Social Media Archives - Page 5 of 8 - Digital Marketing Consulting, Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Marketing

For Best Results in Social Media, Think L.O.V.E.

October 14, 2009 Suse Barnes 2 comments

On Sunday, I gave a presentation on Social Media for Market Research in Michaela Hayes‘ Market Research class for the Green MBA Program students at Dominican University of California.

In working on the deck, I came up with a new way to remember your what your social media plan should include. And it’s so easy to remember, because it spells the word LOVE. We all love to be loved, to be in love, to give love and to get love and that’s what social media is all about. It’s about LOVE.

L = Listen
O = Offer
V = Visit
E = Engage

Listen
Listening is one of the best ways to show your love for someone. You can’t have a conversation unless you are listening to the other person, (think your ideal audience) and asking them questions about how they are and what makes them happy. If you haven’t started listening in the social media space, a good place to start is with Google Alerts. Simply enter the name of your product, business, favorite person or project, and alerts will send you emails detailing any mentions of your interest on the web.

Twitter’s search allows you to see what peeps are tweeting about in the Twittersphere. Enter a few keyword phrases into search.twitter.com and see who is talking about it in on Twitter. Find the people you want to follow and join the global conversation.

Collecta.com is another way to get real time results and listen to the buzz about your product or industry online.

And a little out of the box, but still part of listening, is asking questions of your network: On Facebook, I dare you to ask your friends their opinion of __________ and on LinkedIn, pose a question to one of the groups you are a member of. You’ll be amazed at the number and quality of responses.

Offer
Having something to offer the love of your life is always a good thing, so think about what you can offer your ideal audience in your social networks as well. Are you sharing links to valuable content with them? Are you posting humorous videos, inspirational quotes, or even just quippy remarks. Whatever you are offering keeps you top of mind for the people that see your posts and that is always a good thing, because when they are thinking of referring a friend to an expert in your field, hello, you’re it.

Visit
What would a relationship be without visits? You have to spend time with someone in order to get to know them, silly. So go and visit some blogs about your favorite product, or topic. Post a comment or two and join the conversation. It may not lead to your next million right now, but it will make you feel good and allow you to practice sharing the love.

Engage
Yes, you’ve reached that point in the relationship when it’s time to pop the question. Is this a relationship with long term potential or mutual benefit? To engage your ideal audience, you need to add value, spark their attention, keep them informed and be top of mind. You want your ideal audience to think of you as an expert, a friend, a confident and someone with whom having a long term relationship will be good, so treat them with respect and show them some love.

Contests and giveaways work well for engaging as does plain old GOOD CONTENT!

So, my friends, here’s my advice to you: For best results in social media, think L.O.V.E.
Susan

P.S. I love you.

Blogging, Facebook, Social Media, Twitter Facebook, LinkedIn, Social Media, Twitter

How to add Google Analytics to your website or blog

September 20, 2009 Suse Barnes 3 comments

Remember, without measurement, there is no success. You have to measure and track whatever you are doing to know how much progress you are making.

Without a goal, there is no where to go, no finish line, no end, and without benchmarks you have no idea where you are, or where the starting line is. So, let’s see where we are in terms of traffic to our websites and blogs and then set some goals so that we can start our journey to accomplish them.

Below is a step by step process for putting a Google Analytics tracking code on your site or blog. If you don’t have a website or blog, then this post is probably not for you, but it you are interested in learning more about how to track visits to your site or blog, for free and with less than 15 minutes of set up time, please follow the instructions below.

If you don’t have a blog, set one up at http://www.blogger.com
You may need to create a Google Account to do this.
Once you have set up your blog. Create a few posts or entries about something you are interested in.
View your blog and copy the URL (from the address bar) of your blog
Open a new tab or window and go to http://analytics.google.com and press the blue “Access Analytics” button
Once you are logged in, look for the “Add Website Profile” link

