Showing posts with label LinkedIn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LinkedIn. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Marketing via Social Media: What Professional Firms Should Know

SAN FRANCISCO - NOVEMBER 15:  Facebook founder...
SAN FRANCISCO - NOVEMBER 15: Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during a special event announcing a new Facebook email messaging system at the St. Regis Hotel on November 15, 2010 in San Francisco, California. Facebook will launch a new messaging system aimed at enhancing it's social media product to its 500 million users. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)
The recent explosion of Social Media - Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, in particular - has probably caused enough head scratching and unease among marketing directors to last them a lifetime. How does Social Media actually work? Who does it reach? How influential is it? What happens if you ignore it? How should it be used? And how much time should be devoted to feeding it? Nobody seems to have clear answers to these questions, and the few that do, speak a language that most ordinary human beings struggle to understand.

Marketing heads at large professional organisations, by which I mean commercial law firms, accountancy firms and financial services companies, are as concerned about Social Media as anyone else - which, on the face of it, is surprising, because traditionally these outfits have relied upon a relatively discreet universe of mainly corporate clients. Their business relationships are built on face-to-face contact (not Facebook to Facebook contact) and often long histories of proven service. Nevertheless, the perception exists that Social Media is an arena in which every serious player has to be visible, as if to be invisible there would mean being invisible everywhere - an unforgivable capitulation in this age of mass communication. Just such preoccupations drive much of the current interest in Social Media: a fear of missing out, of seeming out-of-touch, rather than excitement at the arrival of a new marketing opportunity. So is the promise really there? And are the fears justified?

The first thing to remember about Social Media is its name: not Marketing Media, but Social Media. The reason sites like Facebook caught on in the first place was not because people saw an interesting new opportunity to go shopping. They saw it as a way to keep in touch with friends old and new, and to reach out to people with similar interests. Though discrete retailing of one kind or another has crept on board, most users says they don't like it. The exception here is cultural product: music, films, books and (to a lesser extent) video games. But even here - very much at the mass consumer end of things - the amount of promotion users will tolerate is limited. Any marketing that firms do attempt must be discreet, as well as useful, readable and current. Achieving all this is easier said than done.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Maximizing LinkedIn for Sales and Social Media Marketing: An Unofficial, Practical Guide to Selling & Developing B2B Business on LinkedIn Review

Image via Amazon  
"Maximizing LinkedIn for Sales and Social Media Marketing" is the second LinkedIn related book by author, consultant, and speaker Neal Schaffer and is a follow-up to his first book "Understanding, Leveraging, & Maximizing LinkedIn" Before I share with you my review of the book, a little background may be in order.

LinkedIn was the first, and at the time, only social networking application that held any interest for me when I first began to look into it. This was maybe 3 years ago. Of course, it did not come with an instruction manual so, off to Amazon I went in search of answers. I did buy the only two LinkedIn related books that were available at the time and they were abysmal. My search for answers via Google began. Somehow, I happened upon a site called "Windmill Networking" and this guy, Neal, talked about LinkedIn a lot. I mean a whole lot and, better yet, he seemed to know what he was talking about. Sweet! I believe that this may have also been the very first site where I actually got up the nerve to leave a comment. To my amazement, Neal even took the time to respond! This, of course, ruined me for most other sites where nobody seems to want to actually "engage" (smile).

Fast forward to today and Neal and I still communicate regularly via Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, and email. While his first book was phenomenal, the focus of his new book, Sales and Marketing, is exactly what I needed and it may be that also for you! I am a fairly ravenous reader but, I do struggle with books (attention span of a 2-year old). This is not the case with Neal's books. His writing style makes for very easy reading. He speaks to you, not at you.

