10 Internet Marketing Strategies For Stellar Results

Business Growth Internet marketing is a huge industry and more and more people are jumping on the bandwagon. However, with our top Internet Marketing Techniques youll be one step ahead of the crowd. 1. Optimise your website. By employing on-site search engine optimisation (SEO) practices, you can tweak your website to appear more valuable to search engines such as Google. This can bring in valuable traffic which will convert to sales and profits. 2. Obtain links. Getting links in to your website will help your SEO efforts. Its perfectly alright to email website owners asking for a backlink but you may need to come up with some more inventive ways of doing it. Fortunately, weve got a few tricks up our sleeves 3. Comment on blogs. Many blogging platforms allow visitors to leave comments which can often contain keyword-rich links in the form of URLs and names. However, some blogs use the nofollow attribute on links which will render any link credit null and avoid, so these types of links are best avoided. 4. Forum postings. Forum postings can be valuable for the same reason as blog comments. Some forum software passes link credit through signature links whilst others only pass credit through post body text links. However, build up a decent post count first or your links could be seen as spam. 5. Tweet it. Twitter is a great social media tool and is ideal for marketing your product to potential new customers. Dont just set up a bland company account, though, because no-one will be interested. Make it fun and interesting. Try running competitions or viral events. 6. Facebook it. Its easy to create a Facebook page and Facebook is another very handy social marketing tool. By becoming a fan of your page, users can share it with their friends. If you run competitions or events through your page, youre sure to have potential customers flooding in. 7. Put a link in your email signature. This is by far the easiest method to implement and can actually be pretty effective, so what have you got to lose? Put a link to your website or product in your email signature and there may well be a potentially valuable customer reading your very next email 8. Use email marketing software. Email marketing software can be used to find new customers and market your products and services to them. You can also keep in touch with existing customers in order to promote your latest offers and discounts. 9. Google AdWords. Googles pay per click advertising engine can bring in some valuable business. As the name suggests, you pay each time a customer clicks on your advert and arrives at your website so you dont pay out money with no potential returns.

10. Keep it natural. Dont overdo your internet marketing efforts. With SEO and Twitter, in particular, too much activity can actually be prohibitive. Overdo the SEO and Google is likely to have something to say about it if it doesnt ban you first! With these Internet Marketing Techniques at your fingertips, internet marketing success is only a small amount of effort away.

7 ways to make SMO work in the postGoogle age

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Unlike SEO, which uses algorithms to rank top search results, SMO uses the will of the audience to determine what's important The core measurements of SEO are obscured by the fact that Google reveals scant details of quality and page rank, but SMO strategies are completely measurable. An effective SMO strategy doesn't just sit and hope Facebook and Twitter start coalescing the greatness of your website. Instead, it's up to savvy publishers to get the party started

The days of search engine optimization (SEO) as a critical audience-driving strategy for digital publishers are numbered. Forward-looking marketers need to educate themselves about a far more meaningful and effective way of bringing audiences to media destinations -- social media optimization (SMO.) Unlike SEO, which uses algorithms to rank top search results, SMO uses the will of the audience to determine what's important. More significantly, SMO puts a digital face on every member of the audience. Unlike SEO, it differentiates and distinguishes individuals, making sense of their specific content wants and needs. There are no false, fruitless, or futile searches that approximate what people are seeking. Fueled by the passionate participation of real people articulating real interests, it eliminates the fuzzy proxy of an algorithm as middleman. The good news for publishers is that the editorial product is back on top above the technology, as content words replace keywords in importance. The dramatic shift in web navigation as the social network replaces the search engine as the start page translates into the average web user spending almost three times as much time on Facebook than Google. (For those ages 12-24, it's more than four times!) Reengineering your approach to distribution for the social web is more critical than ever before. With that said, here are the seven most important elements of an effective SMO program for any premier publisher. Know precisely what the audience wants The idea of SEO was based on appealing to search engines -- if you compel Google's attention, then Google will bring you more audience. But we are now entering the post-Google age of digital media, and in this social age, the new formula is that if you compel your target's attention, those individuals will bring you more audience. Whereas, Google played an arrogant and reigning monarch, Facebook is a representative democracy -- it listens to the audience and amplifies what it hears. The first step is winning the attention of the audience and knowing what it wants, not just in the abstract. The key question is, what do they want from you (i.e. what is your brand good for, in their opinion), and when and how do they want it?

