Is Social Media Really Worth It for a Small Business?

As a business owner and solopreneur, it's really important to know that the time, energy, and resources you invest in your business provides a generous return on investment.

Social media platforms are a powerful tool that can help you market your business, but unless you know how to use it to generate tangible ROI for your business, is it really worth it?

This article will provide you with a clear breakdown of all the information you need to make the best decision for your business.

How Much Time Does Social Media Require?

Even though having these accounts is free (unless you spend money on ads), that doesn't mean there are no costs associated to using these platforms to your benefit.

Since time costs money to business owners, let's look at the amount of time the average business owner spends on this entity.

According to a survey by Vertical Response, about 43 percent of small businesses spend about 6 hours per week on social media.

Writing and posting a weekly blog post can take 1-3 hours to do. So this means it takes a full day to write, schedule, and post plus write and post a blog article each week.

This is assuming you, the business owner would be doing everything required to fulfil these two marketing tasks. If you decide to hire someone to help, then the money you pay out needs to be the ROI factor as opposed to your time.

The Benefits of Social Media

On the flip side let's look at the advantages of social media for your business. In general, there are 5 benefits a business owner can count on if using this type of marketing:

1. Relationship Building: This is an excellent way to build relationships with prospects. It provides an opportunity for multiple exposures to your fan base by using a mixture of information and calls to action.

2. Lead Generation: Add followers to your email marketing list by sharing links to downloadable freebies on your accounts. This allows you to send follow-up emails and information that can lead to sales.

3. Traffic Generation: SEO optimized blog posts can help your website rank higher for important keywords in the search engines. Plus, when you post blog articles, you can tell your followers about them and share the link to your blog to read more.

4. Consistency: Staying top of mind requires frequent marketing touches. With many people spending hours a day checking their Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts on their smart phones, social media gives you lots of exposure to your target market.

Sharing daily posts and weekly blog articles keeps the relationship with your customers strong.

5. Customer Service: This offers an easy way for customers to reach you with questions, problems, or complaints about your products and services.

This gives you a chance to respond immediately to address the issue. Plus, giving the VIP treatment to customers in need shows that you are a company who cares and goes a long way towards building your reputation online.

Tactics That Drive Results

What actions should your business be doing regularly on social media to generate the best results?

Here are just a few of the tactics you should be employing on your social media channels:

- Strategically planning content in alignment with sales goals

- Curate content on a regular basis

- Promote LinkedIn Pulse and blog posts on social media

- Interact with other pages and groups to attract new followers

- Create and share graphics, photos, videos and infographics

- Listen and respond to comments on your own social media posts

- Engage in social listening and respond to those who mention you

- Promote high engagement posts with ads

- Review analytics and reporting on engagement posts and reach

- Plan opt-in freebies to share for list building

- Write and post blog posts

- Look for guest blogging opportunities

- and so on...

So you can see to really stay ahead of the game, realistically, you need to have a dedicated person or hire some help to do it right.

The ROI of Social Media

Because the benefits of these efforts are often intangible, such as the amount of brand exposure your business would get, it's often difficult to put an actual number to the ROI of your social media efforts.

But if you look at it this way, just a few new customers every month (depending on what you sell) would more than likely pay the costs of doing social media marketing for your business.

Plus, if you hire someone to manage your social media, it frees you to focus on other revenue-generating activities.

Bottom line, if you aren't on social media, you are missing out on business. The opportunity cost of not marketing within this realm is with lost visibility, less website traffic, slower list building, and weaker relationships.

Susan Friesen is the founder of eVision Media, a boutique web development and Digital Marketing firm of over 15 years that specializes in designing, building and marketing professional, unique websites for entrepreneurs, businesses and organizations

Starting Sept 21st, she'll be sharing her best secrets with a small exclusive group of individuals in a new 21 Day Social Media Challenge.

She'll be posting short, powerful tasks you can do to take your marketing to the next level.

Top 4 Tips To Attract Visitors To Your Site

One of the common questions among clients is how they can get more visitors on their websites. While the website doesn't have anything wrong with it as it is professionally designed but the problem is that it is not promoted well enough to get more visitors.

If you want your audience to pay attention to your work, you need to earn it. You cannot expect your job to speak for itself and accept that marketing is a part of your job.

Here are four ways which you can use to attract the right kind of visitors to your website.

1. Create and amazing blog.

You must not only post here when you have a new client or something new to sell, but you must make a blog that can grab people's attention by giving entertaining and useful material regularly.

• You can write about
• How you made the product - with pictures and videos.
• From what you were inspired - your audience will like it if you like it as well.
• How your viewers can make a similar product to yours
• Also about any gadget that helped you made your work better.
• Instead of writing your opinions in a long paragraph, you can:
• Devote an entire blog for ONE idea.
• Make a compelling headline.
• Give solid examples.
• Invite comments that end by a question.

Also, don't forget to ask for subscriptions. Repeat visitors should be kept close. Therefore, people an email option when subscribing so it is much easier.

In addition, make sure you're encouraging them to comment and like and share your content. Engagement is essential and it's a great gauge for you to discover what content your readers are seeking the most. When done properly, this can also give you a big boost from an SEO perspective.

2. Give (some of) your best work for free.

• Give people something valuable to share with their contacts.
• The first chapter of your novel
• A free report filled with important information
• High-resolution images
• A series of tutorials

Make sure whatever you give out, and it is valuable otherwise, no one would get excited about your products. Also, make sure you have plenty more in reserve for the people who want to buy from you.

3. Borrow someone else's audience.

Write high-quality guest posts for famous blogs in your niche and get yourself on the radar so people want to reach to you. This could potentially get you hundreds of new subscribers without trying that hard.

4. Get your content into circulation.

Use social media platforms to circulate your content. Share other people's content more than your own as it attracts more people's attention.

Marketing and Branding Social Media Trends in 2016-2017

Technology is influencing our way of acting, it influences our knowhow and marketers must adapt to it. In the industrial era thought was linear and organizations and knowledge structure was very linear. Nowadays quantum physics is showing a more organic and unpredictable way of seeing things. Having this in mind, will enable us to adapt more careful.

This connection with the latest technological development is influencing publishers to adapt or die. One those trends is the increased use of "fringe" social hubs. Brands with a broader presence will certainly be sort of less skeptical when publishing content via social hubs that were considered in the past "fringe." As time goes by we are also noticing many interesting ways of interactive content, one of those is through 360 views photo just like a virtual 360 view. The other trend is the use of animated GIFs dominating newsfeeds and timelines. These two will continue its growth for the next years.

Based on technology once again, algorithms are now to generate content. We are now listening the introduction of artificial intelligence in content generation which will be a game-changer

Balancing SEO, SMM, UX and analytics. We are noticing that a proper mix of SEO, SMM, UX and analytics can help you reap rich rewards when you value their importance equally and treat them as one rather than individual components

Paid Social. We noticed that back in 2015 there was a big growth on promoted posts. For example, Twitter was 75%, Facebook, 80% and LinkedIn 65%. Organic reach of course continues to dwindle as social networks aggressively push for advertising on their platforms. It's time to catch up on the paid social approach as this is just getting bigger

New publishing options in social media. Instant articles by Facebook can now help publishers give their content more visibility in comparison to content on their native publishing platforms.

