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You’ve heard of small businesses — and large businesses, too — using social media campaigns to attract new customers, cultivate continuing customers, and build community around their product or service. And you would like to try this yourself.

That’s a great idea! And it’s a low risk idea too, since all the ingredients are free. Free as in dollars. But not free as in time, imagination, and commitment.

Traditional marketing — advertising — and the early implementation of the Web– Web 1.0– was entirely a one-way flow. I put up a big sign, an offer, a pitch, and the target might go buy my stuff. I talk AT you, not with you.

Social media marketing– Web 2.0– is about establishing a conversation about your product or service with your clients and customers. Web 2.0 is about empowering your product or services users to cheerfully do your marketing for you. Not because this is easier or even necessarily cheaper (although it is). But because your customers are better at marketing your product than you are. Did you absorb that last sentence? If not, read it again. Does it remind you of the advertising maxim “the best advertising is word of mouth”?

Your customers are better at marketing your product then you are. Even when they are being critical of some aspect of it. Unmitigated praise is not believable. And criticism allows you to:

1. Improve your product or service with advice from free consultants.
2. Answer your critics directly and in public in a way that shows that you care, and that you are right on top of all issues concerning your product.

This kind of transparency can only help you.

Your best competitors probably already have social media strategies. The time to begin your social media strategy is yesterday. If yesterday is all booked up, start today.

Social media continues to get a lot of attention — and justifiably so. It’s the biggest, most complex, most dynamic change to happen in marketing since the invention of television in 1923. (In case you’re wondering, yes, TV was invented in 1923, but it didn’t take off in the U.S. until the early 1950s.)

With all the stuff going on in Social Media, it’s not surprising that people are making plenty of mistakes. With that in mind, we’ve decided to compose a list of how NOT to run a Social Media campaign.

Don’t upload a corporate YouTube video and claim you “have a Social Media campaign.” Social Media is about a conversation, not about uploading a YouTube video.

Don’t sit on the sidelines. As 60 Second Marketer visitor Ruby Gottlieb once said, “In order to understand Social Media, you have to use Social Media.”…

Read the whole 60 Second Marketer article “How not to run a social media campaign“.

St Pete’s Seven North Web Design & Graphics Social Media-Hub Website: Leveraging Wordpress for Easy SEO and Lower Cost.

Social Media Marketing-St Pete’s Seven North Web Design

Call Seven North Web & Graphics at 727-894-5266 in St Petersburg, Florida to talk about setting a Wordpress website as the hub for your social media marketing program.

There comes a time in any web-related process when you have to get out a pencil, or a mind-mapping web app, and sketch out a structure, a visual plan, something to show how all the pieces fit together. Or you can do what I do and see if somebody has already done the work for you. Here is an easy-to-grok self-branding scheme visualized for you, thanks to visual-mapping.com:

Build Your Brand

Download this chart as a .pdf file.

Call Seven North Web & Graphics at 727-894-5266 in St Petersburg, Florida to talk about setting a Wordpress website as the hub for your social media marketing program.

From Mashable

Why use social media?

The best way to illustrate why small businesses are using social media is with a story. Think back to the days of the wild west. In those days, towns had one general store, and the store owner knew everyone. People trusted him and knew what they were getting. Enter the industrial age, and efficiency trumped personalization. People didn’t mind where they bought from, as long as goods were cheap.

Now, that mentality has changed. Consumers are once again reverting to a need for personalization from businesses large and small. The need has been rekindled by the Internet and our ability to find anything we want, as well as a mistrust of advertising (think used cars salesmen).

We’ve reached a point where the consumer wants to know the store owner’s name and that he can be trusted. Small businesses must look beyond their want to grow into corporations, and instead focus on their core customers. Thanks to social media, we’re able to foster these relationships easily and quickly.

Read the whole story, 5 Easy Social Media Wins for Your Small Business, on Mashable.

Call Seven North Web & Graphics Web Design at 727-894-5266 in St Petersburg, Florida to talk about setting a Wordpress website as the hub for your social media marketing program.

Say that you are blogging to create community and a better page-rank for your small St Petersburg Fl business. Say that you are flat out of inspiration for a compelling blog post. What the heck should you write about?

