System Strategy and Motherboard

Motherboard is the subsequent most important component in your systems to the processor. It and its main components like chips, BIOS, cache etc are the main system that utilises to organize the rest of the computers, supposing the processor is the brain of a compute. Motherboard and his contained components is almost certainly most critical part of knowing to how a PCs work usually.

Following are the some of important functions which a motherboard plays on your systems:

Organization: Every part of your PC is finally connected to the Motherboard and in the track of that actually it is intended and laid out dictates how the whole PC is going to be organized.

Manage: Chips and BIOS program which included in motherboard organize the most data flow within the computer and motherboard.

Communication: Approximately all communication between a computer and its components, other PCs, and you, the user goes through the motherboard.

Processor Support: U could not include your desired processor but motherboard will dictates to which tip of processor they have required. Actually u will need of this information while u have to buy computer with a custom built computers like http://www.arbico.co.uk, they will allow u to prefer your desired components for your motherboard.

Peripheral Support: For building a custom built PC, motherboard resolves to which type of components can include in your computer. However you can use quality peripherals in your computer according to your motherboard.

Performance: For two important causes, motherboard is a main determining factor in your PC. The first and a leading one is that the motherboard determines to what kind of memory, hard disk, system buses and processor use in a system to make it speedier, and these peripheral provide directly your system's performance. The second one is the quality of the motherboard circuitry and chipset which have an influence on the motherboard performance.

Upgradeability: How to enable u for a system upgrade, the ability of your motherboard give u the accurate direction. For instance, there are some motherboards like http://www.arbico.co.uk/Motherboard-p-1-c-357.html that will accept regular Pentiums of up to 133 MHz speed only, while the others will go to 200 MHz.

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How to Integrate a Winning Social Media Strategy 2011 (Part 2 of 2)

Capture more Facebook Fans than your competitors.

Business is competitive, by nature. When you immerse yourself in social media, you must try to win the competition. You want to out-market, out-sell and out-brand everyone else in your industry. Many owners who attempt to manage their own social media campaigns believe if they are spending countless hours per week on this project, they don't need to invest additional dollars on Facebook Ads. In reality, if any business wants to kick their social media strategy in to high gear, they should consider incorporating Facebook pay-per-click ads in the mix.

The beauty of Facebook's pay-per-click ads is they are displayed on the page of the user who fits your specified parameters. In essence, these targeted prospects will see your ad, and if they are motivated, they will click the "LIKE" button to become your fan. As mentioned in the last section, once they are your fan, they have opted in to your future marketing messages. When you post an update to your Facebook Fan Page, they will see it on their home page. Facebook Ads along with a consistent content strategy work fast and efficiently, and enable you as a business owner to capture more of the targeted audience pool.

Leveraging Social Networks to Cross-Promote with other Local Businesses

Have you ever attended a local networking event in your community? You meet other business professionals in your industry, talk about trends and changes that affect your peers and learn from one another.

Did you realize that you can actually partner with other local businesses in your city to create a super social media strategy?

Consider this scenario:


A motel holds a Facebook Fan Contest. The winner receives a free weekend stay for two, with complimentary dinner at any one of the major restaurants in town.
To add more fans for both the hotel and restaurants in their area, they simply work together to create a partnership for this contest.
Each business cross-promotes the other on their website and all of their social networks to create a win-win situation!

Social media is an excellent tool to work with other non-competitor companies in your town. Think about all of the ways in which you can set up a cross-promotion, and the possibilities are truly endless.

Getting the word out about your Social Media Campaign.

You've decided to take the plunge and get started on those high-impact social networks we've discussed previously. You need to let everyone you communicate with know where you're at, and how they can follow you.

If you're like most business professionals today, you regularly receive both voicemail and email. In order to let everyone know you're on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and the Blogosphere, you need to change your voicemail message to include:

"Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, etc." (be sure to mention all major networks you participate in.)

The best way to notify individuals you email is to update your signature. If you go in your mail settings, you can select "signature." Most people have their business name, personal name, title, website address, email address and office phone number listed as part of their signature. Drop down a line, and include a link to each of your major social networks. Save your new signature, and all of your email recipients will have instant access to your social media accounts.

I also recommend sending a personal invitation to all of the contacts in your address book, asking them to join you on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Make your invitations personalized, and give them a reason to join you.

Social Media Outsourcing.

Social media marketing can increase your bottom-line, and enhance your image in a very short amount of time. Considered to be a long-term marketing strategy because of the social media asset being created, the one negative most entrepreneurs and business owners have is the amount of time necessary to do it right. Managing your social media accounts, writing fresh daily content, producing short marketing videos, and integrating all of your accounts to maximize your website traffic can be overwhelming, to say the very least.

Fact: Social media outsourcing is underutilized. Only 28% of businesses are outsourcing some portion of their social media marketing.

The good news is there are companies you can outsource this work to, who will literally handle every facet of the social media set-up, design, implementation and integration from nuts to bolts. These SM experts specialize in small to mid-sized businesses and their social media needs. They work with the owner to create a strategy, then work as an extension of your team to grow your audience - one connection at a time.

Christina Archer is a Social Media Expert, Executive Recruiter, Entrepreneur and Author, based in St. Petersburg, Florida. Christina specializes in assisting small and mid-sized businesses plan and develop their social media strategy, as well as manage their accounts on an on-going basis.

Her company, SocialMediaAsset.com offers complimentary set-up and design of Facebook Fan Pages, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and WordPress Blogs with any monthly management service agreement. To learn more about SocialMediaAsset.com, visit their website. To contact Christina directly, email her at Christina@SocialMediaAsset.com.

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Social Media Strategy and Branding: Modern Brand Is Created Through Crowdsourcing

Creating a modern, pre-eminent brand in our New Media Era is done through crowdsourcing by digital natives through user-generated content. Crowdsourcing is the act of a digital media follower ("a friend", "a follower"), in spreading content. This act was traditionally done by a brand employee or contractor. In New Media, followers communicate the content that the follower finds interesting and engaging. It is communicated to a friend, using a social media platform, like Facebook.

The "followers" and "friends" are digital natives. Digital natives are a demographic group usually between ages of 11-30. They have been brought up on digital technology. They enjoy and are comfortable communicating with their friends digitally, most notably through platforms, like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

User-generated content is the material that the Natives share with their friends. The content is created in the form of posts, blogging, podcasts and vblogs, videos, photos, mobile phone video, and wikis. Social media has reconstructed the paradigm on which modern marketing is constructed. Marketing has changed from a "push" situation to a "pull" framework because of social media.

In Old Media times, an organization, created products, and pushed those products upon the public. One way advertising campaigns were constructed to brand the product. In our new era, it is a "pull" paradigm. In this new paradigm, brands and consumers have a two-way conversation. The products take on an almost human dimension. A brand and a customer become almost like human friends. The general public doesn't believe the claims of Old Media advertising. People do believe the recommendations of their "friends". Modern consumers "Pull", from store shelves those brands that they want to buy---the ones that are their friends. The ones that their friends have recommended. The benchmark for modern social media branding are the Ford Fiesta (The Fiesta Movement), and the Obama Presidential Campaign.

The nature of our era creates an interesting situation. This situation has to be understood by a modern marketer in order to create strong, modern brands in a Social Media Era. A company legally owns the brand. If a brand is to be created, in this new era, the brand's followers actually take ownership and develop the brand. Followers "pull" the brand and develop it. Followers create the actual brand in New Media branding.

The Fiesta automobile and Barack Obama campaign created world-class brands through crowdsourcing. In both cases, world-class brands were created, and created very quickly, when followers took engaging material from a Facebook Page and shared this content with their physical friends in the form of posts, text, video, and blogs. At the center of crowdsourcing, and the thing that makes it powerful as a branding device is that brand is created by friends recommending products to their friends. This is how brand is created in New Media.

