What’s New This Week?

Facebook Deals Go Local: Businesses can now offer discounts to their local markets through Facebook Deals. And Facebook will be publishing these Deals stories in the Facebook feeds of your customers. This new service puts Facebook into direct competition with Groupon.

Local Deals start out initially in Dallas, Austin, Atlanta, San Francisco and San Diego.

Google Docs Introduces Threaded Discussions: Google has enhanced the discussion features on newly created Google Docs. Each comment now has a timestamp and profile picture. You can edit comments, hide them from the original document and reopen them. You can add someone to a discussion with an @mention. “For example, typing @eddy@altostrat.com in a discussion will send a notification email to Eddy with the text of your comment.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zmOYziFKZw

Twitter Makes Your Account More Secure: You now have the option of always using a secure HTTPS service when accessing your account through Twitter.com and the official Twitter applications for the iPhone and iPad. “Using HTTPS for your favorite Internet services is particularly important when using them over unsecured WiFi connections.”

Under the Settings tab of your Twitter account, you can now choose to view all of your tweets through a secured URL.

Twitter Celebrates 5 Years of Tweets: Twitter released the latest Twitter statistics on their 5th birthday. The past year has seen a 182% increase in mobile users. Check out the other stats here.

On March 21, 2006, Jack Dorsey (@jack) sent the first Tweet. Last month there was an average of 140 million tweets sent per day.

Here’s another social media tool worth a look.

Wishpond: A shopping engine to search local stores and find the best deals in town. You can Make a Wish on a product you like, and Wishpond will alert you when the price drops, find similar products that match your desired price and send you personalized deals from nearby stores that will match that price. Wishpond was also recently in the news for their participation in Crowdbeacon.

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And don’t miss this:

Social Media Examiner’s Social Media Success Summit 2011: Check out the largest online social media conference! Help your business grow with social media.

Watch this video as Michael Stelzner shares his story.

What social media news caught your interest this week? Please share your comments below.

There are several options to choose from. Which one would be right for you?

In this article, we cover what you actually get for your money and how you might use some of the enhanced features.

Let’s take each area of the business upgrade in turn and run through it.

Here's what you get for your money, but what does it all mean and how are you going to make use of it?

#1: InMails per Month

An InMail is simply an email that can be sent to anyone on LinkedIn, whether they’re in your network or not. Before you say, “Why don’t I just call and get the person’s email address and use that for free?”, the LinkedIn InMails work much better. In fact, LinkedIn actually states that InMails are 30% more effective than using regular emails.

They’re more successful because they’re less of a cold, spammy email, the person to whom you’re sending it instantly knows that you’re part of the LinkedIn community and the receiver can also simply click on your name and check you out very quickly. If they like what they see, they may respond favorably.

The really cool thing here is if you don’t get a reply within 7 days, you get the credit back to your account where it can sit for up to 90 days. In effect, you get a refund.

I’ve used InMails very successfully and my secret to you is keep the content light and be yourself. No carefully crafted company content here. You may simply want to send a message of congratulations to a CEO who just won entrepreneur of the year, or some other little snippet that you’ve picked up in the news.

You can then put a quick one-liner at the end to say something like “Now you know I exist, if you ever need any help with (insert industry), you know where I am.” All you’re trying to do is put yourself on their radar for the future, so don’t overdo it! Remember, they can very easily just click on your profile and see what it is you do.

#2: Profile Organizer

This is a great tool if you’re doing a lot of research on LinkedIn. Ideal for recruitment, or simply prospecting, you can create folders and add profiles to them.

You don’t have to keep rerunning a search and wondering where you are with the search results, as the profile organizer also allows you to make notes and add contact details only visible to you about each profile. When you go to your profile organizer, you can see what messages you’ve sent as well as the notes and what folder they’re in.

Makes it easy to "file" people.

#3: Premium Search Filters

With the upgrade, you can find exactly who you’re looking for in half the time, view their full profile and then make contact with InMail. With the free version, your search is limited and you’re much more restricted. It can be time-consuming to check through each profile for criteria you’re looking for.

You get the extra search functions (highlighted with the gold logo).

#4: Profiles per Search

With a pro account, you’ll get up to 1000 search results. This is very handy if you use LinkedIn a lot. In the free version, you get a maximum of 100 results per search, even if there are thousands to choose from, and LinkedIn will automatically pull to the front people within your network. By network, I mean your first-, second- and third-degree connections. The search function will then look for profiles outside of your network if it needs to.

#5: Saved Search Alerts

Another labor-saver that you can set up is when someone either changes their job role or joins LinkedIn and matches the criteria you’re looking for, you get an email. Almost like a Google alert, you simply get the information in an email.

Set up an alert to make search easy.

#6: Introduction Requests

Introductions are available with the free account also, but with the upgrade, you’re allowed to have 50 outstanding at any one time.

Introductions simply allow you to send a message to someone you’re not connected to, via someone you are connected to. You can write a note for the person you’re trying to contact (person A), and write a separate note for the person you want to pass it on (person B). The beauty is that person B can see what you want her to pass on to person A, and make a decision whether she’s happy to do so. Person B then has the option to send it on or decline.

You can send an introduction to people in your second- and third-degree network. The only thing I don’t like about this is the message doesn’t appear in your regular email box (i.e., in Outlook), it only appears in your inbox in LinkedIn. So you need to visit your inbox on LinkedIn regularly.

#7: Profile Stats

Now I really like this as it gives you a good insight into how people are finding you. You can see who has viewed your profile (as long as they’ve not opted to be known as “anonymous user”), the keywords that were used to find your profile and the number of times you appeared in the search. That’s great to know so that you can tweak things on your own profile if necessary.

