Do people see social media as the approach of taking your off line social interactions and bringing them to the web?  How do your conversations, your networking, and your marketing in the real world reflect your presence online…  All important questions to ask and consider when running what will soon be a standard integrated campaign.  Check out the four part series from a local chamber presentation on integrating social media and online marketing into your overall marketing mix.

Ah, a new year.  A time to go out with the old and in with the new.  Many people use this time to get rid of junk that’s been sitting in the garage/attic/basement since before Netscape has its IPO.  (August 9, 1995)  But what about cleaning up the junk that’s sitting in your social media feeds?

Whether it’s blog feeds going into your favorite RSS reader (I’m a fan of Google Reader, myself), the number of friends you have on Facebook, the number of people you’re following on Twitter, or your connections on LinkedIn, you probably volunteered to receive a lot more crap in 2009.  Technology has made it so easy to say “Yes, please!” to so many different sources of information that the end result can be information overload.

Just imagine if you could sign up, freely, to have every single magazine still being published delivered to your home/office/loft/van down by the river…  How many would you actually end up reading?  And would you read less than you would if you only received what you were actually interested in?

If you are one of those people who are trying to follow every single person on Twitter, then this post probably isn’t for you.  Enjoy trying to read the entire Internet in 2010 and we’ll tell your friends and family that you love them.  But if you cringe every time you open your inbox or your Twitter feed is being updated quicker than you can read it, here are some tips to help you simply your social media lifestyle:

1. Unsubscribe from e-mail lists.  In the late 90s, clicking “Unsubscribe” from an e-mail was almost a certain way of ensuring you’d receive more spam.  ”Hey, there’s an actual human being at the other end of this e-mail address!  Send them more Viagra ads!”  But these days, unsubscribe often means just that.And I’m not talking about spam here — I’m talking about that blog that you thought was so interesting back in February that signing up for their e-mail newsletter just seemed like the right thing to do.  If you find yourself deleting e-mails from mailing lists you’re on before you even open the e-mail, you probably shouldn’t be subscribed to it. Take the time (yes, right now) to go through your inbox, find everything you’re not interested in, scroll down to the bottom of the e-mail and “Unsubscribe”.  Your future self will thank you.
2. You really don’t care what the 245,343 people you’re following are saying on Twitter. I know, you were just trying to be polite.  Someone started following you on Twitter and some lesson about manners that your mom taught you when you were six-years-old just made you automatically follow this person back.

   But now your Twitter feed is filled with people talking about Hannah Montana, hashtag topics you don’t even understand and more spam than a Monty Python song.  (yes, it’s okay to chuckle.  That was pretty witty of me…)It was surprisingly difficult for me to find tools to help clean out the list of people I follow on Twitter.  I found a lot that can automatically unfollow people that aren’t following you, but I don’t expect many of the people/news sources I follow to follow me back.TwitBlock is a great tool for looking at your followers, determining which ones are probably spammers or bots and blocking them, but I want a similar tool for people I follow, not my followers.  If anyone has any suggestions, please post a comment below.

3. Are you really friends with all those people on Facebook? It’s time to decide who your true friends are.  Log in to Facebook, under the “Friends” menu at the top, select “All Friends” and start x’ing people you don’t really care about.  They’re not going to be notified so you don’t even have to prepare an awkward “It’s not you, it’s me,” speech.  That is, until Facebook pops up your picture as a Suggested Friend and your ex-friend now has to say to himself, “Wait, we’re already friends….  oh.”
4. Do you trust all your connections on LinkedIn? The whole point of LinkedIn is sharing your business connections.  It’s very annoying when you think one of your connections knows someone at a company you’re trying to connect with, but when you ask your connection, he says, “Oh, I don’t really know Jim.  I just found his business card lying on the ground, ran home, and quickly added him to my network on LinkedIn.”If you wouldn’t recommend so-and-so to someone, you shouldn’t be connected to them.  It’s not a competition.  Connecting to anyone and everyone through LinkedIn defeats the purpose of the site.
   
5. Does it take you all day to go through your RSS feeds? If so, maybe you should get rid of some of them.  Now I know some of you are saying, “But, Jeremy, I don’t expect to read ALL of my RSS feeds.  I just want them there when I need them.”  Fine.  But are there any feeds you’re subscribed to that you NEVER read?
   
   Google Reader has a great feature called “Trends” that you can use to see what you’re reading and what you aren’t.  If you’ve been subscribed to a blog for six months that sends out one post a day and you haven’t read any of them, it’s time to cut the cord.

If you can get rid of some of the noise that’s so easy to find online, you’ll be able to do a better job of focusing on the things you really want to be focusing on and have a more enjoyable 2010.

