Social Media.....Hype or Money Maker?

Social Media….I’m guessing you’ve heard of it? If not, you wouldn’t be reading this post.

Today’s information explosion is growing exponentially, fueled by sites like Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Digg, MySpace, YouTube, Flicker, and thousands more. Sure, we all enjoy using them, but are they really a way for businesses or individuals to capitalize on the growth and actually earn some income?

I’m going to spend a little time and give my take on the trends.

People typically begin slow in the social media world, usually by opening a Facebook account because one of their friends has told them it’s the trendy thing to do. Some people start with a Twitter account. It really doesn’t matter.

If you’re looking to get return on your investment (ROI) you need to start by building your social “Brand”. How do you accomplish this? You’ve already started by opening your personal gateway to the social environment by using Facebook and/or Twitter.

Next step is to gain followers or friends. How do you do that? It takes a bit of effort but everyone can do it…start “tweeting” on your Twitter account. You can either write your own comments or “re-tweet” someone else’s. You can also “tweet” an interesting article that you find. I think the best approach is a combination of the 3. Be creative. Add picture to your tweets, using free app’s like YFrog or Twitpic. Remember, people like to read interesting stuff and you’re competing with millions of others for their time. Get to know your audience.

Once you successfully accumulated a following, keep expanding it by adding other means of communication to your social toolbox by creating a personal or professional blog. The Huffington Post is today’s #1 rated blog (Technorati research http://tinyurl.com/yg5gxnv). The Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost) has more than 800,000 followers on Twitter. While this may not be the biggest Twitter following (according to TwitterStats, that would be Lady Gaga with more than 8,400,000 followers http://tinyurl.com/ddjtdd ), it has led them to being the most viewed blog on the internet.

Now that you have your blog, begin posting it on Twitter and Facebook to gain even more exposure to your brand. The more exposure your brand gets, the easier it becomes to monetize it. Think of the Dunkin Donuts “Keep it Coolatta” social campaign…..

The campaign incented the public to snap pictures of themselves and post them on the Dunnkin Donut Fan Wall on Facebook to win prizes including air conditioners, Jet Blue vouchers, Flat screen TV’s and more.

The reaction was fantastic and generated more than 20,000 additional followers for Dunkin Brands.

There are lots of companies out there today who are looking for heavy traffic “brands” where they can place advertisements for their merchants’ products. By partnering with one of these firms, you can start monetizing your brands and get your ROI flowing. To find some of these companies, simply Google or Bing “digital advertising affiliate programs” and you’ll find dozens of them.

Do your research, pick one, and you’re on your way to increased ROI…….all through today’s information explosion of social media.

To learn more on how to use social media to grow your business, contact me at Dave@socialstrategy1.com or @davehanron on Twitter

Social Media vs. Social Intelligence

I’m sure we’re all getting bombarded by Facebook and Twitter information from people calling themselves “Social Media experts”. If you’re like me, it’s getting to the point where you ask yourself how much “social” is too much “social”?

This brings us to today’s topic: What exactly is “social media" and what does it do for me?

“Social Media” is defined by Wikipedia as “the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue”. In other words, everyone using Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, Linkedin, etc are using and contributing to “social media”. If you’re a bit more advanced and are “blogging”, then you’re contributing to the social media explosion.

Today’s businesses are just beginning to realize the role social media is currently playing and will continue to evolve into in the future. Where in past years, if you had a bad experience with a merchant or ate a bad meal at a restaurant, you’d tell a few close friends and relatives and that would be the end of it. Very little real effect took place on the business reputation, good or bad.

Today, people may have thousands of followers on Twitters, making it as simple as picking up their Blackberry or iPhone, logging into Twitter, and writing a quick one sentence review of their experience. This review quickly reaches all their followers and with “re-tweeting”, there’s no way to count how many people are notified of an experience with a business, good or bad. The results can be devastating to a reputation or fantastic for a company, depending on the temperament of the Tweet.

Here’s where “Social Intelligence” comes in. Businesses need to more than just follow their reputations with free services like Google alerts, or Trackle alerts. The business may or may not capture all of their social mentions with these services, but the bigger question now becomes what do you do with them?

The consumers must be engaged in order to gain value from the social media explosion. Social intelligence is the knowledge of how to handle the conversation about your business.  It includes having a  plan in place to respond immediately to comments once you find them, both positive and negative and requires many companies to employ a full-time staff to address this. It includes developing pro-active campaigns to improve or direct the conversation about your brand.  It may drive business to your website. There are many components of social intelligence. Far too many to address here...

It’s a fact in today’s tight economic market that many companies can’t (or won’t) expend the resources to hire additional personnel to handle this aspect of their business, and their current group of employees is either too busy or not trained to deal with the social media explosion.  It’s the current and next generation of employees (recent college grads and those students still in college, high school, and middle school) who will be coming into the workplace fully engaged with the need and skills to work in social intelligence.

Think back 10 years ago…..pre-requisite for employment may have read something like “working knowledge of MS Word, Excel, & Powerpoint a plus”. Today’s job listings might include something like..”at least 5 years of Twitter, Facebook, and blogging experience a must”.

Scared? You’re not alone.

There are solutions available today to help you through attaining and successfully developing and using social intelligence to help your business profits move forward as technology continues to evolve.  If you’d like more information on how to manage your company’s social intelligence programs, please contact me.

I’d enjoy hearing any other solutions or comments you may have so please leave your comments and forward to any friends or colleagues you may feel are interested in “social intelligence”.

Great Twitter Tool

Are you “Social”? Do you use Twitter? Facebook? Digg? Linkedin?

If you’re just getting into the cyber social scene, here’s a great application to add to your social toolbox.

If you enjoy taking pictures and posting them on Facebook, but struggle when trying to express your views on Twitter, try signing up for Y Frog (http://www.yfrog.com/) and download the mobile app. to your mobile device. YFrog is a product of Imageshack, which has been hosting images and videos since 2004.

YFrog is a free application that works from your desktop or mobile device. YFrog seemlessly integrates with your Twitter account and allows users to add photos and videos to their Twitter posts. Users can post directly from the YFog interface, making “tweeting” and “re-Tweeting” a breeze! Currently, YFrog is available for use from Blackberry and Android mobile devices. For you iPhone users, the application is available using Tweetdeck.

So, next time you find yourself at the scene of a newsworthy event or in the presence of a person of interest, grab your cell phone camera, snap the picture and “Tweet” away. Stats have shown that the average “tweet” stays in cyber space for no more than an hour (http://tinyurl.com/6ly6nfw). “Tweets” containing pictures have a shelf life of nearly triple that!