I just finished listening to the NetBase.com’s final installment of the 11 of 11′ Webinar series with speaker Jason Falls and was literally blown away by the information he shared. The various examples he gave revolved around what he calls the “seven business drivers of social media”. They offered great insight into how companies can use social media to increase sales and customer relations.

He also spoke of how to choose the right one for your business and how to execute a strategy that would improve sales, profitability, efficiency and brand value for any company, even if your business is not based online.

All of this, of course, was the condensed version of what you can find in his book “No BS Social Media” and provided some very powerful tips and techniques you can use in your own business.  I plan on getting my copy today:)

If you’re interested in watching today’s webinar and others from the series, all of the replays can be seen on Netbase.com and cover a wide range of social media topics from a variety of speakers.

I highly recommend it!

~Toresa

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Interesting presentations by Maria Pergolino of Marketo on the how’s and why’s of content marketing for your business. I would have loved to have attended the Webinar, but her Slideshare presentation does offer a lot of useful information to take away.

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Guest article by James Grandstaff

The whole point of creating a Facebook Page for your business is to build a fan base of people interested in your product or service, right?

Facebook Pages are a great tool for interacting with your fans on a regular basis and for them to discover whether or not your product or service is right for them.

But to build a HUGE fan base you need people clicking the all mighty “LIKE” button. Yep, the tiny little button sitting at the top of your page.

Gone are the days of “Become a fan.” Today, it’s all about the “LIKES” and YOU WANT THEM (a lot of them!)

Because without them… you have ZERO reach. If you have zero reach, you make ZERO dollars.

And this is where most Page Admins fall flat on their face.

Let me explain…

Have you ever visited a Facebook Page for a business, only to land on their “Wall” where you see the comments and status updates?

If so, did it make you want to “LIKE” the page?

Probably not.

Allowing your visitors to land on your “Wall” is the #1 mistake Page Admins are making all across Facebook.

But it doesn’t have to be this way…

Because as a Page Admin, you have the ability to create a custom landing page AND set this page as your “Default Landing Tab” for your Page.

You’ll first need to install an iFrame application into your page (which is beyond the scope of this post unfortunately.)
This will allow you to create a custom tab on your Page.

Once you have your custom tab, you will want to create some type of “offer” along with a “call to action” to entice people to “LIKE” your page.

An example offer would be something like this:

“Click Like Above To Get Access To _______”

It’s proven that you will get more “Likes” just by making this one small change to your Facebook Page.

Good luck!

- James Grandstaff

James Grandstaff is an Internet Entrepreneur and all around good guy. To find out how he got 52.94% more
“Likes” to his Facebook page, check out his FREE presentation today.

Have you tried this tool for building your own fanpage?  Tell us about your own experience…

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I’ve been saying for years that businesses have to start paying attention to how consumers are now making their purchase decisions.  With technology always so close at hand, we are seeing people in store isles searching out reviews on products before they buy, gathering information about the products right on the spot, or searching online for a much needed product or service.  It’s time now for businesses to take social media and online search seriously by applying new strategies to their marketing portfolios.

Google has just released their own ebook entitled, “ZMOT: Winning the Zero Moment of Truth” by Jim Lecinski, Google’s Managing Director of US Sales & Service and Chief ZMOT Evangelist, which focuses on the way consumers have changed and evolved.

Here’s an excerpt from their site:

The way we shop is changing and marketing strategies are simply not keeping pace. Whether we’re shopping for corn flakes, concert tickets or a honeymoon in Paris, the Internet has changed how we decide what to buy. Today we’re all digital explorers, seeking out online ratings, social media-based peer reviews, videos, and in-depth product details as we move down the path to purchase. Marketing has evolved and modern marketing strategies have to evolve with the changing shape of shopping.

At Google, we call this online decision-making moment the Zero Moment of Truth — or simply ZMOT.

Winning the Zero Moment of Truth is a powerful new eBook by Jim Lecinski, Google’s Managing Director of US Sales & Service and Chief ZMOT Evangelist. Jim shares how to get ahead at this critical new marketing moment, supported by exclusive market research, personal stories, and insights from C-level executives at global leaders like General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, and VivaKi.

