Together, social media channels and your website should work seamlessly to promote your online brand.

However, if you’re like most businesses, you’re probably missing out on potential interactions, impressions and ultimately sales.

In this article, I’ll dive into a quick how-to guide to ensure your business website and social media platforms are working together to maximize your online exposure.

I’ve included examples from small- to medium-sized businesses that specialize in a whole host of fields to illustrate that you don’t have to be one of the big players to take advantage of these simple tips.

#1: Include Visible Social Media Buttons

This seems like a no-brainer, but double-check. Best practices suggest that social media buttons be displayed on the top, bottom or along the side of your home page. Links or buttons that remain in your navigation as the user moves from page to page are optimal.

To ensure that users don’t exit your web page altogether, you may want to create the buttons or links so that they open your social media pages in new windows.

Also, do not feel obligated to link out to all social media channels you’ve created or dabbled in. If you’re fonder of Twitter and have completely abandoned your Facebook page, there’s no reason to link to any outlet that is not being actively managed. In fact, linking out to inactive channels can ultimately cause more harm than good.

There are several ways in which to display your buttons or links and none of them are wrong. In this case, it is more of a design preference focused on how the user will be interacting with the site.

Below are some examples of ways in which websites have successfully displayed their social media outlet(s).

Big and bold button catches your eye.

This eCommerce site specializing in alternatives to dog and horse supplements only links out to Facebook and chooses to do so in a big and bold manner.

Subtle buttons suit some sites well.

This farm credit services business subtly displays their social media buttons at the bottom of their page.

Front-and-center buttons ensure visibility.

This artist decides to feature his along the top.

#2: Integrate Social Where it Makes Sense

If you use social media to keep your customers or clients apprised of your recent happenings and are actively managing your outlets on a daily or bi-weekly basis, it might be wise to showcase your Twitter feed or Facebook posts directly on your website.

Linking out or displaying inactive social media channels will only cripple your online efforts. If you choose to go this route, it is important that you maintain your presence.

Below are two examples of how vastly different businesses (a web design firm and an online gift card site) have integrated their social media feeds into their websites.

On this site, tweets are visible along the right-hand side throughout the website. Tweets vary from deals and contests to interactions with followers and customer service responses.

On this B2B site, recent tweets are found at the bottom of the homepage and are mostly comprised of industry-related blogs, recent events and projects in which they've participated.

These businesses vary significantly in what they do and the way they make use of social media, but both have found a logical method of incorporating social media into their sites.

#3: Include Up-to-Date Buttons

Social media changes fast—dare we say in real time? So if you added your buttons a year ago, they are probably palling around with the dinosaurs. Facebook fans morphed into Likes, group pages died, +1 is spanking new and LinkedIn improved significantly. Do research to find the most current social media terminology so you don’t get caught mumbling about “The Facebook” and “The Twitter.”

Social Media Examiner stays up to date.

In order to maintain credibility within this ever-changing realm, it is important to stay with the times. However, staying up to date with your terminology does not mean that you need to jump on every platform that springs up. It is important to be tactful with your social media choices and do your research before blindly forging into unknown territory.

#4: Include Share Buttons

If you sell a product or run a full-fledged eCommerce site and you haven’t added share buttons to your product pages, you are missing out on a whole host of potential social impressions.

Share buttons should enable website-goers to seamlessly share or recommend a product.

If you find yourself hard up for a broad solution for this, check out AddThis or ShareThis. Both provide efficient and easy-to-use solutions for social media sharing across eCommerce sites with the added benefit of analytics to see how the content is getting shared.

As illustrated below, these buttons are easy to see.

The easier you make it for customers to share your product, the better.

Similar to eCommerce sites, if you have resources, articles, a blog or other valuable content on your site, you should attempt to make it as simple as possible for readers to share it with others. Social media share buttons should be displayed somewhere easy to see. Nicholas Creative does a decent job with this, as seen on their blog below.

If you enjoy an article, you won't want to keep it to yourself.

#5: Use Analytics

Pay attention to the way in which individuals are using your social media buttons by tapping into Google Analytics. How many people are actually clicking on your outbound social media links?

An easy way to explore this is by setting up Event Tracking in Google Analytics. If you’re unfamiliar with Event Tracking, Google provides a step-by-step guide on how to incorporate the correct codes into your site.

Google Analytics allows you to track the number of individuals who click on outbound links by setting up Event Tracking.

If you find that few individuals explore your social media outlets once landing on your page, perhaps your social media buttons aren’t in a convenient location. It’s always best to have actual numbers to back up your choices.

#6: Pay Attention to Terms and Conditions

This goes hand in hand with staying up to date and knowledgeable, but I continue to see major brands using social media in ways that violate platforms’ terms and conditions.

You cannot use Google+ for contest entries, a personal Facebook page shouldn’t be used to operate a brand and there are certain rules to adhere to when running a promotion on Facebook.

The way you use social media reflects on your website, as well as your brand as a whole. If you’ve accidentally violated some terms and conditions in the past, delete those pages and do not link out to them even in the interim.

I'm not sure what Pita Pit is doing with this personal Facebook page or if it was created by an unaffiliated party. Whatever the case may be, steer clear of using a personal page as a brand page.

#7: Don’t Over-Do It

You want to make sure that compelling information is easily shareable, but littering social media share buttons all over your webpage isn’t the way to go. Before adding share buttons to a page, ask yourself, “Is there information here that people would find worth sharing?”

If you find yourself on your “About Us” page and don’t see any added value to website-goers being able to share your administrative assistant’s contact information, then forgoing buttons in this instance is totally acceptable.

#8: Stay Knowledgeable

Don’t get it twisted. With the changing social media landscape and array of rollouts these days, it is easy to confuse social media features. Keep in mind:

• You won’t be directing individuals to your Facebook page by installing a Facebook “Like” button on a specific website page. Instead, you are allowing individuals to “Like”/share the information, content or product that is found on that specific website page. There is no correlation between Liking a specific website page and directing users to “Like” your branded Facebook page.
• Similarly, directing individuals to your Google+ brand page is different than adding a +1 button to a page. At this time, there is no correlation between the two.

As illustrated below on this pool supplies website, social media pages and social media share buttons can be found on the same page. Verbs such as “Tweet” and “Share” often help distinguish between share buttons and social media pages.

Be sure you know the difference.

#9: Use Social Media Insights Alongside Google Analytics

Many types of software allow you to see your social media insights alongside your web analytics in order to pick up on trends and to better understand the successes or failures of campaigns.

SproutSocial allows users to compare web analytics and social media reporting information from specific timeframes side by side. Being able to see the way in which your social media and website analytics relate proves useful in establishing goals, measuring successes and identifying areas in which you can improve.

Here's an example of the correlation between website traffic and a social media campaign via a SproutSocial report.

There you have it—a quick-and-dirty guide on immediate steps you can take to make your social media and business website play nice.

Do you have any tips or things to avoid at all costs? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Anita shares how social media impacts small businesses. You’ll discover which small businesses are slow to adopt social media and where social media brings the best results.

Be sure to check out the takeaways below after you watch the video.