How often do you appear in someone's search?

#8: Expanded View

Sometimes you may do a search and the results come back with PRIVATE. This happens when the person you’re searching for is out of your network. Even with the upgraded version, you won’t get to see the expanded profiles of everyone on LinkedIn.

What you will get though is the full name of your third-degree connections; whereas the free users will only see their third-degree connection’s first name and last initial. You can’t ever see the full name of those people out of your network unless you’re searching via their name.

A workaround is to simply Google the current position information and, very often, you’ll find your answer. You can then search for the person in the usual way on LinkedIn and send an InMail.

No more secrecy.

#9: Open Link

Allow people to contact you.

Another option to consider is whether to use the Open Link icon or not. On my profile I want people to contact me. So by having this little icon present, it allows anyone on LinkedIn to get in touch with me without having to use an introduction or an InMail, so it’s free and easy to do.

#10: Sneak Peeks

When any new features are due to come out, you get a sneak peek of the upcoming features. Very cool.

The beauty of the upgraded version is that you can simply try it out to see if you like it. There’s no contract, so if you change your mind, you can revert back to the free version. Although you may wish you hadn’t. You get quite used to the extra functionality.

For more on LinkedIn, read the 26 Tips to Enhance Your Experience on LinkedIn and find out How LinkedIn Apps Can Promote Your Business.

Do you have a new or improved idea for a LinkedIn feature? Are you currently using the upgraded version? Leave your comments in the box below.

Using social media to research competitors can provide useful information for any business looking to create a smart strategy.  Learning about your competitors’ activities can give you insight into what works and what doesn’t.

The beauty of social media is that there’s a ton of information about your competitors that is public. And not only is their strategy public, but the reaction to that strategy is public as well. Let’s take a look at some of the things you can learn about your competitors through different social networks, search engines and other outlets.

Competitor Research Through Twitter

Twitter can be a great source of information, because you not only can view a user’s tweets (assuming they’re not private, which generally business Twitter accounts aren’t), but also a user’s followers and the conversation that’s being directed toward him or her.

Finding Competitors

If you have a specific list of competitors that you would like to research, your best bet on finding their Twitter accounts is to visit their website and look for their social links (usually near a Twitter icon in the header, sidebar or footer of their site). Alternatively, you can Google the company name and Twitter to find their account.

If you haven’t compiled a list of competitors, or your main competitors surprisingly don’t use Twitter yet, you can use Twitter search directories such as Twellow and WeFollow to find other companies in your industry that do.

Tweets

The first and most useful information you can learn from looking at a competitor’s Twitter account is simply the strategy they’re using. By viewing their latest tweets, you can see if their strategy includes promoting lots of discounts; direct replies to their followers; or sharing articles, fun facts or other kinds of tweets. You can judge the success of their strategy simply by looking at their follower count.

Followers

Have you ever wanted to see your competitors’ client list? If so, you might just be in luck, because on Twitter, you can view any user’s followers. Thanks to the new Twitter design, you can easily click on a Twitter user’s followers and see, just by scrolling down the page, a short piece of information about each of their followers from their bios.

Twitter gives you a great overview of any Twitter user's followers.

Then you can click on each one to learn more about them, like their follower-to-following ratio, location and their latest tweets.

Alternatively, you can get an overview of a user’s followers by using Twitter tools like Tweepi, which allows you to see follower details all on one screen, including bio information, location, number of followers and following, number of updates and even when they last tweeted.

Tweepi shows you important Twitter user information in one shot.

Replies

Now, let’s take the research deeper. You don’t want just to know who’s following your competitor on Twitter—you want to know what kind of feedback that competitor is getting as well.

If you do a simple search on Twitter for the replies to their username, @yourcompetitor, you’re bound to learn some valuable information.

Monitor the @mentions of your competitors for fan sentiment.

In the above example, you can see that @Target’s fans like their latest commercial, selection of Christmas items, pricing on certain products and even one of Target’s charitable contributions during the holiday season.

Most Popular Content

Another great Twitter search tool is Topsy. This one is specifically for researching what content on a website gets the most retweets—a sign that it’s the type of content that people like and something that you should consider emulating for your own blog or website.

See the most popular pages tweeted from a competitor's website.

In the above search, you can see a few important things in particular—this company uses services similar to Sponsored Tweets for Twitter advertising, as marked by the #ad hashtag after the first tweet. They also received lots of good feedback and changed their in-store return policy, news that’s being shared often.

Competitor Research Through Facebook

Facebook is one of the top social networks for businesses, and another one where you can find out a lot of information about your competitors’ strategy and fan interaction.

Finding Your Competitors

Again, just like with Twitter, you can find your known competitors’ Facebook fan page links on their website or simply through a Google search. But if your competitor isn’t using Facebook fan pages, you can use the Browse All Pages directory on Facebook to find companies in your industry that are using the search or the category types listed, such as products, services, restaurants and more.

Strategy

There are lots of strategic elements that can be determined by viewing a competitor’s Facebook fan page. To get a full view of what they’re doing, you may have to Like their page with your personal profile.

Once you’ve become a fan, you’ll be able to see all sections (formerly tabs) of their profile. You’ll be able to find out if they’re using their Facebook page as lead generation through gathering email addresses, feeding other social media accounts or blog posts through their page, eliciting customer reviews, creating amazing landing pages or using premium applications from Involver or North Social.

The main strategy you’ll want to check out is how they use their wall for fan interaction. Do they post their latest offers, videos, blog posts, news, photos or other items? Why is this valuable? Because not only will you see their activity, but you’ll also see how it goes over with their customers.

