We are in the age of the Social Consumer, where social networks are transforming business as the attention of the consumer is focusing on their social streams. They learn, discover and share with their friends.

Facebook has generated a lot of BUZZ lately with its unveiling of a new location based “Places” with local deals. Successful companies are integrating Facebook into their marketing strategies. Fortune 500 companies are racing to see who can get the most “likes” and companies like WalMart are banking that you will share their deals with your friends.

Here are 5 reasons it is imperative that your business have a Customized Facebook Business page.

1. Fish Where the Fish Are. With over 500 million active users and 50% of them logging on to Facebook in any given day you are bound to have clients on Facebook.  Companies embracing social media will hold a strong competitive advantage.
2. Engage and Build Relationships. It’s not about selling your products and services but building relationships. To build relationships you need to create followers or fans of your brand, otherwise known as those who “Like” your page and content. Facebook’s Wall element provides a perfect opportunity to engage your visitors in 2-way conversations. Status updates can engage your clients by providing value as well as direct visitors to answer questions, post their comments and share their photos and videos.
3. Effective and Reasonable Marketing (Ads). Facebook ads are reasonably priced and you control your daily budget. You can target your niche market with pay-per-click and pay-per-impression options. Ads can be directed back to your business page to grow your fan base or directed to your website to make a purchase or redeem a coupon. Facebook recently included a social element to their paid ads with a set of metrics for the ad administrator. Nielsen report claims that almost 70% of users are more likely to click on an ad previously visited by their friends.
4. Maintain Strong Brand Awareness. You can build brand awareness with a customized Welcome page,  Product or Service page. Facebook Contests generate brand awareness especially when used in combination with Facebook ads. Users submit essays or photos and then ask their friends to vote for their entry. They can also share their entry on their wall making your brand visible to all of their friends.  You can also increase brand awareness results by integrating Facebook with traditional marketing channels.
5. Provide Customer Value.  Value can come in the content you share, from how-to videos to customer service tips. You can offer specials for Facebook users only. Facebook Places is a location based tool for smart phone users like the iPhone and the Android. Once a business claims their place they can offer a deal or coupon for mobile users who check in at their location. The deal then appears on the users news feed where all of their friends can take advantage of too. You can also receive company value through polls and surveys and gather research from questions.

The results of these 5 elements will be the number of “fans” or “likes” your Facebook Page will produce.  How much is a Facebook fan worth?  Retailer Daily concludes,

“The average value a Facebook fan provides a brand is $136.38, but it can swing to $270.77 on average for “best” fans or go down to $0 in the “worst.”

Entwine Digital has created and managed many custom Facebook pages where clients have grown their fan base significantly. Darin Kidd’s page received over 1000 fans within the first 48 hours.  Our most recent project with Tony Williams, song writer and musician of Call the Law it’s Christmas, is to use Facebook to promote the Black Friday release of the animated video of the holiday song. Williams said, “I don’t know much about it but I do know I have to be on Facebook to let people know about my song and get the video to go viral.”

Integrated Media Marketing is when you effectively integrate social media with traditional marketing. Here are 23 ideas for integrating Facebook and Twitter in PR, direct selling, customer services, advertising and sales promotions.

Back of Business Card

1. Add Facebook Widget /plugins to website or blog
2. Show Twitter stream on website
3. Use buttons in footer, contact page and sidebar of  website
4. Add Share/Like/Tweet buttons on products and content on website
5. Include links on your business cards
6. Include info in email signature file
7. Add Facebook /Twitter to voice mail messages (office and cellphone)
8. Include Facebook/Twitter info on invoices and receipts
9. Incorporate Facebook/Twitter in radio and television commercials
10. Add Facebook/Twitter to all printed brochures and catalogs
11. Include info in newsletters
12. Incorporate Facebook/Twitter logos in silk screen designs for t- shirts, canvas bags, umbrellas, hats
13. Include Facebook/Twitter info on menus and place mats
14. Include in proposals and RFP’s
15. Add info to billboards
16. Include Facebook/Twitter info with hours on storefront doors
17. Add Facebook/Twitter everywhere you include a phone number
18. Include on tradeshow displays
19. Add to tradeshow giveaways (pens, notepads, rulers, etc)
20. Add links to other social networking profiles (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Yelp, Google, Bing, Yahoo)
21. Include links on PowerPoints and other presentations
22. Include links on YouTube uploads using annotations
    

    Direct Mail Catalog

23. Remind customers to follow you when they call customer service lines

This is a pretty comprehensive list but I’m sure there are others.  Let’s build an incredible list, add your ideas in the comment area below.

