Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies was written by three industry experts, Amy Porterfield, Phyllis Khare and Andrea Vahl.

Amy, Phyllis and Andrea.

Let’s get started showing you what you can learn from the pros who authored this book.

Your customers live inside the walls of Facebook!

Facebook is a one-to-one online marketing machine that has now surpassed 800 million users!

“American Internet users now devote more time to Facebook than any other website, spending a total of 53.5 billion minutes a month on the world’s largest social networking site,” as reported in Nielsen’s Social Media Report.

Your customers are somewhere among those 800 million users. How do you use Facebook to market to your customers within Facebook? Check out Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies for the answers.

Book I: Joining the Facebook Marketing Revolution

Book I contains two very important chapters. You’ll learn how to get started, why you should get started and the importance of a well-crafted Facebook marketing plan.

If you aren’t brand-new to Facebook, you might be inclined to skip Book I. I suggest that you don’t. You’ll find some very valuable marketing questions to ponder and gain an understanding of how you can use Facebook to market your business.

Book II: Claiming Your Presence on Facebook

Book II contains four chapters, which will guide you through the different types of Facebook pages—very crucial for you to have a clear understanding. In these chapters you’ll learn how to create and administer your business page.

You’re going to get the complete tour of Facebook in these four chapters and you don’t want to miss any of the tips from Book II. Don’t forget that Facebook is a powerful platform with many features you’re going to need to market your page.

Book III: Adding the Basics to Your Facebook Page

Don’t let the word “basics” cause you to skip Book III, which consists of five chapters. This book leads you through the strategies of posting to your page, an overview of iFrames, connecting your social media accounts and very important legal considerations—something many overlook.

Book IV: Building, Engaging, Retaining and Selling to Your Community

People often mistakenly think that Facebook is about direct selling. It’s about engaging with your customers. Done correctly, sales should come in the process.

There’s a strategy to using Facebook in your marketing efforts. You must learn how to build visibility for your page, engage your community—and more importantly, keep them engaged. You also might want to expand your existing e-Commerce into Facebook. There’s much for you to learn and master from the four chapters in Book IV.

Book V: Understanding Facebook Applications

Book V consists of two chapters devoted to Facebook applications. Applications are a marketing opportunity that is often overlooked. Apps allow you to expand the way Facebook interacts with your audience.  You will learn about apps that have been developed by Facebook, along with strategies for use and how to activate them on your page. You will also learn about third-party applications.

Book VI: Making Facebook Come Alive With Events and Contests

This book has four chapters. Learn how to promote your events, run a contest and analyze the results. Who doesn’t like a contest, especially when you may win something? What you don’t know can hurt you; so don’t go off creating a contest on Facebook until you have read Book VI. You would hate to get shut down by Facebook before you even started.

Book VII: Advanced Facebook Marketing Tactics

It’s time to roll out the marketing artillery, with Book VII, which consists of four chapters.  You will learn nine core marketing principles, market with Facebook social plugins and learn how to get started using streaming video (cool way to engage).

Book VIII: Facebook Advertising

Facebook advertising is a great way to attract new clients. There are three chapters in this book. You’ll learn how Facebook advertising works and how to set up and run your first campaign. That’s just the overview, so be sure to read all three chapters.

Book IX: Measuring, Monitoring and Analyzing

This is an important book. It consists of three chapters that will train you how to set realistic targets to identify success, how to make sense out of Facebook Insights and how to use tracking tools.

Summary

Facebook is very innovative, which is reflected in its regular and often unannounced changes. Since the publication of this book, Facebook has made many changes, especially on the Facebook Personal Profile page side, among others.

Don’t let this deter your purchase because Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies is packed with the latest and greatest in Facebook marketing strategies.

The book is easy to understand and has complete step-by-step directions and associated screenshots to make your learning easier. The book is also filled with tips.

Make a hole-in-one with your Facebook marketing by reading and applying the contents of Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies. I give this book 5 stars!

If you struggle to attract a steady stream of quality readers to your blog, you’re not alone. The good news is that your blog isn’t a lost cause.

There are many smart strategies you can use to create compelling, bite-sized content your readers will devour—and share like crazy.

The secret is to tap into the power, speed and instant accessibility of social media. Here are 5 simple, foolproof ideas you can put into action TODAY:

#1: Build instant rapport

Rapport happens when there’s a relationship of mutual trust between you and your audience.

Social media conditions lead us to expect meaningful relationships to grow quickly, based on interests, likes and other searchable snippets that instantly highlight what we have in common.

But we do the exact same thing in real life. We connect to people at networking events based on first impressions—age, appearance, business niche, and so forth.

We talk to people in restaurants who are rooting for the same football teams. In other words, it’s human nature. The question for you is how do you achieve this same instant rapport on a BLOG—especially in a virtual world that’s full of distractions?

You can’t be everything to everyone. But you should write like you’re talking to someone—preferably, to just a single reader. Who is that person? What does he or she want to know?

In the image below, Derek Halpern of Social Triggers shows how he addresses his blog readers.

Derek makes it a point to always use a personal, friendly and conversational tone when writing blog posts to his ideal audience.

Be friendly and direct, and never forget that your readers are individuals with interests, families, jobs, etc.

For example, to promote a recent blog post to my email list, I might start by saying something like, “Halloween’s almost here. We just got back from picking pumpkins. I can’t wait to carve mine. I hope you’re enjoying the cooler weather too!”

The first time I did that, emails came back to me—with colorful personal stories, anecdotes and even photos. Those relationships are priceless.

#2: Create relevance

After you succeed in building rapport with your readers, you’ve hooked them—at least temporarily. But how can you be sure they’ll come back?

The key is to consistently provide engaging, actionable and relevant content.

Focus on delivering added value to your core market at every opportunity. Deliver actionable takeaways. Cater to their interests. Remember to educate, entertain AND empower—no matter what topic you’re covering.

I know my blog readers value additional resources when I blog about a new topic. That's why in this blog post, "5 Reasons Google+ Will Change Your Content Marketing Strategy for the Better," I added links to relevant articles as a way to further their education on Google+.

If you want to educate AND empower your readers, you’re going to need to give them evidence that what you’re saying or doing really works—and that’s where you can go above and beyond your competitors.

Statistics, infographics, research and quotes from experts (especially from a new interview YOU conduct) are great ways to add value and create truly unique content.

In the image below, Vistage International (a training agency for CEOs) created an in-depth infographic.

Vistage International used this graphic to share their recent findings about CEOs' confidence in the economy.

For another eye-catching example of a “meaty” post, check out crowdSPRING’s recent post on how small businesses are using social media. It’s jam-packed with data that really delivers a punch both statistically and visually.

#3: Provide instant gratification

If you’re really passionate about what you do, then chances are you’ve got a ton of ideas you’re itching to share.

But you might want to put the brakes on that instinct. One of the cardinal rules of social media is speedy delivery of good ideas. Remember: quality, not quantity.

Providing instant gratification is all about effectively delivering high-quality content in bite-sized pieces. It’s about making your blog readers’ lives easier.

Take a look at Seth Godin’s blog. He’s the undisputed master of instantly gratifying, bite-sized blog content. Even his post on Steve Jobs’ passing, “A Eulogy of Action,” boiled all of our complex feelings down into one simple, compelling, actionable idea—would we live up to Jobs’ example?

Seth Godin's blog posts are a perfect example of delivering instant gratification. With each post, Godin only touches on one idea, keeps it simple, short and extremely valuable.

Instant gratification is also about restraint. Our fidgety readers are scoping out a ton of blogs, posts and feeds every day—you need to catch their eye and keep it in a short enough time to give them one main idea or action item that they’ll remember—and come back for more. Don’t indulge the urge to go on the “tangent train.” Stick to one idea, develop it, give it some meat and watch your blog engagement rise.

#4: Ignite shareability

Serious bloggers know how valuable their blogs really are. But most of us won’t see real business results from blog content until we take the next step and give our content wings.

Content with wings takes off—people send it to everyone they know, because they love it so much. To make sharing easy, provide the right mix of sharing buttons with each post. Put prominent share buttons where they’re easy to see, reach and click.

In the image below, Free Blog Factory uses the DiggDigg share buttons to encourage sharing on their site.

Adding share buttons increases your viral reach and introduces your content to a new audience.

Another important component of shareability is harder to pin down—it’s about providing value in unexpected ways. And sometimes, that means thinking outside the box. A great example of this is a post Chris Brogan wrote, “The Practice Is the Reward,” where he manages to connect his workouts to social media, business, happiness and beyond.

Don’t be afraid to branch out and introduce a new concept or idea into your posts. Face it: we get so hung up on our business or niche that we all forget to put down the vacuum and look outside ourselves for a pick-me-up.

Talk about a book you think your audience will like, even if it’s not directly related to your service or product. Interview someone new whom readers will benefit from learning more about. Select ideas that matter to you and your audience—but in a new or challenging way. This will inspire YOU—and in turn, your readers.

#5: Make your closing count

Great content isn’t enough.

The final challenge? Getting your readers emotionally invested in you, your brand and your business. Invested readers comment, share and engage in higher numbers—and they’re also more likely to become future customers.

Don’t let readers just walk out on you. Instead, make every closing count. Ending a post with “Make sure to post a comment” is accurate, but it’s not a very effective way to close a blog post. (Full disclosure: we’ve all made this mistake, including me.)

Stop telling your readers WHAT to do. Instead, spark conversation—ask them to think, participate and invest in your content.

I often use the "Now it's your turn" approach to encourage blog comments.

Better Content Leads to Better Results

Improving engagement on your blog is just one part of your content strategy, but I’d say it’s the MOST crucial—because you can then use your blog as a hub, driving traffic to and from your social media streams, email list and even YouTube channel.

Remember, the best blogs aren’t necessarily the best written, or the ones with the newest ideas. They’re not necessarily the shortest. (We can’t all be Seth Godin!) But they DO share one thing in common: meeting, and often exceeding, the expectations of content-hungry readers—who are happy to devour, share and come back for more.

Now it’s your turn. What do you think? What ONE piece of advice would you give a friend to help take his/her blog to the next level? Share your thoughts and comments in the box below!