Fan Activity

Unlike Twitter where you have to do a special search for a competitor’s replies to their @username, you can see fan response (or lack thereof) directly on each item of your competitor’s wall. This is a great way to gauge what fans in your industry like the most, from discounts to random status updates, simply by seeing the number of Likes an update receives and reading through the various comments.

See the popularity of an update on your competitor's Facebook fan page wall.

One particular thing to note is that it’s not always updates from the official fan page that get interaction. In the above example on Toyota’s fan page, it’s a fan posting on their wall that got other fans’ attention—a key reason to make sure that your page shows both your updates and those from fans.

Favorite Pages

Facebook fan page owners can add other fan pages as their favorites.

Find your competitors' additional pages through Favorite Pages.

This is a key area to check out, as it may lead you to find more competitors’ fan pages, revealing more of their ultimate Facebook strategy.

Competitor Research Through LinkedIn

Thanks to the new company pages on LinkedIn, you can learn some interesting information about how your competitors are using LinkedIn for business.

Finding Your Competitors

Locate your competitors’ company profiles on LinkedIn via their website, a Google search or using the search box at the top right-hand corner of your LinkedIn screen.

Followers

You can browse a company’s followers using the link in the top right corner of the company profile page showing their follower count.

View a company's followers on LinkedIn.

If you’re not directly connected to followers of a company (first connections) or sharing a connection with a follower (second connection), you’ll only be able to see a limited amount of information about a company’s followers, although it might still be enlightening.

Employees

You can also view information about a company’s employees if they’re connected to them on LinkedIn. If you do share connections, use the links for first connections and second employees in your network (shown in the box above) to see more details about those employees.

Also, don’t miss the helpful statistics about employees, including the following information compiled about all employees linked to the company:

• Job function composition—percentage of staff who are administrative, research, development, sales, marketing and executive.
• Annual company growth—a line graph that compares your competitor’s growth with others in the same industry and of similar size.
• Employees who have changed their title—a line graph that compares your competitor’s employee changes with others in the same industry and of similar size.
• Employees at the company with new titles.
• Years of work experience—a bar graph that compares your competitor’s employees’ experience with others in the same industry and of similar size.
• Highest education degree attained—a bar graph that compares your competitor’s employees’ education (bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, associate’s degree, certification, and high school diplomas) with others in the same industry and of similar size.
• Most common universities attended—a bar graph showing percentages of employees from the top five universities that they have graduated from.

Strategy

With the new company pages, companies can add more information to their profile. View their Recent Blog Posts and Activity on LinkedIn to see what your competitors are doing to boost their profiles and gain new followers.

More Competitor Research on Social Media

Want to go beyond the top three social and professional networks? Here are more ideas on social networks and websites to research your competitors.

• YouTube—check out your competitors’ video marketing strategy by finding their YouTube channel and seeing what types of videos they post and their popularity through number of Likes and comments.
• Social Mention—use this real-time social media search engine to find your competitors on other social networks, and view mentions about your competitors by other social media users.
• Geo-based social networks—are your competitors taking advantage of Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook Places, Whrrl or other location-based social media? Find out and be sure your company is “check-in” friendly if applicable.
• Boardreader—don’t just focus on social media! Some of the strongest, most loyal community members can be found in forums. Boardreader will help you find your competitors and any talk about them on forums and message boards throughout the web.
• Local search and review directories—does your business have local competition? Be sure to check out your competitors’ profiles on review sites such as Yelp, Merchant Circle, Google Places and more to find out if they’re garnering reviews from their customers, sharing discounts and taking advantage of local search to dominate in search results.

Do you research your competitors via social media? Please share your tips below, as well as valuable information you learned from doing the research and analysis.

Both social media marketing and direct response marketing place a focused pitch on the right list (prospects) and understanding what they want in order to engage them with relevant information that will get them to buy from you.

So why are social media and direct response considered mutually exclusive?

Jonathan Fields, author of Career Renegade, put a stake into the hearts of social media “purists” when he said, “Those making the most money with social media marketing today are doing so by turning it into direct-response 2.0.”

Is Revenue the Light at the End of Your Funnel?

Why is it considered crazy to link social media to direct marketing success metrics that tie your efforts to revenue? Cinderella stories of benefiting from word of mouth aren’t just urban legend. But going viral is a lightning strike, not a strategy—you can’t bank on it.

If the success or failure of a direct marketing mail campaign depends 40% on a targeted list, 40% on a compelling offer and 20% on the format and design, then is the winning recipe for a successful social media campaign so different?

Consider:

• The list is your audience (fans, followers, emails, subscribers).
• The offer is your brand service or product combined with copy you use to promote it.
• The format is the medium used in your message (video, blog post, eBook, etc.)

Fans Are Vanity. Revenue Is Sanity.

Smart marketers tie their social media efforts to a direct marketing methodology to strategically drive traffic into their sales funnel, giving them the Holy Grail, (gasp)… ROI!

Unfortunately, many social marketers have illusions that their social network connections are “their” audience. The harsh reality is that if they don’t visit you outside the network, they’re only friends you enjoy at Facebook’s “party.”

Converting connections from social networks to paying customers should be a critical focus of any social media campaign. Otherwise you’re only improving the experience for the social networks.

How to Convince and Convert Your Audience

A direct marketing campaign done right involves identifying your target audience, creating compelling one-on-one communications, and having a clear call to action laser-focused on “What’s in it for ME?”

The problem is some marketers don’t understand that “ME” is the customer! This fatal flaw causes them to shout, stalk, push and prod until the brand value is diminished and sales are meager.

Image source: http://gapingvoid.com/2006/05/09/if-you-talked-to-people/

#1: Define your target audience

Send a survey. It’s easy to send your audience a survey when you have an email list. Simply offer something in return, perhaps an opportunity for them to be put into a drawing to win $50.00 (this invariably leads to a much higher response).

