Most people in the Internet marketing field understand the importance of social media sites. These sites are free for users to post comments, updates, connect with friends and etc. Companies use these sites to promote and even sell their products, services, and also brand themselves. One popular site, Twitter, has proved to be the next big thing in the social media realm. Twitter is a fantastic site that allows people to connect, share thoughts, and well, pretty much, “tweet” about anything. Like most social networking sites in the embryonic stages of their lives, there has been no sponsored advertisements on the site. Twitter has been around for about a 3 years and despite the $20M in VC funding, they have not monetized the site and tapped into their roughly 6 million users. The site has been virtually free of corporate America executives targeting the coveted 18-34 group. What will this mean for the future of Twitter? Well, like all social media giants such as MySpace, Facebook and Youtube, Twitter will most likely feel the pinch and will have to open the doors to advertisers. Yes, this is a good business decision for Twitter but how will the users feel? Personally, I wouldn’t mind but rather have expected it and when you are charging advertisers on your social networking site, you know the site itself has got some momentum. I will, like many others, wait and see what 2009 will bring to this new social media giant.

As we all know, social media is an emerging trend and companies large and small are harnessing the new powers of the world wide web.  The web used to be “read only” content and now it is a ”read and write” interactive experience where consumers can engage in conversations and share information.  Companies seeking to improve their online marketing strategy want to know more about how to get involved in social media marketing and how to measure the success.

First, you must know why social media is important and why it can be an effective tool.  Now that users can interact with one another, they no longer just go to Google to research products and services.  There is a sea of user-generated content out there that has the real information…not just the marketing pitch from the company trying to sell you.  Through rating and review sites, social networks like Facebook and Twitter, video sites like YouTube.com, and all kinds of blogs and forums, people can get the real scoop.  So now that we know that people are out there online talking about issues relevant to your industry, you have to go find them.  Once you find them, you should be prepared to get involved in the conversations.

How does your company get involved in the conversation?

Carefully.  You want to make sure you are adding value and building trust among your current and potential customers.  You can’t simply use Facebook or Twitter to spam the network and expect to get anything but rejection.  You need to add value to the community and build a trusted brand.  If you already have a trusted brand, you could be at an advantage but still need to follow the rules of engagement. 

Once you are involved in the conversations, what is the strategy?

Many businesses fear the transparency of social media.  You have to be prepared for the good and the bad.  Your biggest critics could be your most useful source of feedback.  Now of course you want to avoid any potential PR dissasters, but what doesn’t kill us might just make us stronger.  If there is a negative message floating around about your products or services, do not fear.  Don’t just draft a defensive response.  Do your research, find the truth in what is being said and fix it.  Once you do that you should stay involved in the conversation and regularly update the consumers and what went wrong and all the steps you are taking to fix it.  You could end up in a better position than when you started if you handle the issues appropriately.

Now of course using social media as a reputation management and PR tool is only one aspect to the strategy.  From an Internet marketing perspective, it can be incredibly valuable.  But you should not get into a habit of referring to any marketing strategy as a “branding” tactic…usually when people refer to something as a “branding” spend that means it had no measurable ROI. Granted, even the biggest social media enthusiasts are trying to determine the best way to measure impact of the various social media elements.  However, like anything else in marketing it is about how you approach it.

Let’s say for example your business wants to launch a viral video campaign but you are not sure how well it will do or how you will measure the effectiveness.  BlendTec is a great example of how powerful this can be.  The CEO created a video of himself blending iPhones with one of his company’s powerful blenders.  The video was done very well and was outrageously funny (mostly because it was so random).  Naturally, these things can be hit or miss but when they are a hit it is because all of the elements work well together.

If you are using a viral video campaign on YouTube.com to drive traffic to your site and expect to increase sales, make sure your site is set up to convert that traffic into sales/transactions.  If it is not, you might have just spent a lot of time and money creating videos – but with no real return on the investment.

Social media must be approached with a specific goal in mind and executed correctly for it to be measurable…again, just like all areas of Internet marketing.  So define goals and develop a plan before running of into the world of viral marketing.

