Online marketing solutions

The digital age has changed the way we do business.  People live on email, social networks, and Starbuck’s coffee.  Our mornings begin and end with the Internet.  But something interesting is taking place.  I wonder if you have noticed the growing desire and compulsive need being expressed – people want to have personal conversations with total strangers.

Privacy and anonymity seem to be a passing fad, a priority of the past.  Guards are down as people share their most private experiences, thoughts, and relationships to a global market.  The need to talk, question, and comment, may sometimes borderline obsessive behavior, but is actually a blessing in disguise for those email marketers who integrate their marketing campaigns with social media marketing.

As we engage our clients in blogs, twitter, and facebook, we want to have a discourse in meaningful and influential dialogues, furthering the discussions on a positive and informative note.  Our strategies are to develop trust and respect for our company, product, or service.  Without which there is no loyalty or repeat business.  But what happens when a negative comment is made on a blog or email communication?  Does it spiral out of control?  The need to learn how to respond in an open, unmediated arena will reduce that fear.  Learning to adapt to the continuing dynamics and constant challenges of the social Web is a daily experience.  Our attitude towards any criticism, however, should be to learn and grow from every experience.

Is the Comment True?

Whether a negative comment comes from a colleague, friend, relative or customer online we must ask ourselves is it true?  Don’t go into combat mode, as if you are being assaulted.  For some of you, honesty has always been an uncomfortable and unpleasant experience when dealing with negative remarks.  The world is filled with dishonesty.  Salespeople lie about their products, employees make excuses for their mistakes, and customer service people lie about when the product was shipped, and on and on.  It seems that telling a lie is easier than admitting a fault or product defect.  So we practice this thinking when dealing with our clients online.  But, that is not the way to go.

Having smart conversations with people who have something important to say, is being wise.  Productive criticisms about your product, service, website, or support, can only lead to improvement on your end and trust on theirs.  Being honest is being vulnerable.  But how can we develop loyalty and trust, if we cannot institute that in our own actions and lives?

Remain honest and straightforward. Most of your clients have been around the block.  They know when they are not receiving honest, straightforward responses.  Don’t try to impress, but address their issues honestly and respectably.

Be a proactive communicator. Keep your communications alive.  Many email marketers send communications when a new project or client has come on board.  Make sure you are both on the same page.  Never assume.  Question what is not clear, or what you might have missed.  Strive for excellence.  Email your client on a periodic basis.  Let them know they are very much alive in your thinking and planning.  Even if it seems redundant, keep the good vibrations going out to them.

Communications are a lifeline to business and client alike.  Honest communications today, build loyalty and trust offering a better bottom line tomorrow.

Whether for your own company or the one you work for, beginning your adventure in the social media world of digital communications is a good decision.

Social Media has become one of the most aggressive ways to promote your site or business, increasing back  links, resulting in additional website traffic.  For any business counting their costs, while weathering a bad economy, social media has become a lifesaving path.

Social media is all about conversation.  It is a very appealing way to create relationships online – giving a face and voice to small and large businesses.  This strategy can easily add to an email marketing campaign, whose name and brand begin to take on a more personal and widespread public recognition.

Beginning your SM Campaign Strategy – Before jumping in head first, you need to know what tools you will be using, as well as the information you want to share.  As with any email marketing campaign, research, time, and strategy must always come first.  Here are a few tips:

Preparation and Research

• Create an audience persona. What does your target audience look like?  As an email marketer, demographics is a survival word.  Get an image of your audience, age, gender, spending and surfing habits, what sites they visit, and how they use the Web.  This forms your foundation.

• Check out your competition. Find out what your competition is doing in the social media arena.  What are they talking about, what are they writing about.  See what kind of responses they are getting.

• Policy Guidelines. Make sure your company has a social media policy in place.  Guidelines are needed for any employee that engages online conversations representing your organization.

• The Designated Blogger. It is very important to designate a blogger.  Whether you hire a freelance blogger, or give someone in your organization this opportunity, this is a serious commitment.  Blogging needs to be consistent, live conversations need to be monitored.  Give this serious thought – you need the right person creating the right voice and conversations.