Ask for comments or feedback. Offer a free report asking for feedback. Pay attention to the language used. You will gather invaluable insights that will help you create or refine your offer.

Run analytics. Use a tool from sites like Compete or Quantcast to analyze the traffic at your site (and your competitors’) to gather a robust audience profile.

Determine the size of the crowd.

Who are they, where do they come from and what is the keyword bait? – Social Media Examiner

#2: Define what your target audience desires

Before you craft your marketing message or initiate conversation, you must know what your audience wants. What they want is more valuable than what they need. You need toilet paper, you want a nice purse—which would you buy on a whim?

Google’s Keyword Tool is a terrific, free way to get started finding out the words someone might use to solve their “pain.”

Sorting keywords that tie to your topic by amount of traffic.

If you’re struggling for ideas, try the Google Wonder Wheel to find additional terms related to your main search term.

Where in the world is the Google Wonder Wheel?

Example of Google Wonder Wheel data output for the phrase tax attorney.

Paid tools like Keyword Spy or SpyFu find keywords people are buying (PPC). The rule of thumb—if they’re making money on them, you can too!

Traffic is vanity, sales are sanity: find "buyer" keywords.

Research Best Practices Marketing Messages Using Keywords

Amazon is the king of reviews and “other related products.” Use your keyword list to find relevant books. Read the customer reviews and recommendations. This data is priceless because it has your target market using their own words to tell you exactly what they loved and hated!

Say you’re selling a weight loss product, for example. If the reviewers say “Great concept but I’m starving and have no energy!” You could use it for a tweet, “The Top 10 Ways You Can Lose Weight and Have More Energy Than Ever Before.”

Google. Find conversations using “I hate” or “I love” and your keyword. What forum, social network or other places online are they having these conversations? Social Mention is a terrific tool for this, and it’s free.

Use Google Search to find "hot buttons" around your keywords.

Use Social Mention to find the who, what and where around your keyword.

Google Trends gives you insight into where the people discussing your potential product or service are located. Are they college-educated? Do they live in small towns? Look for insights to help you geotarget your market with precision.

Geotarget conversations around your keywords to build better user data.

Social networks are one of the best sources for finding data about your audience’s loves and hates, as well as neutral conversations. Use your keywords to find people discussing their pain or desire, then head to their profiles to discover more about who they are.

Tie conversations to types of users using Twitter search. Who seems to be saying what and why: search Twitter with keywords.

#3: Create a “Home-Style” Digital Persona

Try creating some faux social profiles for your ideal target consumer.

Remember you’re most likely NOT your customer. Your marketing message must be crafted using their words in a language that resonates with them.

Tina Calabria at Step Two Designs gives a well done, in-depth explanation of personas.

WRAP UP!

Do you still think direct marketing is the polar opposite of social media marketing? By keeping your eye on your targeted goals like a seasoned direct marketer, you’ll build the bridge between vanity and sanity.

Start implementing the same fundamental principles of direct marketing to your social media campaign and you might just set the world on fire!

What do you think? Leave your answers and comments in the box below.

A great blog post respects the needs of three distinct entities. It educates and informs your audience (your subscribers and visitors), optimizes for the search engines and sufficiently energizes you so that you do a good job creating it.

Every blog post should address the following five components to ensure it hits the mark for your audience, the search engines and you.

#1: Has an Engaging Title

The title is arguably the most important element of any post. Engaging titles that spark curiosity are more likely to be clicked. When this is combined with strategic keywords that affirm the topic of the post, you have a winner.

Tim Ferris recently wrote a post on the art and science of headlines to increase the click-through rate. The idea is simply to generate curiosity, such as Why Are You Single? Perhaps It’s the Choice Effect. You’re wondering what the Choice Effect is all about, aren’t you?

Many of us don’t have Tim’s fan base, so we need to develop a catchy title that also includes keywords that will get indexed by Google. Brian Clark with Copyblogger does an excellent job of this. One of his generally accepted SEO copywriting tips is to place these keywords near the front of the title.

You should occasionally test your titles to determine what resonates most with your audience. I’ve personally found that titles that respond to a specific need, such as How Often Should I Blog?, will result in higher traffic with my targeted readers than those that are deep and thought-provoking.

#2: Offers Easy to Consume Content

When you organize your content so that it’s easily consumed, you tap into a secret of blogging. The more readily your content is assimilated in the minds of your readers, the more favorably it’s received—and remembered.

Here are some ways to accomplish this.

• Blog for Your Audience: As you develop your blogging style, always consider the needs of your audience. My audience is the same as that of Social Media Examiner—business professionals and marketers. They expect me to get to the point quickly and avoid technical jargon.
• Learn to Write in AP Style: If you scan any news source, you’ll notice the paragraphs are short—only a few sentences. This is one of the hallmarks of Associated Press (AP) style of writing, which many journalists consider to be the standard. These guidelines will give your posts a professional appearance and make them easier to consume.
• Use Subheadings: This helps both you and the reader. I tend to write my first draft quickly for flow and readability. Then I go back and organize with subheadings, while also reorganizing and eliminating entire paragraphs so that my readers don’t have to.
• Create Lists: Lists are the ultimate organizing tool, which is why they’re frequently retweeted—thereby attracting valuable links back to your blog.
• Use Italics and Bold Text for Emphasis: If someone reads your blog post word for word, it’s usually after skimming it first. Help readers do both by emphasizing key points with italics, bold text and, with care, all caps.

#3: Mixes Content Types

Delivering great content requires a mix of qualities that keeps your readers coming back for more. The key isn’t always the quality of the message, but how it’s delivered. Improve how you do this by employing these 5 practices.

