Social Media Enhances Personal Experience in Business

Why do we tend to shorten experiences? Why… as a society… do we keep inventing new ways to make things faster, harder, stronger, and compiled. Information flying this way and that, overloading everyone from the iPOD Millennial to the AM Radio Baby Boomer (sorry stereotyping is a spiritual gift of mine). Technology has managed to help our society do more in less time. But (hat tip to Seth Godin on this one) the “do more in less time” philosophy has taken the personality out of the every day encounter. Seth makes a brilliant example in his post, Old Marketing with New Tools:

Cost and speed pressure means that when you get your car serviced, it’s unlikely you’ll be greeted by the mechanic himself, wiping his hands on a greasy rag, telling you exactly what he did to your car. Instead, you’ll get a difficult to decipher printout.

In some cases, new technology has taken out the face to face interaction with the business to the client. BUT we have seen an increase in social interaction (both online and off) in the realm of social media.

I overheard a gentleman talking about a social network (whether Facebook or LinkedIn it doesn’t matter). He was making reference to social networking on the Internet as impersonal and stupid. First off, I about flipped out of my chair and set him on fire. I understand that online social networking is not for everyone but the least someone can do is recognize the fact that it has VALUE. I turned around thinking I would be face-to-face with a twenty-something year old. Unfortunately he looked around 50 with his real age probably being closer to 35.

The simple fact that a gentleman/business owner was implying that social networking was impersonal is completely ridiculous. If you do it right.

The right way to make social networking work for you is two fold.

1. Join a social network (preferably a geographically local network). In order to know and be productive in the different social networks refer to my post: How To Be Productive in Social Media.

2. Use the social network to meet members of that specific network off-line.

Combine face-to-face networking with your online social networking experience. I use Smaller Indiana to meet new business owners/creative individuals in the Indianapolis community. This does not replace my off-line business networking with groups like Rainmakers but it does add value in meeting people who usually do not attend networking events.

The combination of off-line and online social networking is a powerful tool you can utilize for YOUR business. Try it out. Spend a few minutes on a local network and set up a meeting. If it doesn’t work. TRY AGAIN. If that doesn’t work. Third times s charm?

Also, if you ever hear anyone degrading social media, please call me. I’ll bring the blow torch. You bring the gasoline.

Social Media + SEO = Social Media Infrastructure

Since 2002, Chad H. Pollitt has played an integral role in designing, developing, deploying, executing and tracking robust web marketing strategies for over 100 client companies and organizations and is an Internet Marketing Expert.Chad is a decorated veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and an Internet Marketing Manager at Digital Hill Multimedia, Inc., the leading web development and internet marketing agency in the Midwest. His white papers and articles have been published in over a dozen newspapers and websites throughout the world. With over 10 million dollars of tracked ROI for SEO alone, he has been featured on multiple radio shows, podcasts and in The Wall Street Journal.

View the slideshow presentation of this blog here > Social Media Infrastructure

How do you optimize social media to come up in search? What social media sites should I use for my business? Won’t social media take up all of my time? These are questions I get every day and the answer is simple: Build a Social Media Infrastructure.

1. What is a Social Media Infrastructure? Definition: Social media platforms chosen for engagement and how they are connected to one another with a Blog at its base pushing content to other platforms.
2. Why should I build a Social Media Infrastructure?

• SEO – By connecting your social media platforms via RSS and traditional backlinks you are building a “keyword neighborhood” that will raise the relevancy of all of your web platforms in the infrastructure for those keywords.  The result, if properly executed, will be multiple first page results for some of the keyword phrases in your “keyword neighborhood.”
• Saves Time – With a Blog at the base of your infrastructure you won’t have to post content on multiple platforms.  Once the infrastructure is in place you will only have to post once.
• Increases Reach, SOV and Website Referral Traffic – The more social media platforms used in the infrastructure the more people will see your content, brand and message resulting in more referral traffic for your conversion platform or website.
• 3 C’s – You will have Consistency, Clarity and Congruency of message throughout the web.