• Goals and Meetings. Have your plans and strategies clearly defined.  Make time for follow-up meetings on the outcome and results.  This is a learning process.  You can easily modify ideas and content along the way.

• Interesting and Relevant. Whatever message you put out there, cannot be taken back.  People are stressed, quickly skimming through titles and bits of conversations, as they surf.  Take the time to surf around at what your target audience is talking about on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.  Do not let stress or urgency make your efforts sloppy.

Don’t forget to have fun. Social conversations should have some lightness about them.  We are not engaging in metrics or behavioral sciences.  Bring a bit of fun into this.   The very fact of the enormous proliferation of social media, proves that people want a more personal relationship and voice with those they do business with or buy from.

Here are some of the top SM sites in which to get started – Click Me!

Google has given us a brand new toy, Google Buzz.  Google Buzz is a brand new way to have conversations about things that interest you, while enabling you to share updates such as photos and videos with family and friends.  There is no installation.  You simply open up your Gmail account, and there it is.  At least, that was my experience.  No warning, just a cute little colorful icon waiting to be pushed.  Sharing information is faster than ever.   A possible new email marketing tool?

All responses will be sent by Buzz directly to your inbox – in actual real-time.  Buzz is also available on certain cellphones and smartphones, so you don’t have to be in front of your computer to create or read a Buzz.

Google Buzz  seems to be Google’s strongest and boldest attempt to get into and build a strong and popular social network.  They have taken and implemented the best of the most powerful social media programs like Twitter and other social services, combining the most popular elements together into one aggressive package.

Importing into Buzz
Do you use Flickr, Picasa, or Twitter?  Now you can automatically have those items imported into your stream.  Buzz will even recommend items you might like based on your friends’ preferences based on their activities.  Instead of building their own social network from the beginning, Buzz is now an integrated key part of their Gmail, with its own distinct icon tab underneath the inbox.

Even though thousands use Gmail, there are still plenty of people without Gmail accounts.  Will Buzz be enough to entice new users to sign up and start using an email service just because of Buzz?

A Bit more Complicated
Twitter is so simple.  If you have created a public account, anyone can see and follow your tweets if they have decided to follow you. It’s as simple as that.  With Buzz, it is not that simple because there are public and private buzzes.  Buzz will create plans for business and educational users.  So public buzzes may only be available within your particular organization or school.  You will have the option for a private buzz to designated individuals within your network.  Remaining flexible, it becomes a bit more complicated.

When users were asked why they are using Buzz, here are some of their reasons:
1.    Easy to use
2.    Simple interface
3.    No setup – Automatically embedded into Gmail.
4.    Users feel they get a wider and quicker global connection

How will G-mailers respond?  Will we buy into this quick sharing of information and brand new communication tool for social media?  Google believes we will.

If you would like to see a video introduction, along with a more detailed explanation of Google Buzz, please go to Google’s Official Blog about Google Buzz

Keywords have become the foundation of any email or online internet marketing, including social media.  Without adding the right keywords and phrases in your website, you might as well set up shop in the desert. The whole goal is to be found.  Sounds simple, but it is not.

Understanding how keywords work, takes a bit of time and research.  The good news is, the Worldwide Web has all you need to know – and that information  is available, at the click of your mouse.  Here are a few simple strategies.

• Know How your Audience Thinks: Hey, I am  not advocating mind reading.  But you need to anticipate words that people might use when looking for your product or service.  It may not be the exact words you would have used for your product or service keywords, but if you don’t test your words, with the right tools, you could miss a sale.  At the end, it’s all about your target audience.  You need to understand how they search and think.  For example, a furniture company discovered the search word being used for sofa was the word couch.  They immediately updated their keywords and made an immediate sale.

• Relevance: When we search online, we have certain ideas and expectations of what our keywords will bring us.  If you are like me, and you start getting responses back that are not exactly what you had hoped for, you keep revising your search word and search phrase to get that perfect result. Your website content should match the keywords people are searching for.  If it doesn’t, they will leave your site and you will lose a possible prospect.

