A recap: 

• 60% of American citizens used Social Media.
• 93% indicated business should have a Social Media presence
• 85% indicated businesses should interact via Social Networks with their customers

Consumers surveyed indicated businesses should use Social Media to:

• Solve Problems – 43%
• Obtain user feedback on product and services – 41%
• Enable consumers to interact with the company brand – 37%
• Market to consumers – 25%

Barriers to initiating Social Media Programs:

• Lack of understanding by Senior Management 58%
• Negative impact on employee productivity 49%
• Fear of unknown technology 58%

Companies currently using Social Media reported the following:

• Improved Feedback 78%
• Improved Customer Satisfaction 66%
• Improved Customer support 71%
• Increased Sales 40%
• Improved public perception of company 75%

Within the survey completed for Avande were some general statements which must be considered:

• 52% of respondents stated “Companies that fail to embrace social media technologies for business purposes will be left behind “
• 78% of respondents stated “As we enter a possible economic downturn we need to focus on new ways of communicating with customers which add real value.”
• 77% of respondents stated “If they did not initiate a Social Media Program Social Media would enter the company by stealth”

Your time is valuable. I am a master multitasker, and even I have a hard time deciding where to invest the time I do have. 

1. How much time is needed to be effective at social media? Think of social media as a marketing project. It’s not a hobby (thanks @awpotter I like that line). The first step in any advertising or public relations campaign is research, then planning, then implementation. The research and planning phases – which are the foundation of your campaign – are going to take more time to build than the actual implementation. So in the beginning – you could spend 10-50 hours launching your campaign. 

2. How much time do I need to spend on a weekly basis promoting my cause through social media? Once your campaign is launched, it is a process of learning. The first time you do something it always takes longer than the second, then third time, and eventually you have it down and you don’t have to think about it anymore. But that doesn’t answer the question, does it?

The answer varies depending on:

     A. Your purpose and goal

     B. How fast your typing is, how fast you are at writing, your internet connection speed… are you getting the point? 

Scenario: You are promoting your wedding cake business online. You already have a blog setup with a linkedin account, facebook as well as twitter. You are experienced in your field and excited about weddings. So, you write one blog a week with good information for brides, then you use that blog to promote what you do by searching for brides on facebook and sending twitters out daily. You also find some unique wedding website communities to contribute to, like offbeat bride and weddingwire. So, you spend an hour a week on your blog, a half hour a day on facebook and another 15 minutes a day on twitter. Then you spend an average of 2 + hours a week on other sites. Minimum Time per week = 7 hours (an hour every morning with a cup of coffee!)

3. What social media tools should I be using and how often should I use them? There are four basic tools every professional should be using: Blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Each has a different purpose in gaining new leads, check out my training on becoming a trust agent. Your field is going to have additional tools available (like weddingwire for cake makers or photographers). But how much time you spend on each depends on your field and your purpose! Check out the scenario above. 

And to respond to Chris Brogan’s thoughts on being realistic about time, Chris points out that ever since the web happened our expectations about response time has changed. Chris says, “We can reinstate boundaries and manage expectations. Business has to move fast, but do we really want the future where we’re all tethered to Twitter?”

It’s true. Boundaries are important. Nobody can expect people to be as good as me at multitasking (hah!). But – it is also true that the internet and social media has changed our ability to response quickly. We can get emails, twitters and facebook responses on our mobile phones. We can hire virtual assistants to manage our LinkedIn accounts! 

As I have said before, Social Media has turned 6 degrees of separation into new and instant connections across the globe! So, set your boundaries, don’t overexpect people to revolve their valuable time around you – but also know that there are tools out there so we can capitalize on our God-given abilities and human beings to be the ultimate task-masters! 

Check out our social media 101 program that will help you get a hold on your marketing >

By rizalgeo from flickr

If you know what you are selling – whether products or services – you know better than anyone the barriers that you face to get your message across. 

So the first step? Write about what you know. You are the expert here, right?! 

Ok, but it gets a little more complex than just writing what you know. You also need to write what other people want to know. 

The best way to find what people are REALLY looking for is to do your research. Public Relations professionals have 4 categories of research required before planning any kind of marketing strategies including your company/ product/ services, the consumer, and the market. 

If you haven’t received your step-by-step guide to doing your research given in SM101, then here are some of the essentials:

1. Research your company name on twitter and google

2. Look at your competitors and industry leaders, what are they doing well and what can you do better?

3. Research the trends surrounding your product or services

4. Do your wordtracker SEO key word research

What is SEO?

Basically, the higher up your search results appear, the more targeted customers will come to your website. 

Why is it critical? Galleon-SEO in the UK said it perfectly: 

• 87% of all visitors come from the top listings
• The majority of people online use search engines
• 3.5 billion websites compete for the top slots, but only a few make the top listings

The problem?

All web designers have strengths. And all web designers have weaknesses. But there is so much information out there that there is no way for the “rest” of the world to tell what strengths should be stronger.

So, we are going to start a guide. A guide to avoiding web designabees and finding a good, quality designer who knows what they are talking about.

To start us off today. Look for a web designer who:

1. Doesn’t pretend to know everything. (I promise they don’t)
2. Can name several SEO tools off the top of their head (Here’s a Wordtracker article about SEO)

So what was the problem? 

As wikipedia says, Search Engine Optimization considers “how search algorithms work and what people search for. SEO efforts may involve a site’s coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site.” 

Think of it this way: if the code (HTML for example) of your website is too messy and tangled for the search engine spiders to get through it, it is going to come back as a huge jumbled mess. The content management system was too dirty! It created bad code. 

So after 5 years of learning how to code, structure, research and write key word content and properly index a website, I finally feel like I have a handle on it. 

Its actually pretty easy to use SEO to elevate your website in search engines, based on key words. That is my definition of SEO: “Making your website findable on search engines.”