Fortunately, this data is abundant. You can find it in your analytics system, in customer research, in your competitors' wins, and at any time of day on Twitter. The trick is to make use of that data to find insight. Knowing what the audience wants means asking and observing them and then marrying those observations with creative vision. When we started our company, we asked the audience about the shortcomings of their TV viewing experience, and we found out that there was an opportunity to extend the relationship with their favorite shows by completing it with more gossip, news, photos, recaps, and other content connectors. So that is the content we produce. Then, we track what gets consumed when and by whom. We found that our users watch longer videos disproportionately in the evening, so we gear our programming to deliver those videos after the work-day ends. Ask the audience often; it gives you need-to-know answers, and gets people immediately engaged in the conversation. Build your fanbase I can guarantee that the tactics of SMO will change over time, in much the same way that social media will change drastically. But today, Facebook and Twitter are the two significant social media distributors -Facebook is analogous to the retail side of the media economy, serving consumers directly, while Twitter drives media distribution behind the scenes on a wholesale basis. Together, these two make up the vast majority of the media distribution landscape. An effective SMO strategy doesn't just sit and hope Facebook and Twitter start coalescing the greatness of your website by telekinesis. Instead, it's up to savvy publishers to get the party started. Set up a marketing drive to bring your fans to your fan page. Use Facebook's advertising platform to help make potential fans aware of you. And, above all, build a base of influencers to a size that approaches critical mass, so that you are fully connected within the social network from the beginning, rather than sitting outside just looking in. Create content worth spreading Once you know what your audience wants, and you have a fanbase to appeal to, now comes the part that premier publishers are good at. But in the post-Google age, designing for pass-along is much more than just designing for consumption. In fact, the practices that help publishers succeed in SEO are deadly in this era of SMO. Stuff a page full of keywords from the "long tail," match the URL to the "head" keywords, and keep the content readable by Google (careful with Flash and JavaScript technologies that are used to make compelling user experiences!), and you will find a boring website that falls flat on your users and pays negative returns in social distribution. Instead, the way to put the social wind at your back is to publish content that is worthy of being shared -and to wrap it in experiences that your users can't wait to share with their friends -- with pride -- which is the emotional fuel that powers the Like button. With your audience as the judge, it's all about the quality of what you share with people. I can't think of anyone who has surrounded this idea more than the organizers of TED. With an iconic focus throughout its entire organization and community on "ideas worth spreading," TED has created an influential community of audience and participants by focusing on incredible -- world-changing -- ideas and experiences. And in the process, it has built an audience of mind-blowing quality and quantity, with a top-1,000 website by the numbers, and even greater elite status if you factor in impact

5 ways social media will change your marketing plan

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Campaign ideas will be deconstructed into smaller, more digestible messages Applications will continue to adapt to user behavior, leading to hyper-personalization User-generated content will influence marketing strategy

Reputation and relationship management skills are foundational to architecting an effective customer development strategy for both B2B and B2C enterprises; this will be acutely true in 2011. No longer just the responsibility of a community manager, social communication will be integrated into service and support experiences, product, point of sale, and commerce solutions. Because official spokespeople are no longer the sole purveyors of your company's message, social channels can be counted on to accelerate and amplify the conversation between customers and brands. Look for the following trends to drive changes to integrated marketing plans in the year ahead: 1.Status updates, videos, tweets, infographics, and other social objects gain importance as recurring elements of the cross-channel marketing mix. Pressure to monetize microblogging spawns micro-marketing, demanding discipline to deconstruct big campaign ideas into smaller, digestible messages. The increasing adoption of smartphones -- Nielsen reports 30 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers own one -- will continue to drive more accesses that will, on average, occur for shorter duration. "Content snacking" will force a change to the format and cadence of outbound marketing communication. As a result, social media dashboards will become as ubiquitous as website analytics tools to track the distribution of social objects as well as the frequency, content, and amplitude of conversational messages.
Stay informed. For more insights into the latest trends in emerging marketing technologies, attend the iMedia Breakthrough Summit, March 20-23. Request your invitation today.