Keep reading to discover nine ways you can build loyal fans who’ll love your business.

In a recently published infographic, Moontoast illustrates a Facebook fan’s journey from a “Potential Fan” all the way to a “Super Fan.” The image below shows a fan’s progression.

Moontoast shows how a fan's level of interest with a brand can move from light to heavy engagement.

Moontoast says Super Fans are Facebook users who have given you access to their data via their Facebook profile, purchased from you and also encouraged another fan to purchase from you as well. There’s no doubt we all want an abundance of Super Fans!

So how do you move a Potential Fan all the way up the ranks to Super Fan?

For starters, it takes time. Facebook success rarely happens overnight and unless you are a huge brand like Zappos or Target, patience, persistence, and hustle are all required to create a successful Facebook page.

There are also specific actions you can take to create a thriving Facebook page full of Super Fans.

The following nine core strategies will help you streamline your Facebook activity and turn your Facebook page into a success story.

#1: Give your page a human touch

The most successful companies on Facebook are those that step out from behind their logo and let the people behind the brand represent their Facebook page. The goal is to communicate with your fans as though you were talking to your friends, and let your personality come through in each post.

One of the ways to do this is to step away from your niche once in a while and show your personal side through entertaining posts and photos. Change things up a bit and share details about your experiences and everyday life.

Have you taken a fun trip recently? Post some pictures of your vacation to let your fans see a different side of you. Or maybe you see something funny while you’re out and about—share it! Snap a photo of it and post it to your wall with a fun caption.

Guy Kawasaki, author of Enchantment, does this on a regular basis and his fans love it. The reason we are intrigued with Guy’s posts is because we get to see the real side of him, not just the author/expert side of Guy.

When you visit Guy's Facebook page, you'll often find posts and photos that give you a peek at Guy's entertaining journeys outside of work.

#2: Become a content machine

Always make sure that your content educates, entertains and empowers your fans to keep them engaged and coming back for more. The key to a successful content strategy is to consistently create new content and mix up your media often.

For example, some of your fans might respond better to video than text, while others might be drawn to the images in your posts. To make sure you’re attracting the attention of your diverse group of fans, post your content in a variety of ways.

iPhone Life Magazine does a great job of always showing fun images with each text post. Images and videos are the top two types of content that Facebook users gravitate to the most.

One simple way to do this is mix up your blog posts by posting written blogs, video blogs and audio posts. Regularly drive traffic from your Facebook page to your blog to introduce your fans to a variety of content.

#3: Cultivate engagement with two-way dialogue

Imagine this: You haven’t talked to your good friend in a while, so you call her up. When she answers the phone you say, “Hi! How’ve you been?” But before your friend can answer, you hang up the phone. That would be odd, right?

Well, essentially that’s what you are doing each time you post a Facebook update and then instantly move on to a new task before waiting for a few fan responses so you can engage in a conversation.

Make sure you never miss an opportunity to thank a fan for reaching out. Replying to your fans' posts shows them you really do care about what they have to say.

Real success on Facebook happens when you mirror real-life situations. Don’t “post and ditch;”  instead, stay around a few minutes to get involved in the conversation. True engagement happens in the “back and forth.”

#4: Create consistent calls to action

Facebook gives brands the optimal opportunity to create genuine relationships with their prospects and customers. But it’s also a great platform for moving your fans to action. One of the best ways to move a Potential Fan to a Super Fan is to start out with simple calls to action.

To do this, start out by posting valuable content, such as interesting articles and videos related to your niche, and accompany this content with simple calls to action such as “click this” or “watch this.” The valuable content will show your fans that you’re an authority and consistently post good stuff.

Also, consider offering discounts and specials or ask your fans to sign up for your newsletter. These are all low-investment calls to action that will help you build trust and affinity over time.

Zappos does a great job of mixing up their calls to action on their Facebook page. Some include value-added content as you can see above with the call to "CLICK PLAY" to participate in the live fashion Q&A video. Others are more promotional, such as "Click here to check out our new summer flip flops!"

#5: Make word-of-mouth advocacy easy

Studies have shown that social media users tend to trust their friends and peers more than they trust brands. It makes sense. If you were looking to try out a new restaurant, would you rather get a recommendation from a friend who just had a great meal or the restaurant that’s promoting its latest special?

Word of mouth matters, especially on Facebook. To get your fans talking about you, the key is to make it easy to spread the word.

One great way to do this is to create a contest or promotion that rewards fans for spreading the word. By using a platform such as Wildfire, you can track and reward the fans who invite their friends to join your contest.

This sweepstakes by Kudzu promises extra chances to win for every friend you encourage to enter the contest.

#6: Encourage fan-to-fan conversations

Enhance your fans’ experience by creating a community that encourages your fans to interact with each other. One surefire way to do this is to spotlight your fans. When you create opportunities such as “fan of the week” or recognize top contributors, you are giving your fans an opportunity to get to know each other.

Social Media Examiner regularly highlights a fan of the week on their Facebook page and always makes a point to link to their fans’ websites to give them free exposure.

This generous gesture also allows fans to get to know the fan of the week even better.

#7: Focus on smart branding

You have multiple opportunities when it comes to branding your Facebook page. One option is to make your Facebook page an extension of your website to spark familiarity when your existing customers visit your page. Another option is to make it different from your own website so your fans experience a sense of exclusivity when they become a fan of your Facebook community.

Crafty Mumma's Facebook page is a great example of smart branding.

No matter if you want to create familiarity or a sense of exclusivity, it’s important to make your page dynamic and interesting so it will stand out from the rest. One way to do this is to create custom tabs that showcase your programs, products and services and tie in the look and feel of your brand. The key is to make it obvious who you are and what you’re about. Short videos that tell your fans about your business, mission statements and easily identifiable logos and images are great additions to a branded custom tab.

#8: Be deliberate and manage expectations

One of the most important questions to ask as you create your Facebook marketing plan is, “What do we want to achieve with our Facebook page and overall marketing on Facebook?” Often your Facebook vision will be closely aligned with your company’s vision.

For example, let’s say you own a local running shoe store. Your vision for your retail store may be to sell the most high-tech, top-of-the-line running shoes and running gear to all the avid runners in your local community.

As an extension of your company vision, your vision on Facebook may be to create a community of like-minded people who openly share their running stories and give each other support and advice. Over time your Facebook page becomes the ultimate hub for avid runners and you begin to attract runners from cities beyond your local community and you start to sell your top-of-the-line running shoes to people all over the world. Setting a clear vision can lead to lucrative opportunities.

When you create a vision for your Facebook efforts, your actions are more deliberate and have purpose and your fans clearly understand what your page has to offer.

If you’re just starting out developing your Facebook mission, one great place to start is with your fans’ expectations. What can your fans expect when they become a fan of your page? One optimal place to display expectations is on a custom welcome tab so all of your new fans will know what to expect before they start engaging on your wall. The following example is from the Facebook page of Pam Hendrickson Consulting.

Notice how Pam tells her fans exactly what they can expect when they join her Facebook community. This is the first step in creating your Facebook vision.

#9: Monitor, measure, and track

With the rise of social media, your customers are now all social customers. They love to share, chat, post, Like and comment, and when they have something important to say (good, bad or worse), they are quick to share it on their social networks. Their comments run the gamut from the best raves to the worst rants. This is why monitoring is so essential to social media marketing.

Social Media Examiner often gets great raves on their Facebook page. They monitor their page closely so they can respond to all comments.

In addition to listening to your fans, you should also do a reality check to find out whether all of your social media activities are worth your time and effort. To make sure you’re on track, first you want to set your key performance indicators.

To figure these out, ask these three questions:

1. What do I want to achieve?
2. What does success look like? What are the indicators of my success?
3. How often will I check in to evaluate my progress?

Once you answer these questions, make sure you have surefire methods in place that enable you to consistently track your Facebook marketing progress. The tools you choose will largely depend on the level of measuring and tracking your company needs. Most likely you’ll want to use a few different tools to get a clear picture of the overall activity on your Facebook page.

If you’re new to social media analytics or are looking for a few new ideas to add to your tracking arsenal, consider these areas for monitoring and tracking.

Here are a few areas you might consider monitoring:

• The names of key people in your company
• Your company name
• All brand names associated with your company
• Product and service names
• Competitor names
• Industry- or niche-specific keywords

Here are a few areas you might consider measuring and tracking:

• Engagement
• Brand awareness
• Influence
• Sentiment
• New Likes/unsubscribes
• Click activity
• Financial return
• Conversion rates

Now it’s your turn! Applying these nine strategies will help you sort through the many layers of Facebook marketing. If you’ve tested any of these strategies already or plan to do so in the near future, leave a comment in the box below and let us know.

You’ve come to the right place.

Facebook marketing, when done right, is an extremely powerful tool. It can increase your leads, attract highly targeted prospects and position you as a sought-after industry leader.

To reap these business-building benefits, the key is to develop daily habits.

The following list of six daily habits will keep you focused on what really matters when it comes to Facebook marketing: real fan engagement.

Refer back to these habits often to keep yourself on track as you work to create a vibrant community of raving fans who’ll happily spread the word about you and your products and services.

#1: Become addicted to solving problems

When you regularly solve problems and answer questions for your fans, you not only foster trust, but you also set yourself up as the go-to expert in your niche.

A surefire way to create engagement on your Facebook page is to regularly offer your expertise and insight. One great example of a master problem-solver is Facebook expert Mari Smith. Mari encourages her fans to ask questions on her Facebook page. Because she is quick to respond with valuable responses, she’s turned many Facebook fans into loyal followers and customers.

But she doesn’t stop there. Mari takes her support a step further by providing a resource center directly on her Facebook page. She continually keeps this resource link up to date and full of valuable information. As you can see in the image below, Mari has set up multiple info tabs including Changes, How To and Rules & Safety, all related to Facebook marketing.

By providing a resource center for her fans, Mari Smith is seen as the Facebook go-to source by tens of thousands of fans.