2011-11-11 Update: If you don’t see the Add Website Profile link, look on the right hand side of the screen for “My Analytics Accounts: Select an account” and a drop down menu. Select “Create New Account” at the bottom of the drop down menu.
Click the Sign Up >> button
Paste your URL into the Add a Profile for a new domain field. It is important that you paste YOUR URL, i.e. only a website address or blog address that you have control of. You can NOT track a website or blog that you do not control. You may only track your own sites and blog.
Click the Continue >> button
Enter your Last Name and First Name and select your country, then click the Continue >> button
Agree to the terms and conditions by checking the box and then click the Create New Account >> button
Copy the script code on the following screen where you see “2. Paste this code onto your site.”
In blogger, go back to your blog and get to the dashboard, i.e. click new post or edit posts. In your website, you will be copying the script into each page, just before the closing </head> tag. If you have a website set up with a template, you may only need to do this once in a footer file. (If you are not using Blogger, skip to step 15.)
In Blogger, click on the Design tab, and then
Click on the Edit HTML link
Do a find [on a Windows machine, hold down the Ctrl + F keys at the same time, on a Mac hold down Command +F] for </head> in the HTML code page. Add a line break before you paste so that it works well.
Save the template and/or your work if you are not in blogger.
Go back to Google Analytics, which you still have open in another window or tab, and click “Save and Finish”
You will see a yellow triangle with an exclamation point in it. IMPORTANT: It takes 24 hours for the tracking to start happening. If everything is working correctly, in an hour or two, you should see a clock symbol, meaning that Google is “waiting for data.” Check back in 24 hours to make sure the tracking is working and ask your friends to visit your site or blog so that you can see some activity. When everything is working correctly, you’ll see a green checkmark next to the site when you next log into Google Analytics.

If you have any questions about any of the above steps, please leave a comment. Happy tracking!

Analytics, Blogging, Internet, Marketing, SEO Analytics, Marketing, SEO

An Introduction to Social Networking Presentation in Oakland

September 10, 2009 Suse Barnes Leave a comment

Save the date: September 25, 2009 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

I am honored to have been invited and excited to be giving a presentation titled “An Introduction to Social Networking: Tools to Grow Your Business, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn…what works for you?” The presentation is to women entrepreneurs as part of a joint effort by Honorable Jane Brunner, Oakland City Council President and the East Bay Community Foundation. It is one of many presentations in Councilperson Jane Brunner’s “Women In Business” Brownbag Lunch Series – Informative workshops targeted at women entrepreneurs.

It should be a great way to personally network with some cool women in business as well. Please share this flyer with your friends and colleagues.

To attend, please RSVP by September 21, 2009 to Luis Aguilar via email at laguilar@eastbaycf.org or phone at (510) 208-0845.

Marketing, Social Media, Uncategorized Facebook, LinkedIn, Marketing, presentation, Social Media, Twitter

Fortune 100 Companies Prefer Twitter Over Facebook

August 16, 2009 Suse Barnes One comment

In mid-July I did a series a posts on Facebook or Twitter?. According to yesterday’s eMarketer article: Marketers Embrace Twitter Over Facebook,

“Burson-Marsteller, in a July 2009 study of Fortune 100 companies, found that more companies had a presence on Twitter (54%) than on Facebook (29%). “

Furthermore when resources are limited in terms of time to spend on various social media channels, 21% of Fortune 100 companies use only one channel and 76% of those companies were likely to use Twitter, with only 14% choosing Facebook and 10 choosing blogging.

Why?

Twitter means business, where Facebook is entertainment.
Twitter is a place to connect around specific topics, where Facebook is a place to connect with friends and family.
Twitter is about following people you respect and being followed by people who respect you. Facebook is about having friends, sharing photos, events and having fun.
The twitter platform enables sharing of good links more freely and with a bigger reach than Facebook. Repeating on (and retweeting) on Twitter is perfectly acceptable and even encouraged, where repeating on Facebook makes your brand across as annoying.

Twitter is faster than blogging
Tweets are more easily digestible than blog posts. Think “byte” sized chunks of valuable information.
Tweeting a link to a blogpost is the norm
Twitter combines the fun of Facebook with the information and knowledge value distributed in blogs.
Twitter is more mobile and easier to do quickly than Facebook and blogging.
Twitter requires more listening than Facebook and blogging and that means the people that embrace the medium are better conversationalists, because dialog means listening and responding.
Twitter is real-time, blogging is as soon as I can get to it and Facebook is whenever. Time means money and money means business.