2. Conversational platforms define brands by generating more transparent moments of truth that drive loyalty and promote advocacy. Last year, nothing illustrated this point better than BP's handling of its real-time updates on Twitter, which Newsweek called "tone deaf." Real-time content streams continue to challenge brands to keep up with online conversations, driving marketers to regularly align to potential customers' definition of relevancy. With more than one-third of Americans on social networking sites, and one-quarter of online mobile owners now logging onto the mobile internet, the court of public opinion is a 24/7 operation. Reputation management is no longer simply about crisis management. 3. Hyper-personalization becomes the most effective way to discover content on connected devices. The myriad of sources, formats, and access points for content (broadcast, user-generated, streamed, downloaded, local, and cloud-based) has inexorably changed the consumption experience on new device platforms, impacting the flow of traffic to -- and the monetization of -- destination websites. Applications will continue to adapt to user behavior, making the apps more relevant and useful. While hyperpersonalized content creates new targeting and segmentation opportunities for marketers, not all of them will be of equivalent value. 4. Social platforms, with their embedded trust and admiration networks, displace search sites and portals as discovery engines for relevant content.

User-generated content increasingly appears in the gap between a brand's premise and whether it keeps its promise, changing the definition of relevancy in search engine result pages. The fact that anyone can publish on the internet amplifies marketers' needs to measure their performance in influential communities of interest. While Google properties, including YouTube, drive approximately 88 billion searches per month, Twitter has moved in to second place with 19 million searches conducted per month -- more than Yahoo and Bing combined. Although Facebook lags behind all of the other platforms for onsite searches, it still represents a healthy 647 million searches in the U.S. alone. 5. The web retains its role as a decision engine, and communities of interest are at the heart of the action. While this appears contrary to the belief that the world is now all about apps and, therefore, the web is dead, the fact remains that websites can be published without requiring an understanding of even basic HTML. This has changed our understanding of what a website is. Is a YouTube channel with a million subscribers a website? Is my profile, my Twitter timeline, or Facebook news feed a website? @Raywj has more than 270,000 Twitter followers and more than 2.5 million YouTube subscribers to his channel, but he doesn't have a "business email" because he doesn't "take business offers." YouTube beauty vlogger @juicystar007 has 165,000 followers and a half a million subscribers to her shopping videos and beauty tips. New media influencers are emerging from every corner of the internet and aggregating audiences around a variety of platforms and niche topics to express their unique points of view

Getting past social media paralysis

ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS:

Automated sentiment analysis and geo-location influence have been notoriously inaccurate Off-the-shelf tools often provide an overwhelming quantity of features but little business insight Existing automated sentiment solutions yield 60 percent accuracy at best, despite vendor claims to the contrary

During the past few years, many organizations experimented with social media -- driven and informed by social listening -- in an ad hoc fashion or via sponsorship from a particular business unit. The most commonly stated goal was to "test and learn," often beginning with basic social monitoring to follow the common mantra to "listen first." All too often, however, it was unclear what exactly they were listening for, and what they hoped to learn. As a result, for too many leaders, especially within the C-suite, social listening and media has remained largely an abstraction. Expectations were unclear, use cases were limited, monitoring tools had significant shortcomings, and ROI was cast as an impossible exercise.
Stay informed. For more insights into the latest digital marketing opportunities and challenges, attend the iMedia Brand Summit, March 6-9. Request your invitation today.

Most of these "monitoring" solutions resemble Google Alerts on steroids. Specifically, one of them identified several keyword phrases that might return relevant conversation, and the system returned all of the conversations that match, in charts, tables, and some verbatim conversations showing volume, venues and authors, basic influence, and (in some cases) automated sentiment. Although useful, the use of such approaches has led to some significant challenges and has been largely unable to answer key business questions or scale to the enterprise. Ironically, this type of monitoring has in many ways actually stymied social's growth. Beyond having to learn how to create advanced queries and dedicate significant resources to wade through the data, these solutions often resulted in significantly