Real-time aggregated content is on the ride. One example is Twitter's Curator. News channels will face huge competition from brands serving real-time updates of events as they happen-

Fringe social hubs. Brands with a broader presence will certainly be sort of less skeptical when publishing content via social hubs that were considered in the past "fringe." Those "fringe" hubs are becoming mainstream. Content strategies are centered on Snapchat and Instagram and will only increase in 2016.

Influencer marketing. Brands can generate higher sales by harnessing the reach of influencers. According to a study by McKinsey, such campaigns had a 35% more retention rate than paid ads and fetched an ROI of $9.6/$1 this year from $6.85 in 2014. Influencer's reach is cost-effective. Influener marketing will be a part of every content marketing strategy in 2016.

Visual content such as infographics will continue enabling marketers to deliver personalized content. Global internet speed grew by 17% in a single year. Slow internet connection is not a problem anymore, therefore delivering cool graphic-oriented content should be paramount to implement for the next years.

Mobile marketing will rise even higher. There will be more mobile access to new audiences as time goes by. It has remained constant as years pass by but it will just get higher and higher in the next years.

Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. Facebook's main strategy for the next years is augmented reality. Creating virtual reality based content will allow marketers to explore a new frontier of content assimilation. This will give a push for big brands. Facebook's new 360 video option is opening a whole new realm of content creation possibilities.

Knowledge graph. With the introduction of Google's Knowledge Graph feature. Brands have started focusing on ranking for long-tail keywords. This will be one of the main key drivers that will define SEO in 2016.

Finally, make this year the time to establish real bonds between customers and your brand. Do internal marketing at your organization, company or startup in order to reduce resistance. Marketers surveyed lamented the main reason they aren't building stronger bonds with customers is due to internal resistance. To deliver a compelling brand to customers means marketers need to effectively engage and cut across an organization. This is neither easy nor welcome, but it appears many agree. Improving the product offering is the #1 way marketers feel customer intimacy can be improved.

Make your brand essential by striving toward personalization, relevance, and anticipation. Marketers stated customer service is where they can most effectively build intimacy. They also indicated that the majority of their customers associate their brands with the Brand Intimacy archetype of fulfillment: exceeding expectations, delivering superior service, quality, and efficacy. Focus on keeping customers fulfilled and engaged with your brand by continuously delighting them.

Good storytelling and generating emotional response among your target audience will be more important than ever this year - how this content is delivered, though, is key. App development and content for an instant society. The 5 most popular messaging apps feature 3.5 billion monthly active users, according to Statista, and marketers are beginning to take notice. Facebook has already integrated branded campaigns into Facebook Messenger and plans to do more of this come Spring 2016. WhatsApp is opening up their platform for business accounts. Snapchat has introduced Snapchat Discover and the option for any advertiser or individual to create their own geo filter with Snapchat on Demand. Messaging is already huge in the digital world. Expect digital marketers to make it even bigger.

A trend towards a longer sales funnel where digital marketers provide an increasingly high level of value upfront, before moving towards asking for an email address or moving into a sales sequence. This will usually be in the form of content marketing - via blog posts, YouTube videos, and webinars, as well as through the rapidly growing live video space using platforms such as Periscope and Facebook Live. The most successful digital marketers will be those who are able to establish a high level of trust before asking potential clients and customers for the sale. This is additional work for marketers because they will have to strategically craft a large amount of free content, but the rewards will come in the form of an easier sale when they do ask for it, simply because they have already established authority and trust with the prospect.

Big data and real-time analytics. Historically, marketers viewed data as something static and tied to reporting. But data is now more dynamic, accessible, and broadly understood. This will open up new opportunities for messaging optimization - but, more importantly, this access to data will challenge marketers to become nimbler and responsive.

7 Steps to Building a Successful Social Media Strategy

Social media has been termed as the fastest growing marketing tool of the decade, as it gives companies the power to access millions of customers at the touch of a button. With over 91% of Internet users using at least one social networking tool, it has become imperative for every business to build an effective strategy. Here are 7 key steps towards developing a successful social media strategy for your business.

1. Establish your goals

The launch of a strategy is similar to any other marketing strategy. Determine what exactly your goals are before opening accounts in major social networks. An important point to be kept in mind is that social media is a long-term strategy aimed at building and strengthening relationships and brand identity as opposed to a quick selling marketing gimmick.

2. Create a plan

Your marketing plan should include choosing the number of social networks to get started with, determining the number of times each account will be updated and deciding on whether the updates will be announcements or conversations. You will also have to decide on how to integrate your social media strategy with your company's overall communication's strategy.

3. Appoint a social media manager

If you have adequate resources it is preferable to appoint a social network manager, with previous experience, to handle the regular updating of the different social networks. If not, you can delegate the updating task to a few of your employees who are familiar and comfortable with the domain.

4. Determine your niche

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, YouTube, Reddit, Yelp; the list keeps growing day by day. Each network comes with its own strengths and weaknesses and opportunities and threats. You have to research and determine as to which network will work best with your target audience. Remember that your niche will vary depending upon whether your business is local, regional, national or global.

5. Engage with your contacts

This can be termed as the most important aspect of a social media strategy. Your contacts are the main influence you have in building and sustaining a positive corporate identity. Engage with your contacts through both online and offline events. For example, social microblogging site Twitter offers opportunities for online engagement through TweetChat and offline events through Tweetup.

6. Evaluate and analyze your progress

Keep track of important statistics like the number of updates, new number of followers/fans that have been added, number of comments/feedback and other significant actions that were taken. Objectively measure and analyze these vital metrics against your social media goals on a weekly or monthly basis.

7. Adapt and improve when necessary

In conclusion, it is important to remember that there is no precise science where social media strategy is concerned. Strategies vary in accordance with business type and industry. It is only as you keep using the media, that you will be able to grasp what particular strategies work well for your company and what don't. For example, you may have learnt that while holding contests on Facebook may get you more 'likes', it may not necessarily help you connect with your preferred target audience. The secret is to not give up but to keep adapting and making improvements to your social media strategy whenever needed.

Social Media Tips For Beginners - Social Media Jins

Social media tips can be used by beginners very profitably and you can start your business with a company presence or profile on different, but suitable, social networking sites. There has been and will be a huge swing towards blogs and other free distribution platforms. There is an increasing trend towards getting every-day news and entertainment from bookmarked blogs or daily feeds straight to their inbox. There has been an increase in the trend in marketing techniques being used to engage customers and prospects.

There are many ways to increase your new media network. Latest new technologies are coming up every day to improve the working of these sites and it will also help to improve your business.

The new methods that are gaining popularity in using social media for improving business are:

• The explosion of eBooks
• Use the market strategy based on a blog, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook
• Video marketing is becoming a top online marketing tool
• Mobile marketing will stake its claim as the medium for all social marketing sites

There is an increase in attracting new customers from social media outlets, like blogs and forums. These are more in number as compared to print and radio advertising programs. Building relationships by listening and getting back to customers is a key factor that divides average businesses from the grand ones. Nowadays, new media sites and tools are becoming one comprehensive collection and there are all types of sites and tools for each and every business. A With this in mind, a company's social media management system should have one platform from where all the sources can be managed.

If you are out to attract prospective customers, you owe it to yourself and the financial future of your business to learn everything you can about social media.