Here are some of the things you’ll learn in this video:

• Find out what type of small businesses might not get much business from social media
• Tips for small businesses to use social media successfully
• Why you need to avoid sending the message “click my junk”
• Why you need to stick with social media to see impressive returns over time
• The common mistakes small businesses make
• What your online place of business says about your business
• The big trends for small businesses
• How small businesses are adopting mobile marketing
• How some small businesses excel at using social media
• How tablets have impacted mobile marketing
• What BizSugar is and how to get visibility for your business content

Connect with Anita on Twitter @smallbiztrends, check out Small Business Trends and learn more about Visual Marketing here.

Are you part of a small business? Do you use social media to market your business? What has been your experience with using social media? Please leave your comments below.

This article highlights nine small businesses of various sizes and industries that have transformed their online presence with innovative social media marketing practices.

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

These tactics will work for just about any business—from solopreneur to multi-employee manufacturer. So let’s dive in!

#1: JarvieDigital Photography

Scott Jarvie takes world-class wedding and nature photographs and he has trained a number of photographers using his unique methods. He’s even had a photographic method named after him: The Jarvie Window.

The Jarvie Window has generated interest in Scott's photography around the world.

As a photographer, you would expect Scott to have exceptional photos on his site, and he does. But he uses them on both Facebook and Google+ to create personal engagement and promote his products and services. In fact, Scott has developed different engagement strategies for each platform.

On Scott's personal Google+ profile, he is highly engaged through sharing resources and commenting.

On his Google+ business page, Scott features his photo services.

While Scott is a premium photographer and trainer, he demonstrates his expertise and generosity to photographers worldwide through sharing resources on his website and through his social sites.

Scott not only shares valuable resources, he also promotes the work of his students—a great way to show social love.

#2: The Prospecting Expert: A Consultant

Steve Kloyda founded The Prospecting Expert, a business-to-business consulting firm that helps salespeople with their prospecting skills. He has developed a powerful social presence through the use of video and podcasts.

Steve provides valuable content through a regular podcast show and video channel. Notice also the use of social sharing buttons.

One thing Steve understands is branding. Through the use of his photo and logo, he has created a consistent look and feel across all of his social channels.

Steve's brand is instantly recognizable. Notice also the friendly picture—important when your face is your brand.

One ninja trick executed by Steve is the creation of an iPhone app for distributing his content. While it could cost from hundreds to several thousands of dollars, the marketing benefit of having your content delivered straight to your users’ mobile devices could be invaluable.

Let your customers directly access your content on their mobile devices with a customized app.

#3: Coconut Bliss: An Ice Cream Company

Coconut Bliss is an organic dessert company based in Eugene, Oregon. Their products have become widely popular due to their social media practices.

Coconut Bliss conveys a fun, social brand through rotating photos on their home page.

Technorati discovered in their 2011 State of the Blogosphere report that bloggers use photos more than any other type of media (80% use photos, around 50% use videos and many fewer for all other formats). Coconut Bliss makes an effective use of fun and friendly pictures to show customers eating their dessert products.

Coconut Bliss integrates photos across social platforms.

Coconut Bliss makes an effective use of promotions to engage their fans. In this year’s Veggie Awards, they were able to partner with VegNews to offer a unique prize to Coconut Bliss fans while also getting partnership in a much larger promotion to all readers of VegNews. Two smart strategies: contests and partnerships.

#4: JamaicansMusic: An Online Music Channel

Casey Hibbard highlighted JamaicansMusic in a Social Media Examiner post, but they have some unique social practices worth emulating. After all, they have achieved astronomical growth through smart social media practices—1.5 million new fans in 4 months!

When visiting the JamaicansMusic website, one instantly gets the feeling that this is a social company. In fact, there are three different places on their home page to connect socially.

Make it easy to connect socially, especially if there are multiple offers on your home page.

By providing contests, free music, games and other valuable resources, JamaicansMusic has given their Facebook fans lots of reasons to revisit their page—and tell their friends about it.

When playing this creative songwriting game, JamaicansMusic offers fans more ways to connect socially.

#5: SEOMoz: A Software Company

SEOMoz is a search engine optimization and social monitoring service provider. One thing that distinguishes their site is the use of gaming mechanics to spur participation from their writers and site members. Each post, comment and Like generates points that help distinguish the experts from the crowd.

Gaming mechanics encourage site members to actively participate if they want to rank well against their peers.

Not only does SEOMoz invite social engagement on the first visit, they also use social proof to earn the trust of visitors. See the recognizable brands in the image below.

If you've done business with name-recognizable companies, ask if you can tell others. It provides significant social proof for your business.

#6: Ana White: Carpenter

Ana White is a carpenter billing herself as a “homemaker” who has a website to empower women to do carpentry projects. With over 51,000 Facebook fans, Ana has created a massive following among women (and quite a few men) who love her easy-to-follow blueprints for do-it-yourself furniture projects.

Ana's Facebook page has over 51,000 fans. Her fans post tips and projects here frequently.

Since late 2009, Ana has been publishing free how-to guides for furniture. She also asks her fans to post pictures of their success stories—the very thing people love to do (talk about themselves). As a result, she has a very popular site where most of the posting comes from fans. Very smart!

Ana's fans love to post pictures of their successful home projects.

Notice all the social sharing options Ana makes available at the end of the post above. She makes it easy to share with friends.

Ana has also created a very engaged community on her Facebook page that complements, but is distinct from, her blog.

Remarkably, she doesn’t post that often—she doesn’t have to. While she comments on at least half of the posts, her fans are busy posting and answering questions for each other.

#7: EasyLunchboxes

Kelly Lester founded EasyLunchboxes out of a personal desire to find healthy ways to package food she sent with her children to school. As a solopreneur, she has found unusual success due to her wise social practices and great social branding.

Her blog presents a clean, compelling look into her company. On her website, Kelly has integrated multiple opportunities to connect socially and to subscribe to her newsletter.

In addition to inviting social connections, Kelly has positioned herself uniquely as the "Singing CEO," a title that will be easily remembered.

An important piece of social real estate is the Facebook welcome tab. Kelly makes good use of this space by keeping her brand exciting, telling visitors what to expect from her page and promising valuable content.

Your welcome tab should give visitors a sense of what to expect on your page.

Kelly has created a focused plan to market through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and her blog. She delivers unique content on each channel and integrates them with each other—all while maintaining her personal life as a mom and actress.

With her acting background, Kelly has distinguished her YouTube channel by creating her own TV series. This includes over 150 videos where she has even given her audience a chance to share videos of why they like EasyLunchboxes.

If you or someone you know has an acting flair, think about creating your own video series.

#8: Social Media Explorer: An Agency and Online Service

Social Media Explorer is a business-to-business education and information products company focused on social media and digital marketing.

On their home page, Social Media Explorer has taken advantage of Intent, a Twitter plugin. This allows a user to see if he or she already follows this business.

What is seen before following Jason Falls' Twitter account

What users see if they are following Jason Falls.

As a blog, Social Media Explorer features numerous guest authors. To show social love to these authors, Jason Falls and Aaron Marshall have prominently highlighted the social profiles of each of their authors. This allows readers to quickly connect with the experts and enables the authors to expand their influence.

