Last Thursday, on 10/15, Internet Marketing Inc.’s New York City office hosted a “Cocktails and Conversations” event for industry insiders, clients and friends.  More than 60 attendees enjoyed wine, hors d’oeuvres, and a quirky presentation by seasoned sales expert, Lisbeth Calandrino, who recently released a new book called “Red Hot Customer Service.”  The event was scheduled to end around 8 p.m., but the last slew of guests didn’t actually leave until after 10 p.m.  If that isn’t a metric of a success, I’m not sure what is!

For those who missed out, check out our video presentation below AND stayed tuned in for next time!

Many thanks to our fabulous speaker and generous sponsor, Select Office Suites.

For more information, please view Lisbeth Calandrino’s blog.

Last week, the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) announced a new set of rules to govern bloggers with a connection to any company selling a product they are writing about. So, how far will the government go?  Right now, it’s unclear, but the guidelines could extend to regulate posts people make on Facebook and other social networking sites.

So what does this mean for our 1st amendment rights?
•    The government will have the ability to further dictate the parameters of individual communication via the Internet.
•    Several new questions arise about what exactly constitutes blogola and disclosure. (For those unblog-savvy types, “blogola” refers to posts made by bloggers who have been given some sort of incentive to post about a product.)  Should the disclosure be written in the post or can it be in the bloggers “about me” page? Is blogola really that different than traditional forms of advertisement and promotion?

However, here at IMI, we do believe that there are two sides to every story:

•    Libel is illegal. Defamation is illegal. Do they still happen frequently?  Yes.  Do they happen on the Web?  Way too often, but it’s not rigorously regulated online at the moment.  These new regulations will hold people responsible for their blog posts, which is a logical extension of current laws surrounding these concepts.
•    Has anyone ever posted anything nasty about you or someone you know on ripoffreport.com, juicycampus.com, etc.?  These sites continue to pop up every day, constantly grow in usage and exposure, and have significantly injured the reputations and careers of many.

So, what’s fair?  What do YOU think?  We’re interested, let us know…

So what does social media have to do with SEO anyway?  Other than being a fantastic way to build brand equity and communicate with current and potential customers, social media is an amazing compliment to search engine optimization.  SEO has a few crucial elements that affect both the on page and off page efforts. 

Two crucial elements:

• Content
• Link popularity

One of the best ways to address content development on your website is to have a blog.  Blogging is easy and a great way to add value for your visitors.  By next year approximately 70% of the “Internet population” will be engaged in user generated content such as blogs and social platforms. 

Hubspot recent did a great case study and compared about 700 companies that blog, to 700 companies that don’t.  The results were astounding!  Basically, of the companies reviewed, those that blog had 55% more unique visitors, 97% more inbound links, and 434% more indexed pages.  For example, Internet Marketing Inc’s website is about 97% blog.  Most corporate sites are fairly small and under 50 pages.  So why not build out the site continually with great industry related content?!  Your visitors will stay on your site longer and you are more likely to have advocates wirte about your brand and link to you. 

As for the off page SEO efforts, social media performs a similar function.  All of the great content and assets your brand has or can develop should be spread out across all of your online platforms.  The content should include blogs, articles, videos, whitepapers, case studies, etc.  The most great content you have, the more value you are providing your user base.  The greater the value, the more likely you are to gain links.

We recently ran a case study for one of our cleints, the US Army.  By using social media and SEO strategies over a 6 month period, the efforts resulted in about a 20% increase in unique visitors and time one site.  The return visitors increased and those that come through social platforms like Facebook averaged about 10 minutes per visit. 

In efforts to put all this together, we need to understand why link building is so difficult (Link building done the right way that is).  Its difficult because Google is getting smarter and better at recognizing quality links.  You can spin your wheels and shoot for specific numbers of links each month, but that strategy alone will not take your site to the next level.  You have to go after the RIGHT links.  In the end, you will get great links when you deserve great links.  That is why providing great content through social media channels and blogging is so important.

Why Use Social Media?

There are a lot of self proclaimed “social media experts” out there.  I do not claim to be one of them nor do I think most people should ever claim to be an expert at anything.  The term “expert” is used far too frequently in the online marketing world and should be taken with a grain of salt.  The bottom line is that Internet marketing strategies like social media are not complicated when you understand best practices and have a detailed plan.

