Chris shares how Google+ can help small businesses and reveals the strategies he uses to get business leads. You’ll also learn how to adapt your content strategy on Google+ to select the people you want to work with.

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:

• Why Google+ changes everything
• How to get your content indexed quickly
• Discover Chris Brogan’s Google+ strategy
• How Human Business Works uses Google+ to get business leads
• Why you should share personal stories on Google+
• How to show potential clients who you are
• What content strategy to use on Google+
• How businesses can use Google+ Circles for both outbound marketing and lead generation
• When to choose Google+ privacy settings
• How Chris uses Twitter differently than Google+

Connect with Chris on Google+ and learn more about Google+ here.

Do you use Google+? If so, what’s your Google+ strategy? Please share your Google+ tips below.

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.

We sought expert opinions from a wide range of pros you’re likely familiar with.

We are grateful for the dozens of social media professionals who have written over 600 articles for us since we started Social Media Examiner in October 2009.

To give you a glimpse of what we can expect in the next 12 months, we decided to tap their knowledge and expertise. Here are their predictions of where social media is headed in the next 12 months.

#1: Businesses consolidate social media activities

Michael Stelzner @mike_stelzner

As the social media landscape becomes more crowded in 2012, businesses will pick their battles and dig in. What used to be simply Facebook and Twitter is now Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter (and who knows what’s next). On top of this, you have many specialty networks like Foursquare, Yelp and Instagram.

The old mantra of “be everywhere” will quickly be replaced with “be where it matters to our business.”

The major four players have all gone through massive changes in preparation for the battle for users. But don’t let a shiny new wrapping be the motivation to focus on social network A or B. Instead, it will be essential to focus where you’ll see results. And that may not necessarily be Facebook or Twitter for your business.

Have you picked your battle? Image source: Flickr

Michael Stelzner, founder and CEO of Social Media Examiner.

#2: Photo and video social networks will blossom

Jay Baer @JayBaer

We’ve been nibbling around it for a while, but 2012 will be the year of the multimedia social network.

Photo- and video-based social interaction will grow. There is more meat on Instagram and Viddy and Tout than bun, and that enables the whole point of social networking—making and perpetuating connections and seeing the world through someone else’s eyes.

I don’t expect these services to dethrone Facebook, as many people simply are not comfortable with multimedia. But already you’re seeing power users reduce their Facebook (and Twitter) musings in favor of multimedia, where a picture (or video) speaks louder than 140 characters.

Given that the camera on your smartphone is almost as good as your actual camera, the multimedia-driven social networks are here to stay and will be an emerging force for brands in 2012, too.

Multimedia-driven social networks are changing the playground.

Jay Baer, author of the popular social media blog Convince & Convert and co-author of The Now Revolution.

#3: Brands embrace real time

Ekaterina Walter @ekaterina

Brands should move to agile marketing and real-time thinking. Gone are the days when it took 6 months to develop and launch a campaign or 5 days to answer a disgruntled customer.

Brands need to master the art of opportunistic marketing and the art of real-time response. To break through the online noise, they need to stand out with their creative thinking around capitalizing on current buzz and trends.

For that, brands need the right infrastructure and agile processes that will allow them to intuitively and immediately pick up on the marketing opportunities. They need agencies that can adapt, react and support them in real time as well.

Brands need to be ready for real-time response. Image source: iStockPhoto.

Ekaterina Walter, social media strategist at Intel.

#4: Strategy takes center stage for social media

Jason Falls @JasonFalls

I firmly believe that 2012 is the year most business start to turn the corner on embracing and understanding social media marketing and using it more strategically. We’ve had enough of the hippie, tree-hugger, Kumbaya nonsense and want to start using social media as a strategic business driver.

Now is the time. Businesses will start to show their chops in 2012.

The tree-hugging time is over. It's time to focus on social strategy. Image source: iStockPhoto.

Jason Falls, principal of Social Media Explorer and author of No Bullshit Social Media.

#5: New apps help with content overload

Leo Widrich @leowid

I believe that 2012 will be the year that we will see a lot more apps and companies come forward to help free us from content overload. This hopefully means both to make reading content and sharing it more meaningful and less cluttering.

I think this will come down to throttling, filtering and optimizing the content that reaches our eyes and that we share. Especially if Zuckerberg’s Law of sharing holds true, this will be an amazing opportunity.

I am sure there will be some fabulous new inventions coming to the social media world regarding this in 2012.

Freedom from content overload is on the way. Image source: iStockPhoto.

Leo Widrich, co-founder of BufferApp.com.

#6: Businesses outsource content creation

Nichole Kelly @Nichole_Kelly

As social media becomes more mainstream, content will continue to play a bigger role. However, stretched marketing teams will continue to struggle with adding content creation to their already full plates.

Therefore, marketers will need to find a sustainable model for creating amazing content, which may include more outsourcing. As social media matures, efficiency will become an increasingly important factor.

Nichole Kelly, founder of FullFrontalROI.com.

#7: Advanced analytics are coming for the masses

Dag Holmboe @dagh

Today a lot of what we call social media analytics is actually social media metrics, which is a lot of data telling a story of the past using great data visualizations.

Advanced analytics are already being performed inside large agencies, brands and social networking sites. Data analysts and scientists, many with advanced degrees in statistics and computer science, primarily do the work.

In 2012, we will see social media analytics companies releasing simplified SaaS (software as a service) tools for smaller agencies and brands to perform similar, less complex analytical functions. The tools will tell a story of not only what happened, but also of why it happened, and to model and predict the future.

Small businesses will have access to advanced social media analytics. Image source: iStockPhoto.

Dag Holmboe, CEO of Klurig Analytics.

#8: Regularly creating unique content becomes essential

Lewis Howes @LewisHowes

For a company or brand to be successful marketing with social media in 2012, two main things will need to happen.

1. Create unique content. So many brands and individuals are creating amazing content that you will need to do something not only amazing but unique, so that you gain the attention you’re looking for.
2. Be consistent. You can’t just create this unique content a few times; you need to create a schedule for yourself to come out with unique content on a consistent basis.

If you fail to do both of these, someone else will gain your customers’ attention.

Lewis Howes, co-author of LinkedWorking: Generating Success on the World’s Largest Professional Networking Website and founder of Sports Executives Association and SportsNetworker.com events.

#9: Businesses learn to choose the right channels

Ryan Malone @ RyanMalone

In 2012, I think that much of the overzealousness currently in social media will be replaced by a nuts-and-bolts focus on getting the most out of the channels that fit your business.

Companies will focus on fewer channels, and they’ll want to dominate them instead of being diluted across all channels. The adage of “master your craft” will ring true for the companies that stay focused.

Ryan Malone runs SmartBug Media.

#10: Facebook’s growth inspires unique Facebook marketing experiences

Amy Porterfield @amyporterfield

In early 2012, Facebook will hit ONE BILLION users. With one billion users, you can’t deny the numbers. Facebook is by far the social media powerhouse.

The hype that will surround the one billion milestone will only draw more attention to Facebook. Not only will we see a boom of small businesses setting up shop on Facebook, but also those businesses already on Facebook will feel the heat to get even more creative and strategic with their fan activity.

Facebook is getting crowded, and those businesses that create unique user experiences will stand out from the masses. More sophisticated, interactive third-party apps, expanded live video capabilities and greater flexibility with page customization will all play a big part as fan growth and engagement become the most vital components for Facebook success.

Look for more apps to help you market your business on Facebook.

Amy Porterfield, co-author of Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies.