Each Social Media Explorer author receives prominent recognition for their articles and an easy way for readers to find them on various social platforms.

#9: Orabrush: A Dental Product

After years of failed attempts to market his innovative tongue brush, Dr. Bob Wagstaff decided to give YouTube a try. Spending only $500, he created his first video. In less than 3 years that video has been seen more than 16 million times and helped to generate over $1.6 million in sales and contracts with Wal-Mart and CVS Pharmacies.

While you can’t guarantee a video will go viral like this, there are some lessons to be learned:

1. Talk about something that people care about—in this case, bad breath.
2. Keep your video short—Dr. Bob’s video was only 2 minutes long.
3. Embed your video on your home page.
4. Grab people’s attention in the first 5 seconds—with some minor editing, this video incorporates quick, edgy statements that pull the viewer into wanting to hear the solution.
5. Offer something for free—your first Orabrush is free, if you’ve watched the video.

Here are more tips on video marketing.

Orabrush embedded their popular video on their home page, while answering a problem that concerns many people: bad breath.

Some other best practices used on Orabrush’s website: They made it easy for users to tell their stories with video clips. They also prominently feature quotes from the traditional press on their page. Finally, they make their YouTube channel prominent, because this has been a key to their success.

Let individuals and the press sing your praises through videos and quotes on your website.

Finally, Orabrush understands the importance of keeping customers on their website, so they integrated Facebook onto their site.

Integrate Facebook to keep fans on your website.

These nine small businesses have many more things to teach other small businesses everywhere, but they aren’t the only ones.

What do you think? What have you learned that you’d like to share? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Ever wonder exactly how a social sweepstakes ties in with the idea of “viral” marketing?

In this article, I’ll analyze the concepts affecting a social media “viral sweepstakes” and how marketers can and (potentially) should take advantage.

What Exactly Is the Meaning of the Term Viral?

Marketers use the term viral to describe media proliferation in two different contexts.

On one hand, viral can describe “massive engagement;” i.e., when droves of people sign up for a particularly enticing offer. Alternatively, “views” can go viral, which occurs when people share a brand campaign with others many times over.

As more participants share content, brands benefit across three areas:

1. More people become aware of an advertisement (brand recognition),
2. More people become aware of brands engaging consumers with whom they have a connection (brand equity) and
3. More people respond to an advertisement (customer acquisition).

This online "Band of Buds" campaign from Budweiser has two viral aspects: participants recruit friends to participate and share their group's activity with others.

Beyond sharing, there are four nuances of a viral campaign marketers need to think through in order to be successful:

1. Reason for sharing: can rely on either non-monetary (“This video is so cool that you just have to see it”) or monetary (“Share this and get a coupon”) incentives.
2. What is shared: two most common options are evidence of participation (“Hi friends, I just entered this contest”) and actual content. Content can be brand-created or user-created.
   

   The Old Spice "Smell Like a Man" videos are an excellent example of brand-created content that spread virally via non-monetary incentives.

3. Mode of sharing: can be either passive (post to a participant’s own profile for others to see) or active (participant sends direct messages to friends).
4. Sharing outlet: various outlets exist for both passive (e.g., Twitter/Facebook status update) and active (e.g., direct mobile/email messaging) sharing.
   

   This campaign from Benihana uses a $100 gift card to encourage both active and passive sharing of user-created photos.

As with most things in marketing, significant tradeoffs exist among the various viral approaches. Though cost-effective, driving sharing via non-monetary incentives is much more art than science. Sharing content spreads rich media, but risks being invasive. Passive sharing accesses a broader, albeit less interested, audience.

Selecting a specific social network or distribution channel requires a comprehensive understanding of consumer communication preferences and available marketing resources.

As described in a previous post about viral marketing, Using Social Media to Broadcast Mobile QR Codes, success ultimately comes down to execution. No one-size-fits-all solution exists, so developing a clear understanding of a campaign’s resources, customers and goals is crucial.

The Economics of a Viral Sweepstakes Campaign

Prior to running any social media sweepstakes campaign, marketers first should familiarize themselves with the conceptual and legal need-to-knows behind social media promotion. This will ensure that a sweepstakes has the proper foundation on which to build a viral component.

Viral components stem from the economics behind a standard sweepstakes. Breaking it down, consider that at its core a sweepstakes asks consumers to commit to a brand using an incentive as bait.

In this Facebook offer, dressbarn uses the chance to win a $50 gift card as bait for customers to provide their email addresses.

Like fishing, additional bait for marketers (incentives) costs more money, but allows you to reel in more consumers. However, unlike bait fishing, each subsequent catch returns less value. Each subsequent consumer commits to a brand less out of a desire to spend money and more to redeem the incentive. In economics lingo, each incremental consumer returns lower and lower incremental value for the brand.

Eventually, the incentive required to lure additional consumers exceeds the corresponding benefit to the brand. A marketer’s goal for a sweepstakes then is to find the point of inflection that maximizes value created at a given cost of incentives.

For those graphically inclined:

Now, here’s where adding a viral component to a sweepstakes changes the game. From a brand-recognition and brand-equity perspective, when consumers actively share a campaign with others, they effectively increase the incremental value they can provide to the brand. This increases the profit of the sweepstakes campaign:

From a customer-acquisition standpoint, when consumers actively recruit others to participate in a campaign, the number of customers recruited at a given incentive level increases. Because consumers value each other’s opinion, they will be more inclined to commit to a brand for reasons related to purchasing (as opposed to signing up to receive an incentive):

Implementing a Viral Sweepstakes Strategy

The trick then is to choose a viral sweepstakes strategy that maximizes the value created from increased brand recognition, brand equity and customer acquisition.

Here are three examples of ways that brands are currently running Facebook viral sweepstakes, in order of effectiveness (in my opinion):

#1: Soft Share

With a soft share, consumers receive a reminder that they should share with their friends and family. On one hand, this is the least invasive encouragement possible. On the other hand, only those truly impassioned consumers will be prompted to extend themselves on behalf of the brand.

Dunkin Donuts uses a non-monetary incentive to encourage people to passively share evidence of participation via social share options.

#2: Direct Share

The direct share integrates the share call to action directly into the ad. The advantage here is that the share call to action takes on more of the character of the brand.

Budweiser uses a non-monetary incentive to encourage passive sharing of content via Facebook.

#3: Incentivized Share

With an incentivized share, brands put more responsibility on consumers to actively participate. The benefit is that consumers will go out of their way to recruit more participants.

Pizza Hut uses a monetary incentive to push consumers to actively share content via Facebook and direct messaging.

Putting these campaigns back into the context of our graph, you can see tradeoffs among the different strategies. The soft and direct shares rely on others to expand the profit bubble. The incentivized share takes an active role in expanding the profit bubble.

The correct tactic depends on how actively engaged consumers are already (e.g., perhaps Budweiser feels that its audience is particularly motivated) and the incentive (e.g., free cinnamon sticks requires a bigger push than larger incentives).

