to optimize it, customize it, add some bling, make it easy for your readers to navigate and so much more.

Which Plugins Should You Use?

When it comes to plugins, how do you choose which to add to your blog?

To come up with this list, I asked my Facebook fans for suggestions.

Popular plugins fall into a couple of categories: those that enhance your readers’ experience, and those behind the scenes that help you with blog management and optimization.

How to Install Plugins

For the sake of brevity, I picked a finite number to feature. I encourage you to post your favorites in the comments and collectively we can create a great resource of tried and tested plugins.

To install any of these plugins, log in to your WordPress admin dashboard, click on Plugins and then search by name (see figure below).

The Impressive Plugins

What follows are 24 WordPress plugins you should consider.

#1: Audio player:

A simple mp3 player for all your audio needs. You can customize the player’s color scheme to match your blog theme, have it automatically show track information from the encoded ID3 tags and more.

#2: Viper’s Video Quicktags

Super-easy way to add videos from YouTube and other video sharing platforms to your posts.

#3: Photo Dropper

Lets you easily find and add creative commons licensed photos to your posts from Flickr. You can watch a quick tutorial here about how Photo Dropper works.

#4: Sexy bookmarks

Nice visual graphics that encourage your reader to share your posts (as seen on this site). You can select from dozens of social sites, though I recommend keeping it to 5-7 popular sites so you don’t overwhelm your readers.

Make it easy for your readers to share your content.

#5: FBLikebutton

Allows you to configure and display the Facebook Like button before and/or after each post and/or page. If you want to increase your visibility on Facebook, this is a required plugin.

#6: Tweetmeme Retweet button

It’s ubiquitous now. The TweetMeme Retweet button is the de facto standard in retweeting – used by some of the biggest websites in the world. It increases your reach across the web.

#7: Disqus comment system

A service and tool for web comments and discussions. Disqus makes commenting easier and more interactive, while connecting websites and commenters across a thriving discussion community. (Used on this site.)

#8: CommentLuv

In addition to Disqus, CommentLuv is a very popular commenting plugin. When installed, it visits the site of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieves a selection of their last blog posts, tweets or Digg submissions that they can choose from to include at the bottom of their comment when they click Submit. This has been proven to increase click-throughs and is a great tool for increasing community engagement.

Comment Luv rewards commenters with a link back to their blog.

#9: Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Gives you a list of posts and/or pages related to the current entry, introducing the reader to other relevant content on your site. This encourages readers to go deeper into your content.

Based on post titles, content, tags, and categories, YARRP creates a list of related posts.

#10 & 11: Contact Form 7 and cformsII

You want your readers to contact you about one thing or another: for support, to post questions, to request info about your services, etc. I found that the basic WordPress contact form was not flexible enough. Contact Form 7 and cformsII both have features that allow you to create and manage multiple forms on your site. Both are simple to customize and you can direct the responses to be sent to any email address for management. You can see an example of a cformsII form here.

#12: Twitter Tools

A complete integration between your WordPress blog and Twitter. Bring your tweets into your blog and pass your blog posts to Twitter. Show your tweets in your sidebar and post tweets from your WordPress admin.

Twitter Tools automates the connection between your blog and your twitter account.

#13: WordPress Editorial Calendar

The Editorial Calendar makes it possible to see all your posts and drag and drop them to manage your blog. It’s a great tool for planning and organizing your posts.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4BnQZsgtZc

#14: All in one SEO

This one is on just about everyone’s list. Out-of-the-box SEO for your WordPress blog.

#15: SEO Scribe (monthly fee)

This tool was mentioned several times by folks on my Facebook page. It is the brainchild of Brian Clark (Copyblogger). As stated on the website, “Scribe is a search engine optimization software service that analyzes the content of web pages, blog posts, online press releases, or any other web content … then reports back and tells you how to tweak your content to get better search engine rankings and more traffic, all while maintaining quality reader-focused copy.”

#16 & 17: Widget Context and Widget Logic

Both of these plugins give you flexibility and control to choose on what pages your sidebar widgets show up. This is helpful if you create sales and landing pages on your domain and do not want sidebar content distracting the visitor.

Widget Context gives you the option to choose what pages you want a widget to be visible.

#18: WP Touch

Automatically transforms your WordPress blog into an iPhone application-style theme when viewed from iPhone, iPod touch, Android, Opera Mini, Palm Pre and BlackBerry Storm mobile devices (used on this site).

#19: WP Mobile

Shows an interface designed for a mobile device when visitors come to your site on a mobile device. Mobile browsers are automatically detected; the list of mobile browsers can be customized on the settings page.

#20: WordPress Database Backup

On-demand backup of your WordPress database. You’ve got to back up your blog on a regular basis or you risk losing everything. Do it monthly at a minimum, more frequently if you post a lot. Enough said.

#21: Google Analytics

It should go without saying that you need to know what’s happening on your blog: how many visitors, page views, referral sources, exit pages.

#22, 23 & 24: Subscription

I also strongly recommend adding an email subscription widget to your blog. The top three in my opinion are Feedblitz (fee), Feedburner (free) and AWeber (fee).

Each of these subscriptions offers a variety of features from basic (Feedburner) to a complete customized newsletter-style delivery system for your blog content (Feedblitz). Technically these are not plugins. WordPress defines widget as “independent sections of content that can be placed into any widgetized area provided by your theme (commonly called sidebars).” Each of these email delivery options requires you to have an account and then you configure subscription form HTML to paste in the sidebar of your blog (it’s not hard, really).

A word of caution. When you’re building your blog, try not to go too crazy with the plugins and widgets. Think about what you want your blog to do for your business and install the plugins that support your goals. That being said, you may also want to test various plugins to find the ones that suit you best. They’re easy to install, activate and deactivate if you decide they’re not right for you.

Now it’s your turn. Do you use any of these plugins? If so, how are they working? Did I miss any of your favorites? Leave a comment in the box below.

Does your business have a Facebook page? Have you ever wondered what successful Facebook page owners are doing right? Well, look no further.

This article examines 10 of the top Facebook pages from brands you’ll likely recognize. Regardless of the size of your business, you’ll discover great ideas that will help you take your Facebook experience to the next level.

Each of these pages has incorporated unique features that have attracted hundreds of thousands (sometimes millions!) of fans and attracted the notice of major media publications. That’s a pretty big feat, considering there are thousands of new pages popping up on Facebook daily!

There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Instead, check out what others are doing and tweak these strategies to make them your own!

#1: Red Bull

The team behind the Red Bull page is extremely in tune with their target audience. This is evidenced in their custom apps and unique content throughout their page.

Red Bull knows what their audience will respond to best and they deliver it. For example, they’ve created a series of online games for their fans, aptly called the “Procrastination Station.” The games are geared toward sports and high-impact competitions.

In addition, Red Bull created a web TV program that’s highlighted on their Facebook page. There are multiple segments, many spotlighting the lives of their sponsored athletes. Not only is the web TV show a great way to align with celebrity athletes, but it is also a way to incorporate video into the page, thereby giving the audience another way to interact.

Another smart feature of Red Bull’s page is their welcome tab. When a non-fan lands on their page, he or she sees the image below. Red Bull creatively encourages fans to “Like” their page with an attention-grabbing image. Also, they only put one thing on their welcome tab, making it very clear what they want to happen. When you add too much to your welcome tab, your fans will get confused and likely not take any action. Less is more. Stick to one call to action.