To understand why crowdsourcing is such a powerful vehicle, you have to understand The Consumer Decision Journey, a concept created by McKinsey & Co. McKinsey discovered that a purchasing decision is the end of a long journey of many touchpoints in which the consumer is engaged with the brand over many experiences. Modern brand is created when friends recommend to friends products through the material they create in blogs, posts, video, and texts. This brand awareness development is critical in the selling of products.

McKinsey, through its Consumer Decision Journey, discovered that friend recommendation makes a product three times as likely to be purchased. Crowdsourcing creates the brand awareness that creates world-class brands. The brand provides the use of a platform. The platform is a hub, a place where followers can go to grab content. This can be a website or a Facebook Page. The content can either be created by the followers themselves, or provided by the brand. In crowdsourcing, the content is then sent to friends from friends.

Ford's Fiesta campaign, The Fiesta Movement, revolved around Digital Natives. Ford did not spend a nickel on conventional advertising. At the end of the six month social media branding campaign, the Fiesta had 38% brand awareness among its target group, and it sold 11,000 units in its first month of availability, in a tough year for auto sales.

In Barack Obama's case, he went from being a virtual unknown, to winning the Presidency. Much of the credit for the success of his campaign was his brilliant use of social media. It was this campaign that communicated to business just how important social media is in creating brand.

Dean Hambleton

dnhammbleton@gmail.com

Social Media creates strong, modern brands. These brands are created by the brands themselves, through crowdsourcing. This article explains what crowdsourcing is and how it works it creating strong brands. The thing that I learned most in this article is that in social media brands, to create a great one, a brand has to give ownership over to its followers. I hope that this article helps you. I can be of help to your organization, I hope that will contact me at:

dnhambleton@gmail.com

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How to Integrate a Winning Social Media Strategy 2011 (Part 1 of 2)

Do you remember when the internet was just coming alive, and companies were beginning to have their first generation websites built. There wasn't a whole lot of flash or interactivity, but it was much like a digital marketing brochure. The first companies to get involved on the internet were nothing less than progressive.

Today, the concept of starting a business without a website is completely inconceivable. Having an internet presence is critical a company's success in the computer age. If you've been in the business realm for any length of time, you learn about SEO, website traffic, back links, and driving prospective customers to your site, and how the law of large numbers increases your conversion ratio. In a nutshell, if you don't get the prospect to your web page, you can't close them.

Enter main stream social media. For the small business owner, this is truly the answer to your marketing prayers. When you engage potential customers on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and a WordPress Blog, you increase traffic to your company web page, peak their interest in your products or services and create an atmosphere in which word-of-mouth advertising takes hold, and your brand can become famous.

Why Social Media? Why Now?

• Facebook has more than 500 million active users. If it were a country, and we filled it with all of the users, it would be the third largest country in the world.

• Twitter adds approximately 300,000 new users per day.

• YouTube surpasses Two Billion video views per day.

• LinkedIn has 50 Million members worldwide.

• More than 100 million users are actively accessing Facebook through their mobile device.

• Twitter experienced a 347% jump in mobile browser usage.

• 30.8% of smartphone users are accessing social media through their mobile device.

• More than 35 million Facebook users update their status daily.

What does it all mean?

• Users are talking about your brand online - if they find you.

• If you don't manage a successful social media marketing campaign, your competitors will.

• Social media is a powerful viral marketing tool, that quickly reaches a large audience.

• Social media is part of PR/Branding/Marketing. Companies are reducing out-bound strategies and increasing their social media budgets because it produces results.

Now is the time to have a strong social media presence.

While many businesses have already started on their social media journey, there are so many more who have not yet entered the arena. There are multiple reasons why:


lack of a quality strategy
no design experience
not enough time to manage everything
don't know how to get started
no marketing budget

There can be other reasons, but none are relevant. Think back to our first example; having a website built back when the internet was new. Do you think any of the companies who opted out of having a website are still in existence? I believe you would be hard pressed to find even one. Back in 1995, corporations, partnerships and sole proprietorship's had a choice to make. If they chose not to join the computer generation, they made the decision to become extinct.

At this very moment, we are on the edge of a similar situation. You will choose to join the social media revolution, or you will watch your competitors surpass you in the race for customers.

Focus on the Social Media that has the largest number of users.

Is your business still listed in the Yellow Pages? There was a time when every company paid for a listing in their local phone book. At that time, most homes had a land-line phone, and all of those individuals received a phone book on an annual basis.

Advertising and marketing has always been about determining who your target customer is, figuring out what they read and getting your message in front of them. With social media, you provide your prospects with great content that peaks their interest. You get a consistent and regular message out to them that aligns with your brand. You keep them coming back for more by engaging them.

The problem is there are massive numbers of social networks on the web. While you may want your business to participate in all of them, that's not a practical objective nor is it necessarily going to be profitable. You want to get the "most bang for your buck." This means it is necessary to create a quality social media strategy for your business that focuses on the most impactful networks in 2011.

We briefly went over the industry trends earlier. The most powerful social networks for your professional presence are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Blogs. Some so-called experts may argue that other networks are close behind, or that certain industries are best suited for other social media. The truth is if you incorporate all five of the top social sites together with a quality business website and integrate your strategy across your company - you will be a formidable competitor in your industry.

What attracts a new audience quickly?

Having a social media account like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube or a Blog is important, but it's really only the first step in a process. As a business owner, you must filter regular updates and on-going content in to each of your major social networks. Combining quality content, engaging discussion with consistency will enable you to build the highest volume of "fans" in the shortest amount of time.

As you build a fan base on Facebook, you have the ability to send out regular messages to your fans. To build you other social networks, simply include an invitation to connect on LinkedIn, or to follow your YouTube channel. Have a plan. Work your plan. See results.

Christina Archer is a Social Media Expert, Executive Recruiter, Entrepreneur and Author, based in St. Petersburg, Florida. Christina specializes in assisting small and mid-sized businesses plan and develop their social media strategy, as well as manage their accounts on an on-going basis.

Her company, SocialMediaAsset.com offers complimentary set-up and design of Facebook Fan Pages, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and WordPress Blogs with any monthly management service agreement. To learn more about SocialMediaAsset.com, visit their website. To contact Christina directly, email her at Christina@SocialMediaAsset.com.

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Social Media Strategy: How Is a Social Media Strategy Created?

To create a social media strategy, a marketer must ask these questions:

• Does a marketer want more revenue for your e-commerce effort or more direct revenue?

• Are you directing your efforts toward new customers?

• Are you trying to create brand?

• Are you trying to create brand awareness?

• Are you trying to communicate better with existing customers?

• Do you want to improve your customer engagement or brand image?

• Are you trying to establish a base from which you can market future products and services over coming months and years?

• Do you need to connect better with people in different demographic groups?

• Do you want to create a large "friend" list through email, create a subscription base for newsletters, and create a roster list for conferences?

• Are you trying to increase your referral business?

• Are you trying to redefine or reposition your business or brand??

• What do you want to say?

• How will you say it?

• Are you going to create your own content or are you going to have customers, "friends" create content of their own, and share it with their "friends" (as President Obama did in 2008, or as Ford Motor Company did in its Fiesta Project)

• Who is going to post the content? Are customers (supporters) going to create a brand for you, or are you going to control the touch points as they are created?