#11: Competition on Google+ rises

Kristi Hines @kikolani

I see social networks getting even more competitive with Google+ trying to dominate the market in 2012!

The top networks (Twitter and Facebook) will be looking to compete by adding even more features. Google+ will continue adding similar creature comforts to their network for page functionality and looking to develop hangouts into something more useful for businesses.

The social network that will come out on top will be the one that listens to their users and allows each user’s messages to receive equal exposure without internal ranking systems judging which news goes to the top and which news gets hidden.

Google+ continues to add new features. Google+ Business Pages can now have multiple managers.

Kristi Hines, freelance writer, online marketing consultant and author of the popular blog Kikolani.

#12: YouTube provides a social experience

Paul Colligan @colligan

YouTube will (finally) get recognition and significant use as a major social network.

Google’s social focus demands tighter integration between YouTube and Google+. Google wants to change YouTube consumption from a passive experience to a social one and is primed to do so.

Recent feature additions (like YouTube video viewing in a Google+ hangout) prove that Google will do whatever it takes to make the transition. Those paying attention will respond by focusing on their own personal YouTube networks.

Video production is not required as YouTube members in the content curation and video aggregation space will hold as much sway, if not more, than their content-producing counterparts. Those who do both will, obviously, rise to the top quickly.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAsOwSsvWOk

Paul Colligan helps busy people leverage new media to get their message out to more people with less effort and for greater profit.

#13: YouTube takes the lead

James Wedmore @JamesWedmore

My prediction for social media in 2012 can be boiled down into one word: “video.” …as in, more of it!

At just over six years old, YouTube has just recently made some big changes, and they have a lot in store for us in 2012. Their most recent design and layout changes (including YouTube’s home page, which looks strikingly similar to Facebook’s Live Feed function) begin to indicate that YouTube wants to behave more like a social networking site.

The YouTube audience (not just the content creators) will now have more fun, engagement and interaction while on YouTube. The more activity you as a user (or channel) have and receive from your videos, the more opportunity your content has to get viewed and go viral.

YouTube is becoming highly intuitive. By observing your search and viewing behavior online, YouTube will continue to improve and impress us all with how they display relevant and related content in an efficient manner.

Also, with YouTube’s investment in their 100+ channels of “original content creators,” the video-sharing giant has also waged war (and is winning!) against the big TV networks, as they continue to blur the line separating “offline television” and online entertainment.

Combine this with an ever-decreasing barrier of entry for the average person to quickly become a video-producing master, and you’ll notice that in 2012, video quality (picture and sound) and entertainment quality will rapidly increase across the board. This will inevitably result in higher standards and expectations from the average YouTube viewer and leave those who are resistant to using video in their marketing scrambling to catch up.

It's time to check out how you can use YouTube for your business.

James Wedmore, founder of Video Traffic Academy.

#14: YouTube rises to top of mind

Phyllis Khare @PhyllisKhare

Most people might think that G+ will get the most attention in the Google suite of services, but I think YouTube will be top of mind. Why? With the latest redesign, YouTube is cleaning up its Wild West image and coming into alignment to be a grown-up social environment.

If your business is not there yet, make haste and set up your channel and start reaping the benefits of the second-largest search engine on the Internet.

Consider creating a YouTube channel for your business.

Phyllis Khare, co-author of Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies, author of Social Media Marketing eLearning Kit for Dummies and social media director for iPhone Life.

#15: More social players will join in

Casey Hibbard @Casey_Hibbard

I predict that the social media landscape will become more populated with new and powerful players like Pinterest in 2011.

As social media continues to evolve there are opportunities for more multimedia social platforms.

Don’t underestimate the potential for these new sites to start majorly influencing social sharing and traffic—nearly overnight.

Keep an eye open for more useful tools like Pinterest!

Casey Hibbard, Social Media Examiner’s case study writer, president of Compelling Cases Inc. and author of Stories That Sell: Turn Satisfied Customers Into Your Most Powerful Sales & Marketing Asset.

#16: Marketers adopt smarter social media tools

Stephanie Sammons @StephSammons

In 2012, social media tools are going to get a lot smarter. These tools are going help us make sense of our social media connections and streams. They will help us maximize our visibility and influence while minimizing our time commitment.

Bufferapp is a terrific example of this. Here is a tool that can provide some intelligence as to when your followers and fans are most likely going to be paying attention to your updates. As you direct content from across the web into Buffer, the app will distribute it for you during those optimal time periods. In a sense, it’s an intelligent and personal social media distribution tool! Forget having to “schedule” tweets and updates. Who has the time?

I strongly believe that the people who commit to learning the new and most effective social intelligence tools as they are introduced will create a significant competitive advantage. These tools will make you more productive and grow your online influence while the competition is still floundering around trying to figure out how to be consistently visible and valuable to their target markets!

Find and focus on the tools that can make you more productive and competitive in 2012!

Check out Buffer and other social media tools that make you smarter.

Stephanie Sammons, founder and CEO of Wired Advisor.

#17: Businesses integrate new content consumption practices

Jim Lodico @jlcommunication

The way we read our news and social media streams is changing fast. People are turning to platforms such as Flipboard, Storify, Zite and others to help curate information and sort through the noise. Google, Facebook and Twitter are also making changes to help users find the information they want to read and block the rest.

Businesses looking to place their content in front of their target reader will need to adapt to these changes and new media. This means 1) a continued effort to publish content of the highest quality that readers will want to share, 2) an even further increase in the importance of headlines and images and 3) creating a following that will help drive your content to the top of these new platforms.

From a user’s perspective, I love the new Flipboard platform for iPhone. From a publisher’s perspective however, it can be somewhat intimidating. That said, I think these new platforms will greatly reward content that makes its way to the top.

Stay up-to-date on where your audience gets its information.

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

#18: The “applification” of social media continues

Debbie Hemley @dhemley

I think we will see many more social media apps come out in 2012 for social networking, news aggregation, productivity, entertainment, communication and ebooks.

We’ll be accessing more on smaller screens than ever before and with a few touches and swipes across our screens, we’ll be posting and sharing content with people who are in close proximity to our geolocation, stretching on to all corners of the world.

Debbie Hemley, social media consultant and blogger.

#19: More branded Facebook apps are on the way

Janet Aronica @janetaronica

I think we’re going to see more and more companies creating branded Facebook apps in order to leverage Facebook’s real-time news ticker feed. I’m especially interested in news apps such as WSJ Social and The Washington Post Social Reader.

These apps potentially serve as new revenue streams for a rocky industry with advertising opportunities within Facebook. I’m intrigued to see how the digital journalists behind the apps navigate the privacy issues that are all too common to the space as well.

These kinds of Facebook experiences reimagine news consumption as a social activity and I think it’ll be interesting to watch the new apps and partnerships that come out of the space.

Shareaholic's Top Posts App shows bloggers their most popular content, keywords, traffic sources and demographics for 2011.

Janet Aronica, head of marketing for Shareaholic.

#20: More “do it all” services will become available

Corina Mackay @corinamackay

We continue to see social media tools and services come and go, as they battle for our time and data. Giants like Facebook, Twitter and Google continue to thrive, but none of them is taking it easy.

From changing designs and new features to acquisitions and complete makeovers, we’ve seen the bar raised time and time again, as these big companies compete for the lion’s share of our attention. Google has our email, documents and appointments; Facebook has our photos, videos and family; and Twitter has the best platform for advertisers to engage with us.

I’m guessing this trend will continue into 2012, with more acquisitions and revamps, and fewer new apps gaining ground in the social space.