Tip: One area you might want to consider spending a little money on is creative design for your page. Design, when done right, makes a great first impression for non-fans. Also, when you design your Facebook page, pay close attention to your call to action, specifically for the “Like” button. What can you do to grab the attention of your new viewer and encourage him or her to click on your “Like” button quickly? Red Bull’s creative design on their welcome tab does just that!

#2: Burt’s Bees

One of the best features on the Burt’s Bees page is their use of photos and video. They use the photos and videos to give a behind-the-scenes view of their company and products.

In the image below, notice how Burt’s Bees not only mentions the type of ingredients used, but they also suggest their ingredients are safe and they welcome all visitors into their lab. This is a great example of a way to promote your company and products, while adding value in the form of interesting details.

Tip: We all have something unique about our products or services and Facebook is one of the best places to highlight this. How can you incorporate video or images to help you stand out from your competition?

#3: Uno Chicago Grill

Uno Chicago Grill has taken full advantage of the Facebook app FBML to highlight their menu options in an extremely appealing way. They have many tabs dedicated to specific areas of their menu and use imagery to entice their fans. In addition, on their welcome tab they link to the most important areas of their website, including locations and online ordering options. When non-fans come to their page for the first time, they get an instant snapshot of Uno’s offerings.

In addition, Uno has incorporated a Fan of the Week contest on their Facebook page. Fans get their photo posted directly on the profile image of the restaurant’s wall.

This is great exposure for the fan, making it a fun activity to participate in.

To take it one step further, Uno does something unique with their Fan of the Week contest—they ask fans to post photos of themselves while at an Uno restaurant, thereby encouraging fans to come in and dine.

This is a great way to bring their online fans into their brick-and-mortar establishment!

Tip: If you have a brick-and-mortar establishment, think of creative ways to entice your fans to visit in person. Contests, promotions and special offers are all great ways to invite new fans to come in and check things out!

#4: LiveScribe

LiveScribe has incorporated two features into their page to help them sell more products and cut back on support calls.

First, they’ve created a savvy storefront as one of their tabs. Not only can you buy directly from the Facebook page, but you can also tweet about their products and post about them on your Facebook wall. These two options help create greater exposure for LiveScribe’s products. When your friends see that you’re posting about a new product, it’s natural for them to want to know more.

In addition, LiveScribe has incorporated a support desk directly into their Facebook page. As you can see below, you can ask a question, share an idea, report a problem or even give praise directly from their Facebook page. What’s even more important is that others can see these posts. Fans and potential buyers can then go to this tab to get answers or see what others are saying about the products.

It’s another great way to educate fans about your products and services. In addition, this tool can cut down service calls when executed correctly, saving your company time and money.

Tip: If you’re providing a product or service, consider incorporating a support feature to your page. It’s common for customers to use social media sites to post questions or complaints. If you provide a designated place for support, you’re likely to keep your customers happy and turn them into repeat buyers!

#5: Toy Story 3

Toy Story 3 has done an exceptional job of making their page both fun and functional. The fun factor is expressed in their new application, Toy Creator, where you can turn yourself into an animated toy. Both kids and adults can get in on the action and then share their new creation on their Facebook wall (yet another viral exposure opportunity!).

To make their page functional, they’ve built a tab where you can purchase movie tickets without ever leaving Facebook. This makes ticket buying easy and fast for their fans.

Tip: Keep your fans inside Facebook as much as possible. Bring your content, unique experiences and buying opportunities to them instead of making fans leave the site to interact with your business. Your chances for greater interactions and a bigger return on investment will dramatically increase the longer you keep them on your page.

#6: Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola has secured their spot at the top of many best-of-the-best Facebook page lists due to their innovative promotions and fun, interactive features.

Their latest promotion is the Summer Snapshot contest, where they encourage their fans to take photos with the summer Coca-Cola cans. Not only does this get fans involved with their page, but the contest also incorporates photos of their products with fans.

Photos are viewed more than anything else on Facebook. They go viral quickly because when a fan posts a photo, that photo is then sent out to the news feeds of all of their friends. Hundreds of thousands of potentially new fans will see these photos.

Here’s an example of a photo a fan posted for the Coca-Cola contest. Notice how others can vote on the photos? This allows everyone to get in on the fun.

Tip: When creating a contest, keep it simple. The less your fans need do to enter, the better. Make it easy, fun and make sure to incorporate a sharing component so your contest spreads virally.

#7: Oreo

Oreo does a fantastic job of creating unique experiences for their fans. Oreo knows that their cookies have been part of many people’s lives since childhood and they use this angle to create nostalgia with their fans. And it’s working for them because they have over 8 million fans to date!

One of their latest campaigns is their “Back to School Memories” campaign where they ask their fans to share their memories and photos directly on their Facebook page. By offering unique experiences like Oreo has done with their back to school campaign, brands create a connection to the fans, who become loyal followers and keep coming back for more.

Tip: You’ll get a much greater response when you ask your fans to share something about themselves. Ask them their thoughts, opinions and feedback and you’ll be pleasantly surprised how quickly they start talking!

#8: Jones Soda

Jones Soda does a great job of incorporating many different ways for their fans to interact with their page. Not everyone communicates the same way, so providing multiple options is a smart strategy.

Specifically, Jones Soda does a weekly poll directly from their welcome tab. Polls are a great way to learn more about your audience as well as a fun strategy to get them to interact with your page.

Tip: Think of different ways to get your fans to engage with you. Polls, contests, questions, iPhone apps and videos are just a few different ways to reach your fans. All fans are different; make sure to provide options.

#9: The Twilight Saga

No matter if you have seen the movies or not, you can’t deny that the Twilight Saga is hot. There are two strategies they’ve launched on their Facebook page that you can model for your own page.

First, they’ve created a “Tweet Sweeps,” where they encourage fans to tweet about the movies for a chance to win movie tickets. The best strategy with this type of contest is to tell fans specifically what to tweet so there is no confusion and they can take action quickly. Check out how they’ve done this in the image below:

In addition, the Twilight Saga page has taken advantage of the “Discussion” tab where fans can post topics of discussion and all fans can join in and comment. The discussion tab creates a great sense of community and dramatically increases the engagement on the page.

Tip: To encourage more conversation among fans on your page, start a few discussion streams to get people talking. Once this takes off, your fans will continue to post discussion topics on their own and the page engagement will grow organically.

#10: Travel Channel

The Travel Channel has done something unique on their page that’s worth checking out. They’ve created a space for their fans to share how Facebook has played a part in their travel experiences. You can post your own story or just read what others have posted. It’s a creative way to get people with similar interests to engage with your page.

Tip: Facebook Stories can be incorporated on your page as well. Go here to see how it works and check out the different story themes offered.

Want to Learn More About Facebook Marketing?

If you’re not fully leveraging the power of Facebook, don’t worry. You’re not alone. Most businesses are just now getting started with Facebook.

There’s one easy way to take your Facebook marketing to the next level. By attending the web’s largest online Facebook conference, Facebook Success Summit 2010, you’ll become empowered to use Facebook to gain more exposure, better engage customers and grow your business.

The great part is you’ll be learning from 22 Facebook experts. Join Brian Solis, Mari Smith, Jesse Stay, Paul Dunay and experts from Intel, Cisco, Microsoft Xbox and SAP as they reveal proven Facebook marketing tactics at Facebook Success Summit 2010.