When you answer these questions, you will come into contact with analytics to track. Numbers are important. If it can't be measured, it can't be managed. Social media platforms such as Facebook have created tremendous communication capabilities and married these capabilities to unheard of database power. Social media has created a "perfect storm". Now a marketer has ¼ of the world's population meeting in one spot at the same time. These social media platforms track and target customers as never before. Through the wise use of social media platforms a marketer knows exactly what customers to target and with what product.

To harness these capabilities a marketer must have adult supervision. For social media to work there must be plans, goals, and objectives. Exactly, how does a marketer create a social media strategy?

Irregardless, of your political views, even his greatest detractors admit that President Obama's social media strategy that was used to create brand for the 2008 campaign is a bench mark for all marketers to follow.

President Obama had a plan. His social media strategy revolved around creating a brand very, quickly. As the political cycle began in 2008, he knew that he had two problems. He had no name recognition (he possessed no brand) and he had no money. In times past, this would have created real problems to create a viable candidacy. President Obama understood the power of social media. He knew that low recognition was a problem that could easily be overcome with the correct goal.

To create a brand for himself he understood that he had to create a "conversation" among "friends". President Obama realized that in a new media age, brand is created when a "friend" recommends a "brand" to a "friend". To create this conversation, President Obama put together a goal.

To create these conversations, President Obama transformed his website MyBO into a social platform. His website became a small version imitation of Facebook. MyBO became a place where supporters, could come, hang out, converse with friends, and be given campaign assignments. By having a goal such as this, President Obama was able to give possession of the brand over to his supporters. This quickly created a brand for President Obama. Obama supporters personalized and experienced the brand on a personal level. This is why the brand developed and spread so quickly. President Obama was able to brand himself as a "friend". The other candidates were "candidates".

By doing things this way, President Obama was able to create objectives. He was able to create analytics. He could measure his progress. Social Media allows a marketer to measure their brand.

http://www.deanhambleton.blogspot.com
dnhambleton@gmail.com

This is an important article to read. in all of our organizations, we have been told to create a social media strategy. O.K. What is the next step, what do you do? This is a practical article on just what questions to ask, what analytics a marketer should track. President Obama is a great bench mark to follow. Please understand that this article is an article about social media strategy, not about a political statement. Give the guy credit, his strategy was brilliant.

I hope that this article helps you. Give me your thoughts. I hope that you will read my blog. I hope that you will give me some comments. I hope that you keep in touch me. If you feel that I can help your organization to become more productive, I hope that you will talk to me. Above all I WANT TO WISH YOU ALL A GREAT DAY!

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Rev Up Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

In less than five years, social media has revolutionized not only our communication culture but how we conduct business. The dizzying effect of unlimited-and sometimes unfettered-24-hour access to people and information has transformed the various tools into a game changer.

There is a broad and increasing list of sites, including BlinkList, YouTube, Delicious, Flickr, Tumblr, BlogMarks.net, and the triumvirate of major sites: Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. These social destinations have become to business professionals and entrepreneurs what golf is to C-suite powerbrokers-an opportunity to strategically network and close deals based on shared interests and personal engagement. But these sites do more, by offering users valuable real estate to advertise products or services, create and expand brand recognition, solicit feedback, build relationships, and create community forums. Users also have unprecedented access to consumers, hiring managers, prospective clients, industry experts, and opportunities.

Moreover, social media levels the playing field by allowing anyone access without restrictions on time, location, or social status.

The most diligent and creative players are reaping huge benefits. According to a report from Forrester Research, 55.6 million U.S. adults-just shy of one-third of the population-visited social networks at least monthly in 2009, an increase from 18% in 2008. Recent Nielsen research says Americans spend nearly 25% of their time online on social networks and blogs, up from nearly 16% a year ago.

The initial foray into social media can be daunting and bewildering. Newcomers to the space might wonder: Who's reading? Will I be heard or noticed? Isn't it all just fun and games? Isn't it invasive? Making the effort worthwhile requires time, patience, and a work-smart-not-hard strategy. Whether you're an entrepreneur or a corporate professional, the success of marketing your products, businesses, or your personal brand will be determined by how well you engage interest on the varying platforms. In part one of a series on social media strategies, Black Enterprise offers some tips to get you connected.

What Business Owners Should Know

Finding out who your customers are and how they like to be served is essential for the success of any business. Questions and surveys offered on social media platforms can help business owners quickly access that information. Jason Burton, social media strategist and marketing director of Lab 5702, a boutique marketing solutions firm in Kansas City, Missouri, says such data can help you position your product to broader groups outside your initial base of contacts. "Put your product in front of the trendsetters or the next level of users," he suggests. "Targeted searches let you drill down beneath the surface to find followers and potential influencers that can use or promote your product or service."

Location-based social mapping services such as Foursquare, Google Latitude, Loopt, Facebook Places, and MyTown allow consumers to benefit from their influence. For example, if you visit your favorite flower shop in Tucson and tweet it to your followers, you get $2 off your purchase. The greater the network and influence, the bigger the discount. These services also enable users to find friends and events; share locations, updates, tips, photos, and comments; and share across online social networks and blogs. Loopt has more than 4 million registered users and partnerships with every major U.S. mobile phone carrier and is available on more than 100 smartphones, including the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android. Google Latitude and Foursquare boast more than 3 million users each. Greater social media interactivity has been facilitated by mobile apps such as ÜberTwitter, MobileLinked IM, and Nimbuzz. According to a Juniper Research report, the number of downloads from mobile application stores is expected to rise from fewer than 2.6 billion per year in 2009 to more than 25 billion in 2015.

What Corporate Professionals Should Know

Carmen Hudson, CEO of Tweetajob in Seattle, oversaw employer branding campaigns when she was senior manager of talent acquisition for Yahoo and has witnessed the shift in recruitment practices. "Companies are cultivating and marketing a brand that attracts and is attractive to certain types of candidates," she explains. For companies such as Yahoo, Starbucks, Apple, and Microsoft, social media is increasingly at the forefront of that strategy. Recruiters will, for instance, use LinkedIn to create a search stream of attributes to find precisely the type of candidates hiring managers are looking for with minimal time and fuss. Moreover, Hudson adds, "They're also looking at how many followers you have. Do you have a strong network? If you're an expert, friends and/or follower numbers are strong indicators of that."

A Jump Start Social Media survey of hiring managers indicates that 66% go to LinkedIn to find candidates for openings, 23% go to Facebook, and 16% to Twitter. "Job seekers who frequently post and update profiles are nimble and often get to job opportunities first," Hudson says. "Recruitment officers can execute a well-rounded and more diverse search, through a search stream of attributes because they now can meet candidates where they play," says Hudson. At the same time, companies can promote the brand and the company message, which gives the job seeker a more informed perspective on the companies as potential employers.

How to Maximize Social Media Marketing to Promote Your Brand or Business

• A blogging platform such as WordPress or Blogspot, is essential, advises Warren Laidler, webmaster and creative director of DeLite Multimedia] in New York City. Blogs have greater potential for organic leads because their content-rich nature makes them more search engine friendly. Search engines love content-driven platforms and rank them higher than static websites. "Think of your blog as a launch pad or hub for your enterprise. Your social media efforts should lead back to your blog or website, which should be dynamic and informative, providing content and information that encourages visitors not only to return, but to distribute your content to their network."

• Blogs or websites should contain SEO, or search engine optimized, keywords and phrases that help visitors find the business when they search via Google, Yahoo, Bing], and others. Laidler also suggests pulling in RSS feeds and useful links into your blog. "RSS feeds allow you to import content from outside sources and are a great way to share information that visitors find interesting."

