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.

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

Every business wants to be number one on Google for their most relevant search terms. Traditionally, you might develop an organic optimization strategy for your site, perhaps in conjunction with pay-per-click campaigns.  With the advent of real-time indexing of social media sites by search engines, you now have a low cost option for promoting your business, which you can control and develop – social media. Here are some tips to help you build your social media search engine presence:

1.  Be active in LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is the ideal tool for making connections with prospective clients and business partners, establishing yourself as a thought leader, showcasing your work, and promoting events you are hosting and attending.  Make sure that you set up a vanity URL.  Be sure that your business has a profile, as well.

2. Be active on Facebook.

Once you have set up a personal Facebook account, set up a Fan Page for your business.  Use this to provide information, such as special offers, new product information, and special events to your fans.

3. Be active on Twitter.

Use important keywords in your Twitter post, putting them in hash tags when appropriate.  Follow and interact with prospective clients and business partners.

4. Post videos to YouTube.

Be sure to title and tag your YouTube videos with important keywords.

5. Create and maintain a consistent presence on a blog.

Make sure that you make periodic entries and moderate comments promptly.

6. Read and post comments to blogs.

Be sure to include your primary URL with your comment.

7. Customize your Google Local Business Listing.

If your business has a physical address, find it on Google Maps.  Click “Edit” in the bubble on the map, verify your business ownership, list it in appropriate categories, and provide keyword-rich information about your business. Read “5 Steps to Get Immediate Results on Google” for detailed instructions on how to claim your Google business listing.

8. Set up a personal Google profile.

Set up your profile at http://www.google.com/profiles.  Be sure to include your important keywords.  Provide links to your web site, blog, and other social media accounts.

9. Set up Google Alerts.

Google Alerts, located at http://www.google.com/alerts, allows you to set alerts for your personal name, your business name, your Twitter name, your web site, and your blog, and even competitors.  This tool will allow you to track the indexing of your social media activity.

These simple steps, consistently applied, will reap almost  immediate results in your digital footprint.  When used in conjunction with traditional search engine optimization strategies, the chance of achieving the rankings you desire is increased exponentially.

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.