It’s the web’s largest online Facebook marketing conference. Go here for a free sample and to learn more.

What do you think about the above Facebook pages? Have you tried any of these techniques with success? Let us know! Please leave your comments below.

As early as 2008, networking giant Cisco was well along in its social media evolution.  Back then you could find the company on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Yet something was missing – the hard business case for social media.  Like most companies, Cisco knew it was benefiting from social media, but it couldn’t prove it.

The launch of a new router using only social media would provide the proof Cisco’s marketers were seeking.

The results surprised even the social media enthusiasts. With this single project, the company shaved six figures off its launch expenses and set a new precedent for future product launches.

“It was classified as one of the top five launches in company history,” said LaSandra Brill, senior manager, global social media. “It was the crossing the chasm point for us in the adoption phase of social media and helped us get over the hump of internal acceptance.”

Router Launch: Promotion Through Play

Up to that point, the traditional product launch went something like this:

• Fly in more than 100 executives and press members from 100 countries to headquarters in San Jose, California
• Take a few hours of the CEO’s or an executive’s time to prep and present
• Distribute well-crafted – but static – press releases to key media
• Email customers
• Run print ads in major business newspapers and magazines

For its Aggregated Services Router (ASR) launch, Cisco aimed to execute entirely online leveraging social media, and in doing so, engage network engineers in a more interactive, fun way.

Cisco met its audience where they were – in online venues and the gaming world. Here’s how:

Second Life – The company built a stage with big-screen monitors, chairs for the audience and palm trees for its flagship launch event – entirely in a Second Life environment. It then piped in video of executives presenting the ASR.

Network engineers or the press could board their own “personal transport device” to surf through a virtual router.

To generate pre-launch buzz, the team held a concert in Second Life featuring eight bands over seven hours.

An executive presents the new ASR in a live Second Life event.

A 3D Game – More than 20,000 network engineers learned as they played a 3D game, wherein they “defended the network” using the ASR. (Research shows that 17% to 18% of IT professionals play games online every day.) Top scorers went on to a championship round with the winner bagging $10,000 plus a router.

“If they’re playing games, that’s how they want to engage and that’s who they are,” Brill said. “How do we make that applicable to what they do at work?”

YouTube – Video gets eyeballs. Cisco’s “Future of Shopping” is up to 3.3 million views.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDi0FNcaock

Additionally, the company heavily used video to educate customers and the media about the ASR, encouraging them to pass along links via social sharing.

Video conferencing – The company’s next-generation video conferencing technology, Cisco TelePresence, brought customers together at local offices around the globe. Executives back in San Jose could see the audience’s facial expressions and vice versa.

Mobile – A video datasheet engaged engineers on their mobile devices.

Facebook – Hardcore network engineers could connect on the Cisco Support Group for Uber User Internet Addicts. How addicted are they? One member shared that he networked his community swimming pool so he could stay connected poolside.

“It allowed them to connect with Cisco in a new way, and build preference and customer loyalty,” Brill said.

Social Media Widget – Cisco assembled videos, collateral and images in a widget format and embedded it into “social media” news releases and launch pages. Bloggers and others could spread the information easily with the embedded code.

Cisco blogs – Videos and other content engaged bloggers and customers, encouraging viral pickups.

Online forum – Cisco seeded its Networking Professionals Technology Community Forum with launch-related discussion topics and gave customers an “Ask the Expert” function.

The whole campaign spanned three months with the launch in the middle. During pre-launch, launch and post-launch, Cisco kept the audience engaged by encouraging discussion with and among its audience.

Reaching 9,000 People

Compared to traditional launches of the past, the ASR launch delivered eye-opening numbers. More than 9,000 people (90 times more than past launches) from 128 countries attended virtual launch events. Without travel, the launch saved an estimated 42,000 gallons of gas.

Plus, top executives spent only about an hour recording the video presentation.

Print ads were largely replaced with media coverage, including nearly three times as many press articles as a comparable traditional launch, more than 1,000 blog posts and 40 million online impressions.

Yet Cisco wasn’t the only one recognizing the impact of the campaign. In fact, the company earned a Leading Lights award for Best Marketing.

Taken alone, the reach of the campaign impresses. But consider this: The whole launch cost one-sixth of a similar launch that used traditional outreach methods.

Social Media: The New Norm

The ASR launch effectively tore the lid off social media at Cisco, which now truly walks its talk regarding the power of networks. Since then, social networking comes standard with every product launch and print advertising funds have largely moved to social activities.

And media like video, Facebook and Twitter keep customers and the press engaged continuously. Cisco now runs live public Q&A sessions showcasing John Chambers, Cisco’s chairman and CEO, as he answers questions coming in via Twitter.

Live TelePresence sessions bring executives and customers together for face-to-face virtual meetings.

The company’s chief technology officer, Padmasree Warrior, communicates with nearly 1.4 million followers on Twitter.

With subsequent launches, the company has realized even greater ROI – now seeing costs just one-seventh of those before. But the networking company keeps pursuing even greater returns with social networking.

“Now that we’ve got that buy-in, we need to just continue to show the success of one campaign over another,” Brill said.

Tools like Radian6 and Symphony help the core social media team, now eight people, measure the impact relative to cost of each campaign. After every campaign, the team just sets new benchmarks to beat.

“Social media doesn’t replace the need for white papers or sales interaction. I think it helps accelerate and shorten the sales cycle,” Brill said. “There are studies out there that people who are involved in communities and engaged with the brand are likely to spend up to 50% more than those who are not. We want to try to prove that.”

What success have you seen using social media for launches of new products or services? What worked well and what didn’t? Leave your comments in the box below.

Did you know you can use social media to influence website visitors to stick around, read your content, become a subscriber or even tell their network about you or your business?

You can, and social media can be more effective than other forms of influence, as you’ll see in a minute.

First, let’s talk about the phenomenon I’m referring to. Influencing people you don’t know (in this case, new web visitors) by using information is known as social proof.

The Growth of Social Proof

Social proof isn’t a new concept, or one that only applies to social media. It’s a psychological phenomenon.

Marketers have used social proof as a fundamental principle for years. Blogs have used it recently by displaying the number of RSS subscribers prominently (usually through FeedBurner). Then, when new visitors stop by, they think, “Hey, this site looks pretty popular. 2,000 people already subscribe. It must be worth following, so I’ll do the same.”

Social proof gives your site an advantage over other sites that don’t use it, and social proof can help you grow faster by turning more people into repeat visitors.

And now, with social media, social proof doesn’t have to be restricted to just displaying RSS subscriber counts. Your social media profiles and activity on Facebook, Twitter, etc., can serve as social proof too, and sometimes are even more effective than just RSS counts or traffic numbers.

How Effective Is Social Media as Social Proof?

I reached out to Lisa Barone from Outspoken Media, a respected Internet marketing company, to ask her exactly that question. Here’s what Lisa had to say about the effectiveness of social media as social proof for a blog or website:

It’s highly effective, especially for an entrepreneur or small business owner. Developing a presence on the social web adds credibility to your blog/website because it allows people to see you engaging with other people. They see their social media friends talking to you and it serves as a sign that you’re trusted and not going to swindle them.