Corina Mackay, an entertainment-based social media manager and writer.

#21: Convergence of social and mobile (but maybe not what you’re thinking)

Ben Pickering @bpicks

Whether you look at it as social media going mobile or mobile apps getting social, you can bet that 2012 will see a lot more social activity on mobile devices.

However, while experimental marketers will continue to push the envelope with innovative mobile-social campaigns, I’m not predicting that the next year will see Foursquare conquer mainstream America or mass adoption of QR codes.

Rather, what you will see is that a significant amount of the online activity that consumers previously conducted through a computer and traditional web browser will now be done through a smartphone or tablet. Some of this activity will migrate from browser to native applications, but much will be done through a mobile browser.

This means that before worrying about the new-new thing, companies need to think about how existing core marketing initiatives carry through to the mobile web. It needs to be just as easy for someone on a mobile device to not only access content but also to act on that content in a social manner—i.e., “Like” it, share it, etc.

In 2012, smart marketers will be thinking first about optimizing current assets for mobile and then about unique attributes of the mobile experience, such as geolocation, that they can tie into their overall marketing strategy.

Is your marketing optimized for the mobile experience? Image source: iStockPhoto.

Ben Pickering, CEO of Strutta.

#22: Marketers embrace mobile

Jamie Turner @AskJamieTurner

Gartner predicts that by the end of 2012, the number-one way that consumers will be interacting with the Internet is via their smartphones and tablets. Given that, it’s important for marketers of all stripes to embrace mobile.

As intimidating as that may seem, mobile is actually pretty simple to execute. In fact, there are several articles on Social Media Examiner that de-mystify mobile and make using it for small- to mid-sized businesses a snap. Check ‘em out! They’re packed with tips on how to integrate social media into your mobile marketing program.

Are you prepared for communicating with your customers via smartphones? Image source: iStockPhoto.

Jamie Turner, founder, the 60 Second Marketer and co-author of Go Mobile.

#23: Email and social call a truce

Jason Miller @JasonMillerCA

Smart marketers understand that social and email marketing are not mutually exclusive. As email becomes more social and social becomes better at finding leads, the platforms will complement one another for smarter, more targeted messaging and list-building efforts.

Jason Miller, programs manager, social media & content at Marketo.

#24: Businesses fall in love with email marketing again

Marc Pitman @marcapitman

The quick adoption of Google+ both by users and as an infrastructure change for Google highlights a problem with social media marketing: fragmentation. It’s important to interact with customers where they are, so wisely using the increasing number of tools is good.

But I predict in 2012, savvy marketers will fall back in love with email. Email response rates tend to be greater than most other social media tools. And email is fairly “low-tech,” allowing businesspeople to reach more of their customer base. So I think there’ll be a new wave of blog posts and tools helping people grow their email lists.

Marc Pitman, author and speaker dedicated to making it ridiculously easy for people to get nonprofit fundraising training.

#25: Traditional marketing interweaves social media

Tom Martin @TomMartin

2012 will be the year of the boomerang. Marketers of all stripes will return to classical marketing thinking. They won’t abandon social media, mobile and the like, but they will demand that those efforts be intelligently interwoven with their existing offline/traditional marketing efforts.

This integration requirement will lead to growth of social media delivered by marketing-oriented firms at the expense of the independent social media guru with little to no actual marketing experience.

Tom Martin, founder of Converse Digital.

#26: The blue-collar blogging revolution heats up

Marcus Sheridan @TheSalesLion

There is a forgotten group—in fact, I’d say it’s a forgotten majority—when it comes to this movement that is social media. And who is this majority? It’s the thousands upon thousands of blue-collar businesses spread across the globe that up to this point have been slow to embrace social media, but are now joining the ranks of other industries in an effort to change the way things in marketing have always been done.

As someone who has owned a swimming pool company for about 10 years now and also works with many blue-collar businesses in this field of social media, I’ve noticed a very interesting trend in the final months of 2011. Each and every day, more and more mechanics, carpenters, plumbers, landscapers, etc., come to understand the need to embrace this new age of marketing. They’re seeing the trends of the way people shop, think and make decisions. Finally, instead of refusing to tackle their online deficiencies, they’re instead confronting the problem head-on.

More than ever, these businesses are blogging, producing educational videos and leveraging all types of social media. The idea that social media and blogging for business will only shine upon white-collar and tech industries will soon be a thing of the past. Do the blue-collars have a long way to go? Yes, that’s certainly true, but without question, eyes are finally opening and the revolution is just around the corner.

This is what I can’t wait to see unfold as 2012 progresses.

More blue-collar businesses will adopt social media marketing. Image source: iStockPhoto.

Marcus Sheridan, small business owner, thought leader, popular social media speaker and founder of The Sales Lion.

#27: Marketers learn to craft messages to get above the noise

Jeff Korhan @jeffkorhan

My social media prediction for 2012 is that successful marketers will take greater care to design and package their messaging for attention, usefulness and conversion.

As the tolerance for social media noise approaches a breaking point, the quality of social media content will significantly rise to meet the higher standards of both consumers and search.

Jeff Korhan, professional speaker, consultant and columnist on new media and small business marketing.

#28: The social media gap widens

Charlene Kingston @SocialMediaDIY

I predict that in 2012, the gap between businesses that perform well on social media and those that don’t will widen dramatically.

The newness of social media has worn off. People are looking for businesses that offer practical solutions to their present-moment challenges. It comes down to this: If you are looking at your online community in terms of what you can get from them, you might as well pack up and go home.

For your business to succeed, you must focus on how you can help your customers succeed. Your business attitude shows up in social media in everything you say and do. Your attitude drives your conversation topics, the way you write your tweets and status updates, and your business offerings.

More than ever, your business success depends on how much you help others reach their business success. Your social media success is the canary in the coalmine that demonstrates the health of your business.

Charlene Kingston, founder of the Social Media DIY Workshop.

#29: Businesses invest in quality content

Stephanie Gehman @airport_girl

I believe we’ll see a surge of quality over quantity in content marketing heading into 2012. As more businesses understand and embrace the imperative for integrating social media into their marketing strategy, I hope they will also recognize the need to stand out in the cacophony of brand messages on the social channels.

In 2012, if businesses want to compete effectively for consumer attention, they will need to engage with tailored, customer-focused and relevant content in order to differentiate themselves from the noisy brand broadcasters.

And, as this realization takes hold with companies, I think we’ll see steep growth in the hiring of qualified and experienced individuals who have a strong grasp of creating and developing valuable content that attracts and engages a business’s target audiences while driving profitable customer conversions and actions.

Businesses opt for quality content in 2012. Image source: iStockPhoto.

Stephanie Gehman, marketing manager for Harrisburg International Airport in Pennsylvania.

#30: Rise of the media specialist

Carla Dewing @CarlaDewing

In 2011 we’ve seen a trend toward multifaceted social marketing positions, or people within companies who are expected to have “layered” expertise in social media. Content marketers will have to transcend basic sales, and work within the rapidly expanding technology field.

In 2012 we’ll see these positions solidified, as social marketers working online branch out and become involved in the coding/tech world as well.

These positions will become integral to any social marketing campaign, as singular jobs become more complex, transforming people into media specialists.

One individual must be able to blog, market, work on a multitude of platforms, work within the tech sphere and perform high-level SEO tasks. Otherwise, how will he or she be able to spot social opportunities when they arise?

These media specialists will be required to have a 360-degree view of social media, as their job becomes more demanding and competitive. I also feel that there will be urgency to perfect mobile technology and marketing, as it crosses from the virtual realm into the physical world.