Take Action: Make it your mission to be the go-to source for your Facebook fans. What information related to your niche do your fans, prospects and clients want to know? To set yourself apart from your competition and keep your fans coming back for more, create a resource page as a custom link on your Facebook page. By doing so, you can provide updated, useful content to your growing audience on an ongoing basis.

#2: Talk to individual fans daily

I make it a habit to comment on other people’s posts 3-5 times each day. I do this because these comments are the real conversations that build relationships.

Taking a minute to comment on a fan’s vacation photos or adding my two cents to a peer’s recently posted video is my way of letting my fans and peers know that I genuinely am interested in what they are talking about online.

To check out what your fans are posting on their own pages or profiles, first check out which fans are posting on your page. When fans post on your page, you can click on their avatars and you will be taken to either their pages or profiles, depending on how your fans have posted on your page. You can then post on their pages (or if you are also a friend via their profiles, you can post on their profiles as well).

Here’s an example of me posting on a fan’s page, Life In Motion Chiropractic:

When you post on your fans' Facebook pages, it shows that you have a genuine interest in them.

Here are a few tips when commenting on fans’ posts:

• Use first names. When your fans know you are paying attention to them, they are much more likely to speak up and tell you what’s on their mind. Knowing what your fans are thinking is invaluable!
• Be yourself. Talk to others in the same style you would talk to a friend over dinner. Before you click send, read your post and make sure it really sounds like you.
• Be brief. If your post is too long, it will be overlooked easily. To get more people reading your post, get to the point faster.

Take Action: Make it a habit to spend at least 10 minutes a day reading posts from your fans and peers and leaving insightful comments on their profiles and pages. By stepping outside of your own Facebook page, and spending time on other pages and profiles, you let your fans and peers know that you truly do care about them.

#3: Track your Facebook activity

Although it may not be the most exciting task of your day, taking the time to check your Facebook activity is essential to growing your fan base and keeping your momentum going.

If you’re just starting out with tracking your activity and looking for a quick list of key metrics to track, consider tracking the following metrics on a weekly basis:

• # of total fans
• # of new Fans
• Fan growth from prior week
• # of unlikes
• # of weekly Actives
• Actives growth from prior week

You can find these metrics by checking out your Facebook Insights on your page. To get to your Insights, just go to your Facebook page and click “Edit Page” in the upper-right corner. From there you will see a list of links in the left column. You can click on “Insights” to get your page metrics.

Here's a snapshot from Facebook Insights of my page's metrics.

One other tracking tool that is extremely useful is EdgeRankChecker. This is an online tool that scores your overall page engagement activity. I use this tool to help me identify what score Facebook is likely giving my page in terms of EdgeRank. (Note: No-one knows the exact formula Facebook uses to assign an EdgeRank score; however, this tool is useful.)

The higher your EdgeRank score, the more likely it is to be visible on a fan's Top News Feed.

As seen in the screenshot below (for Outside the Cubicle), the tool also identifies the days of the week when you get the most engagement and the days when you have the least activity on your page. This is valuable information as you decide when to launch new promotions and post valuable content.

In the screenshot above, you can see the Facebook page received a high engagement score of 15.

Take Action: Create a Google Doc and track your Facebook activity on a weekly basis. By tracking your weekly metrics, you will soon see what’s working and what you might need to tweak, depending on the high and low metrics in your tracking document.

#4: Change what’s not working and move on

When it comes to tracking your social media marketing activity, there’s a fine line between having patience and making changes when you’re not getting the results you’re after.

The key is to set a realistic goal and clearly identify its benchmarks and the length of time you are going to allow to get the desired results. If the time comes that you don’t reach your desired outcome, tweak your activity right away. The longer you wait, the more damage you’ll do.

For example, let’s say that for the past 30 days you’ve been asking questions a few times a week on your Facebook page and only two or three fans are leaving responses each time you post a new question. There could be a few different reasons for your low response rate. You might be asking questions that are not of interest to your fans. To fix this, you really want to pay attention to what grabs their attention and what topics your fans talk about the most.

Or perhaps your questions are too difficult or too time-consuming to answer. People move fast on Facebook and tend not to spend too much time in one place. There’s actually an art to asking questions on Facebook. The key is to ask questions that require little effort to answer. Questions that require just one-word responses tend to get the most engagement. Watch this short video to learn more about the art of asking questions on Facebook.

Overall, the important thing to remember is that when something isn’t working, don’t dwell on it. Change it and move on!

Take Action: Have you been procrastinating on making some necessary changes to your Facebook marketing strategy? Take the time to make the changes to ensure your page continues to grow and increase its engagement activity.

#5: Post fresh content

To get the most reach from your content, make sure that your content educates, entertains and empowers your fans. This will pique their interest and keep them coming back for more.

Also, publish everything you have in as many places as possible. What this means is that you want to get your content online, and you want it to be seen by as many potential prospects as possible. While Facebook is extremely powerful, don’t forget to spread your content out and use Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and of course, your blog.

You can also monitor what others are publishing. If you see something that would be valuable to your audience, publish that content (and make sure to give them credit for it!). Third-party publishing is a great way to continue to add value for your fans without having to create all the content.

To help you consistently publish content, I suggest that you create an editorial calendar. It might sound daunting, but it’s actually very simple. Here’s how you do it:

1. Create a six-month digital calendar. You can do this in Word or you can find digital calendars online. One of my favorite digital calendar sites is http://www.calendarsthatwork.com.
2. Decide how often you want to create content and in what form. Consider creating blog posts, video posts, articles, reports, podcasts or any other form of media you know your audience will like. Mix it up and deliver your content in many different formats to attract a wider reach of ideal clients.
3. Brainstorm content ideas related to your brand or niche. Again, think of what interests your clients the most. (Hint: Check out your competition’s content. This will help you decide what might be best for your audience.)
4. Create a calendar of content. Choose the specific dates you plan to post and list the topic of the content and the type of delivery. For example, in my own content calendar months ago, I added the following for a day in July: Blog post and Facebook update on “6 Daily Habits for Facebook Marketing Success.” It’s as easy as that!

Take Action: Stay diligent with your content calendar. After you create it, stick with it. The more disciplined you are in sticking to your content calendar, the more traction you will see with your audience.

#6: Spread the love

The old saying, “Give and you shall receive” is one of social media’s golden rules. By sharing other people’s valuable blog posts, useful articles, entertaining videos and other content, your audience will repay you tenfold.

Make sure to share the content from the influencers in your industry. This will help you build relationships with them and possibly create partnerships with them in the future.

But remember to also acknowledge your fans who consistently produce great blog posts. They may not be well-known experts (yet!), but it’s important to share their great content as well. You can create a fan for life if you take the time to share their great work with others.

Mike Stelzner says it best in his recent book, Launch. He writes, “Every time you share a great link to some relevant content, you’re giving two gifts: one to your base and the other to the person or company that created the content.”

Social Media Examiner is well-known for spreading the love on their Facebook page. Here they promote a great blog post from the popular site, Social Media Explorer.

Take Action: On a weekly basis, take the time to identify great third-party content and share it with your Facebook community. This goodwill gesture will go a long way with your fans and peers.

Now it’s your turn!

What do you think? Are there other habits that have brought you Facebook success? Share your thoughts and comments in the box below!

You’ve come to the right place. This article highlights nine companies (big and small) that have transformed their online presence by implementing innovative social media marketing.

You’re sure to find inspiration for your social media efforts here.

Look at the tactics these companies employ and don’t concentrate too much on the target audience. It doesn’t matter whom you’re targeting—these tactics will work for just about any business… so let’s dive in!

#1: Martell Home Builders

Martell Home Builders is an Atlantic Canadian custom homebuilder. In the past, Martell relied heavily on realtors to keep their business moving forward. However, once they embraced social media, they were able to create a direct-to-consumer model where they were no longer reliant on a middleman to bring them business.

Martell started a content creation and blogging strategy to focus on their homebuyers’ needs. With topics such as “14 Must-Have Tools for New Homeowners” and “Home Staging Tips & Techniques,” Martell was able to grab the attention of homebuyers. Today, about 86% of all their leads come directly from consumers.

Notice in the image below the placement of their email capture box as well as their social media channel buttons. Prime placement of both components (above the fold and in the right sidebar) is the key to grabbing attention and encouraging interaction.

Note: Studies show that more people subscribe to blogs by email than RSS feed readers. Martell’s call to action—”Get the blog sent to your inbox. Enter your email”—is a smart move to capture leads while promising value in the form of new blog updates.

Martell also takes advantage of geolocation technology by mounting GPS tracking devices on their contractors’ vehicles, making it easy for their customers to always know where their contractor is when on the job. This eases the customer’s mind and allows Martell to extend even greater customer service.

In the image above, Martell's customers can track their contractor's location when they're on the job.

With innovative strategies, Martell has made the homebuilding experience social. One great strategy is their use of photo galleries of the clients’ homes being built. Not only can the homebuyer watch the progress in pictures, but also they can share their excitement with their family and friends on social networks. This is not only a great experience for their clients, but Martell is able to gain excellent social proof and even more visibility online via these photos as seen below.

Martell also uses the Facebook Like box, as seen below. This widget is dynamically updated; pulling content right from their Facebook page each time someone visits their site. The Like box is great social proof. It shows how many people have Liked your page and also shows faces of your Facebook fans.

The benefit of having this widget is that people can become your fan without leaving your company website. This encourages viewers to stay on your site longer and allows you to increase your fan base from your own website.

Tip: Think outside the box, like Martell did by allowing their clients to see where their contractors were at all times while on the job and by giving access to photos of their homes being built. By providing real-time, socially connected customer service, you’re able to create even more trust with your clients.

#2: Zappos

Zappos is an online retailer that sells shoes, clothing and accessories. They’re known for the enormous emphasis they put on creating real relationships with their fans and customers.

Notice their Facebook custom welcome tab below. Their catchy saying, “Let’s be in a Like-Like relationship,” shows they treat their potential fans as equals, solidifying their relationships even more.

One great strategy they’ve employed is to first ask for the Like and then ask their new fans to join their email list. Once you click their Like button, the custom tab changes and you then see the opportunity to sign up for their email list and interact with their products, as seen in the image below. By waiting until after the fan clicks the Like button, Zappos is proving they care about building relationships with their fans first.