• Work on engagement and consistency. For example, your Twitter timeline should be a combination of original updates, retweets, or shares from other sources, replies from connections, inspirational quotes, and trending topics. A standard formula is two to four tweets per day. Positive activity can also blossom quickly and create buzz that reaches well beyond a business' core audience. In the virtual world, consumers and job seekers can become influencers and trendsetters by persuading their network to take action or buy a product or service. Laidler suggests using tools like Klout or Twittergrader.com to measure your social media influence and find out the reach of your Twitter posts.

• Choose a picture for your social media avatar, rather than a logo, advises Joel Comm, social media expert and New York Times best-selling author of Twitter Power. "People like faces associated with companies. Customize your Twitter background. Use photos, links, contact information, RSS feeds, etc. to individualize and promote your brand."

• Choose a third-party application or service, such as TweetDeck or Hoote Suite, SocialOomph and Twaitter, which allows quick, easy distribution of posts and other content among multiple social media sites. "You can incorporate plug-ins or apps on the sidebar of your blog page that allows visitors to easily access all your social media," says Laidler. "All social media sites have plug-ins or widgets that allow fast, easy updates with one click."

• Don't follow everyone who follows you on Twitter. Conduct targeted keyword searches for individuals, companies, and other industry players who are important to you or who you want to have as a client.

• Show off your expertise. If you're in business, you're already an expert with valuable information people want to know, Comm says. Use your talents, passion, ability, and personality to your advantage.

Author Denise A. Campbell is the Founder and Creative Director of GoldenPen Writing Ink, a multifaceted writing and communication service.
This article was originally published at: http://www.blackenterprise.com/2010/10/15/whats-your-social-media-strategy/

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Social Media is NOT a Strategy

Enough with the Hype

As you are surely aware by now, I'm a huge fan of social media, new media, social networking, sharing/bookmarking, and pretty much every other cool social offering out there. I spend countless hours playing with different services, sites, and techniques on a weekly basis. Heck, I've met some good friends and amazing colleagues through various forms of social networking.

Let's get one thing straight though...most of what is being thrown around as strategic advice is nothing but some good ol' fashioned hype. Yes, there is a time and place for social networking and social media. Yes, there appears to be a list of actual money-making techniques that can be employed to derive financial value from these services. But a great deal of this yammering about ROI is just that...talk.

I've seen a few select examples of how social media can be used for B2B in a measurable fashion, but I've also seen many more examples of futile attempts at replicating these successes. And that's not even to mention the widespread list of social media "gurus" and "experts" who throw around pie-in-the-sky advice about how you should be using social media. My message to them: Show me real world examples.

Social Media is NOT a Strategy

I recall earlier in my career when the Internet and email marketing were the hot trends. We had long conversations about our "email marketing strategy", right after we finished talking about our "trade show strategy", "web site strategy", and "direct mail strategy." We thought we were cutting edge, until someone who actually knew what they were talking about chimed in.

"Do you understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy?"

No one in the room could give a reasonable answer to that question. Luckily, I was just a couple of years out of school, so I could chalk up my "deer in the headlights" response to inexperience. But today I'm seeing the same trend. I see all of these people talking about social media strategy, content strategy, even Twitter strategy!

Let' s get one thing straight - a strategy requires high level thinking. A medium is simply a tactic that should support a true strategy. Twitter, my friends, is a tactic, a medium. Plain and simply.

Now, many of the consultants out there will sell you on why you need a "social media strategy." I agree that you need a plan for how to integrate social media into your business operations. But social media as the strategy itself? What's the objective behind it...to meet a bunch of cool people and LOL/LMAO/LMFAO our way to the bank? Maybe it is a real and profitable strategy for the smart entrepreneurs, pundits, and consultants who keep dangling shiny new toys and techniques in front of you. For the rest of us, we need to take a chill pill and think for a second.

Strategic Thinking Should Come BEFORE Tactics and Media!

This is a very important point. You work for a business (or run a business in some of your cases). That business has important metrics to meet in order to succeed. Those metrics might be growing revenue, signing up "n" new customers, reducing business expenses, or even "keeping" the loyal and profitable customers or clients with whom you've built valuable relationships.

What do these metrics have to do with the subject of this post? Strategy must be derived from important business objectives. It must also be measured against real business metrics to benchmark success. The metrics should be driving the objectives, which in turn should be driving your strategic decisions. Then, and only then, should you turn your attention to go-to-market tactics.

Simple Process To Think More Strategically

1. Set your high level objective(s) - Well-crafted objectives should also be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-Bound). A good objective will often start with the word "To", as in "To build a new channel of 20 resellers in the southeast USA by December 31, 2010″. That's a darn SMART goal, as well.

2. Determine the strategy that will help meet your objective - Cool, so this is where I say "how" I will meet that objective. Is the right answer to "start using social media"? Of course not. There's no logical connection between the objective and the "strategy" proposed, like that of the underpants gnomes as shown in the image below. The strategy might be to launch a recruitment and qualification program for a very particular type of reseller in the region specified. Notice we haven't talked about how to execute it yet; just what we are trying to do from a high level to meet the objective.

3. Outline the tactics that will help the strategy meet the designated metrics - Now we are ready to talk about tactics and media. Here you can get into specific messaging, targeting approach, and the exact media you intend to employ to make it happen. It should also indicate how you intend to measure each tactic/medium, and how that rolls up to help meet the overall goal as designated in #1 above.

Conclusion

Strategic thinking is very important, and a simple objectives/strategy/tactics model should prove very helpful in keeping this all in perspective. Let's start talking about how to fit social media into our existing businesses and our overall media mix in a truly integrated fashion.

Tommy P. Landry has over 20 years of experience in marketing, entrepreneurship, and social media. Having started two businesses in the past 10 years, Mr. Landry authors blogs, articles, and online/offline copy to help others learn from his successes and mistakes. He is available for consulting / advising, helping businesses of all sizes to improve their messaging, outbound marketing, inbound marketing, and product plans. You can read more of his work on his website, Return On Now (http://ReturnOnNow.com)

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What is Your Social Media Strategy?

Social media pays a pivotal role in our daily lives. Facebook has more than 150 million users, Twitter, a relative newcomer to social media, has exceeded10 million users, and it seems as though everyone has a blog.

Tapping into this goldmine of existing and potential consumers is the goal of many companies. A social media strategy has become a vital part of achieving a company's marketing goals. Whether used to create a buzz about the company, launch a new product, or incite customer loyalty and feedback, social media is an effective tool to connect a business to its consumers.

WHY YOU NEED SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media creates a level playing field for companies large and small to market their brand, product, or service to the masses. It allows the company to recruit new customers while breeding loyalty among existing customers. Used as part of a comprehensive marketing campaign, social media helps drive traffic to the company's campaign website and incites a desire to buy the product.

Social media not only makes people aware of the company or brand, it also allows the business to protect their reputation by tracking what is said about the company or product. In the face of negative comments and feedback, a company can do damage control earlier and connect with the public directly to renew confidence in the product or brand.

SOCIAL MEDIA & YOUR BUSINESS

Though social media is often the responsibility of the marketing department, it is important that all departments from executives to IT are on-board with the social marketing strategy to help ensure its efficacy. For many businesses, the easiest medium to break into is a company blog, in which the president, CEO, or other designated employee posts brief articles pertaining to the company or thoughts of general interest to the consumer.

"How well someone is deploying social media depends on the niche they are in," says Kevin Palmer, Owner and Chief Strategist for Boston-based Social Media Answers. "Companies need to look within their industry and evaluate who the leaders are and why they are successful. If nobody in their industry is a leader, it is ripe for them to develop a strategy and become the thought leader within their industry."