Here are some free tools related to keyword research and tracking:

• Social Media Keyword Research:   Social media is a great tool.  Find out what people are talking about and what words they are using that relate to your market.  You can create a list of those targeted words to use on your website.
  • TweetVolume: Enter keywords to see their frequency within Twitter
  • YouTubeKeyword Tool:  Find video related keywords and tags used – similar to the Google Keyword Search Tool.
• Google Trends: With Google Trends, you can compare the world’s interest in your niche market.
• Google Insights for Search: Compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties.

Keyword research is vital for your search engine and website optimization goals.  Your site must target the right keywords for a high ranking performance.  As important as it is to be found, you need to be found by the right people. This takes thoughtful planning and strategy.  Using the right tools can give your website a strong online presence.

Remember:  Don’t just spend your time and energy on the aesthetics of your site.   That would be like cooking a spectacular meal, with all the trimmings.  It may look and taste fabulous, but what good is it if no one shows up for dinner?

How Restaurants Can Use Social Media

Every kind of business and service is getting on the bandwagon of Social Media.  Whether you are using email bulk campaigns or e-newsletters, Social media has given the Internet a new intimacy of virtual relationships. Reaching out to your customers and prospects has never been easier. This indeed is another great marketing channel for every restaurant looking to grow their brand awareness.

If your restaurant has been in business for years, and is known in the neighborhood, trust me, people are talking about you online. Make no mistake that there is chatter happening. The question remains, what are they saying? Most restaurants know that having a spectacular dish or menu is not the end of it all. Your customers want to be appreciated and connect personally with you in some way.

I don’t know about you, but when I enjoy a meal, and feel very satisfied and happy with the service, I start talking about that restaurant almost immediately.  Don’t you?  We tell our friends, you need to check this place out, great food, fabulous service. You want to share a good thing when you find it. How much better it would be if we could actually connect with our favorite restaurants online, or see what they are talking about. It sort of completes the experience.

Here is a list of tools that any restaurant owner could use to connect with their customer that in return could produce a type of brand evangelist.

Social Media Tools for Restaurants

• SEO: – your website must be optimized with your key words. That is a must. Being found on a search and ranking high in the SERPs is the first step for brand awareness.

• Sign up with the local restaurant search engines: Yelp.com, Urbanspoon.com, and TripAdvisor.com – Request that any  positive feedback be shared on the site publicly.

• Twitter: – Create a Twitter Account – publish you profile and use it to announce special family deals and discounts on meals.

• Create an E-Newsletter: – Ask your repeat customers for their email addresses and send a double opt in to subscribe to your e-newsletter.  Send a new recipe once a month, include some food preparation tips.  Ask for feedback for your next newsletter.  This is a great way to start your database list for future use along with acquiring a solid lead of customers.

•  Blog on your Website: – Bring your customers into the kitchen, behind the scenes.  Let them feel they are part of the action -  as if they are participating.  We all want to feel a little more than just being filled with good food.  We all want to belong.

•  YouTube – sign up for a free account.  Make a YouTube video of one of your most popular dishes.  Send out the URL on your newsletter and announce it in your blog.  As for feedback from those who have tried the recipe.  What a great way to engage people.

• GoMobile – Collect your client’s cell numbers and send SMS messages about specials and coupon deals.

If you need some guidance with marketing ideas, see this free online source: Virtual Restaurant

BEFORE you Jump into Social Media Marketing:

• Create a plan: First, know your audience, says L. Michelle Smith, president and CEO of Dallas-based media-strategy firm M Strategies Inc., whose clients include Atlanta-based Church’s Chicken.  Are your customers on social networks, and if so, which ones? Next, know what you want to accomplish: Is your goal to build a relationship through dialogue with an audience? To tell people about the brand, or about news and events? “It’s not a strategy just to be there,” Smith says.

• Listen to what customers are saying: Search social-media sites and read what already has been posted—not just in reviews but in comments and conversations. “You’ll learn a phenomenal amount,” says Van Vandegrift, president and emerging-media consultant with Matrixx Pictures, a Santa Monica, Calif., production company whose clients include Austin, Texas-based Schlotzsky’s Deli. “They’ll say all the things they love and all the things they hate, and that’s incredible business knowledge.