In addition, Zappos uses a strategy often called “fans-only content” where they reveal content only after someone has become a fan, such as the fashion images in the illustration above. Once you click the Like button, you get instant access to exclusive content, videos and special promotions.

They’ve also included comment widgets, as seen below, on their custom welcome tab where you can post about their products and your comments will post to your profile or page, telling all your friends or fans what you like most about Zappos. Great social proof!

One of the best engagement strategies I’ve seen on Facebook is Zappos’ “Fan of the Week” contest. They encourage fans to send in their photos with the Zappos box and other fans get to vote on the best photo of the week. What’s great is that Zappos highlights the fan of the week by putting him or her in their wall image photo for all to see. As seen below, this is definitely about putting your customers first!

Tip: Brainstorm ways you can use social media to make your fans the stars. The more you spotlight your fans and followers on your social media channels, the more often they’ll engage with you and come back for more. Remember, you don’t have to be a billion-dollar company to model what Zappos is doing on their Facebook page. You can take their best strategies, tweak them to fit your unique needs and make them work for your business.

#3: Giantnerd

Giantnerd is a company that sells outdoor equipment for outdoor activities like hiking, biking and snowboarding. This company represents one of the best examples of social media integration seen online today. Their emphasis is on giving their customers the most value possible while becoming friends with them in the process.

As seen in the images below, Giantnerd has integrated social media into almost every aspect of their website. They’ve created a social network on their site that’s completely different from other social networks like Facebook or Twitter. Their one-click process to join their network makes it easy and fast to join the group and they incentivize new membership by offering a discount to all new members with their “Nerds save 5%” promotion.

Also, Giantnerd has incorporated the Like button on their site and they promise their fans exclusive deals and promotions when they click Like and join their Facebook community. Since adding the Like button, their average order has increased by 50%! That’s a pretty impressive social media ROI, to say the least!

Also, when potential customers are researching products on the site, Giantnerd provides multiple social methods to get feedback from other social buyers. One example is their WikiNerdia, as seen below. Similar to Wikipedia, viewers can check out all of the different products, including descriptions and photos, and their customers can edit the information as well, making the experience interactive.

With WikiNerdia, potential customers can also ask product questions and the nerd community comes on board to answer the questions. What’s genius about this is that they let their customers sell for them by giving them the tools to answer questions that potential customers post on the site. People tend to trust their friends and other consumers more than they trust the brand. Giantnerd benefits from their fan engagement by allowing customers to answer product questions for them, thus increasing brand trust for potential customers. Brilliant!

Tip: Let your customers be your salesforce. Think of multiple opportunities for your customers to tell others about you. Social sharing buttons, exclusive social communities and real-time engagement opportunities are all great ways to turn your existing customers into word-of-mouth advocates.

#4: Ford Motor Company

Ford has brought the social experience to the forefront of their marketing efforts.

Each time they add a new blog post, they pull in the image, headline of the post and the comments from readers onto the front page of their website. Those new to the site or those browsing for a new car get to experience the company and its culture from a social viewpoint right from the start.

Their blog, The Ford Story, is also unique. In the image below you can see their innovative layout where viewers can start reading the comments before they read the article, putting their fans’ and followers’ viewpoints first. Introducing your blog and your readers’ comments to new viewers sets a welcoming and friendly first impression for any company.

Notice the placement of the Stories button in the image below. Ford takes the social sharing component to the next level by not only asking their customers for their Ford stories, but also asking their community to share ideas that are in popular categories like Safety or Personalization.

Ford uses this as a way to get new ideas for their next generation of cars. These ideas are not taken lightly; Ford has used many of these innovations to advance the technology of their cars. They do a great job of involving their fans and customers into their company growth.

Also, photos are always a great way to attract new viewers and draw in existing audiences. In the image below Ford has added a Flickr widget to show off some of their latest photos, making their site more interactive and fun. (One little-known fact is that Flickr is a fantastic tool for search engine optimization. When you load your photos onto Flickr, you can tag them and optimize the descriptions.)

Tip: Encourage your customers to share their stories and ideas and make it easy to do so on your site. Also, make it easy for readers to interact with and share your content by adding more opportunities to comment on your blog and sharing buttons to encourage social sharing.

#5: Convince & Convert

Convince & Convert is a social media strategy firm with clients across North America. Its founder, Jay Baer, is a social media expert and co-author of the new book titled The Now Revolution.

To say the least, Jay knows a thing or two about making a website social. One smart strategy he uses is placing a link to all of his comments at the top of each blog post. This tactic is a smart social proof mechanism.

Most people only show their comments when you’re on the abstract of the blog post. However, when you showcase your comment numbers near the top of all posts, others can see how many readers before them have interacted with your post, making it more appealing to them and more likely they too will follow suit and read the post.

Jay also includes social share buttons in strategic locations on his site. He includes them at the top of each post (as seen in the image above) and he includes them at the end of each post as seen below. To get more people to share your content, provide more opportunities via social share buttons in numerous places throughout your site.

Since Jay is targeting businesses, he knows his audience is likely connecting differently than the masses when it comes to networking. He found that by adding the LinkedIn Share button to his site, he was able to dramatically increase the amount of traffic to his site from LinkedIn. In the image above you can see that for Jay, this button outperforms the Facebook Share button because his community is actively engaged on LinkedIn. It’s important to understand where your audience is spending time.

Tip: Give your readers every opportunity to share your content with their networks. Expert marketer Brian Solis calls this “an audience with an audience of audiences.” If you want to expand your message, make it as simple as possible for your readers to share with their audiences.

#6: Cree

Cree is a business-to-business company that sells energy-efficient, environmentally friendly, industrial LED lighting. When you think of social media marketing, you wouldn’t think that an industrial lighting company that sells LEDs to grocery stores would be shining; however, Cree is extremely social-savvy.

As you can see in the image below, Cree knows how to make their customers’ experiences fun, social and interactive. In their “Cries for Help” section, they encourage companies to showcase their terrible lighting on their site. It’s a fun way to make light (no pun intended!) of their bad lighting situations in their offices.

In addition, Cree provides valuable content to pique their audience’s attention. With articles such as “What happens if a baby holds a Cree light bulb?”, they’re able to speak to their audience in a way that grabs their attention and gets them involved. Great content is the key to a happy audience.

Also, Cree knows the value of social proof. When you become part of their environmental movement, you get to display a badge on your site that says, “Take the pledge. I joined the LED lighting revolution.” This is a great way to build community with your audience and get great viral exposure for your company.

In this image you can see they also do a great job of including their social media channel buttons on their site. When you see the Facebook Like box and their Twitter and YouTube buttons, it’s easy to see that Cree is truly changing the way B2B does business today.

Tip: Remember that you’re not selling to other businesses or to “consumers,” but instead you’re always selling to real people whose buying decisions are driven by emotion. Speak to that emotional side, as Cree has done by infusing the hot buttons of bad lighting in the workplace and people’s passion for environmentally friendly products. Find your cause and use it in your messages and share it on your channels.

#7: Emmy’s Closet

Emmy’s Closet is an online store that sells accessories for children. They’re a great example of infusing social media with ecommerce.

Emmy’s Closet is an extension of the popular arts and crafts ecommerce site, Etsy.com. On the site they use an application created by Etsy that allows you to browse and purchase directly through Facebook (see the image below).

They’ve also included social share buttons so fans can share their favorite items on their Facebook profile with their friends and their friends can then click through and buy products via Etsy as well. The share buttons create a viral buying experience. In the image below, you can see how easy it is to share favorite items with your Facebook audience.

Emmy’s Closet knows that Facebook commerce is on the rise. With over 500 million people on Facebook, it makes sense that many of them like to conduct their entire shopping experience on Facebook, including the actual purchase.

Emmy’s Closet also does a great job of branding their company to their social experience. Notice in the images below, they’ve created social buttons to reflect their brand, thus personalizing the social experience.

Tip: Experiment with ecommerce and product sharing apps on Facebook. For a great article on Facebook apps, check out the Top 75 Apps for Enhancing Your Facebook Page.

#8: San Chez Bistro

San Chez Bistro is a tapas bistro and restaurant in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Just like Martell Home Builders, they’ve taken social media and infused it with the needs and preferences of their local audience. San Chez encourages their patrons to use Twitter to reserve a seat at their restaurant. They call it “Tweet-Ahead Seating” and it’s a great use of social media local marketing. Once you tweet your interest in a reservation, the online hostess tweets you back with a message similar to this: “Great, you’re on the list. See you in a little while.”

With the number of smartphones on the rise, San Chez knows they can reach even more potential customers if they make access to their restaurant easy and quick. By combining smartphone capabilities, social media and local marketing, they were able to create an extremely successful marketing campaign online.

In addition, San Chez Bistro utilizes Foursquare to gain even greater viral visibility. Foursquare, one of the top location-based services out there today, allows people to check in with their mobile devices and let all their friends know where they’re currently spending time. It’s fun for the fan and powerful exposure for the physical business.

Notice below how San Chez Bistro has customized their Foursquare page, making it easy for patrons to see the incentive for checking in.

Tip: If you’re a local business, consider customizing your Foursquare page and adding an incentive for social media check-ins. It’s great exposure for you and makes your patrons’ experience in your establishment more fun and interactive.

#9: Cranium

Cranium, a game by Hasbro, takes board games to the next level by including fun activities like drawing, singing, acting and trivia questions.

To make their experience more social, Cranium does a great job of using content from the game to engage with their fans. They often post factoids that can be found in their game, such as the one about Einstein’s theory below. They know their audience well and therefore know that these fun factoids will attract them.

Also, Cranium has brought the experience of playing their game to their social networks. They’ve developed an app that encourages fun via fan engagement. For example, as seen in the image below, the app asks fans “Which one of these characters are you? Take our little quiz” and fans interact with the app and then are told which character best fits their personality.

Cranium is also clever with their use of video. Again, in the spirit of bringing the experience of playing their game to their social channels, they use video to get their fans to play along. For example, in the video they have someone humming a song, and you have to guess what song she’s humming. It’s put together in a way to make the experience interactive and fun.