Social Media Marketing Guide for Beginners - Social Media Jins

Social Media Marketing is the process of gaining attention and web traffic through the social media sites. During this process, usually creative content to reach the masses through publicity coming from a third-party trusted source needs to be created in order for people to share the content of their interest with others and create a vicious chain that would make business cover and go beyond the market audience intended. Every online marketer needs to have a goal, a product, a service and a cause to promote through the vast and overwhelming World Wide Web. If you already have those things defined in your mind, then congratulations! That could be probably the hardest part of entering into the social media challenge, and from now on, every single effort will contribute to reach those goals efficiently and flawlessly until you put your feet on the Social Media Guru status.

The Social Media world is wide and more extensive than ever. It is a very strategic marketing platform that reaches different cultures, ages, religion, sexes, locations, interests and such, therefore it makes it the perfect vehicle to reach and target the right audience and achieve total success. The whole world won't care about video games, for example, but only the people that video games is part of their interests. If you target male audience with ads of high heels on sale, maybe some of them would go and buy a pair or 2 for their wives, but a pair or 2 is not exactly the kind of impact you want to have. Therefore, you focus on certain group ages and certain other factors that cause some services and products, videos and news to go "viral"

First, we need to know the basic social media sites

Facebook

Holding more than 900 million users, if you're already a Facebook user this might not be really new to you, but there are lots of features worth mentioning. You can create a dedicated business page and interact directly, and free, with your customers uploading free pictures, products and videos of the service you intend to provide or the product you are trying to sell. That way, you can build a data base of people that will share your posts to their friends and therefore create the never ending chain. Most of these social media sites have seamlessly mobile integration so people whether it is a portable PC, a desktop, tablet or mobile phone get always connected with media in a way that you should take advantage of. People log in to Facebook, in any situation, while commuting, in the park, at home, at school, at work. Then you're there, promoting your business for it to be displayed in the news feeds, and you would be there, constantly doing the mind trick game to the point that people will find something attractive and worth checking according to their interests. Many big corporations like Starbucks, Microsoft, Apple, Rockstar, Pepsi etc. are doing the same, and it works perfectly!

Blogs

Blogs are an easy way for people to communicate in a semi-professional way when it comes to quality of content. Quality content is always the key to a good writing and therefore, a good blogging. There are many blogger CMS (content management service) where you can get yours up and running for free in less than 5 minutes, some of these are Blogger, WordPress and probably the most user friendly one, Tumblr. One of the tricks here is knowing your audience, your market, who you are targeting and what you want to accomplish with that. Now this has to do with some SEO or Search Engine Optimization knowledge, which is in other words, using the right keywords to rank as high as possible in a search engine i.e. Google, Bing. It has to be related to your posts and at the same time, you have to make sure you use a keyword search tool to check the competition and number of search this given keyword has. The lowest the competition and highest number of searches it gets in a month, the more convenient for you. If you were to advertise your website holding a service of technical support chat, you would have to make the keywords very specific so people that are looking for your service would find you first. It is, for example technical support for Windows, then you'll have to include specific words, as going a little more straight to the point. Since the competition would be really high and Windows technical support is a wide content, you would focus and go further the specific services your product offers, therefore, adding additional keywords to go straight to the point would be the most successful way to do it and you would rank higher in a search engine and people would find your product easily. From "Technical Support Chat" to "Technical Support Chat for Windows 7 and XP" you can see how we are narrowing the concept of the service you offer making it more specific, detailed and then competition of support for mobile operating systems, cellphones, Mac, iPhone, Windows Vista, Windows 8 and such, are left behind and those sites offering the services you're not related to won't steal your chances to be found for people that are merely looking for chat support for Windows 7 and XP. Once understood the keyword concept you can proceed and create content on a blog that would be easy to find on a search engine by including the right tags.

Then we have the Social Media integration again in the blog space. There are many options to share the content of your blog. Many Content Manager Services like Tumblr have the social media buttons to share and like or dislike. You need to look for the options to enable them (in the rare case they are not enabled by default) so every post of yours would have the buttons for share on Tweeter, Google+, Facebook etc. and Reblog within the blogging network you are affiliated to. With great quality and eye catching content you are encouraging people to share your stories on other media sites like the ones mentioned above plus you sharing them and there you have outstanding chances to reach a wider audience.

Twitter

A fast growing, very popular social media site. With over 340,000,000 tweets a day and around 140,00,000 users worldwide, this platform is pretty appealing to business and companies as well as for celebrities, musicians, actors, everybody! A tweet is a message of 140 characters maximum that one can write and post and followers can read and see any time in their news feeds. Talk about it, interact directly and start new conversations is one of the things that make this platform extremely successful. The way they follow Kim Kardashian and read and talk about everything she tweets in a day, the same way they can do with advertising and marketing campaigns about brands and products of their interest.

140,000,000 users to target the right audience might sound like a difficult task, but seen it from the other side of the coin, that means more potential customers for a business. Once you get into the already mentioned vicious chain of any social media site, things just keep coming along by themselves and first thing you'll notice is hundreds of hundreds of people engaged in your brand, talking about it, reviewing it and telling others about events, broadcast and such.

Linkedin

Possibly a not so popular platform making it boring for some people, but a very professional and strategic one for the rest. Some people won't spend long hours chatting or talking to other about silly, trivial things, instead, this social network goes straight to the point. People on Facebook and Twitter for example, follow anyone of their interest for the sake of simply socialize as well as businesses and companies, but Linkedin is intended to filter and leave the fun behind to focus deeper in professionalism in social media.

In Linkedin, you can be part of the people looking for a job/ service, or part of a company offering a job/ service. You can create either a personal profile with your professional information about yourself, studies, contact information, interests, certifications, identifications etc. or, create a business or company page, same way as you do it on Facebook or Twitter sufficing the same purpose: share information about your brand, service, product and keep your audience and followers up to date with the latest information about your company.

YouTube

YouTube is a very interesting platform. People go watch videos of any kind or gets redirected by any website that has a backlink to it or search engines. Once people is there on a given there you have some more "Related Videos" on a column on the right side of the screen. Clicking from video to video makes you find things you never thought you would find, interesting topics, funny videos, how-to kind of videos, publicity etc. Your chances to be seen are overwhelming and you can also get people subscribe to your Channel, which is in other terms, your own YouTube space where you upload your videos. Some people find it way more interesting and easier to just watch a video rather than reading a whole article. You have the resource of visuals. If you were to promote fashion clothes and that is the purpose of your whole social media marketing, you can, along with other options, upload a video with people modeling your clothes, redirect people to your main business site, recommend people to share your video, to subscribe for future video updates, to visit your "fashion blog", like your page on Facebook, follow you on Tweeter, Google+, Linkedin, etc. Close your eyes and try to visualize the Tree Diagram of the whole Social Media marketing strategy and how it gets to potentially reach every single corner of the World Wide Web. Ambitious, isn't it?

Google+

A fairly new comer on the social media site battle, Google+ offers integration of a variety of services including Gmail, Google+ Basics, Google+ Circles that let you share information or "statuses" in a way Facebook does, but has less popularity so far. You have the "Stream" feature similar to Facebook's News Feed that would let you see what others are up to, an option for following very similar as well to Tweeter.

The service is very appealing to professionals and business networks because of the exclusivity and integration of services. You create a Gmail account for example, and unless you disable it, by default you have access to all these service and a profile ready to be edited with a picture, contact information, etc. You have access to the whole Google+ network including already mention Gmail, YouTube, You+, Circles, Basics and even the well-known search engine saving and displaying results to the most relevant things to you. It is convenient to have a spare Google+ account for any Social Media Marketer because it's potential functionality and because no source is too little or too much in marketing. Might not have the same impact, a 30 seconds ad on TV than a small billboard on a bus, but the more you get the message sent the better results you will accomplish.

