Staying current with the Social Media scene

Now that you have created a social media policy, a plan of action and have taken the necessary steps in protecting your social media investment, it is time to use helpful tools that will keep your site relevant and you up to date with the latest trends. You need to take advantage of the online resources to stay current with social media. A way to do this is to subscribe to feeds about social marketing from one or more marketing blogs or news services. For instance I subscribe to  Social Media Examiner, SEO Hacker, Guorilla Media, and various marketing and social media groups on Linkedin. I have daily and weekly feeds that come to me that keeps me up to date with the latest in social media. This gives me all the information I need in one place and controls the frequency of delivery.

Other social media resources recommended include:

• Mashable
• FastCompany
• Add This
• Top Rank Blog
• Slashdot
• Social Media Today
• Social Networking Business
• HubSpot
• BigMarketingSmallBusiness

Social media marketing could take a lot of time because of the various places to get information.  Tools like Ping.fm to post your updates to whichever social media service you select. You can group by platform or send the same message to all. You can use your mobile device to even send messages and not have to be at your computer.

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3 steps for managing your social media schedule

Happy 2012 everyone!! We last left off in 2011 with a Social Media Outline. Now that you have your outline, we can manage your social media campaign. Since you have a plan in order, you now need to handle and manage it. Executing your plan is just as important as establishing a plan to begin with. The most important resource in controlling your social media schedule is time. Commitment is essential in scheduling activities and time to attend to those activities.  Social media marketing is a form of art, treat it that way and you will see great returns on your product. Remember social media is a part of your overall online marketing and online marketing is a part of your overall marketing.

• Step 1 – Schedule days for social media setting up a certain day and time for social media management is a great way to control your plan and content.  Many business people block a certain time out of the day or week, like Friday afternoon, to tackle marketing related activities.
• Step 2 – Put your schedule in a book of events or calendar. This ensures you know what you have coming up and allows for ample planning. Whether you use google calendar, outlook, eventslink etc utilize these project management software tools to schedule your social media activities without giving chance to anything falling through the cracks.
• Step 3 – Create a dashboard for your social media. Social media efforts require many tasks like posting though multiple venues, monitoring visibility on social media outlets, using tools to distribute content, and measuring results using different analytical tools. Instead of jumping back and forth through his all, a dashboard can display all this content at once and save you valuable time. Goojet, iGoogle, Hootsuite, Netvibes, and MarketingProfs offer great free customizable dashboards to help you keep your content in order.

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Why your company NEEDS to be involved in Social Media

Social Media Marketing has a bevy of benefits. Everyone is connected to the Internet and somehow involved in Social Media. As of July 2011, Facebook had over 800 million active users. Eight hundred million. According to Social Media Today, in April 2010 an estimated 41.6% of the U.S. population had a Facebook account (1). Can you imagine the growth for your company? Whether you have a niche product or mass produced consumer good, Social Media is a crucial tool that needs to be integrated into your overall marketing plan. Lets take a closer look at the benefits of this astonishing potential game changing tool. Extended target market reach

Like I mentioned above, Social Media is huge. Facebook gets even more traffic than Google! Twitter has over 200 million users that produce over a billion search queries. How great would it be to have you or your business show up at the top of those search lists? The outreach online, especially through Social Media is almost limitless and you can use these resources to cast a wide net to bring more visitors to your Web site.

Building relationships
Social media marketing isnt a ponzi scheme. You cant expect to join a couple sites and then make it rain with profits. It takes time and serious investment to be able to stay on top of market trends, build relationships, and effectively deliver your intended message to the intended audience. Hence the word social in the term. You have to be engaged with your consumers and followers. Your social media precence should show you:

• Provide value and resources
• Dont over self-promote
• Demonstrate your expertise
• Sell softly-which brings me to my next benefit

Fortuity selling
Because social media is designed for long-term commitment, a company may not expect selling opportunities to arise. Some do exist, so your not just marketing and creating a brand for yourself when social media’n up. Here are a few opportunities to take advantage of in social media marketing:

• Sell CDs and tickets-Artist, musicians, athletics, and all can use these for entertainment selling.
• Linking back to your store- You can post a new shipment of merchandise on a social media site with a link to your Web site where they can purchase the product
• Special offers- Offering promotional codes or special offers to followers in your network sways them to visit your site and purchase products
• Link to 3rd party sites on various services- Some social media sits allow for widgets (small app placed on your page to enhance visitor experiences) that can show off product and link to Paypal or other places for direct purchase

Branding
This benefit is probably the most important because without it, the other benefits will produce minimal results. Branding showcases presence, visibility, and connects a product to a company. Social media is an excellent way to build your brand. For more branding techniques THIS GUY  got it locked down like a pro bowl cornerback.

I got to banana split,

Randall Jefferson

(1) Wells, Roy (August 8, 2010). “41.6% of the U.S. Population has a Facebook account”. Social Media Today. Retrieved January 6, 2011.

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