It also gives another indicator that you’re committed to building your presence, and that as a customer, they’ll be able to get in touch with you if they have a question, concern or complaint. Creating a social media presence is another way of letting customers know you’ve left a light on for them.

Social media actually enhances social proof because it can involve the specific friends, colleagues or associates of the people you’re trying to influence.

How to Use Facebook, Twitter and Others as Social Proof

Let’s look at a specific example of what I’m talking about. Facebook has all kinds of social widgets you can install on your website. These widgets can show lots of things, including how many people “like” your site (if you have a Facebook Fan page), or how many people have recently shared your content on Facebook.

And Facebook is smart about it. They tailor the widgets to whoever is visiting your web page. In the example below, Social Media Examiner uses the Facebook “Like Box” in the right sidebar. It says 10,530 people like SME on Facebook at the time of this writing (wow). If some of my friends are in that group that “likes” the site, their pretty little faces will appear for me to see:

Facebook makes it easy to use your Fan page as social proof with widgets.

In either case, the social proof makes it more likely that I’ll keep reading this site, or even subscribe to or “like” it. In one case, I’ll see that lots of strangers already like the site; in another case, I’ll see that some of my specific friends like it.

Facebook isn’t the only form of social media that can serve as social proof, either.

Twitter can be used in a similar way (by displaying follower counts, activity feeds or the number of times content has been retweeted). Digg and other social networks/bookmarking sites also have widgets. Check your favorite social media hangouts for things you can use for social proof.

Below is a unique and creative way that the blog Engadget uses Twitter as social proof (as well as a great way to direct visitors to popular content):

Engadget uses the number of times a story has been shared on Twitter in this unique display of social proof.

Get Creative With Your Site’s Social Proof

Don’t forget that blogs are a form of social media as well. If your blog attracts lots of comments, displaying your comment counts prominently can serve as an effective form of social proof.

I asked Lisa Barone how she and Outspoken Media have used social media as social proof on their sites. Her methods include displaying FeedBurner subscriber numbers, rotating testimonials from respected industry colleagues and displaying media logos on their home page to show visitors where they’ve been mentioned.

As for tips on using social media as social proof, Lisa likes to focus on making your site/blog look bigger than you are. Borrowing logos from other sites where you’ve been featured and letting people know about interviews or podcasts you’ve been a part of are a great way to show visitors that your site is worth paying attention to, according to Lisa. “If social proof tells us that we like what our friends like and that experts hang with experts, then you want to make it look like your community has a line wrapped around the corner waiting for entrance. Fake it till you make it, and when you’ve made it, show your badges,” she recommended to me.

Consider using any points of interaction you have with your tribe on the social web as social proof for your site. People will see that you’re active, that you’re providing value, and that crowds of other people (possibly even their friends) think your content is the bee’s knees.

How do you use social media as social proof?

What is your experience with influencing people on the web with social media? What could you do to improve your use of social media on your website? Please share your thoughts in the comments box below.

I recently interviewed Andy Sernovitz, founder of the Social Media Business Council, an organization that includes many of the world’s largest brands such as Cisco, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Microsoft, Proctor & Gamble and Wells Fargo, just to mention a few.

Andy is also author of the book Word of Mouth Marketing and founder of GasPedal, a group that advises big brands such as TiVo, Dell, Sprint and Kimberly-Clark.

During this interview, you’ll gain insight into how large corporations are employing social media and you’ll also gain Andy’s insight into word-of-mouth marketing.

Word of Mouth Marketing & Social Media

Mike: Let’s go ahead and start with the first question.  What exactly is word of mouth marketing, and how, if at all, is it any different than social media marketing?

Andy: Word of mouth marketing is the art of getting people to fall in love with your brand. Getting them to be so thrilled and so turned on by what you do that they’ve got to tell people how awesome you are.

It’s a series of tactical things that I teach in my book. It’s a philosophy that says if we earn the respect and the recommendation of our customers, they’ll do all of our advertising for free.

Mike: Because they become advocates for you, right?

Andy: Because they love you. This is the Southwest and the Starbucks and the Zappos. When people love a brand, they love to talk about those brands.

Social media is a subset of that. It is one tool you can use to make it easier for your fans to talk about you.

These days, we’re really hot on social media. Everyone is saying, “Twitter, Twitter, Twitter.” We love the stuff, but we’re starting to let the tool take over the purpose.

Mike: Just so I understand what you’re saying, word-of-mouth marketing is about getting your customers, followers, or fans—whatever you want to call them—to love your brand so much that they’re going to ultimately advocate for it and spread the word on your behalf, so you don’t have to invest a lot of money.

And social media marketing is just a subset of that, which is leveraging these social media tools to do the exact same thing. Is that what I hear you saying?

Andy: Exactly. Social media is a great tool. I’m a huge user and fan, but it only applies to the online half of word of mouth. Even if you look at the online half, there are probably more recommendations happening by email than Twitter or all the other social media put together.

Word of Mouth Marketing Story

Mike: That transitions really well into my next question.  How has word of mouth marketing evolved, in your opinion, over the last decade? What do you think the catalysts have been?

Andy: We used to think word of mouth was luck. You did a good campaign, you did a good press release and it got buzzed—this magical word buzzed—and everyone was talking about you.

What’s happened is we figured out that it isn’t luck. It’s a planned series of things that you do to get people talking. It’s this idea that word-of-mouth marketing is similar to any other kind of marketing.

I guess what’s new is the “marketing” part. “Word of mouth” is old. “Word of mouth marketing” is new.

Then we layered social media on that. Now we’ve got this big tool to take word of mouth that might have been one-to-one or one-to-two, and suddenly it’s one-to-1,000 or one-to-50,000.

Mike: What did a typical word of mouth campaign look like a decade ago?

Andy: I don’t think the word campaign would have been there. It wasn’t word of mouth marketing yet. We didn’t understand it’s something that you can earn, that you can accelerate or that you can enhance. It just sort of happened.

Mike: The medium was probably email back then, right?

Andy: It was then, and probably is still today, more offline than anything.

If a friend tells you about a restaurant, you tell another friend about the restaurant. You go there for lunch with the office. Now everybody knows about it. Somebody emails a friend, somebody else posts a review, somebody else tweets it and somebody else puts it on Facebook. Then you read it on Facebook and you tell your spouse. Then you tell your coworkers.

The conversations weave in and out online and offline. None of these tools are the sole channel for one particular conversation. Your recommendations are flowing in and out of whatever format makes the most sense.

Word of Mouth Marketing Steps

Mike: What might be some of the word of mouth marketing steps at a very basic level?

Andy: I like to talk about the five Ts. If you go to my blog, there’s a download where you can get all of these written up, which is the framework for any kind of word-of-mouth campaign.

1. Finding the Talkers

Who is going to spread the word about you? They might be fans, customers, just people thrilled by who you or are maybe neighbors. There are all those people who could speak for you.

2. Giving Them a Topic

What are they going to say? That’s unique to the product and the talker who’s spreading the message.

Customers are saying something different than fans. Fans are saying something different than particular user groups. You have to find the topic that people love to repeat, that’s easy to repeat, and that travels.

3. Tools

Tools are all these things we use to accelerate and extend the scale of the conversation.

Mike: Like Twitter, for example.

Andy: Everything social media falls in that tool bucket. But it’s also something like the stickers that come with every Apple product. It’s classic offline word of mouth. Everybody shares those stickers.