In 2012, it would be short-sighted for businesses to overlook the benefits of having a media specialist on their team!

Future social media specialists need skills across many areas. Image source: iStockPhoto.

Carla Dewing, part-owner of Contrast Media and content marketing expert.

Now it’s your turn…

How do you see social media evolving in 2012? What trends do you predict? Please share your questions and comments in the box below.

Image sources iStockPhoto and Flickr.

The first step when considering social analytics is to establish a listening strategy.

In social media, listening acts as a guide through the ever-changing and interesting world of the blogosphere.

Why? Because listening is an ongoing process that is necessary to keep a strategy fresh and competitive. It enables decision-makers to find and better understand opportunities and stakeholders.

So, exactly how do you go about listening?

#1: Determine your target audience

Once an organization has determined whom to target, it’s critical to understand where to engage them online. A common misperception is that all social networks are the same and therefore everyone is on the same platform.

For example, according to Anderson Analytics, Generation Z (13- to 14-year-old) social network users were more likely to use MySpace than Facebook; only 9% used Twitter and none were active on LinkedIn. If your company is targeting Generation Z on Twitter, you’re listening in the wrong place.

An example of an organization successfully targeting and engaging an audience is Seton Hall University. In an effort to increase their revenue and student enrollment, Seton Hall marketers decided to target prospective students using Facebook to build relationships.

They launched the Class of 2014 Facebook page and tagged custom Class of 2014 tabs, making it possible to identify any www.shu.edu visitors who had also interacted with Facebook. Using social analytics and reporting, marketers then examined the behavior of these visitors.

SHU 2014 Facebook page.

The Seton Hall staff began responding to prospective students’ requests for help, from orientation to deposit status to placement tests to housing. Soon, “declarations” (posts where prospective students announce a decision such as major, orientation date or interest in a club or sport) had risen to 47% of all posts.

SHU 2014 Facebook page sample engagement.

The data showed that visitors who interacted heavily with the Class of 2014 pages demonstrated a high level of engagement with the university website as well.

For example, they were more likely to request information and fill out applications than other visitors. The data collected revealed that Facebook was not only important to Seton Hall, but was critical to the following year’s enrollment.

By midsummer (two months before classes were to begin), tuition deposits for the class of 2014 were 25% higher than the previous year at the same time. Moreover, enrollment was tracking at 13% ahead of the previous year’s class.

Audience and location are foundations for a listening strategy; thus, step one is to know who your audience is and where to find them.

#2: Identify the influencers

A research report from Meteor Solutions found that the type of people who follow or friend you are more important than the numbers.

On average, approximately 1% of a site’s audience generates 20% of all its traffic through sharing of the brand’s content or site links with others.

This was backed by a Forrester Research report that showed a minority (about 6% of people) generates 80% of the impressions, and roughly 13% of the online adults generate 80% of the influence posts.

This is where social analytics come into play. Through social analytics, an organization can determine which individuals are sharing content and links and their sentiment about it.

Facebook and Twitter are likely places that influencers and target audiences frequent, but are just the tip of the iceberg.

For example, if you were tracking a Java programmer, Java blogs and community forums would provide a stronger platform for listening.

Another example, RTL Nederland (an entertainment company in the Netherlands) is using analytics to help interpret audience (tippers) feedback from a variety of social data sources for reality television programs, including “X Factor” and “So You Think You Can Dance.”

RTL Netherland's X Factor Twitter page.

RTL Nederland is able to better understand audience needs and preferences by analyzing blog posts, Twitter feeds, Facebook posts and more. They’ve been able to make real-time changes to the programming, such as choice of candidates, music and the judging panel. This has led to increased viewer satisfaction and ratings.

Finding these like-minded souls is important for success, but can require some digging. In the end though, it’s worth the effort. Determining influencers will make all the difference in a listening strategy and ultimately, a social business agenda.

Analytics tools can paint that picture by analyzing and interpreting vast quantities of data—customer demographics, product-purchase histories, Internet experiences and online transactions—turning information into insight and developing conclusive, fact-based strategies to gain that competitive edge.

#3: Know the keywords and trends

Determine the topics that are important to your business and identify them as potential keywords. Then through listening, establish if that is the language your audience is interested in.

For example, “cost cutting” would seem like a viable term to use during a recession; however, as a result of listening, it’s clear that “cost reduction” is actually the preferred term.

If you’re in the wireless telecommunications industry, you would investigate dropped call, 3G, mobile apps, smartphone, data plan and so forth. Keywords should reflect what’s important to your business.

Though it seems like a simple thing, refining the listening approach to get exactly what you want and constantly searching for new keywords and noting keyword trends can help to better reach a key audience.

Telecom provider XO Communications is using state-of-the-art business analytics tools to predict customer behavior and proactively reach out to customers most likely to go elsewhere.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KOn0Qn0lgA

#4: Form a social business strategy

An organization’s social business strategy should address the goals and approach the company will take.

Relevancy and reputation management should be part of the goals.

How many times are you mentioned? In what context? By what audience? You can influence this by listening to the things your audience cares about and relating to their needs.

Secondly, how do you set up your organization to both listen to and brainstorm changes based off of the listening feedback?

One solution is to establish a virtual task force for sharing information learned.

For example, within IBM we have an informal Social Media Council with representatives from across business functions who gather to share best practices, comments and sentiment.

Another choice is to have a formal group whose mission is to listen and then respond to information across an organization.

In closing…

Social analytics starts with listening. The future is all about hearing what your business ecosystem (customers, business partners, constituencies, employees, etc.) has to say and collaborating internally and externally to meet their expectations.

Listening is not just a discipline. It is an embodiment of a social business strategy to address the mass volume of data every company faces today and offer a means for evaluating this information to drive business results.

What do you think? What is your company using for a listening strategy? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Keep reading to discover why social media is changing small business for the better.

Six months ago, I highlighted many benefits of social media for small business, but several new research articles add urgency to this message.

Swiftly Changing Landscape

Social media marketing is a rapidly changing environment, as we all know. But the good news is that your customers are embracing social media as a normal part of their lives. Even the over-50 population is adapting at staggering rates.

The following 26 stats should impress upon you the importance of developing a social media strategy for your business.

#1: There are now more than 800 million active Facebook users, with over 200 million added in 2011. Notice the growth trend traced by Ben Foster.

Facebook is growing rapidly. Which side of the wave are you on?

Nielsen found the following in their 3Q 2011 Social Media Report:

#2: Over 80% of all Americans use a social network.

#3: Americans spend more time on Facebook than any other U.S.website.

#4: Approximately 40% of social media users access their accounts through mobile devices.

#5: Nearly 23% of online time is spent on social networks.

#6: Facebook is the top destination among social networks and blogs:

Nielsen found U.S.users spend nearly 10x more time on Facebook than Twitter or LinkedIn.

#7: Social media users are more active and influential offline:

Social media users are more active offline and have greater influence than their peers (Nielsen).

What Does Facebook Say About its Users?

At Facebook’s recent F8 Developer Conference, Facebook shared the following statistics:

#8: More than half of Facebook users log in every day – that’s more than 400 million people.

#9: The average user has 130 friends and is connected to 80 pages, events and groups.

#10: There are 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, etc…).

#11: Facebook hosts over 7 million apps, and over 20 million apps are downloaded each day.

#12: Around 75% of Facebook users are outside of North America with accounts available in 70 languages.

#13: Comscore released a study earlier this year that showed how business brands that post at least once every day will reach 22% of their fans in a given week.