Like many folks, I must admit that despite knowing better, LinkedIn had become the proverbial "red-headed step child" to my social business marketing efforts. While I seem to spend most of my time on Twitter, LinkedIn is where I belong. I am a life-long B2B sales person and LinkedIn is business. I also think that it is important to note that Neal shares this same background. Well, I am now a "born-again" convert and already am at work following Neal's advice for my profile! What do I like about this book?
  • It is written by a sales and marketing person for sales and marketing people.
  • It's loaded with real case studies and practical selling advice. Neal even includes a chapter devoted to prospecting on LinkedIn!
  • Neal goes into great detail about all aspects of LinkedIn and how to put its powerful features to work for you today. He also provides step-by-step instructions for all areas of the application. If I were LinkedIn, I'd be negotiating for the rights to use this as my reference guide (smile).
  • The book does not preach. Neal gives you your options, the pros and cons of each, and lets you decide what is right for you. Of course, he does provide you with recommended courses of action.
  • The book constantly reinforces the goals for social networking and LinkedIn while at the same time stressing that the rules of selling still apply as it relates to creating and nurturing relationships in real life.
  • I like Neal's attitude that "you might as well go big or go home". There is no middle road and it does require your commitment.
  • The book is both timely and up-to-date. What I see in this book matches LinkedIn's present UI and feature set.
  • Neal's advice on LinkedIn Groups is awesome! I thought that I understood the power and flexibility of groups before I read this book. I was wrong. Not only has Neal encouraged me to evaluate the groups I am currently in, I am putting the finishing touches on creating a new group, "Boise B2B Sales & Marketing Professionals".
  • Like many sites, LinkedIn's large number of features can be overwhelming. I now have a much clearer understanding of applications like Companies, LinkedIn Signal, and LinkedIn Today.
  • Finally, Neal spends time discussing a recommended daily routine and how to determine your ROI. Who cares about ROI anyway? Well .... I do!

I could go on and on but, simply stated, Neal's new book is the ultimate road map to LinkedIn!


Article Source:
http://www.amazon.com/review

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Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Social Advertising: How Paid Media & Promotions Work on Facebook, Twitter and Google+


The days of expecting branded content or a campaign to "go viral" without paid media support are over. Thankfully, marketers can bolster their social media efforts with a variety of social ad units. The caveat is that there aren't many best practices or performance benchmarks to help guide the way. For example, Twitter's Promoted Trends can cost upwards of $120,000 per day ... is there a solid ROI? And is interest-based targeting on Facebook really more effective than targeting standard demographics? Join Social Marketing Master Adam Kmiec and a group of experts with hands-on experience creating, planning and executing successful ad campaigns across multiple social platforms. Come away with tips for managing budgets, targeting the right audience, and even strategies for tying consumer engagement with social ad units back to actual sales.

Key Takeaways: See real examples of well-performing ad campaigns on platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn Learn best practices that are unique to each social ad platform Understand how to optimize paid social media campaigns and track ROI.
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Saturday, September 29, 2012

The Zen of Social Media Marketing

English: Stephen Monaco speaking about Social ...
English: Stephen Monaco speaking about Social Media Marketing (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
When I sat down to enjoy Shama Kabani's new book, the Zen of Social Media Marketing, I was expecting to absorb a couple chapters a night during my quest to take my online marketing prowess to the next level.

I read the entire thing in one evening.

Not since Claude Hopkins' 1923 classic Scientific Advertising has a marketing book held my attention so intently. Shama, a lively and personable genius in her own right, didn't see any need to fluff her book up with generalities and useless anecdotes. Rather, every word, every case study, every personal story is crafted to bring the reader into a deeper understanding of how to lay an effective social media marketing foundation.

I like authors who respect my time and give me exactly what I need. Shama does both.

It's no surprise that digital marketing guru Chris Brogan chose to write the book's foreword. Brogan's philosophy of putting people over platforms aligns perfectly with Shama's style of nurturing very real, human relationships through online mediums. She sees the internet as an extension of (not a replacement for!) community and draws on common real world interactions like coffee houses and office-networking events to illustrate her point.