If you’re a marketer, a CEO, a sales rep, or an aspiring entrepreneur, this eBook on marketing strategies and the ZMOT will help you understand this shift in the marketing landscape and show you the strategies it takes to win.

In our own free email course, “Take Back Your Customers“ we explain in detail how your competition is walking away with your customers and the steps you need to take to build momentum and gain the upperhand.  Essentially, it all comes down to the concept of ZMOT.  Customers are looking for you online using a wide variety of technological devices and you need to be ready and waiting.  If you’re competitors have already started…they are light years ahead and walking away with customers that should have been yours.

I encourage you to take some time today to learn more about the concept of ZMOT and how it could make a drastic difference in your own business.

Watch the Zero Moment of Truth trailer:

Visit the ZMOT site to download the 75 page ebook  ”ZMOT: Winning the Zero Moment of Truth” by Jim Lecinski.

And while you’re at it, visit us on Facebook to learn in detail how to start taking back your customers by incorporating social media and online local search into your existing marketing portfolio.

See more videos about ZMOT

~Toresa Slater

Join the conversation…leave a comment below and tell us your thoughts on this new Modern Marketing Strategy by Google.

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As I promised yesterday, I want to share an article posted on twitter by @mostash by @jasonfalls that explores how conversational marketing equates to real world socializing. Increasingly companies are finding that the “pushy, I gotta meet a quote” sales tactics no long work, instead  it’s become far more effective to build relationships and trust over time.

How do you know when, in the midst of conversation, to market? Is it never? Is it only when your conversational partner asks? How about at any reasonable opening to do so? Or is there a medium in between one more more of those?

From The Cluetrain Manifesto‘s declaration that “Markets are conversations,” we’ve all tried, and some have struggled, to figure out what that means, how we as marketers can capitalize on it and tactically, when in conversation can we market? Or more appropriately for many, when in conversation can we sell?

Ask 100 people and you’ll get 100 answers. Social media purists will say, “You never sell. You only make yourself trustworthy and ever-present and let the market come to you.” But how many salesmen do you know who make a good living just sitting back and never asking if they can help? None that I know of.

I’ve often used the civic organization or professional networking event as an example of what conversational marketing is. You migrate around the room, listening to conversations until you find one you most appropriately fit into. You stand adjacent to the circle of participants until they recognize and let you in. You participate, smiling and laughing only, until an opening comes where they ask you to introduce yourself or you can contribute to the storytelling and cajoling without breaking cadence with the group.

Eventually, someone asks, “So, what do you do?” And there’s your first opportunity to market. But you can dive into sales mode. You just tell them, give them the background and let them know in an unspoken way, “If you need someone to do this, you can call me.”

Over the course of the evening, or even other meetings and weeks or months of getting to know the group well, you find other opportunities to tell war stories from work, share problems you’ve solved for other people and the like. You may even find yourself saying to someone, “You know, you look like a guy who could use a new X. Why don’t you come by next week and see me?”

That relationship-building and conversational marketing happens online, too. Far too often, however, many traditional sales-oriented folks try to rush it. We live in a here-and-now world. I don’t care what the social media rules are, I’ve got a quota to meet. Yes, the social era has begotten a shift in mindset and behavior for companies. This is one of their hardest areas to change. But how can they change and still meet deadlines, quotas and projections?

What are your thought?  Is conversational marketing more effective?  Have you tried it?  How can we change and still meet those quotas?

source: Social Media Explorer   Image: Master isolated images / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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I found this article posted on twitter by @OlivierVasquez and realized that while some of the statistical information may have changed, the concept  behind it is still very relevant to today.

Social networking: The New Marketing Frontier

The many faces of advertising

Advertising, a business concept almost as old as humanity, is still evolving. It changes with new developments in technology and people’s understanding of society.

Today, newspapers, magazines, and other print media are losingadvertising opportunities, while electronic publications are gaining advertisement earnings.

“Mobile marketing and advertising are coming of age. Seen as the most personal means of communication with consumers, mobile advertising is rallying to overcome the stigma of larger advertising markets—print, TV, radio and online,” ABIresearch said.