Social Media Stats

According the new 87 studies perform on social media marketing up to 2012, this approach from companies to customers called B2C or Business to Community has grown and reached 16% of customer engagement but has potential to grow to 57% in the next 5 years. More than 30% of the worldwide population is now online permanently or have some sort of eventual access to the web. More than 1/5 of consumer's free time is being spent on the social media sites, reaching an approximate of 250 million tweets and 800 million Facebook statuses updated every single day. Only in the United States, more than 80% of online active users spend their on social media sites or blogs. 60% of people uses 3 or more digital forms of research product comparison, prices and information about intended purchases, being 40% of those done via social media sites like Facebook or simply redirected from one of these sites leading to even direct interactions with retailers about offers posted. Around 56% Americans have one to three profiles in a social media site being 55% of them aged between 45-55 and having at least one profile

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) facts

70% of the links search users click on are organic. 46% of all searches are for information about products or services. Half of all local searches are performed on mobile devices. 66% of new customers use search and online research to find local businesses. There are 863 million websites globally that mention "SEO." There are 9.1 million searchs conducted including the acronym each month, with the top two phrases being "SEO services" and "SEO company." More than 60,000 Twitter users include "SEO" in their bios, there have been 13 million blog posts published that include "SEO" in the title, and Amazon.com carries almost 2,700 different books about SEO 75% of searchers never scroll past the first page of results. 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine. B2B companies that maintain active content like blogging and SEO programs increased their total website traffic, on average, by 25% in the past year, while those who neglected SEO experienced an average 15% decline in overall visits. 21% of all time spent online is spent on web searches. The big three search engines Google, Bing and Yahoo! are among the five most-visited sites on the Internet. Considering that AOL is #7 and Ask is #10; five of the top 10 most-visited sites on the web are search engines.

In conclusion, Social Media Marketing is a field where professionals and amateurs in advertising can come across and put their own ideas and plans implementing their own techniques. There is no Social Media Marketer university or college degree, this knowledge that should be acquired by extensive research, it needs to be constantly employed and tested in the desired field. It is a revolutionary strategy that has taken down the old TV advertising tactics shifting it to the online market. The percentage of people that prefer to go online on a computer or capable device versus people that watches TV grows steadily every single day. Statistics show Social Media Marketing in a lower impact percentage compared to the legacy ways for advertising, but the potential it has and room for growth is in no doubt overwhelming and could be much more improved and interactive than TV has been for the past decades.

Business Owners Learn Social Media

What is all the talk about "My Face, LinkedTube and TwitIn ..." or is that Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter. If you are confused, you are not alone, but how does the average business owner learn this new language for results? Here are a few easy steps to help make the leap to social media.

First of all, it's just communication and that is nothing new. We have been communicating about business for years. All that has changed is the medium. What was it like when the phone came about? I'm sure people said "I don't have time for this telephone stuff, I have work to do". Yet, we found a way to integrate the telephone into our daily work life and have used it to produce results. The same goes for Social Media.

Second, you didn't learn to ride a bike by reading a book or just talking about it. You got on it and tried and after a few scrapes and bumps later you were off to the races. That's the way it is with Social Media, just try it and work with it so you will understand the dynamics and how it works.

Third, it's about relationships. Business people have been connecting at Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs, Reading Clubs, and Social Clubs; Networking events like BNI, golf clubs and sporting events, then building business relationships. This is exactly what is happening in Social Media today. We simply connect on line in addition to meeting in person or in place of meeting in person. Sometimes we meet on line then meet in person.

So post your picture on LinkedIn or Facebook and reach your virtual hand out to meet and greet people in the world of the internet. Yes, sales will follow, business will get done and experts will be found, just like we have been doing for years in the real world.

10 Things to Consider When Developing Your Social Media Strategies

As an increasing number of companies switch considerable chunks of their marketing budgets towards social media strategies, there remain some businesses struggling to come to terms with how to take their first steps into the channel. Here are 10 things you may need to consider when developing your strategies.

1. Social media is not Facebook. Nor is it Twitter, LinkedIn nor YouTube. These are merely a selection of the most popular tools that can be used to deliver a social media strategy and wanting to be on them without considering 'why' is often the easiest way to fail. Your strategy needs to be tied to objectives that have been well thought out.

2. You also need to think about where your customers are. If it's social networks, which social networks? There's no point having a beautiful Facebook page if your target audience aren't there. By identifying how they spend their time online, you can start to think about how you can reach them effectively.

3. Remember to listen before you speak. Firms that use social channels to broadcast their company news, rather than listening to what their target audience is saying are missing a trick. By focusing your social strategies on what you can learn, rather than what you can say, you will gain valuable insights that help you become a more successful business.

4. It's also worth noting that social is not just a marketing tool. Many successful social strategies have involved businesses using tools such as Twitter and Facebook for customer service, after-sales care and recruitment. When thinking about how you intend to use social media, think about how individual departments and roles could use the channel to perform their roles more efficiently.

5. You need to think about how you intend to monitor conversations and how you will then engage with your audience. Social media tools, such as third-party monitoring software, can provide in-depth coverage of what is being said, allowing you to keep tabs on sentiment and feedback. You then require a procedure for how you can respond and engage with them.

6. Once you know how the company is going to be using social media, you can start to assign the important roles and responsibilities of specific staff members. You may wish to use outside help - in the form social media consultants - but for day-to-day engagement, the most success social strategies require brands to take ownership of their own activity.

7. When it comes to sharing content through your social channels, think about how you add value. People are looking for content that is interesting, helpful or funny, so it's important to spend time developing a plan for how you intend to populate each tool you intend to use.

8. Measurement is essential, so you need to consider how the success of your strategy will be judged. This may be in the form of its impact on sales or website visitors - particularly if you use social media tracking software - or it could be in the value of the insights you gain and the uplift your brand receives.

9. Another consideration you may want to make is to introduce social media guidelines or a policy that helps you to encourage all staff - not just marketers - to make a positive contribution to your online presence. This has proven to be a much more successful approach than trying to police their social behaviour.

10. Once it launches, you need to be ready to adapt. The social landscape is changing at an alarming rate, so you need to be flexible enough to evolve your strategies in order to ensure you get the most from your investment.

Social Media Marketing Trends You Should Not Ignore - Social Media Jins

The success of social media marketing lies in the right mix of fruitful strategies. The wrong combination will simply reduce the traffic from targeted customers rather than attract them. If you devise your social media strategies such as social media optimization on the basis of current trends, you can increase profits and use social networking sites effectively for marketing. Here are the recent trends highlighted in an article published by Forbes based on the 2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report.

Low Usage of Social Bookmarking Sites

According to the research reports, the use of social bookmarking sites has decreased to 10 percent from 26 percent in 2011. This considerable drop of usage clearly indicates the fall of bookmarking sites. Even though the sites including Twitter, StumbleUpon, Reddit and Pinterest are still popular among marketers, majority of sites (e.g. DIGG, Friendfeed) are almost dying. Therefore, it is not a good practice to trust a bookmarking site blindly for marketing purposes in the current scenario. Instead, check for the sites that are most popular and perform the bookmarking very cautiously.

Decline of Daily Deal Sites

Daily deal features or simply daily offerings of deals are regarded as a powerful way to attract a large number of targeted customers at a time. The research report says that around 80 percent of marketers are not interested in using the most popular daily deal sites including Groupon or Living Social for their campaigns in the near future.

