American Marketing Association Social Media Toolkit

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Soc ial M ed ia: Ge t Sta Starrted He re d o y o u n e e d a so c ia l m e d ia sh e rp rp a ?

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Soc ial M ed ia Dee p Dive : To ols ols,, Ta c tic s a nd Ide a s too ls a nd tr trend end s in m a rketing te c hnolog y

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Po lic y + Hir Hiring ing : The The So c ia l Ente Ente rpris rprise e a t Wo Wo rk soc ia l me d ia p oli olic c y a nd hi hirring for soc soc ia l me d ia

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Soc ial Me d ia Str Stra a teg y Guide ma p p ing the d ia g nos nosti tic c s of effec ti tive ve soc soc ia l me d ia

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Appendix m in in d m a p s a n d m o r e

S o c i a l M e d i a

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS dana@markengsavant.com | twier.com/danavan | www.markengsavant.com

Dana VanDen Heuvel is a widely recogniz recognized ed expert on Thought Leadership

Markeng and Social Media. Dana is the founder and president of The MarMarkeng MarkengSavant Group and previously held several leadership roles in Internet markeng. Dana has been a featured speaker at dozens of American Markeng Associa on events and is a regular contributor contributor to a variety of industry publicaons, sharing his experse on blogging, social media, Internet markeng and emergemerging markeng trends. Dana is the author of AMA’s Marketech ’08 and ‘09/10 Guide to Markeng Technology. Recognized as one of the “50 People You Should Know” by the Green Bay Chamber of Commerce, Dana serves on several advisory boards for nonprots and community orgaorganizaons in and around Wisconsin. Dana is also an adjuct professor at St. Norbert College and teaches a course on social media and thought leadership markeng. toby@bloombergmarkeng.com | twier.com/tobydiva | divamarkengblog.com

Toby Bloomberg is passionate about working with people (not companies) to

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So c ia iall Me d ia ia:: Ge t Sta Sta rted He re d o you need a soc ia l me d ia sher herp pa?

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Do You Need a Social Media Sherpa? An Executive Briefing on Succeeding with Social Media by Dana VanDen Heuvel of MarketingSavant of MarketingSavant

Do You Need a Social Media Sherpa? An Executive Briefing on Succeeding with Social Media

A Game You Must Play. A Battle You Must Win Social media has quickly gone from a “nice to have” component of your of your go‐to‐market strategy to a “must have” weapon in the fight for share of voice, of voice, share of mind of mind and ultimately, share of market. of market. The power of social of social media as a great creator of market of market dialogue and connector of peers, of peers, prospects and pundits has reached a critical mass and there’s no turning back. The current questions that you’re asking about social media don’t have answers like “if” and “maybe” but rather come in tones “when” and “how do I” and “then what?” As recently as this July, Microsoft has announced its alliance with Yahoo to provide search results, thus changing the search game forever. Not only in the sense of the of the overall competitive and Internet power landscape, but in ways that will shape how consumers find things on the Internet and how they determine what matters to them through their window on the Internet world. Why is this relevant? For example, some recent client searches on Bing consistently placed slightly higher value on social media sites than Google. In fact, blogs and social media websites that once simply dotted the landscape have become the perennial scenery along the information superhighway. Within the foreseeable future, brands seeking relevance in search results will need to have secured a relevant position in the social media outposts that are most relevant to their tribe.

Meet Them in Their Medium One of the of the most profound marketing diagrams that I have ever seen is the following illustration from the Marketing Leadership Council.


The aforementioned diagram shows the vast proliferation of marketing of marketing channels in just in just a few short decades compared to the otherwise slow advancement of marketing of marketing up to about 1980. Since then, we as marketers and business leaders have been charged with adapting to a world where our customers have a seemingly infinite choice of channels of channels with which to communicate and further depths of tools of tools within those channels that they can employ at their whim. Our job Our job as marketers is to simply “meet them in their medium” and find the most relevant channels, tools and communication style to match to ensure that we remain relevant to our tribe.

If Marketing If Marketing Moves Fast, Social Media Moves Faster If pictures If pictures are worth 1000 words, what are images that include 1000 logos and 1000 words in the picture worth? As a test, look at the following diagram. How many of the of the logos within the various channels of social of social media can you recognize and accurately describe what the social media service actually does and how it could benefit your organization?


That was fun, wasn’t it! While it’s certainly not imperative that you know each and every social media tool and what they do, that’s simply not necessary, the prior illustration is actually a old version of that of that particular diagram meant to show just show just how nuanced, complex and full of opportunity of opportunity and promise the world of social of social media is. In keeping with the pace of social of social media, a newer updated version of that of that same diagram is available at www.theconversationprism.com,, but it’s so complex that it’s actually difficult to fit into www.theconversationprism.com this whitepaper while still making the text on the graphic legible enough to read!

Show Me the ROI First Many of you of you will recall, or have heard about the scene in the movie Jerry Maguire where and exchange between Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding Junior unfolds as Cruise is pitching Gooding on using him as his agent as all while Cruise is about to be ushered out of his of his current firm to venture out on his own. Before Gooding signs with Cruise, he asks him, quite emphatically and repeatedly, to “show him the money.” Many of us of us feel like that with social media – media – show me the money! Well, the money is there in social media. In fact, a recent Wetpaint and Altimeter Group study confirms that deep engagement with consumers through social media channels correlates to better financial performance. The ENGAGEMENTdb study (www.engagementdb.com) showed significant positive financial results for the companies who measured as having the greatest breadth and depth of social of social media engagement. These "Social Media Mavens" on average grew


Streaming Social Media into Your Marketing Mix The most important thing for marketers to focus on with social media is how it will fit within their existing marketing and promotional mix and within their overall go‐to‐market strategy. In fact, we’re fond of saying of saying that social media strategy is a bit of a of a red herring because to be truly strategic about social media is to consider it holistically as part of an integrated approach to marketing and business development. At this point, marketers generally start looking around for best practices, for a kit or a set of templates or some examples that point the way. We want turn‐key strategies that plug and play with built‐in shortcuts. The trouble is, there little of any of any of that of that to be found social media.


Now is a good time to begin asking some questions about how social media will fit into your marketing mix. These are just are just some of the of the questions that you should ask at this point. 

Why is social media of interest of interest to us?

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Do we believe social media will have an impact? If so, If so, in what way?

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What assumptions do we have about social media? What about our executives?

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Who do we want to reach and why?

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Is our industry ahead of the of the curve, behind it, or in the middle?

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How do we as a company feel about opening up the dialogue with our customers?

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What are our measures for success? (qualitative and quantitative)

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How much time and money are we expecting to dedicate to this?

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What practices do we see from our peers/competitors that we’d like to emulate?

Rules of of the the Road for DIY Social Media The “social media dead pool” is chock full of great of great examples of what of what not to do! It’s littered with examples of social of social media initiatives that were completely unencumbered by the strategic process.


Today’s consumer has a highly tuned sense for nonsense, fraud and deceit. Any attempt at less being less than 100% honest and above board in social media is met with scrutiny.

Consumers have come to expect access to brands (after years of so of so‐called voice mail and jail and jail and phone tree climbing) and want honest and open conversations. They further have expectations that if a if a brand is engaged in social media that it abides by those principles. A great example great example of what of what not not to to do comes from comes from Wal ‐Mart with Mart with their ‘Wal their ‘Wal ‐Marting Across America’ Across America’ episode. episode. This was a less‐than authentic blog featuring blog featuring a couple’s journey across journey across America America in an RV, encountering many Wal many Wal ‐Marts along the way. The blog was quickly exposed quickly exposed and and the the ensuing fallout ensuing fallout damaged damaged the Wal ‐Mart brand.

Another misconception that markets hold is that social media is simply a new outlet for your conventional advertising messages. In fact, Twitter is full of just just this kind of messaging every day. (On Twitter, spam messages are called “Twam”) There’s no quicker way to be scorned in social media than by offering the same one‐way ad messages in social media channels. You will be immediately lumped into the ‘noise’ category and you will be promptly and permanently ignored. Finally, social media is a content game. The two questions that all brands should ask are “how am I being useful in the social media channels that I’m participating in” and “what kind of valuable of valuable content can I create and share to offer something to my audience that will really engage them?” Consumers have no tolerance or patience for self serving,


Your Blueprint for Social Media Success: 10 Key Steps 1. Strategic education Knowing what you don’t know about social media is a great first place to start. From there, there are myriad conferences, books, webinars and all manner of educational of educational vehicles that one can leverage to learn everything you and your team need to know in order to move forward and make sound decisions about your social media strategy and tactical plan. I advocate that brands find their “Delta connection” – connection” – understand the “gap” that you’re trying to fill between your current marketing strategy and the “new marketing” of the of the world of social of social media. The goal goal of of this this step is to understand understand what’s what’s out out there, there, what’s what’s possible possible and and to to give you some fodder some fodder for for formulating formulating your your social social media media vision.

2. Define your business objectives and risk profile Once you have a sense of the of the possible, the probable and are starting to get your arms around the doable, it’s time to formulate your goals and business objectives for social media. Here are few questions to consider: a) Do you want to use social media for listening or for outreach? b) How will you leverage your brand assets to maximize presence in the social media environment?


3. Understand your customers (the conversation) Internally, we go back and forth on whether or not this should be first, but you need to understand social media and “get to know yourself” by setting a vision, goals and objectives before you turn outward and look to your customers and external stakeholders.

While social media is all about conversation, it’s also about people and content. Just as you would not go to an in person meeting with a prospect or to a networking meeting to connect with other professionals without a clear sense of who of who you are and what value you add to the world, you wouldn’t enter social media without the same level of personal understanding. That said, this is the point where you engage in online social media listening through RSS feeds, blog searches and Twitter searches to determine how involved your potential audience is and where they’re hanging out. Ask these questions about your customers: a) What are our customers doing online? Is social media relevant to them? b) Who do we want to reach and why? c) What do we want from them and what do we want them to do? d) What are we giving back (value) that has nothing to do with our product/service? e) What data do we want/need to gather during our efforts? By this point, By this point, you want want to to have a clear clear understanding understanding of of what what your your customers customers and prospects are doing with social social media media and and begin begin to to formulate formulate some idea of of how how your your brand’s entrance into the space is valuable and and useful useful to to them.


4. Understand the competitive and industry environment Competitive analysis, while important, should not be the determining factor on what you do with social media. There is much me‐tooism going on out there, and it’s understandably difficult to watch your competition get a leg up on social media while you’re on the sidelines. However, if you’re if you’re going to trump them, you need to understand what everyone is going, and then craft a strategy on how you’ll do better. Once you understand understand the the social social media media scene in your your competitive competitive space, your your most most important task important task is is to craft craft a a strategy strategy that that puts puts you out out in in front front of of them. them.

5. Anticipate corporate culture shift/shock This stage is a reality check for most organizations. Understanding how your team, your sales force, your distributors and other stakeholders will react to social media is an important step in making your social media strategy a reality. For some companies, this is a non‐issue. However, for many, especially larger, more conservative organizations, this is something to be studied and thoroughly understood. a) Do our employees engage in social media in their personal lives? What level of familiarity can/should we expect? b) Does our internal audience understand the business potential of social of social media, or are they skeptical? c) What are the biggest fears/hesitations that we have as a company about using social media? d) How detailed do we need to be about our communication policies? e) Are we empowering our employees to respond at the point of need, of need, regardless of their of their role? Is there a “chain of command”? of command”?


6. Assess your resources and capabilities The astute marketer will work on forging strong relationships with IT, legal, HR and the other stakeholders that can be impacted by a brand’s involvement in social media. Getting all of these of these people in a room to discuss your progress so far, the goals that you’ve put forth, the customer potential and the rationale that you’ve developed for why the company needs to pursue social media will give you a clear view of what of what you have to work with and what work still need to do to get the organization aligned


7. Immerse your marketing team in social media The organizations with the best track record for implementing social media, Internet marketing, CRM or anything new are those that immerse their teams in the practice and application of new of new things to ensure that they have the skills and mental horsepower to see the program through. Getting your team to experiment, attend webinars, read and otherwise get a full grasp on the world of social of social media will help your program move at light‐speed instead of at of at a snail’s pace as everyone plays catch‐up. Getting your your team team excited excited about about social social media media by by encouraging encouraging and and enabling enabling their participation is a sure way way to to speed speed up up the success of of your your social social media media efforts.

8. Formulate the strategy and tactical plan You’ve laid the foundation for putting together a comprehensive social media strategy. Your strategy should be a plan to utilize your resources, capabilities, and learned social media skills to manifest the goals, objectives and customer value proposition that you’ve articulated in the previous steps.

Your strategy needs to have a narrow focus, initially, to ensure that you’re “doing the doable” and doing social media well before branching out into too many social media channels at one time and doing them all half ‐baked. Create a platform, such as a blog, on which to launch your strategy and pursue a vetting process with each new technique and tool such that everything supports your initial strategy and builds on what you’ve already launched. Your strategy should Your strategy should cover cover your your social social media media launch, or pilot pilot program, program, all all the the way through first 9 first 9 12 months of of activity activity give idea of of what’s what’s possible possible and


10. Measure, report review and revise Measuring social media performance, on both quantitative and qualitative scales, is an essential activity. However, clear thinking about Return on Investment (ROI) is today’s greatest challenge and thus greatest opportunity for social media marketers. In spite the current pressures on marketing departments to justify to justify their expenditures and deliver ROI, and alarming number of companies have committed to social media efforts without first establishing parameters for defining social media success, clear‐cut metrics and accountability measures.

Social media measurement comes with its own set of challenges, of challenges, which is part of the of the reason for the current situation. Classic measures of reach of reach and frequency of the of the old media world will no longer suffice and the nascent measurement concepts like “engagement” are not universally understood and differ from agency to agency and brand to brand. Nevertheless, establishing baselines before entering social media and then iterating on the metrics as you move forward is a sure way to gauge success, even if you if you can’t fit your social media metrics into a tidy spreadsheet on day one. Metrics vary, but but many many companies companies have measured measured social social and and digital digital media media success by Reach, Acquisition, Acquisition, Conversion and and Retention Retention ( RACR RACR ) adapting their their metrics metrics to the Reach, model popularized by popularized by a a number of of Internet Internet marketers marketers over over the the past past several several years. years.


Social Media Sherpa Diagnostic Diagnostic – – Do I Need a Social Media Guide or Consultant? The beautiful irony of the of the social media space is that as soon as someone dons the “expert” cap, it’s as though they’ve put on a digital “dunce hat” and they’re soon ridiculed by the social media insecure and viewed with scrutiny by any commercial concern. In any other industry, expert status is a great achievement.


While these are all wonderful goals, now is the time to reflect on your overarching marketing goals and how social media fits. Ask yourself “can yourself “can I achieve all of these of these on my own?” Do I have the tools, time, know‐how, stamina, foresight and insight to make these goals a reality through social media? If there’s If there’s a hint of no, of no, consult someone. 2. Who are we trying to reach and why? Are you targeting a new audience, tapping into your industry veterans, or trying to move a market up the technology ladder? Do you know where to find your targets online and how to interact with them when and where you find them? If not, If not, it might be time to seek the assistance of someone of someone who’s done it. 3. Are you comfortable with the technology, the ambiguity and the fast pace of social of social media? If you’re If you’re a can‐do person with no fear, then by all means, go for it! If you’re If you’re a great strategist but lack the technology skills of if of if you’re you’re unsure about whether or not your IT personnel will understand your need to un‐block the social media sites that you can’t see from your corporate computer, perhaps it’s time to call in someone who’s run this race before. 4. Am I informed about social media? The very first step in the social media strategy that we advocate is to get educated. There are myriad conferences, webinars, books, whitepapers and blogs with which to get acquainted with every nuance of the of the social media space. Regardless of whether of whether you hire someone, this is the best investment you’ll ever make in social media! 5. Do I have the time to do this all myself? You probably already have some idea of “what” of “what” you should be doing, but may lack the


Finding Your Ideal Social Media Sherpa If you’ve If you’ve reached the end of the of the diagnostic questions that you’ve decided to reach out for some help, it’s now time to sort out who the real “social media Sherpa’s” are. They’re actually pretty easy to find. Consider these questions & criteria: 1. Tell me about the best outreach you’ve done lately. What did you do? Ask about specifics, what have they done? Not every firm has a great deal of experience, but some is necessary. What strategies did they use? What were their results? If they If they haven’t been in the trenches of a project sometime in the last 12 months, you should ask them why. Yes, this industry moves that fast. 2. Tell me about a campaign that didn’t go so well. What did you learn? Social media is in its nascent stages now. A firm with social media failures is likely to be a better organization because understand the issues and should show willingness to share missteps and the learning that came about. 3. How do you feel about Twitter? If they If they tell you that you should be on it and that they can handle it for you, they may not be fit. If they If they have for determining if Twitter if Twitter is right for the client, you’re


6. What is your pricing structure? Social media Sherpa’s will typically work on a “per project” or hourly basis, unless you’re seeking a retained resource or partner for the long term. 7. What can we do now to get started? The best social media programs typically involve parallel paths of research of research and strategy combined with immediate action. Look for some published resources from the Sherpa that you can glean the basics from along with their initial assistance to get you off the off the ground while they help you build your overall social media strategy.

Moving Forward The social and digital media world moves rapidly, to say the least. New tools, new ideas, new strategies and a digital media landscape that’s constantly in a state of flux of flux makes things interesting and challenging for even the most astute marketer to keep up with. Certainly many brands have gone it alone up the social media mountain, but it can be a lonely journey. lonely journey. The storied successes that you read about in this guide and see mentioned every day in the media are brands which have, by and large, chosen to seek out a social media guide to lead them on their journey. their journey. Our aim in this guide is to share you some perspective on what you can and should do now to boost your social media efforts while sharing some perspective on when to engage and what to look for in a social media marketing guide. A little knowledge is a powerful thing! Once you’ve armed yourself with yourself with the tools and the help need to succeed social media journey, media journey, rest assured that the


Dana VanDen Heuvel Dana is the founder and chief consultant chief consultant at The MarketingSavant Group. His specialties include social media strategy development, instruction and training, marketing strategy development and facilitated brainstorming and thought leadership marketing strategy development. An award‐winning blogger himself, Dana has engaged over 2000 marketers since 2004 on the subject of social of social media marketing through his courses, American Marketing Association training events, direct consultations and through his blogs at www.danavan.net, www.marketingsavant.com and reaches many more through articles, podcasts, webinars and whitepapers like this one.

The MarketingSavant Group MarketingSavant is a consulting‐led B2B marketing firm specializing in helping our clients attain thought leadership in the markets they serve. We help our clients create their own whitespace in a field of competition of competition enabling your success through content and go‐to‐market strategy that motivates your prospects and drives business. We’re not an ad agency. In fact, we’re a consulting shop with passionate leader who loves the intersection of content, of content, marketing, technology and helping the insurgent marketer win the business.

Answers To The Questions You Didn’t Ask Reprinted From the Age of Conversation 2 By Toby Bloomberg – Diva Marketing

When was the last time you talked, listened, laughed and learned with .. not From .. From .. but With your With your customers or clients? Marketing teaches us the more we know about our target audience the better we can service them. "The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself." - Peter Drucker. When Peter Drucker wrote that statement, over fifty years ago, formal market research was how most marketers obtained insights about their customers. Marketers asked the questions and customers gave their opinions. Marketers listened and learned.

starts using Twitter on his/her own and is actually passionate about it, then that passion will eventually rub off on the rest of the organization.” Dell is also changing its business model by engaging with its customers. According to Richard Binhammer, “Social media helps us: learn from conversations with customers every day. That has influenced internal processes as we have identified issues sooner than we might otherwise have, learned to respond faster and generally listen and be in touch.” Understanding your customer and knowing what she wants is like finding the holy grail of marketing. Adopting your business model to include engaging with your customers can help make that happen. The Age of Conversation 2 book brought together nearly 300 of the world’s leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators for a global collaboration where the impact of digital conversations was explored.

Technology Is Recreating Business Intimacies Reprinted from Age of Conversation Conversation By Toby Bloomberg Marketing, Diva Marketing www.divamarketingblog.com

C Customers from India, Canada, New Zealand

and Europe. Technology swings open the doors to a global marketplace. Our cyberspace offices and storefronts keep the lights on 24/7/365 allowing us to conduct business with a mere click and an internet connection. Life is good. Or is it? In their rush to enter this new environment companies often sacrificed personal connections with their customers and other stakeholders. Understanding the individual needs of a growing and often geographically dispersed customer based

support “departments” but with people within those departments who shared common interests and passions. The exchange was richer, deeper and more satisfying relationships for both customer and company. When we get to know people more than product information is usually exchanged. That’s exactly what happened online. Stories about personal interest from wine to family vacation were “blogged.” Photos Photos were shared. Relationships Relationships that were as intimate and important as those created by neighborhood green grocers were being formed. Through social media marketing initiatives: blogs, podcasts, vlogs, mash-up communities, social book marking and photo sharing organizations were rediscovering that the corner grocery store relation was attainable in an online environment and more important than ever before to foster and maintain. “It's not personal, personal, Sonny. It's strictly business,” business,” said Michael Corleone Corleone to his brother. However, the son of the Godfather was wrong. Dead wrong. Business is personal. Technology is fueling the emotional engagement that leads to long-term customer interactions. Reprinted from The Age of Conversation, Conversation, a book that brings together over 100 of the world's leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators in a ground-breaking and unusual publication.

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S o c i a So c ia iall Me d ia De e p Dive ive:: To o ls ls,, Ta c ti tic cs and Ide Ide as l M e d i a Soc ial M ed ia: Ge t Sta Starrted He re

d o y o u n e e d a so c ia l m e d ia sh e rp rp a ?

to o ls a nd tr trend end s in ma rk et ing te c hno lo g y


Soc ial Me d ia Str Stra a teg y Guide

ma p p ing the d ia g nos nosti tic c s of effec ti tive ve soc soc ia l me d ia

Appendix

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02 e c r e n H a i s l e p o m G o e c l d T i n T a r , e k p s i a r H , c e c n a n r e v o G

wh pp Two Sides of Consumer-Generated Media:

Listening and Participating Cpanis can’t watch watch th actin ac tin  th sidins; th nd t t in th a  thsvs.

S

ocial media is providing marketers with an array o tools and opportunities that oer an unusual entrée into understanding the good, bad and ugly o how customers use and perceive brands, your company and even your employees. In today’s world, it is increasingly critical to understand your specic

customer needs and to build business relationships both on a local and global basis. Those strategies become more challenging, however, as the landscape grows more complex. New media strategies present a means o closing the communication gap brought on by time and distance. Valuable global relations are being created through tools that range rom text mes-

sages, microblogs, podcasts, vlogs (video blogs), social networking communities and traditional blogs. By leveraging these new technologies, people exchange ideas and inormation, and discover common experiences that transcend cultural dierences. Listening and participating in ongoing conversations enables organizations to develop a stronger emotional engage-

www.vnutda.c/p/XXXXX

ment with customers, prospects and other stakeholders.

LiStening These “virtual “vir tual back ence” conversations, commonly called consu consumer-generated mer-generated media or content (CGM/CGC), are ound in the comments o blogs, bulletin boards, social networking communities and product reviews. The unltered, raw voices o peer-to-peer discussions are requently rich in passion and emotion, thereby oering a window into a world that previously eluded traditional marketing research methodologies. Since these virtual virt ual chats are Internetbased, they can be tracked, measured and analyzed. Consumer-generated

media, thereore, becomes one more source o inormation that should be scrutinized to mitigate the risk in making business decisions. Although monitoring social media is gaining acceptance as a complementary piece o marketing research strategy, marketers should keep in mind that there is a dierence between data mined rom CGM and the inormation derived rom ormal surveys or ocus groups. Control o the sample is one varying element. CGM seems to have more in common with ethnography than it does with a quantitative study. The inormation mined rom consumergenerated media ranges rom product review sites – where customers candidly oer their opinions and oten vote on the best product within a category – to positive and negative customer service experiences and trends. A signicant benet o keeping a watchul eye on new media conversations conversat ions is the abilit y to tap in to inormation in real time. The opportunity or rapid response in a crisis situation can be a powerul outcome o consist consistent ent listening. Trend analysis is gaining acceptance as a valuable tool or understanding CGM and

have an impact on how an organization conducts business and, in turn, can set internal cultural changes in motion: • From a C-suite perceptive, the challenge becomes how to integrate this new type o inormation to support customer customer-ocused business decisions. • From an operational perspective, the challenge becomes how to develop internal processes that will quickly pass the right inormation to the people with authority to take action. • From a marketing perspective, the challenge becomes how to leverage the inormation to develop a better customer experience that supports the brand identity. • From an R&D perspective, the challenge becomes how to use this type o customer insight to create new products and services that tie back to the brand.

ParticiPating Consumer-generated media is Web-based Consumer-generated and can easily and quickly be passed along to riends and relatives. However, it is not unusual or a comment rom a blog post or discussion points in a social media net-

02 e c r e n H a i s l e p o m G o e c l d T i n T a r , e k T s i p r a , H e c c n a n r e v o G

wh pp York Times or Wall Street Journal once

it spreads around the Internet and becomes an online cause célèbre. In act, it’s not uncommon anymore or a reporter to base a story on a blog post. Frequently, the article appears both in the hard copy and online editions o the media outlet, thus extending the restorm’s reach and awareness still urther. As more people copy and paste the media link into emails, blogs and product reviews, the buzz continues to build. Johnson & Johnson provides an interesting example o corporate participation in the new media conversation. In the summer o 2007, 2007, J&J leveraged leverage d its blog, JNJ BTW, to address a crisis situation that was rapidly escalating in both mainstream media and among bloggers. The company sued the American Re d Cross or what it considered to be inappropriate and illegal use o the “Red Cross trademark,” as explained in this public statement: “Ater more than a century o strong cooperation in the use o the Red Cross trademark, with both organizations respecting the legal boundaries or each others’ unique legal rights, we were very disappointed to nd that the American

What?!” In keeping with the writing style o social media, he explained the company’s point o view in a personal voice using casual language. His eorts produced a signicant number o positive posts rom other bloggers, which in turn provided support or Johnson & Johnson’s position. Although negative comments were allowed on the J&J corporate blog, they actually served to reinorce the perception that the company was open and transparent about the situation, thus garnering even more respect or the organization. The blog achieved what no other crisis communication strategy could: It allowed Johnson & Johnson to tell its story the way it wanted to, in its own voice, without mainstream media clouding the message with its own interpretations.

