Courtesy P.T. Barnum Wiki

Social media marketing and social media strategies are still a new path for marketers and companies. In an interesting small population study (880 respondents) by white paper writer Michael Stelzner “Social Media Marketing Industry Report” a few statistics standout:

• 88% of Marketers are using social media in some capacity
• 72% of these Marketers are complete beginners or have been using social media for no more than a few months

The vast majority of marketers and companies using social media are just beginning. Consequently a number of people responsible for their own venture or their company’s marketing efforts do not understand the following concepts:

1. The tone of social media
2. How each social network works
3. The different “rules” of engagement on each social network
4. The most powerful social networks for their business
5. Blogging as the platform for Web 2.0 aka the history of social media
6. Blogging as their writing platform
7. Engagement is not begging for attention by asking for people to fan a facebook page, follow a Twitter account, take a poll, comment on a post, or ask for anything BEFORE they themselves have provided value to their network and potential networking partners
8. Showing up does not mean you are participating. Placeholders are a bad thing
9. No social media plan means you will not receive the types of results you desire
10. Social media is NOT instant gratification or a campaign with a time frame–it should be an ongoing and ever evolving effort throughout your business career

Lost in Space Wiki:  “Doctor Smith”

Jeremiah Owyang, Forrester analyst and social media thought leader, provides an in depth look at the wreckage that can accompany the work load of social media “Looking Behind the Curtain on the Social Media Stage: Humans Don’t Scale.” Peter Kim highlighted Jeremiah’s post as a point in an even bigger issue within social media: social media’s changing culture.

3 Reasons Why Social Media’s Culture Is Changing

According to Peter there are three points to this changing culture:

• Limitations: “People have been stretched thin, failed to scale, and are close to burnout.”  We agree and believe that understanding human limits and planning will help alleviate burnout. Don’t take on more than is possible means don’t try to be on every social network or use every tool
• Attention: “attention (e.g. links, retweets, comments) functions as currency in the socialsphere. The influentials started to realize that their money was more valuable than others.  To retain value, many influentials have become stingy with their pocketbooks.”  We believe this is the factor that is driving the poor behavior and possible shift in social media’s culture. The idea that attention to one’s blog or social network is the only goal often means the content and value of content suffers tremendously

• Unashamed Begging: “On the other side of the coin, many participants are unashamed to beg for handouts.  Messages public and private that ask “link to me,” “pls RT,” and “comments appreciated” now come from complete strangers. We can not agree enough with Peter’s point about begging. Everyday strangers ask us for Linkedin recommnedations, RTs on their tweets, to read their blog articles and comment,  to become Facebook friends and fans, and to give them recognition. In most cases, we need to understand a person’s work and to get to know them, even if just on a limited basis, before we can vouch for them

Social Media Strategy: How to Stop Begging

• Engage first and often to build a relationship with your intended audience. Do not expect people to support you until they know something about your intentions, follow through, and willingness to give value

photo: Chris Spira

If you have been following the evolution of social media, you know that the one biggest issue on everyone’s mind is how to measure ROI. I suppose that any new “science” bring skepticism, yet in order to effectively measure ROI, we need to approach social media as a new science.

The Science of Marketing

Growing up in the direct marketing industry beginning in the mid 1980’s, I was never tasked to prove that direct marketing was effective. Instead, we were ingrained with the idea that our jobs as effective marketers hinged on our ability to employ the best techniques with the right prospects. And so we worked like mad scientists, testing and evaluating, always looking for that additional something we could add to elicit a response from our target audience.

The Science of Social Media Marketing

From my perspective, social media marketing is not all that different. When you approach social media marketing through the discipline of a science:

• You understand that every element plays a part in influencing your outcome, knowing it is meaningless to study engagement across the board
• Your role as a marketer is to learn exactly what efforts produce results
• Your marketing strategy then embraces what works and lets go of what doesn’t
• You should never become complacent in testing new techniques as what works best will be a constantly changing landscape

5 major social media profile mistakes are being made everyday by entrepreneurs and corporations alike. When launching a profile on a blog, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, or any of the hundreds of social networks the profile becomes the entrepreneur or company’s first impression within that social network. The following is a list of the mistakes that must be avoided at all costs:

1. Profile Instructions: failure to read the instructions on how to set up a profile on a particular social network can lead to less than intended results. Example: Linkedin has a robust internal search engine that is not going to index your profile unless the profile is 100% completed and keyword enriched

2. Assumption All Profiles the Same: profiles should be written according to each social network’s tone or rules. A one size fits all approach does not work. Example: a blogger’s About page should be a robust, detailed document page with links. A Twitter profile should be highly succinct; with only one link allowed, you must choose the best link for your intended purpose

3. Placeholder: like “7 Social Media Mistakes to Avoid At All Costs” launching a presence that is merely a placeholder comprised of the bare bones  minimum requirements to launch is detrimental to your social media efforts. Nothing says social media “rookie” or too lazy to set up an account properly like a placeholder with NO photo of you or a company logo

4. No Photo: every social network provides entrepreneurs and company’s the opportunity to engage their audience. The very first step in engagement is to place a personal photo or a photo of a company logo in your profile. A picture is worth a thousand words never was more true. Example: Linkedin states that profiles with photo-pictures are clicked on nearly 50% more often than profiles that are without any photo or picture.

5.Transparency: the simple act of telling the truth and being honest about your work. In the Example: “John X Smith” has the title Quality Control Manager at LinkedinDicussionCritic. Yet, Mr. X  has no photo and a bare bones profile. Our comparison profile of John E. Smith shows the difference when including a photo and an accurate description of your work

Twitter, the micro blogging powerhouse, is the semantic real time search pioneer. When you utilize Google for a search, the return results often include outdated information, dead links, or abandoned blogs. With real time semantic (conversational) search, the returns often include links to conversations that are happening at that moment.

Although Twitter’s internal search engine allows users to RSS subscribe to conversations down to the minute detail, the most robust tool for finding information comes from open source tool Twazzup.com.

7 Reasons to Use Twazzup.com: Case Study Iran

• Real Time Stream: Streaming real time Tweets for the search term(s) “Iran” provide the latest updated information & conversations
• Top Keywords: Returns up to 10 keywords that can be combined with the initial search keyword “Iran” to return 10 separate (and additional) conversations. Example: “Iran” returned “Facebook”, “Twitter”, “Neda” and 7 more keywords
• Featured Tweets: These are considered the most important messages about your keyword search subject
• Top Trendmakers: Twazzup returns up to 10 Twitterers who are driving the conversation and trend for your keyword search subject
• Related Photos: This section provides the top photos for keyword search subject
• Most Popular Links: These are the most read links, most passed around via RT’s on your keyword subject
• Contributors: This is a roll call of all the people who have tweete an event or subject related to your keyword search