Social media is one of the fastest growing online marketing initiatives.  The goal of a social media campaign is to create a fusion between PR, networking, advertising, and customer interaction.  A properly managed social media effort will also substantially improve SEO and online reputation management. 

When promoting specific products and services it is important to educate the consumer and build trust.  Social media provides that opportunity to create a conversation and engage the customer in valuable knowledge transfer.  It is important to create a strategy that informs the consumer about the product and provides a plan for responding to any potential negative feedback. 

When engaging in social media you must have a plan.  To execute social media properly, you need a detailed project plan just like you would have for any major Internet marketing initiative.  The following information provides some guidelines for marketers or companies to lay the initial framework for such a plan. 

Social Media Statistics

Social Media Audience
• Today, the social media audience totals 122 million. That is 64% of the total Internet audience!
• Time spent on social networking and blogging sites is growing at over 3x overall Internet growth.

Facebook
• Average user time spent on Facebook grew 566%  (2008)
• Fastest growing social media demographic is ages 35 to 54. Rapidly growing sub groups include women over 55 and young stay at home Moms
• Over 1/3 of all content sharing on the web is done through Facebook and Twitter

 Twitter
• 62% of Twitter users are ages 25 to 54
• 90% are moderate to heavy Internet users

Blogs
• In 2009, an estimated 96.6 million users will read a blog at least once per month. 
• By 2013, that number is expected to reach 128.2 million – which accounts for 58 percent of all U.S. Internet users.

YouTube
• 89.7 unique visitors in April 2009
• 16.6 average daily visitors
• 6 billion videos viewed each month
Mobile Access to Social Media
• eMarketer projects that mobile social network users worldwide will climb from 243 million in 2009 to 803 million in 2012.

Statistics provide by Nielsen Online and eMarketer

The Objectives

The key objectives will be defined by the final strategy.  The recommendations should include components designed to meet the following objectives:
• Provide great depth and breadth of information about the brand’s products and services
• To engage advocates for the product or service who will help create a positive buzz based on verifiable information
• To generate a “conversation” with current and potential customers
• To build on the positive and have a planned response for the negative including immediate feedback and communication of a plan to answer any concerns

The Platforms

The platforms used will be different for every strategy depending on the brand and defined goals.  Some initial platforms widely used include:
• Corporate Blog -  For communicating valuable industry information, answering frequently asked questions, and providing educational content about the brand’s products and services
• Facebook -  For providing an additional platform for communicating the brand message and educating consumers
• Twitter -  For providing an additional platform for communicating the brand message and educating consumers
• YouTube Channel -  To host additional videos about the product, testimonials, and interviews with advocates
• Review & Rating Sites -  To provide a planned strategic response to negative feedback and become involved in the online conversation. 
• Company website and all offline media components -  All social media platforms should be joined together with a centric message and combined with offline media placements

Social Media Archtiecture

NOTE:  New Assets and Existing Assets include any valuable content, articles, reports, videos, or educational pieces that will add value for the consumer base. Global Marketing is representing the incorporation of all offline marketing components.

Social Media Timeline and Editorial Calendar

Social media should not be a “fly by the seat of your pants” effort.  A define plan will ensure a more organized approach.  I recommend having a 12 month plan divided by quarter.  Again, every brand will have a different strategy.  You need to assign the key players that will be involved and make sure everyone is committed to the process.  Once you start communicating with your custoimers effectively through social media, you won’t want to stop anyway!

Social media is no doubt a hot topic but it has effected every industry differently.  The travel sector has been hit hard by the economy so travel agencies are branching out and learning how to communicate with their customers in a more close and personal manner.  For those not yet on the social media bandwagon (you know who you are), let’s take a step back and look at how all this has evolved and how one can get started.

The evolution of social media communication:

• The web used to be “read only”
• Then it progressed to “contribution”
• Then it became “conversational”

Today, the social media audience totals 122 million. That is 64% of the total Internet audience!  Time spent on social networking and blogging sites is growing at over 3x overall Internet growth (Nielsen). Take a look at this example of how time spent on Facebook has drastically increased:

Many sales and marketing folks used to more traditional mass media often do not think their (older) audience is on the social web.  That just ins’t the case anymore.  Take a look at this example of how the age demographic has drastically changed in recent years:

How does this affect marketing?