One other thing to note: the incentive to share for both the soft and direct shares actually decreases the original person’s chance of winning. In my mind, this is evidence of using technology for technology’s sake instead of with the end user in mind.

The Importance of Customer Relationship Management

In an earlier Social Media Examiner post about running successful social media contests, author Ben Pickering does an excellent job of laying out the different types of consumers relevant to a social media contest:

• Spectators: view shared media but don’t participate
• Joiners: view and participate in shared media
• Creators: view, participate and create shared media

Within the context of a brand running a sweepstakes, these designations are important because they can change over time. However, it’s only through the creation of a customer relationship management strategy that marketers can track these changes over time and use them to their advantage.

Sweepstakes are not the end-all be-all between brand and consumer; rather they are a launching pad or enthusiasm generator within the context of creating customer lifetime value over time.

Which brings me to one last viral sweepstakes example:

#4: Another Incentivized Share

Participants in Sugar Bowl's sweepstakes can increase their chances of winning by referring others.

Here is a case where each subsequent participant in the sweepstakes has a clear incentive to refer others without upsetting their own chances of winning. The tricky part is that such a contest requires a CRM system (in this case, customer mapped to mobile phone number) to track each new entrant as either organic or referred.

On the positive side, you can now gain an understanding of various customer distinctions over time and reward those spectators or joiners who graduate toward the next level of brand engagement.

The Bottom Line

Marketers can increase the benefits they receive from a sweepstakes campaign if they include a viral component, which can increase brand recognition, brand equity and customer acquisition. However, the benefits of viral components require a detailed understanding of a campaign’s goals, customers and resources.

Ultimately, social media marketing has one goal: to use interactive messaging to maximize customer lifetime value over time. A sweepstakes provides an excellent means to bring on new customers and enrich the brand experience for current ones. Pushing a sweepstakes beyond a one-off engagement using CRM only increases the value to the brand.

And the best part about viral marketing? Consumers do the marketing on behalf of the brand. A marketer’s dream realized.

What do you think? What are other ways to use customer engagement to increase brand value? Have you found any other viral sweepstakes campaign to be particularly successful? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Want to know why this is wise and how to do it? Keep reading…

Going Beyond the Customer

Many marketers have a relentless focus on a single dimension of social interaction: the brand-consumer relationship.

Thinking that the “social” in social media marketing is all about your relationship with consumers is constraining.

Rethinking the role of other relationships can dramatically improve the effectiveness of those very marketing efforts designed to engage your target customers.

While social channels facilitate new ways of tapping into “partners” and as the line between personal and professional relationships has blurred, it is important to view business relations in a new—and yes, more social—light.

The concept of “partner marketing” is not new. Traditional examples could be the independent mechanic being paid to put a Shell logo on her garage or the local hardware store receiving advertising dollars from Kohler for a yellow pages ad mentioning that they are an “authorized Kohler distributor.”

In this ad Southern Gulf Electric uses the Kohler brand to bolster its credibility.

When marketing shifted online, the value in partner marketing came largely from links on a partner website. Social media has created new opportunities for partner marketing and at the same time lowered barriers to forging partnerships, small and large, formal and informal.

Social Partnering Strategies

Whether you’re a Fortune 500 company or a small business, you can partner to increase the return on your social media marketing investment. Here are some ways in which you may be able involve partners in your social media programs:

• Co-brand with a partner to raise the profile of your campaign. You can provide additional exposure for the partner brand while they lend their brand equity to your marketing. If you have a promotional tab on your Facebook page, for example, consider incorporating partners into the design and messaging.
• Get partners to donate prizes for a contest or giveaway. This is often one of the first suggestions I make to our clients who are running promotions with prizes. Partners can provide access to prizes you might not otherwise be able to offer, both material and experiential. And often, companies have the ability to provide “in-kind” sponsorship (i.e., offering goods or services) when cash budgets are limited, so get creative.

This contest, developed by a client using the Strutta platform, is a good example of how to bring partners into your campaign.

In the Mezzetta example above, multiple partners contributed prizes and in return received prominent exposure on the online contest. This reduced the cost to Mezzetta while providing a “halo effect” for all those associated with the campaign.

It transformed the promotion from simply “create a Mezzetta pizza” to “create a Mezzetta pizza, watch the film ZooKeeper and win a trip to Italy courtesy of Delta.”

This gives the appearance of being a much larger, integrated marketing program in the eyes of the consumer.

While bringing partners into your campaign is valuable in its own right, don’t stop there…

Tap into partners’ social channels to amplify your message. Even if you don’t have a comprehensive partner marketing plan in place, ask partners to retweet (it helps if you give them an @ mention) or to cross-post on Facebook to give your communications an extra boost.

If you have an even deeper relationship, perhaps you can get mentioned in a blog post or included in an email newsletter. But don’t rely on serendipity when it comes to partners helping to spread the word. While you may be concerned about keeping communication genuine, there is nothing wrong with asking someone to share on your behalf.

While the above is a high-profile example, this type of co-marketing on social channels can greatly benefit small businesses that can combine forces to increase their reach.

So What Makes a Partner a Partner?

You might be wondering what differentiates a partner from merely a casual connection. Or where you should draw the distinction between a friend and a business contact. The answer: Don’t bother.

Nurture your connections to create partnerships. Image source: iStockPhoto.

Social channels have begun to render these types of distinctions a thing of the past. You can have relationships with thousands of people through Twitter with whom you may never exchange more than 140 characters. You can connect with someone through LinkedIn and make an important introduction without ever speaking face-to-face. When properly nurtured, any of these connections can become “partners.”

I’ve used the term “partner” in this article to encompass everything from a fully integrated co-marketing relationship to a more casual request to share a tweet or a post. One of the great things about social channels like Twitter and Facebook is that they make low-investment partnerships much easier.

While some companies are rightfully protective of what they publish, it’s still a lot easier to get mentioned in a tweet than it is to orchestrate a co-branded advertising campaign.

I can anticipate the comments already, so let me acknowledge that not all relationships are created equal. Just because it has become easier to connect online does not necessarily mean that our digital relationships are equivalent to those built up over years of personal interaction. And I certainly don’t want to imply that there should be any undue expectation put on a relationship that is based on nothing more than the act of following someone on a social network.

At the same time, I know firsthand that social media has enabled me to make connections with people I most likely never would have met in the traditional offline world. Or it certainly would have taken a lot more to make that connection. However, making a connection is only the first step. Building a relationship, no matter what the medium, still requires genuine effort. Here again, social media has facilitated a regular opportunity to interact, even if not on a deep level, and thus to build rapport.

Whether online or off, relationships and the ability to make the most of them rely on the principle of social capital. It has just become much easier to build social capital online (i.e., “Likes” or followers) and to use those resources to facilitate partnerships. Yet when it comes to approaching a potential partner or asking a favor, common etiquette and principles of reciprocity still apply.

In summary:

• Use social channels to create connections you might not otherwise be able to make.
• Use those same tools to develop relationships with an equal level of thoughtfulness you would put into a face-to-face interaction.
• Don’t assume that those in your social network will automatically support your marketing efforts.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for support, assuming you have a genuine relationship. Ask nicely and perhaps offer something in return.
• Wherever possible, look for opportunities to involve partners more deeply in your social media campaigns.