• Know your Voice: Decide whether you want to speak to consumers in your personal voice (i.e., as the owner, chef or general manager), or as the overall brand, says Christina Wong, restaurant and chef publicist at JS² Communications in Los Angeles.

• Create brand ambassadors: Find the people who really love your restaurant.  Share your vital info with them, let them spread the good word.

• Make  your conversations interesting: Just listing menu items, unless they’re particularly unusual, makes for a boring post. “Say something that shares part of who you are, like, ‘Chocolate ice cream is the only worthy ice cream’ or ‘Just finished making my grandmother’s bread-pudding recipe and it rocks,’ or ‘Completely slammed in the kitchen, no end in sight,’” says publicist Ellen Malloy.

Remember, social media is just a tool, but you are the one to make it happen.  Listen, answer questions, and connect with people online.  Take these opportunities to reach out to your customers.  When you do, they will be telling others about you, building your brand, and making you visible.

According to Nielsen Online, Twitter alone grew 1,382% year-over-year in February, 2009, registering a total of just more than 7 million unique visitors in the US for the month. With statistics like this, Social Media is proving to be the largest channel for marketing and communication ever.

What is Social News?

Social News websites allow its users to submit news stories, articles and media (videos/pictures) and share them with other users or the general public. An article’s importance is determined by the value or importance placed upon it by the voting community. Users have the power to influence the visibility of content. Whether the voting process is fair or not, the people rule.

As any business email marketer knows, getting your company and website noticed means putting it in front of as many people as you can. Social Media marketing has become a hot new avenue of marketing, and an absolute must to incorporate into your marketing mix. With thousands of people hitting these sites daily, you cannot afford to walk away from such a large audience.

Which sites to join? Each site attracts a different community. Be aware that there are many sites where marketing type articles are not permitted and will be deleted.  However, there are some Social News sites that marketers can use:

• http://www.reddit.com/
• http://digg.com/
• http://www.propeller.com/
• http://slashdot.org/
• http://www.mixx.com/
• http://shoutwire.com/
• http://tweako.com/
• http://www.smallbusinessbrief.com/index.php
• http://www.iliketotallyloveit.com/

Here are some helpful guidelines when creating and posting your articles:

1) Create a catchy headline. Make your headline short, engaging and maybe a bit mysterious.

2) Ask your friends to Vote for You! Email your friends and ask them to submit a vote, if they really like it. Hmmmm…..this will give you a head start. Don’t be shy, get some honest feedback

3) Make it easy to vote. Have a simple, clickable call to action. Don’t make people click through to sub links in which to cast their votes. They just might get a bit frustrated and not vote.

4) Timing is everything. As soon as you publish your article, try to have your friends vote for it right away. The more votes in the shortest amount of time will put your article on top.  Top articles receive a higher search engine ranking. Bottom line, you want quick, and relevant traffic.

5) Become an active community member. Don’t just submit your articles to the social news sites, take the time to vote for articles that you might find interesting, as well. See which articles are getting the most votes. This will give you a better understanding of what type of communities each site is attracting and what they are writing about. This gives you a “heads up” on what these communities like to read.   Customize your article to fit into the community.

6) Success is never guaranteed. No can predict which articles will be successful and which ones will not. Just keep writing good copy about relevant subjects. Social Media News is just a part of your marketing mix. Keep working on all the channels of marketing towards building your ROI.

Know your target sites. With over 50 social news sites and growing, it can be a bit overwhelming. Joining and posting your articles to just any site, is a waste of your time and talent. Focus on what sites and communities will give you the most success.

Social news is getting more mainstream everyday. Within 5 years, we might see a social news site for every conceivable topical or business niche.

All B2B or B2C email marketers know that email campaigns are an important part of their marketing mix.  With the explosion of social media, further avenues and channels must be explored and incorporated for reaching your targeted audience.  A good ROI does not depend on one strategy alone.  In a recent survey advertising and PR professionals stated that 95% of their clients incorporate blogs as part of their online marketing mix.   Nearly 88% have successfully increased measurable SEO objectives as a direct result of blogging.