Now people concentrate more on the considerable amount of returns that they receive from their purchases over time. Hence, it is advisable to use social networking sites for long term marketing goals rather than daily goals.

Top Sites for Social Media Campaigns

Marketers who use social media for marketing will obviously carry out social media campaigns (using social networking sites for promotion) for their products or services to attract targeted customers. The campaigns will be successful only if the relevant site is popular among the customers.

The research report indicates that marketers who spend more than 40 hours a week for social media marketing carry out their campaigns more intensely through Google+, You Tube, Pinterest and Instagram compared to those who spend six hours or less a week on social media marketing. Also, around 92 percent of marketers who have five or more years of experience prefer LinkedIn than 70 percent of marketers having less than five years of experience. Forum marketing has also decreased to 16 percent this year from 24 percent in 2011.

Around 67 percent of marketers are planning to increase campaigns through Twitter even though it is a slight decrease from 69 percent last year. Young marketers, more than older ones prefer photo sharing sites including Instagram for launching campaigns. 62% chose blogging as most suitable platform to master, which is the highest one followed by Google + (61%) and Facebook (59%).

Trends of B2C and B2B Marketers

Business to Consumer (B2C) Marketers use Facebook at a higher rate of 67% than other platforms. In the case of Business to Business (B2B) marketers, both Facebook and LinkedIn have equal majority of 29% each. Given below is the pie chart showing usage statistics for each platform with regard to B2C and B2B marketers.

B2B marketers use a more diverse array of platforms compared to B2C marketers. Both of them do not completely utilize blogging and have minimal You Tube usage.

If you are a B2B or B2C marketer, try to encourage blogs as they are regarded as the most popular social media platform. YouTube being the second largest search engine, you can enjoy the benefits it offers by posting low-cost videos. Orabrush (B2C Company) and Blentec (B2B Company) have become strong brands by making use of low cost YouTube videos.

As B2B marketers increasingly use LinkedIn, they have an opportunity to utilize SlideShare (owned by LinkedIn). This social media entity can be used for generating leads for B2B organizations.

Fewer Check-ins Online

As per the research reports, there is a decrease in the usage of geo-location services including Foursquare from 17% in 2011 to 11% this year. These services allow check-in to your locations automatically online. The decline in these kinds of services indicates that people are now concerned more about privacy and safety. Marketers can tackle this situation by introducing contests and rewards. This will encourage people to check-in more.

If you are still following the old strategy for social media marketing, then it is the time to develop new strategies based on all these current trends. It is better to entrust this tedious task to a reputable social media marketing company that offers reliable social media marketing services rather than try implementing the strategies on your own.

How to Create Your Social Media Strategy - Social Media Jins

A Social Media Strategy is an essential component of a broader marketing plan for any business in today's world. We accept that Social Media is a powerful medium to connect with prospects and customers but because Social Media is so new, we're just not sure how to effectively market our business using Social Media.

If you were applying for a business loan the first thing your bank manager would ask is, Do you have a business plan?

If you're venturing into Social Media for your business the first thing you need to ask yourself is, What's my Social Media Strategy?

Having one or more Social Marketing Strategies in place before you enter the big wide world of Social Media will help you gain clarity and direction for your business.

Do you think the World's top athletes begin a race without a strategy? No way, anyone serious about achieving results in any field knows they need to have one or more effective strategies in place PRIOR to beginning their venture, event etc.

While marketing principles remain the same, the manner in which those principles are applied within the Social space will vary depending on the platform you're using to market your business.

The four most known Social sites are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. Each represents an opportunity for businesses to target prospects in a different way.

For example, are you a B2B business wanting to market your products or services to other business owners? Use LinkedIn.

Would you like to educate prospects and customers in a short, quick and easy to understand way, use YouTube.

Would you like to create a community of enthusiastic fans and engage with them in a personal way? Use Facebook.

We know that a strategy is simply a method or series of steps we must take to achieve a certain outcome. Creating a Social Strategy requires a detailed analysis of who you'd like to target and how you're going to target them in the most effective way.

Some initial questions you might like to ask yourself to formulate your Social Media Strategy are:

• Who is my target customer?
• Who REALLY is my target customer?
• What are their buying motivators?
• What are the 6 primary thoughts or questions they would think prior to buying my product/service?
• What is the best way to target my prospects?
• What is my outcome? Do I want to: Receive more new business leads, Build closer relationships with customers, Receive more referrals from existing customers, Create a community of people passionate about my product/service/topic, Build my database...?
• Who else has the same customers as me?
• How will my marketing funnel look like?
• How can I hold my prospect's attention span?
• And when creating your Social Marketing Campaign...
• What can I give them that no one else can?
• Will they purchase instantly or will this campaign simply initiate the buying process?
• How can I present my offer in a way they're not accustomed to in order to deliver massive value to them?
• If I were my customer, what would motivate me to take action to purchase?
• When they read this (headline, copywriting), what will they think and/or how would they feel in response to this?
• If this doesn't work, what else could work?
• Who most often buys from me, male or female? Are they single, married or in a relationship? How old are they?
• Will they buy from me once, or will they purchase regularly?
• What are the steps to take my customer through to purchase?
• What marketing principles will work most effectively in this campaign? (Scarcity, Social Proof, Authority, Liking, Reciprocity)
• What testimonials will be most effective for my target market? Will they respond better to written or video testimonials?

In developing your Social Media Strategy it's essential that you answer these questions not immediately, but throughout the formulation of your Strategy.

If you miss your mark the first time, keep trying until you get the formula right. With every campaign you'll come closer to cracking the code that is your customer's mind.

If you can get inside their head, you're on your way to a sale. The majority of your prospects will have the same questions, queries, concerns and turn offs. If you can figure out what these are you'll create a compelling Social Media Strategy and you'll enjoy amazing results that most others can only hope to attain with their Social Marketing.

Shareable Content With Active Participation Needed to Achieve Your Social Media Marketing Goals

Majority of marketers today consider social media as the one of the most powerful tools to improve brand reputation. In the ExactTarget Marketing Cloud 2014 State of Marketing Study of Saleforce.com that covered over 2,660 mid to senior level managers from various industries, about 66% of marketers admitted that social networking sites indirectly impact their business performance. The importance of personalized rank results, the results with rel-author that display more prominently in Google search, and #searches that incorporate G+ hashtags queries as part of search on Google imply that social signals can impact SERP rankings quite significantly. Though social signals are evolving as a crucial factor when it comes to achieving their online marketing goals, businesses are still confused as to whether success with social media optimization is determined by shareable content or active participation on social networking sites.

Improve Social Signals Quality Content

Matt Cutts has stressed that if you develop compelling and high quality content, people will naturally link it, like or share it on Facebook or +1 it. Quality content would definitely generate a lot of social signals in the form of likes, shares, +1s, tweets and more. Discussions on Cre8siteForums on clients who do not want to use social media say that marketers who are not interested in, confused, busy or unable to take part in social media activities simply need to create good content that will get shared on social networking sites. This, it is pointed out, will drive traffic from Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and more without your getting involved in the day-to-day activities on these sites. Marketers can post quality articles on their websites and add social buttons to them so that visitors can share the posts they like in their social network:

It is very important to post high quality content regularly on social networking sites. Entrepreneurs who loathe social sites, but still want to drive social signals in this way can rely on tools that can automatically share blog posts with these sites. Here's a look at some on these tools:

Twitterfeed - Once you sign up for Twitterfeed and select your Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn profiles, the tool uses the RSS feed your blogs to monitor for new posts. When a new post is found, it will share that post to all selected profiles automatically. You can choose whether to share the title or description or both and use keyword filters to automatically add or opt out posts that contain specific keywords.