The tool can be a T-shirt. If your customers really want to put your logo all over their chest and run around and advertise you for free, they should have a T-shirt!

The tools are all the stuff of this. The tools are things that real estate agents love to do—the refrigerator magnets and the calendars and the rulers and all the other doodads. It’s the stuff that lets the conversation travel.

4. Taking Part

Once people start talking about you, you need to respond, participate and become part of that conversation.

If you don’t join the conversation, either the conversation ends or it goes negative because people think you’re a snob.

5. Tracking

How do you measure this conversation, how do you measure the results and how do you drive through to your business objectives?

Mike: That’s some brilliant simplicity to describe the components of what makes word-of-mouth marketing work.

Andy’s Story

At what point in your career or in the last few years did you decide to focus on social media? What was the turning point for you that made you decide to focus on that?

Andy: There are two. Of the two brands that are part of my company, one is the GasPedal side, but we teach word-of-mouth marketing. It’s the word-of-mouth marketing company.

Then on the SocialMedia.org side, we run the Social Media Business Council.

I think what happened is about 3 years ago, we realized that social media is something that anyone can get up and do. If you’re a small business or an individual, it has that simplicity.

But when you’re a big company, it gets so much harder. It requires significant philosophical, behavioral and operational changes. It’s just not the same inside a major enterprise.

We started this group to be the home base and the peer group for people at big companies who are using social media and want to learn how to adopt it and learn from each other and share. That’s where this started.

Mike: Was this just about when Twitter was exploding in popularity or was it actually even a little bit before then?

Andy: Twitter had just begun. We started in the summer of ‘08.

Mike: I think it was really about 18 months ago when Twitter started exploding in a massive way. Then Facebook, of course, just a few months behind, started exploding as well. It seems like you were a bit ahead of the curve.

Did you get there because you started to hear some of your clients on the GasPedal side saying, “We’re starting to hear a lot from our customers about this social media stuff, and we need to get onboard” or had you seen this coming for a while?

Andy: It’s interesting. Our name used to be the “Blog Council” because blogs were the only thing. Social media hadn’t really become part of the mix yet.

We were at Dell headquarters and Dell was doing what they then called a “buzz marketing” conference. Dell had been inviting other companies over to learn how they ran their blogging, social media and conversations department.

I was at lunch with some folks from Dell, Proctor & Gamble, Microsoft and Intuit. We had been sharing our unique challenges with this stuff. We had been talking to each other informally, ending up with “Why don’t we start a group that lets us formalize the sharing, scale it up, and bring a whole lot of companies together?” That was the formation.

Social Media in Business

Mike: That’s incredible. I’m imagining social media has grown into a very popular tool for a lot of these huge corporations now.  Do you agree with that?

Andy: I think every company is using it. What’s most interesting is that the marketing side is such a small part of where social media adds value. It’s really becoming transformative across the entire enterprise. HR is using it, customer service is using it, research is using it and internal communications is using it.

Mike: Do you find it’s often starting from marketing and then spreading to other parts of the organization?

Andy: I would say with 50% of the companies, it starts in PR, which actually makes a lot of sense when you think about PR being much more structured for conversation. You build relationships with reporters, you tell stories and you build long-term dialogues. It’s about words, whereas marketing is about numbers and campaigns.

Mike: You’ve spoken to a lot of big brands when it comes to social media. What are some of the important challenges today that many of these big brands are facing and how are you suggesting they deal with those challenges?

Andy: Probably the biggest challenge is what we call “Guffman,” as in the movie Waiting for Guffman. Everyone is waiting for this special person to show up and be in charge.

In a big company, every department gets it. They know what to do and they want to start using it, but then, “Is the Twitter account for the PR department or should HR use it or are the marketing guys going to use it? Is our Facebook page going to be for campaigns for marketing or customer service?”

You get all of these people moving around in the company trying to figure out who runs it and owns it.

Mike: How do you recommend they deal with this issue?

Andy: It really depends on the nature of the business. A lot of really big companies have a center for excellence, which is a centralized council of folks from all different departments who become the governing or guiding voice of social media across the enterprise.

I think, less formally, it’s about locking into wins. When it’s working over here in this department, you do more of that. They tell the department next to them and they tell the department next to them. It’s a series of small growing successes.

Dark Side of Social Media

Mike: Let’s talk about the dark side of social media. There’s a lot of hype around the phrase social media. Are there certain misconceptions, do you think, among businesses? Do they think it’s the Holy Grail and can solve all their problems? Does it fall short in any particular areas? What are the downsides to social media, in your opinion?

Andy: People think it’s an advertising technique and that it’s about campaigns. If your ad guys take over your social media voice, you’re in trouble. It’s not a customer acquisition tool like, “What’s our ROI?” It’s a conversation tool.

If you start jamming what are really TV ads onto YouTube and calling it social media, it’s not going to work. Equally important, you’re going to miss the point.

Search has made us completely addicted to the numbers. We know to the 800th decimal point our search engine lead generation costs every second of every day. But we don’t know if someone posted an Amazon review about our product that is going to sit right next to the Buy button forever.

Thinking about social media as advertising is really where the danger is.

Social Media Outsourcing

Mike: Let’s talk about outsourcing. Do you think big businesses can outsource their social media activities? If so, what kind of transparency needs to be in place? What are your thoughts on outsourcing social media?

Andy: It’s hard to do a lot of it outsourced. There’s a reason why our group is a ‘brands only’ group. We can talk about these things without the agencies in the room.

The mechanics, you can outsource.

Mike: The Twitter background or something like that.

Andy: Yes, setting it up and doing the creative, some of the heavy lifting on the execution, the analytics and all of that kind of stuff.

But what we’re talking about is fundamentally your customer voice, your brand voice, and your personality. The whole point of this is to connect with people and talk to people. How do you outsource being friends with someone?

And if you think you went bad with all of the tech support that went overseas where everyone just tried to save a buck and it was a disaster for any brand who did it, imagine when your brand is being represented by somebody who’s only in it as long as their agency has the account.

There are exceptions. There are great agencies and PR firms that have long-standing customer relationships with their clients, where the agency is speaking with the customer voice and has been doing it for years and knows how to do it.

Mike: Do you think there needs to be any kind of transparency or do you think that’s not necessary when it comes to this kind of outsourcing if a big company does choose to outsource some aspects of this?

Andy: I am the single biggest advocate and maniac when it comes to absolute transparency all of the time. You’ll see me running all around the country pounding the podiums screaming about ethics because this is what it all comes down to. You can’t build a trust-based relationship that starts with lying to somebody about who you are.

Mike: How would you go about doing this then? If big brands are outsourcing certain aspects—let’s say they have a bunch of Twitter accounts and one of them is maintained by an outsourced agency—how would they disclose that kind of detail?

Andy: It’s surprisingly simple. You say, “Hey, I’m working at so-and-so helping out with branding.”

Everyone thinks this transparency thing is hard. It’s really easy. “Hi, I’m on Brand Company’s team over at the such-and-such agency. How can I help?”

It’s a phrase that goes from total lack of disclosure to complete transparency.

Social Media Success Story

Mike: Let’s talk about a company that’s doing social media marketing. Is there any one particular standout story or company you think is doing it really well? Who are they and what are they doing right?

Andy: I think Starbucks is doing a fantastic job right now.