In the image above you can see that the use of video on your Facebook page is smart because when you upload your video, you get an embed code. You can take that embed code and place the video on your website, your blog or anywhere outside of Facebook. When you do this, the Facebook video automatically brings the Like button with it. Therefore, if somebody’s surfing the web, they find your video and they’re not yet a fan, they can become a fan of your Facebook page right from the video just by clicking that Like button.

Also, if somebody shares your video on their Facebook page and a bunch of their friends see it, they too can become a fan of your page while they’re watching the video, without actually leaving the video. This is a great way to virally grow your Facebook fan base.

Tip: Create experiences on your social channels. How can you tailor your programs or product experiences to get your fans engaged and interested? Think of ways to spread your message by getting people to interact with you in fun and interesting ways via great content, apps, videos and quizzes.

Want to Learn More About Social Media for Business?

If you’re not fully leveraging the power of social media, don’t worry. You’re not alone.

There’s one easy way to take your social media efforts to the next level. By attending the web’s largest online blogging conference, Social Media Success Summit 2011 you’ll become empowered to use social media to gain more exposure, better engage customers and grow your business.

The great part is you’ll be learning from 22 blogging experts. Join Jeremiah Owyang (Altimeter Group), Guy Kawasaki (author, Enchantment), Brian Solis (author, Engage), Frank Eliason (Citigroup), Mari Smith (co-author, Facebook Marketing), Erik Qualman (author, Socialnomics), Michael Stelzner (founder, Social Media Examiner), Dan Zarrella (author, The Social Media Marketing Book), Andy Sernovitz (author, Word of Mouth Marketing), David Meerman Scott (author, Real-Time Marketing & PR) and experts from Verizon, Boeing, Timex, Intel, and Cisco as they reveal proven social media tactics at Social Media Success Summit 2011.

Check out this video from Michael Stelzner

It’s the web’s largest online social media conference. Click here SAVE 50% (expires Thur. April 14th) or for a free sample and to learn more.

Now it’s your turn. Did you see some great ideas and tactics that might change your social media strategy? Leave your comments in the box below.

According to the survey, marketers admit to struggling with customer engagement on multiple channels. This makes sense as many marketers are just beginning to experiment with more engagement efforts, one channel at a time.

In the near future, we’ll begin to see this single channel engagement morph into a more synergistic engagement effort over multiple channels. As we’ve seen with other social media trends, these shifts take time.

Here are some of the findings:

• Customization: The vast majority of respondents have created a customized experience for their social channels. (Only 9% admitted to not customizing any of their channels.)
• IT vs. Marketing: 66% of respondents admitted to having friction between their IT and marketing departments.
• Social Conversations: A vast majority of marketers (7 out of 10) say they have little understanding of social media conversations surrounding their brand.

In addition to delivering these insightful statistics, Alterian also created the above infographic to give a snapshot of the most important stats.

Click here to read the full report and download the infographic.

Alterian asked marketing professionals a series of engagement questions. Let’s take a look and see where you stand in relation to others in your industry.

#1: How will marketing budgets change over next year?

About half of the marketers surveyed claim their budget will increase slightly, while about 9% see their budgets greatly increasing.

In addition, about a quarter of those surveyed plan to maintain the same investment, roughly 10% will decrease their budgets and a little over 7% say they have not yet determined next year’s budget.

#2: How will social media budgets change over next year?

About half of the marketers surveyed expect their social/digital marketing expenditures will increase slightly while 23% see their expenditures greatly increasing.

Also, 14% of the marketers plan to maintain the same investment while 4% will spend less than the year before.

#3: Do you monitor social media conversations?

Almost 40% of those surveyed said they are using a few ad-hoc tools and 30% said they are reporting regularly to management.

In addition, almost 30% claim they have very little understanding of the social media conversations happening around their brand or those of their clients.

#4: Are you as engaged with customers as you should be?

A little over half of those surveyed (57%) feel their brand (or client’s brand) is somewhat at risk and are taking action to fix the challenge.

13% said they know they need to better engage but haven’t taken action and 7% admitted there were major concerns, but didn’t know where to start to fix the issues.

Lastly, about a quarter of the marketers claimed their brand (or those of their clients) was not at risk and they were fully engaged with their customers.

Now it’s your turn! Did any of these statistics surprise you? What changes have you made to engage with your customers? Share your thoughts in the comments box below.

To help you lay down tracks for social media success, here’s a solid list of strategies from eight top social media experts. Take a look, ask yourself what tips you can use and start reaping the rewards of real success.

#1: Offer live events on Facebook

“To provide additional value and fresh ways for your fans to interact with you, periodically conduct live chat sessions or live webinars or teleseminars. My co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day, Chris Treadaway, and I recently conducted what we called a ‘flash chat’ in order to crowdsource content for version two of our book,” explained Mari Smith.

“We used the awesome webinar platform Linqto and within a few minutes we had a large group of people interacting with us. Linqto allows presenters to be on webcam and mic and take turns ‘on the floor’ while participants interact via chat,” said Mari.

Mari also said you can keep it real by simply conducting a live Q&A right on your Facebook fan page wall. You’ll get extra visibility in the news feeds of your fans!

#2: Help others who aren’t necessarily famous

“Don’t try to build your personal brand or company brand alone. Go out of your way to look for opportunities to help others and give others credit. This may seem like a lot of work in the short term, but it pays off in the long run. Plus, it’s the right thing to do,” said Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business.

“Easy ways to do this include recommendations on Twitter of others’ work, retweets and hot tips on the comment section of blogs,” Erik added.

“Heed Guy Kawasaki’s advice and select those not on the A-list. The Mari Smiths, Chris Brogans and David Meerman Scotts already are showered with love. Select an up-and-comer, as you will stand out more to that person,” explained Erik.

#3: Don’t over-focus on marketing

“All too often, businesses overlook the ‘social’ part of the phrase social media marketing and jump straight into the ‘marketing’ part… to their detriment. They forget that social media is dominated by a community of people who have expectations of the various social networks to which they belong. Very often, these expectations do not include having marketing messages jammed down their throats,” explained Hollis Thomases, author of Twitter Marketing: An Hour a Day.

Hollis cites INGDirect, L.L. Bean and Ben & Jerry’s as good examples of authentic brand voices that ‘get’ the Twitter community.

Notice the engagement in their streams.

Hollis added, “If you plan on delegating your social media activities to someone, ask yourself, ‘Does this person really understand our brand, the image we want to present and does s/he have the ability to communicate properly about these attributes?’”

#4: Research what your customers are saying

“Stop reading the success stories and best practices to model your social media strategy. Use them for inspiration, but my best advice to you is to go figure out what your opportunity is first,” said Brian Solis, author of Engage: The Complete Guide to Building, Cultivating and Measuring Success in the Social Web.

“Every business case is different. Your customers’ needs are different. Use a tool such as Research.ly to learn more about what your customers and prospects are saying, looking for and sharing. It’s here where you will find the insights necessary to inspire a campaign that’s relevant and meaningful,” said Brian.

Publish your time-stamped stream as an intelligent link.

#5: Meet people in real life

“I’m from Boston and we used to have a huge user group here called the Boston Computer Society,” says Steve Garfield, author of Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business. “They had monthly meetings where people could go out and meet each other and get help and learn about new products. Then, people started getting answers online. So the Boston Computer Society disbanded, thinking that people could just go online to get all their answers.

“The most critical thing that the Boston Computer Society forgot was how important it is to meet people face to face. That’s why I have monthly meetings in Boston with a group I founded called Boston Media Makers. At these meetings every person who attends gets to meet every other person. That’s the secret,” said Steve.

You can meet people online, but solidify these online relationships face to face.

“The meeting is set up to allow for mingling at the beginning, then we have a round table where everyone gets two minutes to talk about who they are and share some news or ask a question. Then the meeting ends with more mingling. What’s very important is that the meeting is free, and happens at the same time every month no matter what. We never cancel. Everyone is welcome,” explained Steve.

#6: Get your content read by being controversial

“We all know that ‘content is king’,” says Dean Hunt, a leader in high-impact buzz and viral content. “This is especially true when it comes to social media and social bookmarking. But what happens if nobody reads your masterpiece? There’s nothing worse than spending hours on an article, blog post, etc., only to see it gather dust in the Internet caves.

“So here’s a strategy I created to ensure that your content WILL get noticed… In fact, people will do a double-take when they see your content title, and will not be able to resist reading it. I call it the ‘negative slant.’ It’s very simple to do, and works best with informational or how-to content,” said Dean.

“An example is a recent post I wrote, ‘How to Work Really Hard and Make No Money.’ It was a big success. Now, I should stress that the content in that blog post was informative, positive and actually showed people how to make money, but I put a negative spin on the title, which gave it shock value,” said Dean.

“Imagine if the title had been ‘How to Make Lots of Money’ instead. We see these kinds of promises every single day, and we’re trained to not believe or trust them. So put a negative slant on your social media content, and watch it create buzz and get shared faster than ever before,” explained Dean.

#7: Invest in social media after you do your research

“Just as you would invest your personal finances based on your family size, age and market conditions, you should be spending in social business with the same industry knowledge,” said Jeremiah Owyang, partner of customer strategy at Altimeter Group.

According to Altimeter’s recent report, How Corporations Should Prioritize Social Business Budgets, “Corporations should gauge their own social business maturity and prioritize spending decisions based on the industry benchmarks. Novice programs must focus on getting their internal teams in order; intermediate programs must scale customer-facing initiatives; and advanced programs must integrate social business throughout the enterprise.”

This chart matches spending priorities with an organization's social business maturity. Take a look and see where your business fits best.

#8: Share the knowledge of experts with your audience

“Get experts involved with your content. Determine who the experts are in your industry. Then go to them and offer to interview them about their hottest new project. During the interview, be sure to ask plenty of questions your audience would like to know the answers to. The result will be a great article, audio or video that provides valuable information to your audience AND forges a relationship with the expert,” said Mike Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner.

To see an example of this strategy, check out Mike’s recent interview with bestselling author Seth Godin.

Want to Learn More About Social Media for Business?