The best example of social media permeating all levels of the company is the use of Twitter by the online shoe and apparel retailer Zappos. Not only does CEO Tony Hsieh tweet regularly, his employees also post messages on their individual Twitter feeds, sharing what they are doing and what interests them on zappos.com and beyond. The employee Twitter feeds are linked to the Zappos website so anyone on the site can read what's going on at the company. Zappos tracks who is talking about the company on Twitter and posts these links to their website as well. As a result, the consumer feels a connection to the company which may lead to increased sales.

While some companies may only update their status to announce a new product, promotion, or event, companies that are most successful with social media maintain relevance by posting on a regular basis. Content is still king and it is imperative to use the status update to your advantage.

Starbucks is one company that has mastered the art of updating the company's status with relevant content. Though Starbucks is ubiquitous in every town, they take advantage of their social media as a smaller company would. The Starbucks Facebook fan page announces more than new products. They post videos, music and book reviews, articles about their employees, and encourage fan participation with fun polls and surveys. As a result, Starbucks remains on the radar of their tech-embracing consumers by updating their status and posting new content every few days. The level of engagement they have with their Facebook fans results in an active, and loyal, consumer base willing to provide feedback and promote the company to their online social groups.

In the changing world of the internet, nothing is immediate, including results. Companies should have realistic expectations. "Take time and do research before you dive in," says Palmer, "Listen to what people are saying within your industry, about your product, and figure out where your target audience is and how they are using social media."

Though tales of instant social media buzz do occur, much like sightings of Sasquatch, it may take a few weeks or months to generate enough buzz to increase sales. This is especially true for small to medium sized companies who may not have the brand recognition that large, established companies have.

Laura Clapper is an editor at Business Review USA, a pioneering digital media site for professionals and executives that have an interest in high grossing businesses and corporations within the USA. Through its Business Review USA Digital Magazine, online website, daily news and weekly e-newsletter, Business Review USA helps executives stay up-to-date by focusing on leadership, finance, technologies, and operations within the manufacturing, supply chain, construction, and energy industries.

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Do You Have a Social Media Strategy?

"So what's with Twitter?" "What's all this social media stuff all about anyway?" "I know I should be thinking about it, but I don't know exactly what I should be doing about it." I do a lot of speaking engagements about digital branding and social media, and I get asked about social media A LOT. Just last week, I facilitated a social media exploratory for a group of executives at LIMRA. The workshop allowed participants to consider opportunities that they might want to pursue in truly engaging with their consumer base in meaningful ways. It's a lot more in-depth than the media hype that Facebook and Twitter are getting.

On Friday, April 17th, Oprah joined Twitter and sent her first tweet on national television. This was right about the same time that Ashton Kutcher got his millionth Twitter follower (beating out CNN), so she had Ashton on as a (remote) guest. The show represented a turning point for many social media proponents; they felt that social media had come of age and would now overtake "old-fashioned" (read "mainstream") media alternatives as THE way to communicate.

While it's true that there are benefits to Twitter, social media proponents need to understand that it is simply going to be added to the mix of media options available. I am not saying that Twitter will not be a game-changer. I believe that it will. But I don't believe that it will take the place of traditional media ... It will simply get folded into the mix.

I have been in marketing long enough to see the tremendous changes that have taken place over the past 20 years. At one point in my career, I had to make a case for senior management for why my marketing plan should include cable as a part of my media buy. Senior management argued, "Why on earth would we want to divert our TV dollars away from network TV?" I had built a whole presentation about how "It's cost-effective, it reaches my core target audience, it stretches our TV ad dollars." Anyone in marketing today would think that building such a presentation was absurd; of course you should have cable as a part of your TV mix. But back then, it was a struggle to convince others to this way of thinking! Today, I'm certain there are brand managers who contemplate why they shouldn't just eliminate their network TV buy altogether!

The same evolution will happen with social media. While it is the newfangled thing for everyone to talk about, monitor and watch these days amongst marketers, I see a day in the future when social media will be yet another tool in a marketer's tool belt just as "cable" is now just another line item in a marketer's advertising budget. We will get to a day when marketers can't imagine developing a campaign without at least considering how their brand, or new product or service offering might be expressed digitally across a range of social media options.

In the end, it all comes back to strategies for reaching your core target audience. If you are trying to reach the 18-34 year old, you better get a social media strategy in place, because as I noted in a recent blog post, according to a March 31/April 1 Harris Interactive research study, three-quarters of that audience have some sort of social media presence (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter). But if your target is the aging Baby Boomer, less than 25% have a social media presence and only 5% of all people are on Twitter.

If you would like help understanding the social media landscape and (more importantly) developing smart marketing strategies, give us a call. We'd be happy to facilitate some Web 2.0 exploratories for your marketing team to consider.

Rahna Barthelmess is President & Chief Marketing Strategist of Beacon Marketing. From her work in a top NYC advertising agency to the international conference rooms of a leading toy company, Rahna has turned branding into business for a variety of leading brands, most notably LEGO®, Miracle-Gro®, and Texaco®. With over 20 years of experience, Rahna has passionately built some of the world's beloved brands and shared her marketing expertise and branding programs to over 2000 people in a variety of industries.

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Social Media Strategy: How Social Media Platforms Create a Perfect Storm

I want to have a discussion with you on how an organization should create a social media strategy. Before we have that discussion and conversation, I want to pose to you a basic question."WHY"? Why should an organization make a social media commitment? We live in an absolutely breathtaking time, aren't we? Truthfully, business now functions a the "speed of thought" to quote Bill Gates. When Mr. Gates made this comment, social media was not a major issue in business. In contemporary business, the quote has even greater significance for a marketer. Social media is a GAME CHANGER. Social media allows an organization to market in "real time". This allows organizations to create strong brands. Social Media allows organizations to have a personal "conversation" with consumers. When this "conversation" is made, a strong brand is created.

Social media are the platforms like Facebook and Twitter that allow marketers and customers to have instant conversations with their customers. This allows an environment in which "disruptive" markets can be created and and for these markets to thrive. Two recent events prove this. The two events are the election of President Obama and the passing of President Mubarak. These events happened because people had a common platform to go to----a "community" meeting place to meet, to create the changes that they wanted. People had a place to have "a conversation". President Obama began a political career with no money and no name recognition. These are critical elements that are needed to run successfully for the American Presidency. The existence of social media changed the political paradigm and allowed President Obama to compete. One of President Obama's closest advisers was Christopher Atkins, who was one of the original originators of Facebook. With his help, Barack was able to create a branding strategy that won an election that would have been impossible in "old media" times.

President Obama and Hilary Clinton are examples of "old Media" and "New Media". In contrast to Barack, Hilary Clinton was well known, had a large amount of original cash, came from a large, influential state, had a large political network. She possessed a strong conventional political brand. In addition, between herself and her husband, it is a well established fact that the Clintons are the best pure politicians in modern American political history.

Barack's great asset is that he, with Mr. Atkins' help understood social media. The Obama campaign was a "disruptive technology". The Clinton campaign did not understand this new medium--- social media. Her manager, Mark Penn, was an expert in conventional media strategy, but the Clinton campaign did not understand the changes that have taken place in common platforms, that allow a great many people to meet in one place, at one time, and have a "conversation" with "friends". These changes allowed the Obama campaign to overcome seeming disadvantages, to turn their weakness into strengths. Barack's strength in social media allowed Obama to carry Iowa, a state that has few African Americans---a state that would have been a strong Clinton state in years past.