A cpat scia dia stat can suppt vaius aktin unctins and tactics and div nfts incudin th win: •

A orum or telling your stories your way

The truth is that companies could never ully control the way customers talked about their products and services beore either. Those conversations have always occurred in one-on-one chats or in small group discussions. Prior to the Internet, inormal customer word-o-mouth might have been slower to impact the brand and more difcult to track, but it’s certainly not a new concept. It’s just taken on a new dimension in the online space. It would be naïve not to acknowledge the inherent vulnerability that comes rom allowing unltered conversations to take place in the public orum o a blog. W ill the brand be compromised? Will negative comments impact sales? Will the blogger represent the company airly? Can the people writing or a corporate blog hold honest discussions without compromising a competitive advantage? As Johnson & Johnson learned, people are talking about your products, services and employees anyway – whether you’re part o the dialogue or not. So the question becomes: Where would you preer that those conversations be held – on a competitor’s blog or on YouTube? Creating a corporate blog or a YouTube YouTube channel

revised

marketech and updated

tools a n d trends i n marketing technology

i

forward

forward The M a rkeT keTec ec h Guide to M a rketi keting ng Tec hnolog y and Soc ia l Med ia Ma rketing is an upd ate d and upg rad ed ver vers sion b as ased ed on the succ es ess sful e-boo k orig ori g inall inally y writte writte n for the A me ri ric c a n Ma rketing A ssoc iation in 2008 2008.. Ma rketing u sed to b e simp simp ler ler.. Few Few er tec hno log ies ies,, fewe r c ha nne ls ls,, les less s d irect consumer inuence and frankly, lower risk – all of which made our jobs ea sier ier.. Tha t sa sa id , I p ers ersona ona lllly y c a n’ t think of a ti time me tha t ma rketi keting ng ha s be en more fun. Our jobs have been transformed by technology

forward

ii overlap overl ap ther there!) e!) but g rab s a pa ltr try y 3% of the ave rag e m ark arketing eting b udg et .

Ma rketi keting ng te c hnolog y goe s we ll be yond a nd b efo re the a d vent of soc soc ia l me d ia . Sur urely, ely, som e of the tools we discuss in this e-book are social media tools. However, and more importantly, they are the state-of-the art vehicles that today’s marketers need to understand to grow their bottom line and keep pa ce wi with th the everever-ad vancing c us ustomer tomer base base a nd m ark arketplace etplace .

10 Que stions Ma rke ters Wa nt Answe Answe red Ab out Digital & Soc Soc ial Me d ia You’ re no t a lone if you ha ve m ore q ues uestions tions tha n a ns nswe we rs whe n it co mes to a pp roa c hi hing ng soc soc ial med ia m ark arketin eting g a nd m ark arketeting tec hnolog y. Mic Mic ha el A. Stelz Stelzner, ner, author of the , “ Soc ial Media Marketing Industry Report” , conducted a survey of 900 p eo p le rega rd ing soc soc ia l me d ia ma rketi keting ng . They rec rec eived 70 700 0 open-ended responses and summarized the major questions ma rketi keting ng p rofes ofess siona ls wa nted an swe red . I’I’ ve include d thes these e questions because they so closely reect the same questions that I’ve I’ve be en rec rec eivi eiving ng mo nth after mo nth whil while c ond ucting the AMA’ s two-da y “ Tec hnoMa rketing” tr traini aining ng c our ours se o n ma rketi keting ng tec hnol hnolog og y & soc ial me dia. They inc lude : 1. What a re the be st prac tices a nd t a c ti tic c s to use? use? 2. How d o I mea sur ure e the effec tivenes tiveness s of soc soc ial med ia? 3. Whe Whe re d o I sta rt? 4. How d o I ma nag e the soc soc ial ba lanc e? 5. What a re th e b es estt sites sites a nd to ols ou t the re? 6. How do I ma ke the m os ostt of m y ava ilab le time? 7. How do I nd and focus my efforts on my target tar get audience?

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tab le of co ntent ntents s

t a b le o f c o n t e n t s So c ial Me d ia M ining , Buz Buzz z M o nito ring , Cu sto m e r Liste ning ......1 Tw itte r, Mic ro b lo g g ing & The Sta tus tusp p he re ......7 Blogging .....12 Fac ebo ok .....17 LinkedIn .....25 So c ia l Ne Ne tw o rki king ng Envir nviro o nm e nts.....30 Vid e o Sha Sha ring .....34

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so c ia l m e d ia m ining, b uz uzz z m o nitori nitoring ng , c us usto to m e r liste ning

c ha p te r 1 So c ia l M e d ia M ining , Buz uzz z M o nito ring , C us usto to m e r Liste ning

This guid e is a b out wha t lea d ing m a rketers a re d oing with ma rketi keting ng tec hnolog y in 201 2010. 0. There a re o p p ortuni ortunities ties ab ound for the sa sa vvy ma rketer, but none is mo re imp ortant tha n lis listening to the c us ustom tom er by tuning into t heir fr freq eq uen c y in in new sg rou p s, blog s, p od c a sts ts,, and soc ial med ia sites sites.. In In fac t, as the m a rketing m ix moved fr from om a ‘ mono log ue’ mod el to one of d ialogue and c onvers onversation, ation, succ succ es ess s with marketin marketing g tec hnolog y will will be pred ic a ted on a suc c es ess sful buzz buzz mo nitor nitoriing a nd c us ustom tom er lilistening str strat at eg y.


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Buz uzz z m o nitori nitoring ng c a n b e a c c o m p lish e d b y p a yi ying ng for the servi ervic c e th ro ug h a major provider of online onli ne c onve rsa ti tion on mo ni nitor tor me thod ology, or c an b e d one in ho us use e th ro ug h a va riet y of fre fre e se rvic e s tha t a re a vail vaila a b le to a ll marketers.

to learn at a grassroots level what people really think about your b ra nd , produc ts or servi servic c es in the sta sta tus tusp p here, the c oll ollec ec ti tion on o f all the onli online ne c onve rsa tion in soc soc ia l netwo rki king ng a rea s suc h a s Fa c eb oo k, Twitter an d othe rs. By By m onitori onitoring ng the onli online ne c onve rsa ti tion on ha pp ening in blogs, forums, social networks and other social media channels, b us usines iness ses c a n b ring th e v oic es of t he ir c us ustom tom ers d ir irec ec tly into into the ir marketing departments and cut down on the need for expensive market research tools such as focus groups and phone surveys. In fairnes fair ness s to the ma rket a nd ma rketi keting ng res esea ea rc hers wo rldwid e, soc soc ial media listening will never fully replace a scientically developed panel, customer advisory board or survey that gives us statistically signicant and valid data on which to base our marketing decisions.

Why Soc Soc ial Med M ed ia Mo nitori nitoring ng for 200 2009? 9? While there a re a go od numbe r of large Whil large organiz organizations ations enga ging a professional rm to understand the marketing conversation about their business, products or services, there are countless other companies – from small business to Fortune 1000 enterprises – that have yet to lea rn wha t the buzz is a b out. Peo Peo p le a re ta lk lkiing thr throug oug h b log s, soc ial netw orks lilike ke Fa Fa c eb oo k and Twitte r, wikis wikis,, etc . Kno Kno wing wh a t they’re saying is crucial because their discussions inuence consum er attitudes and behaviors and show up prominently in search returns tur ns,, all of w hi hic c h a ffec t your busines business s. It’ It’ s a hug e c ha nge be c a us use e b us usines iness ses no longe r own their ow n b ran d . For For a grow ing numb er of c om p an ies es,, hir hiring a ful fulll-ti time me soc ia l med ia ma rketer is is the wa y they ensure they interact sufciently with their customers via Facebook, T itter and ot he li . Dell, Dell, for exam le, has e t ha n 40

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In a d d ition, there there a re three key m etri etric c s involved in wha t is referr eferred ed to a s “ Onli Online ne Rep Rep uta ti tion on M a na ge ment”: 1. Sha re o f voice . This is a me a sur urem em ent o f how muc h a nd to w ha t d eg ree p eo ple a re ta lk lking ing ab out you. you. 2. Ton e o f vo ice , a.k.a a.k.a . “ Sent iment a na lys lysis is.” .” This is a me a sureme nt o f wh eth er the c on vers versa a tion is large ly p os ositi itive ve o r neg a tive. IfIf the sen sen timen t is p os ositi itive ve , rew rew a rd tho se w ho sp sp ea k we ll of yo u. If the tone is lar large ge ly neg a tive, you nee d to ta ke ac ti tion on to g et to the roo t of the p rob lem IF one really exists. If it’s based in misinformation, you’ll need to engage the critics and correct their misunderstanding. 3. Trend s ove r time time . It’ It’ s impo rta nt to mo nitor the a b ove me tr trics ics ove r time time to see the effec ts of your advertising, marketing and public relations efforts.

Bes estt Pr Pra c tic tices es for for Monitoring M onitoring the Co nve rsa tion Getting started monitoring the online conversation can be pretty straightforward, but there are a few guidelines that can help you get a jump start. 1. Loo k for eva ng eli elis sts an d help the sp rea d the g oo d wo rd 2. Engage with ‘middle ground’ consumers to inuence them. 3. Look for “incidental detractors” and engage with them to x problems. 4. Seek out and minimize “determined detractors” - the people who just can’t seem to be happy.

Mo nitori nitoring ng Step s

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so c ia l m e d ia m ining ning,, b uz uzz z m o nitori nitoring ng , c us usto to m e r liste ning

1. Conversation discovery – Use brand monitor ing services, keyword watch lists and alerts or, at a minimum, at least doing persistent searches? 2. Conversation aggregation – How are you ga ther theriing your da ta? Op ti tions ons include Goo gle Rea d er or MyY MyYa a hoo . 3. Conversation escalation – The decision to move from passive to active participation in on liline ne c onv ers ersa a tions tions.. 4. Conversation participation – Determining how to participate. It could be via emails, comments, posts, tweets, etc. OR you can participate more indirectly through social bo okmark okmarks s, tag ging, etc . 5. Conversation tracking – There are many op tions, from customer relationship manageme nt softw softw a re to review of e ma il str trings ings.

Wha t’s Next for Soc Soc ial M ed ia Lis isten tening ing / Buz uzz z Mo nitoring ? There is a mo ve from the b eli elief ef tha t m arkets a re c onve rsa ti tions ons to a sc ena rio in which o nli nline ne

so c ia l m e d ia m ining ning,, b uz uzz z m o nitori nitoring ng , c us usto to m e r liste ning

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and analysis can benet a greater than expected number of corpo ra te func tions tions,, fr from c us ustom tom er ca re to p ub lic relations relations a nd leg a l.

What to Mo nit nitor or Wha t to Trac Trac k?

Compa ny name Products/Brands Executives Key Customers Patents Press rele a se s Competitors Stocks Services

•Blogs •Newsgroups •Social networks •Podcasts •Q&A venues (i.e., Yahoo An An-swers) •Search engine results •Wikipedia

Buzz Mo nito ring To o ls •Google or Yahoo Alerts •Google Blog/Web Search •Google Reader •Google Trends or Trendrr •Twitter •YackTrack •Social Mention •FriendFeed search •Technorati •Serph •SocialMention •FeedRinse •BlogPulse •Backtype •BoardReader •Summize (search.twitter.com) •Filtrbox.com •Flickr (photos) •YouTube (videos) •Facebook Lexicon

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Tw itte r, Mic ro b lo g g ing & The Sta tus tusp p he re

c ha p ter 2 Tw itt e r, Mic Mic ro b lo g g ing & The Sta tu tus sp he re Microb logg ing is a Web servi ervic c e tha t a ll llow ow s the sub sc riber to b roa d c a st short short me ssa g es to o ther sub sc ribers of the servi ervic c e. The The a p p ea l of microb logg ing is b oth its imme d iac y an d its p ortab il ility. ity. Posts are brief – typically 140 to 200 characters – and can be written and received by a variety of d evice s inc luding c ell pho nes nes.. Althoug Althoug h m os ostt m ic rob log broa dc as asts ts are p os osted ted a s text, som e servi ervic c es a ll llow ow vide o or a ud io p os osts ts.. Microb logg ing is slowly mo ving into the ma ins instream tream . In In the United Sta tes tes,, Pr Pres eside ide nt B Ba a ra c k Ob a ma microblog d fr the c aign tr trail ail us usii Twitter f the m t p ul r mi ob l ging s


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2009, 735, 2009, 735,000 000 uniq uniq ue vis visitors itors a c c es ess sed Tw itter throu g h t he ir mo b ilile e p ho ne s. The a ve rag e un ique vis visitor itor we nt to Tw itter 14 time s d uri uring ng the m onth a nd spe nt a n a verage of seven seven minutes on the site. And sinc e p eo ple a re o n their c om p uters or their c ell pho nes multiple time s a d a y w ith Twitter, Twitter, it’ it’ s a n ide a l too l for sell selling ing som som eth ing online. Another microblog innovator is Buzzable, which attempts to crea te in-soc in-soc ial netw ork orks s on a mic rob log p latform. In In othe r wo rd s, by creating small networks of highly targeted individuals, you can d is istri trib b ute time -s -sens ensiti itive ve m a teri teria a ls a nd c oll olla a b orate in a c om munity without having to c rea te a n entire entire soc soc ial netwo rk.

What Marketers are Doing With It Ma rketing sa sa vvy c om p a nies a re using using Twitter Twitter in in a multitude of wa ys ys,, p rima ril ily y to esta esta b li lis sh c ont a c t be tw ee n its its sta ff and c us ustom tom ers er s, givi giving ng the com pa ny an aura of be ing human and a pp roa c ha b le. Dell Dell Co mp uter, on th e o ther ha nd , has seve ra l c us ustom tom er serservice people who nd complaints about the company’s products a nd a d d res ess s the m a t the ea rli lies estt p os oss sible o p p ortunity. They a ls lso o offer more ge ner neral al tec hni hnic c al ad vi vice ce . Ca se in po int: Za p p os os.co .co m Online sho sho e a nd c lothing reta ililer, er, Za p p os os.c .c om , CEO CEO Ton Ton y Hs Hsieh reg ularl ularly y uses uses Twitte r to up d a te on a nything from wo rk tra tra vels to


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A soc soc ia l me d ia c a m p a ig n b y Be Be n & Je rry’ s yield e d a 42 42-fold -fold inc rea se in time sp ent eng a g e d w it i t h th th e Website, strengthen ed exi exis sting relation ship s a nd int ro ro d u c e d y o un un g e r audiences.

Ca se in p oint: Ben Ben a nd Jer Jerrry’ s Ben and Jerry’s turned to microblogging to further its engageme nt with loya loya l consume consume rs. The c om pa ny wa nted a soc ial me dia p rog ra m tha t wo uld a li lign gn w ith the Ben Ben & Jerry’ Jerry’ s mis miss sion of “ Pea c e, Love and Ice Cream,” t its culture and met its “key performance indica tors tors”” of relationships relationships str treng eng then ed a nd b uil uilt. t. They p a rtne red with a social media marketer to create a peace sign mosaic to which users could contribute pictures and text with their own vision of world peace in celebration of the new “Imagine Whirled Peace” ice cream. The campaign is available at www.benjerry. com/imagine.

The res esults ults:: The The c a mp a ign yielde d a 42 42-fol -fold d increa se in time time sp ent eng ag ed on the site. The The c am p aign a lso str streng eng thened relationships with loya li lis sts a nd intr introd od uc ed young er aud ienc es es..


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Be st Prac Prac tic e s Here are a few basic steps to help you get the most out of using a microblog without getting yourself yours elf in in to o d ee p ly ly,, or ove rwh elming o the rs: 1. Consider Consider your aud ienc e. If If you’ re sp sp ea ki king ng t o friends, it’s OK to share personal details. But if your fee fee d is op en to the p ubli ublic c , ma ke sur sure e it’s som ething of value to them . 2. Post regularly but don’t go overboard. Blogge rs often feel the need to up da te their b log s reg ularl ularly, y, and the sa me rings true for microb logging. 3. Don’t inc lude p ers ersona ona l de tail tails s in an op en broa d c as ast. t. IfIf your feed is pub lic and you ha ve a lot o f follow follow ers you d on’ t know w ell ell,, lea lea ve out specic details about where you are and wha t you’ you’ re do ing. 4. Turn off pho ne a ler lerts ts for feed s tha t d on’ t fee d you. If If you g et to o m a ny text me ssa ge s fr from om Twitter feed s tha t a ren’ t releva releva nt to yo u, you c a n stop stop ge tti tting ng text alerts alerts fr from om that pe rson or completely remove the person from your frie fri e nd lilis st.

Ping.fm Ping.fm is a free social networking and micr microb ob log ging Web ser ervi vic c e tha t enables users to post to multiple social networks simultaneously. Making a n upd a te o n Pi Ping.fm p us ushes hes the up date to a number of different social Web sites a t o nc e, so so us users ers c a n a vo id logging into multiple accounts to send the same message to different groups and contacts on the Internet. It’s a huge time-saver, making it particularly appealing to social media a nd on li line ne ma rketing p rofe ssiona ls. Ping.fm g rou p s servi ervic c es into th ree c a tegories – status updates, blogs and microblogs – and updates can be

Leverag e Microblog ging to Help Help

sent to each group separately. Users


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Twitte r Do Do ’s and Don’ts

• • • • • • • • •

Do’s • Do create a Twitter prole that helps people verify your leg leg iti tima ma c y • Do let consumers know who they are talking t o (a real pe rson, not a bo t) • Do protect consumer information • Do provide customer care and feedback • Do include your social media afliations on your cor po ra te Web site • Do empower your Twitter representative to make a difference Do see what other businesses are doing on Twitter Do use Twitter search engines for keyword searches around brands, products and topics of inter est. Do follow Twitterers with similar interest to establish a brand presence with conversation Do use Twitter to start a conversation – ask your followers to come up with new ideas or ask what they’re they’r e d oin oing g now Do learn about customer needs – what other things are customers interested in? Do advertise an event or promotion Do ask questions and get feedback from your followers Do engage consumers in co-creation and get constructive insights for future company develop me nts or pub lic a ti tions ons Do follow the Blogger Code of Ethics (be transparent in your reason to Tweet, Respect other Twit terers,, think b efo re you d ir terers irec ec t m es ess sa g e, m a ke sur sure e your me ssa g e d ir irec ec tly rela rela tes to tho se you a re

Blogging

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c ha p te r 3 Blogging A blog (a c ontrac ti tion on of the te rm Web log ) is is a typ e of Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, description of eve nts or othe r ma teri teria a l suc suc h a s g ra p hics or vid vid eo . Entri ntries es a re c om mo nly disp disp layed in reve reve rse-c hr hrono ono log ic al ord ord er. The wo rd “ b log ” c an a lso b e used used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a

Blogging

13 sites a re inco rp orating styles a nd forma ts fr from om the Blogo sp here. In fa c t, 95% 95% of th e top 10 100 0 US US new sp a p ers ha ve rep orter blog s.

Blog Basics Blog s ha ve b ee n a round sinc e th e la te 1980s or ea rl rly y 1990s 1990s,, but the ofcial terms Weblog, blog and blogging didn’t surface until 1997 and gained popularity a few years later. Blogs are often the founda ti tion on of c or orpo po rate soc ial med ia a nd c us ustomer tomer co mmunity programs. Currently, 27.9 million U.S. Internet users have a blog they upd ate at least least onc e a month, and they rep rep res esent ent 14 percent of the Internet population. By 2013, 37.6 million users wil willl upd a te the ir b log s a t least least mo nthl nthly, y, ac c ording to em arketer.com. Even more important than the number of bloggers, though, is the number of blog readers. eMarketer estimates that in 2009, 96.6 million U.S. Internet users will read a blog at least once a mo nth . By By 2013, 2013, 128. 128.2 2 million million p eo p le, or 58 pe rce nt o f a ll us users ers,, will do the same. While blogs in the beginning were used for one-way expression, they’ve evolved into two-way conversations.. This intera c tive fo rma t p res tions resen en ts ne w o p p o rtunities for ma rketers to inuence – and monitor – conversations that might be releva nt to the ir busines business ses es.. The bo ttom line is that b log ging is a glob al p heno me non. Bl Blog ge rs have be en p os osti ting ng for an a verage of three three yea rs a nd a re oll tively ting c los lose e to 1 milli milli ts y da

It ha s b ee n esti es tima ma ted that b y 2013, 128.2 128.2 m ill illion ion people--almost 60% o f a ll use use rs rs--willl rea d a b log wil a t lea lea st onc e a month.

Only 16 p erce nt o f Fo Fo rtun e 50 500 0 c omp ani anies es have a pub lic blog,

Blogging

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11 Reasons Why Blo g g ing M a tte rs 1. It b rings ide a s out t o th e p ub lic. 2. It p rovide s a forum fo r co mm unicating. 3. It sho sho w c a ses ne w id ea s. 4. It p res rese e nts d ifferent p ers ersp p e c tives tives.. 5. ItIt a ll llow ow s for d is isintermed intermed iation trad itional media (if something written about you was wrong, set the record straight). 6. It allows people to nd you through search and search engines love blogs. 7. It em p ow ers p eo p le to res esp p ond . 8. It a ll llow ow s for c om mu nica tion w ith very nic nic he seg seg me nts nts.. 9. ItIt a llows you to sp a rk c on vers versa a tion. 10.. It enc ourag es colla 10 colla b oration with c om munity to solve solve p rob lem s. 11 It he lp s to c rea te yo ur b ra nd a nd

nies like Verizon, Sprint and Virgin Media had ve of the blogs studied. Food-related companies like Mc Don a ld’ s, Tys yson on , Whole Foo Foo d s, Ge ne ral Mills Mills a nd Safeway also had ve blogs.

Of tho se using using it, their us uses es a nd a p p ea l vary wide ly ly.. For exam p le: • Wal-Mart has a checkout blog gear ed to the con sume r and d is isc c us uss sing the late st in g a d ge ts ts,, green , g a m in in g , e t c . • Coca-Cola’s conversations has a single author blogg ing a bo ut the his histor tory y of the c omp any. • Southwest Airlines has multiple mu ltiple authors aut hors writing ab out c orporate c ul ultur ture, e, de velopm ents ents,, servi servic c es and offer offers s, and is very clear ab out its c a ll to a c tion – access to exclusive Southwest offers.

The Blo log g g ing Bo tto ttom m Line Ac c ording to Tec hnora ti: Sta te o f the Blogo Blogo sp here 2008 report, The majority of bloggers we surveyed currently have advertising on their blogs. Among those with advertising, the mean annual investme nt in the ir b log is $1, $1,800 800,, bu t it’ s p a ying o ff. The mean annual revenue is $6,000 with $75K+ in revenue for those with 100,000 or more unique visitors nth. Note: med ian investme investme nt and

Blogging

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Blog sea rc h engine Te c hno rati ha s: • indexed 133 million blog records indexed since 2002 • tracked blogs bl ogs in 81 lan l an g ua g es since June 2008 2008 • determined bloggers col lectively create 1 million p os osts ts p er da y • learned that company informa infor ma tion o r go ssip a nd everyday retail experiences are fodder for the majority of bloggers

To p

• Go into your blog writing with the intent of writing to inform, no t to sell. • Set clear objectives for your blog management. Why does your organization want to blog? Evaluate the benets and assess the risks before leaping in. • Look at other industry blogs to see how they are enga ging the ir rea rea d ers and see wha t respo respo ns nse e they’ re receiving. • Comment on other blogs to leave a footprint back to your own. Quality Quality on-topic on-topic a nd knowledg ea ble c omme nts wil willl enga ge rea d ers to inquire inquire m ore a bo ut the writer. • Be consistent. In the beginning, try t ry to post at least three thr ee ti time me s a we ek. • Keep it simple. Don’t get caught up in the length of you r p o sts ts.. The key is to ma ke th em interes interesting ting a nd valuable. • Allow comments. You can moderate them, but com ments create the viral effect by allowing readers to intera inter a c t w ith you. Monitoring Monitoring is c ruc ial. • Use a succinct and appealing headline. This is what d ra ws your rea rea d er in. in. • Ask for some action in your post. • Provide unique content that makes your blog a desti na tion fo r the user. user. • Link your blog to other reputable sources of informa

Blogging

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Wha t’s Nex Nextt for Blog Blog g ing Tod ay, blog s are eve rywhere a nd the y have c hang ed the w ay p ubli ublis shi hing ng w ork orks s. Wha Wha t used used to b e a b out a c lus luster ter of a minori minority ty a roun d a single too l now refe rs to h und red s of m il illi lions ons of p eo p le usus-

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Fac ebo ok

c ha p te r 4 Fa c eb ook Facebook is a social networking Web site; users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and sen d the m m es ess sa g es es.. The We b site’ site’ s na m e refe rs to the p ap er fac fac eb ooks de picti picting ng m emb er ers s of a ca mp us c omm uni unity ty that some some co lleg es and prep schools give to incoming students, faculty and

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Facebook Success Stories Bus usine ine ss-to -c o ns nsum um e r: Sp e - c ialty C olor Servic Servic es es.. This p ho to reta il b us usine ine ss d e cided to use Facebook to promote their business and to showc showc as ase e how muc h they care about their work and the photography industry. They wa nted to show show how muc h they a do red thei theirr paspassiona te, e nthus nthusias iastic tic a nd loyal customers in the process. They used used Fa c eb oo k to g et their message out: Photog ra p h yo ur love love . They They sp rea d the word about a contest built around that theme. Participants were encoura g e d t o u p lo lo a d p h o t o s re p resenting their interpretation of Photography your love to the Sp ec ialty Co lor Servi ervic c es Facebook page. In the process, they would “Become

Be st Pr Pra c tic e s for Ma rke ti ting ng in Fa c eb oo k Based on the experiences of organizations marketing in Fa c eb oo k an d c onve rsa ti tions ons with sma sma ll- and me d ium-s um-siize business owners, several best practices for using Facebook have been identied, including: • Assign a specic person to create and manage your c om p any’ s Fac eb oo k Pag Pag e. It’s It’s imp ortant to p os ostt new informa ti tion, on, p hoto s a nd vi vid d eo s reg ul ula a rly to keep it fres fresh. h. • Respond to messages and questions left on your Page’s d is isc c us uss sion b oa rd a nd “ Wa ll” w ithin 24 24 hours. hours. • Post all of your events, videos and relevant photos to Facebook. Consistent activity and active sharing are c ritica l to Fa c eb oo k suc suc c es ess s. • Don’t fall victim to the mentality: “If I build it, they will c ome .” Devel Develop op a str trateg ateg y to a ttr ttrac ac t fans, fans, whic whic h ma y invol nvolve ve bo th paid and unpa id a pp roa c hes hes.. • Promote your Facebook Page outside of Facebook to

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Fac ebo ok

and ca talog them . “And when you build build that trus trustt with them through through Fac eb ook, they’ll they’ll be more willling to d o tha t,” he said. wil

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How Nonprots Can Benet from Facebook Nonprots can probably benet most from the use of Face book, versus their for-prot peers, in that they don’t have to make a nancial expenditure to reap its benets. Instead, using Facebook for nonprots requires personnel resources.