• Offer Your Opinions: If you’re an expert in your field, then your opinion is relevant. Who do you respect more, the waiter who says everything on the menu is excellent, or the one who looks you in the eye and recommends her favorites (or suggests avoiding some dishes)?
• Use Multimedia: Make it a point to use images, screenshots and video to communicate your message with more punch.

These contextual forms of communication enhance your message while also breaking up the text to improve the appearance of your post.

• Link to Your Research: Data has greater credibility when it comes from a reputable source, such as the Pew Research Center. A link to that source raises your credibility by showing you’ve done your homework.

Data from respected sources such as the Pew Research Center will validate your perspective.

• Provide Practical Examples: Examples of situations where you’ve had direct experience are powerful, although it’s important to provide details such as names and places to validate that credibility. Just be sure you get the proper permissions first.
• Take Out the Trash: Make the effort to edit out anything that doesn’t support your title or enhance your post. Include details to create a mental picture, but leave out anything else that detracts from your story.

#4: Is Search Engine Optimized

Learning search engine optimization (SEO) is a necessary aspect of blogging if you expect to build a sustainable reader base. While SEO can get complicated, you can be very effective by simply tuning into your audience and writing for them. Trust your gut and write for people and SEO will take care of itself.

These are the key elements of SEO that deserve your attention.

• Excerpts: The excerpt of your post is the brief description included with the return of search results. A well-chosen description encourages click-throughs. If you don’t build an excerpt, the first couple of sentences of your post will be used as a default. Get in the habit of summarizing your post in the first couple of sentences.
• Keywords: Learn the common words and phrases being used by your audience. For example, do they use the term entrepreneur or small business? It’s a distinction that has to be made so that you can be found when they’re searching for your expertise.
• Links: The SEO pros universally agree that inbound links to your blog are vital for achieving a high ranking. How do you get these links? The most reliable way is to write amazing content that people want to link to.

One tip is to link to the keywords (known as anchor text) in your post that are aligned with the words you expect to be used by someone searching for your expertise. The classic mistake is linking to click here instead of more relevant keywords such as small business marketing, or whatever relates to your expertise.

Additionally, you naturally want to link back to your previous posts to encourage your readers to hang around longer. This increases the likelihood they’ll respond to a call to action, such as subscribing to your blog or newsletter.

• Tags: Tags are handled differently in every blogging platform. Just be sure to use tags that are relevant to the post you’re creating, as well as the audience you’re blogging for. Darren Rowse of Problogger suggests no more than a dozen tags for each post to avoid undermining their effectiveness through dilution.
• Categories: Categories obviously help your blog visitors go deeper into the subject matter or topic that interests them most. Google also indexes your categories for the same reason, so choose your categories carefully. You’ll note the categories here at Social Media Examiner were intentionally limited to just eight to be relevant now and in the future.

#5: Encourages Interaction and Action

While blogging is indeed a platform for broadcasting, the ultimate objective is to encourage engagement and interaction, namely in the form of comments. Just as an engaged audience gives a speaker feedback on his live presentation, the comments to your blog will do the same.

You can and should learn from every single visitor to your blog by responding and seeking to better understand his/her point of view. The reason for this is that every commenter represents the perspective of many others. The more you learn, the easier it is to focus your efforts on what’s most relevant to your audience.

Why else do you want comments? Because comments are social proof that your blog is a happening place. And this encourages more traffic and subscribers to your blog.

To encourage more comments, you may not only have to remind your audience to do so, but show them as well. Write a post on commenting and use your blog as an example.

Show your readers exactly how to comment, and even go a step further to describe how to share your post by retweeting or using the Facebook Like button.

As you begin to engage your audience, you’ll want to move them closer to helping you accomplish your blogging objectives. For example, you may ultimately want to sell your ebooks. A preliminary step toward that is to encourage more subscribers to your list. Then when the time is right you can reach out to your list to provide higher-value content that monetizes your blogging efforts.

There is no such thing as a perfect blog post. However, if you follow these recommendations, you’ll be sure to enhance your blog for you and your audience, as well as the search engines that work on everyone’s behalf.

What do you think? What else makes for a great blog post? Leave your comments in the box below.

Just in the last year, the number of social media users has continued to climb at record speed and the audience demographics have widened. And marketers have noticed the trend.

For proof of social media’s steep rise, take a look at the number of statistics that surfaced in the last month.  These findings further support what most of us already believe:  Social media is only getting bigger.

75% of U.S. Households Use Social Networking

Nielson Company, in their report “Internet & Social Media Consumer Insights,” just released some impressive data on social networking activity in the U.S.  The company reported Internet users spent an average of 6 hours, 13 minutes on social networking sites, just in the month of May 2010. That number was just 3 hours, 31 minutes last year.

In addition, the research showed the average U.S. worker spends almost 5.5 hours a month visiting social network sites from the office.  Perhaps the efforts of many companies to ban social networks from the workplace might not be achieving the goal!

The data confirmed that Facebook is still the leading contender of social networking sites with a unique audience of 125.2 million visitors.  Twitter has a unique U.S. audience of 19.1 million visitors (May 2010).  This is a massive growth of more than 1,520% in the last two years!

Other interesting factoids from the Nielson study:

• 75% of all active U.S. Internet households visited a social networking site in May 2010.  How does that compare globally? In April 2010, the global number was 74%—almost identical to the U.S. percentage.
• 22% of the time spent online is attributed to social networking sites.
• 20% of U.S. adults online publish or own a blog.
• 55% have at least one or more social networking profiles.
• 20% of those surveyed frequently provide advice about movies, 18% share their opinions about TV shows and 16% often advise others about music.