Chapter one is all about the philosophy of online marketing. "If you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time" is what my mother always says. Shama writes: "online marketing is the art and science of...leveraging the internet to get your message across so that you can move people to action." The message is clear: you don't do social media marketing because your competitors do; you do it because it has the ability to "convert strangers into consumers and consumers into customers."

"Strategy should always come before tactics."

Shama evidently prefers her readers to know where they are going and why they are on the journey before she expends any energy on telling them how to operate the car.

The rest of the book is packed with tactics on how to relate to your audience using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and web video. I pride myself on being a decent online marketer, and even I found myself taking notes on when to engage people through Facebook Groups and when to encourage the following of a Facebook Page. Should I care how many Twitter followers I have? Shama says I should, but not in the ego-stroking way I may be inclined to.

The only disappointment I faced was that my tech-savvy, Star Trek watching side wasn't fed. Not because the material wasn't solid, but because...

Shama speaks the language of small business.

You may not be a marketer; you may sew quilts or manufacture plantation shutters. Shama understands, and she writes with you in mind. Easy to remember acronyms and formulas, like Visability + Credibility = Success, and succinct, numbered checklists will help you implement her recommendations immediately.

I should quit talking before I begin to ramble. The bottom line is: social media marketing is something you, a small business owner, can participate in quite successfully. Shama Kabani's book, The Zen of Social Media Marketing, will show you how.


Article Source:
http://www.amazon.com/review/ 
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Saturday, September 22, 2012

Likeable Social Media: Branding Facebook

English: Infographic on how Social Media are b...
English: Infographic on how Social Media are being used, and how everything is changed by them. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am a 21-year-old marketing major graduating college in less than six months who helped my college design curriculum for an e-commerce course featuring social media.

When approaching books about social media, I am hesitant to spend my hard-earned money on a book that tells you what you already know about Facebook and Twitter. Likeable Social Media was the first book of five I purchased in the business and social media field.

Mr. Kerpen is a talented writer and complements his discussions about what it means to be a "likeable" brand with positive and negative anecdotes. It's a fairly quick read with frequent content headers, screenshots from Facebook and easily-digestible highlights to share with coworkers (such as the "10 Reasons Why Consumers Like Fan Pages on Facebook).

There are other books and resources out there that give more concrete how-to's and a step-by-step guide to undertaking social media. If you are looking for content focused around these areas, seek out whitepapers and ebooks from social media monitoring companies who will gladly hand you the information for free in return for your contact info.

Hands down, the best asset of this book is its appeal to different audiences. While you could place this book in the hands of a CEO to show them the power of social media, I as a 21-year-old digital native confident in my knowledge of social media was able to walk away with roughly 10 pages of notes and suggestions.

Likeable Social Media left me not only encouraged but empowered to undertake the creation of a social media strategy for a company.

Where this book falls short is a lack of diversity. Discussions surrounding Facebook dominate this book--and rightfully so given its place as the top social network. I would have liked to see more discussions on the power of Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google+ in the same scope Facebook is discussed. I do understand though that this book was published in 2011 and things have drastically changed even since then.

However, I still rate this as a five-star book. What's incredible to me is how connected and committed Mr. Kerpen is to this book and building an engaging community. He practices what he preaches. Recently, I tweeted a friend with a suggestion to read this book. Within five minutes, I had a personal tweet sent to me from Mr. Kerpen thanking me for recommending his book.

Mr. Kerpen clearly gives those working in social media a blueprint on how to be more "likeable" and lives it out in his own social, online life.

Article source:
http://www.amazon.com/review/

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Thursday, September 20, 2012

Using Facebook for Social Media Marketing

Illustration of Facebook mobile interface
Illustration of Facebook mobile interface (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Welcome to this beginner's guide to setting up Facebook for Social Media Marketing. In this article, I'll illustrate how a beginner can set up Facebook to raise the profile of their organisation. I assume you already know how to use a computer, connect to the Internet, and use a browser.

Introduction

Unless you've been living on a desert island for the past decade, you'll have heard of Facebook. It's used by millions of people the World over and it's a great way to connect with others.