20 Wa Wa ys to m a rke t in Fa c eb oo k 1. Prole Page

2. Group s 3. Pa g es 4. Eve Eve nt s 5. Note s a nd Photo s 6. Me ssa g e s 7. Ma rketp la c e 8. Sha re / Po ste d Ite m s 9. Ne Ne tw ork orks s 10.. Mini Fe e d a nd 10 Ne w s Fe e d

Here are a few innovative ways nonprots can benet from having havi ng a pres presenc enc e on Fac Fac eb ook

1. Ra Ra is ise e fund s for the orga niz niza a tion’ s fund -r -ra a is ising ing c a mp a ign 2. Find a nd c om munica te with p ote nti ntial al supp supp orter orters s a nd c rea te a sens ense e o f co mm uni unity ty 3. Stir a nd b roa d en sup p ort for imp orta nt soc soc ial is issues 4. Emp ow er memb ers to e nga ge in their ow n ac ti tions ons 5. Orga Orga ni niz ze, promo promo te a nd m ana ge events 6. Promote the organization’s blog, latest news, meetings and other Web co ntent 7. Rais aise e p ubli ublic c aw a rene ss and mo ney for ad voc ac y efforts efforts 8. Find and recruit volunteers – the abundance of young profess profes siona ls on Fac Fac eb oo k make it an idea l p lac e to at trac tr ac t volunteers 9. Create a single b ra nde d pa ge of your orga orga ni niz za ti tion’ on’ s work 10.. Stay in touc h with co re a udienc es on a n ong oing b a 10 sis – exibility to have open, closed or secret groups as

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Orga niz niza a tions ha ve t a p p e d Fa Fa c e b o o k Fa n Pa Pa g es es,, Group s a nd soc ia l a d s. With Wi th Fa Fa c eb oo k’ s a rra y of o p ti tions ons for b us usines iness se s to c o nnec t with c us ustom tom e rs rs,, itit is q uic kl kly y m o ving from from a “ ni nic c e to h a v e ” t o a “ m u st st have” el eleme eme nt in in yo ur b us usine ine ss outrea outr ea c h str stra a teg y.

• Promote events. Post your marketing events, training pro grams or even company news here to your customers, pa rtners a nd w orl orld d at large. • Send messages. You can send them to a more captive group (thos (those e w ho a re in your netwo rk) or out o f your netw ork as w ell. • Conduct polls. You can conduct market research on your target market using this offering. One of the greatest advantages is that you’ll likely receive a large number of responses in just hours. • Join pertinent groups. Use the site’s group feature to net wo rk with your your ta rge t aud ienc e. • Create a group for your business. Groups are the oldest and simplest way to build community around your brand or co mp a ny on Fa Fa c eb oo k. This will serve a s a c entral p lac e for pe op le to c ongrega te a nd p arti articipa cipa te in convers conversations a roun d your brand . You You c a n p os ostt p hoto s, disc disc us uss sion top ics ics,, vide os a nd li links nks a s we ll a s ea sil ily y send send new s a nd up d a tes to your group me mb ers a s ofte n a s you like. like. Group s a re a ls lso o one of the simplest ways to do viral marketing on Facebook. An alternative is to create a page for your business; the se a re simi similar lar to g roup s b ut a re m ore c us ustom tom iz iza a b le and ge t more prominent “ rea l es estate tate .” • Assign a specic person to create and manage your com pa ny’s Fa c eb oo k pa ge to e ns nsur ure e it features new infor nforma ma tion, photos and videos. Consistent activity and active

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What ab out Fa Fa c eb oo k Ad verti vertis sing? With the ab ility to rea c h into a ric h a nd interac ti With tive ve b a se of 250, 250,00 000, 0,00 000 0 pe op le o n Fa Fa c eb oo k, it c an be a ma rketer eter’s ’s dream or a m ark arketer’s eter’s ni nightma ghtma re, dep ending o n your ap proac h. Suc c es ess sful ad verti vertis sing c a mp aigns on Fa Fa c eb oo k are are d ep end ent o n a few fa c tors tors.. Targe t, for for one, has had muc h suc suc c es ess s with their Fa c eb oo k ca mp a igns gns.. Certainl Certainly, y, as a lar large ge c ons onsumer umer b rand with broad ap pe al and the bud gets that they ca n alloc alloc ate for tes testi ting ng m ake Target Target a cha llenging ac t to follow foll ow for most most ma rketers keters.. How eve r, there are sc sc ores of m a rketers with fa r mo re o b sc ure prod uc ts and target markets who are nding success with Facebook advertising ranging from agricultural che mical manufac tur turer ers s to we lding to ap pli plianc anc e c omp anies

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Target a nd AK AKQA QA m onit onitored ored Fac eb oo k to trac trac k th the e c onvers onversation ation One o f the key key differenc differenc es b etw ee n ad verti vertis sing o r eng ag ing in Fa c eb oo k and any othe r type of “ non soc ia l-network ad verti vertis sing” is that you ha ve to eng ag e, or be soc ial, so so to sp ea k, to trac tr ac k how your ads are pe rfor formin ming g and to stay stay eng ag ed with the the a udience for the d ur uration ation of the c a mp a ign. Thi This s go es d oub le if the land ing p ag e o r c all to a c ti tion on for the ad is a Fa Fa c eb oo k group or fan pa ge w her here e pe op le are expe expe cte d to c omm ent or po st. The a d s need to spe spe ak the lang lang uag e of your aud ienc e The ad s, the land land ing p ag e, and e ver verythi ything ng a bo ut a Fac Fac eb ook ca mp aign need to b e highly highly relevant for the the a udienc e, which a lmo st g oe s without saying, saying, but the y also also ne ed to spe spe ak the language that the audience speaks – right down to the keywords in the ads.

Ma rke ter ters s a re g ettin etting g g rea t res result ults s with Fa Fa c eb oo k In Ta Ta rge t’ s c a se, the y w ere a b le to effec tively mea sure the ROI of the ir Fa c eb oo k efforts. efforts. By By Sep tem b er 31, 31, the sp sp ons onsored ored p a g e ha d 7, 7,17 176 6 mem b ers ers,, 409 409 p hot os os,, 483 483 p os osts ts a nd hos hosted ted 37 d is isc c us uss sion group s. Ma ny of the p os osts ts p rovid ed p os ositi itive ve fe ed b a c k on Ta Ta rg et stores stores,, me mb ers infor nforme me d othe r memb ers whe re go od d ea ls we re, which Targe t store store ha d short c offee lines nes,, a nd ba rga in shop shop p ers prais praised ed the “ d oll ollar ar b ins ns”” . All that ha vi ving ng b ee n said, said, Fa Fa c eb oo k ca mp a igns a re no t for everyone. everyone. Wal-Mart Wal-Mart has had their share of failures with Facebook, Wal-Mart’s failure was due, in large part, to their decision to restr restriic t c om me nts and feed b ac k on its its Fa c eb oo k pa ge to “ Wall Pos osts ts”” ins nstea tea d of ha vi ving ng a discussion board like http://www.insideacebook.com/2009/02/14/acebook-surpa http://www.insideacebook.com/2009/02/ 14/acebook-surpasses-175-million-users-continuing sses-175-million-users-continuing-to-grow-by-600k -to-grow-by-600k-usersday/ -usersday/ Ta rge t d id. The The ir reluc -

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Wha t’s Next for Fa c eb oo k? Fa c eb oo k is is a n evo lvi lving ng a nima l; in ea rly 20 2009 09,, itit und erwe nt seve seve ra l cha ng es in the form o f its its d esign for forma ma t (which p eo ple e ither loved loved or hate d ), its its terms terms-of-of-s servi ervic c e ag ree me nt (which ge nerated controversy), the departure of Gideon Yu, its chief nancial ofcer, its cash ow situation (in April 2009, its CFO indicated Facebook doesn’t need additional nancing and is not short on money). Perhap s the m os ostt c ontrover ontrovers sia l of all the c hang es is the o p ening o f pa rt of Fa Fa c eb oo k’s c od e to the p ub li lic c in Ap ril 20 2009 09 (F (Fa a c eb oo k Op en Stream Stream AP APII); thir third d -pa rty de velop ers c a n now b uil uild d Fa Fa c eb oo k a p p li lic c a tions tha t w il illl allow allow us users ers to p os ostt sta sta tus up d a tes tes,, sha sha re p ics a nd li links nks a nd inter intera a c t w ith mo st elements of the site without visiting Facebook.com. This is sure to impact the trafc levels and the res esulti ulting ng p ote ntial to uc hp oints for b us usines iness ses ad verti vertis sing on Fa c eb oo k. Not surprisingly, Facebook’s future is largely in the hands of its users – literally, those who use mobile d evic es es.. The nu mb er of Fa Fa c eb oo k’s us users ers who a c c es ess s it via via the ir mo b il ile e d evic e e very da y is is four million – and growing. With the increased use of superphones, mobile and wired Web are going to be co me tighter than ever. Looking forward, Facebook is open to a much broader inow of ad dollars given that it is designed for b ot h c a sua l users users a nd p ro fes fess siona ls ls..

25

LinkedIn

c ha p te r 5 LinkedIn LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003 mainly used for professional networking. As of May 2009, it had more than 39 million registered users spanning 170 industries tri es.. The site site b eg a n a s a res resum um e-s e-sha ha ri ring ng site w ith net wo rk rking ing fun c tiona lility. ty. Although it has been around for several years, its site trafc grew 153 percent in 2008 2008 a nd 319 p erc en t sinc sinc e 2007. 2007.

LinkedIn

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Linke d In Fe Fe a tures • At the root of LinkedIn is the intent to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact de ta il ils s of p eo p le the y know a nd tr trus ustt in b us usines iness s. The p eo p le in the list list a re c a ll lled ed Co nne c tions tions.. This lilis st c a n b e used used in a nu mb er of w a ys ys:: o A c onta c t ne two rk is is buil builtt up c ons onsis isti ting ng of the ir direc direc t c onne c ti tions ons,, the c onne c ti tions ons of ea ch of their their co nnections (ter (termed med sec ond de gree c onnec ti tions ons)) and als also o the c onnec -

LinkedIn

27

Ways to Use LinkedIn to Promote Yo urs urse e lf a nd / o r Yo ur Bus Busine ine ss • Customize your you r URL. Your Y our prole information may be indexed by search engines. LinkedIn proles rank pretty highly with Google. Instead of using the default URL, consider customizing yours with your company’s name. If you’re a small business that’s not well known, consider usiing a great keyword. us • Include a photo. p hoto. A picture pic ture aids recall when y o u’ u’ v e m e t f a c e - t o -f -f a c e a n d p e o p l e w it it h p ic ic tures tur es a re fa r mo re likel likely y to b e c onta c ted . • Ensure your entry doesn’t contain misspellings or other errors. • Use “Status Visibility,” LinkedIn’s internal version of Twitte Twitte r to kee p yo ur c onne c tions c ur urrrent o n wha t’s imp ortant to you tod a y. Ba sed on wha t you’re you’r e d oin oing, g, they ca n rea rea c h out to help you. • Use the summary to show you are qualied to do wha t you want to d o; use use the “ exper experiienc e” area to supp supp ort the summa summa ry. • Tap the “Specialties” area for keywords asso ciated with the people you want to attract. Thes hese e are b ait a nd you w a nt Li LinkedIn mem b ers searching for these keywords to nd you.

How Nonprots Can Benet from LinkedIn • Fund-raising and partnerships go hand in hand with networking. Everyone knows you begin by asking the people you know for support, then ask the people they know, then the p eop le they know, and so on . Tha Tha t is the p rem is ise e o f ho w Linked In w orks orks.. It It a ls lso o p res esent ent s a ne w wa y to nd like-minded organizations for p os oss sible p a rtners rtnership hip s. • LinkedIn is also a likely place to kicksta rt a d ona ti tion on d rive w ith your own network and beyond. Its demograp hi hic c is a we a lthi thier er one, w ith executives from some of the Fortune 500 as members and more than 1,500 1,50 0 C-le ve l b us usine ine ss o w ne rs

LinkedIn

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• •

Build Your Best Prole Join Li LinkedIn and c om p lete the o vervi verview ew information Comp lete emp loyment and ed uca ti tion on hi his stor tory y

•

Add a prole summary

Selec t a n ind us ustry try and a d d your sp sp ec ia lti ties es Ad d your we b site(s ite(s)) Create Public Prole URL

Determine yo ur Determine Public Prole URL Set yo ur Co nta c t Sett Sett ings Uploa d your Conta c ts

•

and a link to your complete prole. Add an image to your prole that will add to your credibility a nd p rofes rofess siona lilis sm. Make or obtain recommendations regarding your business peers, vendors, associates and others with whom you do business. Don’t make the mistake of being careless with them ; view view them a s a p ortf ortfoli olio o a nd us use e the m to supp ort the them es of your p ortf ortfoli olio. o. Don’ t hesi hesitate to as ask k the reco mmender to highlight a specic aspect of your work on which to comment. Join groups related to your industry and participate in the discussions – starting discussions responding to questions and sharing resources and tips that might be valuable to our netwo rk even if they d on’ t g ene ra te d irec t b us usiines ness s for you. Take advantage of LinkedIn Answers. These discussion fo rums can be included with the prole and add signicant value b ec aus ause e they a llow p eo ple to see see yo ur experti expertis se a nd p ro fes fess siona lilis sm in c on te xt.

LinkedIn

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a b a ke r’ s d o ze n sm sm a rt w a ys to us use e Linked In Adapted from Guy Kawasaki

1. Inc Inc rea se y ou r visibility. visibility. By adding connections, you increase the likelihood that people will see your prole rst when they’re searching for someone to hire or do b us usines iness s with. In In a d d iti ition on to a p p ea ring a t the to p of sea sea rc h results results..

2. Imp rove y our conne c tabilit tability. y. Mo st new us users ers p ut o nl nly y their c ur urrrent c om pa ny in their prole. By doing so, they severely limit li mit their ab il ility ity to c onne c t with p eo p le. You You should ll out your prole like it’s an executive bio, so include past companies, education, afliations, and activities. You can also inin clude a link to your prole as part of an email signature.

6. Increase the relevancy of your job search. Use LinkedIn’s advanced search to nd peopeople with educational and work experience like li ke yo urs to see wh ere th ey w ork.

7. Ma ke y our interview interview go smoo ther. You can use LinkedIn to nd the people that you’re meeting.

8. Gauge th the e hea lt lth h of a c omp any. Perform an advanced search for company name a nd unchec k the “C ur urrrent Comp ani anies es On ly” b o x. This w il illl ena b le yo u to sc rutini rutiniz ze the rate rate of turnover turnover and whethe r key peop le are ab and oning shi ship. p.

3. Imp rove yo ur Goo gle Pag Pag eR eRank ank .

9. Ga uge the hea lth of an ind us ustr try. y.

LinkedIn allows you to make your prole infor ma ti tion on a va ilab le for sea rc h eng ines to inde x. Since LinkedIn proles receive a fairly high PageRank in Google, this is a good way to inuence what people see when they search for you. To do this, create a public prole and selec t “ Full View.” View.” Als Also, o, inste inste a d of us using ing t he default URL, customize your public prole’s URL to b l name

If you’re thinking of investing or working in a sector, use LinkedIn to nd people who worked for competitors—or even better, c omp anies who fa iled .

10. Trac k sta rtup s. You can see people in your network who are initiating new startups by doing an adva nc ed sea rc h for a rang e o f keyw keyw ords suc h

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So c ia l Net Netw w o rki king ng Envir nviro o nm e nts

c ha p te r 6 So c ia l Ne Netw tw o rki king ng Envir nviro o nm e nt nts s It’s hard to turn around without hearing a reference to one social network or another – Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube… But they a re b y far not the o nl nly y ones on the Web. In In fac t, an a rticle in US USA Tod Tod a y in Ma y 2008 2008 es estima tima ted there w ould b e ne a rl rly y 250,00 250,000 0 sites sites c a lllling ing the ms mselve elve s soc ial ne tw orks w ithin a yea r, c om pa red to the a bo ut 850 850 rec orded in Ma y 200 2008. 8.


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http://www.insideacebook.com/2009/02/12/hitwise-acebook-steals-more-us-ma http://www.insideacebook.com/2009/02/1 2/hitwise-acebook-steals-more-us-market-share-rom-m rket-share-rom-myspace-in-january/ yspace-in-january/

Niche Nic he Soc ial Netwo Ne two rking Envir nvironm onm ents ents.. There are niches in social networking, just as there are niches in business. These have exploded, sp ringing up to c a ter to p eo p le’ s interes interests ts,, ba c kground s, profess professions a nd a ge g roup s. For For ma ny blog ge rs, nic nic he sites offer more ta rge ted links and a muc h sma sma ller ba se of c om pe ti titi tion. on. Ac c ording to a eM a rketer, of the mil milli lions ons sp ent t o a d verti vertis se o n soc soc ial netw orks orks.. 8.2 8.2 p erce nt w ent to niche sites in 2008 2008 w en t to nic he sites ites,, up from 7 pe rce nt in 2006. 2006.AS ASma ma llllWorl World d .net, fo r exa mp le, ha s b ec ome a d es esti tination nation for for c omp anies that ma ke lux luxur ury y goo ds and wa nt to rea rea ch p eop le who c an a fford the m . The se nic he sites sites a re as d ivers iverse e a s p eo p le’ s interes interests ts,, from from Dog ste r for p eo p le wh o are p as ass siona te a bo ut their d og s a nd their c om p uters uters,, to Tee Tee BeeDee .com for peo ple o ver 40, 40, to Ac tive Ra Ra in for for rea rea l es esta ta te a ge nts a nd mo rtg a g e p rofe ssiona ls ls..


32 r u o t d e d i u g f l e s a

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a i d e m l a i c o s

Listen to the conversation As pa rt of our soc soc ialial-me me d ia strategy, let’s presume all businesses need a way to listen to their audience, their c us ustom tom ers ers,, their pa rtners, and their detractors. Let’s begin with the tools we use to listen to the c onv ers ersa a tion. Sta rt with Google Alerts and subscribe to keywords pertinent to your brand. You’ll ge t d aily ema il ils s telli telling ng yo u when your keywords show up on the Web.

www.google.com/alerts www.keotag.com www.technorati.com www.summize.com

MySpace – MySpace is a social networking sit e with a n interac interac tive, useruser-s sub mitted netw ork of friends, personal proles, blogs, groups, pho tos,, music tos music a nd vide os os.. ItIt w a s a p ionee r in in the social networking world, offering people an online community where they could communica muni ca te with peop le a round the w or orlld a nd sha re p hot os os,, music music a nd vide os os..

http://crazyegg.com

Soc ial Boo Boo km a rking Soc ial bo okma rk rking ing is a n excellent way to share the collective intelligence of the Internet . This This is ne a r the top bec aus ause e you may wa nt to “b ookmark ookmark”” some some of these other sites using del.icio.us.

Other Soc Soc ial Networking Netw orking Environments

http://delicious.com/ www.digg.com www.reddit.com www.diigo.com

Xanga – Xanga is a community of online dia ries and journals; it’s best descr ibed as a social b logg ing Web site like like Blogg Blogg er or LiveJ LiveJourna ourna l. It originated as a site for sharing books and mu sic revie w s. Tod a y, it’ it’ s a c ros ross s b et w ee n a soc ial netw ork a nd a b log ho st, allow allow ing users users to maintain a list of friends and join blog rings. Hi5 – Hi5 is a social networking site that targets a g ener eneral al audience. ItIt bec am e a very po pular site when it went through a huge growth spurt in 2007, with much of that popularity c om ing fr from om Central Ame ric a. Whil While it’s often found in the top 10 most visited Web sites in the world, it often fails to make the top 50 in the United Sta tes

So c ia l Net w o rki king ng Envir nviro o nm e nts

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t e n . y t i r o h t e . w w w : m o r f d e c r u o S

Wha t’s Next for Soc Soc ial Netwo rking Envir nvironm onm ents

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Vid Vi d e o Sha ring

c ha p te r 7 Vid Vi d e o Sha ring While it’s often YouTube [www.youtube.com] that gets the majority of attention in the online video space, there is so much more to video that drives its efcacy for marketers. Take, for examp le, the onc e sma sma ll hi high-end gh-end b lend er c om pa ny, Blend tec . A 186186-em em ployee c om p any in Orem, Uta Uta h, tha t b uil uiltt b ra nd a wa rene ss with its “ Wi Will ll it Blend Blend ?” [w ww .wil .willi litb tb lend .co m] seri eries es.. Milli Mil lions ons of o nli nline ne viewe rs ha ve wa tc hed Chief Exec Exec utive Tom Tom Di Dic c ks kson on b lend up d iz izz zyi ying ng a rra y objects from lumber to the iPhone. For Blendtec, it was not really a question of “Will It Blend?” b ut “ Doe s It Sell Sell?” ?” The a ns nswe we r is is: Yes Yes.. Ac c ording to Ge orge Wr Wright, ight, Dir Direc tor o f Ma rketing fo r Blendtec, consumer sales have increased ve-fold since the videos went up on YouTube and

Vid Vi d e o Sha ring

35

tha n 100 100-fold -fold inc inc rea se in the num b er of vid vid eo s viewe d o n YouT YouTub ub e since since th e en d o f 200 2005. 5. Mo re to the po int, vide vide os are p ow erf erful ul tangible a rti tifac fac ts that are show show ing up inc rea sin ingly gly in in Go og le’ s b lend ed sea rc h results results..

Who ho’s ’s Using Online Vid Vide eo? Hund red s of sma sma ll c om p a nies nies,, a d a g enc ies ies,, large b ra nd s a nd Fortune Fortune 500’ 500’ s. Even O p ha h Winfr Winfrey ey now has her own YouT ouTube ube c hanne l [http:// ww w.youtube .com / us user/OP er/OPR RAH AH]] w hi hic c h she she sa ys “ wil willl b ring unique p ers ersp p ec tives to this eve r-expa nd ing inte inte rna tiona l online co mm unity. unity.”” Bra nd s li like ke Nike, Nike, Warne r Bros Bros., ., MTV2, MTV2, Dime Dime ns nsion ion Fil Films ms,, Blend Blend te c , Intuit, Intuit, Ne stle a nd d ozens of ot he rs ha ve c rea te d online onli ne vide os or emb ra c ed their us users ers c rea ti ting ng them for marketing marketing g ain.