false conclusions. For example, brand names that are commonly used words can lead to misleading volume scores; listening tools that rely on popularity-driven algorithms can miss niche influencers who would rank low in the volume scoring; and automated sentiment scoring can miss the subtleties of human conversation. These solutions also failed to provide the level of intelligence required to fulfill internal requirements beyond the question of "What are people saying about me now?" Such experimentation is the natural experience with any new media form, but with a new year comes a new set of challenges and opportunities -- specifically how to evolve from ad hoc experimentation to effectively scale social intelligence and media across the enterprise for competitive advantage. At Converseon, we believe 2011 is destined to be a tipping point of accelerated business "socialization" driven by the next generation of social intelligence that drives real-time insight across the organization. Among industry leaders, these solutions of yesterday are rapidly segueing to deeper, more advanced intelligence and analytics to help harness the value of social across the enterprise. In short, we believe 2011 is the year experimentation ends and social finally grows up. But to evolve, it is critical that brands understand the shortcomings and challenges that have stymied them from effectively scaling social intelligence to drive real business results and evolve and adapt new approaches for more rigorous and mature requirements. These shortcomings include: 1. Insufficient analytics: Automated sentiment analysis and geo-location influence have been notoriously inaccurate. 2. One size fits all: Off-the-shelf tools often provide an overwhelming quantity of features but little business insight. 3. Unreliable sentiment: Existing automated sentiment solutions yield 60 percent accuracy at best, despite vendor claims to the contrary. Automated solutions are also incapable of effectively understanding sarcasm and slang. Buyer beware of claims of higher accuracy often include coding of only the most obvious, leaving the vast majority of the conversation in a "neutral" or unanalyzed category. 4. Missing data coverage: Most solutions have very limited data coverage. For example, the Twitter API provides only between 5-15 percent of total Twitter conversation. Only Twitter Firehose partners have full data coverage. 5. Generic metrics: Off-the-shelf listening platforms are not tailored to specific industries or business models and apply the same metrics to all organizations. 6. Isolated data: Inability to integrate enterprise-internal data, such as web analytics, means companies have a lot of work to do if they want to understand how social media behaviors relate to behaviors on their e-commerce properties. 7. Functional silos: A few people see the data, but most of them either never have access to it, or they're not sure how to use it to support business decisions. 8. Lack of standards: Every tool reports metrics based on its own methodology, so if two business units buy different listening tools, the metrics never match. 9. Questionable ethical approaches: Recently, major media organizations have raised questions about questionable approaches to social data gathering used by some social listening vendors, including monitoring within private communities without disclosure or permission. These practices make the vendor and the brand look bad. 10. Inadequate relevance: Depending on the category, brands are typically mentioned in 5-30 percent of the total conversations within the category. As a result, monitoring efforts that focus on branded keywords typically miss the majority of relevant conversations that are not necessarily brand-focused. 11. Stand-alone analytics: Listening solutions don't integrate social media activities and behaviors with web analytics and on-site behaviors.

12. Effective maturation of social intelligence in 2011 will require brands to transition from basic monitoring and ad hoc approaches to enterprise-level business enablement. It is now essential for brands to ask themselves: "How do I use this intelligence effectively across the enterprise to provide competitive advantage?" The following is some top-line advice derived from our nearly 10 years of social media consulting: 1. Think business outcome first: First start with business KPIs (key performance indicators) and configure listening solutions with the intelligence, flexibility, and workflow required to meet and support those objectives. We call this "listening with purpose." 2. Prioritize use cases: Where earlier approaches often focused on limited use cases (such as PR and customer care), 2.0 approaches are designed for the needs of many use cases such as R&D, campaign effectiveness, product lifecycle management, risk management, compliance, and more. Think enterprise. 3. Deepen intelligence and align with use cases: Ensure that the social intelligence solution you utilize has a high enough "IQ" to fulfill the use cases. For example, crisis management may only need some basic monitoring, but R&D and market research likely need granular and accurate sentiment and custom metrics. Social sciences -- cultural anthropology, sociology, linguistics, and more -- are applied to understand not just the explicit conversation, but also the implicit meaning.

How to hire an ideal community manager

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Your community manager should have a list of analytics providers across all media Awareness of the constant changes in regulation is a necessity Look for the intelligent use of content that comes with someone who reads and writes often

These days you can't enter a bar in Manhattan without running into a dozen or more community managers. It seems that everyone with a Twitter account and smartphone is anxious to get behind the wheel of your company's social media accounts. You've probably heard the title tossed around social media circles for awhile now, and are certain you need one to take your accounts from zero to 60, but what skills do you need in this team member? Who is actually qualified for this jack-of-all-trades role? Consider this your five-step program to finding the community manager of your dreams: Understanding branding Regardless of what social network your team member is handling, your brand message needs to be unified across all fronts. It's very important to find someone who stands behind your message and could recite your company mantra with his or her eyes closed and in their own words. Metrics and analytics fearless One day can be a lifetime in the cycle of social media metrics, which is why even big-name systems like Klout have made the decision to update user numbers every day. Your community manager should have a list of analytics providers across all media and a steady reporting system that can accurately deduce what you're good at, where you need work, and an idea of what the future could hold.

Stay informed. For more insights into the latest trends in emerging marketing technologies, attend the iMedia Breakthrough Summit, March 20-23. Request your invitation today.