What do you think? What’s your business doing to improve the effectiveness of your marketing efforts? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

All photos from iStockPhoto.

Adding to the pressure, Sony’s social media team had a relatively small budget for the project.

With a creative mix of social media and in-person events, Sony brought out thousands of people to locations to “Catch the Tablet” and tell their friends about it.

Most notably, the campaign created buzz that inspired 1,000 clicks from Facebook to the Tablet S pre-order page, making it the most successful social media effort yet for the company.

A Sony fan "catches" the company's new Tablet S.

How Do You Create a Viral Campaign?

At Sony Electronics, a team of seven is dedicated to supporting the company’s thousands of products with social media. Understandably, the team focuses on select high-profile products, and the Tablet S was one of the biggest yet.

The Sony Tablet S launched in mid-September.

“We wanted to increase awareness of our Tablet S, generate buzz in advance of the launch and drive in-store visits to Sony stores and dealer stores,” said Marcy Cohen, head of social media at Sony Electronics.

“It was an interesting challenge for us to generate awareness before product availability and the only way to do that is by letting people touch and play with it,” she added.

The goal: get as many people as possible to try the Tablet in person and encourage them to tell their social networks – in short, go viral.

Step 1: Get people to show up

Working with Atomic PR, Sony came up with the “Catch the Tablet” cross-country tour. Starting two weeks before the launch, fans could try the Tablet in one of 32 Sony stores or at specific locations in select cities nationwide: New York, Miami, San Francisco, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Fans would decide the sixth city on the tour by voting from among Seattle, Dallas, Atlanta and Boston.

With Facebook as the home base for the campaign, Buddy Media created a unique tab on the company’s fan page. There, fans could find clues about where Sony’s social media team would be in each city, vote on the sixth city and enter to win one of the many Tablets Sony was giving away during that two weeks.

On a campaign-specific tab on the Facebook fan page, fans learned where they could "Catch the Tablet" and voted on the sixth city.

On Facebook, people could also RSVP for events and find interactive maps to city locations.

Sony alerted fans of the team’s whereabouts with Facebook posts, keeping them relevant to fans in specific cities with geotargeting.

Spirited fans in San Francisco showed their support for the Tablet.

To control costs, the core social media team traveled to all locations on the city tour, rather than hiring street teams, giving the team firsthand interaction with fans and the Tablet.

“It was invaluable [taking my core team],” Cohen added. “I became a total expert on the Tablet. I would be able to answer any question anyone posted to me about the Tablet.”

The chance to try the Tablet S, and possibly win one, brought fans to Sony stores.

Step 2: Make it worth their time

Many of those who showed up at events or stores not only got a one-on-one experience with the Tablet but also took away free SWAG like t-shirts, buttons and cotton candy, and depending on the event, food and drinks. Though giveaways were small and inexpensive, Cohen says fans were excited to score free stuff and wear it.

But the real draw was the chance to win one of four Tablets being given away each day. Fans could enter to win two ways: by submitting their emails on the Facebook tab or by taking a photo of themselves “catching” the Tablet and then tweeting it with the hashtag #CatchTheTablet.

More than 600 people entered to win a Sony Tablet S by tweeting photos of the Tablet.

Step 3: Get them talking

By requesting a Twitter post to enter, Sony netted more than 1,700 tweets with the campaign hashtag, many of which included a photo. Out of 8,800 contest entries, 600 were from fans who “caught” the Tablet live.

The U.S. social media campaign generated global awareness of the Tablet.

Step 4: Partner with others

Sony stretched its budget and reach by partnering with other companies in tour cities, drawing up to 600 people at some events.

“If you partner with another company that either has their own social media following or has an event already going on, you get so much more bang for your buck,” Cohen said. “A lot of the logistics have already been worked out by the other company.”

Those partner events included a meetup at Adobe, an exclusive tour of Google’s headquarters for Sony fans and a visit to TechCrunch Disrupt, all in San Francisco. In New York, Sony joined forces with GetGlue, which was already hosting an event. In Miami, it was a breakfast meetup at BGT Partners, a web development company that works with Sony.

Sony fans toured Google's headquarters as part of a joint event.

1,000 Clicks to the Pre-Order Page

The city tour was just one piece of a major national campaign, which included TV and print ads and PR. But the viral impact of the pre-launch social media effort exceeded Sony’s expectations.

The company tracked 41,437 engagements on the CatchTheTablet Facebook tab, including poll votes, clicks, shares and image and video views. In the process, Sony’s Facebook fan base increased by 8% and its Twitter following by 4.5% just during the campaign.

Approximately 2,300 people weighed in on the tour’s sixth city location, with Seattle winning with 40% of the vote.

A Sony fan tries the Tablet in Seattle, which won a Catch the Tablet visit with 40% of the vote.

The 1,000 clicks from Facebook to the pre-order page were the best evidence that the team’s efforts drove real interest in buying the Tablet, giving Sony momentum as it headed into the actual launch.

“We were very pleased with pre-orders,” Cohen said.

The campaign’s success now has Sony teams around the world talking.

“It certainly generated a lot of recognition internally at Sony,” Cohen said. “Colleagues in other countries want to know what we did. Every time we’re meeting with a product group, they say, ‘We want a campaign like Catch the Tablet.’”

“We’re over the moon about it. It’s something we never engaged with before in terms of putting the whole team out on the street. We had limited budgets and big goals so we felt we needed to do something a little bit risky but within our budget.”

What do you think? How have you effectively used social media to drive people to in-person events? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

If so, Social Media Examiner has some exciting news…

But first, much has been said about big companies such as Red Bull and Cisco, and how they harness social media to drive massive traffic to their sites and generate enormous sales.

But when small business owners are asked about social media, many have no idea how to use it in a practical way that can impact their business goals.

And frankly it’s hard for small businesses to get ideas from the big guys that seem to have unlimited resources.

Small Businesses Thriving With Social Media

Not knowing “how” to leverage social media is a huge problem for small businesses, because they typically get most of their customers through word-of-mouth referrals.

Savvy entrepreneurs are tapping the power of social media marketing.

Take Curtis Kimball, for example. In the Mission district of San Francisco where he’s known as the Crème Brûlée Man, Curtis uses Twitter to advertise his daily specials, “secret menus” and specific locations where his cart will be parked.

Curtis, who says he has no marketing budget, currently has more than 20,000 followers, many of whom literally follow him around from neighborhood to neighborhood to get a taste of his delicious custard treats.

And then there’s the story of Alex Morrissey. He leveraged Facebook to garner 500,000 fans and a very successful business called JamaicansMusic.com.

Responding to his social media experience, Morrissey said, “It’s better than traditional media or even advertising.”

What about you? Has your small business really tapped into the massive opportunities presented by social media marketing?