To be successful at social media you need to have a plan.  As the publisher, you control the power to distribute your content through digital media platforms such as blogs, mobile, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.  Most businesspersons are overwhelmed with all the options and how to implement them.  These six steps provide a roadmap to use social media to achieve optimal results for your business.

Step 1 –Determine Social Media Value for Your Business

• Develop an understanding of social media and online communities – How can you gain traction for ideas and grow your network to benefit your company?
• Determine goals – What does your company want to accomplish with social media?
• Evaluate social media – Is it a good fit for your company/institution?

Step 2 – Identify Challenges Facing Your Business When Implementing Digital Marketing

• Determine organization’s changes – how will your company adopt social media?
• Demonstrate value added – how will you gain support for this new, often misunderstood initiative within your company?
• Determine your social media team – who will design and implement your social media strategy?
• Determine your audience – who do you want to reach?
• Determine competition’s social media activity

Step 3 – Select the Best Tools

• Choose social media communities – select the tools that will best support your goals.  Setup the Applications – Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Twitter, Mobile, blogs
• Train your team on using the tools – optimizing profiles, frequency of use, portraying professional image
• Guide the team on Marketing the Tools – gaining followers, building your network and engaging your community
• Leverage Current Marketing – integrate digital media with your current marketing efforts

Step 4 – Develop Content

• Develop compelling content – content that your community wants to read, content that will benefit them and content they will share with their communities
• Remember SEO best practices – use keywords and key phrases
• Include trackable links – content with links to your hub or online environment, video or photos produce best results
• Post content frequently – consistency is key, good content with few hard sales
• Develop Action Responses – ask questions, opinions, advice; direct the user’s response for feedback, to engage in conversations

Step 5: Content Distribution

• Apply widgets to drive viral action – like buttons, share, and repost
• Syndicate your content – RSS feeds, NetworkedBlog, email
• Use applications and tools – simplify efforts, schedule in advance, tracking URL’s
• Integrated digital media strategy – design, implement and manage your social media and integrate it with traditional advertising, online solutions, business networking and integrate it with other social media networks

Step 6: Feedback

• Monitor company chatter – your team should use Google alerts, searches, free and paid tools
• Prepare for feedback – prepare for potential effects on your company, plan how your company will responds to positive and negative feedback
• Evaluation and reporting – through tracking and monitoring determine the effect of your social media strategies and what changes in the landscape have affected it
• Determine ROI – what is the return on your investment from your digital marketing strategy, identify the RGV (resources generating value)
• Adjustment – review your strategy and make the necessary changes and implement the next phase.

Healthcare professionals and marketing consultants converged in New York City this month to attend Social Communications & Healthcare; Case Studies and Roundtables, a conference hosted by Business Development Institute. Ira Kaufman, President of Entwine Inc, and I were honored to have been chosen to Moderate Roundtable discussions.

Hospitals, non-profits, pharmaceutical companies and medical professionals are searching for effective venues to engage patients. They are investigating the application of social media as they are confounded with compliance issues, newly proposed FDA regulations and conservative management. The conference featured case studies of healthcare companies and organizations that are using social media in different contexts.  Some of the companies included:

Center for Disease Control (CDC)

The CDC has been using social media for the past 3 1/2 – 4 years. They integrate health messages from campaigns and interventions using social media to help get the word out.  They use as many formats as possible to be where the people are. The CDC performs a yearly satisfaction survey and they found that visitors who use social media have a higher satisfaction rating (a full 5 points higher) and rate the CDC site as trustworthy.

Johnson & Johnson

J&J uses multiple platforms and integrates them to redefine relationships. They use blogging, video, Facebook and Twitter along with their main websites to engage and contribute to the conversations. J&J also has a successful social community for it’s Diabetes Institute.