3.  How do I build a Social Media Infrastructure?

• Do a Keyword Workshop
• Gather your digital assets (video, pics, graphics, audio, presentations, press releases, etc.)
• Build a Blog
• Choose multiple social media platforms based on your digital assets and target demographic
• Connect the platforms with links, RSS feeds and widgets (recommend http://twitterfeed.com as a start).
• Make sure lead generation websites, microsites and/or landing pages are linked into the infrastructure.

5 Steps to Using Social Media for Lead Generation

Why is it advantageous to use social media as a lead generation tool?

Yesterday we talked about a new way of thinking for the marketing professional… thinking of your customers as people first. So why does this matter? Why is it beneficial to start communicating directly to your consumer base in a peer-to-peer environment instead of mass marketing?

In my opinion… the sell can be made easier.

We (business professionals) are all searching for ways to better market to our consumer base. How can you be creative and produce advertising that will catch the attention of a passerby? How can you create a brochure that will pull people into the folds and sell them on a product? Using social media can help bring the guard down of a consumer. We all exist in walled gardens… holding our purse strings tight to our chest. It is very rare that anyone or anything will ever get into our mind to sell us on a process. We tend to listen to our peers more than anything else.

Social media (especially blogs) can help in building trust between an individual and a brand. Let’s use social media to build that trust.

1. Tell customer and personal stories on your blog. If you currently have a blog for your company be very sure that you are telling stories and not regurgitating industry information. How are you setting yourself apart from your competition? You are more likely to garner leads (in the long term) if you are telling stories with personality and flair. People will latch on and relate with stories about other customers.

2. Utilize LinkedIN now and forever. LinkedIN is a powerful tool. If used correctly it can open up huge potential for networking with like minded individuals. Your current customers and likely to be connect to other individuals that could be powerful referral sources for you. Do not underestimate the power of your current customers.

For more tips on using LinkedIN: 10 Ways to Use LinkedIN,

3. Connect to a Local Social Network. In Indiana we are extremely blessed to have the local networking site of Smaller Indiana. Smaller Indiana has over 7000 professionals across the state who are willing to talk, debate, and share information among each other. We have used SI to connect to hundreds of individuals and business owners. By sharing in experience and then connecting offline you have a great opportunity to build trust.

4. Track local users on Twitter. If you are currently using Twitter to share information it is extremely important to connect with potential customers in your area of influence (Do you see a trend forming here?) You have the ability to search over different keywords while using Twitter. If a user is talking about a topic that is central to your business… communicate with them!

5. Encourage Your Peers to Share. One of the more powerful parts of social media is the ability to share content over a wide-spread group of people. Encourage your connections, customers, and friends to spread your story out across the masses.

You should always keep traditional marketing in the mix whenever possible. Social media is not the end all of the marketing kingdom. However, the tool will give you the ability to connect with individuals on a completely different level… building trust… and eventually the sale… in the process.

3 Steps to Being Productive in Social Media

Everyone loves social media. That is not the issue. There is really one huge issue that keeps individuals from using social media and that is time. Time can be an ugly thing if you are not productive with the tools and time given to you. How are you productive and manage your time effectively? I use the four-touch point model.

Step 1: Use the 4-Points Model

When using social media you should keep in mind the 4-points model. There are 4 points social media applications should touch in regards to your daily life: Business, Local Business Networking, Social, and Information. Choose four main networks where you spend the most of your time.

I use LinkedIn for business applications, Smaller Indiana for local business networking, Facebook for social application, and Twitter for information. LinkedIn can be described as my connection Rolodex. Facebook is to keep me updated on my friends and acquaintances from college and high school. Twitter is a wonderful information aggregation tool where you can follow influential people and the information they share. Smaller Indiana is a great place to connect to local professionals and share ideas on how to make Indiana a better place.

Step 2: Commit Yourself

You get what you put in. How many times have we heard that? When using social media commit to a set amount of time a week to using your applications. You will find yourself spending to much time on your applications if you fail to designate a certain amount during the week.

I try to designate an hour of each day to information sharing (writing blogs, commenting on blogs, perusing my Google Reader) and an hour a day to using my other networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, and Smaller Indiana).