HootSuite - This tool not only posts blog content automatically, but also allows you to schedule updates, monitor mentions and conversions, create search streams and track your activity across various social profiles. As this tool supports LinkedIn company pages and Google+ Pages (not Google+ personal profiles) you can share posts across more networks than with Twitterfeed. Though the content cannot be customized for individual posts, you can configure different settings for each social network.

SNAP Pro - SNAP Pro supports a wider array of social networks than the tools mentioned above, including StumbleUpon, Delicious and Pinterest, though it would take more time to configure. The paid version allows you to set up auto posting to an unlimited number of social profiles including Google+ personal profiles and LinkedIn company pages. Compared to other tools, SNAP allows complete customization of your posts.

Why Active Participation is Important for a Winning Social Optimization Strategy?

Though there are several ways to share high quality content across social networking profiles and drive social signals without being socially active, industry experts say it is imperative stay active on social networking sites if you really want these signals to work for your search engine optimization efforts. Here are some of the reasons why active social participation is important to your SEO:

Direct Interaction with Customers - You need to interact directly with your audience on social sites to attract and retain interest in your products or services. Suppose that you sell ceramic materials and your interesting article about your latest ceramic cookware gets circulated across social networks. Though people like your article and share it in their social circle, they may want to ask you questions about it - like if it is eco-friendly, how to take care of the cookware, and so on. You can respond to their questions only if you interact with them on the network or else potential customers would think they do not matter to you and even take it as poor customer service. They would even think that your product is not authentic. Being socially active allows you to provide timely and suitable responses to every customer query, which in turn, builds a positive image.

Share Industry Knowledge - By participating in important conversations on social network, you can pick up the latest industry news and extend your knowledge. At the same time, you can share your industry knowledge with peers so that others come to consider you an expert in your field. This would also make them look upon your content as authoritative. You would miss out on such conversations if you are not socially active.

Keep Track of Competition - It is very important to understand how your competitors are using social networking so that you can use similar or better tactics to interact with your targeted audience. Being active on social networking sites allows you to study their social network profiles, content and promotional campaigns.

The bottom line is that in addition to creating high quality shareable content, bonding with your fans and followers is necessary for success with social media marketing. Your social media optimization strategy should facilitate timely and appropriate customer interactions and not focus only on improving content outreach.

The importance of social media is growing and most businesses consider it a very strong medium to improve brand reputation. According to the ExactTarget Marketing Cloud 2014 State of Marketing Study of Saleforce.com, around 66% of marketers say that social networking sites do impact their business performance indirectly. Personalized rank results and results with rel-author with Google search imply that social signals can have an indirect impact on SERP rankings. However, one question that businesses are asking is whether success with social media optimization depends on developing shareable content or being active on social networking sites. The answer is 'both'. Let's see why.

It is an indisputable fact that quality content can enhance social signals. Matt Cutts has already stressed that high quality content naturally generates a lot of likes, shares and +1's. So people who are disinterested in, confused, busy or unable to participate in social networking sites simply need to produce good content which will get shared by others on social media sites. This would allow even those who are who on social media to get traffic from social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and more. Also several tools are available including Twitterfeed, HootSuite, SNAP Pro and more to automatically share blog posts with these sites. Many entrepreneurs who loathe social networking sites and still want to drive social signals rely on such tools.

However, industry experts point out that if you really want social signals to work for your search engine optimization efforts, it is not enough to simple have your content circulated across social sites. It is imperative to stay active on these sites. If you do not interact directly with your audience, they will lose interest in you. Suppose you are in floor carpeting, have written an article about your latest floor carpet, and people who like your article share it in their social circle. If you think your job is done, you are wrong. Readers may want to ask you questions about the carpet - like whether it is allergy free, how water damage can be managed, and so on. Providing answers to these questions is important to show that your audience matters. If you don't respond to these questions, potential customers would take it as poor customer service and even think your product is not authentic. Being socially active ensures that you can provide timely and suitable responses to customer queries and build a positive image.

Participation in important conversations on a social network allows you to share your knowledge with peers and other users would consider you an expert in your field and look upon your content as authentic. You would miss such conversations if you are socially inactive. It would also limit your opportunity to understand what your competitors are doing so that you can modify your strategy accordingly.

In essence, success with social media marketing requires you to produce good quality and also be socially active. Bonding with your fans and followers and responding to their queries and comments appropriately and in a timely manner is indeed the key to a winning social media optimization strategy.

The Impact of Social Media Marketing on Tourism

Introduction:

Lebanon's area is ranked 170th in the world (CIA, 2014). It is smaller than the size of Connecticut, one of the smallest states in in America. Moreover, Lebanon is one of the few democratic countries in the Middle East region. Regarding its economy, Lebanon is a free market economy and has a very long tradition of laissez-faire economics. In addition to its coastal location on the Eastern Mediterranean coast, Lebanon is considered as the central 'window' of the Middle East to Europe, North Africa, and the rest of the world. Because of this, its economy has gone through some very prosperous times and was even once called the 'Paris' of the Middle East before the nation's 15 year-long bloody civil war which ended in 1990.

Also, although Lebanon is tiny, it is also one of the most diverse nations in the world. Christians, Muslims, Druze, and other minority sects are spread all over the small nation and even Lebanon's political system is based on sectarian power sharing.

However, this diversity had played a pivotal role in the nation's problems. This diversity was a necessary condition of the country's sectarian civil war and currently plays an important role in its political paralysis, although other factors (mainly foreign) are to blame as well. There is currently no acting President and the country's rival political parties keep bickering and preventing rather than facilitating the country's development.

Furthermore, Lebanon's proximity to Israel has made it a foreign policy/proxy battleground for foreign nations, each using Lebanon for its own selfish ends.

The sad political realities of the country have significantly hurt the country's economy. Also, since Lebanon is a service-based economy, this particular sector has taken the largest hit.

Tourism plays a significant role in the nation's economy. According to the Lebanese Ministry of Economy & Trade (MOET), "Tourism has long been one of Lebanon's leading economic sectors" (Economic Research Unit, 2010).

Furthermore, The World Travel & Tourism Council estimated that the travel & tourism sector in Lebanon contributed over $4 billion dollars in 2013 (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2014).

The travel & tourism sector made up about 10% of the economy in 2012 but that share dropped to 9% in 2013 (ibid, p. 14). This is due to the political situation in the country as well as some other factors. Moreover, the number of tourist arrivals in the country kept decreasing from 2011 to 2013.

Since the tourism industry has been somewhat floundering in the past few years, the room for error becomes very small for businesses in this industry. The political & economic situations are squeezing tourist-related (TR) businesses in Lebanon. This means that these businesses are forced to do more to make up for increasing losses (or decreasing profits) and with fewer resources. There is no telling when the political & economic situation in Lebanon will improve especially since the civil war in neighboring Syria shows no signs of abating.

There are many ways that Lebanese TR businesses can adapt during these times such as implementing downsizing policies and cutting back on marketing & advertising budgets. When economic recessions and tough times affect businesses, the first things to get eliminated are usually marketing budgets. But especially since TR businesses need to do more marketing to make up for lost businesses, this may not be a good idea.