Three of the World’s Most Popular Brands Are Social Media–Related

Facebook, YouTube, and Wikipedia have made the list of top online brands, according to a recent Nielson report.

Out of the top online brands such as Google, Apple and Yahoo!, users spent the most time on Facebook per month than any of the other online brands.  That’s pretty impressive considering Google’s and Apple’s worldwide popularity!

Considering that Facebook and YouTube are leading contenders with online powerhouses such as Google and Yahoo!, there's no doubt social networking is moving ahead at record speed!

Have you ever wondered how the U.S. compares to other countries in terms of social networking usage? It turns out that Brazil is actually the most active, with 86% of Internet users visiting social networks.  And Australia takes the lead for most time spent on social networking sites.  They clocked in at 7 hours, 13 minutes in April 2010!

When it comes to Facebook’s reach, Italy takes the lead, having two-thirds of the active unique audience in April 2010. Close behind are Australia, the U.S. and the UK with over 60% of active online consumers.  Take a look at the chart below to see how other countries compare.

Brazil is leading the way in active social networking users; however, Australia steals the lead for time spent on the networking sites.

Social Networking Use Will Reach All-Time High in 2014

In eMarketer’s recent report, “Social Network Demographics and Usage“, it was estimated that 127 million people (57.5% of Internet users) will visit a social networking site at least once a month in 2010.

They attributed the steady rise since 2009 as due in part to the ever-increasing popularity of Facebook. Not only is the number of users growing quickly, but also the audience demographics continue to widen from just teens and young adults. In 2010, they estimated that 59.2% of adult Internet users will visit social networks monthly, up from 52.4% in 2009.

“The connections and interactions that social networking makes possible didn’t even exist a few short years ago,” said Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report. “Status updating, commenting and sharing openly are all activities that will not go away.”

The estimates outlined in the report show a steady rise by 2014.  Two-thirds of all Internet users (164.9 million people) will be using social networks on a regular basis.  Two age groups stand out the most:  In 2014, 56.8% of 55- to 64-year-old Internet users will visit social networks regularly (34.3% in 2009).  In addition, 37.9% of seniors 65 and up will be social network users (14.1% in 2009).

These two graphs show the steady rise in social networking use by 2014.

Now it’s your turn. What do you think of these stats?  Will the rise of social networking sites continue?  Will you continue to increase your social networking usage?  Leave your comments below—we want to hear from you!

If you’ve pondered any of these thoughts, look no further.  All the answers are right here in this free report.

Watch the above video for a quick summary.

NOTE: Click here to see the 2011 version of this report.

To understand how marketers are using social media, Social Media Examiner commissioned the 2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report. We set out to uncover the “who, what, where, when and why” of social media marketing with this report.

A significant 1900 of your peers provided the type of valuable insight you won’t find elsewhere. In this free report you’ll discover:

• The top 10 social media questions marketers want answered
• How much time marketers invest with social media activities
• The top benefits of social media and how time invested impacts results
• The most used social media tools
• Marketers future social media plans
• And much more!

If you’re in charge of marketing for your business, you’ll want to closely analyze the pages of this report and use it to persuade others.

Remember, the nature of social media is to “share”, so if you like the report please let your peers know about it.

Download the report here. Note: Having trouble downloading? The file is large and may not display properly in some browsers. Try right clicking (or control click on Mac) to save it to your hard drive.

Michael can be reached at report@socialmediaexaminer.com.

What do you think about these findings? Please share your comment in the box below.

The growth and usage of Twitter is not surprising. Compete.com estimates approximately 21 million unique monthly visitors, and a quick search on Twitter yields a variety of conversations from music, sports, politics, events and products.

For business however, there’s an art to using Twitter, and the most successful at it follow an unwritten set of rules. The following are 5 important tips to follow on Twitter; all lessons that I have learned while working for companies like HP, Yahoo! and Intel.

#1: Do Some Research

Research is fundamental. I suggest that marketers or small business owners spend a few weeks understanding what types of conversations are happening on Twitter and then formulate a communications plan before actually engaging. This will help drive consistency in the messages shared on Twitter.

#2: Determine Your Goals

Not all businesses use Twitter the same way. Some, like @ComcastCares, use Twitter merely for customer support. Dell uses Twitter to sell products or share company-related information. Often, I see smaller, more local businesses use it to build relationships with their constituencies to drive customer loyalty programs.

Whatever your goals are, it’s important to think about what you want to achieve with Twitter before spending your valuable time and resources on it.

#3: Specify Your Twitter Profile

There are many options you can use when creating a Twitter profile. You can create a company-branded account, a personal account or a hybrid account.

Branded account:

A branded account is simply where your Twitter name corresponds with the name of your company, and usually the avatar is your company logo.

Personal account:

A personal account is a little more human and unites your own personal brand with that of the company you work for or own.

Hybrid account:

A hybrid account usually takes different elements from both the branded and personal accounts.

Every business is different, so whichever option you choose, there has to be a level of balance. Branded profiles are great for certain content—for example, industry news, contests, investor relations, etc. Personal profiles are more beneficial if your organization wants to leverage the employee’s personal micro-community or wants to have a more human presence.

When I worked for Intel, I used two profiles to build community: my personal Twitter profile and one I created for Intel. I followed an 80/20 rule that seemed to work perfectly for the community that I engaged with.  On my personal account, 80% of what I shared was conversational (i.e., asking/answering questions, sharing industry-related news, etc.) and 20% was Intel-specific content. The branded account was the opposite—80% of the content shared was Intel-specific and 20% was personal.  This worked very well and click-through rates on links I shared were well above industry average.