Why do we focus on digital marketing? (with traditional thrown in for support, of course) Because of digital’s metrics and the ability to measure all campaigns.  Tie these into print ads, television, radio, mailers and now you have an integrated campaign.

But when it comes to social media measurement, you have to get your metrics in place!  What are your objectives and how does success look?  In larger organizations, there are going to be multiple levels of conversation and various levels within the organizational structure are going to measure the return on investment through different standards.  Here is a list of seven ways of measuring social media marketing.  Add more ideas to keep the list growing.  And don’t forget to check it twice!

1. URL shortener – Whether you are using a web app like Hootsuite that has tracking built-in for sites like Twitter, or something more generic that can be used on multiple platforms like bit.ly, these URL shorteners not only make your URL look pretty, they help you measure the amount of clicks and traffic your links generate.  Even Facebook and Google have their own URL shorteners (FB.me and Goo.gl, respectively)
2. Tweetreach – When you post a tweet, how deep and far does your message go?  How many retweets do you generate? Sites like Hootsuite and Tweetreach can help measure some of these metrics for you.
3. Number of comments and likes -When writing a blog, posting updates on a Facebook page or responding to YouTube videos, monitor visitors’ comments and reactions to what you post.  React and engage in a conversation with those individuals that have shown an interest in the message you are trying to drive.
4. Quality of posting – Facebook has insights for your Facebook page status and wall postings. It’s not always about frequency, but the quality of what you’re posting. Track your growth and post quality on a weekly basis to monitor growth.
5. Positive vs negative sentiment – So you’re tracking what people are saying about your company, product or brand on blogs, forums and Twitter, but are you tracking sentiment?  Are people saying good things or bad things about your brand? And how is that changing over time based on various marketing or PR campaigns you may have running? While measuring online sentiment is still pretty much a manual, human-driven job, companies like Radian6 have tools that can help you with the process.
6. Subscriptions – How many people are following your social presence? This includes RSS feeds, Twitter and Facebook pages.  Monitor the growth as you push out various campaigns across all mediums.
7. Search results – Are any of your social sites creating traffic to your blog or website? Or is your Facebook page ranking for specific search terms on Google?  Looking at search traffic can help you know where to best invest more time or emphasis.

What other ways can you measure social media?

After several months of collaboration with rock star and solution selling expert Kathy Yeager and after completing a nationwide survey to higher education institutions on the current use of social media, we have released our 24 page white paper on social media for continuing education and contract training units.

Across the board, institutions are itching to determine ways to integrate the internet into their departments, marketing efforts and classrooms.  Throughout these 24 pages, Kathy and I address the top 10 concerns of higher education mangers, best practices on where to get started and what other colleges are currently doing.

Check out a preview of the white paper below or download the entire white paper for free.

Social media white paper - Page 4 of 24

Social media white paper - Page 7 of 24

Social media white paper - Page 11 of 24

There is no doubt in my mind that LinkedIn can be a fantastic tool to help grow relationships with potential clients and customers.

But just having connections doesn’t mean you are building relationships. This cartoon by Sean Nelson comes to mind:

As “LinkedOut” by Sean Nelson displays, it is very common for people using LinkedIn to not really have a good handle on how to take advantage of the social network.  It may have over 43 million users from around the world spanning 170 industries, but what do those numbers mean if you’re not doing anything with them?

So make sure you have a mixture of reactivity and proactivity when you use LinkedIn.

Why is it that some people are such fantastic networkers?  A big part of it has to do with innate skill, but a lot of it has to do with practice.  Successful use of LinkedIn also takes practice. Try and spend two hours a week digging into the site, and COMMUNICATING with your connections.

Change your paradigm to one of ‘communication’ and not just trying to build your network for the sake of building your network.  Once you have changed that paradigm, you can focus on  five of the most successful proactive activities to grow your network on LinkedIn:

1. Search your contact’s contacts.  The concept is simple: you probably know some of your contact’s contacts.  Every few weeks, sign on to LinkedIn and proactively scour your contact’s connections.  Odds are you’ll know a few of their associates.
2. Upload your contact list.  This is one of the first tactics you should implement to grow your network.  LinkedIn has automatic connection with Gmail, AOL or other email providers.  If you’re using Outlook (like me), you can export your contacts as a CSV file, and then import them into the social network to get connected.
3. Consider becoming a LinkedIn Open Networker.  Also referred to as a LION, a LinkedIn Open Networker encourages connections from any other member, whether or not they have had a previous business relationship.  If you want to connect with someone on LinkedIn, you usually need their email address.  By placing your email address in your ‘name’ field, you give anyone the opportunity to connect with you, whether or not you know them.  Thus the term ‘open networker’.
4. Install the LinkedIn toolbar for Outlook.  This free tool is an incredibly powerful way to connect LinkedIn to Microsoft Outlook.  Get an email from someone?  Roll over the ‘INFO’ button and see if you’re connected to them on LinkedIn.  Not connected to them?  Invite them right away within Outlook.
5. Include a link to your profile on all your emails and on your website and blog.  Take advantage of signature lines and include a link to your profile on all your emails.  On every email I send out, the recipient can connect to my LinkedIn profile right there, along with my Facebook and Twitter profiles as well.