“Build it and they will come” was a great line in the movie, Field of Dreams.  But that is not how it works in the real world.  Every day, thousands of new blogs are being created by companies and individuals alike.  Putting up a blog, as with a website, is a great start.  Then you need to optimize both for the Search Engines.  But that is just the beginning.  As with your website, no one can read or subscribe to your blog, if it cannot be found.  So how do you promote and market a new blog to the vast internet public?

First and foremost Content is always King – The foundation of any good copy is content.  Good content is vital to the health of your website or blog.  No one wants to read nonsense or fluff.  Make sure you have something to say, and it is relevant.  If you are targeting a particular audience, do your research and join other blogs and RSS feeds to see what your niche audience is talking about.

As I researched the web, I have found some really good tips to share.  Here there are:

1. Write a list of over 100+ resources or ideas.
2. Maybe you can write a “How to Guide?” Spend time making this awesome.
3. Write some articles and submit them to some article sites:

• Enzinearticles.com

• iSnare.com

• ArticlesBase.com

• SearchWarp.com

For a full list of the 25 top article submission sites, please go to:  http://www.wilsonweb.com/linking/wilson-article-marketing-1.htm

4. Need ideas?  Check out different blogs and see what people are blogging.  You can always modify content for your own niche market.

Don’t Forget About Facebook

Facebook is hot.  If you do not have a Facebook account, you need to create one today.  Take advantage of this powerful marketing tool.  If you have one and just let it gather cob webs, it is time for action.  Use Facebook’s great potential.  Here’s how:

Break of out the box. Join other groups that interest you, reaching out to people you would really like to get to know.

Have a voice – don’t be shy.  The whole purpose of having a Facebook account is to reach out and interact with the other members.  Write encouraging comments, ask relevant questions, letting people get to know the person behind the name.

Create a catchy profile. – Facebook has applications that let you do some cool stuff.  You can add YouTube applications that allow you to embed videos.  If you have some videos on there related to your profession or some you have made, that is being savvy.

Keep an up-to-date profile. – If your profile is not kept active, it will start dying down.  It is a commitment, but one worth keeping.

Online Videos

What a creative way to market your product, service, or company.  People like seeing and hearing a person.  No one wants a relationship with a company brand.  Letting people see who you are and what you are all about, is a way to reach out and touch your audience.

Once you have created your video:
•    Put it on your Facebook Page
•    Include your website and blog address below
•    Upload your video to different video sites
•    Put the video on your website
•    Share the video with friends
•    Remember to use rich keywords in the title

There are so many great ideas out there in Internet space.  Research and read the best ones and start implementing your strategies towards getting your blogs noticed.  And when you do, don’t forget to send them your replies.

Blogs and blogging have exploded all over the Internet.  Most websites now have a blog.  As more people sit home on their computers for work and pleasure, we have succeeded in creating an age of electric communications as well as electronic relationships.  What a great time to be a business email marketer.

I came into the blogging world, a bit late.  After creating some blogs of my own, I became curious about this phenomenon.  I wanted to know more about blogging.  Why do people blog?  How many people are blogging?  Is it beneficial and if so, how?  So I started researching everything I could find on blogging.  So here’s the scoop.

How Many Bloggers are there?
According to an article in the NY Times:  America’s Newest Profession: Bloggers for Hire, “The best studies we can find say we are a nation of over 20 million bloggers, with 1.7 million profiting from the work, and 452,000 of those using blogging as their primary source of income. That’s almost 2 million Americans getting paid by the word, the post, or the click — whether on their site or someone else’s“

Why do People Blog?
Blogging allows even the most insignificant topic to be “heard” in ways that were not possible before.  Anyone and everyone have a voice in this technological age.  At one time, not so long ago, you only read the opinions of those elite editors from The New York Times and Wall Street Journal.  The everyday person, for the first time, has a vehicle for sharing their personal and unsubstantiated perspectives and ventilation about news, politics, sports, business, and so much more.  We are all given our moment in the main stream media.  Who could have ever imagined anything like this before?