#4: Build Social Equity

To be successful on Twitter, you have to build trust and credibility with your community. The end result is an increase in your social equity. That doesn’t always translate to the number of followers, tweets, or retweets you may have either. Rather, it’s more about developing a reputation as a trusted source of information or being seen as an expert in a particular subject.

You won’t succeed in building your equity by pushing out one way marketing messages about your business. Instead ask questions, be personal, and engage people naturally within the community. Otherwise, customers won’t listen to what you have to say and your equity may even decrease.

Buying Twitter followers is not recommended either. There are a lot of companies that will promise you thousands of followers for a very low price. The problem is that many of the followers will never read your content, click through to your links and they’re probably just bots spitting out a multitude of Bit.ly links. Besides, if it becomes public that you did purchase followers, you will be called out by the community and your reputation may be damaged.

It’s not worth buying followers just to increase your “perceived” equity and influence because that’s all it will be, perceived.

#5: Track, Measure and Iterate

Any small- or medium-sized business should invest in a paid tracking service like Radian6 or ScoutLabs to better track Twitter conversations, identify trends, measure sentiment and get a quantifiable snapshot of what’s going on in the social web.

If you want to measure sales, you can simply use a tracking code or coupon code specific for Twitter that will help measure conversions. If you want to measure how much money Twitter has saved your company, you can track how many issues you resolved, leads you gathered, and dollars you saved through Twitter engagement versus traditional channels. If your goal is to handle customer support issues via Twitter, it’s wise to check if there are any decreases in the call volume to your customer support center.

The great thing about using Twitter for your business is that it’s very easy to iterate your metrics and communications plan on the fly. It’s important, however, to remember that your plan should always map back to your goals and objectives so you don’t lose focus.

What Twitter tips would you add? Are you tracking your Twitter activity?  Got a question?  Please comment in the box below.

If you want to hang with the big players—a place where connections are made, leads are generated, and deals go down—then you need to spend more of your time on LinkedIn.

Although other sites have their purpose in the business world and many people utilize multiple social networking sites, LinkedIn is still the number-one place to market your business.  Here are ways to use LinkedIn and get results:

#1: Use LinkedIn Groups & Receive Tons of New Leads Daily

How would you feel if you had a sales funnel that brought in roughly 50 to 100 fresh, highly targeted leads every day? You’d feel pretty confident about putting food on the table next week, right?

Well, creating a LinkedIn group gives you the ability to generate an amazing number of leads from high-end decision makers.

Here are some great groups to closely examine:

• Sports Industry Network
• Inbound Marketers – For marketing professionals
• Social Media Marketing
• Tweeple
• On Startups – A community for entrepreneurs

Here’s how to maximize your LinkedIn group:

1. Add keywords in the description of your group to increase your search rankings on LinkedIn’s search section.
2. Add keywords in the title of the group to be found on Google.
3. Add your company website or blog to the group to drive traffic to your site.
4. Add your blog RSS feed to the group so every new article is automatically posted to the home page of every group member.
5. Send a weekly message that adds value for group members and drives traffic back to your site.
6. Connect people in the group by making introductions to those who could potentially do business with one another.

All of these points will help you generate more leads for your business.  If your sales funnel is set up correctly, you will have more than enough prospects to grow your business.

Make sure you create a group that fills a need for the audience you’re targeting in your business field. This will ensure that every person who joins the group is a qualified lead.

#2: Ask Questions & Build Your Credibility

I’ve asked a number of questions using LinkedIn Answers because it’s a great way to get the answers you need from some of the top experts in the world.

One question I’ve asked was, “How often are you answering questions for others on LinkedIn?” I received about 20 responses, but one answer stood out from the rest.

I had an individual share that he spent about an hour a week answering questions and he was getting three to five new clients a month bringing in roughly $3,000 to $5,000 extra in monthly revenue.  Not bad for answering a few questions, huh?

Here are some tips for answering questions:

First, set up the “Answers Application” on the bottom right-hand side of your home page for the subjects you know best.

This image shows a sampling of the categories you can monitor.

Then, when you see a question pop up that you know the answer to, follow these steps:

1. Research the person who asked the question, and find a way to tie in a personal response with something from their LinkedIn profile.
2. Be as helpful and resourceful as possible when answering the question.  Give tips, website links with additional information, or even recommend someone who is the best expert on that topic.
3. Leave the answer with an open invitation for more communication by asking them to contact you privately if they need any extra help.

All of these tips will help you gain the most out of answering questions, and will help you build powerful relationships that will grow your business.

#3: Create Powerful Events

Hosting an event is a great way to build your business (see events under the ‘More…’ news in the LinkedIn navigation bar).  LinkedIn has an events platform that allows you to target thousands of professionals for free.

I threw close to 20 events around the country last year and I used LinkedIn to promote them, getting approximately 500 paying attendees per event.

Due to the viral nature of LinkedIn, once someone RSVPs to your event, it shows up on the home profile of everyone that person is connected to, spreading the message for you.

Creating an event on LinkedIn is simple.  Answer a few questions and start promoting your event.  Send an invitation to the people who would be interested in the event based on region or niche. You will notice a wealth of opportunities from hosting your own event.

This image shows what the events page looks like in LinkedIn.

#4: Run an Advanced Search in Your Target Market

It’s so easy to generate leads from LinkedIn.  The advanced search function helps you get in touch with the exact people you’re going after.

Simply click on “advanced” on the top right side of your home page next to the search box.  This will take you to a clean page where you can input anything you need to find the exact lead you are seeking.  You can search by industry, keywords, company and title, to mention a few.