Laws and standard practices knowledge When Facebook changed its contest rules and regulations earlier this year, many businesses were lost. What's allowed? What isn't allowed? Unfortunately for those of us trying to stay above the law, Facebook is known for changing its rules often. It's very important for the person in charge of spreading your content and managing contests to be aware of the constant changes in rules and regulation so you're never at fault. Basic production skills Because social media can be such a great marketing tool, many people make the mistake of hiring a marketer to be their social media voice, leaving the photo albums, microsites, and widgets to a separate producer. Imagine the time and effort saved in finding a community manager with a little technical prowess? You don't need to search for an engineer, but a little HTML or FBML goes a long way. Best use of content Ever read the Facebook page of your favorite brand and cringe at the inappropriate press releases posted with abandon? A really great feed should take into account the five Ws of journalism: who, what, where, when, and why. There are times when certain stories won't garnish the most influence, and an ear for news is extremely helpful when it's time to post. So who would make the absolute best community manager? The needs of every business are different, but have the same basic elements in common. Look for the intelligent use of content that comes with someone who reads and writes often. Look for someone who knows their way around the internet to the extent that they aren't afraid of numbers, graphs, and coding. And most importantly, look for the kind of passion that is the backbone of your business and stands behind your brand message.

The crucial differences between Facebook and Twitter

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Both Twitter and Facebook offer brands immediate access to consumers, making it possible to turn a bad customer experience into a good one Facebook encourages consumer feedback and sharing, while Twitter supplies immediate insight into what consumers are doing and thinking Brands that put forth the effort to moderate customer posts on Facebook and Twitter inevitably see positive results

The differences between a tweet and a Facebook status update are much broader than Twitter's 140character limit. Veteran community managers know that the content, context, and approach to these platforms are very different, and hinge upon an important distinction. On Facebook, the goal is user interaction, while on Twitter, it's all about brand evangelism, with retweets acting as the most valuable currency. While marketing goals for disparate social media platforms are similar -- mainly, engaging users to build brand visibility and loyalty -- the tactics brands cultivate to accomplish these goals should be specifically tailored to the platform. Bottom line: Don't treat Facebook as if it were Twitter, and vice versa. Before getting into the tactics you should use to get the most out of each social network, note that beyond interfaces and use cases, one of the biggest differences between Facebook and Twitter is sheer

adoption. Facebook's population is more than 500 million, while Twitter's hovers around 190 million. When trying to understand how to communicate with customers on each platform, be mindful of the fact that Facebook has been much more broadly adopted.
Stay informed. For more insights into the latest digital marketing opportunities and challenges, attend the iMedia Brand Summit, March 6-9. Request your invitation today.

Here are some tactics to leverage your community and make the most of each platform: Conversation vs. interaction Both Twitter and Facebook enable brands to learn about what people are saying, but the difference between the two platforms is in the direction of the message. On Facebook, a community manager can see direct reactions to specific pieces of content. Many retail and consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands already use Facebook to gather information and reactions to new products. When The Body Shop recently brought back its Cranberry Joy fragrance for the holiday season, the status update alerting its fans of this new product received many comments with a variety of feedback regarding the scent. To these brands, Facebook can serve as a platform for customer-guided research and development. Additionally, Facebook offers brands the opportunity to engage in a variety of ways beyond conversation: From custom applications to the ability to moderate a page, brands have access to more tools on Facebook. Meanwhile, the instant satisfaction of Twitter offers brands immediate insight into what customers are doing and thinking. Reactions on Twitter are often even less edited than on Facebook (where users frequently don't intend for the brand to see or respond to their tweets). The actions a user can take on tweets (@replies and retweets) are extraordinarily simple and easy to perform. Social media currency The end goal of posting Facebook status updates is to encourage interactions and engagement on that update and to push creative content using a variety of media that users can share with their friends. Facebook conversations offer marketers a unique opportunity to engage in market research and gain feedback about programs, products, and campaigns directly from users. Twitter measurement lies in the retweet, increasing awareness and leading to more quality followers. Conversations are not as easily traceable on Twitter, yet it's still important for them to take place. Twitter allows users to track conversations happening around a brand, even when these conversations aren't directed at the brand. Reaching out to brand talkers who engage in these conversations boosts awareness and provides a positive experience. Interacting with users, mutually following, @replying, and retweeting content that relates to the brand are essential to building a community on Twitter. Facebook's currency is, ultimately, the Like button. The more Likes a brand page has, the more engagement and potential reach it can obtain. By creating relevant content, users can then "like" the individual update, comment, and share it with their friends to increase the virility of each post. A social customer service experience Using Facebook and Twitter as a customer service and satisfaction line is becoming de-facto for brand marketers. Many people turn to these social networks to express their distaste or negative experience with a brand or company. If used appropriately, these networks offer brands an opportunity to turn a bad experience into a good experience and reach out -- on a personal level -- to a customer who might not have expected a response. Both Facebook and Twitter provide an opportunity for immediate and on-thelevel recovery or crisis management that other channels simply can't offer.