Pfizer

Pfizer is very proud of its progress in adopting social media.  They have gone from crawling to walking. Their Twitter feed is one of the top feeds in NYC. They have an active Facebook page, and more importantly their employees can now access Facebook. YouTube is proving to be a big part of their social media strategy.  Pfizer has successfully used social media to do clinical trial recruitment, monitoring and brand protection, as well as drug counterfeiting education.

Our roundtable discussions were focused on Harnessing the Power of Social Media. We challenged participants to consider six new perspectives in using social media platforms in healthcare environments.

1. Twitter is more than a traditional broadcast tool. It is a powerful conversational initiator. Too many companies only push their brand on social media. Healthcare organizations need to change their mindset and create value to attract visitors.
2. Twitter and Facebook have very powerful search tools that allow users to gain a real time read on the comments and interest of other users and thought leaders in their targeted space.
3. Re-tweeting is a powerful distribution mechanism for your content and messages. Testing the effectiveness of different keywords in stimulating re-tweets produces results.
4. Careful keyword selection and inclusion in blog posts and articles realizes gains in search engine positioning. As each Tweet is a individual  page and optimized by the search engines, targeting your keywords will drive users to your content hub.
5. Social media has proven to be a very reliable sourcing venue for recruitment. Combining LinkedIn with Twitter and Facebook have produced great results for our team. Our results were recognized when Kissito Healthcare was listed as one of the top fifty employers recruiting with Twitter.
6. Monitoring your company brand and industry provides opportunities to engage patients and future clients. It serves as an immediate way to track conversations about your brand. Use 3rd party applications to deliver results immediately to your inbox.

Did you know…  Facebook’s value has more than doubled in the past 12 months to over $ 8 billion!

Did you know… Women aged 55 and up are the fastest growing Facebook demographic in America!

Did you know…  The average Facebook user has 130 friends.

Facebook stats are constantly being updated. Recently Mashable included a great graphic showing some little known Facebook stats that I found extremely interesting. They provided the code so we could embed the graphic on our site, so read on to find the most popular Facebook pages and other interesting statistics.

[Source: Online PhD Programs for MashableMashable.com]

Entwine Inc was selected by the Adhesive and Sealant Council to educate industry leaders about social media and B2B marketing at the 2010 Adhesive and Sealant Spring Conference in Savannah, Georgia. Ira Kaufman and Patsy Stewart studied the industry and gathered examples of companies starting to embrace social media such as Lanxess, H.B. Fuller, Cytec, Hexion and Arizona Chemical. It really wasn’t a surprise, but  the adhesive and sealant industry has barely tapped into social media.

Social Media Revolution – Creating Value for Your B2B Business

Our presentation, Social Media Revolution – Creating Value for Your B2B Business, introduced industry leaders to the value of Social Media when used in an Integrated Media Marketing Strategy.  We divided it into three parts; the case, the integrated strategy and the social media marketing tactics.

Industry executives were quite interested but shared their skepticism.  Eva Ackerman, VP Research & Technology, Rectorseal Corporation, commented,

“Honestly, using social networking for more than social chatter was new to me. I was quite skeptical. Your workshop showed me the value and made me a believer. I see new opportunities to try social media for our company.”

They were challenged by a lack of understanding of the power of social media, how to apply it to their company and integrate it with current marketing efforts and how to measure the results. Larry Owen, Senior Vice President of Franklin Adhesives & Polymers said,

“I need to get involved in social media, our company needs to get involved. I have committed to our marketing department that I will research and learn more.”

Larry Owen, Ira Kaufman, Les Burch

The presentation demonstrated how B2B companies are embracing social media to generate results. An Integrated Media Marketing Strategy incorporates social media to increase customer touchpoints to engage with clients and build relationships. Social Media Marketing tools help to expand a B2B company’s digital footprint. Your online environment is your hub; this could be your blog, website or landing page. The spokes or social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn drive traffic back to the hub and create buzz.

Les Burch, President of Sashco shared,

“Your presentation helped me understand how the many pieces of social media fit together strategically and how they can develop communities that care about our products and create a buzz about them.”