Small Business Social Media Stats

Here’s evidence of the opportunity for small businesses:

• Mass consumer adoption of social media: There are more than 800 million active Facebook users, 80% of all Americans use a social network and Americans spend more time on Facebook than any other U.S. website (Nielsen). Your customers are there.
• Small businesses see big results with social media: A significant 61% of small businesses are landing new customers through social media activities (CrowdSPRING). Plus, more than 70% of small businesses using social media see increased traffic and more than 60% improve search rankings (2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report).
• Smaller businesses find social media costs very low: Nearly 60% of small- and mid-sized businesses spend less than $100 to market via social media (Marketing in a Digital World, Zoomerang).

Are you “all in” with your social media activities? Want to fast-track your success?

Social Media Examiner Announces Small Biz Success Summit

Acknowledging the massive need to empower small businesses, Michael Stelzner (founder of Social Media Examiner) said, “It’s time to help ultra-small businesses really thrive with social media. Heck, we’re really small ourselves and I just don’t see anyone focusing on the needs of the small guys.”

Mike and his team recruited 25 of the world’s top small business experts with strong social media backgrounds for a brand-new summit: Small Biz Success Summit 2012.

If you’re not familiar with these events, they’re large online conferences (so you don’t need to travel).

Typically, thousands gather at Social Media Examiner Success Summits to discover new social media tactics, network with peers and discover how other successful small businesses are using social media.

Here’s what’s unique about this summit:

1. 100% small business focus: No big businesses and no speakers who target big businesses. This is fully for the tiny business.
2. This is totally new content: Broadcast new media, Google+, video marketing, blogs plus search and much more. Social media is always in flux and this event will cover what you need to know now about Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. If you’re working off what you learned six months ago or longer, you are ages behind.Need more??
3. Social Media Examiner’s biggest conference ever: Study the line-up—25 speakers. If you learn some useful new tactics, then it pays for itself.
4. Every presenter is a small biz owner. This is highly customized for you.

There's a free sample class if you click above and look for the yellow box near the top right.

All the speakers are themselves small business owners who are deeply entrenched in social media marketing. They include:

• John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing
• Anita Campbell of SmallBizTrends
• Jesse Stay, author of Google Plus for Dummies
• Hollis Thomases, author of Twitter Marketing: An Hour a Day
• Michael Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner
• Mari Smith, co-author of Facebook Marketing
• David Siteman Garland of The Rise to the Top
• Joe Pulizzi, founder of Content Marketing Institute
• Brian Clark, founder of Copyblogger
• Ramon Ray of SmallBizTechnology.com
• Lee Oden, founder of Top Rank Online Marketing Blog
• Amy Porterfield, co-author of Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies
• Ed Gandia, co-founder of International Freelancers Academy
• Marcus Sheridan, founder of The Sales Lion
• And many others

Because this is a fully online conference, you don’t have to worry about missing a session. If something comes up and you’re not able to attend, transcripts and recordings are provided!

There also will be plenty of networking opportunities via LinkedIn and you’ll have access to thousands of people who are expected to attend.

Justifying Your Expense

Are you worried about getting funds to pay for the summit? It’s a valid concern.

Can you really afford to not give social media marketing a try?

If you land just one or two customers as a result of attending the summit, the investment may have paid for itself.

Even if you don’t need the summit for yourself, it would make a very special Christmas gift for a friend, son or daughter who owns a small business.

Here’s what Paul Rodriguez, an attendee at our previous summit, had to say:

“If you’re using social media to promote your business (and you’re crazy if you’re not), this summit is a must. The instructors and content were excellent!”

Tickets are currently on sale for 50% off if you act now. Click here for details.

What do you think? Is your small business struggling with social media? Share your story in the comments box below.

So, if you use social media to connect with your customers (or fans, or followers, or tribe…), authenticity is a must.

Keep reading to discover five tips to make your company more “human.”

#1: Use your name

Putting a name (that’s a real, human name) on your blog posts, tweets or status updates shows your audience that you’re not a robot or an automated stream of sales pitches and company news. Using your name when updating social media humanizes your content and makes you relatable for your audience.

If you use a team of people to update your accounts, each one can sign off on his or her contributions. Even if they just use initials to save space when posting to limited-character services like Twitter, this shows your audience that thought and effort have gone into creating and distributing your content.

Comedy duo Hamish & Andy sign off their tweets and status updates to show who contributed the content.

#2: Add a face

Adding a face to your social media accounts works in the same way as adding a name. It humanizes your content and gives your followers an idea of the person behind the keyboard.

If you prefer to use your company logo or a product image as your profile picture, you can still use photos to add real-person value to your presence.

Many companies have “meet the team” pages, with information about the company members and what they do. This is a perfect place to add a team picture or individual photos.

David Hartstein has some great tips for using photos effectively on your Facebook page, which can be equally useful when adding pictures to your website, Google+ account or photo-sharing sites like Flickr.

Maintaining professionalism in your images so they represent your brand well is a must. As you can see below, IdeaPaint balances fun and creativity in its team photo to show off what the brand is about without losing its professionalism.

The IdeaPaint Facebook page features a great team photo.

Adding new photos regularly is a great way to keep people interested in what you’re doing as a brand. You can show the personality behind the logo by adding “behind-the-scenes” photos and sharing your work in the community through pictures.

#3: Connect with people through your writing voice

So now your audience knows your name and what you look like. They feel like they recognize you, but they don’t know you yet.

Adding personality (your voice) to your content creates a whole picture of you as a person. If you want to connect to people (Remember my intro? That’s what social media is all about!), you need to be a person.

People don’t connect to corporations, robots or automated messages.

Aussie bookshop The Nile does a great job of adding personality to tweets.

Your voice is a huge part of drawing in your audience and engaging them. The way you write has to replace facial expressions, body language, physical gestures and tone of voice, all of which help you get your point across and keep your audience interested in face-to-face communication.

That’s a big task for a 400-word blog post. It’s an even bigger task for a 140-character tweet! Which is why analytics and research are so important to companies using social media—we need a way to measure whether our voice is coming across in our content, and whether we are engaging people or turning them off.

Developing your voice takes time and effort (what doesn’t in social media?), especially if you are acting as a channel for your company’s message.

The important thing is not to quash your own personality in favor of your brand’s message. Writing like you talk can be difficult at first, but by free-writing in your spare time, or just through practice, you can incorporate what you sound like in a conversation into the way you write.

Re-reading your work is important here, too. Even a short blog post can give you some great insights into how you sound by reading it aloud or going over it with someone else.

Jeff Goins has some great tips to help you find the things that make you unique, and how to develop your writing voice to reflect who you are.

With a face, a name and a voice full of personality, you are now a fully equipped human being! Exactly the kind of person your audience wants to talk to, which means you can get your brand’s message across more effectively.

Now for a couple of tips on how to interact with your audience using your new-found humanoid existence!

#4: Listen (the great equalizer)

One of my favorite things about social media is that it acts as an equalizer in a way that no other communication channel does. Unlike writing letters, calling a switchboard or emailing a support team, social media can (and often does) give you access to Fortune 500 company CEOs, celebrities, future employers and those amazing people who make it all possible: web developers.

You can use this to your advantage.

By interacting with your audience on their turf, you have already taken the first step. But engaging your followers takes more than being in the right place at the right time.