Some brands have shown a level of customer service excellence that all should strive for. Brand pages such as Toyota Prius have implemented specific customer service based tab applications in order to control and consolidate feedback in an easy-to-read manner. Other brand pages consistently reply to questions and comments that arise on their Facebook walls. Responding and interacting with comments posted on the brand page shows that the brand is listening and values the experiences of their customers. As a customer service channel, Twitter offers the ability to monitor and extinguish potential problems as quickly as they arise. Twitter often gives customers an unexpected opportunity to change their minds about a particular brand experience, despite the inability to delete other users' tweets. Virgin Airlines uses Twitter to alert passengers of flight delays and to handle any subsequent customer service issues. The network is used as an outlet to handle customer communications immediately and personally. Through Twitter, a brand can resolve problems, portray itself in a positive light, and correct any negative feedback it receives with user-desired immediacy. Social media and the enterprise Moderation is an iterative process with no set end date. It requires dedicated resources to handle the immediacy of some requests, and brands that put forth that effort inevitably see positive results. As more companies are infusing social into more enterprise functions, they're investing in tools that help streamline their efforts across different networks. A good brand, community manager, or a team of community managers will use these tools to help an organization appropriately target posts and messages to best leverage each platform's strengths. Understanding the respective strengths and weaknesses between Twitter and Facebook, and how consumers are using these social media tools, gives brands the ability to interact, engage, and gain loyal advocates. Knowledge of the medium is the first step toward engaging and building communities in the social space.

5 tips for avoiding social media pitfalls

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Solid client communication is key to tailoring an effective social media marketing campaign Less is more; quality posts establish client credibility Rich interactive media is useful only if you can maintain control of your message

You already know that the era of social media is here to stay and will continue to conquer the digital space. For marketers, social media has presented a unique opportunity for brand growth and expansion in a persistently gloomy economic environment. Marketing and PR campaigns rely on the latest and greatest social media monsters to produce highimpact results for their clients. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and most recently, Foursquare and Gowalla have carved a distinct path for marketers. That said, the social media marketing concept continues to evolve, and just as Mark Zuckerberg's character in the popular movie "The Social Network" suggests, "The party isn't over at 11." The only way to understand the power of social media is to harness it; that can be done if marketers understand not only its obvious strengths (immediacy, breadth, popularity), but also its major pitfalls.

So how do you identify pitfalls before it's too late? Below are some tips that can help you create solid social media strategies: Understand your clients' needs Let's face it -- when you are preoccupied with how to make two to three months of retainer just to keep your business alive, it's hard to really listen to what the client needs from you. It's important to listen and really think through your client strategy to decide whether social media is going to work for a given brand. Be honest in your approach and confident in the work you can produce. Do things right from the start Don't just haphazardly sign up your client on every single social network. Quality is far more important than quantity, and in my opinion, this is the No. 1 trap many marketers fall into at some point or another. Just because your client has 50,000 fans on Facebook and 10,000 Twitter followers doesn't necessarily mean the client's business goals are being reached. It's what you do with the social network that harvests results. Avoid posting updates for the sake of posting Establishing good client credibility online is hard work and requires consistency. If you can't post cool updates in a timely manner, then reconsider being part of that network, or simply hold off until your client is ready to participate in that network. There's far too much information out there for fans and followers to bother with silly or irrelevant content. Choose rich media wisely Ever post a video for a client that went viral and out of control? Did it create the wrong message? Viral gone wrong is a huge social media pitfall that can easily be avoided. While rich interactive media add to the quality of your social network, be mindful of who might see it and what they might think. A little issues management and proactive thinking can go a long way. The first rule in PR is to maintain control of your message -- which is a full-time job of its own -- and trying to do that in the infinite digital space can be challenging. Take your time on social media Remember, while your posts should be timely, no one is really rushing you. Think about your approach and collect the feedback that you receive from your fans and followers. This constructive feedback is priceless in marketing value and should be used toward tweaking your social media campaign to make it better and stronger. These are some guidelines that can help you think in terms of the client's needs and identify pitfalls that can make or break your campaign. In the end, good client communication will result in consistent, quality posts. When you pair that with quality followers and fans, you'll have an incredibly productive social media force on your hands.