Marketing is about making correct decisions and making correct "bets". To make these decisions and these bets, a marketer has to have correct information that is in "real time". Through Facebook, Barack had this asset. He knew what voters were thinking, and at what time they were thinking it. Facebook allowed Barack to understand sudden changes in perception in voter attitude, and to deal with those sudden changes, that happen in any campaign. When problems arose, such as the Jeremiah Wright issue, Barack was able to contain the fallout. In times past, a Jeremiah Wright episode would have been enough to sink most candidates. Let us not forget that a concession speech, sunk the candidacy of Howard Dean, in 2004. With a platform like Facebook, Barack was able to turn bad events into great opportunities. In the Wright issue, Barack knew that he had a significant problem. He knew what was on people's minds. Even his harshest critics say that his speech on race in Philadelphia in March of 2008, was a game changer in his candidacy. Through Facebook, Barack knew what had to be said and he said it in a way that all Americans, black and white, could understand. "Conversations" on Facebook allowed Barack to know how to communicate with people---even his greatest detractors.

In the case of President Mubarak, for many years there was a strong opposition to him in Egypt. The opposition couldn't dethrone because Mubarak had great advantages in money. He also had the backing of the Egyptian Army, the most important force in Egyptian society. In the present Facebook environment, these changes were overcome. Basically, one kid was arrested and got beaten by the police. He got mad, went on Facebook, and created a rally. The many opposition groups in Egypt now had a common place to meet. The army realized that Facebook had created a real paradigm shift in Egypt, and they withdrew their support for Mubarak, and a change was made in short order. AMAZING!!!!

Using these two examples, in can be seen that selling products in a market place should be easy. It would seem that way, but an organization must still have a strategy for social media to work. The purpose of this article is to explain the great paradigm differences that Facebook and other social platforms have created. Facebook has created unheard of scale. To seal the deal as to the "why" question, I would like to quote some statistics on how much scale the social media platforms have given to a modern marketer.

Time magazine tells us from its 12/20/10 issue that 98,604 Friendships are approved on Facebook each day. Among Facebook friendships, 55,304 Links are shared EACH MINUTE. Facebook has integrated with 2 million websites, worldwide. Each day, 10,000 new websites integrate with Facebook each day. The most profound statistic is that if Facebook were a country, it would be the THIRD LARGEST NATION IN THE WORLD. Facebook accounts for 1 in 4 faceviews each day. These statistics account ONLY for Facebook. There are many, many other social platforms now functioning in the world, that are integrated with Facebook. The scale that Facebook creates is indescribable for a marketer. Now, virtually, the ENTIRE WORLD is located in one place---or least in a place that a marketer can reach, all at one time. It is almost as if a marketer rented a hall, invented the entire world, and then played a commercial, and then sat down individually with each of these people, and had a conversation with each of them.

This scale creates "A PERFECT STORM", for a marketer. Each individual that goes on Facebook or Google is tracked by Facebook and Google as these individuals traverse their social media sights. There are privacy concerns that a marketer will have to address. The scale of social media sights has allowed individual consumers to be targeted and segmented as never before. By working with the advertising departments of Facebook and Google, a consumer can be targeted with just the right message and product at just the right time. A marketer doesn't have to waste their time on a consumer who is not really interested in their product.

This "PERFECT STORM' allows a marketer to market in real time. They can approach each individual consumer AT THE PRECISE TIME the consumer desires to make a purchase. In real time, an organization knows if an ad communicated to their targeted customer. An organization knows, in real time, how successful their advertising is, and adjustments can be made, at that precise moment in time.

Dean Hambleton

Dean Hambleton
dnhambleton@gmail.com
http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Dean_Hambleton

I hope this article has convinced you to use social media as a primary tool in social media marketing. This tool is only a tool. To be successful, you need a strategy. If you feel that I can help your organization, I hope that you will get in touch with me.

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Find Out the Myth and Mastery of Social Media Strategy

It's known by many names and it's all the rage! I'm talking about social media - also known as social media marketing, social media optimisation, SMO, SMM and social networking. For businesses it has tremendous potential and value, but in simple terms social media is just another communication channel with the world.

But instead of delivering a sales or service message via advertising or marketing, with social media you're talking to people in the way you would with friends, colleagues or strangers who share the same interests.

Social media used to be for the young Net Generation, as Don Tapscott (Author of Grown Up Digital) calls them, but now the average age on Facebook is 35. LinkedIn has a huge membership between 35 and 54!

As David Mercer, Head of BT Design, told me recently the older generation just can't help hijacking the Net Gens' home turf. Or at least words to that effect. Is it fair? I can see his point but the fact we all use phones doesn't seem to affect the younger generation's perception of ownership of the mobile world.

Even my eight year old is using social media in the form of Club Penguin (Disney's MMOG, Massively Multi-Player Online Game). By the time he is in business, social media will be just as integrated in his life as email and mobile phones, if they're still around.

With 400 million active accounts on Facebook getting over 120 million unique visitors each month, social media is not going away. But it's important to remember what your objective is if you want to get involved with social media for personal, business or branding reasons.

Different platforms have different personalities: LinkedIn is business oriented while Facebook is social and works better in engaging individuals. Twitter is real-time news and information on everything from clubs and coffee shops to finance and biochemical research. So each platform should be picked to meet the characteristics of objectives.

Remember, too, that other countries have big platforms. China's platform is QQ and has over 500million users, Orkut has over 100 million users with over 70 per cent of them from Brazil and India. In Russia, Vkontakte has over 60 million, so pick your playground carefully.

Most of the major platforms offer advertising. Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube all have a pay per click advertising option which can be targeted at an audience with surgical precision...well, field surgery at least. Let's say I wanted to get people to book me to run workshops in their business.

I could place an advert on LinkedIn targeting Marketing Directors of businesses in the UK with over 250 staff, or perhaps select a few niche industries such as finance, retail and manufacturing. If I get my advert right I will only attract clicks that are likely to convert and, of course, I only pay when they click!

A word of caution: We all put so much information about ourselves on social media that with a little research people can easily find out a lot about you and your business. Reputation management has never been more important.

Using LinkedIn as an example, let's say I want to meet Mr Smith, CMO of a blue chip brand. I look him up on LinkedIn and see that he is a member of a group called Future Trends. I can also see that he is connected to a friend of mine called Thomas. I join the group called Future Trends and ask Thomas to ask Mr Smith if he could tell me more about this group.

Do we think that hearing from Thomas that someone who shares a common interest would like to meet him would be of interest? One would hope so. There are many ways to manage social media but there is a level of lateral thinking that helps.

When setting up a social media strategy there are many monitoring tools that can be used to plan who you should engage with and where you should have a presence. One of my favorites is Social Radar from Infegy. It gives you a visual representation on how social media accounts are connected, a road map of who's talking to who on the web.

Through this you can see where most conversations are taking place on your topic. These people are called Influencers and they are an important part of a social media strategy as they help organisations and individuals control the conversations.

Let me tell you a story. A well-known journalist was writing about a big brand's new sports car on his blog. The journalist was an Influencer because over 50,000 people subscribed to read his blog on a regular basis. His opinion of the new car's looks was based on a photo he'd seen and unfortunately for the manufacturer the opinion was not a good - the words "back of a bus" and "angry bulldog" come to mind.

Shortly after his opinion hit the net, postings start to appear on blogs and forums echoing his comments. Before long the opinion of even those who have never seen the car is a negative one.

Now if the brand had been monitoring the social biosphere they would have quickly picked up this story and through sentiment monitoring [WHAT'S THIS??] they would have been able to see its negative connotation. They could h,ave seen the topic growing in importance and acted on it. How I hear you say!

Well, my first step would have been to contact the journalist and invite him to experience the car in person. Let's face it, brands are about experience not just looks. Imagine this...

You invite the journalist to join you for a track day. When he arrives he is presented with a shiny new, highly-polished, top of the range version of the car. First impressions...it looks better than it did in the photos.