One solution to this problem is to take advantage of Social Media Marketing strategies since they cost little to no resources, perfect for the current economic situation in Lebanon. Social media marketing allows TR businesses to overcome obstacles of limited budgets and decreased business.

Problem Statement

During the past few years, the positive effect of social media on business has been extremely high (Kaplan et al., 2010; Stelzner, 2010; Treem & Leonardi, 2012, p. 143; Baker & Green, 2014).

Moreover, Facebook and Twitter fans of a specific brand are much more likely to recommend and buy from these brands than non-fans (Cruz & Mendelsohn, 2011). But, we don't need to make sure of social media's impact on business through research studies. For social media users, which include over 30% of the world, this fact is known. More and more businesses are inserting Social Media marketing tools into their marketing strategies and, in some cases, have even become an integral part of their overall business strategy.

Naturally, one would expect that Lebanese businesses would quickly adopt Social Media Marketing as a key role in their overall marketing strategies but this is not the case. When it comes to the Middle East and especially Lebanon, the region is far behind the West in social media usage. Not only that, when it comes to businesses involved in the tourism industry, there is much room for growth. Little investment in technology is keeping tourist businesses away from maximizing marketing opportunities given by social media.

The Lebanese tourism industry is not taking advantage of social media marketing tactics even though the advantages of doing so are apparent. This presents a great problem especially since the economy is going through a very rough time.

Moreover, Lebanese TR businesses and businesses in Lebanon in general are not adopting social media tools as they should. This presents a huge problem in the waste of resources as well as significant missed opportunities as a larger target audience can be reached via social media enabling businesses that adopt social media marketing tools gain a better chance of success and prosperity.

Purpose of the study

The fruits and advantages of social media marketing tools may take significant time to come about in Lebanon if we are ignorant of the factors that have led to the prevention of widespread social media marketing adoption.

Also, as long as no study goes into the issue of effectively implementing a social media marketing campaign in the Lebanese context, many TR businesses may be lost even if they decide to adopt social media marketing tools.

Additionally, even though there have been numerous studies in the West about effectively implementing social media marketing campaigns, the results of these studies may or may not apply to the Lebanese context. Therefore, it is also the purpose of this study to find out those factors related to effectively implementing social media marketing among Lebanese TR businesses.

At the end, there is no doubt that social media marketing plays an extremely important role in the marketing campaigns and even in the overall success of tourism-related businesses.

Lebanese Tourist-Related (TR) businesses fall far behind the developed world in investing and using SMM. Since there are many benefits of SMM, why is this so? Also, to catch up to the rest of the world, what is the most effective way for Lebanese TR businesses to deploy an SMM campaign? So, it was the study's purpose to find reasons linked to such low investment & use of SMM by Lebanese TR businesses and to help guide these businesses in effectively using SMM.

Methodology

The purpose of this study is twofold. This study aims to find out exactly what those factors are that are preventing the widespread adoption of social media marketing tools among Lebanese TR businesses. The philosophy used is interpretivism, for an inductive approach to go from specific to general research, the strategy is ethnographic, and the methodology is qualitative. In-depth interviews are used with ten participants from ten different companies. Five companies had high social media 'visibility' and the other five didn't. So, the participants' answers provided very useful information and solutions for the research problem.

Findings

The results found that among the most relevant factors of little SMM investment & use by Lebanese TR businesses are that many don't see benefits to using SMM and so don't support it.

The results also provided useful information on factors for effectively implementing SMM by Lebanese TR businesses including the acceptance of SMM by ownership/decision-makers and the importance of these people in seeing the benefits of SMM. Also, problems with implementing SMM include negative customer feedback and inter-departmental power struggles.

Recommendations include communicating the benefits of SMM to Lebanese TR businesses which is of such high importance to get them to use SMM. There should also be an SMM plan with a consistent schedule outlining the days to add content to social media sites as well as comprehensive monitoring of SM user comments about the business.

At the end, it is the researcher's hope that the study helped shed light on important aspects of SMM and its relation to Lebanese TR businesses. It is also hoped that the recommendations be taken into consideration by Lebanese TR businesses.

References

• Baker, S., & Green, H. (2014, February 20). Social media will change your business. Business week.
• CIA World Factbook 2014. (2014, November 11). Total Area - sq km 2014 country comparisons, ranks, By Rank.
• Cruz, B., & Mendelsohn, J. (2011). Why social media matters to your business. Retrieved from Chadwick Martin Bailey
• Economic Research Unit. (2010) Tourism. Ministry of Economy & Trade Newsletter,(5)
• Kaplan, Andreas M. and Michael Haenlein. 2010. "Users of the World, Unite! The Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media." Business Horizons 53: 59-68.
• Stelzner, M. (2010). Social media marketing industry report: how marketers are using social media to grow their business.
• Treem, J.W. & Leonardi, P.M. (2012). "Social media use in organizations: Exploring the affordances of visibility, editability, persistence, and association."Communication Yearbook, 36, 143-189
• World Travel & Tourism Council. (2014). Travel and tourism: Economic impact 2014 Lebanon.

7 Social Media Tips - What NOT To Do - Social Media Jins

"You can't put stuff on the Internet that isn't true... isn't it against the law?"

I actually overheard that recently at a family function. Granted, the person making the proclamation was 12 years old, but I am reasonably certain that there are people of all ages who labor under that delusion. Truth is that not everything you find on the Internet is trustworthy. Between the erroneous news stories, ill-conceived recipes, and historical inaccuracies floating around on the web, you must be selective in what you accept as good, solid information... and what you dismiss as bunk.

Which brings me to advice from the "experts"... in this case, advice about how to use social media for the benefit of your business. There has been a great deal of advice on how to maximize the benefits of social media, but not all of it is worth heeding. Here are some of the "more awful" bits of social media wisdom that I recommend you avoid:

Get on every social media site you can find! Yes, there are a lot of great sites out there, and more pop up all the time... but not every one of them is the right place to showcase your business. Take, for example, Pinterest... a successful social media site, to be sure! But if your business isn't the type that would translate well to Pinterest, or if your demographic doesn't use that platform, then what is the point of channeling your energy that way? Find out where your customers are... and go there!

Strategy? Not necessary. Just keep in people's faces! When you begin your social media campaign, you need to have a plan in place, otherwise your posts will be random or pointless. Decide from the beginning what it is you want to accomplish with your social media postings.

The more posts, the better! No one will follow you, stay your "friend", or click on you if you bombard them constantly. Concentrate on good posts with meaningful content, and post them at regular intervals, such as daily or just on weekdays... consider, also, the times of day that your targeted audience will see and respond to them.

Your social media page is self-promoting. Not true! Don't assume that people will simply figure out that you have a Facebook page or a Twitter account! You need to plug these accounts with links from your website and reminders about these accounts on your cards, literature, and your receipts.

You're busy. It's best to outsource the social media job. This should be a way to connect with your customers. That personal connection is really best made with your own "voice." Who would know better about the challenges and trends of your business better than you would? You are the expert. Your content will be more meaningful if it is coming from you.

Now that you have social media, email is unnecessary. First, don't assume that because many of your customers are using these platforms, that all of them are. There are plenty of holdouts, and chances are good that some of them are your customers. Why alienate them? For me, email is a necessity, and certainly has not gone the way of the dinosaur. Also, don't forget that usually one of the first steps in starting a social media account is to enter your email address!