Mike: What do you think they’re doing right? They’ve been getting an enormous amount of press regarding their Facebook content. I’m trying to figure out if it’s because they’re a big brand. Is it the “Ford” effect? Ford was one of the first big brands to get on Twitter, thus they got all the focus of the press. Is it the same deal with Starbucks and Facebook, or is there something more going on here?

Andy: Starbucks uses social media like it’s supposed to be used. They have a big team of smart people who are out there every day talking to folks. Their followers are earned because they love the brand, they love the products and they love the people they talk to.

When you become a friend of Starbucks on Facebook or you follow them on Twitter and start having conversations, it’s really awesome. That begets more which begets more and that’s how this stuff happens.

Mike: Do you think part of the reason they’re so successful is because they already had a loyal, crazed fan base to begin with, and Facebook and Twitter just allowed them to come together?

Andy: Yes, this goes back to the sort of framework for word of mouth.

People love Starbucks, but it’s hard to have six people in Seattle talk to 150,000 friends every day until you add the social media tools. Suddenly, you can have relationships with lots of people—meaningful relationships—and you can do it with science.

It’s interesting. They presented a case study at our last conference. They did a new Facebook page and Twitter accounts for Frappuccino®, which is a very new brand, separate from the Starbucks Facebook and Twitter pages. Millions of people went from being fans of Starbucks to fans of Frappuccino. That kind of transition doesn’t happen unless people were enjoying the first relationship and they found it beneficial and meaningful, or they wouldn’t have bothered to friend a sub-product.

Mike: Do you know whether Starbucks is actually encouraging people to participate by putting on the cups “Join us on Facebook” or that kind of stuff?

Andy: I don’t know.

Mike: It may just be that their brand was so great to begin with, and then they applied a really great strategy to it that has exploded. It certainly seems as though it follows the five Ts that you’re talking about.

Are there any B2B brands you can think of that are doing social media well?

Andy: There are a lot of good brands. Some of the big ones, some of the pure-plays are Intel, Cisco, SAP and a lot of those tech brands. I forget the exact number, but SAP is picking up something like 20,000 new members of their communities per month. That’s a lot of people.

Future of Social Media

Mike: Let’s look to the future. Where do you see this whole social media thing going in the next couple of years? Do you think the words social media are going to be obsolete? Do you think there’s some new stuff coming on the horizon?

Andy: I think it will get normal. We’ll stop thinking of it as “media.” That’s a bad word. It implies it’s something you buy to get your message out.

Mike: It will be another channel as ubiquitous as email or the fax machine.

Andy: Yes.

Mike: For those businesses that are just now getting started with social media, what would be the single piece of advice you would give them, even if they are a mid-sized or small corporation?

Andy: It’s the same advice for everybody, which is to just do the little stuff. Pick one thing you can do—whether it’s a Facebook page or a Twitter account or one particular product—and keep it really simple. Don’t spend any money. You’ll find it’s surprisingly easy and you’ll have some nice overall results. All of the politics and the fears and the objections that are getting in the way, they all go away because you can prove that it worked.

More Word of Mouth Marketing

Mike: Andy, this has been a really exciting and interesting conversation. If folks want to learn more about you and your organization, where might they go?

Andy: If you want to learn word of mouth marketing, go to GasPedal and check out our Word of Mouth Supergenius conference, our blogs, newsletters and the like.

If you want to learn about social media for big business, go to SocialMedia.org.

Mike: Andy, I really appreciate you taking some time out of your schedule today and I wish you the best.

Andy: Thanks for having me.

Listen to the full interview below to hear more from Andy.

What do you think about this interview?  Do you agree with Andy? Leave your comments in the box below.

Conversations are happening online with or without you. This is one of the most frequently used social media sayings. If you’re engaging with social media for your company, it’s almost second nature.

However, there are still many who are struggling to ‘sell’ social media to their executives.  And as Doug Frisbie, Toyota National Marketing Manager says, “The price of inactivity is greater than the risks of anything we’d be doing in social media.”

Let’s explore 9 ways you can make a good case for social media programs.

But first…

Why Do Some Execs Avoid Social Media?

It’s important to understand the reason that executives resist jumping into social media. Most of the time it’s fear of the unknown. Brands are not used to being open; they’re used to being in control. Old-style marketing was easy – you push out a message to millions of people (through TV or radio) and you’re done.

Marketing the new way actually means letting go of the reins and putting customer voices up front and center, which can be a scary thing. Because a lot of executives often are not personally active on social networking sites and microblogs, they lack full knowledge of the inner workings.

Couple that with all of the negative press some companies are getting for having the wrong approach to social media and you start seeing the lack of trust in the effectiveness of social media.

But what can you do to convince your executives that Doug Frisbie and all those social media practitioners out there are right? How do you show them that social media should be a critical part of your business strategy?

Here are a few suggestions:

#1: Display Current Conversations

One of the fastest ways to convince your management that it really isn’t a matter of ‘why’ rather than ‘when’ is to do some quick detective work yourself.

Using free tools like Google Alerts, TweetDeck and others, research the ongoing conversations about your company and provide a quick summary in a very visual way. Include screenshots of people’s tweets; calculate the percentage of positive, negative and neutral posts and comments over a specific period of time (1-2 months). If you don’t have expensive listening tools in place, the calculation will be manual, and it will take you a little bit of time.

If the customers are already reaching out to you and getting no answer, this will definitely get management’s attention. Further into your presentation, don’t forget to tell management what you’re planning on doing to turn the ‘neutrals’ and ‘haters’ into loyalists.

#2: Don’t Leave Out Competitor’s Information

Make sure to include the information on not only what your competitors are doing in this space, but also what is being said about them. If your competitors are not yet looking into social media immersion, this is your chance to show leadership in the industry. If they’re already getting into this space, this might convince your boss to at least look at doing the same to avoid being left behind.

#3: Show Your Industry Peers’ Successes and Failures

Take a look at what other companies in the industry are doing and make sure to mention two or three social media campaigns that got a lot of press coverage. Providing examples of companies that failed to listen to social chatter and to address customers’ concerns can at times be very convincing as well.

#4: Use Data

Do your homework. Organizations like eMarketer, MarketingProfs , Nielsen, comScore and lots of others publish a ton of data on social media usage, social network demographics and other statistics. Morgan Stanley and Forrester publish research on digital trends and consumer expectations. Use this data to make your case when it makes sense.

#5: Start Small

Start with pilots. Try it out with a small budget (or sometimes with no budget to begin with) and a small dedicated team. Enlist the help of grassroots folk from all over the company if needed (you don’t have to have full-time dedicated personnel at this point; you can succeed with just the help of a few passionate people). Make sure that your goals are measurable. This is absolutely critical to your mission.

#6: Do Risk Analysis and Contingency Planning

You need to ensure management is comfortable with the idea of pilots. Having a crisis plan helps. Map out every scenario you can think of. Identify any potential risks. Ask yourself, “What if conversation turns to this topic?” or “What if we get this type of reaction?” and have a solid plan to address every one of them.

#7: Seek Outside Help

As much as it pains me to say this, the sad reality is that often external consultants seem to have more convincing power and more credibility than a company’s internal experts. If that’s the case, then enlist the services of an external source to help management understand that the conversations are happening with or without them and that they don’t have a choice but to join in.