4 social media myths that fooled marketers

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Articles declaring that "email is dead" overlooked data regarding mobile email, which showed a modest increase Some consumers are more likely to buy if they "like" that brand, but that brand loyalty doesn't necessarily translate to ROI Don't worry about who quits Twitter -- it might not be relevant

There has been a rumble of commentary lately surrounding myths in interactive marketing, specifically as they impact social media channels like Facebook and Twitter. But what is a myth, really? I remember learning about classic Greek and Roman mythology in junior high social studies. A few recently released movies remind me of those mythological themes: "Troy," "Clash of the Titans," and even "Percy Jackson." Only now they seem cool. The term "myth" is officially defined two ways: It can refer to a traditional story about the history of a people group (i.e., the ancient gods), or it can mean a popular yet false belief or idea. The latter is how we will be looking at recent pervasive marketing murmurs. Because interactive social media marketing is by nature global, interpersonal, and electronically broadcasted, the consequences of propagating an erroneous "fact" are huge. If consumers see your email campaigns as the best way for them to buy your products, but your marketing team is convinced of yesterday's headline proclaiming email is dead, you'd better come up with some real data or your sales team will be selling cases of humble pie to survive. A recent brief based on ExactTarget's Subscribers, Fans, & Followers (SFF) research exposed four of the most prolific (or at least memorable) notions on the subject. Email is dead A dose of drama was launched into the web-o-sphere recently surrounding this obituary on email. "Nine reasons why email is dead" is my favorite headline (couldn't the author have made it an even 10?). The ubiquitous Nielsen group, with its NetView blog, unwittingly fueled the fire by citing some downward statistics on email usage. A closer look at the blog revealed, among other things, overlooked data regarding mobile email, which showed a modest increase. In fact, 19 percent of consumers reported using email more between October 2009 and April 2010. Interesting. Facebook fan monetized A study by Syncapse and HotSpex tagged the average Facebook fan as being worth $136.38. The study concluded that fans of a product spend more money than non-fans. The SFF research showed that 17 percent of consumers were more likely to buy if they "like" that brand, but that brand loyalty doesn't necessarily translate to ROI. Twitter's success hinges on celebrities When a few of Hollywood's hottest dropped off the Twitter wagon, headlines heated up over the supposed nose-dive of the whole Twitter phenomenon. But what looks like a celebrity-influenced decline masks a continued, dramatic growth of the site: Twitter reports 370,000 new user sign-ups per day. Twitter clearly owes much of its initial success to celebrity participation, but there's a new type of celebrity -- the person who makes his or her presence known simply by using the site. That's right, anyone can be a Twitter superstar and fan his or her own fame 140 characters at a time. Social media makes us anti-social Some say the social media surge creates a cowardly, anti-social society. Authors Malcolm Gladwell and Mark Schaefer argue that social media gives our culture permission to avoid "real" human interaction, thus suppressing our social skills and stunting our brain growth. But these assumptions, according to SFF data, are wholly false. Increases in Facebook and Twitter usage correlate to increases in face-to-face interactions. According to the data, social people use social media to complement their in-person social connections.

The myths are out there. But great marketing strategies aren't found in shocking headlines. Don't worry about who quits Twitter. It might not be relevant. Ask smart questions that elicit understanding about what consumers are doing across all social media channels. Here are a few starter questions to fuel your skepticism: 1. Where did the information come from? What's the source? It is essential to find out where the latest social media rumor started because as great as it is to share ideas, the web is rife with 140-character "particle pundits." The problem arises in the marketing world when the half-pint pundit fails to call a theory a theory. Readers truth-stamp it, retweet it, and "like" it, and it is subsequently propagated without context. 2. Where's the data? As marketers, it's vital that what we purport is based on valid data in order to keep the rest of the world from the arduous work of mythbusting. The email myth started in the Nielsen NetView blog, and it turns out that the data to support the claim were incomplete at best. 3. Is this idea a product of "shiny object syndrome"? The natural gravitation toward what's new and exciting can be misleading. It is still unclear as to whether a Facebook fan can be monetized, but if your company is new to social media, $100 per fan looks like a pretty good deal. A savvy interactive marketer doesn't avoid the rumblings and musings of the social media web. There are millions of people out there, and at least nine of them have brilliant ideas. But you must insist on accurate, valid, and useful data to support those ideas; often that means doing the hard work of research, data collection, and fact-finding.