Blogging creates community. Everyone has something to say.  The freedom and ability to comment on someone’s blog is one of its strongest attractions.  You start a conversation and others join in.  Before long, you are all talking to each other and not the commentator.  Readers are free to agree or disagree, adding their own website links for marketing as well.  The tone and path the blogs take, is solely in the hands of the Bloggers.

According to WordPress.org, there are over 14 categories of Blogs.

Advantages of Blogs:

• Creative Inspiration:  Reading what others have written about gives  me ideas that I can build on.

• Keeping up with the latest events, technology, and social happenings

• Blogs can be entertaining

• See what your competitor is writing about

• What is going on in your market niche

Disadvantages of Blogs?

• They can be addictive and time consuming

• You can feel compelled to read them all.

• Whose opinions are accurate?

• How many blogs do you have to read to obtain all the facts about a  subject or statement?

Blogging and Safety
The Internet has given us a false sense of safety.  For whatever reason, people click on links, enter personal information, answer questions and never think about it.  So I ask you, what about privacy?  The best way to blog and still preserve some privacy is to do it anonymously using a pseudonym.  For more details, please read:  How to blog safely across the world.

Whatever your reason for blogging, strive to be accurate and positive.  Inspire and inform your readers.  And by the way, Happy Blogging.

Social Media Marketing is growing faster every day, as thousands of people are opening accounts with Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin. According to surveys, there may be as many as 120,000,00 YouTube videos already loaded and playing.

The stats are staggering. Social Media is here to stay. As more and more businesses search for new avenues where they can market their brand, getting their content seen, another channel is becoming advantageous – Say hello to Social Bookmarking.

Whether you use direct email campaigns, e-newsletters, or HTML email for your marketing tactics, you need to consider adding social bookmarking to your portfolio.

What is Social Bookmarking?
Instead of having 50 favorite website links on your desktop or hundreds in your favorite folders, you can save them to a designated website and share them with your friends, colleagues, and the public. Can you see the possibilities? As different users save their favorite places, listing them with keywords and in subject order, the bookmark sites become search engines within themselves. With your permission, your bookmark can be found publicly with the keywords and subjects you create for each link.

Social Bookmarketing Leverages Web Promotion Strategy
This free tool offers so many channels to market any business. You can bookmark your website pages, blogs, YouTube videos, which create back links to your site and information. The more back links the search engines sees, the more valuable it deems you page in the SERPS (Search Engine Results Page.)

Helpful Suggestions:

1. Join as many social bookmark sites as you can. A great page to start with is  Socialmarker. Social Marker can help you spread a link on 48 of the best social bookmarking sites.

2. Tag your website, blog, social networking sites and any other web presence you have on as many social bookmark sites as you can. Don’t forget to use your press releases as promotional links, as well!

3. Install the Socializer “Addthis” tag to your website and blog, encouraging visitors to add your site to their social bookmarks with one click to begin the process.

3. Use Affinity Marketing. Collaborate and promote with a noncompetitive market.  Share your social bookmarks.

How to Begin

1. Choose a social bookmarking site and register. Some of the most popular sites are: Stumble Upon,  Del.icio.us,  Digg, and Faves.

2. Get familiar with the bookmarking site. Read what they are about. See what types of social users are there and if they fit your type of work and niche.

3. See what news, blogs, articles and websites are being recognized with a high ranking. That will be a gage to use when finding out what people are interested in reading.

4. Start promoting your bookmarks. Send them to friends, family, and colleagues.

5. Submit quality content. Don’t take a chance on losing your good reputation by spamming for the sake of exposure.

6. Bookmark sites you like and find relevant: As people go to your social bookmark, you will quickly gain trust when sharing valuable information that has nothing to do with your personal gain.

7. Comment on other people’s bookmarks – share your thoughts. Be positive and get your name out there.

8. Others link to you. Have you written an article, blog, or post that you feel would be interesting to another industry? Ask those involved if they would link back to your article. If it is interesting and relevant, they might say yes. You have nothing to lose.