Comscore shows the impact of consistently posting to Facebook.

How Are People Using Social Media?

Experian recently released their 2011 Social Media Consumer Report. The following trends help paint a picture of how people are using social media.

#14: Experian estimates that 91% of online American adults (approx. 129 million) access some form of social media each month.

#15: And get this: 98% of 18- to 24-year-olds access social accounts monthly.

#16: This confirms their stat that college towns log on to Facebook the most.

#17: The average Facebook user spends 20 minutes on his or her account during each visit.

Note that Facebook users spend nearly twice as much time on the platform as Twitter users. The jury is still out on Google+, as data hasn't been accumulated to show the effect of the public release.

#18: A majority of Facebook users log in 3-4 times per week.

Notice that Twitter users are nearly as likely to login once per week as they are three to four times per week.

#19: One out of 5 social network users is likely to visit another social site after leaving one.

After visiting a social network, 45% of users will visit another social site, a multimedia site like YouTube or use a search engine.

Small Businesses Moving Toward Social Media

So what are business leaders doing in light of the obvious shift toward social media in online behavior?

Zoomerang interviewed 1,180 small- to mid-sized business (SMB) decision-makers and 500 consumers in September to release this study in an attempt to answer that question.

#20: The 3 most important reasons small businesses leverage social media are:

• Connecting with customers
• Visibility
• Self-promotion

81% of small business leaders use social media to get in front of customers and find new customers.

#21: 44% of SMB decision-makers use social media.

This graphic highlights how important it is to integrate social media with your website, email and direct mail efforts.

#22: Of those SMB decision-makers who use social media, 86% use Facebook vs. 41% LinkedIn and 33% Twitter:

Small- and medium-sized businesses are investing the most effort in Facebook.

Small Businesses Getting Results Without Spending Much

Social media is good for business, not just relationships. Mediabistro published an infographic produced by Crowdspring that reveals the following findings:

#23: 50% of small business owners reported gaining new customers through social media – most notably through Facebook and LinkedIn.

#24: 51% of Facebook users and 64% of Twitter users are more likely to buy from the brands they follow.

Twitter fans are more likely to buy from a brand they follow (Crowdspring).

#25: Small businesses don’t have to spend much to get results: Zoomerang found that nearly 60% of all small business decision-makers spend less than $100 on social media and 74% of businesses don’t employ anyone to manage their social media marketing.

Small business owners can get results without spending a lot of cash.

More Good News for Small Businesses

#26: Ning has found it only takes 20 people to create meaningful many-to-many interactions and bring an online community to a significant level of activity. That’s something almost any business can achieve.

How to Bring It All Together

There are numerous conclusions to draw from these statistics. Clearly, small businesses are increasingly leaning on social media to grow their businesses. Many of your customers are using social media almost every day. The opportunities to connect directly with your customers are unprecedented, but so is the competition.

How Your Small Business Could Improve Its Social Media Efforts

Social Media Examiner has brought together 25 small business owners who are pros at social media to teach other small business owners how to capitalize on the tremendous opportunities available in social media.

How? In its new summit—Small Biz Success Summit!

Speakers like John Jantsch, Anita Campbell, Mike Stelzner and Mari Smith will teach sessions in the month of February at Small Biz Success Summit 2012. Click here to learn more.

What do you think? How do these statistics compare to your experiences? If you’re a small business, I’d love to hear your success story here. Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Social media success sometimes appears arbitrary.

Perhaps you’ve wondered, “Why does company X generate leads and business from their social activity while my company wastes resources on blogs that don’t get read and tweets that go unanswered?”

Social media is so new, sometimes the path to success is unclear and it’s easy to lose your way.

If you want to demystify the experience and improve your ROI (return on investment), you need to make sure that your marketing and campaigns include these four essential components:

• Attraction: How do you attract qualified leads to your website or business?
• Retention: How do you stay in contact with people after they’ve left your website or store?
• Conversion: How do you get people to “buy now” or move further down the sales funnel?
• Measurement: How do you determine if any of this is working?

By following this model, you’ll be able to ensure that you’ll successfully navigate your way through this untamed wilderness.

What follows is a detailed map you can follow.

Why is accounting software more popular on Facebook than you?

#1: Attraction: How to draw people to you

For most of us, we want to attract qualified traffic to our website. While there are many ways to do this—including search engine optimization, traditional advertising and referrals—I’ll focus here on social media.

To succeed with social media, you’ll need to have a content strategy. This means talking to your ideal customers about what they’re interested in, and having those conversations where they hang out. (For more details, check out How to Develop a Social Media Content Strategy.)

Depending on your audience, you may need to become more active on Facebook or join groups where your customers talk on LinkedIn.

Chances are that LinkedIn has a few groups where your ideal customer hangs out.

If they’re not active on social networking sites—or can’t access them during the working day—you’ll need to create blog posts and videos that help them solve their biggest problems.

Knight Vision helps businesses solve their media coverage problems. Hopefully those businesses read this post before any bad coverage!

While developing your social media profiles, a few things to keep in mind:

• Brand your profiles: It’s free or nearly free to set up a blog, create a YouTube channel or build a profile on popular social networking sites.

Because of this, everyone does it. To rise above the pack and establish your credibility, you’ll need to create a branded experience that will immediately help build trust with your audience. This may mean a custom Twitter background, a Facebook landing page or a detailed work history on your LinkedIn profile.

Nike scores with their branded experience on YouTube.

• Go deep, not wide: Don’t try to be active on every social network out there. Instead, focus on becoming great at one or two platforms where you’re most likely to engage your prospects. Once you’ve mastered those, you can add more to your plate.
• Be consistent: One blog post, one video or one tweet won’t save your business, no matter how clever it is. Success comes from consistency. Your customers don’t want to work with a one-hit wonder; they want to work with someone who has consistently established credibility and expertise over time, which shows that the person should be around for a long time to come.

Emarketingvids build its following through consistently creating content of interest to their audience.

• Create paths back to your site: Although being too salesy can turn prospects off, you should always have links to your website so they can learn more if they wish. Ben Pickering has a great article entitled 5 Tips for Driving Facebook Fans to Your Website that gives some suggestions on how to do just that.

#2: Retention: How to keep people coming back

If you’re selling a big-ticket item, chances are your prospect isn’t buying from your site without looking at your competitors’ sites as well. Likewise, if you’re selling a product that needs to be regularly repurchased—like contact lenses or morning coffee—your prospect will continually see competing offers.

How do you stay top of mind and keep the lines of communication open after someone has left your website? This is where retention comes in.

While “traditionally,” email marketing has been the favored tool of the Internet marketer, these days social media plays a critical part.

From the home page, we’re asking people to like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and subscribe to our blog posts or YouTube channel… all of which send them offsite.

This goes against everything we used to know: You never send people away after you’ve captured their attention! (It’s like the Vegas casinos: Never show a gambler the exit sign.)

However, getting people to like, follow and subscribe to us gives us the opportunity to continue to engage with them. We can build a relationship by better understanding them through listening and helping them.

Social Media Examiner engages their audience on their website and on Facebook.

To maximize your retention activities, make sure that it’s easy for someone to engage you in your social media activities right from your home page and every other page on your site.

Remember: Always provide value to your ideal customer with your social media activities. You’re only one click away from being unfollowed, unsubscribed from and unliked if you’re not providing value.

#3: Conversion: Moving from liker to buyer

Improved conversion rates (whether it’s a “buy now” button or filling out a contact form) are a natural outcome of being active in social media.