If you’re not fully leveraging the power of social media, don’t worry. You’re not alone.

There’s one easy way to take your social media efforts to the next level. By attending the web’s largest online blogging conference, Social Media Success Summit 2011 you’ll become empowered to use social media to gain more exposure, better engage customers and grow your business.

The great part is you’ll be learning from 22 blogging experts. Join  Jeremiah Owyang (Altimeter Group), Brian Solis (author, Engage), Frank Eliason (Citigroup), Mari Smith (co-author, Facebook Marketing), Erik Qualman (author, Socialnomics), Michael Stelzner (founder, Social Media Examiner), Dan Zarrella (author, The Social Media Marketing Book), Andy Sernovitz (author, Word of Mouth Marketing), David Meerman Scott (author, Real-Time Marketing & PR) and experts from Verizon, Boeing, Intel, and Cisco as they reveal proven social media tactics at Social Media Success Summit 2011.

Check out this video from Michael Stelzner

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

By the way, all eight of these experts cited in this article will be joined by 14 other social media pros at this year’s Social Media Success Summit 2011. Go here to learn more about this online social media conference.

Now it’s your turn! Which of these expert tips are you going to model for your own social media strategy? Share your comments with us in the box below!

Altimeter Group‘s recent research reveals that integration, staffing, advertising and measurement are all key areas of focus for social media strategists in 2011.

Jeremiah Owyang, industry analyst and Altimeter Group partner who focuses on customer strategy, recently delivered the keynote Social Business Forecast: 2011 The Year of Integration. He offered some extremely valuable survey results, insights and advice for businesses looking to expand their social media plans in 2011.

In the survey, Altimeter Group asked 140 corporate social strategists about their 2011 planning. Below are the specific questions asked and the graphs Altimeter created to reveal and compare the findings.

Question: What internal social strategy objectives will you focus most on in 2011?

As you can see from the graph above, "Creating ROI Measurements" was top of mind for almost half (48.3%) of those surveyed. Not so closely behind was "Internal Education and Training" (37.3%).

Question: What external social strategy objectives will you focus most on in 2011?

The graph above shows "Website Integration" as the #1 priority for 46.7% of respondents. This is an important objective because social integration with your website allows readers to stay on your site longer. This also encourages social sharing and community in a location (your website) that you have more control over (versus external social channels like Facebook and Twitter).

Question: What measurements are most important to evaluating the success of your program?

From the above graph, it's obvious that social strategists have their eye on engagement for 2011, with over 65.5% stating that retweets, comments and likes are top of mind when it comes to measuring social success. Interestingly, product revenue was much lower on the list, coming in at only 21.8%.

For years we’ve been hearing social media experts warn that profits and revenue should not be the ultimate goal for using social media tools and based on the findings above, businesses just might be starting to agree.

So how do you get ahead in social media in 2011?

Owyang’s advice is to invest in scalable social media programs in 2011.

How do you do that? Here are his six tips to help you move in that direction:

#1: Hire Correctly and Properly Train to Scale

Altimeter Tip: No gurus, ninjas or hotshots need apply. Look for solid experience and seek out the early technology adopters, as they tend to have a finger on the pulse of industry trends and behaviors.

#2: Integrate Social Media on Your Corporate Website and Then Aggregate and Curate

Altimeter Tip: Do this in stages, starting from ground zero with no integration and moving toward seamless integration by using a step-by-step progression. Start off with sharing, move toward integrating the brand with the social channels and eventually integrate social logins to keep people on your site longer and encourage even greater social sharing.

#3: Invest in Advertising That Leverages the Social Graph

Altimeter Tip: Advertising is the second highest social business program spend for 2010-2011, but it must be done strategically to see real results. Focus on clear metrics and make sure to tie the ads back to the social graph, instead of the old way of using banners.

#4: Build an Unpaid Army of Advocates to Get Your Customers to Do the Work for You

Altimeter Tip: Invest in advocacy programs because you can scale them more easily than most other social programs. Here are the 5 phases of scalability for an advocacy program:

• Internal readiness
• Identify advocates
• Build relationships
• Put advocates first
• Foster growth

#5: Invest in Scalable Systems

Altimeter Tip: 1:1 dialogue does not scale. The two systems to help you scale are social customer relationship management (SCRM), which connects the social web to your customer database, and social media management systems (SMMS) such as Co-Tweet.

#6: Learn to Measure Using the ROI Pyramid

Altimeter Tip: To avoid information overload of executives and management, Owyang provides a valuable solution: Provide the right metrics to the right audience. Know who your internal audience is and give them the appropriate info.

He makes a great point by saying, “A novice mistake is to provide engagement metrics to executives.” He suggests instead that you focus on business metrics when it comes to executives.

Check out the “Social Media ROI Pyramid” in his keynote presentation (slides 37-40) to better understand which role should get what specific data. I’ve never seen it laid out this way and it’s incredibly valuable information you don’t want to miss.

Now it’s your turn! What are your thoughts on the six tips for scalable social media programs? Do you think it’s valuable advice or will you do things differently in your business? Leave your comments in the box below.

To help you take your blog to an entirely new level, here are 7 tips from the best-of-the-best in the blogging and social media arena. Every expert below has created a thriving blog with tens of thousands of subscribers who engage with their posts on a regular basis. If you want to know how to create and grow a successful blog, make sure to take notes (and take action)!

#1: Measure Your Blogging Success

“If you’re blogging for business, rather than blogging about your cat, baby, fashion addiction, or crush on Taylor Swift, you need to set some success metrics,” says Jay Baer, founder of Convince and Convert.

Without a statistical measure of your blogging progress, adding content to your blog on a regular basis can be an incredibly lonely proposition. Is anyone out there? Does anyone care?

However, within the business blogging arena there are a wide variety of potential metrics to gauge your momentum. It’s imperative that you select the most relevant ones that match with your blog’s purpose.

The first step in that process of course is to know why you’re blogging. This sounds simple, but it’s shocking how many bloggers aren’t clear on the core business rationale behind their blog initiative.

As I see it, you have 3 options:

• Blogging for Content
  This is the scenario where you are writing a blog with considerable emphasis on search optimization, attempting to drive traffic to the blog via strategic content creation and keyword inclusion. Your metric is search traffic.

• Blogging for Commerce
  Related to the first, but commerce-oriented blogs are more interested in conversion events than in traffic generation. Funneling traffic from the blog to some other web destination (typically a corporate site or lead form) is the primary objective. Here, your metrics are leads and conversions.

• Blogging for Community
  These blogs seek to build a consistent readership that interacts with the blogger(s) and advocates on behalf of the content on other social outposts.

Determine the main reason why your business has a blog and pick success metrics to match.

#2: Pursue Guest Blogging Opportunities

One of the best ways to get exposure for your blog is to blog for other people. Rich Brooks, president of Flyte New Media, offers some great advice to start building relationships for potential guest blogging opportunities.

“Find the influential bloggers in your related industries,” says Brooks, “and read their blogs. As appropriate, leave intelligent, thoughtful comments that further the conversation. This can drive traffic to your blog and may open up opportunities for guest blogging at their blog as they become aware of you through your brilliant insights. However, this must be a win-win for it to work. If you leave comments for completely selfish reasons, you can expect limited results.”

#3: Reframe How You Look at Business Blogging

“I often hear people complain that they don’t have time to write on their business blog or they don’t know what to write about,” says Denise Wakeman, founder of The Blog Squad. “Yet a blog is one of the best tools you can use to distribute your message across the web.”

One way to move away from this mode of thinking is to reframe how you look at blogging. It’s not about writing on a blog; it’s about taking advantage of a powerful marketing tool that works for you 24/7/365. Then, schedule writing time so it doesn’t slip through the cracks in the course of a busy day or week.

Here’s a 4-step process to get you started:

1.     Block out your writing time on a calendar.

2.     Plan your content in advance. Create an editorial calendar and plug in your topics 1 to 3 months in advance.

3.     For each of your blog categories, list a minimum of 5 topics you can cover related to your company, products and the solutions you provide.

4.     Pop them into your editorial calendar as prompts so you’re never at a loss for ideas when it’s time to create content.

#4: Add Keywords to Your Blog Titles and Posts

Rob Birgfeld of SmartBrief says keywords are the secret sauce to a successful business blog.

“It’s easy,” Birgfeld says, “to write blog posts on whatever topic springs to mind. But chances are your blog was created to help achieve business goals. In order to reach those goals, take data from your search engine marketing efforts and develop an editorial plan around your top-producing keywords.”

Gather your top 10-15 keywords or phrases and write blog posts specific to each one. Keep the content compelling, but be sure to sprinkle the selected keyword (and synonyms) throughout the post.

Most importantly, be sure to include those all-important keywords in the blog title and in the tags that you select. Not only will a keyword-driven blogging strategy help you build and plan out your editorial calendar, it will help you reach company goals via proven search engine marketing data. Thus providing you with something that’s hard to come by in social media: An easier sell to your CFO.

#5: Interview the Best in Your Industry

Michael Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner, suggests, “Hire a videographer and go to the biggest trade show in your industry. Interview all the leading book authors and thought leaders.”

When you do this, you’ll end up with tons of content you can release on your blog over months. And chances are, when the big names see your video, they’ll share it with their fan base, driving new traffic to your site.

Here’s Mike Stelzner interviewing Scott Monty of Ford at Blog World 2010. This is a great example of attending the best events in the industry and connecting with the influencers.

#6: Create Persuasive Calls to Action

“You’ve got anecdotes, case studies, top-ten lists, provocative insights and more on your business blog. Hats off to you. That’s a huge achievement, particularly if you’ve been publishing a blog for a year or less. But what’s your call to action? And by that I mean, what step is a visitor prompted to take after landing on your blog?” says Debbie Weil, expert blogger and author of The Corporate Blogging Book.

What obvious callouts do you have to attract a visitor’s eye after he or she reads your latest blog post? Think about it. Your blog reader, if a first-time visitor, has most likely typed in a keyword phrase and ended up on your blog through search results.