Wha t’s the Best Wa y to Use Vid Vide e o Sha ri ring ng & Vira Vira l Vide o ? Vira l suc c es Vir ess s is neve r a ssur ured ed with vide o, b ut b y follow follow ing som som e p rove n ta c tics a nd c rea ting vide os tha t users users will wa nt to sha sha re w ith their fr friend iend s a nd c oll ollea ea g ues you c a n b e suc suc c es ess sful ful,, even if you d on’ t g et m il illi lions ons of view s on YouTub YouTub e. The key is to m a ke sur sure e tha t your vid vid eo ha s a rea l/a uthe ntic fee l and a releva nt me ssa ge . This his,, and a void ing the t ypic a l ma rketing o r sa les p itch vide o w il illl help you b uil uild d trus trustt a nd c red ibil ibility ity which will serve yo u a s you roll out future vid eo s. When you’re ready to deploy your marketing strategy that spreads your video across many digital and social media outposts of the web, so it can more easily be shared, start with putting ti ng the vi vid d eo in into to the vide o shari haring ng site o f your choice (see list of popular sites later in this section) and the post onto your own website or

36

Vide Vid e o Sha Sha ring

Pop ular Vid eo Hos osting ting Web sites You Tub e - This This p op ular vid eo sha ri ring ng Web site a llllo o ws users users to up loa d, view view a nd share video c lips ps.. Goog le rec og ni niz zed its value in November 2006, purchasing it and operating it a s a sub sidiary of Go og le. Mo st of the c ont ent o n YouT YouTub ub e is up load ed b y ind ind ivi ivid d ua ls ls,, a lthoug h som som e m ed ia c orpo ra tions us use e the site as we ll ll.. It’ It’ s a p ow erful to ol, as evid enc ed b y the Sus usa a n Boyle’ Boyle’ s “ Brita in’s Go t Ta Ta lent” snipp et o f vid vid eo p os osted ted on YouT YouTub ub e tha t wa s sub seq uent ly view view ed b y mo re t ha n 13 milli million on YouT ouTub ub e view vi ew ers withi within n a few w ee ks ks.. ww w.youtube .com Vid d ler - This video site a ll Vid llow ow s us users ers to up loa d , enha nc e a nd sha re their vid vid eo fr from om their browser. browser. ItIt w a s not ed for the introduction of online commenting and tag annotations in online video, as well as on-the-y video recording. Viddler gained popularity in 2007 when popular video bloggers suc h a s Ga ry Va yne rchu k, Sa rah Aus Austin tin a nd Jus Justine tine Eza ri rik k began using Viddler’s technology to publish their shows. Vidd ler is is on e of the mo st p o p ular sites sites for b us usines iness s vide os os,, follow foll ow ing YouTub YouTub e, b ec a us use e its terms of servi ervic c e a re favo ra b le to b us usines iness ses es.. ww w.vidd ler ler.co .co m Rev ve r - This This vide o sha ring Web site ho sts us user-ge er-ge ne rate d c ont ent . It atta c hes a d verti vertis sing to useruser-s sub mitted vide o c li lip ps

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Vid Vi d e o Sha ring mo st value out o f their vi vide de o c ontent a nd m onetiz onetize e it in in a user-fr us er-friend iend ly ma nne r. Fo Fo r ad ve rtis tisers ers,, Sc Sc a nS nSc c o ut p rovide s the ab ility to target, o p ti timiz mize e and d eli eliver ver ad me ssag es to the ri right c onte nt and aud ienc e, maximiz maximiziing user user enga ge ment. Sc a nS nSc c out is one of th e la rg es estt o nli nline ne v ideo netw ork orks s on the w eb , serving serving hu nd red s of m ilillilio o ns of a d imp res ress sions ev ery month . The c om p a ny is is hea d q ua rtered in Bos oston ton w ith ofces in New York and Los Angeles. www.scanscout.c www.scanscout.com om b li linkx nkx.co .co m - blinx is the w orl orld d ’ s larges largestt a nd mo st a d va nc ed video search engine. blinkx has built a reputation as the Rem ote Control for for the Vide Vide o Web . Now Now , with with a n index of over 35 mil milllion hours of sea sea rc hab le vi vid d eo a nd mo re tha n 450 media partnerships, including national broadcasters, commercial media giants, and private video libraries, it has cemented its position as the premier destination for on liline ne TV. Tod Tod a y, b lilinkx nkx is is the wo rl rld d ’ s large st single single inde x of rich med ia c ontent on the Web, d eli eliver veriing m or ore e c ontent from a broader range of sources than either Google or Yahoo! www.blinx.com Ustream – While not a video hosting site per se, Ustream is a popular website for stream live vide vi de o to Twitvid – This tool is living proof that video has become integrated into just about everything

Email

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c ha p te r 8 Email Lif ife e b efo re e -ma il (elec tronic m a il il)) is is a d is ista ta nt me mo ry. E-ma E-ma il (a ny me tho d of c rea ting, tra tra ns ns-mitting or storing primarily text-based human communications with digital communication system s) is a n integ ra l pa rt o f ma ny of o ur da il ily y lives lives..

Em a il Ca m p a ig ign n Stories Stories - Who Who is Using It and Ho w Ca se in p o int: Trek Bikes Bikes fo r b us usines iness s-to -c o ns nsum um er em a il m a rk rket et ing - Trek Bikes is the largest U.S. man ufa c turer of b icyc les a nd relate d p rod uc ts ts.. It ha s us used ed em a il ma rketing to p rop el new

Email

39 fea tur turiing the b ike and brought it to the ir loc al stores stores.. The c a mp a ign g enerate d : • 50 percent clicked to open rate • 36 percent open rate (the industry average for the retail sector is 13.9 percent) • 18 percent click-thru rate (the industry average is a 3.7 percent click-thru rate )

How Nonprots Can Prot From E-mail Marketing Email is a very effective and low-cost tool nonprots can use to communicate with members, do nor nors s and the c omm uni unity ty at large large . ItIt c an be us used ed to: • Launch a membership drive • Solicit donations • Sell tickets to fund-raising events • Communicate what’s new to volunteers, members and others to keep them engaged • Conduct surveys/gather feedback from volunteers, members and others

uild d a n e m a il lis listt 20 Wa y s To b uil 1. Create a fac e-to-fac e si sign-up sheet sheet 2. Put a sign-up fo rm o n your Web Web site hom e p a ge 3. All Allow ow pe op le to for forwa wa rd your co mm uni unic c ations to othe rs vi via a a “ for forwa wa rd thi this s new sletter to othe rs” o p ti tion on on your em ail c om munica ti tion on 4. Pa id sea sea rch 5. Sea rc h eng ine op timiz timiza a tion

Email

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E-mail Statistics Indicate Flurry of Emails According to Pew Internet and American Life Project data from March 2007, 91 percent of U.S. Inte rnet us users ers ha ve go ne online a nd sent or rea rea d em a il il.. The sa me sourc e sug sug ge sts tha t 56 pe rc ent d o t his a s p a rt o f a typ ica l da y. As of A p ril 20 2008 08,, the m os ostt p op ular e-ma il Web sites b a sed on U.S U.S. Internet Internet usa usa ge a nd in desc desc end ing orde r of p op ulari ularity) ty) we re: • mail.yahoo.com • mail.live.com (Windows Live Hotmail) • gmail.com • mail.aol.com

Hitwis itwise e no tes tha t w hil hile e G ma il il’’ s users us ers a re few er in numb er, they tend to be younger and richer than Ya hoo ’ s a nd Hotm a il’ s. A study study co nduc ted b y the Rad Rad icati Group in August 2008 estima ted 21 210 0 billi billion on em a il ils s we re sent eac h da y. E-mail is both a marketing tool a n d a c h a lle n g e : • 44 percent of email re c ipients ma d e a t lea lea st one purcha se last last yea r b a se d o n a p ro ro m o -

Email

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Don’t forge t ... ... When b ui uilld ing yo ur em a il ma rketi eting ng ca mpa ign, do n’t forge forge t to include include to ac ti tion on , provide a c all to easy-to-nd c o n t a c t information a n d a d d links to yo ur c om p a ny’s Twitter ac c ount or other mic rob logg ing sites ites..

• Don’t Don’ t waste the subject line. Instead, use eye-catching head lines. • Avoid abbreviations, slag and hyperbole. • Minimize imagery. Too many graphics makes an email slower t o lo lo a d . • Label the imagery you have so people see what they are miss mis sing if they d on’ t d ow nl nloa oa d it. • Include a visible call to action above the fold. • Use a tone similar to what you’d use n a face-to-face meet ing w ith prosp prosp ec ts ts:: direc direc t a nd p rofe ssiona l. • Clearly state the purpose and value to subscribers. • Personalize the message whenever possible. • Give the reader a clear way to contact you. • Get in their address books by reminding them to add you to the ir wh itelis itelists ts.. • Nix attachments. Some people will not open emails with at ta c hme nts b ec a us use e o f virus virus fea rs. • Avoid purchased lists of emails. • Make it easy to unsubscribe to your messages. • Make your emails mobile-friendly - “click here to read on your m o b i le le p h o n e ” is b e c o m in in g m o re c o m m o n p la c e . • Use “from” to your advantage; emails from a CEO to a fellow exec utive te nd to res esona ona te. Ens Ensure ure your “ fr from om ” li line ne is fr from om som eo ne w ho m a tters tters.. • Keep messages short and sweet. • Respect the audience’s time - do not send messages too frequently.

Autoresponders

42

c ha p te r 9 Auto m a ted em a il (a uto res esp p o nd er ers s) An a uto res esp p ond er is is a c om p uter prog ra m tha t aut om a tica ll lly y answe answe rs e-ma il sent to it. They c a n b e very si simp le or quite c om p lex. Autores Autorespo po nd ers are o ften used used as e-ma e-ma il ma rketi keting ng too ls to immediate provide information to prospective customers and then follow up with them at p res reset et interva ls ls.. Examples: • I Received Your Email • Off Email; Call If Urgent • I’m Out of the Ofce, Returning on “X” Date

Autoresponders

43

• Distribute your articles. • Distribute Dist ribute advertising. It can send information about ra tes to p ros osp p ec ts ts’’ e-ma il a d d res ess ses a nd eve n follow up. It can also send notication of any special deals. • Distribute an e-mail course. • Create mailing lists. Notify subscribers when you’ve written wri tten new a rticles ticles.. • Offer a trial subscription of your product. You can capture their email addresses when you offer a free fr ee tri tria a l from from your Web site, then fo ll llow ow up . • Link to hidden pages. • Post a request for m for visitors to be notied of spe c ial offe rs or d is isc c ou nts in the fut ure.

Tip ips s for Eff Effe e c tive A uto utom m a ted E- m a il The m os ostt b a sic rea son to us use e a n a uto ma ted e-ma il is to fo ll llow ow up with c us us-tom ers who ha ve ta ken the time to rea c h out to you. Consi Conside r us usiing it to to ut sto sto re hou rs, current sp sp ec ials ials,, etc . Tips for making the m os ostt of your auto ma ted e-ma il includ e: • Choose and main message to share with customers and Repeat your ma in me ssa g e o ver and ove r a nd o ver ag a in. It ma y feel lik like e o verk verkil illl to you, but people just don’t read things as carefully as you’d think. They may read the rst message, but miss the second and third. • Write the message to write about your reader and not you - use “your” and “ i tead of “m

44

So c ia l Me d ia O p ti tim m iza ti tio on

c h a p t e r 10 So c ia l Me d ia Op ti tim m iza ti tio on The Soc Soc ial Me d ia Op timiz timiza a tion (SMO (SMO ) co nc ep t is is a simp simp le one, ac c ording to b logg er Rohit Rohit Bhargava. Implement changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in soc ial med ia sea sea rc hes on c us ustom tom sea rc h eng ines (s (suc uc h a s Tec hno ra ti), a nd mo re freq uent ly includ ed in releva nt p os osts ts on b logs logs,, p od c a sts a nd vlogs vlogs.. While it’s easy to get caught up in the tools that comprise the social media optimization kit, a more c oher oherent ent a nd e ff ffec ec ti tive ve a pp roa c h is is to start start with with your c omp any’s target a udience and

45

Soc ia l Me d ia O p ti tim m iza ti tion on g a niz niza a tions or ind ind ivi ivid d ua ls wh o c a re a b out their online p res esenc enc e. And it should should c o-exi o-exis st w ith sea sea rc h engine op ti timiz mization ation as a wa y to ge t c ontent seen seen b y a w ide r aud ienc e.

Examples of Sites for SMO (courtesy of SearchEngineGuide.com): Here Her e is a ve ry sho rt lis listt o f so so me of th e m os ostt p op ular sites sites for soc soc ial me d ia o p timiz timiza a tion: • Digg: Digg is a user-driven user-dr iven content site where members can vote, bury and c om me nt on stori stories es subm itted by o ther mem be rs. Getting onto Digg’s front page often results in thousands of visitors ocking to your site and c a n ha ve las asti ting ng ranki anking ng effec ts ts.. Dig Di g g Tip: The sa sa me story c a n on ly b e sub sub mitted onc e, so so c ra ft your titles titl es c a refull efully. y. Als Also, o, do n’ t forget to em b ed the “ Di Dig g g This This”” b utto n on you r site so so users users c a n e a silily y sub sub mit c on te nt fo r you . • Del.icio.us: Del.icio.us is a Yahoo-owned social bookmarking site. Del. icio.us a ll llow ow s me mb ers to p ub li lic c ly sa sa ve b oo kma rks us using ing ta gs gs.. Don’ t be a fr fraid aid to tag your own c ontent. Del.ic Del.i c io.us Tip: All lilinks nks a re no follow so yo u’ re no t g et ting link lov lov e, b ut you may get click thrus and direct trafc when users nd your del.icio. us b oo kma rks throug h the sea rc h eng ine’ s inde x. • YouTube: Well-known video upload site. Acquired by Google, so look for YouT YouTub ub e vid eo s to sta sta rt a p p ea ring in Goo gle’ s inde x. YouTube Tip: The ve sites that bring the most trafc to YouTube re c eive a li link nk ba c k from from the site. site. This p rob a b ly wo n’ t help w ith your your Go og le ra ra nki nking ng s, but it ma y help yo ur ra nki nking ng s in the o ther eng ines ines..

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Soc ia l Me d ia O p ti tim m iza ti tion on

To p 10 Guid eline s: 1. Increase your linkability - This is the rst and most imp orta nt p ri riority ority for we b sites ites.. To o p timiz timize e a site site for soc soc ia l med ia, w e ne ed to inc rea se the linkab ility of the co ntent. Ad d ing a b log is a g rea t step step , b ut the re a re m ore w a ys suc h a s a d d ing “ Sha reT eThis his”” buttons and simply creating content that readers will b e inc li lined ned to link to.

2. Ma ke ta gg ing and b oo kmark kmarkiing ea sy for rea rea de rs Ad ding c ontent fea tur tures es like q ui uic c k butto ns to “ share this thi s” or “a d d to de l.i .ic c io.us o.us”” a re one wa y to ma ke the p roc es ess s of b oo kmark kmarkiing a nd ta gg ing p a ge s ea sier. 3. Reward inbound inb ound links – Internet Intern et marketers marketer s know tha t inbo und li links nks a re p a ra mo unt to ris ising ing in sea sea rc h res esults ults a nd ov erall ra nki nking ng s. Ofte n ca ll lled ed “ tr tra a c kbacks” in blogs, displaying the inbound links as a me a ns of o fferi ffering ng c red it to linker linkers s is a b es estt p ra c tice in further encouraging this positive behavior. Enc ourag e them b y providing providing provide provide c lea r rew a rds ds..

4. Ma ke your conte nt p ortab le a nd syndica te it - UnUnlike much of SEO, SMO is not just about making up da ti ting ng si site. Wh When en you have c ontent that that c an be portable (such as PDFs, video les and audio les),

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7. R Rew ew a rd helpful a nd va luab le users users - Som etime s a q uick em a il or direc direc t me ssa g e no te in Twitter Twitter tell telling them you a pp rec iate the link, link, the re-tweet or the q uota ti tions ons c a n g o a long way. 8. Pa rticipa te - Join the c onv ers ersa a tion - Soc Soc ial Med ia is a two wa y street. street. The The b es estt w a ys to “social media optimize” your rm and your content are to be involved and con versiing w ith the c om munity tha vers tha t you serve. serve. Whi Whille p arti artic c ip ating you a re c rea ti ting ng valuable awareness and prolonging your buzz. Participating helps your message sp rea d fur further ther an d fas faster. ter. 9. Know how to SMO for your audience – Again, like the Obama Everywhere strategy, you ha ve to know w here your tribe tribe is a nd op timiz timize e for their c ons onsump ump tion an d sha sha ring ha b its its.. If they using using Stum Stum b le Up Up on, then d o tha t. IfIf they’ re p a rt of the “ Di Digg gg Nation” , then offer than. 10. Create great content – There’s just no substitute for great content. Whether search or soc soc ia l med ia op ti timiz mization ation a re p art of your plan, or both, co ntent w ins the d a y most of the time. There are certain types of content that just naturally spread so c iall ially. y. Work Work with your aud ienc e, your web sta ts a nd your soc soc ial med ia lis listen ing p rogram to d eter etermin mine e w hat type of co ntent ca n work for you and create m or ore e of it.

Who’’ s Us Who Usin ing g SM O Barack Obama is an excellent case in point for social media optimization. He needed to reach col-

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Exa m p le les s o f SMO SMO a nd The ir Re Re sults While in its ea rl While rly y sta sta g es es,, Univers Universa a l Pict Pict ures p lans to integ ra te Twitte r into m ed ia a ds that w ill p rom ote two sep arate mo vi vies es sc hed ul uled ed for rele rele a se th is sum me r. The tw ee ts w ililll ap p ea r in the b a nne r simila r to a ti tic c ker feed . Most major news organizations and content websites have SMO a s a n integral co mp one nt of their we bs bsiites tes..

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c h a p t e r 11 W id g ets a nd Ga d g ets Ac c ording to Ma rketi ketingS ngSherpa herpa : “ Wi Widg dg ets a re sma ll ap pli plic c ations us used ed to me et c om pute r users users’’ specic needs by providing quick access to Internet sites; desktop utilities, such as to-do lists, c a lend a rs, cloc ks ks,, wea ther, ga me s, enterta inment ; and too ls ls,, suc suc h a s sys ystem tem res esourc ourc e m onitors or application launchers. Most widgets look like a tiny window on the user’s desktop or Web page. You might also see widgets referred to as gadgets, badges, capsules, gizmos, minis, mo d ules ules,, p lug-ins or snip snip p et s.” Wid g ets (or Gad g ets Wid ets,, as Go og le c a ll lls s them ) are sta sta nd -alone m inin-a a p p li lic c a tions us usua ua ll lly y tied tied to a large r da ta source, suc suc h a s a widg et that show c a ses upd ate d q uotes on your favorite favorite stoc stoc ks ks.. Widg Wi dg ets we re ma de po pular by their their ava ila bil biliity on App le c om pute rs and the widg et c rea ti ting ng

Email

50

Two Wa ys Tha t Wid Widg g e ts Work Fo r Marke Ma rketers ters (via Ma rke rketing tings she herpa rpa ): • Merchants can deliver offers via images, multimedia and coupons so viewers can click through to the prod prod uct pa ge a nd c omp lete the trans transac ac ti tion. on. • Publishers can stream content to build brand and advertising dollars or increase paid sub sc ri rip p tio ns ns..

Wid idg g e ts Se e m So New , Who Who’s ’s Alre Alre a d y Using The hem m? In spite of their newness, they hold great possibility for almost any company who has bits of d ata to share share w ith its c us ustom tom ers and wa nts ac c es ess s to the ir Yaho o o r Goog le ho me pa ge s or their their c om p uter de sktop . UPS offe rs a w idg et to c us ustom tom ers to trac k shipm shipm ents right from from the d es esktop ktop and also provides an integrated RSS reader to keep up on important news. Sunower Market, used us ed a d es esktop ktop w idg et shap shap ed like a p otte d p lant to send send c oup ons and relevant information information

51

Pho to , Slid e sho w a nd Me d ia Sha ring

c h a p t e r 12 Pho to , Sl Slid e sho w a nd M e d ia Sha ring Envi nvirro nm e nts Photosharing on a broad basis is the publishing or transfer of a user’s digital photos online, ena b li ling ng the us user er to sha re them with o the rs (whe ther p ub li lic c ly or priva priva tely). This func tiona li lity ty is p rovided thr throug oug h bo th Web si sites a nd a pp lic ations that fa c il iliitate the up loa d a nd d isp lay o f imag es es.. The te rm c a n a ls lso o b e loo sely ap p li lied ed to th e use use o f online online p hot o g a ll lleri eries es set up a nd ma na g ed b y individ individ ua l users users.. Their a p p ea l is is in their fr free ee or low low c os ostt m ea ns of sha sha ring p hoto s a nd e a se o f inc inc orpo ra tion into into p ers ersona ona l b logs a nd We b sites sites..

Why Me d ia Sha ring Ma tters to M a rke ters ters:: Sha ring p hot os is isn’ n’ t the only type of sta sta tic (no n-vi n-vid d eo ) visua visua l med ia tha t’ s p roving suc c es ess sful

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Pho to , Slid e sho w a nd Me d ia Sha ring • SlideShare is the world’s largest presentation-sharing community, ni ty, all allow ow ing p eo ple to p ubli ublic c ly or privately share Word documents or PowerPoint presentation. In the process, individuals and organizations share their ideas, connect with others and generate leads for their businesses. Visit SlideShare at www. slideshare.net. • Photobucket is a media sharing and hosting site that allows users to store thousands of p hot os a nd hou rs ov vide o to sha re with friend friend s a nd fa mil mily. y. Us Users c a n link link their ima ima g es a nd video s to their blog , soc soc ial netw ork orking ing sites sites,, etc ., us use e the site a s rep os ositor itory y for p hot os nee d ed for lis listing s on eBay o r Craigsli Craigslis st a nd ea silily y p ri rint nt q ua lility ty ima g es from the ir a lbum s. Vis Visit Pho Pho to b u c k e t a t w w w . p h o t o b u c k e t. t .c o m . • Piczo technology allows users the ability to create comprehensive personal Web sites that d on’ t req req uir uire e htm l c od e o r p rog ra mm ing know -how . Its Its Web sites look p rofe ssiona l, fea ture a hom e p ag e a nd other Web site c ontents suc h a s pho tos tos,, text, text, guestbo guestbo oks oks,, cha t b oxes oxes,, music mus ic a nd mo re. Picz Piczo o c a ters to te ens wh o w a nt to e xpres xpress s them selves a nd b uil uild d p ers ersona ona l communities in a safe online environment. It’s purported to be easy to use and very exible for me mb ers wh o wa nt to d es esign ign the ir sites a nd sp otlight the ir c rea tivi tivity. ty. Vis Visit Picz Piczo o a t w ww . piczo.com. • Flickr is an image and video hosting Web site, Web services suit and online community plat

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Hon o ra b le M en ti tio o ns in Ma rketi keting ng Tec hno lo g y

c h a p t e r 13 Ho no ra b le Me nti ntio o ns in M a rke ti ting ng Te c hno lo g y

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iPhone iP hone a nd Mo b il ile e Phone Phone A p p li lic c a ti tions ons While iPhon While iPhon es a nd mo b il ile e PDA’ s a nd sma rt p hon es a re are not an “honorable mention” in daily life, nearly all of use reading this guide have some form of mobile p hon e, m a ny o f the m with Internet a c c es ess s, itit is stil tilll new territory for most marketers. However, in the past year, we ha ve see n num erous suc c es ess ses with m a rketing in the application space for iPhones, BlackBerry’s and other simil imila a r d ev ice s. Som eth ing else else to b ea r in mind is tha t the us user er ba se fo r ap p s is g row ing b y lea lea p s a nd b oun d s. In In the ir late st q ua rter, Ap p le sold sold 5 million million iPho iPho ne s a nd 3 million million iPod iPod Tou c he s. This me a ns tha t th e po tential ma rket for an a pp grew b y mo re tha n 20% 20% in only 3 months! months! One last last thing thing to no te is that whil while e iPhones iPhones are “ a ll the the rag e” , they’re not the only ga me in tow n. In fa c t, Blac Blac kbe rry outsell outsells s the iP iPhon hon e e very da y. When When c ons onside ide ring m ob il ile e a p p li lic c a tions for ma rketing, keti ng, c ons onsiide r de velopm ent for multi multiple ple p la tfor tforms ms or at least least d evelop ing the ap p lic a ti tion on for the platform that the majority of the addressable base of customers will use.

Inte rne rnett Prot Proto o c o l Te le levision vision (IP ( IPT TV) IPTV (Int (Int e rnet Proto c o l Te levis levision ion ) is a sys yste te m w he re a d igital television service is delivered by using Internet Protoc ol over a netw ork infr nfras astr truc uc tur ture, e, which m a y inc inc lude de livery by a broadband connection. A general denition

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In Ga me Marketi Marketing/ ng/ Ad vert vertis isin ing g (I (IGA) GA) In-game advertising (IGA) refers to the use of computer and vi vide de o g a me s as a m ed ium in which to d eli eliver ver ad ver ver-tising. tis ing. 2005 sp en d ing o n in-ga me a d ve rtis tising ing w a s USD$5 D$56 6 million, and this gure is estimated to grow to $1.8 billion by 2010 according to Massive Incorporated, although Ya nkee Group gives a low er estima estima te a t $732 $732 milli million. on. Ing a me a d verti vertis sing is see n b y som som e in the g a me s indus industry try a s offeri offering ng a new reve nue stream stream , a ll llow ow ing de velop ers to offset offs et g row ing d evelop me nt c os osts ts a nd to ta ke mo re ris risks in ga me p lay. When co ns nsumers umers thi think nk of the tec hnology a d vanc es that they ha ve w itnes tness sed in the p a st d ec ad e, it’s it’s ha rd to a rgue tha t vide vide o g am es es,, game c ons onsoles oles and onl onliine g am es have c om e a long long w ay. The ad vanc es for ma rketer keters s, however, have yet to arrive. Major universities have ap plied time and resources to developing models for determini termi ning ng the m os ostt effec ti tive ve in-ga in-ga me ma rketi keting ng mo de ls, but at the e nd of the d ay, the resul results ts am ount to littl ttle e m ore than understanding the most effective virtual billboard plac em ent for novice vs. vs. a dva nc ed players players.. The ap pli pli-c a tion fo r ma ins instrea trea m m a rk rket et ers he re is is stil tilll q uite limite limite d .

Mob il ile e Marketi Marketing ng Mobile Marketing is meant to describe marketing on or

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rea ching all but a te enag e d emo graphic. Look for more a b out m ob il ile e ma rketing in in the res resourc ourc es sec tion.