The latest HubSpot “State of Inbound Marketing” report showed that companies that blog more have more consistent sales. Companies also report that social media has made the biggest gain in lead generation activities.

Social media continues to grow as a lead generation tool for businesses.

Anecdotally, at my company’s own site, our highest converting traffic comes from blogs and our YouTube channel. In fact, visitors who first watched one of our videos at YouTube are over 700% more likely to fill out a contact form than the average site visitor. Are you ready for your closeup?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=toqC5Ut3GJA

For a more detailed look at conversion rates and the difference between social media leads and other leads, check out Nichole Kelly’s post, 4 Tips for Converting Social Media Leads.

#4: Measurement: Making wise decisions

The concern many companies have about social media is that it lacks accountability and tracking, yet this just isn’t true.

Start by installing some robust traffic reporting software on your website, such as Google Analytics. These tools will give you insight into where your traffic is coming from, so you can determine if your Facebook activity is paying off or has been a waste of time.

I was surprised to see this much traffic coming from StumbleUpon. Time to invest more effort there!

You can also see which of your blog posts bring in the most traffic, which gives you insight into what type of content you should create moving forward, and perhaps even what type of services you should be offering.

Further, you can set up Goals in Google Analytics to determine where your best traffic is coming from. For a step-by-step walkthrough of setting up Goals in Google Analytics, you can check out this post, Tracking Conversions: Does Your Website Turn Suspects Into Prospects?

You don’t need to stop with website analytics, however. Facebook Insights gives you great, um, insight into your Facebook activity, and EdgeRank Checker is a freemium tool that provides suggestions for maximizing your Facebook activity.

Accumulating fans is the easy part… Can you engage them?

YouTube also offers analytics, breaking down your audience by gender, age and location, as well as showing you which videos are the most popular and what caused them to attract more visitors.

We appeal to middle-aged men. Maybe it's time to hit the gym.

Conclusion

Social media is still in its infancy, and a lot of the tools and techniques we currently read about will be outdated by next year, if not by next month. (See MySpace, Flock, Google Buzz, and pinging news aggregators with our RSS feeds.)

So rather than focusing myopically on flavor-of-the-month tactics, make sure that all of your social media campaigns include the formula of attraction, retention, conversion and measurement, and you will have a sustainable plan for success.

Your turn!

What do you think? Do your social media campaigns include all of these components? Is there something we didn’t include that you feel is a requirement for success? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Some brands, like Wachovia, use a single corporate channel for all of their social media efforts. Other brands, like Kodak, created multiple corporate channels that are managed by individual business units.

Why Tribes?

As businesses look toward new opportunities to grow their presence, it may be time to reconsider your strategy about tribes and determine whether you’re truly delivering “value” to your followers.

Marketing segmentation offers an interesting opportunity to continue to grow your following while delivering highly targeted content that is relevant to your most profitable customer segments.

Market segmenting is dividing the market into groups of individual markets with similar wants or needs that a company divides into distinct groups which have distinct needs, wants, behavior or which might want different products & services. ~Wikipedia.

Put simply, market segmentation is creating groups of your customers based on a criterion that signifies that they have similar interests and needs.

Visionary Seth Godin put a new spin on segmentation in his book, Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us, and shares his ideas in an extremely powerful Ted Talk.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQGYr9bnktw

Seth talked about tribes in terms of leadership, but there are unique opportunities to empower similar movements that already exist within our customer base using basic segmentation tactics.

Here are 7 different types of market segmentation you can use to empower your own tribe.

Create a strategy around passion. Image: iStockPhoto

#1: Passions

Are there groups of your customers who share common passions?

Aligning with something your customers are already passionate about and delivering content that’s specific and relevant to that theme is a great way to generate a bigger audience of others who are also passionate about the subject.

For example, Kodak could create a strategy around serving photographers specializing in nature photography.

#2: Generational Dynamics

Does your brand attract a specific generation or span across multiple generations? Each generation has specific wants, needs and value systems that make it difficult to utilize a broad approach and address. “Each generation of the US population has unique wants and needs that marketers and retailers should address differently,” according to The Nielsen Company.

Each generation has different wants, needs and values. Image: iStockPhoto

#3: Life Events

Are there large groups within your customer base who have experienced specific life events that create synergy and passion around the subject? For example, you may find that your products provide a unique offering that’s helpful for divorcées, cancer survivors or new parents.

The key to selecting a life event is to discover something that becomes part of how people will define themselves as a result of going through the experience. A passing experience won’t generate the kind of following you are looking for. Think about life-changing events and how your brand can support customers at that time.

#4: Life Stage

All people go through a series of life stages as they mature, and while they are in each stage they have unique perspectives and needs based on the life events that typically occur at each life stage.

For example, newly married couples may be considering purchasing their first home, balancing work and family life and planning when they should have their first child. This is drastically different from what may be top of mind for empty-nesters, whose children have just moved out of the family home. They may be thinking about what they will do with their newfound freedom, downsizing the family home, preparing for retirement, paying for college and planning care for their aging parents. Does your brand have an opportunity to provide value to these conversations?

#5: Demographics

Another opportunity may exist within specific customer demographics. You can look at demographics such as gender, marital status, income and ethnicity to determine if there are unique needs that you can provide value around.

For example, AdAge took a look at multicultural targeting today and found that, “delivering of a message about a product or a service is best done when the advertiser understands the lens through which a consumer is viewing both the culture they’re in … and how their own experiences map onto it.” Will segmenting based on demographics allow you to provide more highly relevant, targeted information to your audience?

#6: Geography

For brands that use a local or regional marketing strategy, it may be appropriate to use a similar strategy for your social media channels. This is usually important in areas where having a local presence is critical to success. Strategies can vary from moving from global to country-specific and all the way down to cities, counties and provinces. Take a look at the type of geographic targeting you are currently using and see if there is a natural fit that makes strategic sense.

Look at your current geographic targeting. Image: iStockPhoto

#7: Product Choices

The final option is to segment based on which products a customer has shown loyalty toward. Typically, the product a customer buys tells you something about him or her and gives insight into how you can add value to his or her life. For example, Proctor and Gamble has a separate social presence for its Pampers brand where they provide customer service and games that give customers points for diaper coupons.

Finding ways to give away their products and services.

Before you select a target, consider whether you already have resources to support the group. If you don’t, put together a list of the resources you would need.

The largest need in any niche strategy is content. It’s ideal to have a blog and content calendar for the types of content you will have available that are targeted to your audience segment. If you can’t create all of the content yourself, don’t worry. With a few searches you can probably find third-party sources who are already writing great content that you can leverage with your outreach strategy.

What tribes exist within your customer base? How can you give them a voice? What platform can you offer them to help them spread and grow? What are you doing to connect them? Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section below.

Images from iStockPhoto.

Here are five ways to get started building an effective community management strategy.

Social media allows great opportunity for building relationships and communicating directly with customers. To facilitate these relationships, the role of community manager is becoming increasingly important for all types of businesses.

Usually, community managers are the social media voices of their brands, fulfilling multiple roles including social media strategists, customer service managers, content creators, product managers and evangelists.

#1: Metrics—What are your objectives as a new community manager?

Identify the metrics and goals for your new role or community-building program. Clear expectations on KPIs will help you succeed.

Community-building progress to measure:

• Customer service metrics: Reduce the number of customer service support calls by monitoring common questions on Twitter and writing posts for an internal customer wiki.
• Sales metrics: Generate leads through inbound marketing tactics: blog posts, eBooks and webinars.
• Engagement metrics: This includes Facebook fans, Twitter reach, Facebook post impressions, blog comments or number of organic community member discussions started in a forum.

