Attacking the Myths of Social Media: An Interview With Jason Falls
I recently met with Jason Falls, the founder of Social Media Explorer and co-author of the hot new book, No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing (Jason co-authored this great new book with Erik Deckers).
Jason also has a past with Social Media Examiner. He was one of our founding contributors.
Mike: Some might think the title of your book is a little edgy for the business world. Share how you came up with it and what you are setting out to accomplish with this new book. 
6 Ways to Become Likeable With Social Media
Would you like people to rave about your business?
Wouldn’t it be nice if customers fall in love with your brand?
If you think that sounds silly, see what people are saying about Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, New Jersey:
Fans are raving about Newark Mayor Cory Booker, despite numerous challenges facing the city.
How to Build Your Own Facebook App
Are you wondering how to integrate Facebook into your website? Got an idea for a Facebook app?
Keep reading to discover a new book that makes it all easy…
The Power of Facebook Integration
When JibJab (the personalized electronic greeting card company) released their first hit video “This Land” in July 2004, they relied exclusively on email to share it with their users.
At that time email was the most effective way to spread a message about an app or a website.
How to Create Content That Engages Prospects and Customers
When Rick Short, director of marketing communications for Indium Corporation, began thinking about his social media strategy, he started with keyword research.
He identified 73 of the most important keywords his prospective customers would search for. Then he created 73 different blogs that focused on each keyword and assigned a dozen employees to write those blogs.
The results amazed him. Once the blogs took off, customer contacts increased 600% in a single quarter. And everyone who contacted a blog author, commented on a blog post or downloaded a white paper opted in to the company’s customer database.
UnMarketing: Stop Pushing and Praying, Start Pulling and Staying
When marketing consultant Scott Stratten worked with the owners of a new restaurant, he recommended inviting residents of a nearby condo complex to a free dinner. Over two nights, the owners could get 150 people to start the buzz about the new restaurant in town.
But the owners balked at giving away free food, which they estimated would cost them several thousand dollars. Yet they had spent $5,000 on a magazine ad!
“How many customers did it bring in?” Stratten asked. “We don’t know,” they replied.
Does this sound familiar? Stratten calls this the “push and pray” marketing strategy. You push your ad out to thousands and even millions of people, and pray that some respond.
When Consumers Revolt Against Traditional Marketing, What Should You Do?
When little-known, first-term Illinois senator Barack Obama faced Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic presidential campaign, he knew he couldn’t compete with her financially. He couldn’t afford telemarketing and direct mail campaigns or TV and radio advertising.
So instead of playing by the old rules, he made new rules. He started blogging and he created profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
He also hired the co-founder of Facebook, Chris Hughes, to be his Internet strategist. And he won the Democratic presidential nomination even though he spent a lot less money than his opponent.
At the time of the election, Obama had five million fans on Facebook—over four million more than Clinton. On MySpace, the numbers were approximately 800,000 and 200,000, respectively. On Twitter, he had over 100,000 followers and his opponent had about 5,000.
And he did all of that by following the principles of inbound marketing.
How to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy
Canadian grocery store chain Loblaws knew they had a great BBQ sauce based on customer comments. But they didn’t understand why sales were so dismal.
Until they invited customers to post product reviews on their website. Only then did they discover the problem was the bottle – it was too tall to fit in refrigerator doors! They redesigned the bottle and their sales immediately increased.
That’s user-generated content directly leading to an increase in sales. That’s the power of social media marketing.
Are you still sitting on the sidelines when it comes to social media marketing because you know you can’t control the conversations about your company, your products and your services? And because you have no idea how to respond to negative comments?