Step 3: Be Authentic

I get numerous e-newsletter in my inbox everyday, most of them vary from mundane to outright boring. When posting on your social media applications, try to add some authenticity and personality to the information you are sharing. When I am reading blogs and posts on social applications the last thing I want to read is an impersonal e-newsletter. I want to know that the keystrokes behind the information is an actual person. Be personal. Be Authentic.

There are the three steps I use to get the most out of Social Media. Cheers!

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Your Job as a CEO and Small Business Owner? Mimic Obama.

Aghast. Mimic Obama?
Did all my fellow conservatives just unsubscribe?
I am not implying you need to mimic Obama in anyway other than the strategy he used in the world of social media. That is right. Social Media.

I was reading a Forbes article last night about how CEOs should be (at least) considering using Facebook and Twitter for productivity and communication tools. They mention Obama in the article because his campaign did an excellent job at using social media to push a message out to multiple generations and Internet users. No matter what your political affiliation… Obama and his team did it the right way.

So why should a CEO or small business owner mimic Obama and his campaign when using social media marketing or social media tools?

It is pretty simple. He changed (no pun intended). The one thing that large and small business owners are failing to grasp is that you have to adapt to the changes in the marketplace. The world of the Internet is slowly grabbing hold of external communication and pulling it from the traditional strategy.

The question you need to ask yourself is this…

Are you willing to step over the edge and start using the tools that will transform the way you communicate? Are you willing to get over the impatience of learning… and start using?

This a new age of communication… a new way to do business.. a new way to connect to your client base.

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The Beauty of Online to Offline Networking

Last night we had the Smaller Indiana 4,000 Member Party! What was once a twinkle in Pat Coyle and Doug Karr’s minds is now a reality. Over a year old, Smaller Indiana is boasting 2,000 – 3,000 hits a day and moving from a membership of 35 people in August of 2007 to 4,400 in January 2009.

The concept of Smaller Indiana is to make ideas findable in the State of Indiana. The idea was to build a community of business owners, employees, employers, artists, writers, musicians and every type of creative individual to stop Indiana’s brain drain and put Indiana on the MAP!

The party was excellent and it reminded me of the power of taking your online relationships to an offline environment. The whole concept of networking is to build relationships with individuals who could potentially be a client or a referral partner (better the referral partner).

I will always encourage clients and individuals attending our seminars to try and take your online relationships to an offline environment. We are all human. We all crave that face to face interaction. Online networking can only go so far but if you combine the two….

Magic.

And not the Disney World kind of magic but the “successful” kind of magic.

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Being Disease Ridden in Marketing

Seth Godin has another great blog on gimmicks. I didn’t pull much from the actual blog pertaining to gimmicks but he had a great thought at the end:

As you sit down to consider ways to be more remarkable, the challenge is to be worth talking about… at the same time you are adding value for the person who’s talking about you.

I encourage all members in Smaller Indiana to invent your “gimmick” for Smaller Indiana. Does it add value when you are virally spreading? What will it take to create a Smaller Indiana that is worth spreading like an epidemic from city to city? Are we already there?

I will leave you with this:

I was playing Oregon Trail on Facebook and well, I died from a virus (my body was probably eaten by a pack of ravenous wolves but that is beside the point). It made me chuckle and ponder on how a virus spreads and infects.

And much like a small pox outbreak on Oregon Trail, Smaller Indiana is turning into a virus.

An Amazing Social Network: Smaller Indiana

I have been a member of the NING social site Smaller Indiana since it’s inception in late 2007. Since the birth of this site by Pat Coyle and Douglas Karr.. it has been growing by leaps and bounds!

Here are some stats from the 3,798 strong SmallerIndiana.com

Global Traffic year-to-date 2008:

So far this year we’ve seen 193,970 visits from 453 Indiana Cities

The interesting stat is that 66% of the visitors are NOT from Indiana. Talk about a good way to get a state on the map!

Smaller Indiana is an amazing place to network and talk about Indiana as a major mover and shaker in the USA. I would encourage anyone who is thinking about starting a social network…

Go check out smallerindiana.com… it was done right.