This fact has not been lost on Marketers and Advertisers and they've moved to Facebook in their droves. Social Media Marketing, as it's become known, is a hot topic. Do it right and your organisation will benefit massively. Do it wrong and you'll disappear off the site like you never even existed.

What is Facebook?

Before talking about how to use Facebook for Social Media Marketing (SMM), it's important to take a moment to clearly understand what Facebook is. Facebook is an Internet based social networking application accessed via an Internet browser. The important element here is that it's for social networking. It's not designed for marketing or advertising (unless you want to pay Facebook to carry an ad for you). Abuse this fundamental viewpoint at your peril.

Everyone that joins Facebook MUST create a profile. It can be a Business Profile or a Personal Profile but you are only allowed one profile.

Creating multiple profiles is a violation of Facebook's Terms of Use and can result in all of your accounts being terminated.

I emphasise the above statement because it's really important. If you spend some time carefully crafting your online persona, it can be devastating to have it all taken away.

Business Profile or Personal Profile?

Facebook has only two primary profile types. A Business Profile or a Personal Profile. The personal profile gives you full access to all the features in Facebook. The business profile gives you access to administer your Pages and ad campaigns only. This is from the Facebook FAQ:

Business accounts are designed for individuals who only want to use the site to administer Pages and their ad campaigns. For this reason, business accounts do not have the same functionality as personal accounts.

Business accounts have limited access to information on the site. An individual with a business account can view all the Pages and Social Ads that they have created, however they will not be able to view the profiles of users on the site or other content on the site that does not live on the Pages they administer.

In addition, business accounts cannot be found in search and cannot send or receive friend requests.

Deciding upon whether to create a Business or Personal profile is a big topic on it's own. But, in short: If you intend to do Social Media Marketing, I strongly urge you to create a personal profile.

Security

Now you've created a personal profile. the very first thing you'll want to do is to check your Privacy Settings by selecting Account > Privacy Settings from the menu at the top right of the Facebook page. Take some time to work through these options before you start to use Facebook.

For example, one of the default settings is that your Family and Relationships are public. I'd suggest that you might want to limit this to friends only.

As another example, you may well want to keep some of your contact information, ie: your home phone number, private.

Completing Your Personal Profile

Once you've created your personal profile, Facebook gives you lots of hints on how to complete your personal information. Most of it is great advice and well worth following. Remember, what you're trying to do is setup your online persona. It will reflect you and your business. Let this guide your actions as you add information and photos.

Your aim is to have as complete a profile as possible so that your own friends will recognize you and will befriend you on Facebook. You'll also want your profile to be engaging enough so that you can make new friends online.

Adding Friends

Once your profile is ready, it's time to add some friends with whom you can communicate. Again, Facebook helps by offering to search through your eMail, Instant Messenger, Skype and other accounts to create a prospective friends list. Select 'Find Friends' from the menu at the top right of the Facebook page, next to the Account menu option you selected earlier.

You'll be presented with a list of contacts that also have accounts on Facebook and you can choose who you'd like to add to your friends list.

Adding current friends is the best way to get started with Facebook. Later, I'll show you how to add other friends.

The Wall and the News Feed

Facebook can be confusing at first so for now, I advise that you limit yourself to two main views when using it, the Wall and the News Feed.

  • The Wall. When someone first visits your Facebook page (or you visit theirs), the default view is the Wall. The Wall is a place to post and share content with your friends. The visibility of the items posted depends upon your Privacy Settings (see above, under Security).
  • News Feed. The News Feed is a constantly changing list of stories from friends and Pages (more later) that you follow on Facebook. It's only visible to you.

To get to your News Feed, choose the 'Home' menu option at the top right of your Facebook page.

To get to your Wall, choose 'Profile' from the menu at the top right of your Facebook page and then select 'Wall' from the menu at the top left of the page, just under your profile picture.