What other tips have helped you be proactive and grow stronger relationships on LinkedIn?

Ten months ago, I posted a presentation entitled Social Media, It’s not a revolution but a way of life.  This was back when Facebook only had 110 active million users.  Today, there are over 250 active million users on Facebook, over one billion photos are uploaded every day and ALL Fortune 500 companies are represented on the site.

Yet with all the numbers, statistics and facts showing social media is here to stay, many businesses, baby boomers and corporations have yet to embrace the revolution of the 21st century.

Currently, only 54 percent of Fortune 100 companies have a Twitter presence, while 29 percent have an active Facebook page and 32 percent have a blog.  Only 17 percent of Fortune 100 companies are using all three mediums.

It’s time to wake up and smell the World Wide Web.  Erik Qualman, the author of Socialnomics, recently published a video on YouTube called Social Media Revolution that highlights the explosive growth that social media has had over its lifespan.  (I’ve embedded the video on the right)  Sit back and observe the numbers and growth of interactions in social media and start asking yourself these questions:

• Where is the first place you go to research a service provider?
• Where is the first place you go when purchasing a product?
• Where do you listen to music?

“Our business just joined Twitter and we have 2,000 followers but have no idea in hell what we are doing.”

“Our college started a Facebook public profile and have hundreds of kids as fans, now what?”

Don’t fret – you aren’t in a bad place.  It’s time to turn that frustrating sigh into a smiling hurray as the chance to capitalize on the opportunities to develop relationships is about to mount the horse.  You aren’t the Purple Cow in the corn field, but you do have an engaged audience that is looking to connect and develop a conversation.

In order to have a conversation, you need content.  Not just any content, but rather content your audience wants to listen to.  Talking about a great deal or workshop you have going on is something they can find out by going to your website. Don’t spend your time on social networking sites by trying to sell, but rather by developing a one-on-one conversation for your organization to have. This means creating a content strategy.

After working with a few colleges and business, I’ve learned it comes down to fundamentals and making sure that someone is taking charge in formalizing a strategy, answering six questions and staying on top of your content calendar. Because at the end of the day, people are looking for content they want to read and converse about, along with consistency from those people.

Grab your team, go in your conference room and answer the following six questions:

1. Who is your audience? Are there different profiles?
2. What do these profiles want to talk about or receive information on?
3. Who is the voice of the organization?
4. How will you respond?
5. What does success look like?
6. Have you created your content Accountabilibuddy – aka your content calendar?

Make sure you walk away with a calendar for the next two months to hold your organization accountable for posting content and responding to the conversations.

Yesterday we had the opportunity to run a fantastic webinar with Aaron Kahlow of Online Marketing Connect.

The webinar was entitled Stop Tweeting. Start Executing and almost 100 people around the world joined us for the event.

It was a great hour-long webinar with a ton of takeaways. Feedback has been fantastic.

We’ve embedded the recording of the webinar in the upper right, and you can see both presentations from Aaron and Brad below.

What did we miss?

Yesterday we had the chance to speak to the Hudson Chamber of Commerce about Social Media. It was a pleasure exploring the power of Web 2.0 with the fantastic crowd.

We discussed a lot of information in a short amount of time. Here are 5 Smart Takeaways from the program:

1. Social media lies at the top of the marketing pyramid.  We feel you cannot be highly successful with Social Media if you do not have your brand in place…let alone your website or email marketing strategy.
2. The social web is growing at an incredibly fast rate.  You can’t ignore it anymore.  Jump into the pool because the water is warm.
3. Start small…don’t try and conquer every social media website at once.  Try LinkedIn and Facebook first.
4. Facebook has ‘personal profiles’ and ‘public profiles’.   Personal is just you.  Public is for your business or organization.  Learn how to take advantage of Facebook for personal use first.  Then jump into the public profile.
5. Focus on giving valuable information away (but don’t give away the farm.) We like to use the 80-20 principle in regards to social media: 80% of the time, focus on sharing valuable information (not about you), then you can spend the other 20% letting people know about your stuff!

If you were at the program, what did you think of the event?  Don’t forget to become a fan of our Facebook page!