To help us better understand the needs of the Adhesive and Sealant Industry we are conducting a survey of the attendees. We will compile the data and determine ways B2B can best benefit from the inclusion of social media in an integrated marketing strategy.

You can view our entire presentation on Slideshare.  Click here to view the slides.

Small businesses can now create their own hot destination!!

During the past several months I’ve been exploring Foursquare, the popular location based social network that incorporates gaming elements.  Foursquare encourages people to explore their neighborhoods and then rewards them for doing so.  Users share their locations with friends by soliciting a location based “check in” and whoever has the most “check-ins” at each venue becomes Mayor until someone else tops that number of check-ins and then they become Mayor.  Points are earned and badges are unlocked for various accomplishments from trying new places to revisiting old favorites to checking in at multiple venues the same day. As the points and badges add up our competitive nature kicks in.

Why have I been interested in Foursquare?

• Predictions for 2010 include the acceptance and popularity of Location – GPS aware applications
• I recently purchased a Motorola Droid
• I love social media, competition and playing games
• I am always looking for ways to help local small businesses

How can we apply the Foursquare location based data to help local restaurants, clubs and retail establishments ?

Here are five ideas that can create a hot destination by filling the seats in a restaurant, bring repeat business back in the doors, provide value to customers and reward those who continuously patronize the establishment.

1. Add your business to Foursquare and sign-up to offer specials.
   

   foursquare coupon

2. Promote your endorsement of Foursquare and your special offers

• print fliers and place on tables,  in the bar, entrance, bathrooms
• use signs and blackboards announcing daily specials and beverage discounts
• include foursquare in your traditional advertising

3. Integrate your Foursquare account with your Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts

• shout your special offers on twitter
• post pictures of the current mayor on your facebook page
• use facebook events and invite all your fans to a foursquare party
• organize a local tweetup and give a gift card each time the mayor changes during the event
• post videos about your foursquare activities on youtube and share on facebook and twitter

4. Sponsor a special Foursquare event

• celebrate the mayor
• create a special drink or dish
• offer specials or discount for those who check-in
• make announcements using public address

5. Partner with other venues to have a local event

• give away a large joint prize
• get a media sponsor (radio, tv, newspaper)
• create a contest using the foursquare points
• sell t-shirts with logos from each venue
• span over several weeks

One of the first steps in creating a powerful digital footprint is to add your business to Google Local Business Listings.  In some cases your business may already be listed BUT, you need to claim it.

WHY do you need to claim your Google business listing?

If your business is unclaimed and missing information, Google will attempt to get the info from other sources.  That information may or may not be accurate.  Search engines can drive a significant amount of traffic to your site.  If the information is wrong or missing, especially the web address, you will miss all of that traffic and worse yet it could be going to your competitors.

To verify if your business is listed, you must sign into your Google account.  You can sign in with your Gmail or Google  AdWords account, or if you don’t have a Google account you can create one here. The following steps will show you how to claim your Google business listing.

1. Go to Google maps, http://maps.google.com and search for your business by entering the business name and location.
2. Browse the list of choices, locate your business and click on the business name. (If your business is not listed you should add your business to Google Local Business Listings.)
3. Once you select your business name a new box with business information will appear over the map. Click on edit.
4. Click “Claim your business” and it will take you to a page where you can select:
   • edit your business listing
   • suspend my listing
   • this isn’t my listing – you may add your business
5. Add the basic information about your business. For consistency, make sure the name is the same as it is listed in your telephone directory yellow pages. You can add up to five categories. Include your keywords in the description. You will also have the option to add hours of operation, photos, videos and coupons.

To complete the listing you will need to verify it. You can choose how you would like to verify your listing, phone verification is the quickest. You will receive an automated Google Verification call to the phone number you listed.  You will be promoted to enter your PIN number immediately. Click Finish and you have now claimed your business listing on Google.

Google is by far the most used search engine but you should also add your listing to Yahoo, Bing and BOTW.

Tip:
You can verify your listings have been added by going to getlisted.org .  Be sure to check this site frequently to make sure your info is correct.

The Salem-Roanoke County Chamber of Commerce and Entwine Inc will be hosting a seminar, Social Media 2010:  Your competitive Edge & Survival, on Tuesday February 23, in Salem, Virginia.  The seminar will focus on changing the mindset of Company Owners and Senior Level Executives and educate them on Social Media and how it will impact their business whether they participate or not.

