Online branding, reputation management, relationship management, content publishing, networking and other social media strategies are quickly becoming required elements in marketing. The more widely used these elements become, the more important it will be to integrate social tools into your existing website.

This is where Google and Facebook are heading and have developed technology (Google Friend Connect and Facebook Connect) to allow people to connect to websites using a single identity, maintain their social community across different websites, and to allow different websites to share information.

So, how social is your website? Does your website connect with Facebook? Twitter? Digg? Google? How well does your website integrate with social networks that would allow you to connect with your community?

Isn’t it about time to take your website to the next level and integrate it with social media?

Social media can be effective in growing your business, but it all starts on where you define your ROI (Return On Investment). In developing a social media strategy for your organization, it is vital to understand what social media can and cannot do and to clearly identify what kinds of investments are required in implementing a strategy.

It is important to remember that social media is all about conversation. Engaging in conversation with people you help, your customers and clients, and the community of people you effect.

Here’s a basic overview and breakdown of the capabilities of social media and the investment needed to implement it in your business.

Return:

• Brand building
• Relationship management
• Product development
• Reputation management
• Customer interaction
• Customer feedback
• Customer support
• Community building

Investment

• Sharing relevant information
• Listening to feedback
• Interacting with customers

Making social media work for you is simply a matter of your willingness to take the time to build relationships. Can social media convert leads into sales? Abosolutly, but those leads will be the result of the relationships you build.

How is your social media strategy performing?

Twitter is real in terms of effectiveness in generating buzz or even leads. Twitter “tweets” (posts) can be categorized in 3 basic categories, each having it’s own way of increasing sales.

• Personal Tweets – these tweets are characterized by their seeming randomness from a person’s stream of thoughts and actions. An example would be “I just had the best jelly donut.” While you probably don’t care about who ate jelly donuts, these personal tweets serve to relate to your readers at the human level, letting them know you have a life (and perhaps a belly) outside your business. The next time you talk to one of your followers they’ll ask “do you want a jelly donut?”
• Conversational Tweets – Twitter has the build in ability to reply and direct message people that allow you to carry on conversations about a particular tweet. A reply would be something like, “what kind of jelly donut was it?”
• Promotional Tweets – these tweets serve to do just that, promote something. A promotional tweet that would be a reply to the previous conversational tweet would be,  “not only does Krispy Kreme make the best glazed donuts, they have the best jelly donuts too!”

Utilizing all forms of tweets is important to deliver a message and to maintain relationships with your readers!

Sure, the Millennials (born 1984-2002) don’t know how to make long distance calls on a land line by dialing “1″ first. Sure, the Millennials think that email is the new snail mail. Sure, the Millennials use Facebook and MySpace as their primary means of communication. But the terms “social media” is still new to them.

The Millennial’s ability to adapt to technology and the changes in their use of communication isn’t an indicator of their understanding of what social media is and how it is used. The average age on Facebook is 35 while the average age on LinkedIn is 41. More Gen X’ers are using LinkedIn than Millennials and by “using” I mean “effectively using”.

Millennials don’t look at social media as the future of the internet, but as a lifestyle. This is important because if your target audience are the Millennials, then your marketing efforts must reflect lifestyle rather than simply style. Looking cool, sounding hip, and using (seizure enducing) visual effects are not the major ingredients to communicating your message to Millennials.

…whether you like it or not.

Who’s helping you through the changes in technology?

JC Penny launched the website BewareOfTheDogHouse.com that has generated a significant amout of buzz in the social media space. It is a great execution of interactive media that is enhanced by social media and networking.

What the video that I saw from a social media site.

Beware of the Doghouse- Hilarious! – More bloopers are a click away

Here are some points to take notice of:

1. Clear navigation
2. Clear calls to action
   1. Warn someone
   2. Put someone in The Doghouse
   3. Get Out of the Doghouse
3. Interactive & Social elements
   1. Connect on Facebook
   2. Putting real people in The Doghouse
   3. Allowing for commenting and conversations
   4. Sharable site & movie

These elements that exist in this marketing effort must exist on your website.

Zappos is a company that gives all new hires $1500 to quit the company after two of the four weeks of training. Zappos is a company that actually finds shoes at other vendors for you if they don’t have it. Zappos is a company where you can order shoes up to 11pm and still get next day delivery. Zappos is a great company.

The CEO of Zappos, Tony Hsieh, uses Twitter to communicate with his customers.

Tony Hsieh sold a company for $265 million at the age of 24.

Follow the Zappos Twitter.

http://twitter.com/zappos

a Time Magazine article by Bill Tancer from Aug 20, 2008

LinkedIn is not a social network that your kids are on, in fact 499 of the Fortune 500 have director-level employees representing the companies on LinkedIn! The average age of LinkedIn users is 41 years of age with an average household income of $109,703! The question isn’t whether you have an account, but are you untilizing the opportunities the LinkedIn provides to connect with people that you may not have had the opportunity to connect with?

LinkedIn helps you to get found through your network of connections. Your virtual visibility increases with the quality connections you make. One of the common problems with sales networking is the simple fact that people don’t know what you do, but utilizing LinkedIn helps people understand you.

One of the features of LinkedIn is the ability to make recommendations of people you have worked with, whether co-worker or customer, that gives you valuable insight to the quality of the person and credibility of their work.

The networking opportunities that LinkedIn provides is critical in maximizing sales channels and developing genuine business relationships. It is time to start developing your LinkedIn presence.

Social media is any digital platform where people can openly participate and converse in a socially connected community through the internet.

The internet has transformed from an information broadcast system to a vast network of people virtually congregating into communities of like interests and associations. People are looking to the internet to do more than find information, but to interact through conversation and connect with other people.

Websites are being built to foster open feedback about various topics and interested and allow people to actively participate in collaboration about them. Whether it is simple as sharing photos or to the advocating for the end of child poverty, both instances create networks of people that share in similar interests and wish to collaborate upon them.

Social media can vary from (but not limited to) blogs, social communities, microblogs, photo and video sharing, and content collaboration. Many utilize innovative technology to create a unique experiences and opportunities to express one’s interests.

Social media is changing the way people are connecting and the ways businesses are reaching people. Companies will have to continually adapt to the changes in technology and user behavior in order to reach end users in a relevant manner. Understanding and properly developing strategies on utilizing the various types of social media is critical to the success of the message they are communicating.

Here is a list of social media that people that communicate must understand:

Social Communities

• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• MySpace
• Squidoo

Blog Networks

• Technorati
• FeedBurner

Microblogs

• Twitter
• Plurk
• Blippr

Photo and Video Sharing

• YouTube
• Flickr
• 12Seconds
• Vimeo

Content Collaboration

• SlideShare
• Scribd
• StumbleUpon
• Digg

Check out our Experience Labs to learn first hand what social media is about with hands-on experience!