If you show up on Flickr and try to generate discussions about new home-security equipment, you probably won’t have much luck. Or if you start a Facebook fan page and fill it with legal jargon, your fans will probably dwindle quickly.

Interacting with your audience in the right way is imperative to a successful social media strategy. This is where listening comes in. Listen to your fans; not just to find out what they say about your brand, but also how they say it. How do they interact with you? How do they interact with each other?

Listening has proven to be influential in driving social media campaigns. Listening, as opposed to talking (or selling!), allows you to determine the best way to connect with your audience.

Monitoring mentions of your brand name, your own name, your industry and your competitors shows you where the conversations are happening and what people are saying about you.

Once you’re in the right place, listening to the conversations around you (and about you) will give you the information you need to jump in with a useful comment, propelling the conversation. You can also tailor your content to be more personal and engaging by listening first.

The great thing about social media is that the consumer finally has as much power as the corporation. Your customers will show you how to engage them, if you will just listen.

A company that listens immediately demonstrates genuineness, originality and credibility. And you know what those equal, don’t you?

#5: Determine why you are here

To quote Jay Baer, “for many companies, the conversation has shifted from ‘why’ or ‘should’ we do social media, to ‘where’ and ‘how’ social media should be done.” The only problem is when a company decides they need to “do this social media thing” just because everyone else is.

No matter what your strategy for social media, you must have a reason for it. Otherwise, you’re just adding to the noise.

Having goals for your social media team (or just you!) to work toward will give your content purpose and will give you motivation and clarity in monitoring and updating your accounts. This will eliminate the wishy-washy gap-filler posts that lower your brand’s credibility.

Plus, your audience will be more likely to get on board if you not only create and share great content, but also have a demonstrated purpose behind your actions.

What do you think? Does your company do a great job of showing authenticity as a brand? Or do you need to adjust your approach? Maybe you have some great tips to add? Leave a comment in the box below and let us know!

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.

@JasonFalls

Jason: Well, when Erik and I sat down last December and started talking about the concept for the book, I was really dead set and determined that we needed to write the “No Bullshit” guide to social media marketing.

The reason that I came up with that concept is that over the past few years, as I was giving talks around the country about social media, I’ve always tried to be very simple and plainspoken in how I explained social media, social media marketing and technology to people.

I’ve also tried to be very sensitive to the fact that businesspeople don’t have time to mess around on social networks. They need to know: “How do I get in? How do I set it up? How do I start using it so that it shows me some results?”, because they’re trying to run their businesses. If we as social media consultants and practitioners and advisors say, “We just want you to experiment and play for six months,” nobody is going to give us the time of day.

I’ve always had that sort of no-nonsense attitude. I would come offstage from talking at conferences and whatnot and people would say, “I really appreciate the fact that you’ve got a really no-bullshit style—that you just get right to the point and tell it how it is and don’t make any apologies for it.” So I listened to my audience. They said, “You’re the no-bullshit guy,” so that’s how the title of the book came about.

Mike: Let’s talk a little bit about the implication of the title, which is that there’s a lot of crap—misinformation—out there. Maybe you can share a little about why you felt the need to cut straight to the problem that’s going on right now with social media.

Jason: I guess we should take a step back a little bit. We’re calling “bullshit” on what I call the “social media purists” who have been preaching at us for however long this industry has been an industry.

They’ve been preaching to us that social media is all about joining the conversation, it’s all about engaging with your customers, it’s all about listening first and it’s all about providing value to your audience.

Now, this is where we need to draw a very firm line. Erik and I agree with all of those points and pieces of advice. I consider myself to be a social media purist in line with that philosophical thinking. And I have said those things before, and Erik has too, and we believe in them.

But that’s where the social media purists stop. And if you add the word “marketing” to the phrase “social media,” you’re talking about business. You’re talking about making money. You’re talking about driving business. You’re talking about revenue. So where the social media purists stop, we have to take a step further and say, “No, no, no. There’s a lot more to it.”

There are some social media purists over the years who have said things like, “You cannot or should not sell using social media channels.” We’ve got a couple of case studies in the book showing they’ve said things like, “Well, you shouldn’t be pushing marketing messages on your personal Facebook profile because that’s an inappropriate place for that to happen.”

So we went out looking for stories of people who had gone against this social media puritanical advice and had been successful in doing so—to illustrate the point that if all you think social media is about is joining the conversation, engaging, holding hands in a circle and singing “Kumbaya,” then you’re not going to be in business very long. Because if you’re not thinking about revenue, if you’re not thinking about approaching it strategically, if you’re not thinking about measuring it, then you’re probably going to fail.

Mike: You and I have had multiple discussions about this over the years, and I’m very glad that you’re addressing this. I believe 100% that there is a place for business, marketing and sales specifically in social media. I think that, hopefully, a lot of those purists will eventually wake up and see that there’s a place for that.

You mentioned “Kumbaya,” and in your book you mentioned the Kumbaya Effect. Can you define what that is and maybe we can dig a little deeper into what we need to know about it?

Jason: The Kumbaya Effect is where a person or company gets lost in the warm-and-fuzzy of social media: “Oh, we love engaging with our customers, and we love sitting on Facebook and Twitter and chitter-chattering all day.” That’s fine—there’s nothing wrong with enjoying it. Part of what makes social media fun is that you’re having one-to-one conversations and you’re engaging with your customers.

But if you get lost in the euphoria of being social and forget to be aware of your business, then you lose traction, you lose market share and you lose the opportunity to make money.

Every single business owner out there will tell you, if they know anything at all about their own business, “If I’m not doing something every moment of the day that’s going to lead to revenue, then I’m failing myself. I’m failing my business.”

So in terms of providing content and having conversations with people online as business folks, we need to make sure that we are consumer-centric. I’m not saying that we need to immediately just start dropping links to buy our stuff all the time. That’s not the point.

The point is we need to continue to be social, we need to continue to join the conversation and we need to continue to be consumer-centric. But we have to be business-aware—because if we’re not and we get lost in the euphoria, if we fall victim to the Kumbaya Effect, then we lose sight of our goals and we lose sight of what we need to do to drive our businesses.

Mike: You and Erik have done some research and discovered some businesses that are doing things that go against the grain of the purists. Can you mention one example of a business, big or small, that you think is doing something positive that’s actually generating results?

Jason: Last year for Christmas, my mother, Sara George, wanted a remote car starter, so she wouldn’t have to go out and sit in the car for 10 minutes on cold mornings. So my wife and I sent her a check and said, “It would be better if you have it installed where you live as opposed to us doing it here in Louisville,” which is three and a half hours away. “So here’s your check. Go and get your remote car starter.”

A few weeks after Christmas, she wakes up one morning—it’s really cold—and she goes on Facebook to check what’s going on before she goes to work.

She sees a message from a gentleman by the name of Greg Tackett. Now, she and Greg Tackett are acquaintances probably at best, but they live in a small town in eastern Kentucky. So in a small town, the context is a little different. They probably would say hello to each other walking down the street. They know each other well enough to do that, and so they’re connected as friends on Facebook.