As it turns out, your role might be a combination of these. Defining your role (and being open to adapting it) by the data you drive ensures your efforts move forward.

#2: Listening—Where does your target audience hang out already?

With over 700 million people on Facebook and 450,000 new Twitter accounts added each day, it’s likely your potential community members are already on social media talking about things relevant to your brand.

When you’re starting a community from scratch, you need to fish where the fish are. Social media monitoring is how you find them.

Listening tactics include:

• Google Alerts and Twilerts: Subscribe to search terms for industry keywords and competitors.
• Create a (private) Twitter list of competitors, note what they are/aren’t sharing. Monitor what content they share on Facebook and LinkedIn (if applicable).
• Identify the hashtags your community uses. Set up columns in a Twitter client (like Seesmic) for them.
• Subscribe to blogs your community reads and share that content from your own accounts.

How it’s done:

The #measure Twitter community is a vibrant, enthusiastic group of data geeks discussing marketing and web analytics. Omniture, KissMetrics and Google Analytics are frequently mentioned. Marketing analytics company Performable, recently acquired by HubSpot, tapped into this existing and engaged audience to grow their community. They did this in a way that was genuine, by participating in the #measure community and sharing their relevant content.

Performable engaged where their target audience was using the #measure hashtag.

This successfully positioned them within their target community, and kept them in tune to what potential customers were talking about.

Learn where your community is and what they care about. Engage where they engage, and read and share the content that matters to them.

#3: Offer value to draw people in—Create a content plan.

Diligent monitoring unveils what your community talks about, what questions they have and what topics you should blog about. You’ll have plenty of ideas, but how will you carry them out?

Organize the pieces of your content plan:

• Create an editorial calendar—Your editorial calendar will include how many times a week you’ll blog, and when you publish what content. Use WordPress‘ Editorial Calendar Plugin to keep your post scheduling organized.
• Choose your blogging team—Decide who will help you create this content. Will you use freelancers or guest posts from community members or influencers?
• Identify your target keywords—Make your content great for your community and search engines. Use Google Suggest and Google Adwords to identify the right keywords for blog posts, and be sure to optimize your blog for SEO.

How it’s done:

The Laughing Cow and Babybel cheese community team knows the importance of adjacency in content: It’s not directly about your product or service, it’s about delivering related information your community cares about.

Their content plan means leveraging the knowledge and influence of Internet personality Sarah Dussault, a fitness expert with her own YouTube Channel.

Laughing Cow and Babybel leverages the influence of fitness expert and Internet personality Sarah Dussault to share fitness and nutrition tips with their community.

Sarah and the blogging team deliver fitness and nutrition tips for their health-conscious community, the target buyer for the 35-calorie cheese snacks.

This content plan shows how one company scales the content creation it needs in order to build and engage its community.

#4: Don’t forget about email—It’s the glue that makes social media stick.

If you’re ignoring email, you’re missing a major community engagement opportunity.

Although social media is growing fast, actually only 52% of Americans have a profile on a social network. Email is a great way to share content or tips with your community, exclusive for your newsletter subscribers.

Add email to your community management strategy:

• Build your email list—Make use of your existing social media channels for acquiring email addresses. Include a place in your blog’s sidebar for people to subscribe to a newsletter or a custom tab on your Facebook page.
• Select your schedule—Choose a schedule that you’re able to stick to: You don’t want to set expectations for a weekly newsletter if that’s not realistic for your bandwidth.
• Plan your content—Will you curate industry news or share original tips with your newsletter subscribers? Choose your approach.

How it’s done:

Through weekly and monthly email newsletters, email marketing company Blue Sky Factory, recently acquired by WhatCounts, is a textbook example of how incorporating social media and email marketing is done right. They share helpful email marketing tips with community members. Responsibly, they allow community members to sign up for just the content they want on their newsletter signup page.

Blue Sky Factory lets users sign up for just the emails they want.

This means community members don’t have to receive press releases if they don’t want to. They can opt-in just to receive a once-a-month newsletter as opposed to a weekly update.

They also make use of the real estate on the Blue Sky Factory Facebook page, offering a user-friendly, granular email newsletter signup form on a custom tab.

Blue Sky Factory engages their community with email newsletters and invites people to learn from their content on their Facebook page.

Remember: Every Twitter follower and Facebook fan has an email address. Blue Sky Factory’s strategy shows how to make community engagement multichannel, and make the most of your social media platforms.

#5: Connect in real life—Incorporate Meetups into your community strategy.

Even if you have a global, online or digital community, engaging your local community fires up evangelists early on in the community-building process.

Let local people know you—the person behind the software, app or service. They’ll be quicker to vouch for your brand because they are willing to vouch for you.

Ways to merge digital and physical community:

• What events already matter?—Identify the conferences, Meetups or parties your community already goes to and find a way to attend or even sponsor.
• Partner up—Is there a local noncompetitive company or organization with the same audience who would want to co-host an event? Leveraging the brand equity of a co-host is one way to break into the space when you’re just beginning your community-building efforts.

How it’s done:

Boston-based fitness app developer RunKeeper uses Meetups to connect its global community to local runners with group runs.

RunKeeper hosted its first group run from their headquarters in Boston’s South End in May, attracting more than 100 people. On June 9, the RunKeeper team set its sights on a larger scale: hosting a global group run. 2,200 runners in 1,000 cities signed up.

A map of all of the international Meetups planned by the RunKeeper community. Photo credit: http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/06/runkeeper-meetups-app-real-world.html

Meetups generate a huge audience to use RunKeeper’s app to track their miles, and they successfully achieve a core element of community-building. Runners feel like they are a part of something bigger than just their typical Saturday morning run.

ROI, tools and technology aside, community-building is about connecting a group of people by making them feel like they’re a part of something special. No matter what tactic you use or tool you choose to carry out that tactic, keep your focus on what motivates the people at the core of the community you’re trying to build.

What do you think? What other examples would you add, and what are the other core pieces to your community management strategy? Let us know in the comments box below.

As Jeremiah Owyang states, “as internal and external demands mount, companies become mostly reactive, relegating themselves to a ‘Social Media Help Desk’.”

With strategy, planning and communication you can ensure that your company won’t be caught off guard. If the day hasn’t come yet when your social media team is thrust into fielding customer-service problems, it’s fair to say that it’s just a matter of time before they will be.

In this post, the seventh installment in the A-Z guides published here on Social Media Examiner, I’ll discuss the importance of developing an integrated social media and customer relationship management program for your company.

A to Z Guide for Integrating Customer Service Into Your Social Media Strategy

#1: Allocate your resources

Assign a number of team members the responsibility of managing social networking profiles to ensure they’re all covered throughout the workday.

Provide coverage when staff isn't around to monitor social networking profiles.

#2: Bridge the gap

Bridge the gaps in customer-service coverage during staff breaks and vacation times. Don’t risk missing important messages.

#3: Create a center of excellence

Jeremiah Owyang advocates for creating social media centers of excellence described as “a centralized program that provides resources, training and strategy to a variety of business units that are deploying social media in order to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and provide standardization. This team is often run by the corporate social strategist, who’s the business stakeholder and program champion.”

The social media center of excellence has four major duties: planning, resources, processes and vendor selection and management. Image source: Altimeter Group

#4: Deliver

Deliver on your customer communication as promised. Whole Foods, for example, lets users know what time and days they can expect to hear back.