Readers may not even know that it’s a blog. So you’ve got their attention, at least for a few seconds. This is your real-time moment to prompt your visitor to take the next step. If I sound all salesy here I don’t mean to. This is permission marketing 101. It’s offering something unanticipated but relevant at the exact moment your visitor is looking for it.

Here are a few ideas for persuasive calls to action from Debbie Weil’s Social Media Insights Blog:

• Download our white paper
• Join us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
• Ask us a question
• Download our e-book
• Sign up for our free webinar
• Request our toolkit
• Sign up for our e-newsletter
• Request a demo

#7: When it Comes to Video Blogging, Forget Acting

“I remember the first time I was on camera,” says David Garland, founder of The Rise to the Top and author of Smarter, Faster, Cheaper. “I was trying to be someone I wasn’t… with an awkward spray tan. (Stop laughing.)”

For some reason, our personalities can sometimes change when on camera (something about that scary lens). What the audience craves is to see the real you. All the good stuff, quirks and everything else.

Try this. Invite someone over with whom you are VERY comfortable. Have him or her ask you a question and simply answer it. Then, have the person hold a camera and try it again. Rinse, wash and repeat until you feel comfortable. When you talk into the lens, picture that person. It will make all the difference.

Here's David Garland interviewing Mike Stelzner about the success of SocialMediaExaminer.com.

Want to Learn More About Blogging for Business?

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

There’s one easy way to take your blogging efforts to the next level. By attending the web’s largest online blogging conference, Blogging Success Summit 2011 you’ll become empowered to use blogs to gain more exposure, better engage customers and grow your business.

The great part is you’ll be learning from 23 blogging experts. Join Technorati’s CEO, Scott Monty, Darren Rowse, Brian Clark, Michael Stelzner and experts from McDonalds, Cisco, Southwest Airlines, Sony and Procter & Gamble as they reveal proven blogging tactics at Blogging Success Summit 2011.

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

Now it’s your turn! Have you used any of these great blogging tips already? Do you plan to implement any into your blogging strategy right away? Share your thoughts and comments with us in the box below.

All photos from Shutterstock

Since we started Social Media Examiner in October 2009, we’ve published more than 280 articles. These original posts were written by dozens of social media professionals.

We decided to tap their knowledge and expertise to see what’s likely coming next year. Here are their predictions for where social media is headed in the next 12 months.

#1: Marketers will have more tools to stimulate conversation.

Tom Martin

“Social Media will become Conversational Marketing and its practitioners will shift their focus more to ideas and technologies that can create or stimulate conversation versus simply focusing on the engagement in conversation. These technologies will be very data measurement–driven, like QR codes for instance. By making this shift, social media consultants will retain and improve their standing within the internal ROI-driven cultures of today’s companies.”

Tom Martin is founder of Converse Digital. He works with companies and ad agencies to help them monitor, create and engage in digital conversations to grow market share or increase customer loyalty.

#2: More companies will invest in social media.

Nicole Kelly

“As paid search traffic and conversion rates continue to decline and become more expensive, companies will start looking to social media to replace volume. Therefore, measuring the ROI of social media will become a top priority as companies consider expanding budgets and staff members for social media–related activities.”

Nicole Kelly is the director of social media for CareOne Debt Relief Services and is passionately working to understand and help define social media measurement.

#3: Social media will become mainstream.

Debbie Hemley

“In 2011, the social media dust will finally settle and folks will stop referring to it as ‘new’ media. Social media will take its rightful place on the editorial calendars and budgets of corporate marketing departments. The calls to action will reverberate virtually and within the brick-and-mortar planning rooms of corporate marketing departments. Those who hadn’t before will report reading online news, magazines and books; and watching more full-length and short videos on a myriad of screens and devices than they did in 2010. We will catch up with friends and colleagues as we leap from one geolocation to the next.”

Debbie Hemley is a blogger and nonfiction writer. She writes about social media, marketing and writing.

#4: Quora will leave beta and become a serious player in social networking.

Peter Wylie

“Quora is superior to any other question-and-answer platform in terms of quality, and it has fantastic technologists working on the product to help it scale.  Its experiment with setting up Twitter handles for every topic on the site using Mechanical Turk was genius, and it shows a clear strategic desire to integrate more closely with other social behavior.  Expect Quora to be brought up in conversation with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube in 2011.”

Peter Wylie is lead researcher for Three Ships Media, an emerging media marketing company that specializes in using blogs and social networks to connect clients with target customers.

#5: People will demand more from social media.

Jason Falls

“Business will demand more business-driving proof, readers will demand more substance to blogs and those who are practitioners will have to demand excellence out of themselves. This will go a long way in cleaning up the industry, in my opinion. The ‘gurus’ will fade away while the practitioners excel. If you aren’t moving the needle, you’re done.”

Jason Falls is principal of Social Media Explorer, a social media marketing consulting firm based in Louisville, KY. He is the author of the popular industry blog SocialMediaExplorer.com.

#6: Social media will no longer be something the “cool kids” are doing.

Lewis Howes

“Social media is something all entrepreneurs and businesses have to do if they want to succeed going forward. In the last year, we’ve seen many start to jump in and experiment with various campaigns on Twitter, Facebook and geolocation networks. Going forward, we’ll continue to see more of that and I see mobile and social media meshing even more.  There will start to be actual numbers and statistics to back up what works and what doesn’t.  2011 will be an interesting year during which creativity will continue to thrive, yet social media will start to gain solid support with evidence that it does in fact work.”

Lewis Howes is the author of two books on the topic of LinkedIn and runs the largest resource of sports social media marketing content online.  Learn more at LewisHowes.com.

#7: Facebook will become a real ecommerce platform.

Tim Ware

“I predict Facebook will launch a Facebook-based ecommerce payment system so that users can truly complete the entire checkout process without leaving Facebook. No iFrames, no logging in to your Paypal account, etc. Look out, Paypal!”

Tim Ware is the owner of HyperArts Web Design, helping businesses build and promote their web presence. His focus these days is Facebook app development and Static FBML.

#8 Social communication skills will get better.

Linda Coles

“We will all get cleverer with how we communicate online and add a little etiquette as we realize we are not simply communicating with another computer, but a warm-blooded human. Networking and developing relationships online is no different than offline, so let’s stop treating it differently. The Internet has simply increased its scale.”

Linda Coles of Blue Banana is a sought-after speaker who also runs various workshops and seminars on how to use social media tools effectively and productively.

#9: Social media will expand through creativity, diversification and content.

Terry Lozoff

“Tumblr saw a decent amount of buzz in the business world during the latter part of 2010, but still has a relatively light presence in the corporate world. Following in the footsteps of brands like Huggies and news organizations like Newsweek and The New Yorker, more brands and content-based organizations will take a longer look at Tumblr in 2011, and how to engage with a new base of consumers through this channel, as well as others in the social periphery.”

Terry Lozoff is the president and CEO of Antler, an experiential and digital marketing agency based in Boston, MA.

#10: Internet noise will reach rock-concert levels.

Dino Dogan

“Three to four billion people are currently NOT online. However, given the growth and adoption patterns over the last 10 years, I wouldn’t be surprised if by the end of 2011, more than 4 billion people are using the Internet, effectively doubling the current Internet population. Where is this growth coming from? This new emerging market is coming from Africa, the Middle East and South America. In 2011, a new playing field will open up filled with people hungry for specificity, quality and education.”

Dino Dogan is a blogger, writer, motorcyclist, dog trainer, singer/songwriter and martial artist. He’s currently working on Human-Dog Problem Tree, a thesis in human-dog relationships. His home is at DIY Blogger.

#11: Social media will become targetable.

Jay Baer

“2011 will be the year of convergence and integration. We’ve been talking about ‘one-to-one marketing’ for 20 years, but in 2011 we’ll finally start to see it become a reality. We’ll start to be able to send an email only to customers who clicked a particular bit.ly link on Twitter. We’ll be able to send a Facebook status message only to customers who visited a particular page on our website. We’ll be able to meaningfully segment our social communication, and that will make social far more useful for companies and organizations of all sizes and levels of sophistication.”

Jay Baer is a hype-free, tequila-loving social media strategist, speaker and coach. He’s the author of Convince & Convert, one of the planet’s most popular social media blogs. And his latest book is The Now Revolution.

#12: Social media will become more cross-functional.

Jacob Morgan

“Social media will branch out from typically being owned by PR and/or marketing departments.  Social media itself will be seen as just a channel instead of a panacea for solving all organizational business problems.  Social media will also be looked at as more than just an external-facing communication channel; it will be perceived as an internal communication channel.  I think we will also see a broader movement toward ‘social customer’ strategy, which seeks to solve organizational business problems as they pertain to customers. This means integrating people, process and technology.”

Jacob Morgan is the principal of Chess Media Group, a social business consultancy focused on customer and employee engagement strategies, and authors a popular blog on Social CRM and Enterprise 2.0.

#13: Small businesses will stand a better chance of competing with the bigger names.

Ching Ya

“2011 will be the year where social media can be a game-changer for many sectors. Data on user experience and personalized sharing will be more emphasized than ever, but so will be the dispute about privacy and where the line should be drawn. Profile security will probably be another huge issue that requires a clear standard and resolution from the authority.”

Ching Ya is the author of Social @ Blogging Tracker. She provides Facebook customization service for small business.

#14: There will be a shakeout in second-tier social media platforms.

Rich Brooks

“This shakeout will leave Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as the only viable social media platforms for business. They will continue to steal ideas from each other to where their services overlap and they’ll all become a bit homogeneous, leaving an opportunity for a disruptive technology in 2012. In addition, prominent B-schools will start promoting their social media course loads, legitimizing social media for giant corporations. Finally, Justin Beiber will cause a massive overload of the social media networks, forcing us all to re-evaluate our priorities.”

Rich Brooks is president of Flyte New Media, a web design and Internet marketing company helping small businesses succeed with SEO, blogging, email marketing, social media and websites that sell.

#15: 2011 will be the breakout year for social search.

Jeff Korhan

“There will be less noise as marketers seek more personalized interaction with consumers.  Fresh and creative methods of social marketing that encourage engagement will become the norm—along with a noticeable decrease in traditional brand marketing.  This progressive use of social media for what it does best will generally result in business becoming profoundly social.”