Using Facebook

Now you've set it all up, I suggest using Facebook for a while and getting used to it. Start some conversations and join in others. Write on peoples Wall or comment on what they've said. For now, it's not so important what you say (but remember that this is your online persona for you and your business so do apply caution) but it is important that you get some practice using Facebook.

And so, to Business...

Now that you've got to grips with the basics, it's time to create a Page for your business. To do this, go to your 'News Feed' page and select 'Pages' from the menu on the left side of the page. If you can't see that menu option, click on the 'More' button and it should then appear.

You should now see a button titled 'Create Page'. Click on that and then follow the simple directions.

The team at Facebook have written a number of documents that will help you create your Page. You can download the manual on creating Pages or visit facebook.com/FacebookPages#%21/FacebookPages?sk=app_7146470109 and follow a number of useful links from there.

Your Business Page

Once your page is created, visit it and you'll see a series of steps to get you started. At the top of the list is a button to 'Suggest to friends'. This is where setting up a personal profile (as opposed to a business profile) really helps you. Basically, Facebook will send an invite to any of your friends that you select, asking them to 'Like' your page. This is important because once you have 25 'Likes', you can get a custom URL for your Page that is then easier to find, pass on to others and even use on your business stationery.

Why is a Business Page Important?

The primary reason for creating a business Page is to separate your business life from your personal life. Many business users don't like to mix their personal and business life. While they may be very happy to share some information with friends and family, they may not want that same information made known to their business contacts.

Once you've created a business page, you can invite your business contacts to 'Like' your business page and communicate with them there. This way, you can enforce a separation between you the person, and your business.

Note also that you can add other users as administrators on the business page thus reinforcing the fact that the business Page is a separate entity from individual users.

If Facebook is for Social Networking, How Can I do Marketing?

Earlier, I said that Facebook is a social networking site and that you should abuse this notion at your peril. What I meant by this was that users do not log on to Facebook to suffer interminable advertising messages or to be marketed at. They come online to socialise. If you try and push your business on them, they will desert you.

But, with over 500 million active users on Facebook, there's a very good chance that some of them will be interested in what you have to offer. The 'trick' is to find who those users are, engage with them, provide them with content of value and then promote your product in the right way. I've come across a great phrase that sets the standard for how to do that via Social Media Marketing:

Seduce, don't molest.

However, the topic of actually doing Social Media Marketing on Facebook is large enough to warrant a whole series of articles on its own so I'll cover that in future articles.


Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/6355843

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Brand Mastery of Social Media Strategy

Image representing iPad as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

It's known by many names and it's all the rage! I'm talking about social media - also known as social media marketing, social media optimisation, SMO, SMM and social networking. For businesses it has tremendous potential and value, but in simple terms social media is just another communication channel with the world.

But instead of delivering a sales or service message via advertising or marketing, with social media you're talking to people in the way you would with friends, colleagues or strangers who share the same interests.

Social media used to be for the young Net Generation, as Don Tapscott (Author of Grown Up Digital) calls them, but now the average age on Facebook is 35. LinkedIn has a huge membership between 35 and 54!

As David Mercer, Head of BT Design, told me recently the older generation just can't help hijacking the Net Gens' home turf. Or at least words to that effect. Is it fair? I can see his point but the fact we all use phones doesn't seem to affect the younger generation's perception of ownership of the mobile world.

Even my eight year old is using social media in the form of Club Penguin (Disney's MMOG, Massively Multi-Player Online Game). By the time he is in business, social media will be just as integrated in his life as email and mobile phones, if they're still around.

With 400 million active accounts on Facebook getting over 120 million unique visitors each month, social media is not going away. But it's important to remember what your objective is if you want to get involved with social media for personal, business or branding reasons.

Different platforms have different personalities: LinkedIn is business oriented while Facebook is social and works better in engaging individuals. Twitter is real-time news and information on everything from clubs and coffee shops to finance and biochemical research. So each platform should be picked to meet the characteristics of objectives.