Then a test driver shows him how smooth and quiet the car is before slamming it into sports mode to demonstrate the near 200mph speed that the car gracefully achieves in the blink of an eye. After spending a day experiencing this luxury car the journalist has a different opinion.

In the next blog he writes about his fantastic day and admits that the pictures he'd seen didn't really do it justice. He then enthuses about his positive EXPERIENCE with the car. Very soon his readers have changed their perceptions, too, and the online conversation has been controlled and made positive.

It is through this careful monitoring and strategic engagement that social media can be used as not only a PR machine but also another market to channel. Let me explain...

Using a Twitter client on my iPad I am able to see on a map the names of people who are talking around me. This is being picked up by the geo-tagging of where they where when they last posted a message. I used this in a demonstration in a London restaurant which also had a meeting room and private dining area. To our surprise we found that the CEO of King of Shaves was tweeting next door!

It was too much to resist so we responded to his Tweet and invited him over for a drink and a discussion about how the restaurant might be able to help him and his organisation.

We had a fairly fast response saying that he would drop in when he had a chance. You can imagine how long such a meeting would have taken to set up - if at all - using the traditional route to a CEO of receptionists, gate keepers, PAs etc. Social media opens up opportunities never before available.

Staying on the subject of Twitter, real time search allows you to stoke while the iron is hot. If I was monitoring or searching for the words "need+new+monitor" I would find people who have recently Tweeted that they need a new monitor This information could be very valuable to an online electronic shop.

Engaging people when their requirement is in the forefront of their minds and creating a process that is easy to fulfill this requirement can translate into direct revenue. Software like Radian6 can monitor most conversations taking place on the web in near real-time. It is an engagement tool allowing you to watch, listen and respond - as part of a strategy this is a vital component.

Someone once said that if you see the bandwagon you are already too late to jump on it. What should you consider before leaping on to the social media bandwagon?

First, what is your objective? Are you using social media for PR, brand awareness, a channel to market or because you what to listen to the chatter from your industry?

Second, you should define a strategy of what goals you want to achieve and what message needs to be given to achieve success.

Third, who is going to manage the project? To run social media campaigns properly, you'll probably need the services of a manager who has good writing skills and a marketing or PR background. This will have a cost implication so you'll to set KPIs and targets to ensure you achieve a return on the investment.

The good news is that by using YouTube or Facebook to communicate with engaged customers or group members you will discover the cost of contacting your audience is minimal. During his election campaign, Barack Obama was able to communicate with over five million people instantly at no cost on almost a one-to-one to personal level.

Today he has almost 10 million fans on Facebook alone - a few hundred thousand behind Lady Gaga. There aren't many ways of connecting with an audience that size for free, are there? Can your business operate as efficiently as that? As Obama would say: Yes you can!

Damon Segal
Founder and M.D. Emotio Design Group
http://www.emotio.co.uk - http://www.seo-services-uk.eu

Having come from a traditional marketing and design background Damon has seen drawing boards replaced with Macs and paint brushes become Wacom Tablets.

In 1996 Damon built his first website on Adobe's PageMill software and was hooked on theinternet; which was great because help was always just a click away!

Having been heavily involved in website design, development and marketing since this point Damon has seen innovation happen on a daily basis. It is one of the fastest-moving industries in the world and limited only by the imagination and skills of those working in it.

Damon is on the Advisory Council for the Global Marketing Network and is a practitioner module advisor for BPP/ARU/GMN Global Marketing Practice MSc, which he also helped create and write. Damon also speaks professionally for a number of organisations including the Academy forf Chief Executives, the London Chamber of Commerce and the Institute of Direct Marketing.

Damon founded Emotio Design Group to help brands and business define and deliver integrated marketing services and collateral and to improve their marketing effectiveness. Although Emotio is primarily focused in the digital arena, website design and development it remains strong in branding and its traditional skills of design for print.

Emotio provides websites, branding, marketing consultancy, brochures, search engine optimisation, PPC campaign management, social media optimisation and more. Damon's extensive client list includes Brady Corporation, Bestway, Forever Living Products, Shaun Leane, BNI and The Royal College of GPs.

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Social Media Marketing Strategy For MLM Success

Social medial marketing is has turn out to be the principal means of promoting in the preceding few years.

Media sites similar to Twitter, YouTube, MySpace and Facebook have blown in to the main-stream and developed into

the most trafficked sites in the world. Facebook drives more traffic per day then the largest search engine Google. Not anything similar to this as ever existed that is available to ordinary marketers like us to their message to the world at very little cost through merely a computer and internet access. This is the reason interactive media marketing is so eye-catching.

Nonetheless there exists a dark truth to interactive media. Certainly it costs no money to advertise on, although you sacrifice something ultimately more valuable, your time. A large amount of MLM owners do not know how to employ social media marketing strategies well and in an competent manner, if they are knowledgeable in interactive media strategies, some may realize how to utilize it in a useful manner but don't use it in an efficient manner. This is the reason social media sites have turn out to be colossal time wasters for a lot of network marketers and a stumbling block to creating their MLM success.

Now don't misinterpret, I'm not slamming social media, I for my part adore interactive marketing media. In truth it is not the interactive media that is the issue, it is how interactive media is used ineffectually by most marketers. There are oceans of network marketers advertising their business opportunity and products to an audience that really don't give a hoot opportunities. Individuals on social media don't couldn't care less about your business opportunity or how splendid you compensation plan is. Social media is about you, who you are, what value you offer,, how you can stimulate greatness.

The most effective social media marketing strategy is to advertise yourself by offering value, sharing the good and bad with your followers. When you build your business around you, your name and create a following of people interactive media marketing will work. That's because social media is a technology that is entirely based on the practice of growing relationships and that the reason it's taking over the internet. Your answer to creating you MLM success story will be found in the closely controlled use of these interactive media marketing as a instrument to achieve trust and connection with your followers.

Take into account that social media and marketing is not about your MLM opportunity its about YOU! Are you a leader who can inspire greatness and mentor business partners to accomplish success, being the one who gives value is of significant importance when attempting interactive media marketing strategies.

If you really plan to grab the social media bull by the horns I advocate you go out and begin learning additional information on internet marketing. Start produce brief instructional videos, not about your company or products but about marketing, tips and tricks you acquired from marketing, personal development or about your lifestyle. Even if its something plain as being with your family on a week day while almost everybody else is at at work. Make sure to all the time have a solid call to action at the closing, that lets your audience what you would like them to do, so that you can collect your MLM success.

You can waste a lot of precious time on social media marketing if you use traditional marketing on these sites. Learn how to monetize social media sites like Facebook by clicking this link Interactive Media Marketing Secrets [http://www.FastTrackMarketingSuccess.biz]

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Social Media Strategy: How Barack Obama Used Multiple Touch Points to Create a Brand

Barack Obama used multiple "touch points" and social media platforms to create a brand that was a key ingredient to winning the Presidency in 2008. His brand strategy is a case study for marketers to study in creating brand in a New Media Age. President Obama's branding strategy is something that is a distinct paradigm change from previous social media strategy and branding. It is basic strategy for a company to integrate their websites with social media platforms. What President Obama did that is different is that he created a web site, MyBO.com that functioned as a mini-facebook, a mini-social platform. He broke new ground in the use of social media in branding. Private companies should study Barack's strategy to understand how to create a world-class brand virtually overnight. In our era this is important for a marketer because there are many, many products. For a product to be chosen from the many, it has to have a strong brand. How does a startup, which is what Barack's campaign was, create a strong brand when the startup has limitations in capital? Social Media has created a new age. Social Media has changed how modern marketing is done---but a marketer needs a strategy to succeed and that strategy revolves around the strategic use of multiple "touch points".