• More cost effective marketing & communication
• 10% of all Internet time spent on social networks
• Relationships VS advertising and messaging

So how does one with no experience get started in social media?

• Define your target audience
• Discover where they communicate
• Listen to what they are “talking” about
• Get involved in the conversion & add value

Start with the basics by creating a Facebook profile, group, and/or fan page.  We also recommend Twitter but we’ll get to that in a minute.  So, why these two platforms?  Because, these two platforms dominate the online space as far as information transfer is concerned:

Keep in mind that once you start, you really have to commit to using social media marketing tools and be consistent.  Doing it half way will not work.  This is nothing new, its just basic networking and communication. 

Once you are all set up on Facebook (have a friend or colleague show you how to use it if you are having issues), get yourself set up on Twitter. So what is Twitter and why is it important to incorporate this into my Internet marketing plan? 

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging platform that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the author’s subscribers who are known as followers.  Unique visitors to Twitter increased 1,382% year-over-year, to 8 million unique visitors by February 2009, making it the fastest growing social network (Nielsen Online).

So you travel too much and don’t think you have time for Twitter?  Not to worry!  Recent studies show that about 20% of users access Twitter via their mobile device. No more excuses!  Also, take a look at some very busy executives who are leading by example:

Once your profile is set up, consider having a custom background created (I like TwitterBackgrounds.com).  This will give your page a more personalized feel and increase followers.  You can also add more contact information like email, website and phone numbers. Now start tweeting.  Ad value by offering links to your blog or other great articles.  If you don’t have a blog, we’ll get to that in a minute.  Keep things relevant and give people a reason to follow you.

If you do not current have a blog, consider getting one.  In 2009, an estimated 96.6 million users will read a blog at least once per month.  By 2013, that number is expected to reach 128.2 million – which accounts for 58 percent of all U.S. Internet user (eMarketer.com).  Set up a simple Word Press blog (yes, its free) and start writing.  Keep it conversational but well-written.  Again, add value and give people a reason to keep reading.  

Now that you have these three components, tie it all together.  Let’s look at Facebook for example.  Their are great applications that will help you incorporate your blog, Twitter, and even YouTube videos.  Notice in the screen shot below the tool Social RSS.  This box feeds your blogs and Tweets right to your Facebook page – another great way to add great content.  You can also set up feeds from your blog to Twitter.

So what about tracking all this?  There are many ways to track progress and a new kind of ROI.  Return on Influence.  Get started first and get your current clients, friends, and family involved.  Offer links to all your special offers and great last minute deals.  You will start to see an increase in conversions over time.  The more effort you put into it, the more value you will create on both ends.

The ATO crew – Yashar and Ceci go to the studio of Channel 933 here in San Diego, CA to interview the morning broadcasters of AJ’s Playhouse!

We asked them about Social media: what they like – what they don’t like – and how they see it integrating with the radio. Watch to see the members Aj, Geena the Latina, and Sonic as they tell us about how they use Twitter for everything from twitter dating to how main stream it is now with everyone from radio DJ’s to CNN broadcasters to our current president using the tool.

As we all know Twitter has grown immensely in the past few months due to major media hype and droves of celebrities jumping on the social media band waggon.  According to Nielson, Twitter will face an “uphill battle” due to the void between explosive growth and retention.  Twitter’s retention rates are around 40% month after month of people who actually return.  We are seeing people set up profiles and play around for a few days or weeks then never return.  So how will Twitter combat this and give user’s more reason to keep coming back?

Studies show that sites like MySpace and Facebook even had better retention rates in their early days…even during explosive growth periods.  Often you will see fast growth lead to lower retention but these two sites experienced the opposite:  fast growth lead to even higher retention.  See the chart below:

Notice the consistency of MySpace and Facebook over Twitter.  Of course, there could be many reason for this.  Obviously, Twitter has fewer “bells and whistles” than the comprehensive social networking platforms like Facebook.  Over time they will need to give users more functionalities (which I am sure they are working on) to keep them on the site longer and coming back every day.  Of course, Twitter has made quite a name for itslef as a powerful social media marketing tool, but for it to continue to hold that title it will have to retain users.  Like anything else, establishing user loyalty will be the key to their long-term success.