Virtua Virt ua l Wo Wo rl rld d s, Se Se c o nd Life, Ava Av a ta tars rs Sec ond Lif ife e is a 33-D D virtua virtua l wo rld e ntir ntirely ely c rea ted b y its res esiden iden ts ts.. Since Since op ening to the p ub li lic c in 2003 2003,, itit ha s grow n explosivel explos ively y a nd tod a y is inhab ited b y millions millions of Res Reside ide nts from fr om a round the g lob e. You’ ll als also o b e sur surrround ed b y the Crea tions of yo ur fellow Res eside ide nts nts.. Bec Bec a us use e Res eside ide nts reta in the rig rig hts to t heir d igital c rea tions tions,, they c a n b uy, sell sell a nd trad e w ith other Res Residen iden ts ts.. The M a rketp lac e c urr urrentently sup sup p o rts m ilillilio o ns o f US US d o lllla a rs in mo nth ly tran sa c tio ns ns.. This c om me rc e is ha nd led with the inin-wo wo rld unit-of-tra unit-of-tra d e, the Li Linde n d oll ollar, ar, whic whic h c an be c onverted to US do llars a t seve seve ra l thrivi thriving ng online Linde Linde n Dollar excha ng es es.. In this case, the ction has predicted a major new par adigm where interactive marketing is concerned. Busine sses a nd individ ua ls a re loo loo ki king ng t ow a rd s Sec o nd Life as a new medium to grab attention and promote their p rod uc ts a nd the ms mselve elve s. Wells Wells Fa rgo Ba nk, Sun Sun M icrosys ystem tem s, Coc a -Cola , a nd Toyo ta ha ve a ll sta rted b uil uild ding stuff stuff and d oing stuff stuff in in Sec Sec ond Lif ife e a s a me thod for m a rk rket et ing th em selve s o nli nline ne . In In Aug us ust, t, Sus Susa a nne Veg a became the rst musician to perform a ”live” concert in


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While podcasting is a high prole marketing technology, it is very much like blogs, and the met ap hors of blog ging, mix mixed with the meta pho rs fr from om rad io a pp ly to the me dium. Loo k for mo re from fr om thi this s me d ium a s we rea c h ub iquity with mob ile p hone s that thoroughly integ integ rate mus music ic a nd d a ta storag e into t hem , and a s ra d io sta sta tions a roun d the c ount ry, stil stilll stuc stuc k in in a 19 1960 60’’ s mo d el, ge t with the p rog ra m a nd start start offeri offering mo re of their c ontent in pod c a st mod e.

Mashups In tec hnology, a ma shup is a w eb ap p lic a ti tion on tha t co mb ines d ata fr from om m ore than one source source into a single integ integ ra ted too l; a n examp le is the use use o f ca rtog rap hi hic c d ata fr from om Goo gle Ma p s to ad d loc ation informa informa ti tion on to rea l-es -estate tate da ta fr from om Craigs Craigsllist, thereb thereb y c rea ti ting ng a new and d istinc ti nc t w eb servi ervic c e that wa s not ori originall ginally y p rovided by either source. source. Ma shup o riginall ginally y referr referred ed to the p ra c ti tic c e in pop mus musiic (nota b ly hip hip -hop) of p rod uc ing a new song b y mixing mixing tw o o r mo re e xi xis sting p iec es es.. A ma shup isn’ t so so m uc h som som ething tha t a ma rketer would p rod uc e a s muc h as your fans and c us ustom tom ers wo uld prod uc t on your b eha lf lf.. The key to allow allow ing your c us ustom tom ers to c rea te ma shups on your behalf is to open up data such as a directory or something similar of worthwhile infor nforma ma ti tion on tha t ca n be c om bine with som som ething else else to c rea te a va luab le we b b as ased ed too l (l (liike a widget)

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Ap p end ix I:I: Res Reso o ur urc c es

a p p e n d ix I ADDITIONAL MARKETING TECHNOLOGY RESOURCES W EBS BSIT ITE ES, LIN LINKS KS,, BO BOO O KS KS,, BL BLO O G S A N D EV ERYT YTHIN HING G ELS LSE E The p ur urp p os ose e o f this this sec ti tion on of the guide is to g ive yo u a we a lth o f res resource ource s tha t c a n further fur ther the lea rni ning ng p roc es ess s on a ny of the tec hnolog ies tha t w e’ ve d isc us uss sed herei herein n a nd help you p ut your ma rketi keting ng te c hnolog y plans into a c ti tion on

General Resources, Publications and Websites for Marketing Tec hnolog y Inf Informa orma ti tion on Ame ric a n Ma rketi keting ng Ass Assoc ia ti tion on >> www .mark .marketingp etingp ow er. er.c c om eMarketi eMark eting ng a nd Comm er erce ce >> http: http:// / www .ema rketi etingand ngand co mmerce.com/ Ma rketi ketingS ngSherpa herpa >> ww w.ma rketi ketings ngsherpa herpa .com Clic Cli c kZ >> w ww .cli .clic c kz kz.co .co m Ma rketingP ketingPrrofs >> ww w.m a rketingp rofs ofs.co .co m Ma rketi keting ng Cha rts >> www .mark .marketingvo etingvo x.com Ma rketi keting ng Vox >> >> ww w.ma rketi keting ng vox. vox.c c om Tec hCr hCrunch unch >> www .tec hcrunch.com


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BLO BL O G PLA TFO RM S ( THER HERE E AR ARE HUN HUND DREDS, THES HESE E A RE THE MO M O ST PO POPUL PULA A R) Blog softw a re c om p a ris ision ion c ha rt from USC >> http://www.ojr.org/ojr/images/blog_software_comparison.cfm Blog ge r >> >> http:// ww w.blogg er er..c om TypeP ypePad ad >> http:// ww w.ty w.type pe pa d.c om Word Wor d Pres ess s >> http :// ww w.wo rd p res ess s.or .org g a nd http :// ww w.wo rd p res ess s.co m Mova bleT bleType ype >> http:// ww w.mova bletype.co m Squa res espa pa c e >> http:/ http:/ / ww w.s w.squa qua res espa pa c e.com / Awa rene ss (for (forme me rly iup loa d ) >> http :// ww w.a wa rene ssnetw ork orks s.co m

BUZZ MONITORING Ma rk rke e ting Pililg g ri rim m : Buzz Buzz Mo nito ri ring ng : 26 Free Free To o ls Yo u M us ustt Ha ve >> http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2007/08/26-free-tools-for-buzz-monitoring.html Sm a ll Busine Busine ss SEM : SE SES Se ssio ion n Re c a p : Buzz Buzz Mo nit o ring >> http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/ses-session-recap-buzz-monitoring/872/ Ho w t o p ut t he B in Buz Buzz z Mo nito ri ring ng >> http://www.wiliam.com.au/wiliam-blog/buzz-monitoring Sea rch Eng Eng ine Rou Rou nd ta b le: Buz Buzz z Mo nito ri ring ng >> http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/014609.html


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IN GA G A M E M A RKE KET TIN ING G / A DVE DVER RTIS ISIN ING G (IG ( IGA A) Wikipedia: Denition >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-game_advertising

Engage Advertising >> http://www.engageadvertising.com/ Ma ssive Inc Inc orpo ra ted >> http :// ww w.ma ssiveinco rp orate d .co m/ iMed ia Co nnec ti tion: on: In-Gam In-Gam e Ad verti vertis sing Dos a nd Don’ ts >> http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/8489.asp c net : In-ga In-ga me a d s wo rk, stud stud y sa sa ys >> http://www.news.com/In-game-ads-work,-study-says/2100-1043_3-5887880.html

IPTV Ars Ar sTec hni hnic c a : An intr ntrod od uc ti tion on to IPTV >> http :// a rstec hni hnic c a .co m/ guide s/ othe r/ ip tv.ar tv.ars s DailyI Dail yIP PTV >> http :// ww w.d a il ilyi yip p tv.c om / Wikipedia: IPTV denition >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPTV

MASHUPS

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Ce llit Mob ile Ma rketi keting ng >> http:// ww w.c ell elliitma rketi keting ng .com /

PODCASTING Wikipedia: Podcast denition >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcasting

Bus usine ine ss Po d c a st M a rketing C a se Stu d y Pro Pro ve s Re sults >> htt p :/ / ezi ezine ne a rti rtic c les les.c .c o m / ?B ?Bus usines iness s-P -Pod od c a st-Ma rk rket et ing-C a se -S -Stud tud y-P y-Prove rove s-R -Res esults ults&id &id =69 =69230 230 Ma rketingS ketingSherp herp a ’ s Pra c tica l Pod c a sting G uide for Ma rkete rs >> https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?ident=29679 Pod c a st Desi Design: Step Step -by-Step to a Pla n >> http :// p od c a sti tings ngsc c out.co m/

RSS – RE REA LLY SI SIM PL PLY Y SYN SYNDI DIC C A TIO N Denition of: Wikipedia >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(le_format)

NYT NY Time s RSS Fee d p a g e >> ht tp :/ / w w w .nytime s.c o m / servic es es// xml/ rs rss s/ Stephan Spencer: RSS and SEO: Implications for Search Marketers >> http://www.stephanspencer.com/archives/2005/03/02/rss-and-seo-implications-for-searchmarketers/


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RSS Co m p e nd ium - RS RSS Re a d e rs - We b -B -Ba a se d >> http://allrss.com/rssreaderswebbased.html

SEA RC H & UNI UNIV VERSA L SEA RC H Sea rc h Eng Eng ine La nd : Go og le 2.0: 2.0: Go og le Univer Univers sa l Sea Sea rc h >> http://searchengineland.com/070516-143312.php Sea rch Eng ine Wa tc h: Wha t Do es Univers niversa a l Sea rch Me a n fo r SEM? >> http:// sea rc henginewa tc h. h.c c om/ showP howPag ag e.ht e.html? ml?pa pa ge =3 =362 6259 5951 51 HP Blog: Universal Search and Ask3D – What Blended Search Models Mean to Marketers >> http://h20325.www2.hp.com/blogs/webexperience/archive/2007/09/14/4426.html

On liline ne Ma rk rket et ing Blog Blog : Sm a ll Bus usines iness s Gu ide to Op timiz timizing ing Universa Universa l Sea rch >> http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/10/optimizing-universal-search/

SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMIZATION Se a rc h Eng Eng ine Wa tc h: So So c ial Me d ia O p tim iz iza a tio n: It’ It’ s Like SE SEO, Fo Fo r So c ia l Site s >> http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060829-150053 eBiz eB izMB MBA: A: 30 La La rge st So So c ial Bo Bo okm a rk rking ing Sites | Oc to b er 2007 2007 >>

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Soc ia l Med ia Op ti timiz miza a ti tion on Blog >> http:// soc ia l-med ia -op ti timiz miza a ti tion.c on.c om /

SOCIAL NETWORKING Tec hCrunc h: Deta il ils s Reve a led : Go og le Op en Soc ia l To La unc h Thurs Thursd d a y >> http:// ww w.techc runch.co m/ 20 2007 07// 10 10// 30 30// d eta ils-revea led -go og le-ope ns nsoc oc ialal-to-be-co to-be-co mmon-apis-for-building-social-apps/ Ma rk Gra no ve tte r: The Streng th o f Wea k Ties >> www.si.umich.edu/~rfrost/courses/SI110/readings/In_Out_and_Beyond/Granovetter.pdf Cne t: Five Five rea sons soc ial netw orki orking ng d oe sn’ t w ork >> >> http://www.cnet.com/4520-6033_1-6240543-1.html C NNMo ne y: The The Mis Miss sing Link >> http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2006/12/01/8394967/index. htm So c ial Custo Custo m er Ma nifes nifesto to : Why Why Yo Yo u Sho Sho uld n’ t Ig Ig no re So So c ial Netw o rk rks s >> http://www.socialcustomer.com/2007/01/why_you_shouldn.html Jaso nK Jaso nKo o lb.c o m: Cis Cisc c o ’ s So c ial Ne tw o rk rking ing for Bus Busines iness s >> http://www.jasonkolb.com/weblog/2007/03/ciscos_social_n.html Info rma tion Tod Tod a y: Online Online So c ial Netw orki orking ng fo r Bus usines iness s: An Inte Inte rvi rview ew w ith Ko Ko ns nsta ta ntin Gu er-

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TRENDS IBM: IBM IBM Co ns nsum um e r Survey Survey Sho w s Dec liline ne o f TV TV a s Pri rim m a ry Me d ia Devic e >> http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/22206.wss TV & O nl nliine Vi Vid d eo Co nvergenc e http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/54425.html

VIDEO Blend te c intervi interview ew on Forr orres ester ter G roun d swe ll ll:: willi willitb tb lend .co m: Sp Sp ea ki king ng throug h YouT YouTub ub e >> http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/2007/07/willitblendcom-.html Blend tec “ Wi Willl itit Bl Blend ” vi virra l vid vid eo site >> http:/ / ww w.wil w.willlitb lend .co m/ YouT ouTub ub e >> ww w.youtub e.co m Ma rketingP ketingPrrofs (S (Step tep ha n Sp Sp en c er): How How to Ma rket o n YouT YouTub ub e >> http://www.marketingprofs.com/7/how-to-market-on-youtube-some-examples-spencer.asp Ma rketingS ketingSherp herp a : Vid Vid eo + Humo Humo r + Vir Vira a l = Lea Lea d -Gen Suc c es ess s for Dat a Ba c kup Firm >> http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?ident=29883


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Co mp let e lis list of vid eo sha ring w eb sites fr from om Light Rea Rea d ing. Ente r vide o site site na me into a sea rc h eng ine to loc a te the c ur urrrent UR URL

5min Add ic ti ting ng Cli Clips ps Aggrega AniBoom Ap na Tub e Ato m Fil Film ms Blinkx Blip.tv Bolt Break.com Brightcove Buzznet Castpost Clesh Clickcaster Clipshack College Humor Cozmo.tv Current.tv

Grouper Help ful Vid Vid eo iFilm JibJab Jumpcut Kwego Libe rate d Fililm ms LiveDigital LiveVideo Lulu.tv Ma nia TV Mediabum Meevee MeraVideo Metacafe Middio Motionbox Multiply.com MyHeavy

Sc ene ma ker Sc lip lipo o Sha rkle Soa pb ox Sta shs hsp pace Stup id Vid Vid eo s Sumo.tv Sup e r Deluxe Su Tre e Tea c he rTub e Treemo Twa ng o Unc ut Vid Vid eo uVouch UVU Veoh Viddler Video Vi deo Web town VideoJug


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VIRTUA UAL L EV EV ENTS Bto B Ma g a zine: Virtua Virtua l eve nts nts’’ suc c es ess s g row s >> http://www.btobonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071008/FREE/71008034/ Biznology: Virtual Events Return Real Value >> http://www.mikemoran.com/biznology/archives/2007/09/virtual_events.html Virtu a l Eve Virtu Eve nt Be st Pra Pra c tic e s w ith Unisfa Unisfa ir >> http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2007/09/virtual-event-b.html A Vir Virtua tua l Eve nts Sna p sho t: (All d a ta p rovid e d b y Unis Unisfa fa ir ir)) • Average live duration: 1.5 days • Average archived days: 90 • Average registration: 3,102 • Average attendance: 1,587 • Show Up Rate: 52% • Sponsor/Exhibitor Booths: 15 • Leads Generated per Sponsor: 348 • Conference Sessions: 5 per day • Average attendee time at event: 2 hours 31 minutes • Average Locations Visited: 16 • Average Attendee Interactions:13 • Average Downloads per attendee: 5

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Sec on d Lif ife e Gri Grid d : How How Orga niz niza a tions Use The The Platfo rm >> http :/ / sec on d li lifeg feg rid.net/ ho w

WEB 2.0 All things Web 2.0 directory >> http://www.allthingsweb2.com PEW Inte Inte rnet: Riding Riding the Wa ve s o f Web 2. 2.0 0 >> http://static.scribd.com/docs/aoi8swiquwc99.swf?INITIAL_VIEW=width

We b 3. 3.0 0 http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles. showArticleHomePage&art_aid=57532 http://www.personalizemedia.com/index.php/2006/08/27/virtual-worlds-web-30-and-portable-proles/ http://civicminded.corante.com/archives/2006/08/second_life_targets_existing_b.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/eric_schmidt_denes_web_30.php

http://www.beloit.edu/~pubaff/mindset/


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Sexy Wid Wid g e t: Rev Rev iew s a nd a na lys lysis is o f wid g e ts ts,, too lba rs rs,, an d d is istri trib b ute d b us usines iness se s o f a ll avors. >> http://www.sexywidget.com/ Ma keus keuseo eo f.c om : 6 Co o l FR FREE Wi Wid d g e t Plat Plat fo rms fo r your PC PC >> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/widgets-and-widget-platforms/ Po p ula r Widg Widg e t Platf Platf orm s & Pro Pro vide rs rs:: • Yahoo Widget Engine • Facebook • Google Gadgets • Clearspring • Widgetbox • Musestorm • Snipperoo • MySpace

WORD-OF-MOUTH MARKETING WOMMA >> ww w.womm a.or a.org g Ma rk rke e ting Ch a rts rts:: Word -of-Mo uth M a rk rke e ting Sp Sp en d ing to To p $1 Bil Billilio o n in in 2007 2007 >> >> http:// ww w.mark w.marketi etingc ngc harts harts..c om/ inter nterac ac ti tive/ ve/ word-ofword-of-mo mo uthuth-ma ma rketin eting-s g-spe pe nding-t nding-to-topo-top1-billion-in-2007-2424/

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glossary Before you pack your marketing bags and embark on a journey into the world of social me dia, you’ll need to know the language. Listed below are some basic conversation starters, p arti artiall ally y exce rpte d fr from om OneU OneUpWeb pWeb ’ s rec ent Poc Poc ket Guide to Soc ial Me dia. For For the p ur urpo po se of consistency and timeliness, most other denitions herein are sourced from Wikipedia [www. wikiipe dia.org] or W e b o p e d i a [ w w w . w e b o p e d i a . c o m ] . wik

Advocacy Creating a movement of net-uencers to inuence conversation, actions or motives in support of one’s objective.

Aggregation Ga theri thering ng a nd rem ix ixing ing c onte nt from from b logs a nd othe r Web sites tha t p rovid e RS RSS feed s; typica ll lly y d is ispla pla yed in an a gg reg a tor lik like e Blog Blog li lines nes or Go og le Rea Rea d er, or direc direc tly on your de sktop us using ing softsoftware (often also called a reader). Benecial for breaking news.

Alerts Sea rc h eng ines ines,, lik like e G oo gle, allow yo u to sp sp ec if ify y wo rd s, phrases phrases or tag s tha t you w a nt c hec ked p eri eriod od ica ll lly, y, with results results of t hos hose e sea rc hes returned returned to you b y em ail.

Archive Ma y refe refe r to to pic s fr from om a n online disc disc us uss sion that h as b ee n c los losed ed b y s sa a ved for la la ter refe refe renc e. On b logs logs,, arch ives oll tions of e li lier er items ll nized niz ed by ek o th. Y tilll be til

Glossary

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Blogs Shortene d from th e o riginal term term “ Web logs logs,” ,” the se selfself-p p ub li lis shed we b sites sites c onta ini ining ng d a ted ma terial, are usually written in a journal format. Content such as text, pictures, video and/or audio ha ve URLs p lus ot he r wa ys of ide ntifying the m b y keyw ord s (ta g s). This This a ll llow ow s vis visitors itors to p ull ite ite m s to their desktop desktop thr throug oug h sub sub sc riptions or ag greg a tors without ha ving to vis visit it the a c tua l web site. Blogs Blogs often have links to other relevant online content, plus invite feedback through “posts” which are c om me nts fr from om rea d ers ers..

Blogroll A lis list of sites sites d is ispla pla yed in the sideb sideb ar of a b log show show ing w ho th e b logg er rea rea d s reg ularl ularly. y.

Bookmarking Sa ving the a d d res ess s of a Web site or item item of c onte nt, either in in your brow ser or on a soc ial bo okma rking site such as Delicious. By adding tags, others can also nd your research and the social book book ma rki king ng site site be c om es a n eno rmo us p ub li lic c li lib b ra ry.

Browser The to ol used used to view Web sites a nd a c c es ess s a ll the c onte nt online.

Bulletin Boa rds The e arl arly y vehicles for online co ll lla a bo ra tion whe re users users c onne c ted with a c entral co mp uter to po st a nd rea d em a il il-l -lik ike e m es ess sa ge s.

Buzz Mo nito ring Buz uzz z mo nitor nitoring ing is a p hr hra a se us used ed in Online Online Pub li lic c Relations a nd soc ial me d ia m a rketing to tr tra ack eleva nt c at ions on t he Internet. Internet.

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Comments Add ing feed ba ck c omm ents under blog blog pos posts ts and other co ntent.

Com m unity Building Building The process of recruiting potential community or network participants, helping them to nd shared interes inter ests ts a nd go a ls ls,, and us using ing tec hnolog y to d eve lop useful useful co nvers nversat at ions

Conferenc Confer enc ing (online) Happens in a Web forum and is the conversations of those involved, organized around topics, threads and a theme or subject .

Consumer-generat Cons umer-generated ed med ia (CGM) First-person commentary posted or shared across a host of expression venues, including message b oa rd s, forums, forums, ra ra ting a nd review sites ites,, group s, soc soc ial ne tw orki orking ng sites ites,, blog s, vide o-s o-sha ha ring sites sites,, etc .

Content Text, pictures, pictures, vid vid eo a nd a ny othe r me a ningful ma teri terial al tha t is on the Internet.

Content Ma nag em ent Sys System tem Softw a re suites offeri offering ng the a bili bility ty to c rea te sta tic We b p a ge s, do c ume nt stores stores,, blog s, wikis wikis a nd other tools.

Conversation Co mm enting o r c ontri ontrib b uting to fo rums is the c ur urrrenc y of soc soc ial netwo rki king, ng, whic h puts the “ soc ial” in this this form of m ed ia.

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Deconstructives Systematically working back from a specic issue to identify inuencers through viral mapping.

Doma in Nam Nam e A m ethod of identifyi identifying ng c om pute r ad dres dress ses es.. For For exam exam ple, a “ .com ” extens extension ion mea ns the a c c ount is a b us usines iness s-r -relate elate d , and “ .gov” is go vernme nt rela rela ted .

Email lists Important networking tools offering the ability to “starburst” a message from a central postbox to a ny numb er of sub sub sc ribers a nd for them to res esp p ond .

Emb ed ding The a c t of inserti inserting ng vid eo or pho to to a Web site or ema il il..

Facilitator Som eone who helps pe op le in a n o nl nliine g roup or forum forum m ana ge their c onvers onversations ations..

Feeds The me a ns by wh ich yo u c a n read , view view or lis listen to items fr from om b logs logs,, po d c a sts a nd othe r RS RSSen a b led sites sites witho ut visiti visiting ng t he site, site, by sub sub sc ri rib b ing to a d ir irec ec to ry or ag g rega to r suc h a s iTune s or Bloglines.

Fla sh Anima tion softw softw a re used used to d eve lop interac tive grap hics for We We sites sites a s we ll a s d es esktop ktop p res esenta enta -

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Hashtag Simil imila a r to reg ular tag s, these these a re keyw ords a ssoc iated a nd as ass signed to a n item o f c onte nt w ith a hash has h ma rk (# ) attac hed to the front front of the wo rd.

Hyperlink Text, ima ge s or grap hics tha t, when c li lic c ked with a m ous ouse, e, will will c onne c t the user user to a n ew Web site o r We b p a g e .

Instant Messaging (IM) Ch a tting w ith an ot her p ers erson on u sing a n IM IM to ol like like AO L Ins nsta ta nt M es ess seng er, Microsoft Microsoft Live Live M es ess sen g er or Yaho Yaho o M es ess seng er. The to ols all allow ow you to indica te w hether or not you a re a vail vailab ab le to c hat and ca n be a g ood alter alternati native ve to em ail ails s for a rapid exchang e.

Link Ba iting The p roc es ess s by wh ich w eb sites ites,, blog s, etc . enc ourag e li links nks fr from om othe r sites sites to imp rove p op ulari ularity ty a nd ra is ise e p os ositi itions ons on sea sea rc h eng ines ines.. The e ntice me nt ma y inc inc lude c onte nt, online online to ols ols,, fr free d ow nloads, or anything else that another site owner might nd worthy of a link.

Listening In the b logs logsp p here, the art of ski skimm mm ing feed s to see see wha t top ics a re p op ular a nd setting up sea rc hes that mo ni nitor tor when an organiz organization ation is me nti ntioned oned .

Listserve A lis list of em a il a d d res ess ses of p eo p le with co mm on interests interests.. Softw are ena bles pe op le who b elong to a li lis st to sen sen d me ssa g es to t he g roup witho ut typ ing a series of a d d res ess ses es..

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Mob il ile e Ma rketing Mob ile M ark arketing eting is me ant to d es esc c ribe ma rketi keting ng on o r with with a mo bil bile e d evice, such such as a mo bil bile e p hone . Ma rketing on a m ob il ile e p hone ha s b ec om e increa singly p op ular eve r since th e ris rise of SMS SMS (Sho (S ho rt Me ssa g e Service ) in th e ea rl rly y 2000s 2000s in Europ Europ e a nd som e p a rts of As Asia ia wh en b us usines iness ses sta sta rte d to c ol olllec t mo bil bile e p hone numb er ers s and send off wanted (or unwanted ) co ntent.