Research reports suggest that the latest trend in the advertising industry is going mobile and taking advantage of social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace.

Social media has increased in popularity, and such sites increased hits by 230 percent since 2007, when hits had increased by a mere 20 percent over the prior year. Advertisers see in these numbers a fantastic opportunity to reach customers.

“Mobile is being embraced by advertisers of every category,” according to a Quattro Wireless report.

Social network user numbers are staggering, vastly increasing the exposure potential to products through advertisement. Twitter’s popularity has increased 347 percent over the past year, with 4.7 million people taking advantage of the microblog, according to Slideshare. Facebook has over 100 million users through mobile services, and Myspace with 11.4 million people using its mobile services.

Marketing professionals and advertisers are becoming savvier in promoting their products. ABIresearch claims that by 2015, mobile advertising will gain a strong foothold and increase from $313 million in spending to over $1.2 billion.

“Mobile advertising, once thought of as the medium of mobile personalization advertisers—such as ringtones—has become an effective strategy for brand and premium direct response marketers,” Quattro Wireless said in a statement.

Seize Them While You Can

Two months ago, Google finalized its acquisition of AdMob, a mobile advertising network. This firm is heralded as one of the largest global mobile advertising networks.

“It’s clear that mobile advertising is growing incredibly fast with lots of businesses innovating at great speed,” Google Inc. said in a recent blog post announcing the acquisition.

AdMob has become Google’s flagship for advertising products. “We want to unleash agencies’ and advertisers’ creativity on all mobile devices and deliver them better results from their campaigns, drive better returns and more choice for publishers and developers, and help people get better ads and more free mobile content.”

AdMob didn’t come cheap. Google paid around $220 million in cash and another $530 million in Google stock, for a total outlay of $750 million, according to several Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings.

Don’t Count Out Competition

Apple Inc. had dropped out of the market for AdMob and instead bought Quattro Wireless, also a mobile advertiser and considered to be the third largest advertising network, for $275 million, a mere fraction of what Google paid for AdMob.

Yet, in granting Google a license to purchase AdMob, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reasoned that Apple bought Quattro Wireless at the end of 2009 and is thus keeping competition alive. The FTC predicts that Apple will give Google a run for its money in the race for a strong mobile advertising network.

The FTC rationalized that Google and AdMob gain customers based on hits instead of brand recognition, popularity, or knowledge of the product.

“Advertisers often buy ad space through auction rather than through sales relationships, and pay for theadvertising on a ‘per click’ or other direct response basis,” according to a FTC statement.

Marketing experts don’t believe that competition was the motivator for either of the two companies when acquiring the mobile advertisers.

Market statistics vary, but according to a Quattro press release, mobile advertising expenditures will grow to $1.6 billion by 2013 from $416 million in 2009, numbers that are more optimistic than ABIresearch’s predictions.

“The motive behind Google’s and Apple’s acquisitions is clear: Define the market while the industry is young,” according to report by Knowledge@Wharton (KW).

Social Media in Vogue?

Social networks are the latest trend for developing an effective advertising campaign.

“Twitter is one of the social media tools that can be used as [a] tool for your agency’s social media marketing strategy to generate online traffic and a pipeline for new business leads,” according to an article on the socialmediatoday website.

Twitter is running advertisements in the form of tweets, including from Starbucks Corp., which sent messages for a free refill of a reusable tumbler bought on Earth Day 2010.

Twitter needs to find a model that brings in earnings, which so far has not materialized, despite a market value of $1 billion, according to KW.

Yet, some advertising experts are reluctant to see social networks used as an advertising tool, no matter how many hits or how many users.

“In examining the typical users of social networking sites, it becomes evident that many people join these sites for socializing, not shopping. As such, many members are annoyed by social networking ads, and do their best to ignore them,” states an article on the Social Networking website.

“Social Media Advertising spend[ing] is growing rapidly, whilst others [sic] traditional online (if you can call it that) [spending] is on the decrease,” said Raj Anand, a global expert on social media and technical issues, on his blog.