Facebook, Social Media, Twitter blogging, Facebook, Social Media, Twitter

Virtual Goods, Virtual Connections, Real People, Real Connections

August 13, 2009 Suse Barnes Leave a comment

According to E-Marketer spending on virtual goods is about to explode. How can this be? Why do people want to buy things that they can’t even touch, smell, taste or handle?

If you haven’t spent much time in virtual realities like Second Life, playing roler player games or sending virtual gifts on Facebook you may not be aware what these virtual goods are. They are things like virtual flowers, virtual cupcakes or even virtual hugs. Remember when you used to send someone a birthday card or present in the mail when you couldn’t see them in person? Well in the digital age this process is being completed via emails, SMS messages and even more – virtual cards and even virtual gifts.

It’s the thought that counts, right? Well if it really is, then whether the gift is virtual or physical it shouldn’t matter. Could that be why virtual goods are a growing industry? Is everyone just being budget conscious or cheap by sending virtual gifts? I don’t think so. I think it’s all about connections.

Let’s face it, the world we live in today is much smaller than it was even twenty years ago, because there are many more opportunities to remain connected with people all over the world despite any physical distances. Virtual gifting is a way to let your friends and family know you care about them. My friend Helen sends her friends virtual flowers and gifts for birthdays. Because of that she is top of mind to me and likely most of her other friends when we think about a friend who knows how to play the piano or do administrative work at a law firm.

Showing you care is a way of building connections with people and virtual goods offer a way for you to do that. That’s one reason.

The other reason is that your virtual presence is just as important as your physical presence. Think about it. How many people can you talk to or be in front of physically in one day unless you are at a conference or giving a presentation? In the virtual world there are endless opportunities to be on various networks connecting, sharing, listening and talking with people. Sometime you may not even be aware of the people who are following you.

Virtual goods enable people to improve their virtual presence (avatars) and profiles and since trends in the digital space change so rapidly, there is always an opportunity to purchase something more up-to-date. The good news here, except for the expense is that virtual goods are a zero waste product. That’s the joy of virtual – nothing to throw away, recycle or feel guilty about buying because you’re ultimately adding to the physical landfill. Virtual waste is far more easily erased.

I think we are just at the tip of the virtual ice berg, ha ha, but it’s something to be aware of at least for the near and virtual future.

Facebook, Social Media connections, Facebook, virtual reality

My Pub’s On Facebook

August 9, 2009 Suse Barnes One comment

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/staci/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

For the past few years I have been a member of Kezar Road Runners, a fabulous group of runners who meet every Wednesday at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco. We do a speed workout under the direction of Coach Joe and that is a story for another post, but just know that he is one of the kindest people you’ll ever meet and the best friend you could ever have. He’s also a great coach, an accomplished runner and just an overall good guy.

After Joe’s workouts, the tradition is to head over to Kezar pub for a pint or two of Guinness or your beverage of choice. It’s the best part of the evening, not only because you deserve it after the track workout, but also because you get to spend some quality time with interesting people with a variety of backgrounds and careers, but with one important thing in common: an appreciation for running.

So that’s why I’m at the pub on Wednesday evenings (well as much as I can anyway.) My reason for this post however, is that I was recently invited to become a fan of Kezar Pub on Facebook. Of course I accepted the invitation because Kezar Pub rocks and it’s definitely the Cheers of San Francisco. I know the names of the bar tenders and the very appropriately Irish and as appropriately hilarious Sinead is even a Facebook friend.

Thinking about this, I’m not sure if Kezar Pub understands the value of their presence on Facebook, but it makes me smile anyway. They can now

build a fan base BEFORE they need it so that when they do need it, they can notify their fans of events – the jello wrestling fund raisers are always fun!
understand who their fans are and make them feel important by providing special offers – nudge nudge, wink wink, can we get a Facebook Freebie please Bridgett?
be available for public comment online (for free) even though they don’t have a website – what no website yet? Scandelous! (but actually do they even need one? Could their Facebook presence be enough?)
offer information about hours, payment methods and updates
let their fans promote the pub through the social network effect with comments and photos (again for free)

Kezar Pub should have a website, but I’m sure they don’t feel like they need one. They are a San Francisco staple for both locals and sports fans. Most importantly, they are real and a cold one always goes down well after a good workout. Welcome to Facebook, Kezar Pub!

Cheers!

Facebook, Fun, Social Media Facebook

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