Narrowcasting A term used used in op po siti tion on to “ broad c as asti ting” ng” to d es esc c ribe a po dc as ast’s t’s ab il iliity to rea rea c h a narr narrow ow ly focused, highly interested audience.

Networks Structures dened by nodes and the connections between them. In social networks, the nodes are people and the connections are the relationships they have. Networking is the process by which you d eve lop a nd str treng eng then tho se relationships relationships..

Newsgroups Internet “site” centered around a specic topic or course. Some newsreader software can “thread’ d is isc c us uss sion so so the re c a n be va rious top ics c ente red a round a c entral them e.

Newsreader Web site or desktop desktop t oo l that a c ts a s a n a gg reg a tor, ga theri thering ng c onte nt from from b logs a nd simil imila a r sites using us ing RS RSS feed s so you c an rea d the c onte nt in one p lac e ins instea tea d of ha ving to vis visit it different different sites ites..

Open-source software Refers to a ny c om pu ter softw softw are w hos hose e source source c od e is a va il ilab ab le und er a licen se tha t p ermits us users ers

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Podcast A digital broadcast made available on the internet. Currently the majority of these broadcasts are audio les sent to directories through XML feeds and RSS – or Really Simple Syndication – formatted XML les. The word “podcast” is derived from “pod” as in Apple’s iPod, the popular portable audio player, and “ c as ast” t” fr from om “ broad c as ast, t,”” me aning “ to transmit transmit for ge neral or pub lic us use.” e.”

Podcatcher A term for prog prog ram s us used ed to a utoma ti tic c all ally y subs subsc c ribe to a nd do wnload po dc as asts ts;; also also c all alled ed an a ggreg a tor. Pod c at c hers typic a ll lly y see see k out new p od c a st ep is isod od es or item item s a s soo n a s the p rog ra m is opened.

Post Item on a blog o r for forum. um.

Proles Info rma tion tha t users users p rovide a b ou t the m selve s w hen s signing igning u p fo r a soc soc ial netw orki orking ng site. This ma y inc inc lude p ers ersona ona l a nd b us usines iness s inter interes ests ts,, a p hoto , a “ b lur lurb,” b,” an d ta gs to he lp pe op le sea sea rc h for likeli ke-minded minded pe op le.

Remixing Social media offers the possibility of taking different items of content, identied by tags and pub lis li shed through fee d s, an d c om b ini ining ng the m in different different w ays ays..

RSS Sta nd ing fo r Rea Rea ll lly y Simp Simp le Synd Synd ica tion, RS RSS is the XML form form a t tha t a ll llow ow s you to sub sc ribe to c on te nt

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SOA - Servic e o ri riented ented a rchitec tur ture e In c om p uting, SOA SOA p rovid es me thod s for sys system tem s d eve lopm ent a nd integration w here sys system tem s p ac kag e func tiona li lity ty a s inter interop op erab le servi servic c es es.. An SOA SOA infr infra a str truc uc tur ture e a ll llow ow s d if ifferent ferent a p p li lic c a tions to excha excha nge d ata with one another.

Soc ial boo km arking The c oll olla a b orative e q uivalent o f stori storing ng favo rites or bo okma rks within a w eb brow ser. Soc ial bo okma rk rking ing service service s suc h a s d el.i el.ic c io.us or Furl Furl a ll llow ow p eo p le to sto re the ir fa vo ri rite te w eb sites on li line ne a nd sha re the m with o the rs w ho ha ve simil imila a r interes interests ts..

Soc ial m ed ia The te rm used used to d es esc c ribe t he to ols a nd pla tforms p eo p le use use to p ub li lis sh, co nvers nverse e a nd sha re c onte nt o nli nline. ne. Thes These e inc lude blog s, wikis wikis,, po d c a sts ts,, and the sites sites d ed ica ted to s sha ha re informa tion, stories, photos, audio and video les, and bookmarks.

Soc ial me dia op timiz timization ation Soc ial med ia op timiz timiza a tion (SMO (SMO ) is is a set o f me thod s for gene ra ting p ub li lic c ity through soc soc ial med ia, online onli ne c om munities a nd c om munity we b sites ites.. Metho d s of SMO SMO include a d d ing RS RSS feed s, ad d ing a “ Di Digg gg This his”” b utton, b logg ing a nd inc orpo ra ting third third pa rty c om mun ity func tiona li lities ties li like ke Fli Flic c kr p hoto sli lid d es and ga ll lleri eries es or YouT YouTub ub e video s. Soc Soc ial me d ia o pt imiz imizat at ion is a form o f sea sea rc h e ng ine marketing. Soc ial me dia op ti timiz mization ation is in ma ny wa ys c onnec ted as a tec hni hnique que to viral viral ma rketi keting ng where word of mouth is created not through friends or family but through the use of networking in soc ial b ookma rki king, ng, video and pho to shari sharing ng we bs bsiites tes.. In In a simil milar ar wa y the e nga ge me nt with b log s

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Trac kb ac k A fac ilit ity y for other blogg ers to lea ve a c all alliing c ard a utoma ti tic c all ally, y, ins instea tea d of c om me nti nting. ng. Bl Blog ge r A ma y write write on b log A a bo ut an item o n blogg er B’s B’s site, and thr throug oug h the trac trac kbac k fac fac ilit ity y lea lea ve a link li nk on B’ B’ s site ba c k to A. The c ollect ion of c om me nts a nd tr tra a c kba c ks on a site fac il ilitate itate s c onve rsa tions.

Trans ransp p a renc y Enhances searching, sharing, self-publish and commenting across networks, makes it easier to nd out w ha t’ s go ing on in a ny situation situation w here there is online ac tivi tivity. ty.

Troll A hurtful, hurtful, but p os oss sibly valuab le, person person who , for wha teve r rea rea son, is bo th o b ses ess sed b y a nd c ons onsta ta ntly annoyed wit with h and de eply offended offended by everythi everything ng you w rite on a blog. One ma y not be ab le to stop the c om me nti nting ng o f troll trolls s on your blog, but you c an’ t ba n them from c om me nti nting ng o n other sit sites es and pointi pointing ng ba ck to the blog. blog.

Twe e t A m icrob log po st o n the Twitter soc soc ial netw ork site. site.

URL Unique Res esourc ourc e Loc Loc ato r is is the tec hnic al te rm for a Web ad dres dress s. User generated content Text, photos and other material produced by people who previously just consumed content.

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Virtual Vir tual w orlds Sites such as Second Life, where individuals can create proles and representations of themselves (avatars) to interact with others in an imaginary world. Marketers have taken up real estate on Sec ond Life in an atte mp t to extend their brand to p otential new c us ustom tom ers.

Web 2.0 A te rm c oined b y O’ Reil eilly ly Med ia in 2004 2004 to d es esc c ribe blog s, wikis wikis,, soc soc ial netw ork orking ing sites sites a nd othe r Internet-ba sed servi ervic c es tha t em p ha siz ize e c ollab oration a nd sha ring. ItIt is a ssoc iated with the idea of the Internet Internet a s a p latform.

Whiteboards Online are the eq uivalent of gloss glossy sur surfac fac es whe re o ne c a n write write w ith an ap p rop riate m a rker an d wipe off late late r. They ena ble som som eone to w rite o n a Web pa ge and are used used in c oll ollab ab orati oration on online. online.

Widgets Stand -al -alone one a pp lic ations that c an b e e mb ed de d in other ap pli plic c ations li like ke a Web site o r a d es esktop ktop or view view ed on a PDA.

Wiki An online, collaborative work space for multiple users of a web page – or set of pages –that can be ed ited c oll ollab ab orati oratively vely.. The b es estt know know n examp le is wik wikiped iped ia, an e nc yclop ed ia c rea ted by thousands of contributors across the world. Once people have appropriate permissions – set by the wiki owner – they can create pages and/or add to and alter existing pages

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so ur urc c e s, re fe re nc e s & c ita ti tio o ns Intro Soc ial Me d ia M a rk rket et ing Ind us ustry try Rep Rep ort; How How Ma rk rket et ers Are Using Using Soc Soc ial Me d ia to Grow The ir Bus usiine sses es,, Ma rch 200 2009, 9, by M ich a el A. Ste Ste lz lzne ne r Chap ter 1 Soc ial Med ia: Lis Listening tening is the Ne w M a rketing, Pr Pra c tica l ec om me rc e fo r Online Me rc ha nts nts,, Feb Feb . 18, 18, 2009, www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/976-social-media-listening-is-the-new-marketing

Forr orres ester ter rep rep ort sa sa ys it’s time to ta ke soc soc ial me d ia m a rketing seri serious ously, ly, Fier ierc c e C onte nt M a na ge me nt, April 8, 2009, http://www.ercecontentmanagement.com/story/new-forrester-report-says-time-takesoc ial-me d ia-m a rk rket et ing-s ing-serious eriously/ ly/ 200 2009-0 9-04-0 4-08 8 brandweek.com article – Do You Need A Social Media Marketer?, April 4, 2009, http://www.brand week.com/bw/content_display/news-and features/digital/e3ie2a94edbc5b0a7c1150d6cbf4741ded e?pn=1 Marketingpilgrim.com – 8 Essential Free Social Media Monitoring Tools, 2008, www.marketingpilgrim. com/2008/12/social-media-monitoring-tools.html Mike-Ma nual. Mike-Ma nual.c c om / blog on How to Create A Soc Soc ial M ed ia M onitor onitoring ing Str Strate ate gy, July July 17, 17, 20 2008 08,, http:// www.mike-manuel.com/blog/2008/07/17/how-to-create-a-social-media-monitoring-strategy/ Radian6, radian6.com/cms/home ww w.vocus w.vocus..co m/ c ontent/s ontent/soc oc ialal-med med ia.as a.asp p News.cnet.com – Nielsen: Twitter’s growing really, really, really, really fast, March 19, 2009, http:// news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10200161-36.html


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Your G ui uide de to MicroMicro-B Blogg in ing g and Twitter witter,, http :// ww w.pb s.or .org/ g/ me d ias ashif hift/ t/ 20 2007 07// 05 05// your your-gui -guide de -t -toomicro-blogg ing-and -twi -twitter1 tter135 35.h .html tml Five Ways to Leve Leve ra ge Mic rob logg ing, Aug. 28, 28, 200 2008, 8, b y Blake Blake Ca hil hill, l, http :// ww w.em a rketingandcommerce.com/story/ve-ways-leverage-microblogging Ma rketingP ketingPrrofs ofs.co .co m a rticle, Microc onne c ting With Your Your Custom Custom ers Via Mic rob logg ing, Sep Sep t. 23, 23, 2008, http://www.twine.com/item/11hksjn7k-5k/microconnecting-with-your-customers-via-microbhttp://www.twine.com/item/11hksjn7k-5k/microconnecting-with-your-customers-via-microblogging-q-a-with-connie-reece-marketingprofs-articles 360 degree Digital Inuence, Ogilvy Public Relations WorldWide, The Creation of Twitter Best Prac tices: Round 1, http://blog.ogilvypr.com/2008/08/ The Bivings rep ort, A Blog b y The The Bivings Grou p , Za Za p p os. os.c c om : A Tw Tw itter C a se Stud y, Ma y 6, 2008, 2008, http://www.bivingsreport.com/2008/zapposcom-a-twitter-case-study/ World is a ll a -twitte r ove r mic ro-blog g ing suc c es ess s sto ry, Belfa st Tele Tele g rap h, Feb Feb . 3, 200 2009, 9, UK UK, ww w . belfasttelegraph.co.uk Za p p os os:: Mic rob logg ing with Twitter, http :// sa ra hloki hlokitis tis.co .co m/ 20 2009 09// 03 03// 23 23// za p p os os-microb -microb logg ing-withtwitter/ Tw itter Bes estt Prac Prac tic es es,, Ap ri rill 16, 200 2009, 9, http :/ / strate g ics icsoc oc ialm ed ia.w ord p res ress s.co m / 200 2009/ 9/ 04/16/ 239 239/ / Ping.fm/ Use Ping.fm to Reach All Your Online Proles at Once, March 31, 2009, http://webworkerdaily. com/2009/03/31/use-pingfm-to-reach-all-your-online-proles-at-once/ Ch a rt of The Da y: Tw itter’ s Ea rl rly y Grow th Dw a rf rfed ed By You You Tub e’ s, http :/ / w w w .bu sines iness sins inside ide r. r.c c om / chart-of-the-day-comparing-the-rst-three-years-of-growth-2009-4

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So urc e s, Re Re feren ferenc c e s & C ita tions Fortune 500 500 Corporate Bl Blog Ad op tion Sl Slow and Stea d y Ac c ording to Soc Soc iety for New New Com munica tions Res esea ea rch C ha ir Dr. Nora G a nim Ba Ba rnes a nd Eri ric c Ma tts ttson on o f Finan Finan c ial Ins Insite, ite, Soc iety fo r New Com munica tions Res esea ea rc h, Ap ril 22, 22, 200 2009, 9, http:// ww w.newc om mrevi mreview ew .com / ?p=14 ?p=1412 12 Web content management continues its upward trajectory, Fierce Content Management, erce contentmanagement.com, March 23, 2009, http://www.ercecontentmanagement.com/story/webcontent-management-continues-its-upward-trajectory/2009-03-23 10 Bes Bestt Fortune Fortune 500 Blog Blog s b y w w w .r .rs ssp iec es es.co .co m / 1010-b b es est-fortune t-fortune -50 -500-blog 0-blog s, Ma rch 30, 200 2008 8 ProB oBlogg logg er. er.net, net, “ Ni Nine ne Signs of a n Effec Effec tive Blog Blog Pos ost” t” , July July 10, 20 2008 08,, http :// ww w.p rob logg er. er.net/ net/ a rchives/2008/07/10/nine-signs-of-an-effective-blog-post/ 15 Rea sons Why Blogg Blogg ing M a tters Mo re th a n Ever, Ever, Marc h 14, 20 2008 08,, http:/ / ww w.tw is istima tima ge .co m/ blog/archives/15-reasons-why-blogging-matters-more-than-ever/ Istrategylabs.com, 2009 Facebook Demographics and Statistics Report: 276% Growth in 35-54-yearold Users Users b y Pete Pete r Co rb ett, Ja Ja n. 5, 20 2009 09,, http :// ww w.is w.istr tra a teg ylab s.co m/ 20 2009 09-fac -fac eb oo kk-d d em og ra p hic s-a nd -s -sta ta tis tistic tic s-r -re e p o rt-27 rt-276-gro 6-gro w th-in-35-54 th-in-35-54-yea -yea rr-o o ld -us -use e rs rs/ / Web Ma rk rket et ing The The ra p y, Soc ial Me d ia M a rk rket et ing Boo Boo sts Bus usines iness s a nd “ Co ol Fa Fa c to r” fo r The se WMT Pos osiiti tive ve Role Mo de ls, Ap ril 16, 16, 2009 2009,, http :// ww w.we bm ark arketingtherap etingtherap y. y.c c om / blog / soc ial ial-med -med ia-marketing-boosts-business-and-cool-factor-for-these-wmt-positive-role-models/ Fa c eb oo k Ma rk rket et ing Suc c es ess s Sto ri ries es for Bus Busines iness ses es,, Buz Buzz z Ma rk rket et ing for Tec Tec hno log y, Inno Inno va tive Id ea s for B2B B2B Tec hnolog y M a rketers keters,, Dec . 19, 19, 2007 2007,, http :// b uz uzz zma rketingfortec h.blog sp ot.c om / 20 2007 07// 12 12/ / facebook-marketing-success-stories-for.html Fa c eb oo k Ma rketing Suc c es ess s: The The Ta rge t Store Store Exam p le, blog s.praiz .praized ed .co m, p os osted ted Oc t. 15, 15, 2007 2007,, http://blogs.praized.com/seb/facebook/facebook-marketing-success-the-target-store-example/


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Ins nside ide CR CRM, M, The The Fa Fa c eb oo k Ma rk rket et ing Too Too lbo x: 100 Too ls a nd Tips to Ta Ta p t he Fa Fa c eb oo k Custo Custo m er Base, Dec. 9, 2007, http://www.insidecrm.com/features/facebook-marketing-toolbox-012308/ The Fa Fa c eb oo k Ma rk rket et ing Too Too lbo x: 100 Too ls a nd Tips to Ta Ta p t he Fa Fa c eb oo k Custo Custo m er Ba Ba se, Jan. 23, 2008 20 08,, http:/ / ww w.i w.ins nsidec idec rm.co m/ fea tur tures es// fac eb oo kk-ma ma rketi keting-toolbo ng-toolbo xx-01 0123 2308 08/ / Biz Netw orki orking ng on Fa c eb oo k Co uld Soo Soo n Sup Sup ers ersed ed e Link inked ed In, Aug . 30, 30, 200 2008, 8, http:/ / ma sha b le. com/2008/08/30/b2b-ad-networking/ Giga om , Why Why Fa Fa c eb oo k’s Future is Mo b il ile, e, Tues Tuesd d a y, Feb Feb . 10, 10, 20 2009 09,, http:/ / gig a om .co m/ 20 2009 09// 02 02// 10 10/ / why-facebooks-future-is-mobile/ http://social-media-optimization.com/2007/10/a-failed-facebook-marketing-campaign/ http://imarketu.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/facebook-advertising-success-if-done-right/ http:// / ww w.pur http: w.purpo po sein einc.co c.co m/ pw p/ 20 2009 09// 03/04 3/04// fac eb ookook-ad ad ver verti tis sing http://www.facebook.com/advertising/

Chap ter 5 Talance, Nonprots Can Be Linked In, Nov. 20, 2007, talance.com/blog

CNN M on ey.c om , Rec Rec es ess sion lifts soc ial net w orki orking ng site Linked Linked In, Ma rch 24, 2009 2009 Biznik.com, LinkedIn Marketing – How to Use LinkedIn to Promote Your Business, Feb. 17, 2009, http:// b iz iznik nik.co .co m/ a rticles ticles// li linked nked inin-ma ma rketing-how -to-us -to-use-li e-linked nked inin-to-p to-p rom ote -your -your-bus -busines iness s Linked In Soc Soc ial Netw orki orking ng Suc c es ess s Sto ry, p a rt 2, Feb . 13, 13, 200 2009, 9, http :/ / w w w .l .linktop inktop ros rosp p er.co m /

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http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/industry/2008-05-11-social-networking_N.htm http://socialmedia.globalthoughtz.com/social-network-market-share-myspace-down/ http://blog.compete.com/2009/02/09/facebook-myspace-twitter-social-network/ Nic he soc Nic soc ial netw orks will c ont inue to b e ho t in 200 2008, 8, Jan. 7, 20 2008 08,, http:/ / soc ialial-me me d ia-op timiz timiza a tion. com/2008/01/niche-social-networks-will-continue-to-be-hot-in-2008/ Ac ti tiveR veRain.com ain.com , web new sfor forus us.com .com / blog , June June 26, 20 2006 06,, http:// we bne ws wsfor forus us.com .com / blog / ac ti tiverain verain-com/51 Famiva.com What is Xanga, http://webtrends.about.com/od/pro5/fr/what-is-xanga.htm What is Hi5?, http://webtrends.about.com/od/proles/fr/what-is-hi5.htm Pho ne & Soc Soc ial Net w orks orks:: What ’ s Ahe a d for Tec Tec h’ s Survivors in ‘ 09? Soc ial Netw orki orking ng Disa Disa p p ea rs, http :// c ws ws.i .internet.c nternet.c om / a rticle/ 42 4240 40-. -.htm htm Web 3.0 – the personalized web experience for your customers,Oct. 8, 2008, http:/ / sea rc hc io. io.tec tec htarget.co m.au/ arti artic c les es// 27 2727 2700-Web-3Web-3-the-pers the-persona ona li lis sed -web -ex -expe pe rience -f -fororyour-customers The future we b 2. 2.0 0 soc soc ial exp exp eri erienc enc e, we b d es esign ign from from sc ra tc h, http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/future-social-web-experience.php Social Blogging - What is Xanga?, webtrends.about.com/od/socialnetworking/p/xanga_prole.htm, Ab out.co m Web Trend s,


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Email marketing for Nonprots, May 13, 2008, www.marketingprofs.com, 29 Ways to Build Your House List, danavan.net/publications/2004/02/29_ways_to_buil.html February 2004 Gm a il il’’ s Users Few er, but Young er and Riche r, Tha n Ya Ya hoo ’ s a nd Hotm a il il’’ s, http:/ / ww w.m a rketingcharts.com/topics/demographics/gmails-users-fewer-but-younger-and-richer-than-yahoos-hotmails-366/ 10 B2B B2B Em a il Ma rk rket et ing Best Best Pra Pra c tic es es,, Ma rch 17, 200 2008, 8, B2B 2Bem em a ililm m a rk rket et ing.c om / 200 2008/ 8/ 03/10-b2b email-ma.html, 10 Tips for Us Using Tw Tw itter a nd Em a il Ma rk rket et ing fo r B2B B2B,, Dec . 21, 21, 2008, 2008, http :/ / a nyth ingg oe sma rk rket et ing. blogspot.com/2008/12/10-tips-for-using-twitter-and-email.html

Chap ter 9 http://www.piczoinc.com/about.html

http://www.slideshare.net/ http:// / photob ucket. http: ucket.co co m/ faq?c atI atID= D=2 29&ca tS tSelected elected =f =f&top &top icID cID=3 =31 17 15 Creative and Protable Ways to Use Autoresponders, http://www.imnewswatch.com/ar http://www.imnewswatch.com/ar chives/2007/11/15_creative_and.html?visitFrom=1 Fir irs st Time Us Using Aut ores oresp p on d ers ers?, ?, Sep t 23, 23, 200 2007, 7, http :/ / w w w .i .inte nte rnetm a rk rket et ingt ips ips4u.co 4u.co m / inde x. php/list-building-strategies/15-autoresponders/25-using-an-autoresponder-for-the-rst-time 5 Wa Wa ys to Turn Turn Custo Custo m er Inq Inq uir uiries ies Into Sa les les,, June June 18, 200 2006, 6, http :/ / w w w .effe c tive-inte rnet-m a rk rket et ing.

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S o c i a l M Po lic y + Hir Hiring ing : The So c ia l Ente Ente rp rpri ris se a t Work e d i a Soc ial M ed ia: Ge t Sta Starrted He re

d o y o u n e e d a so c ia l m e d ia sh e rp rp a ?


soc ia l m ed ia p oli olic c y a nd hi hirring for so c ia l m ed ia

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Appendix

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Hiring for Social Media Positions

Hiring For Social Media Positions It’s no secret that many brands are embracing social media. From international heavyweights like Ford and Coca-Cola to local ice cream shops, everyone is trying to figure fi gure out “how to get social media done.” In several client meetings recently, the discussion has turned to the subject of staffing up for social media and to then training those staff to ensure that they do “the right things right” in the social media space and flawlessly perform the role of “brand steward”. There are a few questions you should ask as you’re considering the social media staffing issue. Should I hire or outsource? I’m biased here, but I’ll tell you from experience that the most successful social media work that I’ve seen involves social media personnel inside of an organization. Yes, you need to have some who gets your company, culture and (deeply) understands the market(s) you serve and the industry you’re in. A true steward of the brand (a phrase I use daily to describe those who work in the social media space on behalf of their company) should be embedded in the company. (caveat: A contract social media person can be embedded as well…but they need to really “get you” in order to work out). If you want some more ammo for this discussion, check out Beth Harte’s 25 Signs You’ve Got a Strong SM Consultant or Agency. Agency.

Hiring for Social Media Positions •

Loves what they do and loves people! – Great community managers love people, love helping out and love technology and communication. They will be as adept behind a Twitter handle as they will be out at a trade show catching video from community members.

What if I can’t hire anyone? That’s a great question, and you have a couple of options. First, you can “do” social media in less than 20 minutes a day if you have a defined process. That way there’s no capital investment, only your time (which can be worth quite a lot, so choose your channels wisely). You can also hire in help. While I don’t advocate that brands “outsource social media” wholesale, a growing number of businesses are embracing social media by hiring part-time employees or contract social media folks to operate Twitter, Facebook and similar sites on their behalf. Some companies, like Garrett Popcorn, have hired people to tweet for them. In their case, they hired Alecia Dantico, a doctoral student in communications. If you’re going to go it alone, then your readiness comes into question. Here are a few questions to ask, compliments of David Armano, that I feel you should take pretty seriously:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Do you have a passionate and dedicated team who will obsess over your efforts? Are you trying to provide value or “quick hits”? Are you willing to engage your customers/consumers? customers/consumers? Are you willing to empower your employees/agencies to represent you? Are you willing to risk failure?

At the end of the day, I believe that organizations that take social media seriously will either dedicate staff, or a portion of their time ti me to the discipline, or hire in professionals to help out with social media. I’ve advised a number of brands to hire community managers and interns to help out with the process with great success.

Social Media Job Descriptions

We’re often asked to chime on the job descriptions for candidates that will have purview over an organization’s organization’s social media efforts. efforts. Below is a collection of the things that we’ve found that are useful to consider.