Well, Greg Tackett posts a message on his personal Facebook wall, not on a brand page or anything like that, that says something along the lines of, “Come and get your remote car starter for these cold mornings at Tackett’s Custom Audio Car Stereo Place.” I can’t remember the exact name of the business.

Immediately, social media purists who had seen that flipped out: “Oh, you can’t sell via social media. You can’t put marketing messages on your Facebook personal profile. That’s against the rules. That’s wrong. You can’t do that. You’re a spammer!”

How would you think she responded to that message?

Mike: I think she probably would have said, “Wow, that’s exactly what I need!”

Jason: Exactly! She responded to the message with: “Can I make an appointment for Thursday?”

Even better, the viral nature of Facebook (and this is what you have to really think about) and the context of this man, Greg Tackett, putting that post on his personal wall, increases his likelihood of generating business.

Most of his personal friends live in the same small town. They know him, they know he has children to feed and they know he runs an auto aftermarket shop. And they know it’s cold outside, right? They saw his post and they saw my mother’s activity, and I think there were 12 or 13 people in that conversation thread who said, “I want one too.”

We did the math on that one Facebook wall post on Greg Tackett’s personal page, which was against all the rules of the social media purists. If all of those people had come and purchased a remote car starter that week—which I know my mother did, and several others probably did too—that one wall post generated about $4,000 in revenue for him.

Mike: That’s cool. You mentioned one of the myths earlier: that you can’t sell and you can’t make money with social media. Give me another big myth that you see businesses falling prey to when it comes to social media.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf7neIONxVs

Jason: I think that probably the biggest myth of them all is that you can’t measure it.

Despite the fact that there are a number of people out there now finally talking about the measurement, quantification and qualification of what all of this means, you still have businesses out there asking, “How can I measure how much I’m getting out of Twitter or Facebook? I don’t control those websites. I’m not selling anything there. I’m just having my employees spend time there. What does it all mean?”

I think that obviously asking the measurement question first is missing the point because typically you don’t measure what you don’t have. So you have to start out by saying, “First of all, what do we want to accomplish?” You need to set your goals first.

In the book, we talk about that myth of not being able to measure social media return.

The case study that we use in the book is actually about a brand that people have maybe heard about, but it’s a different scenario. Some folks have maybe heard of the Fiskateers website, which is a scrapbooking online community for the Fiskars brand of scissors.

Without going into too much detail, basically it’s a community of scrapbookers, a branded community, by invitation only. They have about 8,000 members who are avid scrapbookers. Fiskars, the scissors company, sends them samples and gets feedback from them, and so on.

Fiskars developed an 8,000-member community of people passionate about scrapbooking and almost equally as passionate about Fiskars scissors because Fiskars was providing this community for them. Fiskars thought, “We’ve got 8,000 people online who will do anything we ask them to do. Let’s send prototypes and have the community test them. Let’s get product and feature adjustment ideas from them, and let’s let the community decide what the next version of our scissors is going to look like.”

Because they have an 8,000-member focus group at their fingertips, they’ve cut and trimmed their research and development budget. They no longer have to go out and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars with intricate market research focus groups and whatnot, figuring out what people want out of their scissors, because they have those people right there.

So, you can measure it. You just have to have a plan first. You have to know what you’re trying to accomplish so that you can then say, “Okay, how much money did we make? How much money did we save? Are our customers happy?” Those are the three things that CEOs really care about.

Mike: You mentioned earlier selling with social media, and you made it very clear through your examples and discussion that yes, businesses can sell with social media. What I’d like you to do is share a tip or two about how to sell with social media.

Jason: The first thing you need to think about and understand is that when you’re selling things, you’re not just selling through social media, so you want to make sure that you have a comprehensive go-to-market sales strategy. Whether you’re a brick-and-mortar store, you sell virtual products, you sell things online or whatever, you need to think of this not in terms of a social media strategy, but also as a sales strategy overall.

Within the confines of social media, as it were, what you need to think about is that you want to have a point to every communication. The point is always: what is your call to action? What are you trying to get people to do?

When you’re in an informal conversation with a customer, it doesn’t mean you need to drop a link, “Click this and buy,” on everything you say. But you need to make sure that throughout your day, you are constantly following through with the point of your communication. Maybe that’s to register for an upcoming webinar, download a white paper or sign up for your e-newsletter. It’s moving the consumer further down into the marketing funnel.

You have to think about a point that drives people to action—to buy, download, reserve, call or something of that nature. I think that you can do that both in calls to action on your blog and calls to action on Facebook posts.

A perfect example is Dell Outlet, the Twitter account for Dell’s overstock situations. They’ve treated that account differently over the years, but at times, it’s just been a never-ending stream of links for you to click on and get discounts on products. But they have enough people out there who are interested in their products that they can do that. If you have an audience that says, “Pizza joint, I just want coupons and that’s all I want,” then just make your Twitter stream coupons.

Mike: Jason, it’s been a very interesting discussion, to say the least. Where can folks go to learn more about your new book, No Bullshit Social Media, and to learn more about you?

Jason: The book website is www.NoBullshitSocialMedia.com. We tried to make that pretty easy for people to remember. There, you’ve got links to where you can purchase it at Que Publishing, Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

You can also get a free sample chapter as well, so if you read the first chapter and decide that it’s not for you, then you can save a little money and not buy the book. But I think most people will probably find it appealing and will want to buy it.

Kindle and Nook versions are out as well. The electronic versions can be purchased on various websites and apps where you get those. And it should be in most bookstores across the country now as well.

Then as far as I go, I’m @JasonFalls on Twitter. I’m typically Jason Falls on most social networks. I’m happy to connect with folks there. And then www.SocialMediaExplorer.com is my blog and company website where a couple of other writers and I try to keep us all on our toes thinking about the issues of the day in the social media world.

Mike: I encourage everyone to go out there and read the sample chapter of Jason’s book and pick up a copy.

Jason, thank you so much for making time for me today. I really appreciate this interview.

Jason: Anytime, Michael. I love you, and it was great being a part of helping www.SocialMediaExaminer.com get off and running a couple of years ago and I love coming back.

Listen to our complete extended interview below to hear more about Jason’s experience writing the book and his thoughts on Google+ and Facebook competition.

Click here to download MP3.

What do you think about Jason’s no-nonsense attitude? What are your thoughts on his “No Bullshit” guide to social media? Leave your comments in the box below.

Brian talks about how social media and search engine optimization (SEO) go well together.

You’ll find out why smart SEO pros participate in social media and how social media can send traffic to your website and improve your website ranking.

Be sure to check out the takeaways below after you watch the video.

Here are some of the things you’ll learn in this video:

• How to use content to build businesses
• Why you need to do a lot more giving and a lot less selling
• Understand what people want, focus on giving it to them and understand you’ll achieve your goals on the back side of that
• Why you need to write “cornerstone content” to provide value to your audience
• How social media can bring traffic to your website 

You’ll also hear how Brian merged four companies to create Copyblogger Media. Check out Copyblogger and the Copyblogger radio show. And connect with Brian on Twitter @copyblogger and on Facebook.

What are your thoughts? What SEO tips do you have to share? Please leave them below.