Social Networking

Todd Wilkins, executive vice-president of Orren Pickell Designers & Builders, uses a digital camera and an iPad to communicate with clients and fans on Facebook

You've heard it all before: If you're not using social-media tools to reach new customers, you should. So you're making friends on Facebook, you're trading Tweets on Twitter. It's fun—but are you building new business?

Social-media marketing is probably here to stay, but it's turning out to be a time-consuming game that doesn't yield instant results.

Social media can give your business more marketing mileage if you're willing to truly engage with the people you encounter along the way. It's a slow process. And your intentions are more transparent to your audience than you might think: People can smell a sales come-on from a mile away.

The key, it turns out, is to listen, add value and be responsive. So says Sima Dahl, president of Parlay Communications Ltd. in Chicago, who boasts more than 10,000 Twitter followers. Her advice: Make frequent “digital deposits” by replying to other people's Facebook updates and Tweets and passing on useful information, like job leads. In addition, she recommends responding to all direct messages and blog comments. “Then it really does become one to one,” she says.

Are you ready to put in that kind of time? Chances are, your competitors are doing it already. More tips on how to be a better social-media marketer:

Read more: Social media 101: tips for small-business owners seeking to harness Twitter, Facebook

Trends can be useful to ensure that you are ahead of the competition and maintain your competitive edge. The pace of the change in social online networks and how they effect our lives is imposing changes whether we like it or not in how we do business and how we conduct our private and increasingly public lives.6 Digital Social Media Trends You Should Not Ignore

The mainstreaming of social media is permeating every corner of our lives. What used to be private is very public. Generation Y doesn’t know where private belongs and public begins as peoples lives are exposed daily online to the dismay of some and the glee of others.We are increasingly becoming responsible for our own privacy.

Employees become advocates for their companies and consumers create content that adds value to websites, blogs and social media fan sites. This changing digital landscape can work for you or against you. To ensure that it becomes your friend rather than foe it is far better to leap in and ensure that your message is heard above other peoples message about you by actively participating, interacting  and engaging with social media networks.

David Armano and Steve Rubel of Edelman Digital have  produced a slideshare presentation that outlines 6 emerging major trends in digital social media that are well worth noting.

1. Marketing in the Age of Streams

Twitter and Facebook’s  data streams continually feed your friends lives and digital surfing discoveries into your stream to entice you to engage or ignore. How can you use that to market your business?

2. The Googlization of Media: Maintaining a Digitally Visible Business

The majority of companies are still coming to terms with the fact that we Google almost everything yet despite that we still think analog in the work place and advertise in the yellow pages and spend more than 75% of our marketing dollars on mass and non-digital media.

3. The Data Decade: DIY Insights and Situational Awareness

The democratization of the web allows us to use free tools that can place and promote our content on the web with the push of a keyboard key. This enables us to drive our own brand PR and promotion without paying for expensive lobbyists or PR agencies if only you take the time to learn how to use them.

4. Business Becomes Social: Consumers become Co-Creators and Employees become Advocates

I have certainly noticed that peoples comments on this blog add value to other readers that builds content that is extremely valuable and provides insights to participants.  Forums and other social media networks continue to produce crowd sourced content that is valuable and timely.

5. Location, Location, Location: Mobile and Local bring the Digital and Real World Together

Knowing where people are as they engage with social networks can produce some real opportunities for business

6. Private becomes Public

What used to be hidden and buried is now surfacing on social networks. This can be your enemy or your friend. Take advantage and publish and promote your digital brand online.

How are you applying these trends?

 

Jeff Bullas link to Original story

So, you’ve set up a Facebook page, you have a fully automated Twitter account, and your LinkedIn profile is a shining example of professional wonderment for all to behold.

You’ve formulated a strategy and set up tools and processes, and you’re proudly showing off your amazing product with a variety of exciting and innovative campaigns.

Not all social media campaigns will be successful, and the hardest part of any campaign is actual engagement. Creating long-term relationships with customers, creating brand evangelists for your business.

True interaction is the biggest stumbling block on the path to social media success, but by instigating the right policy, it’s also one of the easiest to overcome...

Read more: Three steps to social media win

Ninety seven percent of the largest nonprofit organizations in the U.S. are using social media - more than any other sector. This was among the top findings of the latest study led by Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes, Ph.D., Senior Fellow and Research Chair of the Society for New Communications Research and Chancellor Professor of Marketing at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Eric Mattson, CEO of Financial Insite Inc., a Seattle-based research firm. The study examined these institutions to quantify their adoption of social media tools and technologies.

San Jose, CA and Dartmouth (PRWEB) July 27, 2010 -- The nation’s largest nonprofit organizations are using social media more than any other sector. Ninety-three percent of the top US charities now have a Facebook profile, 87% have a Twitter presence, and 65% have a blog. These were among the top findings of the latest study led by Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes, Ph.D., Senior Fellow and Research Chair of the Society for New Communications Research and Chancellor Professor of Marketing at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Eric Mattson, CEO of Financial Insite Inc., a Seattle-based research firm.

Read more: US Nonprofits' Social Media Adoption Outpaces All Other Sectors for Third Year in a Row According to