A Few Negatives:

• It is time-consuming. Most of the sites require you to fill in their form and send you an opt-in link for verification. Many submissions contain content description and keywords. Once submitted, they will ask you to confirm that your content is not duplicated by similar content.

• Loading is slow. Depending on the site traffic and your connection, submission can take 30 seconds or more. Use this time to practice your patience.

• Site Overload: There are over 45 sites to register with. Do not get overwhelmed. Become familiar with the process. Take it one step at a time. Tip: Make an excel spreadsheet of the site, URL, username, and password used.

For more information on how to use Social Bookmarking to promote your business, please go to:  http://homebusiness.about.com/od/internetmarketing/a/social_bookmark.htm

For further reading on Social Media Marketing, just download this free PDF file called “Do it Yourself Social Media Marketing”.

Not too long ago, shopping online was unique and new.  Now, you get that “strange look” if you don’t.  The Internet and Web, no doubt, are a huge and integral part of our daily lives, as naturally as that cup of coffee or tea.  When you don’t have either, you can get a little cranky.

Email campaign marketing is so highly focused on stats, that; we tend to forget the clicker on the other end is a real live person.  We have let email communication create a false sense of intimacy.  A sort of virtual conversation, but, we never hear a voice, see our client’s faces, nor do we have any idea about their feelings, unless we make a personal contact with them.

Any shopper, whether in a store or online, wants to be noticed and treated as a valued customer.  Well, what about your targeted email marketing subscribers?  Should our direct mail campaigns go out with no thought in which to add that additional human element or personal touch, integrated into our business marketing plans, present and future?

Social Media Raises the Bar for Communication

With the explosion of Social Media, sometimes called “A Cultural Phenomenon,” on the internet scene, business email campaigns can now add that personal and social touch as never before, by integrating social media, instead of just relying on broadcast email campaign messages, and enewsletters.  What worked in the past is no longer relevant and becoming quickly outdated.  With all the technology and communication noise out there, it pays to engage customers in a more personal one-on-one meaningful and relevant way.  If you have not added social media to your campaign strategies, it is time you do.

Social Media initiates relationships in a nonthreatening, casual atmosphere.  It is almost like sitting across from your clients have a thought-provoking conversation.  It is a one-to-one communication tool.  The possibilities are endless and so are the rewards.  When you give a voice and personality to your brand and company, your clients and prospects will engage with you on a deeper level.  Direct conversations are a much better option in comparison to having them fill out a customer survey, form, or email response.

Conversations create trust.  Once trust is built and established, a prospect turns into a client; – a client becomes more steadfast and loyal.  It is a win-win for all.  Here are some of the ways you can add Social Media to your business advantage as you revamp and reassess in the New Year.

1. Start a FAQ Group about your product or company on Facebook, where your clients and prospects can join.  Communication between subscribers may be a catalyst in creating interest in your content without any marketing needed on your end.

2. Engage with your subscribers. Encourage their live feedback.  These conversations are public and may well attract others to read and respond.

3. Remember, you are writing to real live people, not statistics or targets.  Keep your communications warm and friendly, not generic or robotic.

4. Create a Twitter account and link them up together. Use Twitter to broadcast interesting and relevant news about your industry or something personal that can be relevant and valuable.

5. Twitter as a Landing Page. Seriously consider using Twitter to promote your personal or business brand.  Don’t forget to include a link to your blog or website.  See the possibilities using Twitter! http://www.murraynewlands.com/2009/08/twitter-landing-pages-10-elements-of-a-successful-twitter-landing-page/.

6. Create a Blog on your Website. Let people get to know and hear your personal voice.  No one wants to build relationships with companies or departments.  This gives your website more exposure.  Even a modest amount of subscribers can help add and generate considerable traffic.  Don’t forget to link your blog to your Twitter page!

This list is far from exhaustive.  I hope we have piqued your interest.  Do your research – the stats alone will encourage you to cross this bridge, making that decision much clearer to make.  There are tons of articles, blogs, and videos on every subject and thought mentioned here.  The amount of information out there is a bit mind boggling.  Be selective.  See what other business owners have to say about the impact of Social Media on their ROI.