Jeff Korhan is a professional speaker, consultant and columnist on new media and small business marketing. Read more on his website.

#16: Content marketing will drive social media forward.

Kristi Hines

“More businesses will continue to jump into social media, but instead of pushing sales pitches, they will be pushing content in the form of blogs, infographics, ebooks, whitepapers, free reports and much more.  Content development is growing in popularity, and social promotion—when done correctly—is the best way to make content marketing successful.  The only real issue with this will be if businesses go overboard pushing poor content in an attempt to try to get it to go viral.”

Kristi Hines is an Internet marketing specialist with Vertical Measures and author of Kikolani, a blog that focuses on social media and networking strategies for successful bloggers and businesses.

#17: Social media will have an ever-larger impact in the search engine rankings.

Jim Lodico

“In the same way that the search engines currently value incoming links as a way of giving credibility to a website, I think we will also see Facebook Likes, tweets and other forms of social media sharing working their way into the formula. From a publishing perspective, this isn’t a big change. High-quality, outstanding content is still key to an organic SEO campaign. Publishers (and who isn’t a publisher these days) need to create content that others will want to share and make it easy for them to do so with Facebook Like buttons, Tweet This buttons and other easy-to-use social media tools built right into the post. Visitors should be encouraged to share across social media channels, especially as this sharing starts to play a more important role in the search engine rankings.”

Jim Lodico is a copywriter and marketing consultant specializing in creating powerful content and teaching businesses how to use blogs.

#18: Curation tools will become the primary way people use social media.

Jamie Beckland

“I could tell you that all key metrics (like time spent, amount of content generated and influence) around social media will hit new records in 2011, but you already knew that, didn’t you? With hundreds or thousands of online connections, it’s impossible for people to keep track of all of the great content from their social network. In 2011, we will reach a tipping point, where there is no way to manage social media without a curation tool. From Facebook’s Top News to Cadmus to Google Reader, filtering and prioritization is already a thorny challenge. In 2011, it will become a crisis as the number of voices, and number of channels, continue to explode. Look for a new set of consumer-oriented tools to lead the way, as business tools for marketers lag.”

Jamie Beckland creates social and emerging media programs for White Horse, a digital marketing agency, and has built online communities since 2004.

#19: 2011 will be a year of listening, courage and enabling.

Ekaterina Walter

“More and more brands will realize the power of listening before engaging (and not the other way around). I anticipate more brands will have the courage to open up and truly and humanly participate, not just broadcast. Brands are also realizing how critical it is to fully enable their employees to become brand ambassadors, hence you see more brands creating internal university-like training around social media and putting Social Media Center of Excellence functions in place. This list is not exhaustive at all, but it demonstrates that more brands are going back to marketing basics and focusing on their objectives, their stories and on empowering internally rather than on technologies and platforms.”

Ekaterina Walter is a social media strategist at Intel. She is a part of Intel’s Social Media Center of Excellence and is responsible for social networking strategy and social media enablement. Read more on her website.

#20: Influence will be measured by follower and fan engagement.

Dr. Rachna Jain

“Social media will continue to evolve toward followership/fans as a measure of influence. Not numbers for numbers’ sake, but instead, how many people can you activate to your cause or belief? It will be less about growing a huge fan base, and moving more toward growing an interactive and engaged fan base. Whoever drives the most engagement wins.”

Dr. Rachna Jain is a psychologist by training and a social marketer by preference. She writes about the interconnections of neuroscience, psychology and social media.

#21: Personal authenticity will become increasingly important.

Stephanie Sammons

“Business owners and professionals will cultivate personal authenticity to rise above the increased noise, earn the respect of their target markets and ultimately generate new business.  Outsourcing social media activity or utilizing shortcuts to automate blogging and social media participation will not be effective for building community and developing new business relationships within the social world.  My best advice?  Be yourself, develop a strategy and establish a system for managing all your efforts.  Remember, marketing is a commitment!”

Stephanie Sammons is the voice behind Smart Social Pro, a resource for professional practitioners to help them understand how to leverage the power of social media and blogging in their practices.

#22: Brands will use more one-on-one communication on social media.

Lori Randall

“Social Media is still a novelty to many. Brands that beam content via social media like a TV commercial enjoy some success just because it’s new.  I see a huge shift in coming in 2011. I predict that mass media approaches will continue to run riot, but that mainstream people will develop a clear-eyed view on this murky subject and seek out unaffected, one-on-one communication that meets their desire to be heard, understood and helped concerning what matters to them most.  Scripted answers from an outsourced ‘Social Media Department’ won’t do. This dynamic will cause brands that communicate like normal people (instead of infomercials) to rise above the babble and get noticed because they will be so rare.”

Lori Randall is an online marketing strategist specializing in social media and WordPress sites. She often asks, “What truth about your brand makes your heart pound? Then work it!”

#23: The social media industry will “reboot.”

Elijah Young

“Brands that have hired outside consultants to handle social campaigns will start to look for more than friends/followers/fans as a metric of success, and start looking at the bottom line of their business.  Expect many fly-by-night specialists and consultants to see much of their client base dwindle due to a lack of tangible business results from their campaigns.  Expect the entire industry to start to mature, possibly with some industry-wide metrics and standards being adopted by the most forward-thinking of the bunch.”

Elijah Young is the lead strategist and owner of Social Talk Live. He’s also a business strategist who helps existing and new companies promote and grow their business.

#24: Expect to see more traction, innovation and spending in group buying in 2011.

Christine Gallagher

“I believe we’ve only just begun to scratch the surface in the group buying space. Services like Groupon, Living Social and BuyWithMe will continue to grow, spawn competitors and change the way businesses offer—and customers reap—the benefits of discount deals.”

Christine Gallagher is a relationship marketing speaker, trainer and coach. Christine helps small business owners maximize their profits using social media and online marketing techniques.

#25: In 2011, we’ll see a further divide between Twitter and Facebook.

Bill Seaver

“Facebook will continue to grow and broaden both how many people use it and what people do with it (i.e., Facebook email), whereas we’ll see Twitter narrow in use and appeal. People who continue using Twitter in 2011 will have a reason for being there beyond connecting with long-lost classmates and sharing photos of their weekend activities. They will overwhelmingly have business reasons for staying connected on Twitter. As such, Twitter will become a platform where you can connect with some people in their professional lives, and Facebook will continue to be the platform where you can connect with most people in their personal lives.”

Bill Seaver is the founder of MicroExplosion Media, a social media marketing consulting firm based in Nashville. He’s an active blogger and podcaster.

#26: Social media marketers will get the value—and necessity—of relying on direct-response tactics.

Tia Dobi

“In 2009, I made $40,000 from one tweet, thanks to my skill in evoking ROI learned from teachers like Claude Hopkins, John Caples and David Ogilvy. Direct-response know-how will separate the men from the boys in 2011… exploding opportunities that apps such as Facebook Places, Facebook Ads and Amazon Facebook Connect Campaign afford us by making point-of-purchase available everywhere, all the time. For the savvy marketer with the right thinking—and writing—2011 is the year of profits beyond belief.”

Tia Dobi is a former TV producer, direct-response marketing consultant and author of the upcoming book Copywriting for Twitter Impact.

#27: Social media measurements will become visual.

Nick Shin

“According to many who participate in my weekly #smmeasure Twitter chat on Thursdays (with co-host Sheldon Levine of Sysomos), metrics such as the number of followers/fans are highly irrelevant. However in 2011, social media measurement will focus on why basic metrics such as the one described are very much relevant. As social media strategists explain the measurement aspect, the shift from data tables to visual statements will begin. Rather than Excel sheets, expect PowerPoint presentations to visually tell the success of one’s social media strategy.”

Nick Shin is an online marketing strategist specializing in SEM, social media and PPC. When he isn’t collaborating or consulting on marketing strategies, you can find him on the tennis court.

#28: Deals, specials and discounts will flourish inside of Facebook pages.

Amy Porterfield

“Facebook pages are quickly becoming the exclusive promo hubs; the place where businesses can offer exclusive discounts and specials to warm audiences on a consistent basis. And the best thing about Facebook promos is that they can spread virally inside Facebook and beyond quickly, cheaply and with few barriers. With the continuing sophistication and flexibility of Facebook pages, I predict we will see a huge rise of promo hubs inside Facebook and businesses will continue to create even more opportunities to gain greater visibility for themselves while offering enticing opportunities via great deals to their customers.”

Amy Porterfield is a social media strategy consultant. Her passion is helping companies, authors and speakers create raving fans using social media and online marketing.

#29: More collaboration between social media players.

Nathan Hangen

“In 2011, I fully expect location-based services such as Gowalla and Foursquare to be enveloped by Facebook Places, perhaps being relegated to ancillary roles as clients, rather than providers. I really believe that this is the only way the check-in model can reach mass adoption. As part of this evolution, Groupon and Facebook will strike a partnership in order to integrate Groupon’s service into Facebook deals in some way, shape or form. I wouldn’t be surprised if Zynga joined in on the action and added a game layer on top of these services, putting SCVNGR’s business model at risk.”

Nathan Hangen is an Internet marketing strategist and founder of Webrepreneur Media. He co-authored the book Beyond Blogging with Mike Cliffe-Jones and provides small business consulting services at Making it Social.

#30: Facebook will welcome its one billionth member to massive worldwide fanfare.

Mari Smith

“I predict that the Check-in button will become just as, if not more, popular as the Like button via sites and apps such as GetGlue.com and Clicker.com, where you let your friends know what entertainment you’re watching right now. I also predict some form of Check-in button will roll out for websites because it can be clicked each time a reader visits a website, versus the Like button’s one-time click.”

Mari Smith is a social media speaker, trainer, thought leader and co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day.

More Social Media Success Stories in 2011

And I’m sure we’ll have many more social media success stories to share with you here on Social Media Examiner throughout 2011.

Would you like to stay in touch with Social Media Examiner’s writers? Follow our “Social Media Examiner Writer” list on Twitter.

What do you think? What are your social media predictions for 2011? Please leave your comments and join in the conversation below.