Related Blogs

• Related Blogs on Social Media
• The best social media marketing. | From The Head Of Zeus Jones
• An Industry Viewpoint: Social Media Services

• Related Blogs on Twitter
• Twitter Roars Past 14 Million U.S. Users
• Twitter is a Public Way to Have a Private Conversation | The Blog …
• New Music

Receiving information via television is so 2000 Late! If you want to view your favorite TV shows, movies, trailers, etc, you can do it by going to Hulu.com, download them from your iTunes account, PS3 video store, Amazon video, YouTube, and now you can even view videos through Twitter. Social Media is becoming more than anyone ever imagined!

There is a new site called twitmatic that allows you to search for any search term you want. It then performs a search from all tweets posted with a video link and presents them to you in a nice legible format. If you type in Star Wars for example, you are presented with trailers, spoofs, Star Trek vs Star Wars video, and much more. This is why Social Media for businesses are becoming so vital.

Business who have not embraced Social Media yet, need to know that everyone else is embracing it. If your business has a video online, it is important that it is a compelling video you want to showcase to the world. If you want it to be found via YouTube, ot in this case via twitmatic from posted tweets – it needs to be compelling.

Social Media is here to stay. It has been embraced by radio stations, newscasters, celebrities, and pretty soon everyone else around you.

Comscore released the April 2009 numbers this week as Twitter raises the bar again attracting 17 million unique visitors in April alone.

This nearly doubles the unique visitors from the week before as in March 2009 Twitter had 9.3 million.

Imagine if you saw your unique traffic takeoff to the moon like Twitter has as shown below:

Comscore showing Twitter with 17 million uniques in April 2009

This is JUST for people visiting Twitter nevermind the those using the desktop client that utilize the Twitter API such as TweetDeck – a MUST have.

My sense is there will be a dropoff in the summer as more people drop off from the Twitter “fad” and those that remain will more and more access the site via the API.

Of course Twitter could jump the shark with the Fonz doing so over the FAIL WHALE

Related Blogs

• Related Blogs on Internet Marketing
• Learn the #1 marketing tactic from a master for free | Create a …
• Internet Marketing – The 4 Most Important Steps
• Why Does a Company Need Internet Marketing?
• Sydney Internet Marketing Geeks
• How to Make Big Money in Internet Marketing – Part I
• Purgatory Dallas

• Related Blogs on Twitter
• Twitter Roars Past 14 Million U.S. Users
• Twitter is a Public Way to Have a Private Conversation | The Blog …

As the popularity of social media grows, more bsuiness owners are trying to understand what its all about.  One of the main factors deterring many businesses from using social media marketing is that they don’t understand it, nor do they think it will be targeted for their demographic (i.e. not online, not the right age range, etc.).  The biggest misconception is that people over 35 are not on sites like Facebook.com or Twitter.com.  That may have been true a few years ago but not anymore.

While just a few years ago the mediums were associated with the teenage and 20-something sets, that’s changed. Two-thirds of all online users visit social networks and blogs, according to data from Nielsen Online. And the largest growth in social media users last year came from the 35- to 49-year-old group.  There are a lot of business owners and potential customers in these groups!

The most important thing for business owners to understand is not WHAT social media is but HOW to most effectively use it for their specific brands.  It is different for every company and takes research and planning to set up a proper campaign.  The industry in general often referrs to social media as on of the most cost effective marketing channels but it is more time consuming than people think.  That is why many companies who do not have the bandwidth to tackle this effort in-house will hire a professional Internet marketing or social media marketing company.

Many firms will approach the way they offer the service differently.  Some only want to consult but not implement.  The problem with this approach is that is still doesn’t solve bandwidth and internal resource issues.  It is of course very important to have the client very involved so that the correct message is being communicated.  Experts will also advise clients who want to do some of the implementation (i.e. Tweeting, updating Facebook profiles, etc.) to make sure they understand the rules of online social communities.  The sales pitch should be subtle and only introduced once the trust has been established.  The key to social media is finding out who is talking about topics related to your business and getting involved with those discussions. 

From an online brand management scenario (an important aspect to a well rounded social media marketing effort), companies should keep open lines of communication with their customers.  If positive things are said online, say “Thank You”.  If negative comments arise, apologize and let them know you are looking for a solution.  The more that busineses can learn about social media and how they can effectivley use it the better.  That is where great Internet marketing companies can play a large role.