1) A person who blogs or understands blogging and participates in social networks and online communities, has an understanding of web TV, podcasting, wikis and social bookmarking sites, and can translate that knowledge in to recommendations for the the Company. The experienced individual should understand the importance of ongoing monitoring and response speed in social networks. 2) A person who is comfortable teaching social media to others. (Some internal evangelizing will be required.) 3) A person who enjoys engaging in conversations, both on-line and off. 4) An excellent writer. 5) An independent thinker and task master. 6) An insistence on honesty, transparency and integrity. 7) A quick thinker and witty conversationalist/writer. 8) The ideal candidate should have a LinkedIn profile, a Twitter account, a Facebook page, and should have his or her own blog already. 9) The candidate would be expected to create a private Content Calendar so that announcement s/he has material to talk about based on the Company ’s announcement schedules. Of course, s/he s/he can blog about lighter topics along the the way. The candidate should have the authority to conduct written or video interviews w/ execs and/or the occasional occasional guest blog post. S/he should have companywide companywide authority to track down anyone at any level to get answers that have been posted outside the Company. 10) The candidate should be focused on on content creation, but s/he will also work w/


The following is a social media manager job description that has been widely cited as one of the best:

We’re fortunate to now be in a position to hire a social media manager. I am the primary decision-maker. While our Sr. VP for Human Resources, will certainly be posting the official position in various and sundry places around the on- and off-line world, consider this the job announcement. WHAT WE NEED 1. An experienced (2-5 years) social media marketer. Someone who blogs or understands blogging and participates in social networks and online communities, has an understanding of web TV, podcasting, wikis and social bookmarking sites, and can translate that knowledge in to recommendations for clients. 2. Someone with a more than rudimentary understanding of search engine optimization. 3. A person who is comfortable teaching social media to others. 4. A person who enjoys engaging in conversations, both on-line and off. 5. An excellent writer. 6. An independent thinker and task master with the appropriate organizational skills to be a good one. 7. Someone with an insistence on honesty, transparency and integrity. 8. A person I can put in front of a client. (i.e. – You speak and present well, aren’t a slob slob and don’t smell bad.) WHAT WE WANT


5. The chance to live in a pretty damn fine town, some call it Possibility City , with a burgeoning pool of social media and tech talent. 6. A pretty swell boss. HERE’S HOW YOU GET THE JOB

1. Don’t send me resumes. Connect with me. I’m easy to find. find. 2. Give me an elevator pitch on why you are the person we’ve described. 3. Send me (via whatever electronic method you deem most efficient) a short list of what you’ve done and where I can find evidence of it. Or have a full profile on LinkedIn. It’s easier that that way. 4. If your profiles are hard to link to you on social media sites, tell me which are yours and what you’re hiding. 5. Understand this will be a competitive search and I’m hiring one person. Be outstanding. outstanding . The only other disclaimer I’ll throw in there is i s that if you have issues working in the [your industry] category, you’re not going to like this job. That won’t be the only category you’ll work in, though. Experience in travel, banking, medical, non-profits non -profits or B2B environments is a plus. Social media community influence in those categories is a super bonus. If you can talk circles around lawyers, you’re already at the top of the stack.

Creating The Social Enterprise

From social media networks to blogs, widgets, tweets and hot mobile apps a pps marketers are faced with more choices than we ever could have imagined. imagined. It seems every day brings a new shiny toy to try and to confuse. Add a few traditional tactics tactics such as PR, email, advertising, research and search and the marketer’s job becomes overwhelming. Overlay that with an internal structure where functions are silo-ed by departments and you have a frightening disjointed marketing program. As our understanding of how our customers, the media, prospective employees, current employees and share holders use the social web it becomes evident that social media does not live only in the world of marketing. Public relations, customer service, operations and human resources are exploring ways to incorporate online digital conversational conversational tools.

Every time a customer or client interacts with your employees on your social media assets it creates not only a new experience for the company but one that can be viewed by hundreds if not hundreds of thousands of people. Keep in mind that the secondary audience also experiences your brand and expectations of how they will be treated. One of the benefits that social media brings to the enterprise is a .. we can not wait any longer .. critical need to ensure cross functional communication communication systems is in place. A process should be developed to capture the learnings and information occurring from each social media touch point. Ideally, that information should be analyzed and placed in a common, let’s call it digital repository. In addition, critical information should should be directed to employees who can quickly provided a response and begin a solution process. “Un-soloing” an organization, whether it is a Fortune Fortune 100 enterprise with global global divisions or a small business with three employees with distinct responsibilities, takes time and team work. Following is a first step to align internal stakeholders and help them understand understand the social media landscape. The P-I-E-C-E conversation is a process developed to build a foundation for The Social Enterprise; it also sets the stage for creating an integrated marketing plan. PIECE Conversation: Prepare-Invite-Encourage-Confir Prepare-Invite-Encourage-Confirm-Engage m-Engage

Step 1: Prepare: educational component. as it re lates to social media: competitive c ompetitive analysis, customer activity, industry trends Step 2: Invite people who perceive they have a stake: C-suite, marketing, legal,

Integrating Social Media Into The DNA Of Your Brand For brand management social media can be a balancing act. As customers come to expect the opportunity to interact with (hopefully!) the people who are behind brands marketers are finding the need to address new aspects of brand development. The first step in this new game is for marketers to understand how social media can change the perceptions of a brand and impact the value of a brand. Successful ly balancing social media inputs (from customers and other stakeholders) while maintaining brand values can be a precarious under taking. Brand marketers are are charged with one over riding responsibility: responsibility: to be good stewards of the brand. What that means specifically will of course, vary from organization to organization and from department to department. However at the minimum it includes: developing the brand promise and values, logo/graphics protector, ensuring the voice of the customer is reflected, consistent cross channel messaging. When social media is introduced into the DNA of brand development there are two points of view that must be taken into consideration: organization/employees and customers.  

Organization: how will social media be used to reinforce the brand and tell its story? Customer: how will your customers use social media to tell their stories about your brand?

Although the enterprise can not control the how, what, where or when customers will interact in the multiple opportunities that present themselves in the social web, the challenge of managing brand perception percepti on is not a new one. Customers Customer s have always done just just what they wanted to do when it came to how, what, where or when they discussed our brands. With the onset of the Internet, the difference now is our customers’ voices are louder and more likely to find others who agree and look towards each other for confirmation and information. The influence that those groups, or individuals, have can directly impact purchase behavior of many more people than conversations did even five years ago. Although social media may be shaking up some marketing departments, departments, the social web does bring brand managers new, exciting exciting opportunities to get to know their customers better: better: from listening to the

10 Suggestions To Integrate Social Media Into Into The DNA Of Your Brand 1. Determine what sets your brand apart from the rest. How is it special and unique to your target marketing? Our brand is the only ________ that ___________. 2. Especially in the social media world brand values become important in building content direction. In 3 words what is the essence of your brand? Or if you want to get social .. describe your brand value in 140 characters. 3. People use social media networks, platforms, tools different making identifying your audience critical. Who do you want to talk with or who is your target audience? 4. Determining what you want to accomplish will guide your decision in what you consider to be success. This in turn will lead to your metrics. What are your objectives objectives and goals? How will you know if you succeed? 5. Determining resource allocation: people, time and money will impact which tools, or tactics, you choose to use Facebook, Twitter, Twitter , Blogs, Flickr, Video, etc. What are tactics will you use? How will will these tools reinforce brand value? 6. The more you can integrate social media tactics into your marketing initiatives the more benefits you'll derive. Identify current programs programs where social media can support the brand and build relationships with customers (and other stakeholders). 7. Have you developed guidelines that can be used to give your social media content developers (bloggers, Tweeters, Vloggers, photographers, etc.) direction? 8. Have you ensured that all of the people who will be developing content understand the brand promise and values?

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Social Media Planning Strategy Map Worksheet

Your Name: Your Organization: media marketing strategy. Use this form to help you think through your organization’s social media

1.

Objective

a. What do you want to accomplish with social media?           

Research and Learning Lead generation E-commerce sales Store traffic Increase Brand or Issue Awareness Reputation management Get your fans to talk about you (word o f mouth) Content Generation and Issues Awareness Increased Relevant Visitor Traffic and Page Rankings Take Action (sign petition, send email, leave comment, etc) Other:

b. Now, restate your objectives objectives so that they are “SMART” – specific, measurable, attainable,


2.

Target Audience

a. Who must you reach with your your social media efforts to meet your objective? Why this target group?

b. Is this a target target group identified identified in your organization’s communications communications plan?

c. What do they know or believe believe about your organization organization or issue? What will resonate with them?

d. What key points points do you want to make with your audience? audience?

e. What social media tools are they currently currently using? using? If they congregate in certain online online locales, what are they talking about in relation to your brand/goals/issues/competitors? Describe based on direct observation, primary research, or secondary research.


3.

Integration

a. How will your social media media strategy support support and enhance enhance your marketing marketing & Internet strategy?

Strategy Component Email

How Does Social Strategy Support

Web Site Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Advertising

Others:

b. How will you you support/connect your your offline marketing efforts with social media?


5. Capacity a. Who will implement your organization’s soci al media strategy?

b. Can you allocate a minimum of five hours per week to your strategy?

c. Do you need any outside expertise to help implement your strategy?

d. Will your content updates depend on any other resource or person? (Do they know your intentions?)

6. Tools and Tactics a. What tactics and tools best support your objectives objectives and match your targeted audience?


7. Measurement a. What hard data points or metrics will you use to track your objectives? How often will you track? Do you have the systems and tools set up to track efficiently?

Measurable Objective

Before

During

After

b. What questions questions will you ask to generate insights?

c. What qualitative data will you take into consideration consideration to generate insights insights or help you improve what your social media strategy?

8.

Experiment

Social Media Strategy Questions Social media is simple, but not easy. I think that’s the best way to explain it. To that end, end, one of the best ways to drill down on what the best strategy is for your organization is to ask the right questions. It’s that simple!

In the absence of decades of best practices that are well known, universally understood and (hopefully) applied across industries, industries, we have a set of questions that can help anyone, in any industry, get to the core of what their social media strategy should be and how they should proceed in making the most of social media. It’s not about whether or not you should be on Facebook or have a YouTube channel - it all depends on the “answers to the questions” . If you ask me whether or not you should be on Twitter or whether you should be blogging or producing a podcast, it’s tough to say. However, I’m confident that by going through a process, asking the right questions and being confident in the outcomes, you’ll be on the right path to creating a best in class social media strategy. The other thing to know about social media is that it’s changing. Fast. Just as someone once said about sports records, “today’s records are tomorrow’s averages”, you need to stay tuned to t he changes afoot in social media because today’s breakthroughs are either going to be, at best, tomorrow’s best practices or at worst, lessons of what not to do. All that having been said, let’s look at some questions: Setting Your Goals and Expectations for Social Media     

How to we plan to measure the success of our social media efforts? (Qualitative and quantitative metrics) Who do you want to reach and why? What other benefits can you derive, such as creating a community with suppliers, vendors, and partners? What do we expect people to do with the social media tools that we roll out? What are we prepared to share with our audienc e in social media that doesn’t directly

Social Media Strategy Questions

Assessing Our Corporate Social Media Readiness  What is our company’s tolerance for risk (e.g., initiating ne w or untested marketing tactics,  

      

launching bold corporate initiatives, etc.)? How does our company normally react to negative commentary from the media, customers, competitors and other stakeholders? How uncomfortable would our company be advertising in a publication or on a web site that often contained editorial content critical of our company or industry yet whose readers very closely matched our target audience? Please rank your knowledge of social media in general – i.e., how familiar are you with various forms of social media and how they are used? How do you feel as a company about engaging in a public dialogue with your customers? What do you perceive as the biggest obstacles to our adoption of social media practices? What approaches can we take that are evolutions of our current practices (vs. complete overhauls)? Who on our staff is most enthusiastic and passionate about talking to customers? customers? Who on our staff is most enthusiastic and passionate about social media? Can we first use social media to improve how we communicate internally, cross departmentally?

Determining Resources Needed for a Social Media Effort       

How much time and money are we expecting to dedicate to social media? What are we willing to spend for technology, development and social media tools? What level of human resources are we willing to dedicate to our social media plan? Who are the point people, and what are their roles? Who are the “faces” of the organization online, and where? Can we afford to keep part of our allocated $ budget flexible flexible to respond to evolving needs? If we’re successful with social media, can we scale our interactions to continue to meet higher expectations? How? Are we flexible enough within roles/responsibilities to shift them as needed to

Social Media Strategy Questions Participating and Engaging in Social Media  What is our “unique voice” and “point of view” that we want to t ake to the social media       

conversation? What practices do we see from our peers/competitors that we’d like to emulate? What do we see from them that we’d like to avoid at all costs? What unique voice can we contribute to the conversation in the industry? What is it that we want to convey to our community through our participation in social media? Are we going to encourage community generated content? Do we plan to heavily moderate or edit community contributed content or let it stand & play out? How are we ensuring that we’ re providing a two-way channel for dialogue?

Social Media Policy & Crisis Communication Planning  What direction or advice should you offer about people’s conduct on personal pages after  

     



(and, sometimes, during) business hours? What is our policy for handling social media feedback? What is our policy for our employee engagement in social media? Are we covered by our ethics, computer usage, code of conduct of HR policies or do we need a specific social media policy? How will we respond to negative feedback/criticism when we discover it? Are we ready to empower our team to resolve customer issues in social media channels? How detailed do we need to be with our communication policies? Who is to speak “officially” about your organization, and about which topics? Who are the people who can promptly grant permission to discuss new products and industry trends, and what can you share? What’s the process for responding to legitimate (and illegitimate) online criticisms of your company or its products? What can you do to prevent (or survive) a Twitterstorm or any social media crisis? How can people “authentically engage in the conversation” as individuals without speaking

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Appendix mindm mi ndm a p s a nd m or ore e


    

Social Media Listening Blog Implementation Blogging for Thought Leaders Social Networking Map Twitter for Business

Social Media and Digital Marketing Mind Maps

Green Bay, WI 54301 888.989.7771 [email protected] www.marketingsavant.com

MarketingSavant MindMap – Social Media Monitoring and Engagement Process

www.marketingsavant.com – www.marketingsavant.com – 888.989.7771

MarketingSavant MindMap – Create a Social Media Monitoring Strategy & Toolkit


MarketingSavant MindMap – Inside the Thought Leadership Blogging Process


MarketingSavant MindMap – Twitter for Business


MarketingSavant MindMap – Weblog Implementation Roadmap


MarketingSavant MindMap – Social Networking Contact Map


MarketingSavant MindMap – Thought Leadership Marketing


     

Social Media 101 Digital Marketing 101 The Lowdown on LinkedIn Blogging to Build Your Business Facebook Search Engine Optimization

Social Media and Digital Marketing Tip-sheets

Green Bay, WI 54301 888.989.7771 [email protected] www.marketingsavant.com

How to grow your business through digital and social media marketing

Social Media 101 What is Social Media? Social Media Tools

No doubt you’ve heard plenty about social media by this point, but many business owners are challenged with how to make it relevant or their business. Accord According ing to Wikipedia, Social media are primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools or sharing and discussing inormation among human beings. The term most oten reers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the construction o words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which inormation is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and "building" o shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences. Businesses also reer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumergenerated media (CGM).

Free blogs: Blogger - www.blogger www.blogger.com .com Word Press - http://wordpr http://wordpress.com/ ess.com/

Technorati Blog search engine technorati.com

Free Micro Blogging sites: Twitter - twitter.com/ Plurk - www.plurk.com

Social Media Platorms

Essential Steps to Social Media Success 1. Establish Clear Business Objectives and Metrics Social media marketing should not be an executive pet project. As a marketer responsible or a social media initiative, you should never move o the starting mark without clear and measurable business goals. 2. Marketing Communications Moves rom Monologue to Connected Dialogue When customers control content, marketers inevitably lose some control o the message. But that doesn’t diminish the capability o good marketers to communicate eectively with their markets—in act it can create a signicant competitive advantage. 3. Clariy Your Positioning For all the novelty o social media, successul execution invariably hinges on an age-old undamental—a clear and consistent position across all business touch points. 4. Identiy the Inuencers The rst meaningul step o engagement is to identiy where the conversations are taking place that are relevant to your market community, and who is shaping those conversations .

Source: Universal McCann Wave 3 Report

impact search engine positioning positioning..

RSS Readers Google Reader - www.google.com/reade www.google.com/readerr

7. Engage Your Audience Whether you’re launching your own social media application or engaging in others, the key to building infuence in your community is getting involved.

Flickr - www.lickr.com

8. Engage Your Employees Social media programs are a valuable opportunity to build cross unctional teams in your organization.

YouTube - www.youtube.com

9. Engage Your Customers Nothing lters up good ideas and new content like talking directly to customers. Interview a ew o your customers or partners and ask or their take on the issues.

Delicious - www.delicious.com Jaiku - ww w.jaiku w.jaiku.com .com

10. Be Honest and Up Front Whether you’re launching your own social media site or just participating in discussions around the Web, Web, be conspicuously honest and straightorward about who you are and who you represent.

5. Listen Beore You Launch In any conversation, a smart communicator spends time listening to the dialog beore they engage.

11. Defne Metrics According to Business Objectives Get involved in dening what business outcomes are relevant or your social media program, and look or ways to measure progress toward the goal. Chances are, the data is available. available.

6. Integrate Your Social Media with SEO One o the most powerul capabilities o social media, especially blogging, is the ability to dramatically

12. Fail Quickly. Fail Cheaply I you are launching your rst social media program, ocus on an initiative with minimal investment in time and money.

Photo Sharing Video Sharing Social Bookmarking

How much time & money will this take? Most businesses can implement a social media strategy or very little money; however, the best strategies that generate leads and revenue are launched in con junction with proessional help and can cost a ew hundred to several thousand dollars. Moreover, social media takes time and personal involvement that are unprecedented in the world o mass media.

Social Media 101 www.marketingsavant.com www.marketingsavant .com 888.989.7771 in[email protected]

MarketingSavant Marketing Savant Social Media Marketing Social media consulting and coaching by an award-winning blogger. Award-winning blogger and internet marketing expert, Dana VanDen Heuvel, provides social media education and consulting to corporations, non-profits and educational institutions. Our training and content consulting services are the product of more than five years years of intensive study, training, writing and practice in the area of social and new media. MarketingSavant can save you months of learning and prepare you to enter the global online conversation with a strategy, and voice that stands out from your competitors. Our training and custom consulting services address these key business priorities: 1. Understanding social media’s growing importance in the changing media landscape; 2. Tools and tactics for tracking online conversations; 3. Turning online feedback into actionable information; 4. Overcoming internal obstacles to social media initiatives; 5. Selecting tools and metrics to match business objectives; and 6. Building and sustaining effec tive online communities. Services begin with the strategic education phase and proceed through strategy and implementation.

Contact us: www.marketingsavant.com www.marketingsavant.com/newsletter 888-989-7771 [email protected]

Connect with us: LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ danavandenheuvel Twitter: www.twitter.com/danavan Blog: www.marketingsavant.com Friendfeed: http://friendfeed.com/danavan

What is it?

What is it good for?

Blog A blog (a contraction o the term "Web log") is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries o commentary, descriptions o events, or other material such as graphics or video.



Message Boards/Chat Rooms/Forums An Internet orum, or message board, is an online discussion site. It is the modern equivalent o a traditional bulletin board. From a technological standpoint, orums or boards are web applications managing user-generated content.



Micro Blogging (Twitter) Micro-blogging is a orm o multimedia blogging that allows users to send brie text updates (140 characters or ewer) or micromedia (photos or audio clips) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group. These messages can be submitted by a variety o means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3 or the Web. Micro-blogs provide short commentary on a person-to-person level or to share news about a company's products and services.



Photo Sharing (Flickr) Photo sharing is the publishing or transer o a user's digital photos online, thus enabling the user to share them with others (whether publicly or privately). This unctionality is provided through both Web sites and applications that acilitate the upload and display o images. The term can also be loosely applied to the use o online photo galleries that are setup and managed by individual users, including photo blogs.



Podcasts A podcast is a series o audio or video digital-media les which is distributed over the Internet by syndicated download, through Web eeds, to portable media players and personal computers. Though the same content may also be made available by direct download or streaming, a podcast is distinguished rom other digital-media ormats by its ability to be syndicated, subscribed to, and downloaded automatically when new content is added.



Free to low-cost User comments are ree eedback on services, prices  Creates searchable archive or search engines  Acceptable to discuss topics or ideas that are not yet ully developed 

Educational inormation Ability to increase trafc through repeat visitors  Organization gains more creditability  Builds relationship with visitors 

VERY simple to use Multiple ways to send updates: text messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3 or the Web.  Computer not needed to send an update, can use a mobile phone 

r uListen to the conversation oAs part o our social-media strategy, strategy, t www.google.com/alerts let’s presume all businesses need a d e way to listen to their audience, their www.keotag.com d i customers, their partners, and their udetractors. Let’s begin with the tools www.technorati.com g - we use to listen to the conversation. f Start with Google Alerts and subscribe l www.summize.com e to keywords pertinent to your brand. s You You’ll ’ll get daily emails telling you when ayour keywords show up on the Web. http://crazyegg.com a i Social Bookmarking d e Social bookmarking is an excellent http://delicious.com/ mway to share the collective intelligence l o the Internet. This is near the top www.digg.com a i because you may want to “bookmark” c www.reddit.com osome o these other sites using del. s icio.us. www.diigo.com

RSS Feed Aggregators

Free or low-cost Easy to use and share photos  Great tagging and organizing system  Can be incorporated into personal blogs and Web sites  Easy to buy prints and other photo specialty items  Good backup or paper and digital photos 

Communicate with large numbers o people via the Internet  Incorporates video, audio, music and eects  Syndicated via RSS eed or archived on the Web  Listeners can download podcasts to their mobile players or listen to at their computers  Production is airly inexpensive with the right equipment

Sign up or Bloglines, a ree Web-based RSS reader that will allow you to ollow numerous blogs and news sites. sites. Add the eed rom ww w.danav w.danavan.net an.net to get started, then look or the RSS button on your avorite news sites to subscribe to more eeds.

http://www.bloglines. com

Google.com/reader

Subscribe to Blogs of Interest Reading blogs through RSS readers is how blogs were meant to be read. Use Google Blogsearch and other resource resourcess to nd blogs you like using keywords rom your hobbies, company or industry. Subscribe using your your new Bloglines RSS reader account.

google.com/blogsearch www.blogpulse.com www.technorati.com

Wikipedia Do you know what’s been written about your brand (or your competitors) on Wikipedia? I you’re not in Wikipedia, write a mock version o your own

www.wikipedia.org


The Lowdown on LinkedIn What

exactly

is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site ounded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003 mainly used or proessional networking. As o February 2009, it had more than 35 million registered users, spanning 170 industries.

Finding a Job with LinkedIn

Building your best profile

2. GetLinkedIn GetLinkedInrecommendations recommendationsfrom fromyour yourcolleagues colleagues. A strong recommendation from your manager highlights your strengths and shows that you were a valued employee.

• Join LinkedIn and complete the overover view inormation • Complete employment and educaeducation history • Add a prole summary • Select an industry and add your spespecialties • Add your website(s) • Create Public Prole URL • Determine your Public Prole URL • Set your Contact Settings

Top Ten LinkedIn Profile Errors 1. Misspellings or nonstandard names prevent people from nding you. 2. Being aceless; a picture aids recall when you've met people ace-to-ace, and people with pictures ar more likely to be contacted. 3. Not using "Status Visibility," LinkedIn's internal version of Twitter, to keep your connections current on what's important to you today; based on what you're doing, they can reach out to help you. Better yet, connect to ping.m and use Twitter to update LinkedIn. 4. Not using the summary to show how you are qualied to do what you want to do; use the "experience" to support the summary.

• Upload your Contacts from your email client • Make introductions to connect via LinkedIn • Collect at least 3 recommendations rom your “network” • Give and you shall receive! • Regularly monitor the Q&A section or questions you are able to answer • Ask questions that can help you do your job.

Source: Christopher Rollyson, w ww.rollyson.ne ww.rollyson.net/ t/

have side businesses and activities. 6. Being careless with Recommendations. View them as a portfolio and use them to support the themes of your prole, so "set the table" when you ask or one. Ask the recommender what aspect o your work you would like him/her to comment on. 7. Missing the gold mine o LinkedIn Answers. These discussion orums can be included with the Prole and add signicant value because they enable people to see your expertise and proessionalism in context. 8. Few LinkedIn members participate in the Forums.

5. Not leveraging the "Specialties" area for keywords that are associated with the people you want to attract; these are bait, and you want LinkedIn members searching for these keywords to nd you.

9. Lack of strategy or purpose; the most eective proles have an organiz ing principle that supports a goal, which is the spine, and everything else branches o rom it.

6. Being araid to list multiple activities as "Positions" under "Experience." Although members have to make sure that concurrent activities could not be construed as conicts, employers increasingly understand that employees

10. Omitting personal interests. Boomers were taught that "work" was separate rom "home." No longer, so include your passions under "Additional Inormation" to enable people to connect with you that way, too.

Adapted from Guy Kawasaki and Liz Ryan

you’reelooking 1. Get the word out.Tellyournetworkthat you’r for a new position because a job search these days requires the “law of bi g numbers.”

3. Findout Findoutwhere wherepeople peoplewith withyour yourbackgrounds backgroundsar are e working. Find companies that employ people like you by doing an advanced search for people in your area who have your skills. 4. Findout Findoutwherepeopleatacompanycamefrom. LinkedIn “Company Profiles”show the career path of people before they began work there. 5. Findou Findouttwhere wherepeople peoplefrom froma acompany companygo gonext. next.LinkedIn’s“Company Profiles”also tell you where people go after leaving the company. 6. Check if a companyis still hiring.Company pages on LinkedIn include a section called “New Hires”that lists people who have recently joined the company. 7. Gettothehiringmanager manager..LinkedIn’sjobsearchengine allows you to search for any kind of job you want. However, when you view the results, pay close attention to the ones that you’re no more than two degrees away from. 8. Get to the right HR person.Thebestcaseisgettingto the hiring manager via someone who knows him or her Joblistings listingsrarely rarely 9. Findout Findoutthe thesecret job jobrequirements. requirements. Job spell out entirely or exactly what a hiring manager is seeking. Find a connection at the company who can get the inside scoop on what really matters for the job.