Valentine’s Day is upon us.  Everywhere you look, in your favorite TV shows, magazines, newspapers ads, movies, friends, co-workers, and yes, even social networks, the unmistakeable presence of Valentine’s Day can be seen and felt everywhere.  Fifteen or more years ago, Valentine’s Day did not really have a presence online, unless you were an uber-geek.  Nowadays, the love connection is all around us from websites catering to those seeking love, romance, a date, and yes, even a wedding.  People seek it, companies advertise it.  So how has social networking been affected by it?  If you have a facebook account, or MySpace, or any other social networking site, you can see it clearly on forums, banner ads, and by the daily postings from users and to one another.

Companies who want to become successful in the “love” bandwagon that is going on online, need to have a solid understanding what works, and how it ought to be executed.  Doing a simple email marketing campaign is not enough anymore.  People have setup countless filters to counteract the messages that companies are attempting to send out.  They view and treat these “spam” emails just like any other snail mail spam – it goes straight into the trash bin, both virtual, and physical.  If however, a person receives an email from a loved one, or a friend, or something so compelling to draw them to view the message, then you have success, and the ROI as a result will be much greater.  At OMS 09, they discussed among other things how email marketing as we know it is becoming extinct.  The results yielded are not as great as in the infant days of the Internet.  Netflix is a great example of how email marketing ought to work.  They send out emails to their members for specials, and every time someone rents a move from their online database.  The customers already have a vested interest in the messages from Netflix, and as a result, the email marketing done allows Netflix to further promote their services.

However, email marketing is not the only avenue for promoting.  Social networks are another great tool to use to get the message out.  Say you are an online flowershop, and you want to push an awareness campaign as well as receive more orders, the what you need to do is to cater to the needs of people.  The company creates a group within facebook, how to romance the lady (or gent) of their fancy, how to be romantic in different settings, where to travel, where to dine – all for free.  The money will be made from people who choose to use the company’s services.  Companies wanting to succeed in viral marketing and web 2.0, must adapt to its model.  Provide free information, tips, how to’s, and make money from the orders taken related to your product or services.  Until then, have a great Valentine’s Day with your friends, family, and loved ones.

In our post from February 12, Brent shared about a workshop on internet marketing he hosted with Jeff at UCSD for Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA). I, the friendly neighborhood intern, happen to hail from UCSD, and it just so happened that the day after their workshop, my friend IMed me. It went something like this:

Friend: You intern with Jeff and Brent?
Me: Yeah!
Me: Wait a second, how’d you know that, how do you know them
Me: And… who are you? You’re on my buddylist but I don’t remember who you are
Friend: Wow… fail. It’s Kevin
Me: Kevin, hey!
Kevin: They hosted a workshop at UCSD for FBLA
Me: Ooooh! When!
Kevin: Last night. They’re really cool!
Me: Ooooooh! Yeah!

And then Kevin proceeded to tell me a whole bunch of cool things about my own boss that I’d never known and I felt resentful. But all that aside, the reason why my friend had been able to match me to my superiors was due to Facebook. IMI has a Facebook group – which you really must join if you’re reading this and have a Facebook, and if you don’t have a Facebook, you really must get one – and I had invited all my friends from UCSD I knew were involved in the Communications department or had similar marketing aspirations.

Now I’m not calling my friend Kevin a stalker because he’s not like that, but Facebook has incredible social networking potentials. You can put names to faces and faces to names and names to companies, and so on. Had I not invited a bunch of my friends to IMI’s Facebook group, those of them who’d attended the workshop hosted by Jeff and Brent would not have been able to put my name to this company and would not have been able to chat with me later on as Kevin did and ask me more about the company and about my experience interning here.

So jump onboard, get yourself networked across Facebook, update your Facebook groups, and keep the conversations coming!