At this point I think some important introductory comments have to be made. President Obama is a lightning rod. As in all politicians there are many people who like him and there are many who don't. This article is not a political statement, one way or the other, for President Obama. This article is about social media branding strategy. Irregardless of where you stand in the political spectrum, even Barack's greatest detractors say his social media strategy was a classic use of social media to create a brand.

When I talk about creating "brand", please don't interpret this as a cynical statement of our political system and our way of electing presidents. Marketers should study political campaigns because they are classic studies in the creation of world class brands. In each political cycle, a large group of candidates emerges originally. Only one can be elected. A candidate must quickly distinguish themselves from the rest of the political field. The American people are not stupid. American elections are an example of the wisdom of crowds. To be elected a candidate must show that he is different from the rest of the candidates, and if elected can do a much better job than the others in the field. To win the American Presidency, a candidate must be an expert in creating brand awareness, creating a value proposition, and brand positioning. Winning the Presidency is not unlike creating a new product, and creating the brand for that product to be successful in the marketplace. This is why studying Barack Obama's social media strategy is important. Barack Obama is analogous to a small startup creating a product, but having significant limitations in name recognition and capital.

In old media, a startup couldn't afford a large advertising campaign to create brand. Social Media has changed that. Social Media has created a "Perfect Storm". To create a brand, a marketer has to have scale and presence. A lot of people have to know about your product, and a marketer has to be able to engage those large amounts of people at the precise moment that a purchasing decision is going to be made. Social Media allows a marketer to do just that. Perhaps ¼ of the world's population belongs to a social media sight, and most of the major social media platforms are integrated. From those sights, a marketer can observe what a consumer does during their day. This tracking allows a marketer to target the individual consumers that are interested in the marketer's product. A marketer can now target an individual at the precise time that a purchase is going to made.

Barack Obama was one of the first significant marketers to understand the tremendous communication capabilities, database management, and tracking abilities that a social media platform affords a marketer. Barack Obama understood that he could engage large amounts of people at once over many "touch points". When his campaign first began, Barack had no name recognition and no money. Hilary Clinton had both. Barack understood the forces that social media platforms unleash to a marketer. He realized, far better than anyone else, that his limitations were minor. Barack realized that social media platforms gave him the tool that he needed to create a major brand almost overnight. Before the Obama campaign, social networks were seen as just that---a social network. Someplace you came to hang out with your friends, share pictures, and just basically enjoy yourself. To a limited extent the Howard Dean campaign used social networks to raise money in 2004, but not at the scale that Barack Obama did.

Barack's campaign was not a haphazard affair. His social media campaign had goals, plans, and objectives. Barack realized that personal engagement was going to be critical. He created a web site that had the scale that was going to be needed. Barack took advantage of some major structural changes in the modern marketplace. Modern people no longer trust advertising. People trust their friends. In a new media age, a product is branded and purchased when two "friends" have a conversation, and a recommendation is made. To be successful a modern brand must be a "friend" to the consumer.

Two sources best explain the world that modern marketers must function in. The June 2009 McKinsey Quarterly talks about The Consumer Decision Journey. The December, 2010 issue of the Harvard Business Review talks about "Branding in the Digital Age". In both cases, in a New Media Age, consumers no longer develop brand awareness through one experience, such as a major advertising campaign. Rather, a brand is created after many and varied experiences between brand and consumer. In a new media age, a brand takes on almost human characteristics. In human relationships, the more experiences we have with an individual the more trust we have for that individual. We choose are friends for their brand. That brand is based on trust. We can depend on our friends. We know a lot of people, but we trust our friends. In a group of people, we seek our "friends", from a wide group of people, because we can trust them. We realize that our friends are imperfect---there might be "better" people around than our friends---but we seek our friends because we trust them.

How does this trust develop? Trust is developed over a period of time through a series of experiences. This same principle applies in branding products. We develop friends through many "touch points". Consumers seek out products through texts, video, blogs, podcasts from a social platform. This is how a brand is created---through a social media platform that creates many and varied touch points. Barack understood this.

A key element is in his campaign was to create a website that was actually a mini-social platform. Initially, a supporter or a seeker would go to MyBO and a profile would be created. Then, just as on Facebook, you made a decision on just what you wanted to do. The sight was there for you to help. It allowed supporters to access the information that was needed create meetups, to have fund raisers. It had a database of people to call on behalf of Obama. The sight allowed people to what they wanted to do. There was a method to the madness. Through the sight, the campaign could track the people who were strong supporters. This information allowed the campaign to discretely get volunteers to do more committed things. The more committed volunteers held fund raisers at their house, to call friends, to go door to door. An important function of MyBo was to link people who knew each other outside of the campaign to connect, such as is done on Facebook. For instance, if a strong supporter worked at a particular company, the campaign had the names of other people who also worked at that same company who were undecided or leaning toward Barack. The supporter could then go to their coworkers and talk about Barack around the water cooler in a discrete manner. Friends having conversation with their friends to recommend a product (Barack). This is how Barack's brand was created. This is how products are branded in social media. Barack was able to brand himself as a "friend" in comparison to the other candidates---who were just "candidates".

As the campaign progressed, supporters started making their own texts, videos, shooting their own pictures, making their own podcasts, and sending them to their friends, through the different social media platforms. Barack's website (a social media platform) had these numbers:

• The site attracted 1.5 million members who organized themselves into 35,000 separate activist groups, each of which could be called INSTANTLY from the campaign headquarters to be given specific tasks in drumming up support.

• On election day, a MILLION calls were made. There were maps to the polls. Supporters were identified. Rides were arranged. Before the election, absentee ballots were delivered. During the campaign, million new supporters were registered online.

• 150, 000 separate meetings were used to mobilize volunteers

• Supporters placed their own campaign videos on YouTube. This is significant. People made these videos. The videos were placed on a sight that is one of the most popular on the Internet. YouTube viewership rivals major cable and home TV networks. This added media exposure was estimated at $47 million that the campaign did not have to pay.

• $600 million was raised from 3 million people

There is a critical fact to observe in Barack's brand building. The Obama campaign gave the "brand" over to supporters. This is an interesting fact to observe about Barack's branding strategy. Barack's branding strategy was organized and managed. There was adult supervision---but much of his branding was done by individual supporters. This is analogous to the Ford Fiesta Movement that Ford Motor Company used in marketing their Ford Fiesta. To create a strong brand in the new media era the brand has to be given over to supporters to develop among their "friends".

The hallmark of social media branding is the development of trust. This trust allows a brand to handle the unforeseen. There are no perfect people running for the Presidency---just as there are no perfect brands. Because of his brand building strategy and the trust that Barack developed, he was able to whether storms that happen in every campaign. People believe in their friends, and trust them, even when bad things are found out about them.

In the campaign of 2004, the campaigns of Dean and Kerry were derailed when stories began to appear about their personal backgrounds. Barack was able to handle bad events in his campaign. Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rescko, bad quotes from Michelle, would have been enough to sink a lot of campaigns. Barack was able to weather these events because he had built up a lot trust among voters. To many people, Barack was a "friend" and could be trusted. In new media, because trust is developed among "friends", when bad things happen to your brand, customers still buy the brand.

Barack Obama created a brand through creating a social platform on his website and by engaging supporters at many touchpoints.

Dean Hambleton

dnhambleton@gmail.com

deanhambleton.blogspot.com

http://www.deanhambleton.blogspot.com dnhambleton@gmail.com

I hope this article has helped you in creating better social media strategy in your own company. I am interested in how I can help you better. I am interested in what you think. If you think that I can help you in your company, write to me. Please make comments about my article. Please concentrate on the strategy area. President Obama is a controversial figure but his social media strategy in 2008 was a classic.

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