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Independent Blogging Compared to Corporate Blogging

I follow the writing of many of the staff at Compendium Blogware, a local company here in Indianapolis offering an extremely trackable and orangic seo based blog software. I was reading through a post by Megan Glover called Is Blogging In Your 2009 Marketing Budget?, and happened across a powerpoint presentation about measuring, tracking, and adjusting your corporate blog. You can view the ppt by clicking here: measure-track-and-adjust-webinar.

In the webinar they had a graphic from Google Analytics that show where the traffic to their blog was originating from  (image below). Of course being a search and keyword driven blogging platform you would

imagine that the majority of the sites traffic would be from search engines. I decided to check out my analytics to see if I was completely opposite, in the middle, or the same.

Below you will see my traffic sources from Google Analytics. Not surprisingly most of my traffic is driven through referring sites. It got me to thinking about the value of blogging and the underlying reason of why I am writing this blog. Without hesitation I can say that the main reason for blogging is my love for social media both here and in Indianapolis. I love the concept of building community on the web. I have met some wonderful people through my dealings   in Friendfeed, Twitter, and Smaller Indiana.

The other reasons can be contributed to my social media marketing and design company and becoming a trusted adviser in the city of Indianapolis. A blog is a great way to build credibility among your peers and collaborate with many individuals on a global scale.

Of course, another big reason for blogging is the organic search engine optimization I gain through posting and linking. I don’t know if I should be worried that my lowest referring center is search engines. I have been contemplating a way to switch that tables and even out my traffic sources. Any ideas on how to do that?

It is interesting to see the sources of traffic of certain blogs both on a personal and professional level. I would gather that the majority of corporate blogs have a higher search engine traffic rate than most independent blogs out there.

Do you find referring sites more valuable or search engine traffic?  Maybe you find direct traffic the most valuable of them all? I guess it is all based on  the goals and aspirations of the blog strategy itself. Any tips on blog strategy can more than likely be found at Chris Brogan, Chris Baggot,  Hutch Carpenter or Louis Gray’s blogs.

Going From Wallflower to Butterfly in Social Media

I have recently subscribed to a local blogger in Indiana named Brad Ruggles. Brad has some interesting points and opinions on social media and I have really enjoyed reading through his recent thoughts. He posted on Thursday some tips to becoming a social media butterfly. I wanted to list two of the five that I found valuable and add a few of my own.

From Brad’s post:

1. Make Yourself Easier To Find

…one of the biggest mistakes I see people making on their blogs is failing to provide easy links to all their social network profiles. If you’re going to capitalize on networked relationships then make it easy for visitors to your blog to find where else you are online…

2. Go Deeper With Key Relationships

Don’t just limit yourself to “comment relationships” though. If you’re clicking with someone then shoot them an email, forward them a link you think they would enjoy reading. You may even chat with Skype or AIM.

There are three more amazing points on Brad’s blog which I encourage you to check out. I wanted to add a few of my own. It is extremely important to get the most out of social media if you decide to take the dive and utilize the tool.

1. Start A Blog About Something You Love and Be Authentic

I know the concept of authentic content has been thrown around here and there between social media experts. It is a common practice to write about the concept of authentic content and communication. Many people ask the same question when debating on starting a blog: “What should I write about?” Write about something you enjoy! Write about something you do on a daily routine. Do you enjoy collecting stamps? Do you enjoy watching soccer and following sports?

I write about social media because I love it. It is easier for me to write because of the joy I find in learning about all things social media.

Write about something you love and find other people who are writing about the same thing. Utilize google alerts to find the people who share the same interest. Brad has points on that, find it here.

2. Start Small. Join a Regional Social Network and Dive In.

We have talked about regional (geographically based) social networks before in earlier posts. I am a member of a regional social media community called Smaller Indiana. I have found that my visibility as a business owner and social advocate has greatly increased because of my use of Smaller Indiana. If you are trying to build a personal brand identity through using social media a local social network will give you amazing exposure to local people.

It is getting harder and harder to make a name for yourself on the Internet when you are competing on a global scale with millions of individuals. If you focus on a niche geographic community you will find that it is slightly easier to be recognized. In order to get the most out of a geographic community don’t leave your relationships on the web, go out and meet the individuals you are collaborating with. A cup of coffee will go a long way at facilitating the building of a personal brand between two individuals.