Remember, too, that other countries have big platforms. China's platform is QQ and has over 500million users, Orkut has over 100 million users with over 70 per cent of them from Brazil and India. In Russia, Vkontakte has over 60 million, so pick your playground carefully.

Most of the major platforms offer advertising. Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube all have a pay per click advertising option which can be targeted at an audience with surgical precision...well, field surgery at least. Let's say I wanted to get people to book me to run workshops in their business.

I could place an advert on LinkedIn targeting Marketing Directors of businesses in the UK with over 250 staff, or perhaps select a few niche industries such as finance, retail and manufacturing. If I get my advert right I will only attract clicks that are likely to convert and, of course, I only pay when they click!

A word of caution: We all put so much information about ourselves on social media that with a little research people can easily find out a lot about you and your business. Reputation management has never been more important.

Using LinkedIn as an example, let's say I want to meet Mr Smith, CMO of a blue chip brand. I look him up on LinkedIn and see that he is a member of a group called Future Trends. I can also see that he is connected to a friend of mine called Thomas. I join the group called Future Trends and ask Thomas to ask Mr Smith if he could tell me more about this group.

Do we think that hearing from Thomas that someone who shares a common interest would like to meet him would be of interest? One would hope so. There are many ways to manage social media but there is a level of lateral thinking that helps.

When setting up a social media strategy there are many monitoring tools that can be used to plan who you should engage with and where you should have a presence. One of my favorites is Social Radar from Infegy. It gives you a visual representation on how social media accounts are connected, a road map of who's talking to who on the web.

Through this you can see where most conversations are taking place on your topic. These people are called Influencers and they are an important part of a social media strategy as they help organisations and individuals control the conversations.

Let me tell you a story. A well-known journalist was writing about a big brand's new sports car on his blog. The journalist was an Influencer because over 50,000 people subscribed to read his blog on a regular basis. His opinion of the new car's looks was based on a photo he'd seen and unfortunately for the manufacturer the opinion was not a good - the words "back of a bus" and "angry bulldog" come to mind.

Shortly after his opinion hit the net, postings start to appear on blogs and forums echoing his comments. Before long the opinion of even those who have never seen the car is a negative one.

Now if the brand had been monitoring the social biosphere they would have quickly picked up this story and through sentiment monitoring [WHAT'S THIS??] they would have been able to see its negative connotation. They could h,ave seen the topic growing in importance and acted on it. How I hear you say!

Well, my first step would have been to contact the journalist and invite him to experience the car in person. Let's face it, brands are about experience not just looks. Imagine this...

You invite the journalist to join you for a track day. When he arrives he is presented with a shiny new, highly-polished, top of the range version of the car. First impressions...it looks better than it did in the photos.

Then a test driver shows him how smooth and quiet the car is before slamming it into sports mode to demonstrate the near 200mph speed that the car gracefully achieves in the blink of an eye. After spending a day experiencing this luxury car the journalist has a different opinion.

In the next blog he writes about his fantastic day and admits that the pictures he'd seen didn't really do it justice. He then enthuses about his positive EXPERIENCE with the car. Very soon his readers have changed their perceptions, too, and the online conversation has been controlled and made positive.

It is through this careful monitoring and strategic engagement that social media can be used as not only a PR machine but also another market to channel. Let me explain...

Using a Twitter client on my iPad I am able to see on a map the names of people who are talking around me. This is being picked up by the geo-tagging of where they where when they last posted a message. I used this in a demonstration in a London restaurant which also had a meeting room and private dining area. To our surprise we found that the CEO of King of Shaves was tweeting next door!

It was too much to resist so we responded to his Tweet and invited him over for a drink and a discussion about how the restaurant might be able to help him and his organisation.

We had a fairly fast response saying that he would drop in when he had a chance. You can imagine how long such a meeting would have taken to set up - if at all - using the traditional route to a CEO of receptionists, gate keepers, PAs etc. Social media opens up opportunities never before available.