Anand details different industries that have been advertising on social media and uses Neilsen AdRelevance research to make his point. In the business, travel, and entertainment sectors, social mediaadvertising has increased by 184 percent, 364 percent, and 812 percent respectively between 2008 and 2009. Other sectors show equally impressive numbers, though no other numbers come close to the entertainment increase.

“Looking at all the pros and cons of social network advertising, my conclusion is that we have just seen the tip of the iceberg. Social networking is barely 8 years old and SMA [Social Media Advertising] even younger. There are new platforms like Spotify popping up who are revolutionising the way we advertise and engage with audience on social media,” he said.

The article talks about how many social media users become annoyed with advertising.  I know Facebook has stepped up their “ad” game by adding even more banners both on the left side of our profile and now also mixed in the news feed.  So how can companies effectively marketing on social networks without simply annoying potential customers?

Tomorrow I’ll be posting another very interesting article that talks about “how” to market effectively in our online social world.  Gone are the days of  ”pushy” sales tactics, now it’s important for businesses to understand exactly how the “slow and steady” approach can be extremely beneficial.

Until then, I’d love to hear your thoughts on using social media in your advertising and marketing campaigns.

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Small businesses are so busy “managing” that they don’t have time to spend focusing on new trends that could have a huge impact on their business.  I wanted to share this short article by Lee Odden of  TopRank hoping to catch the attention of busy business owners.

3 Essential Small Business Search Marketing Trends

“Qualified”, “showing intent to buy”, “high conversion rate” and many other phrases are used to describe search engine marketing.  As a $16 billion industry, Search Marketing including SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC ads (pay per click) represent a substantial opportunity for small businesses to connect with customers at the moment they are looking for products and services to buy.

Even though Search Marketing presents an attractive opportunity to grow online sales, many businesses are too busy running their companies to stay on top of future trends. To that end, here are three search marketing trends worth paying attention to:

1.  Online & Offline Marketing Integration - Forrester Research estimates $917 billion worth of retail sales in 2009 were “Web-influenced” in contrast to $155 billion of consumer goods sold online in the same year.  Small businesses must pay attention to customer search online influencing offline purchases as well as the influence of the in-store experience on searching and purchasing online.

2.  Mobile Device and Local Search – Companies must recognize consumer trends towards mobile search with the proliferation of smart phones. The web experience has definitively extended beyond the personal computer to mobile devices such as iPhones, Blackberries and iPads.  Marketers must understand their customers’ use of mobile search and what the marketing opportunities are.

Companies that serve customers in specific regions or with geographically specific needs must be present in local search results, map results and specific geo-location queries. Segmenting potential customers through geo targeting with paid search advertisements will help focus the right ads on the right customers.

3.  Social Media Advertising – Savvy small business marketers are increasingly realizing that the opportunity to reach customers extends beyond traditional paid search into the booming social media space. Having surpassed Google as the most visited website for the week ending March 13, 2010 and with over 400 million registered users, Facebook offers a significant audience that shouldn’t be ignored.  Social networks like Facebook can provide online marketers hyper-targeted advertising opportunities that can tap into new customer segments and serve as a complement to other paid search programs.

Whether it’s incorporating online and offline influences with search marketing, diversifying PPC advertising networks, leveraging local and mobile search marketing or extending advertising programs to include social media, small business marketers that capitalize on these trends will gain a competitive advantage. Of course, if they hire an online marketing agency like TopRank Marketing, that advantage may come even faster.

source: TopRank

~ Toresa

As always share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

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If you’re looking for a reason to start using social media to propel your business to the next level, then you need to read this interview and watch the video of Gary Vaynerchuk.  He took his family owned wine store from $2M to $50M using the web.

Story By: Hillel Fuld of Technmarketing.com

If you are not familiar with Gary Vaynerchuk, you must not spend too much time on the social Web. He is the guy who is the answer to all the people or companies that are skeptical about the returns of social media. Where do I start?

Gary is most well known for taking a local wine store and transforming it into a 50 million dollar business using the Web. He did this by utilizing online videos and creating his own wine tasting YouTube channel. Combine that with his unparalleled enthusiasm, charisma, and energy, and you got yourself a legend.

Continue Reading the interview

Watch this video…

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