Email marketing is a form of direct mailing using electronic mail as a means to communicate information or offerings to a specific audience (Wikipedia).  Generally used in the following ways:

• Sending emails to current or potential customers to enhance the relationship, keep them informed, notify them of certain offerings (events, products, services, etc.)
• Sending information for the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something

In 2006, US based firms spent approximately $400 million on email marketing.  The number has increased significantly since and email marketing is becoming one of the most popular interactive sales and marketing tools.

What are the advantages of email marketing as an integration of the overall Internet marketing campaign:

• Reaching a broad audience at relatively low cost
• Less expensive than direct mail or printed newsletters (also think GREEN)
• Exact ROI can be tracked
• Short delivery time
• Detailed analytics
• Used to effectively generate repeat business and retarget customers
• Over half of Internet users check or send email on any given day
• Automated email communication is very effective to generate repeat site visits
• Again, think GREEN

According to data from Marketing Sherpa, in 2009, 29% of B2B marketers plan to increase spending for email marketing.  The companies that use email marketing responsibly throughout the recession will be the ones that use creativity, personalization, segmentation, testing, and pristine list management.  Keep all this in mind and budget accordingly for 2009!

Conversion optimization:  The process of manipulating a web page to improve the visitor’s perception of the page and increase the conversion rate.  A “landing page” is generally referred to when speaking about the page a visitor is directed to when clicking on an advertisement, email marketing piece, or search engine result link.  The page should be a logical extension of the ad, support the “promises” made in the ad with more detail, and have clear and simple calls to action.

Three types of LPO:

• Associative content targeting:  the page content is dynamically modified for each user based on parameters such as search criteria and geographical location.
• Predictive content targeting:  the page content adjusts based on any “known” information about the user such as demographics, browsing patterns, and possibly purchasing behavior.
• Consumer directed targeting (social targeting):  page content is created using public information through metrics based on reviews, ratings, referrals, tagging, etc.

(Wikipedia)

Below is an example of a nicely laid out landing page with a very clear call to action.  Notice how the layout gives the visitor a very simple multi-step process, additional content about the page and offering, a short registration form, and the appropriate “trust” factors associated with the serrvice.  All of these elements exist to improve conversion rates.

All website design elements should define a specific conversion.  The client should be first asked to lay out their business goals and goals associated with their online presense and Internet marketing plan.  If you haven’t defined the conversion factor you can not take the necessary steps to design the site appropriately.  The website and its landing pages are probably the most crucial element and the key foundation to the online marketing strategy.  There is no point in building a fancy site that noone will see.  More importantly there is no point in spending time and resources to drive traffic to a site that is no set up to convert visitors into customers.  Until “traffic” is converted, it should always be considered a cost, not an asset.

“Newspapers are more popular than ever.  Magazines are more popular than ever…but [People] are reading them on the internet and everything on the internet is free…” (Walter Isaacson – Editor of Time Magazine).  Walter is corect with this statement – well, almost correct – there are still some websites that charge you to read their content.  Walter later goes on to argue that these sites need to charge for their content.  Although I don’t agree whole-heartedly with Walter’s premise of charging for content on the internet, he makes a point that should be hammered home to everyone.  When the editor in chief of TIME Magazine says that everything is turning to the internet, you have to realize the internet’s power. Internet marketing companies have been arguing for years that print is dead and the internet really is the only way and medium you should advertise.  Even commercials for big companies are airing online as opposed to the tv.

Getting back to Walter’s point, you have to wonder what the going rate is for a journalist online these days.  Before blogs and social media websites, magazines, newspapers, and television were really the only place where a society could get their content and news.  The medium has obviously changed and not just the journalism industry but countless other industries as well.

Internet Marketing Inc. believes strongly in giving back to the community and working with young people to help them develop business and entreprenuerial skills.  Recently, Internet Marketing Inc. held a workshop at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) for the Future Business Leaders of America.  The workshop included a comprehsnsive overview of what an Internet marketing company does as well as a competition where group solved common business problems.

The FBLA group was very eager to learn and many of the students already have their own websites and successful businesses.  This is a very ambitioous group of future leaders all very interested in learning about how to efficielty operate a business and what it takes to effectively marketing a brand online.