Disable comments to avoid unfavorable posts. This is highly unadvisable. First, you have to accept that people are going to have something to say about your business, whether it's on your Facebook page or elsewhere. Isn't it better to allow it in a place where you have some control over the direction the conversation takes, particularly if the comments are negative? Also, disallowing comments may create the impression that you're hiding something or that you're not transparent. This can result in your social marketing campaign actually working against your business, rather than for it.
No doubt there are many other pieces of "sage wisdom" out there about social media marketing that would do you far more harm than good. Tread carefully and consider your sources!

Social Media Tips for Network Marketing Lead Generation - Social Media Jins

Social media has taken the world by storm! According to data from comScore, social networking today accounts for 16 percent of the time spent online in the United States, through sites like Facebook, Twitter etc. With so many people spending so much time on these sites, ignoring social media as a network marketing tool would be a big mistake. These networks are a great place to build relationships as well as generate leads. Basically, this tool can be used to network with like-minded individuals, interact with them and build relationships - and this is what's most important when it comes to generating leads in the network marketing business. Here in this article we will take a look at some tips on how you can use social media to boost your network marketing lead generation.

Social Media Tips for Lead Generation Here are a few great tips on how you can use this new media to improve lead generation for your network marketing business -

Connect with your target niche - Begin by connecting with your target niche on various social media sites like Facebook, or LinkedIn. Make friends with those who are commenting or talking about issues your product or service could resolve. Look up various groups related to your target niche on these social media websites and join them. Connect with other members of the group. You can share your expertise and knowledge with these people. Also, Twitter's search function is a great way to look for people in your niche. Find them and follow them.

Start your group - Start a group and get other people to join. Invite people from your target niche. However, do ensure that the group you have started represents your niche.

Provide interesting and relevant content - Offering content that is valuable, interesting and relevant to your target audience is essential for building trust and relationships. Besides that, it also helps you establish your reputation as an expert authority in your niche. Your followers and friends will consider you as a trusted source of valuable information. Also remember that this is an ongoing process and you have to continue providing good content. Let your followers know your contact details such as phone numbers, emails, Skype ID etc.

Get others to opt-in to listen from you - When it comes to generating leads through social media, getting the target audience to opt-in hear more from you is very important. A link at the end of your posts or articles is a good way to do this. You could also send your links directly to friends and followers, when they ask for more information.

Here is a helpful article I wrote on generating free leads for your business.

Incorporate these tips in your social media strategy to boost lead generation for your network marketing business.

Social Media Jins - Straight Shooting Advice For Small Business

Learning and implementing a social media marketing campaign can seem like a daunting task, so picking up any social media tips from reputable websites, forums and peer groups can definitely help you on your journey.

There has never been a better reason to learn as there are now more than 600 million people on Facebook, and at least 150 million of those are Americans, which equates to one in two adults. Twitter has recently topped 300 million users since its creation in 2006. For those that can master the social networks there is an endless supply of potential customers surfing the limitless end of status feeds on the internet highway.

Meanwhile small business owners are desperately trying to catch up and capitalize on this business platform while trying to juggle being, finance, marketing and H. R. H managers. As well as somewhere amongst it all fit family life. So unless you have stacks of cash and can employ social media guru to do it for you, then you really need to become your own social media expert.

The Following Are A Few Social Media Tips Consider When Setting Up A Campaign.

Break It Up And Keep It Social

Social media is about engagement and having and interaction, not promoting. Try to aim to be the person at the party that, shows interest in others, listens attentively, asks good questions, can hold an audiences attention with interesting and relevant content, oh and you need to be an authentic and just generally an all round likeable person. Ask question get interaction with your audience, such as Victoria Secrets doesn't splash a two for one sale on their status feeds constantly, sure they show up and coming promotions and sales but they mix it up by asking questions instead. For example they might ask for interaction by asking what your favorite colored slip is or which was the most comfortable Victoria Secrets bra you've ever worn. (Obviously targeting the female audience). The visitor is encouraged to interact and is more likely to keep coming back

Don't Come Across Desperate

"Like us on Facebook" and "Follow us on Twitter" are everywhere. I find it kind of desperate how the social media culture tells customers to "Like" and "Follow" them. Surely, if your marketing was interesting and engaging it would be a given that they would "follow" or "like" you anyway? Remember to think what's in it for them and then work from a place of power not need.

Be Accessible

Make it simple and easy for your audience to stay in touch with you. Social plug ins such as "Share this", " Add this" or "Digg-Digg" are all easy to install on your site and show up as many of the social networking sites that you load up and make it quick and easy for your fans to share your content with their friends on any network. Then there are Facebook Business or "Fan Pages" that give the visitor a chance to "like" your page. This gives you the opportunity to market to them by way of updates to keep the conversation going.

In summary these tips are designed to be just that, a bit of "food for thought", to bear in mind when you are setting up your social media marketing campaigns. My other recommendation is to think about enlisting the help of a mentor. There are reputable companies available online that you can team up with that are affordable for smaller businesses and have the social media systems, training and support available so you don't have to do it on your own. Why not have your own supply of social media tips and strategies on hand 24/7 when you need them.

Social Media Jins - Expand The Voice Of Your Business

The world of social media is ever changing and is very fast paced. To use the social sites available for your business here are some social media tips for you to get you started. Keep reading as there's some great stuff for you if you're starting out

1. Firstly you need to be yourself on social media. Just because you are a business doesn't mean you have to be corporate. In fact, on social sites people are looking to connect with people. They want to know who is behind the business and not be faced with some faceless corporate entity.

2. Here's one of the most important tips of all. Listen to your customers. They're making the effort to be on social media. They're looking at your stuff, they're obviously interested and social sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter are fantastic sites for you to find out what they're saying. Look at their posts, read their comments, and above all else take action on what you learn. They can be your biggest advocates so treat them like real people and listen to them.

3. Social media is a long term game so you need to be patient. It takes time to build a brand, but because of the reach of social media, once you've got your name out there, it's very hard to hold back the floodgates! (If you do it properly). Give helpful tips about your niche, interact with people and that will go a long way to building and establishing your brand.

4. You need to make the most of every opportunity to get your name out on social media. There are many different social media platforms and if you're serious about building your business using social media, then try to structure your posts to the various platforms. One of the most important tips is to have a schedule of what you're going to post and stick to that schedule. That way you've got a plan of what you're going to say, it prevents you going off on tangents, and will build a better brand for you in the long term.

5. We said above that social and online media is forever changing and that means you need to be flexible. Websites change all the time, Facebook is forever changing and new players are constantly coming into the market, so you need to be nimble enough to allow for these changes. Post great content and you can't go wrong.

6. Collaborating with others is key to your success. Don't think of your competition as competition. Think of ways that you can work together to spread both brands. Social media makes companies very transparent and if you're a small business collaborating with other similar businesses is a great way to get your name visible and noticed.

7. The last of our tips is to be humble about your achievements. You need to let people know what you're doing as you can be sure your competition is doing exactly that (but read point six above!). But you don't need to blow your trumpet from the rooftops. Just be subtle and quietly let people know about what you're doing and if you treat people with respect, and show them your successes you will find your social media marketing to be much more effective.

These seven tips give you an overview about how you should treat your social interactions. You use social and online media to keep your business and brand ahead of the curve and to give yourself high visibility. Use these easy ideas to turn marketing strategies into a successful brand.