LinkedIn Advanced Search

#5:  Send Personal Messages

Once you find leads, you want to send them personalized messages.  The best way to drop any walls—and give yourself the best chance of making a sale—is to connect with someone on as many personal levels as possible. Look at their profile, find out which companies they’ve worked for in the past, which school they attended, what groups they’re in, listed hobbies and who your mutual connections are.  Then, write a personal message like this one:

Hi Tom,

I noticed that we’re both connected to Mary, Jeff and Bob; we both played basketball back in college; and we’re both in Toastmasters International speaking club.

I would love to connect with you to learn more about your experiences at Xyz Company. I believe there are a number of ways we could help one another.  Would you be free for a brief chat in the near future?

Looking forward to connecting soon and I’ll be sure to tell Mary I contacted you. I’m sure she would love to know I reached out to say ‘hi.’

Thanks,
Lewis

Personal messages seal the deal and give you a greater chance of future opportunities.

Now Go Grow Your Business With LinkedIn!

If you follow these tips, you’ll begin to understand why LinkedIn is the best social networking site for building your business. There are number of ways to attract leads, connect with powerful decision makers and market your business. LinkedIn’s niche-specific filters and search features can help you reach the right people in your field.

Make a point of staying active on LinkedIn. Continue to update your profile and add new contacts. The more you put into it, the more the entire network will work for you.

Are you using LinkedIn? How is it working for you? I look forward to hearing what success stories your LinkedIn network brings you. Share your comments below.

#1: 50% of Small Businesses Say Lead Generation is Biggest Benefit of Social Networking

According to the “Small Business Marketing Forecast 2010” from Ad-ology, lead generation is the biggest benefit of social networking for U.S. small businesses.

Here’s the breakdown of respondents’ top benefits of social networking:

• 50%: Generating leads
• 45%: Keeping up with the industry
• 44%: Monitoring online conversation
• 38%: Finding vendors/suppliers

This chart shows the level at which the respondents found each social networking benefit useful.

Here’s a surprising statistic: While 67% agreed that social media is a good way to increase business, 39% of those surveyed said they did not plan to use social networking in their marketing plan in 2010.  This number is likely tied to the finding that 31% reported that their customers do not use social media, 29% stated they do not have enough time to devote to it and 21% said they do not know enough about social media.

Although more businesses are beginning to adopt social media strategies into their overall marketing plans, this report suggests businesses still have a long way to go before social media is fully integrated into marketing efforts.

#2: Online Forum Users Are Enthusiastic Brand Advocates

According to a recent survey published by PostRelease, people who actively contribute to online forums are overwhelmingly more engaged in “influential” activities – both online and offline – than people who don’t use forums.

What’s most interesting about these findings is that a forum contributor’s influence far extends past the walls of the forum.  Here are some statistics:

• 79.2% of forum contributors help a friend or family member make a decision about a product purchase – compared with 47.6% of non-contributors and 53.8% overall.
• 65% of forum contributors share advice (offline and in person) based on information that they’ve read online – compared with 35% of non-contributors and 40.8% overall.
• 57.7% of forum contributors proactively recommend someone make a particular purchase – compared with 16.9% of non-contributors and 24.9% overall.

There’s also an interesting correlation between forum users and blogging.  The study found that those who contribute to online forums are 10 times more likely than non-contributors to also publish a blog, and are 9 times more likely to take an active role in organizing an offline event or meeting for a group that originally met online.

For marketers who are looking to connect with the key influencers in their niche, the findings suggest that online forums are a smart place to start; however, marketers should proceed with caution. Justin Choi, founder and president of PostRelease, writes, “Online forums are great places to find enthusiastic consumers and influential brand advocates. The people in forums are often discussing specific products, sharing advice and asking each other for recommendations.  For marketers, participating in that discussion is not quite as simple as jumping into a forum conversation – forums have rules about that.  But there are tools for connecting in a way that’s transparent and relevant.”

Here's a snapshot of the behaviors and habits of people who contribute to forums versus the non-contributors.

#3:  Only 47% of Companies Experimenting With Social Media

A study by Gartner predicts that by the end of 2010, more than 60% of Fortune 1000 companies will manage an online community.  However, another study by ComBlu brings Gartner’s findings into question.

ComBlu’s study, The State of Online Branded Communities, shows how most companies do not understand how to engage within online communities and have no real idea of what their customers want on these sites.  Furthermore, most companies are unaware that people interact on these sites in different ways, so many companies are merely pushing data with little or no interaction.

The report reveals that when companies do get people to join their communities, their lack of engagement is extremely obvious to the sophisticated user.

“Instead of engaging the visitor, the brand drives them away because they offer little of value. Consumers today are sophisticated users of social tools and seek out communities to learn, share and interact. If these elements are missing, or there is no obvious organizing structure that fulfills specific needs, the ‘faux’ community will be quickly abandoned,” stated the report.

Here are some interesting findings related to brands and their online community activity (or lack thereof):

• 47% of brands are still in the experimental phase, meaning they “exhibit lots of social activity with little connection or integration with each other.”
• 24% are community ghost towns, meaning there is no engagement and very few members with no return visitors.
• 20% show a cohesive strategy and typically had robust engagement tools and multiple activities with an active participation from their community.
• 9% show community overload with multiple messages to the same audience, most likely causing confusion and diluting the message.

Perhaps even more important, the study points out that some of the most effective online community best practices were used the least.  Of the 135 communities they examined, only:

• 44 have a community manager. A community manager acts as the face of the community. Without one, there is no cohesive bond between the community sponsors and its members.
• 44 allow social networking. This practice allows community members to connect with each other and find shared interests, thus promoting further connection.
• 35 offer social bookmarking. This best practice gives community members a tool to personalize and aggregate their online experience at the brand’s destination site.

What do you think about these study findings? As always, we want to hear from you. Have you had similar results that support the data above or does your social media experience contradict the findings? Let us know your thoughts in the comment box below!