Whole Foods lets users know the hours they monitor their Twitter page.

#5: Evaluate

On a regular basis, stop and take a look to see how your social media pages are doing. Monitor reports and keywords and determine how much of your time is spent fielding customer issues.

#6: Food for thought

A couple of good mathematical equations to remember are contained in this food for thought offered by Seth Godin: “My rule of thumb is this: every person you turn away because your product or service isn’t right for them turns into three great customers down the road. Every bad sale costs you five.”

#7: Guerilla marketing techniques

Ann Evanston offers five guerilla marketing techniques to improve customer experiences in the social sphere:

• Set up search phrases for issues that your target market faces, like “slow Internet” or “Internet connection.”
• Also set up search phrases for your business name. Searches are easy to set up in Twitter, MarketMeSuite, HootSuite, Social Mention and will search blog posts as well.
• Watch those mentions and respond to them! Offer empathy, help and make a suggestion. Show them you heard.
• When people use your business name positively, saying “thank you” creates a way to keep in touch as they’re becoming fans and referral sources (or potential customers, if they’re not already).
• If something negative happens, deal with integrity and good communication. Don’t delete it; that’s like putting your head in the sand. You can show others how gracious you really are.

#8: Hub and spoke

Jeremiah Owyang suggests that the hub-and-spoke model provides centralized resources to business units. And Drew McLellan recommends that clients build the web of content creation in a hub-and-spoke model. “You need to have a core—or hub—for all of your social media activity. One place that’s the repository for your core content.”

Create a hub-and-spoke model for social business. Image source: Altimeter Group

#9: Interface across functions

The Community Roundtable suggests in their report, the 2010 State of Community Management, that community management is “increasingly a distinct and separate role that’s explicitly responsible for interfacing across many functions to ensure continuity of care for community members.”

#10: Justification

Heed the advice of the Community Roundtable : “Measurement is NOT about justification. It’s about understanding the data so that you can do a better job.”

#11: Key stakeholders

Remember, key stakeholders will care about different aspects of your social media and will need access to different types of social media metrics. In Forrester’s white paper, “Social Media Marketing Metrics That Matter: Communicating the Right Data to Internal Stakeholders,” Nate Elliott points out the focus of the company’s various internal stakeholders will differ. “Create frequent reporting of digital metrics to community managers and social media strategists, per-campaign or annual reporting of branding and trial metrics to other marketing team members, and quarterly or annual reporting of financial metrics to executives.”

#12: Listen

Set up a good listening strategy and be sure to not only listen for customers’ compliments, but also keep your ears tuned to hear their complaints. Heidi Cohen says, “With the help of social media monitoring tools, customer service can hear what consumers are asking, provide timely responses, and determine early warning signs of PR and other issues.”

#13: Mitigate problems

It’s one thing to listen to what customers are saying. In addition, we must also take precautionary steps and actions. As Heidi Cohen says, “In the current social media ecosystem, it’s critical to have a crisis management plan in place to mitigate potential problems.”

#14: Number of interactions and issues

Some businesses are heavily focused on the number of fans and followers they’re acquiring through social media. And while that’s all fine and good, we must remember to track the interactions staff are having and be able to report back the issues identified and how many were successfully resolved.

#15: Opportunities

Customer-service issues and complaints need not be seen as all negative. With the right mindset, we can view them as opportunities to learn more about what people want and expect from us. Use feedback as opportunities for improvement.

#16: Processes and policies

Customer service and social media needs must be addressed by more than the marketing department. Companies are encouraged to develop thorough processes and policies. Drew Kraus writes in the Gartner paper Emerging Technology Analysis: Social CRM for Customer Service that “one of the inhibitors for the adoption of social CRM customer service technologies is the lack of defined processes and policies… Many fitting the mainstream and late-adopter profile will look to hold off on bringing the new technology into their contact centers until optimized processes and policies have been vetted by early adopters. Instead, they will opt to allow their marketing departments—which have access to near-term budget for such investments—to take the lead in handling all social CRM interactions in the interim.”

#17: Questions

Answering consumers’ questions often ends up taking a back seat to responding to customer complaints. However, the timely response to a question will make customers feel heard and potentially can alleviate dissatisfaction.

Apologize for missed communication.

#18: Resolve problems

Try to resolve problems immediately. Stacey Acevero says, “Sometimes the largest protesters can become advocates with a little bit of love and attention. If you don’t provide some source of customer service or redirect online to someone who can help, you’re risking your reputation.”

#19: Structural hole

A structural hole can be seen as the person between two groups who has been taken away, thereby creating a disconnect between the two groups. Community Roundtable suggests that the “recognition may cause companies to rethink the outsourcing of their Twitter accounts to their PR companies.”

#20: Template for Social CRM

Gartner’s Drew Kraus offers actions for technology and service providers which includes developing a “template” social CRM for the customer-service delivery process for your customers. You may think of this as the standards by which you base all of your customer service, whereby all of your business reps deliver the same quality of care and the same services and messages.

#21: Unhappy customers

When we think about social media and customer service, there may be times when we find ourselves on the other side of the spectrum as the unhappy customer. Erik Deckers writes, “If you’re unhappy with a company, by all means, complain. It’s your right as a customer. But if you do it the right way, you’re more likely to get what you want than if you whine and gripe about their incompetence and failures.”

#22: Variety of functions

Heidi Cohen states that social media has changed how consumers and companies view customer service. Customer service fulfills a variety of different functions including enhancing your marketing. Heidi lists 12 ways social media enhances customer service:

• Gives business a human face
• Listens to what customers are saying
• Proactively engages with prospects and customers
• Provides additional product-related content
• Answers product-related questions
• Supplies alternative contact channel
• Gives customers a channel to talk to each other
• Shares customer feedback
• Celebrates your customers
• Shows customers behind the scenes
• Makes special offers
• Creates new purchase options

#23: Wisdom

There’s a lot of wisdom in this statement by Jacob Morgan from his post,

What is Social CRM? “Social CRM is about moving from fans and followers to customers and advocates.”

#24: (E)xposure

The MarketingProfs post Brands Undervalue Social Media for Customer Service points out that “when social CRM is done well, it provides the added benefits of increased exposure for your brand by helping to retain existing customers, acquiring new customers and driving brand awareness.”

#25: Why measure

For community management to be successful, we need to regularly measure our efforts. Dion Hinchcliffe writes, “If you aren’t looking at overall levels of participation, growth rate of new members, making lists of the recently disengaged and following up on them, etc., then you aren’t managing your social environment. Understanding the overall health and momentum in your community, directly responding to it, and doing it every day will be vital for the long-term success of your effort.”

#26: Zealous

Social CRM requires dedication and devotion. Be zealous about maintaining good customer relationships.

Have you integrated your customer service and social media efforts? What would you add to this list? Leave your comments in the box below.

Rohit talks about how to put personality back into your company to tell a better story about what you do, get people to believe in your company and tell everyone about it.

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

Personality matters because people matter. Here are some of the things you’ll learn in this video about how to humanize your company:

• What you can do get personality back
• Where to focus your attention to humanize your company
• How to identify the employees who are your “accidental spokespeople”
• How to cultivate these people to become a voice for your company
• Why Innocent Drinks has a great personality
• How to find the right backstory model for your company
• How to humanize your brand

Find out more about Ogilvy on their 360° Digital Influence blog. Connect with Rohit on his Influential Marketing blog and download a chapter of Rohit’s book at Personality Not Included.

How do you humanize your company? What tips do you have to share? Please share them in the comment section below.