10. Find startups startups to join.MaybethisrecessionisGodtelling you it’s time to try a startup. 11. Buildyournetwork networkbefore beforeyouneedit.Asalasttip, no matter how the economy or your career is doing, having a strong network is a good form of job security.

The Lowdown Lowdown on LinkedIn LinkedI n A Baker’s Dozen Smart Ways Ways to Use LinkedIn www.marketingsavant.com www.marketingsavant .com 888.989.7771 [email protected]

MarketingSavant Marketing Savant:: Social Media Social Networking consulting, coaching and training by an awardwinning blogger and experienced online networker. Social Media marketing expert, Dana VanDen Heuvel, provides social networking consulting to professionals corporations, nonprofits and educational institutions. MarketingSavant will consult with you or your business on how it should blog, what to put on your LinkedIn or Facebook profiles, what other tools to use and how to best join the conversation in social media.

Contact us: www.marketingsavant.com 888-989-7771 [email protected]

Connect with us: LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin. com/in/danavandenheuvel Twitter: www.twitter.com/danavan Blog: www.marketingsavant.com Friendfeed: http://friendfeed.com/ danavan

Join our email newsletter: www.marketingsavant.com/ newsletter

Adapted rom Guy Kawasaki

Most people use LinkedIn to “get to someone” in order to make a sale, orm a part nership, or get a job. It works well or this because it is an online network o more than 35 million experienced proessionals rom around the world representing 170 industries. However, it is a tool that is underutilized, so here is a list of ways to increase the value of LinkedIn. 1. Increase your visibility. By adding connections, you increase the likelihood that people will see your prole rst when they’re searching for someone to hire or do busibusiness with. In addition to appearing at the top o search results. 2. Improve your connectability. Most new users put only their current company in their prole. By doing so, they severely limit their ability to connect with people. You should ll out your prole like it’s an executive bio, so include past companies, education, afliations, and activities. You can also include a link to your prole as part of an email signature. 3. Improve your Google PageRank. LinkedIn allows you to make your prole information available for search engines to index. Since LinkedIn proles receive a fairly high PageRank in Google, this is a good way to inuence what people see when they search for you. To do this, create a public prole and select “Full View.” Also, instead of using the default URL, customize your public prole’s prole’s URL to be your actual name. 4. Enhance your search engine results. In addition to your name, you can also promote your blog or website to search engines like Google and Yahoo! Your LinkedIn prole allows you to publicize websites. There are a few pre-selected categories like “My Website,” “My Company,” etc.To make this work, be sure your public prole setting is set to “Full View.” 5. Perform blind, “reverse,” and company reference checks. LinkedIn’s reerence check tool to input a company name and the years the person worked at the company to search or reerences. Your search will nd the people who worked at the company during the same time period. Since references provided by a candidate will generally be glowglowing, this is a good way to get more balanced data.

6. Increase the relevancy of your job search. Use LinkedIn’s advanced search to nd people with educational and work experience like yours to see where they work. 7. Make your interview go smoother. You can use LinkedIn to nd the people that you’re meeting. 8. Gauge the health of a company. Perorm an advanced search or company name and uncheck the “Current Companies Only” box. This will enable you to scrutinize the rate of turnover and whether key people are abandoning ship. 9. Gauge the health of an industry. If you’re thinking of investing or working in a sector, use LinkedIn to nd people who worked or competitors—or even better, companies who ailed. 10. Track startups. You can see people in your network who are initiating new startups by doing an advanced search or a range o keywords such as “stealth” or “new startup.” 11. Ask for advice. LinkedIn Answers , aims to enable this online. The product allows you to broadcast your business-related questions to both your network and the greater LinkedIn network. 12. Integrate into a new job. When people start a new job, ordinarily their roots aren’t that deep in the new company. However, However, with Linkedin, new employees can study ellow employees’ proles and therefore help them get to know more people aster in a new company. 13. Scope out the competition, customers, partners, etc. This seems like it’s a no-brainer, but you can use LinkedIn to scope out the competition’s team as well as the team o customers and par tners.


Facebook: Not just for college students What

exactly is

Facebook?

http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/02/14/facebook-surpasses-175-million-users-continuing-to-grow-by-600k-usersday/

Facebook is a free-access social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people.

Is Facebook Relevant for Business? Facebook Facebo ok recognizes that engaging with businesses and buying things are a part of everyday life. With that in mind, it has created a system where ads are more relevant and actually enhance, instead of interrupt, the user experience. This is achieved, in part, through a feature called the “News Feed,” which enables peer recommendations and activity to be subtly branded and spread from one person to all of his or her friends, to all of their friends, and so on. Dozens of organizations have also tapped Facebook Fan Pages, Groups and social ads. With Facebook’s array of options for businesses to connect with customers, it is quickly moving from a ‘nice to have’ to a ‘must have’ element in your business outreach strat egy.

Best Practices for Marketing in Facebook

How Big is Facebook?

• Assign a specific person to create and manage your company’s Facebook Page. It’s important to post new information, photos and videos regularly to keep it fresh.

• Facebook has 175,000,000 active users as of 2/14/09 • Facebook grows by well over 600,000 users per day • If Facebook were a country, it would now be the 6th most populous in the world.

Based on our experience and the experiences of organizations marketing in Facebook like Dell and conversation conversationss with small- and medium-size business owners, we’ve identified several best practices for using Faceboo Facebook, k, such as:

• Respond to messages and questions left on your Page’s discussion board and “Wall” within 24 hours. • Post all of your events, videos and relevant photos to Facebook. Facebook. Consistent activity and active shar ing are critical to Facebook success.

• 45% of Facebook’s US audience is now 26 years old or older.

• Don’t fall victim to the mentality: “If I build it, they will come.” It’s important to develop a strategy to attract fans, which may involve both paid and unpaid approaches.

• The fastest growing segment in the US: Women over 55, up 175.3% in the last 120 days.

• Promote your Facebook Page outside of Facebook to attract more fans. This can be as simple as add ing a line to your current marketing or PR materials, such as “Find us on Facebook to learn more.” Be sure to review Facebook’s guidelines for external promotion. Facebook also offers a “Share” button that you can add to your Web site to make it easier for your content to be shared on Facebook.

• Facebook Facebook growing faster with women than men in almost ever y age group.

• Don’t think of Face Facebook book as a marketing channel to push company messages. Think Think of it as a com munity where you can participate and add genuine value.

Facebook: Not just for college students www.marketingsavant www. .com marketingsavant.com 888.989.7771 [email protected]

MarketingSavant MarketingSavant Social Networking Social Networking consulting, coaching and training by an award-winning blogger and experienced online networker. Social Media marketing expert, Dana VanDen Heuvel, provides social networking consulting to professionals corporations, nonprofits and educational institutions. MarketingSavant will consult with you or your business on how it should blog, what to put on your LinkedIn or Facebook profiles, what other tools to use and how to best join the conversation in social media.


Connect with us: LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin. com/in/danavandenheuvel Twitter: www.twitter.com/danavan Blog: www.marketingsavant.com Friendfeed: http://friendfeed. com/danavan


24 Ways to Market You, Your Company or Your Cause in Facebook Source:www.insidefacebook.com

Facebook oers many ways to get the word out and bring the people in. Here’s how to get started.

I. Tools for Guerilla Marketers 1. Prole Page 2. Groups 3. Pages 4. Events 5. Notes and Photos 6. Messages 7. Marketplace 8. Share / Posted Items 9. Networks 10. Mini Feed and News Feed

Kavarna, the coee house on Broadway, has built a substantial follow ing in Facebook and uses the platform to dialogue with fans and alert regulars about new events and musical acts.

e l p m a x E k o o b e c a F l a c o l

II. Tools for Advertisers 11. Social Ads 12. Integrated Opportunities 13. Beacon 14. Polls 15. Facebook Platform Ad Networks 16. Facebook Platform Application Sponsorships 17. Sponsored Facebook Groups

III. Tools for Application Developers 18. Prole Box 19. Mini Feed 20. News Feed 21. Invitations 22. Facebook Notications 23. Email Notications

The Top Five Things You Need to Do in Facebook 1. Use a current profle picture: A clear, well-lit picture of you will help you to put your best foot forward. 2. Invite Your Actual Friends (and Family): Family):It's It's true the 'weak ties' are often the most valuable. It pays to stay connected! 3. Don't just add random riends: Trust me, it's not all about the friend count. 4. Keep your status current: Use a service like ping.fm to update Twitter and LinkedIn while you're at it. 5. Make sure to use the privacy settings : Facebook allows you to control who sees what. Put limitations on who is, and who is not, able to view dierent parts of your prole.


How blogs can help to build your business What is a Blog? A blog is simply a website. A blog can be private, as in most

How big is blogging?

cases, or it can be or business purposes. Blogs, either used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a

The numbers vary but all agree that blogs are here to stay: ◆ Blogs: 77.7 million unique visitors in the US ◆ Facebook: 41.0 million | MySpace 75.1 million ◆ 94.1 million US blog readers in 2007 (50% of Internet users) ◆ 184 million WW have started a blog | 26.4 US ◆ 77% of active Internet users read blogs

corporation or externally or marketing, branding or public relations purposes are called corporate blogs.

Rules of the Road for Blogging:

Questions to Ask About Blogging:

Blog Rule #1: Strategic blog management begins with setting clear objectives. In other words, why does your organization want to blog?

1) Who in our community do we most want to engage in reading and commenting on a blog? Are they online?

Blog Rule #2: Business blogs are not necessary or appropriate or every organization. Evaluate the benets and assess the risks beore leaping into the blogosphere. Blog Rule #3: Savvy business owners and executives must learn how to strategically and successully manage the blogosphere today—or risk potentially unpleasant and expensive consequences tomorrow. Blog Rule #4: It’s the casual, conversational, anything-goes nature o the blog that makes it both so appealing to blog writers and readers—and so potentially dangerous to business.

2) What kind o community conversation do we most want to have or is most needed in our community e.g., theme, tone, style? 3) What kind o inormation or ideas would our community most likely coalesce around and engage in thinking about and talking about online? 4) What are we already actively learning about that we could also blog about that would expand the possibilities or connections and wider learning? 5) Who else do we know is blogging on our topic that we could connect with and crosspost ideas, insights and inormation? 6) Who has time and interest in taking the lead or our blog? E.g., reading, writing, recruiting authors, coordinating, etc.

Blog Rule #5 : An organization without an external blog program may risk losing position, market share, reputation, and sales to techsavvy competitors who have already recognized—and tapped into—the power o the blogosphere.

7) Who could I/we recruit to initially read and respond with eedback to our blog as we get started?

Blog Rule #6: The blog is an electronic communications powerhouse that is likely to have greater impact on business communications and corporate reputations than e-mail, instant messaging, and traditional marketing-oriented websites combined.

9) What is our intention and purpose in hosting a blog conversation in our community?

8) In what ways can we rethink what we do everyday to make blogging a thread in what we do rather than a sticky note (add on)?

to get started 10) Given your responses and provided you are ready to -- what will you title your blog?

The making of a successful blog Authentic voice is essential Transparency ◆ Write to inform, not to sell ◆ Full Disclosure ◆ Content is king ◆ Creative writing is key ◆ Frequent updates attract following Content-appropriateness opriateness can become issue ◆ Content-appr ◆ Monitoring is important ◆ Linked to strategic objectives or goals ◆ ◆

How much time/money does this take? Most businesses can implement a blog for very little money; however, the best blogs that generate leads and revenue are launched in con junction with professional help and can cost a few hundred to several thousand dollars.

How blogs can help to build your business www.marketingsavant www. marketingsavant.com .com 888.989.7771 [email protected]

MarketingSavant Marketing Savant:: Blogging Services

Promoting your blog ◆

Blog consulting and coaching by an awardwinning blogger Award-winning blogger and internet marketing expert, Dana VanDen Heuvel, provides business blog consulting to corporations, non-profits and education. MarketingSavant will consult with your business on how it should blog, what tools to use and how to best join what is commonly known as “the blogosphere”. Blog consulting services include: 

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Blog setup, training and coaching to ensure that your blogging efforts are successful and profitable. Helping your company understand its target audience and what information should and should not be included on your company blog. On-call to answer any of your blogging questions. What What is RSS? How do I attract the attention of A-list bloggers? How do I control comment spam? Show you ways to increase readership, attract the attention of journalists, improve improve search engine traffic and get your message across to your audience.


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Comments – Use other blogs to leave a ootprint back to your own blog. Quality on-topic and knowledgeable comments will engage readers to enquire more on t he writer. I a post on another blog inspires you to a particularly long comment, eel ree to post a related piece on your own blog, citing the blog that inspired your post. Build a “blogroll” linking to other bloggers in your industry

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Use traditional printed media – letter heads, business cards, etc

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What about negativity? In blogging, you need to Take Take the Good with the Bad. It is likely that negative comments will be made about your company or its products at some point. This could occur on that company’s blog or on another. It is important to address these dissenting opinions tactully. Don’t suppress negative comments. Rather, use the blog to engage detractors in conversation and determine i there is an opportunity to improve your product. Customers will appreciate the openness and willingness to listen, especially those within the blogosphere.

Trackbacks - Linking to other blogs gives you a trackback on many in their comments. Blog directories – Use them, get your blog listed in the right places

Join our email newsletter: www.marketingsavant.com/newsletter

Where possible, participate and become a welcome part o those conversations.

◆

Connect with us: LinkedIn: http://www.linked http://www.linkedin.com/in/danain.com/in/danavandenheuvel T witter: www.twitter. www.twitter.com/danavan com/danavan Blog: www.marketingsava www.marketingsavant.com nt.com Friendfeed: http://friendfeed http://friendfeed.com/danavan .com/danavan

Look at other industry blogs; see how they are engaging their readers. See what response they are receiving.

Import the RSS Feed into your social network proles such as Facebook Linking and eeds rom primary site Using newsletters, promote engagement rom newsletters Ofer articles to other blogs, your articles would eature a link back to your own blog Blog as yoursel separately and link this to your work blog. Send personal emails to any notable commenter to thank them and engage them urther to bring them back. Mention your blog in E-mail ooters and signatures

Tools to Use Blogging Tools: www.wordpress.com www.sixapart.com ◆ www.blogger.com ◆ ◆

Blog Monitoring: Sign up or an RSS reader account at www.google. com/reader Google Alerts: www.google.com/alerts ◆ Twitter: www.summize.com ◆ Technorati Blog Search: www.technorati.com ◆


Search Engine Marketing The Purpose of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice o designing a website to enhance its chances o being ranked highly when a person uses a search engine to nd related content. The handout will give you what you need to know about the undamentals o SEO and provide tactics to improve you website’s ranking in the listings o natural (unpaid) search results returned by the many popular search engines. Source: Bruce Clay -www.bruceclay.com/web_rank.htm]

Google is at the center of the th e search universe Although many search engines are available, Google dominates the industry landscape with a 63 percent share o all searches as o January 2009. Given the Google-centric nature nature o search today, this handout ocuses primarily on techniques or optimizing a website or Google. Source: UWEBC

Monitoring Search Engine Marketing Success For most businesses, it’s as simple as “is our website making the phone ring?” However, there are a number o elements that you should track to ensure that your website and thus your search engine marketing strategy are eective. Page Views (by Hour, Day, Week, Month and Year) Unique Visitors (by Hour, Day, Week, Week, Month and Year) ◆ Trafc Origination ◆ Keywords Used by Search Engine ◆ Frequented Pages ◆ Visitor Inormation (Including Web Browser, Operating System, Country and Language) ◆ Trafc by Time o Day ◆ Navigation Paths ◆ Dened Events (Orders, Registrations, Password Changes, Your Custom Event) ◆ ◆

How Much Time and Money Does This Take? Search engine marketing, optimization and advertising can take a great deal o time and a air amount o money (campaigns start in the hundreds, search proessionals can cost a ew to several thousand) and large organizations spend millions on the search engine marketing budgets. Nevertheless, search engine marketing delivers an acceptable rate o return in most companies.

Search Engine Dos Have quality text content (150 words a the bare minimum, 250+ is better) ◆ Have quality links to support placement ◆ Use tools to identify best metatags for each marketable page of the web site. ◆ Unique Meta Title, Description and Keywords for all marketable web site pages. ◆ Have anchor text links that support your title tags. ◆ Have your programmer use H1, H2, H3 … tags appropriately ◆ Have a Site Map or at least a link from each page to every other page of the site ◆

Search Engine Don’t Don’tss Frame a site Be part of a link farm ◆ Don’t over “stuff” your keywords in your text ◆ Don’t over populate your Metas (title, description, keywords, etc.) ◆ Don’t use hidden or slightly off color text to fool the search engines. ◆ Don’t search engine market more than 1 URL to your web site. ◆ Don’t provide more than 100 links on any one page. ◆ Don’t create a web site that replaces text with FLASH imagery. ◆ Don’t use a splash entry page – but if you ABSOLUTELY MUST and can’t live without one, don’t create it without using additional text on the splash page for the s earch engines to use to index the page. ◆ ◆

Search Engine Marketing www.marketingsavant.com www.marketingsavant .com 888.989.7771 [email protected]

MarketingSavant Marketing Savant:: SEO Services Internet marketing consulting and coaching by an award-winning blogger and experienced marketer Internet marketing veteran, Dana VanDen Heuvel, provides internet marketing assistance to corporations, non-profits and educational institutions. MarketingSavant will consult with your business on how it should market itself on the internet, what tools to use and how to make the most of the internet for your business.


Connect with us: LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danavandenheuvel Twitter: ww w.twitter.com/d w.twitter.com/danavan anavan Blog: www.marketingsavant.com Friendfeed: http://friendfeed.com/danavan

Join our email newsletter: www.marketingsavant.com/newsletter

Free Search Engine Marketing Tools http://www.marketleap.com http://toolbar.google.com http://tools.seobook.com/ http://www.webcons.com/ http://www.google.com/webmasters/ http://www.bruceclay.com/web_rank. htm http://www.selseo.com/ https://adwords.google.com/select/ KeywordToolExternal http://www.google.com/analytics http://www.the-escape.co.uk/tools/

Best Practices for Search Engine Marketing It all comes down to descripons & keywords Descriptions Descriptio ns (Maximum limit 255 characters) When you search or a website in a search engines, a list o web page titles will appear with descriptions ollowing them. The description gives searchers an idea o what your page is about. Having keywords in your description is critical; some search engines will only use a site’s title and description in its ranking criteria.

Sites will be ranked higher i the keywords appear in the description. • Form a brief sentence using as many keywords as possible. For example: “Manufacturer of keyword, keyword, keyword…” “Specializing in keyword, keyword, keyword…” • DO NOT use your company name, phone number or founding date in the description. • Avoid using slogans, catch phrases and persuasive adjectives. • Character counts include spaces & punctuation. Keep descriptions under 255 characters. • To keep track of character counts, type descriptions in Microsoft Word. (Go to to Tools > Word Count. “Characters “Characters (with spaces)” is the accurate count.)

Keywords (Maximum limit 30 keywords per page) Keywords tell search engines about the content o your page. Search engines will look at the keywords listed in your Meta Tags and compare them to the text ound on the page. I a keyword is not ound in the text o your page, it is unlikely you will be ound or that keyword. While most major search engines no longer use keywords in their ranking criteria, they are still used by us to place your website in appropriate categories within directories. • Look at the text on your web pages. Good keywords appear in the text of a site. Start with the words your site contains when you develop your keyword list. • Keywords can be “key phrases” as well. If using a phrase as a keyword (like “internet marketing”), 3 or less words per phrase is preerred. • DO NOT repeat a word more than 8 times! For example, a company that sells 20 types o “oils” can list the keywords as “oils, motor, lubricating, marine...” A search engine can then combine the words “marine” and “oils” “oils” to make the phrase “marine oils.” • Do not in clude competitor’s names and products in your list. General terms are acceptable acceptable (soda), but avoid registered product names (Pepsi) unless your company is authorized to use such terms. Proper names may be incl uded, though capitalization is not necessar y. • List the keywords in order of importance. Many search engines only read through a limited number o words on your pages. • Search engines do treat singular and plural forms of a word as separate instances. You may list both orms, but remember to not repeat a word more than 8 times! • You may list commonly misspelled product or company names in your keywords list. For example, “Klein” can be misspelled as “Klien” or “Kline.”

The Beginner's Checklist for SEO Adapted rom www.seomoz.com

Research Many people believe this is the most important step in the SEO process. No skipping! • Write down your goal • Brainstorm - What words might people use to look for your company • Use Google Adwords and learn how to use the “keyword tool” to research research your chosen keywords • Using what you learned, record what you believe to be the best keywords • Analyze the current Search Engine Resul ts Pages (SERPs) for your keywords • Create a list of your competition • Use Yahoo Site Explorer to nd the sources of your competitor's links Onsite • Sign up and verify with Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, and Live Search Webmaster Center • Let Google Analytics run for two weeks before doing any SEO • Evaluate the visual design of your site • Check compatibility between browsers • Optimize all of the SEO related tags - Here are a few things to keep in mind: - Keyword in title tag (unique or each page, include keywords), keyword in text, optimize URL architecture, include keywords in alt tags and in lenames or images, Decide i you need a meta description • Add company address and phone number Ofsite • Add your business and website to the major search engine's local listings: -Yahoo Local, Google Local, Live Local, CitySearch, Yelp • Add your website to industry specic directories • Try to get the links your competition already has gotten • Get more links - A good place to start is to use the Juicy Link Finder. You should also consider your local chamber o commerce, local networking groups, and local complimentary businesses. • Decide if utilizing social media sites is advantageous • Create and submit sitemaps. • Optimize your site from Google's side - Use Google’s Webmaster Tools. Tools. Track and Improve • Track progress • Create and maintain a spreadsheet of your rankings • Continue to make changes, build links, and record your results


Digital Marketing 101 What do we mean by Digital Marketing? Digital marketing goes beyond the Internet. Digital Marketing is the practice o promoting products and services using digital distribution channels to reach consumers in a timely, relevant, personal and cost-eective manner. Whilst digital marketing does include many o the techniques and practices contained within the category o Internet Marketing, it extends beyond this by including other channels with which to reach people that do not require the use o The Internet. The eld o digital marketing includes a whole host o elements such as mobile phones, sms/ mms, display / banner ads and digital outdoor advertising.

The digital marketing universe is made up of dozens of possible marketing tools.

Digital Digit al marketing 101 www.marketingsavant.com www.marketingsavant .com 888.989.7771 [email protected]

MarketingSavant Marketing Savant Digital Marketing Social media consulting and coaching by an award-winning blogger. Award-winning blogger and internet marketing expert, Dana VanDen Heuvel, provides social media education and consulting to corporations, non-profits and educational institutions. Our training and content consulting services are the product of more than five years years of intensive study, training, writing and practice in the area of social and new media. MarketingSavant can save you months of learning and prepare you to enter the global online conversation with a strategy, and voice that stands out from your competitors. Our training and custom consulting services address these key business priorities: 1. Understanding social media’s growing importance in the changing media landscape; 2. Tools and tactics for tracking online conversations; 3. Turning online feedback into actionable information; 4. Overcoming internal obstacles to social media initiatives; 5. Selecting tools and metrics to match business objectives; and 6. Building and sustaining effective online communities. Services begin with the strategic education phase and proceed through strategy and implementation.



Why Companies Like Yours Use Digital & Internet Marketing For most organizations, a variety o ac tors make digital a dierent sort o media challenge or brands: 1) Media ragmentation has splintered audiences and dramatically increased the complexity o eectively reaching most audiences.

6) “User generated content” and “citizen journalism” have driven a massive shit in how we receive inormation about products and services, and what sorts o ino we trust.

2) The two-way nature o IP-based media (Internet, Mobile, etc.) necessitate that brands stop think as broadcasters and adopt a more collaborative and consultative approach to brand development.

7) Increasingly, people preer grass roots sources o inormation and recommendations to the so-called proessional sources o mainstream media outlets. 8) From a practical standpoint, many brands are seeing diminishing eectiveness rom traditional “analog” media. media.

3) Practically everyone is using digital media. 194 million US consumers are using the Internet. Most o these Example Questions consumers are spending Stage large amounts o their What is the digital usage prole o our customers? What is the most productive digital segmentation approach? time with digital media. ◆ ◆

What is the state o the discussion about the brand in digital media? ◆ What are the digital marketing goals o key stakeholders in the organization? ◆ How eective are current digital marketing eorts, i any? ◆ In what sort o digital activities are key competitors engaged? ◆ What are category digital "best practices" ◆

4) Digital media are playing an increasingly large role in all purchase decisions.

Key Learnings

5) Certain target audiences are becoming increasingly difcult to reach WITHOUT digital. For example, Men 18-24 now spend so much time gaming, online, and with their mobile phones that it is increasingly dicult to eectively deliver against this target without digital vehicles.

Objectives

What overall brand objectives is it reasonable to expect digital to impact? ◆ What will be the priority brand business objectives or digital marketing in the next year? ◆

What digital tools and approaches align with the agreed to objectives? Are there strategies that can address more than one objective? ◆ Taken as a whole, do the drat strategies address ALL o the objectives outlined in the process? ◆

Strategies

◆

Taking into consideration the strategies outlined in the previous stage, what are the reasonable tactics that can help deliver against those strategies? ◆ What planning costs can we assume with each tactic? ◆ What is the expected result o the tactic in measurable, accountable terms? ◆ What is the level o certainty that a particular tactic will work? ◆ What is the Return/Cost ration o each tactic, taking into account its likelihood o success? ◆ Based upon this analysis, what are the recommended tactics, results and contingencies that make sense or this planning cycle? ◆

Tactics

American Marketing Association Social Media Toolkit

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