About.com to the rescue:

3. Conduct an Interview
You can contact a customer, distributor, supplier, manufacturer, or even an employee and ask if they would be interested in answering some questions to appear in an interview on your blog. Most people don’t mind the online exposure and interviews give your blog readers an inside look into your business.
4. Highlight Your Office, Employees and So On
Another way to give your blog readers a view into your business and help them make a personal connection with it (which leads to customer loyalty) is by inviting them behind the scenes. Post photos and stories about employees or photos of your office. Write about company events or anything else that lets your readers feel like they’re part of your “family.”

Read the whole piece:
10 Business Blog Posts
Business Blog Post Ideas to Keep Your Company Blog Interesting

Call Seven North Web & Graphics Web Design at 727-894-5266 in St Petersburg, Florida to talk about setting a Wordpress website as the hub for your social media marketing program.

Lorrie Thomas Tells it like it is to Dr. Ralph Wilson of wilsonweb.com.
How Social Media Helps Small Businesses Sell

When small businesses empower their target consumers, they feel powerful. When your target market feels powerful, it trusts you, buys from you, and stays with you. Social media collaboration transforms consumers into prosumers. In an era of social media prosumers, it’s people (not companies) who make, shape, or break purchase patterns.
Small businesses can ignite collaboration for marketing by creating their own communities and/or joining communities. By doing so, they can listen and connect to their target customers and build a free forum to bring their market together. Collaboration = Marketing Acceleration.
Social media collaboration tools like review sites, video sharing sites, blogs, wikis and more allow users to self-serve, collaborate, and potentially serve as an endorser for your small business. Social media works as a marketing tool because people are more likely to trust peers rather than companies.

Read the whole piece here.

Call Seven North Web & Graphics Web Design at 727-894-5266 in St Petersburg, Florida to talk about setting a Wordpress website as the hub for your social media marketing program.

Remember LinkedIn? The place you dust off between jobs?

From Social Media Today

Fill your profile with colorful language, not drab resume-speak. There is a reason why the site is called LinkedIn, not ResumePlace. Verify the headline either is a mirror of your job title or a description of what you do. Change your headline as often as you’d like; mine currently states, Online media strategist and community manager for business and government, and Newburyport City Council candidate. Flesh out the summary and don’t be afraid it’s too long. Most summaries I see are too short.

Read the complete piece here.

Call Seven North Web & Graphics Web Design at 727-894-5266 in St Petersburg, Florida to talk about setting a Wordpress website as the hub for your social media marketing program.
How can they buy you if they can’t see you?

From Online Marketing Blog

http://www.toprankblog.com/

Traditional marketing tactics would emphasize making an offer that makes so much sense, like swapping a messy icebox for a modern refrigerator at the same cost; consumers would “buy in”.

The problem with continuing to rely on that model of marketing is increasing numbers of consumers ignore formal marketing messages and offers. If they don’t notice the offer, they can’t respond to it.

As the social web eliminates physical boundaries for making connections with friends, family, like minded individuals and even the brands people buy from, there’s more interest in a participatory or social marketing process. Consumers connect about things of interest to them and brands have an opportunity to listen and engage in conversations in a way that demonstrates the value of their products and services. There’s an opportunity to provide value, before seeing a direct return. The give to get principle for social media participation by brands results in goodwill, educated consumers and buzz.

A good example of that includes creating social network groups to provide consumers a place to socialize and for brands to introduce new products, gain feedback, crowd source ideas, “energize” brand evangelists and listen/respond to concerns. Mashable has a good write up on brands that use Facebook Fan pages that do this such as Pringles, Coca Cola, Starbucks, Adidas and Red Bull.

Read the whole story here.

… Everybody else was doing actual work.

John Jantschmakes an important point about the necessity of self-education by successful entrepreneurs:

I’m going to repeat this – you don’t have to know how to do everything, you do need to know how to buy it and that means you have to invest in educating yourself.

There is so much incredible free or low cost information online that there’s no excuse to stay in dark about any important element of your business. Books represent the best investment, pound for pound, you can make in yourself and your business. I’ve touched on marketing, but this goes for management, finance, legal, every aspect – learn how to read a balance sheet, understand the laws and requirements in your industry, attend workshops on social media – even if you have a full org chart of people responsible for these areas.

Read the whole story in Duct Tape Marketing!