Social Media 2010:  Your Competitive Edge & Survival

Tuesday, February 23, 2010
8:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Salem Civic Center
Salem, VA
Click Here For Registration Form

Presenters include Ira Kaufman, Entwine President and Marketing Strategist, Patsy Stewart, Director of Social Media and Training and Amy Tuggle, business owner and Entwine collaborating team member. We have done many seminars throughout Virginia and Maryland on this subject but this is a unique opportunity where we will be addressing executive level management and company owners.  We will help them understand the social media revolution and show how integrating social media with traditional marketing can provide that competitive edge and see a return on the investment.

We will include case studies, talk about company policies and explain how to deal with negative feedback. There will be an introduction to some of the popular applications such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.

If you or your company are…

• looking for new ways to target clients
• searching for a competitive edge
• wanting to learn more about social media

Then you need to attend this seminar!!  Seating is limited so secure your spot.  Click here to register online or call the Salem-Roanoke County Chamber of Commerce at 540-387-0267.

Who’s following You?  Have you looked in the mirror lately?

What’s the fastest growing marketing tool for businesses today?   It’s Social Media, and did I mention it’s free? We call it BIZ2.0. It’s a new way of thinking and doing business. For simplicity let’s focus on three of the most popular business tools - LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

So you’re collecting Connections on LinkedIn, Friends on Facebook and Followers on Twitter.

• What’s your criteria for following back?
• Are you effectively building your network?

Chris Brogan, a well respected social media thought leader, wrote “You’re Doing it Wrong” openly discussing how we participate in social networks. Here are some of his comments:

• You follow too many people on Twitter.
• You don’t allow blog comments.
• You add people to LinkedIn that you don’t know very well.
• You have ads on your blog.
• You use partial RSS feeds.
• Your blog posts are too short (too long).
• You shoot really long videos and don’t edit.
• You don’t follow people back.

Shawn Welch wrote a follow-up post suggesting that “Social media is not the place for instant celebrity…” and adding

“It’s tempting to join a network like Twitter and follow everyone under the sun because it’s easy and that feels like success. But even if you pick up 500 or 600 auto-follows or a few polite follow-backs, you’ll quickly find you’re not the success you think you are.”

Shawn states there are two key principles to social media:

Patience — slow growth wins over aggressive expansion

Build relationships along the way, interact and engage

What’s your strategy?

• Which tools are you using – LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook?
• What is your strategy for building these networks?
• What are your criteria for accepting a Connection, Friend or Follower?

The Tools – Each tool has a different reach and target market – who uses it.

Reach:

• Facebook - 400 million people globally are active users -50% active users log on to Facebook in any given day and more than 35 million users update their status each day
• LinkedIn - 60 million professionals with high personal incomes
• Twitter -18. 1 million unique visitors in December 09- 579% growth from December 08

Who uses it?

• Facebook – 35+ demographic now represents more than 30% of the entire user base,  55+ audience grew a whopping 922.7% in 2009.
• LinkedIn - In US 52 % are men and 48% are women; 38% make over $100k per year.
• Twitter – 70% are over 25; more females than males

BIZ2.0 Strategy
It’s clear that social media is impacting the business world as documented in Jeremiah Owyang’s Collection of Social Network Stats for 2009. Social media is re-defining and expanding relationships in the global business community.

The key to BIZ2.0 is the building of a strong and relevant network. In the traditional business world, networking is considered a very valuable marketing tool for sales, recruiting, exposure and building relationships. In a WEB 2.0 environment, BIZ2.0 is becoming a tool to build your personal brand, become a Thought Leader and generate targeted sales opportunities. This network represents you and reflects on the work that you do. In addition you now have opened your contacts to the business world.

Social media tools are new to most business people. For the most part they have not developed a strategy to build their valuable network. Many people just collect friends — as many, as fast as they can. They are called open networkers. There are no criteria. You are virtually accepted on a cold contact, based on their belief in open networking or referral from another follower. The more the merrier! The alternative is to step back and develop your personal BIZ2.0 strategy using your own social etiquette.