How to transform social media into a sales generation engine

ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS:

Become relevant to consumers by educating them, offering exclusive deals, or providing exceptional convenience The moment the audience suspects you are pulling the strings, you become irrelevant Learn how to turn relevancy into social currency that will motivate your audience to spread the word

One of the biggest hurdles brands have yet to overcome in the social media game is figuring out how to turn their branding efforts into a sales vehicle. While most of the "ROI" in the social space has been measured in terms of engagement and dialogue, strikingly few companies have been able to actually generate income, despite the funds and resources being poured into building a strong social presence. The problem for many is the inability to establish brand relevancy within their audiences' lives. Brands must find engaging, entertaining, and useful ways to weave themselves into the social fabric of their target audience. To effectively reach the modern consumer, marketers must understand that the digital social life of their audience is merely an extension of their physical social life. In the same way most people wouldn't let a stranger into a private cocktail party, they will not permit a brand to crash their social space either -- unless that brand brings something valuable to the table. Use these three steps to earn your place at the social media table.

Step 1: Become relevant The way to get invited to the party is to give your audience what they want -- something that inspires, educates, or motivates them -- exclusive previews or special deals, or exceptional convenience. Case in point: Continental Airlines has built an incredibly relevant, useful, and convenient Facebook portal that allows fans to share their travel itineraries on the Continental site, as well as with their own network of friends. Here, not only can I let my friends know of my travel plans -- and easily arrange meet-ups in my destination right on the page -- but I can also query fellow travelers for recommendations on hotels, restaurants, or sightseeing in my destination. Continental has successfully woven itself -- relevantly and appropriately -- into my social sphere by providing a valuable resource that I've grown to trust. As a valuable by-product, my entire network of friends has been exposed to the Continental brand in a positive way. A win-win for me and the Continental brand. To pull this off effectively, it must be done with transparency and authenticity. The surest way to blow it is to cling to the tired notion of message control. Today's media-savvy audiences are much more in-tune to the puppet-on-a-string practices of traditional push marketing. Younger consumers especially expect open dialogue, and marketers must be willing to accept the risk of forfeiting control -- even when things don't go your way. The moment the audience suspects you are pulling the strings, you become irrelevant, and any credibility you might have established goes out the window instantly. Step 2: Establish currency Once you've gained relevancy, the challenge becomes how to turn that into social currency that will motivate your audience to spread the word. Blatant bribery? Maybe -- exclusive deals, discounts, and special offers do go a long way to motivate the audience to spread the message. But, in today's market, exclusivity may be king. Consumers thrive on knowing they have something no one else has. Today's social currency isn't wealth or status -- it's wittiness, intelligence, and being "in the know." Audiences crave content that helps them become more interesting today than they were yesterday. But, they don't want to work for it -- they want it spoon fed to them because they're too busy to build their own currency. This is where effective brands can deliver the goods. The Gilt Groupe is one brand that has mastered today's social currency by giving its membership the exclusivity they crave, along with a financial incentive to grease the wheels. The luxury brand discounter gives its members the power to invite their friends to exclusive invitation-only sales events -- along with a $10 bonus for each guest who makes a purchase. It's an enviable matchup of power and money that keeps its members hungry for more. Step 3: Eliminate friction Having delivered the currency, brands must make conversion as seamless as possible. This requires removal of friction on all fronts. For example, even in some of the most engaging social environments, you still must leave that environment to make the purchase -- a jarring transition that kills continuity, voice, and flow. The problem is that, for most brands, each platform exists in a silo with different groups managing the marketing, operations, and social outreach. This disjoined approach causes friction and disconnect. To make for a smoother conversion, you must start at the beginning and view the whole process as an ecosystem in which each component flows effortlessly into the next. Over at Continental's Facebook page, I can actually book my ticket without ever leaving the page. Instead of making me bounce back and forth from Facebook to its reservations site to plan my trip, the company has created a continuous experience where I can view flight availability, coordinate arrangements with my friends, get travel recommendations, and consummate the transaction in a single, seamless interface.

From a strategic perspective, driving revenue from the social sphere requires a re-examination of the process itself. Internally, marketers must begin to view social as a holistic branding, operational, and sales generation tool, not just a lead gen platform. Brands that are able to weave themselves into the social fabric of their audience by delivering relevant social currency can draw audiences comfortably and seamlessly through the process to close the deal. Only then can we talk about social metrics in terms of real ROI