"Are Your Ears Burning?- 20 Tools for Tracking Social Media Mark. By Merle Social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter make it easy for people to come together and share opinions, experiences and thoughts on a number of topics.
Smart companies understand this and are using the power of social media to connect and inform their customers, and potential customers. Referred to as "Social Media Marketing", it's a smart way to open the lines of communication between you and your prospects. Social media activities run the gamut from Blogging, micro blogging sites such as Twitter, social networking communities such as LinkedIn and Facebook, video and music uploading sites, discussion forums, photo sharing and more.
Participating in social media doesn't take a lot of money, but it is very time consuming and businesses want to know that all of this investment in time is paying off. There are many different forms of social media, so it's impossible to use them all. So how do you monitor all the buzz? 3 Things You Need to Know About Social Media Strategy. B.L.
Ochman is a Managing Director of Proof Digital Media; publisher of What's Next Blog, and co-founder of pet site Pawfun.com. Follower her on Twitter at @whatsnext. Companies large and small are rushing to understand and get involved in social media. But most of the agencies and consultants who are being paid to establish social media campaigns for corporations are afraid to tell their clients three things they don’t want to hear. 1. In most big companies, IT, digital, marketing and sales not only don’t work together, they compete with each other.
For example, I recently handled social media advertising for a major retail chain’s holiday microsite. Further, the marketing department refused to allow a dedicated e-mail to go out to the company’s mailing list, and when placed in the company's normal promotional e-mail, the link to the microsite was lost in a sea of weekly specials. These hurdles made it very hard to drive traffic to the microsite. 2. However, that doesn't work anymore. The 10 Stages of Social Media Business Integration. Brian Solis is a principal at new media agency FutureWorks.
You can connect with him on Twitter or Facebook. An overnight success ten years in the making, social media is as transformative as it is evolutionary. At last, 2010 is expected to be the year that social media goes mainstream for business. In speaking with many executives and entrepreneurs, I've noticed that the path towards new media enlightenment often hinges on corporate culture and specific marketplace conditions. Full social media integration often happens in stages — it's an evolutionary process for companies and consumers alike. Here are the ten most common stages that businesses experience as they travel the road to full social media integration. Stage 1: Observe and Report This is the entry point for businesses to better understand the behavior of an interactive marketplace.
Reporting: Distill existing social media conversations into an executive report. Stage 2: Setting the Stage + Dress Rehearsal Stage 7: Community. Want to Make Money on Twitter? Take a Look at How Dell Does It. This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. Dell is a shining example of a brand that has managed to turn their Twitter presence into both a customer service and sales outlet. Dell may be a big corporation, but the story behind the $6.5 million they've raised from their Twitter presence is one that shines a light on a road to success that any company, regardless of size, can learn from and emulate. I asked Dell's Senior Manager for Corporate Affairs, Richard Binhammer — otherwise known as RichardatDell — to elaborate on Dell's Twitter success.
The following are principles extracted from that email interview. 1. If you're simply motivated to make money from Twitter, your heart is in the wrong place. According to Binhammer, Dell didn't initially approach Twitter with dollar signs in their minds, but instead as a listening outpost.