Staying on the subject of Twitter, real time search allows you to stoke while the iron is hot. If I was monitoring or searching for the words "need+new+monitor" I would find people who have recently Tweeted that they need a new monitor This information could be very valuable to an online electronic shop.

Engaging people when their requirement is in the forefront of their minds and creating a process that is easy to fulfill this requirement can translate into direct revenue. Software like Radian6 can monitor most conversations taking place on the web in near real-time. It is an engagement tool allowing you to watch, listen and respond - as part of a strategy this is a vital component.

Someone once said that if you see the bandwagon you are already too late to jump on it. What should you consider before leaping on to the social media bandwagon?

First, what is your objective? Are you using social media for PR, brand awareness, a channel to market or because you what to listen to the chatter from your industry?

Second, you should define a strategy of what goals you want to achieve and what message needs to be given to achieve success.

Third, who is going to manage the project? To run social media campaigns properly, you'll probably need the services of a manager who has good writing skills and a marketing or PR background. This will have a cost implication so you'll to set KPIs and targets to ensure you achieve a return on the investment.

The good news is that by using YouTube or Facebook to communicate with engaged customers or group members you will discover the cost of contacting your audience is minimal. During his election campaign, Barack Obama was able to communicate with over five million people instantly at no cost on almost a one-to-one to personal level.

Today he has almost 10 million fans on Facebook alone - a few hundred thousand behind Lady Gaga. There aren't many ways of connecting with an audience that size for free, are there? Can your business operate as efficiently as that? As Obama would say: Yes you can!


Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/4780081

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Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Logical Process of Social Network Marketing

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA - SEPTEMBER 26: U.S. Preside...
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA - SEPTEMBER 26: U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at a town hall meeting hosted by LinkedIn Corp. at the Computer History Museum on September 26, 2011 in Mountain View, California. The president used the opportunity to share his view on job creation and the current economy. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)
Social network marketing is popularly called as Internet marketing. Today you can find many ways for internet marketing. Many people who enter this online marketing are less worried because of its guaranteed success. If you see in Internet totally all types of products has been marketed online without much effort. Internet attracts many business people to promote their business online. Social network marketing is grown to such a height that today many people can't earn without it.

Some of the most recognized network marketing tools are Face book, My Space and LinkedIn. Twitter became regular place for people who have newly entered the field of social network marketing.

Different social networking marketing methods are as follows.

1. Blogging:
When you start Blogging or posting your data about any product, you can see less response from clients. Later it will become big business via blog. Websites and blogs are most powerful tools for social network marketing when matched with other networking tools. Blog is an amazing tool which provides many other facilities in addition to just marketing your business. It also helps you to communicate with other clients in case if you have any problems.

2. Personal website or blog:
It is important to have private website if you are a freelancer. Your website will help your clients to know about you and it will make them clear that you are a serious freelance marketer and help to make huge revenue via online marketing.

3. Article selling:
It is also best and cheap internet marketing method. It is a mode of advertising our trade just by writing articles and attracting endless number of users across world. We usually sell our articles to different article database websites and article directories. Today it provided free business to many advertisers and publishers and they are really benefited through their articles.

4. Email sending:
Electronic mail sending is the best way to marketing. Collect list of email addresses through portfolio websites and email about your business to all internet users. Your Email should be attractive in such a way that your recipient will be impressed to get back to you.

5. Use social networking websites:
Social networking websites like Twitter, face book can be used to promote your sales. These provide best platform for all who are thinking of online marketing.

6. Video promotion:
Use several video distribution websites for your marketing. These websites uploads your service to the whole world. All that you need to do is film a video about marketing and send it to video uploading sites like You Tube. It seems it is the easiest way of marketing than any other modes since many people will be interested in view videos rather than word form of advertisement.

7. Press Release or media release:
It attracts several public clients and increases relationship among them.

8. Search Engine Optimization:
It improves the traffic to your website by providing quality web content. It uses RSS feeds and many SEO techniques.


Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/3510735
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