10 Ways to Get Serious About Social Media in 2010

10 Ways to Get Serious About Social Media in 2010

10.  Discover your brand. My what? Yes, your brand. Be certain you are consistent with your brand – whether it is management of content, colors, or culture – be sure there is continuity across all channels.

9.    Don’t Be A Bad Date. Social networking is centered around a couple of things. And guess what? It’s not all about YOU. It’s about listening. It’s about interaction. It’s about feedback. It’s about insight. It’s about your clients. Most importantly, like any other part of your business – it is built on relationships.

8.    Social Media is not the Supreme Medium. You can not rely solely on any one marketing segment. Industry indicators show that numbers are projected to rise, in some cases significantly for 2010 and beyond across various other channels such as Outdoor, Direct Mail, Public Relations, and National Cable TV.

7.    Develop a marketing plan and budget. Stick with it, and be sure to market yourself through channels that you can manage and measure your ROI.

6.    Don’t know your fan from your follower? Stick with what sets you apart from the pack.  Are you an entrepreneur?  Didn’t you go into business because of a skill, service, or product that is unique? Focus your energy in those areas, do what you do best and let a true marketing expert handle your social media.

5.    Define measurable objectives. If you aren’t going to measure it, why do it? Would you just open your bank account for a free-for-all without knowing where your money is going?  No, that’s why we all love debit cards and online banking. Use the same school of thought when pursuing social media and any marketing objectives. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

4.     Don’t get left behind. Is Social Media a fad? No. Is it going away? All signs say no. Quit waiting for the right time, or the perfect tool, or the next network. Do you know what is happening while you wait? Everyone using social media is driving traffic to their websites, increasing Google rankings, increasing revenue, and receiving key feedback from clients on ways to improve their products, services, and client interaction.

3.     Be open-minded. Just because you hate texting or facebook, that does not mean your target customer does.  Don’t let the small things hold you back. Jump in with both feet.

2.    Don’t be paralyzed by the fear of Brand Suicide. Mishaps happen. Having the proper resource in place to respond to a misguided communication effort is key.

1.    Bah Humbug. Quit counting fans and followers like they are pennies that will immediately impact your bottom line. If that is what you are using social media for – stop. You missed the point.

So, You’re On The Social Media Bandwagon. Now What?

In previous posts, we have discussed ways to monitor your online reputation, but what if you are the small to medium-sized business owner that is late to the game?

Step 1? Start listening.

How do you do that? Well, this can be done internally, or it can be outsourced, but don’t think because that twenty-something in your office that texts, tweets, and has a Facebook status update for each hour of the day, that they are the candidate to manage your brand, your online marketing strategy, or equally important, your marketing budget. Think you can’t afford to outsource it? Shop around, you might be surprised.  Either way you go, the brand ambassador who manages this task must be reading blogs daily, be familiar with the people who are interacting with you on all social media networks, whether they are tweeters, vloggers, bloggers, or just merely commenters.

Listening is only as effective as the content that you choose to hear.  You will want to find content that has high relevancy to your industry, your company and your competitors.  There are hundreds of millions of blogs out there, which doesn’t include all of the videos uploaded to YouTube, the millions of Tweets, forum posts, and pictures that are shared across the ever-evolving multitude of social networks.

Overwhelmed yet? It’s okay. You read at over 1,000 words per minute right? If not, don’t sweat it. Even if you could, and you couldn’t possibly find everything that is relevant, wouldn’t be able to follow it all, and luckily, you don’t need to.  It varies by business, but generally there are less than 20 blogs that generate the majority of conversations in your niche. So, how do you determine what to follow and what is not worthy of your precious time?  Go for the biggest fish in the pond.  Find the biggest blogs in the community, and monitor other pieces of the digital conversation from other sources.

Here are some of the tools  you can use to search for conversations about your brand, your competitors, or your industry, by searching for industry buzzwords, your brand name or your competitors name:

Discussion Forum Searches – BoardTracker is currently tracking 69,230,256 threads in 37,284 Forums

Monitoring the Blogosphere – Google Blog Search is a great tool, but can yield a lot of splog results (spam blogs generated automatically by keyword searches). This would be an alternative to Google News Alerts, if you already subscribe to these. Ideally, you would want to monitor key company executives, your brand, your competition and your industry. (Get the picture yet?)

All of these search results can be subscribed to via email or as an RSS feed, and then you can share the appropriate feeds with any key individuals in your organization that you feel should also be plugged in.

Summary?

The most important step in any successful social media campaign launch is listening. By listening to the buzz about your brand – you will best position yourself to identify the brand junkies in your niche, find out what your audience is most interested in, and determine the best strategies to introduce your company into these conversations.

Still lost? Feel free to email Kansas City’s Social Media Agency for questions, additional details, or to schedule your complimentary on-site analysis to determine the strategies for your 2010 social media campaign.

Doorzipper Donates Locking System to Burglary Victim

Shawnee, KS (Evans Media Group) – November 24, 2009 – A local resident of Claycomo, MO lived through her worst nightmare last Saturday night. As she hid on the floor next to her bed, her cell phone pressed to her ear whispering to the 911 operator, pleading for help. Downstairs, two thugs were battering her front door, eventually succeeding and entering her home.

This story is repeated every 3.2 seconds somewhere in the US and while the police did arrive, give chase and eventually capture the intruders from the Claycomo break in, others may not be so fortunate. According to CrimeReports.com statistics, this could be the deadliest year in Kansas City in a decade.

When Stan Demster of Doorzipper USA in Shawnee, KS heard of the horrific turn of events at the local Claycomo home last Saturday, he immediately put a plan in place to make sure that it never happens to the woman again. “Occasionally, and as need arises,” said Demster “we will make our product available at no charge. Obviously we can’t always do that, but certain cases make us want to help shut down these bottom feeders, the opportunistic low-lifes who prey on the good people of our area.”

Doorzipper is a new product set to launch nationally in January from prolific Shawnee inventor/entrepreneur Demster’s company, KJD Services. This device attaches to any standard entry door and renders it virtually impervious to human powered forced entry.

“Sure, you could drive a truck through a Doorzipper protected door, but I defy any two men with a 75 lb. battering ram to defeat it before the police arrive”, said Demster. Tests have proven the point. Although invisible when the door is closed and locked, the 24 interlocking stainless steel tabs of an engaged Doorzipper defy all but super human force.

Regular visits from the Shawnee Fire Department to the Doorzipper facility to inspect the product have them asking the inventor to produce a sticker that would alert them as to the presence of a Doorzipper. It became obvious that instead of trying to defeat the product, they could save time by merely using a chainsaw on a Doorzipper protected door.

Demster’s company received a limited pre-launch quantity of Doorzippers and he is making them available on a first-come-first-served basis to Kansas City residents. “We won’t have Doorzippers to meet full demand until the official product launch in January”, said Demster, “but we have a few hundred that we can let people have beforehand. I’ll even throw in a Black Friday discount of $50 for those that order them by sending an email to sales@doorzipperusa.com … Happy Thanksgiving,” he added.

Contact:
Paul Evans
Evans Media Group
paul@evansmediagroup.com
www.evansmediagroup.com