#8: Create Guidelines and Enable Your Employees

Let your management know that you’re not going into this blindly. Start by creating guidelines for engagement on a platform of your choice for your pilot. Include topics that will and will not be discussed, your moderation house rules (what posts will be deleted and why) and any additional information you want to convey.

Be transparent up front and be sure about setting expectations for the dialog to come. You can then go even further and create a simple set of social media guidelines to ensure that your employees are operating with a clear understanding of what’s appropriate and what is not. Partner with legal, PR, HR, security and privacy teams on this; it will ensure your key stakeholders are all on the same page and feel comfortable with the direction. Their support will be critical in your pitch to executives.

As an example, take a look at “Intel’s Social Media Guidelines (and feel free to steal with pride).

#9: Stay on Course

Most importantly, remember that change isn’t easy. But one person can make a difference and help a brand think and behave differently. We’ve seen it time and again. Don’t get frustrated; stay on course. Having a meaningful dialog with your customers is critical to the success of your business and absolutely is the right way to go.

We would like to hear your experiences. What has worked for you? Let us know your thoughts in the box below.

It’s no secret that Facebook is the most powerful social network on the planet. With 500 million active users, Facebook represents a huge opportunity for smart businesses.

To take your Facebook marketing to a new level, here are hot Facebook marketing tips direct from the top industry pros. You’ll want to incorporate these priceless ideas.

The best way to get the most from Facebook is to model the best. Find out who’s doing it right and getting real results, and model their strategies. Here are seven ideas from the top authorities in Facebook marketing. Take notes—these tips are too good to pass up!

#1: Bring Facebook to Your Website

“The number-one thing you can do is to bring Facebook onto your own turf. It can be done with a few simple lines of code. This can be one of your most powerful tools for improving your brand awareness,” says Jesse Stay, author of multiple Facebook books, including FBML Essentials.

This page describes the many ways to add Facebook to your website. But the easiest way to add Facebook to your site is to use the Facebook Like Box.

The Facebook Like Box allows you to show your Facebook page feed, the number of fans and pictures of people who are fans (who are also friends of visitors!).

#2: Try Really Inexpensive Facebook Ads

“The best ‘bang for the buck’ in Internet marketing today is Facebook advertising. The targeting options are limitless and surprisingly inexpensive for businesses of all sizes. Facebook advertising can help marketers of all kinds get insights into how different demographic groups respond—and for a fraction of the cost of other alternatives,” said Chris Treadaway, co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day.

Setting up an ad on Facebook is super-easy. Just go to the Facebook Ads section and click the “Create an Ad” button. Then simply set up your ad.

#3: Leverage Friends of Connections

Once you have created your Facebook ad, here’s a little-known tip that can supercharge your ad.

“Imagine watching your favorite TV show. The commercials come on, but instead of fast-forwarding through them (as you likely usually do these days), you notice a picture of YOUR friend in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. Your friend is pointing to the business in the commercial saying, ‘Hey, I like these guys. Check them out!’ Amazing, huh?

“Facebook’s ‘Friends of Connections’ ad targeting allows your fans to be featured in your ads,” noted Dave Kerpen, author of Likeable Social Media: Marketing to Win in a Facebook World.

Here’s how you use this option. When you set up your ad, look under ‘Targeting’ and you’ll see an option to display more detail. There you will see the connection on Facebook choices.

You must be an admin of a Facebook page to select the page for the "Friends of Connections" option.

#4: Give Your Fans Fun Reasons to Connect

“People love a reason to get together. Why not have the equivalent of a happy hour on your Facebook wall? Rather than serving up drinks and party favors, ask folks to bring their favorite link. Consider offering networking opportunities by asking folks to share something about themselves. You could also lure people in once in a while with an expert who will answer their most pressing questions,” says Michael Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner.

On Social Media Examiner's Facebook page, we had a happy hour and encouraged fans to post their favorite blog sites. It was a huge success!

#5: Use Video as Your Secret Weapon to Gain Fans

“Videos seem to be a preferred medium not only by the fans, but by the news feed algorithm as well. Whenever a non-fan watches your videos, a button pops up in the top left corner suggesting he/she ‘Like’ your Facebook page. To take advantage of this feature though, you’ll have to upload the video file onto the Video Tab inside Facebook (not link to a YouTube video),” said Ekaterina Walter, social media strategist for Intel.

When non-fans view your videos on Facebook, they will see the Like button for your Facebook page in the upper left corner of the video screen. This feature is a great tool to gain exposure and recruit new fans.

#6: Turn Your Facebook Page Into a Lead Generator

Facebook as a lead capture source? “You bet!” says renowned Facebook expert Mari Smith.

“One of the first apps to add to your Facebook Fan Page is ‘Static FBML’ (Facebook Markup Language), which allows you to add your own custom content, including an opt-in box. You can add multiple iterations of the FBML app, and try out various lead-capture systems—ezine signup, giveaway, ask campaign, etc. Each opt-in box can appear on a separate tab, each of which has its own unique URL, allowing you to accurately split test results,” noted Mari Smith, co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day.

In the example above, Darren Rowse of ProBlogger uses an opt-in box on his Facebook page to promote his podcasts. Notice how he created a separate tab for the opt-in. This is a great way to call attention to what you want your fans to see.

#7: Turn Your Facebook Page Into a Thriving Community

“Your Facebook presence can serve as a meeting place for like-minded individuals. Make it a point to involve your customers as much as possible. Ask questions and suggest items for them to share on your wall. Ask yourself more than “What should WE share?”—ask, “What would our fans like to share with us and one another?”—and build your strategy around those answers. Allow them to connect with others who share the same interests by encouraging them to use your Facebook presence as a platform for sharing,” said Rob Birgfeld, director of digital strategy at SmartBrief.

By simply asking an offbeat question, a community can emerge, as seen above. This question was posted in the late afternoon on a Saturday and 64 people responded.

Want to Learn More About Facebook Marketing?

If you’re not fully leveraging the power of Facebook, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Most businesses are just now getting started with Facebook.

There’s one easy way to take your Facebook marketing to the next level. By attending the web’s largest online Facebook conference, Facebook Success Summit 2010, you’ll become empowered to use Facebook to gain more exposure, better engage customers and grow your business.

The great part is you’ll be learning from 22 Facebook experts (including the 7 mentioned in this article). In addition to Mari Smith, Jesse Stay, Brian Solis and Michael Stelzner, you’ll learn how Intel, Cisco, Microsoft Xbox, SAP and the Washington Redskins are all leveraging Facebook.

It’s the web’s largest online Facebook marketing conference. Go here for a free sample and to learn more.

Have you tried any of these master tips or do you want to add Facebook tips of your own? Let us know! Please leave your comments below.

What’s more important? The quantity of your Twitter following or the depth of your relationships with your followers?

The answer is BOTH! Having hundreds of thousands of followers must be nice. But we all know that the depth of the relationships you maintain with your tweeple is paramount.

This article will reveal five great Twitter tools that will help you find and engage with quality Twitter followers.

Notice I mentioned “depth.” However, there must be another side to this coin. The reach. And if you want to have “reach” on Twitter (getting 10+ retweets, for example) on regular basis, chances are you will need a large number of followers.

This article will focus on getting you those numbers.

Specifically, I want to explore how to generate new followers, how to manage your newly found follower surplus and how to turn those shallow relationships into deeper ones using the top 5 most indispensable Twitter tools.

#1: Blast Follow

Editors note: This tool, if abused, will get you temporarily banned from Twitter.  Do not follow large groups (1000 or more) or multiple hash tags at once.  We have received reports from readers that they were banned because they “over did” this tool.

Blast Follow is indispensable for finding people in your niche (and beyond) and auto-following them with a single click.

How does this help YOU gain more followers? Because of the Law of Reciprocity.

Take advantage of Twitter's "Law of Reciprocity" nature and blast follow hundreds of tweeple with a single click and get followed in kind.

The law of reciprocity is a basic mammalian urge. When apes groom each other, they are engaging in the Law of Reciprocity. In fact, if you take a trip to your local zoo, you will notice that the most social apes are the best-groomed as well.

I will go as far as to say that the reason Twitter is so popular is because the human urge to reciprocate is such a strong driving force behind our actions.

Twitter is a Law of Reciprocity platform. You follow me; it’s only fair that I follow you back.

Most social media experts (Chris Brogan , Guy Kawasaki) recommend a mutual-follow policy.

Note: Chris has changed his own policy due to spam, but the basic idea for the rest of us still stands.

Here is a nifty list of Twitter superstars who WILL follow you back.

#2: Tweepi

Tweepi allows you to unfollow those who do not reciprocate.

Easily shake off the deadbeats. Tweepi enables you to unfollow those who do not follow you back, 40 deadbeats at a time.

The only thing I would add is to be careful not to unfollow someone you would prefer to continue to follow.

Why would you want to follow someone who doesn’t follow you back? One reason could be that their tweets are super-interesting.

The overall strategy for using Blast Follow and Tweepi is to blast follow 100-200 people today and give them a week or so to follow back. If they don’t reciprocate, clean them out with Tweepi. Then repeat.

OK. What’s next?

#3: twAitter

I hope that I don’t have to sell you on the notion of maintaining a presence on Twitter. One tool that is indispensable in maintaining a presence is twAitter, which allows you to schedule your tweets in advance.

Now, that’s not all that amazing on its own. Many tools allow you to schedule your tweets. Social Oomph comes to mind.

twAitter will soon be renamed to Gremln; the ability to schedule, rotate and repeat your tweets will remain unchanged.

twAitter is unique in that it allows us to rotate and repeat our tweets. Social Oomph allows for a similar functionality (and a lot more), but it’s a premium service for which you’d have to pay. twAitter, on the other hand, is free.

Why would you want to repeat your tweets?

Twitter is a drive-by platform. Most people login for 10-20 minutes at a time and unless they see your tweet in that time, chances are they will never see it. Unless you repeat yourself.

Don’t abuse this awesome power.

Guy Kawasaki repeats his tweets four times with at least several hours in between. I repeat my tweets every few days but do not limit myself to four.

#4: TweetDeck

Now that you have thousands of followers, you will need to organize them and keep an eye on the really interesting ones. In comes TweetDeck.

TweetDeck gives you the ability to create panels based on your lists, retweet now or later, keep an eye on your fav tweeps and much more.

TweetDeck allows you to create “panels” based on your Twitter lists or others. I have lists/panels for my dog people, social media people, friends, interesting and RT-worthy tweeps, etc. They all get their own list/panel, which makes it really easy to follow their timeline.

Without TweetDeck, this would be an overwhelming and time-consuming prospect.

#5: TweetChat

TweetChat allows you to isolate the conversation based on the hashtag.

This is a two-in-one kind of tool.

In the sea of tweets, it's easy to lose track of your favorite hashtag. TweetChat to the rescue.

It not only helps you generate followers, but it does this by first creating a familiarity and depth before the follow itself occurs. How?

Hashtags (#) and the way they can be used on Twitter are a great big untapped resource for many Twitter residents.

Here’s an example:

If you tune into Twitter every Monday night around 9 pm EST, you might see an excessive appearance of the #dogtalk hashtag.

The #dogtalk crew brings in interesting dog people every week and interviews them about their goings-on. Many folks tune in using TweetChat to follow and participate in the conversation.

If you’ve participated in the conversation and actually contributed in some small way, a funny thing happens.

Other participants see you as interesting and decide to follow you. The right thing to do now is to reciprocate, of course.

Bonus #6: Super-Secret Bonus Twitter Tool

This tool is the best, most important tool of them all. It works in an entirely different way than any other tools we’ve mentioned.

Here’s the big secret. It’s you.

Be useful. Be interesting. Be compelling.

Take this post as an example. Do you think that this post will generate followers for me? Of course it will. A bonus here is that the relationship has started “on the right foot.” I’m a real person (a somewhat rare commodity on Twitter), I have something useful to share (at least I hope it will be useful to you) and hopefully it will compel you to check me out and be my friend on Twitter.

Do you use any of these Twitter tools? Got some to add? Leave us your comments in the box below.

Welcome to Social Media Examiner TV with your host Mari Smith. In this episode, Mari examines Facebook Questions and reveals if it’s a game changer for businesses.

Plus, she looks at the Wibiya social toolbar and how it can create social buzz for your business.  Then Mari shares insights into three social CRM tools and how they can have a big impact on your business networking.

Share your feedback, see the show notes and discover how you can be part of a future show below!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mZ39KiwW9s

Can You Get More Visibility With Facebook Questions?

You may be familiar with LinkedIn Answers and benefit from it already.  Now Facebook has joined the party.  You can ask and answer any questions using Facebook Questions (rollout may not have hit all users yet).  Facebook has integrated the Questions feature right into the publisher.

Now when you go to write on the wall, you have to literally click “Write on wall,” whether it’s a profile, group event or Fan page.  Right next to that, it says “Ask Question.”

However, there are clear downsides to using Facebook Questions.  For example, if a fan on your Facebook page clicks on “Ask Question,” and proceeds to enter a question, he or she will actually be taken away from your Fan page and over to the Facebook Question section, moving the person away from your own Fan page.  Watch the video to find out if Mari thinks Facebook Questions is a game changer for businesses and her concerns about the new feature.

Wibiya Social Toolbar

The Wibiya social toolbar is a social media enhancement that adds a little bar across the bottom of your website or blog. You can see it in action on this very page below.

The reason why you want to have Wibiya on your site is because the visitors coming to your site can interact, do all of their social media chit-chatting and posting without leaving your site. The Wibiya social toolbar integrates fully with all of the different social network sites, like Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz and YouTube.

When people click on the Twitter or Facebook link on the bottom of the toolbar on your site, they can actually see your updates, interact, reply to you and see the whole stream of all of the tweets about that page or post. Watch the Wibiya social toolbar in action in the video and to discover how it might benefit your site.

Social CRM: The Secret to Building a Strong Network

Mari introduces three social customer relationship management (CRM) applications that add social media insight to your email inbox. These tools pull information from all kinds of social profiles like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, right into each of your email contacts.

Thus, you have expanded information about each of your contacts that can help you build better relationships.  The three tools Mari reviews are Rapportive, Gist and Xobni.

Check out these social CRM tools, add one to your inbox and see if it works for you. Watch the video to hear which tool is Mari’s favorite and how they differ.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Social Media Examiner TV, make sure to tweet about it (use hashtag #SMEtv), share it on Facebook or even embed this episode on your blog.

We want to hear from you! Do you use Facebook Questions, Wibiya or social CRM applications? If so, what has been your experience?  Leave us a comment below. Also let us know what you’d like to see in future episodes.