Constructing a new client’s social media city is a lot of work, and our new clients are amazed at the full blown construction process.  Think of building your online social media presence just like you would building a new house.  So with that in mind, let’s dive into the world of blog marketing, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and how that equates to the online construction process.

Constructing Your Social Media City

First, you must select the perfect lot for your house.  In the social media world, this is selecting the keyword rich url that you will utilize to build your blog site on.  Oddly enough, what you ‘think’ your url should be for your business may not be what Google says your url should be to attain the best search engine optimization ‘SEO’ possible.

Second, what style of house do you want to build?  How many square feet? What color do you want to paint your house?  Depending on your budget, will your online presence consist of a one bedroom, two bath or is it a four bedroom, four bath, four car garage, or something in between? Selecting the look and feel for your blog site is critical!  Here’s where the branding starts.   We start with the creative for your blog, and that creative is what we will use to brand you across the social media platforms.

Just as your new home has an address, we go through a process to ensure that you are getting the best keyword rich (address) url as possible.  Afterall, we need to please Google, and Google loves words and SEO (search engine optimization).  Each new client is presented with at least  four different choices for their ‘home’ address, if you will.

So now we have the home ‘address’ and the plans for the ‘house’ have been selected and the unique, one of a kind branding is going to start.  Concurrently, the construction process will begin for the client’s Facebook business page, Twitter and YouTube channel.  All the elves have their tool box at their side and start hammering away.

Constructing and branding your social media presence is just the beginning.  Once constructed, the real niche marketing begins.  At  Personalized Marketing, we are cognizant that each client possesses their own unique online niche.   As an example, there is a rhyme and a reason to the ‘type’ of  friends that you invite to your Facebook profile.  Just like inviting ‘friends’ to your new home, you just don’t invite every Tom, Dick and Harry into your Facebook world. You aren’t convinced that you need a Facebook presence?

• More than 500 million active users
• 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day

With those kind of numbers, it’s not whether you like or dislike Facebook…this is a ‘must-have’ portal for your online social media city.

GETTING SOCIAL WITH TWITTER

Let’s move on to Twitter.   Many new clients say, ‘but I don’t like Twitter!’  Of course, our response, ‘you may not like Twitter but a LOT of people do.’  It’s all about prospects, ladies and gentlemen!  Just like a house warming, you may not want to serve champagne because it’s not your thing, but guess what?  Most of your guests are coming to your house warming because you ARE serving champagne!

According to Blog.Twitter:

Today, on every measure of growth and engagement, Twitter is growing at a record pace. Here are some numbers:

#tweets

• 3 years, 2 months and 1 day. The time it took from the first Tweet to the billionth Tweet.
• 1 week. The time it now takes for users to send a billion Tweets.
• 50 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, one year ago.
• 140 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, in the last month.
• 177 million. Tweets sent on March 11, 2011.
• 456. Tweets per second (TPS) when Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009 (a record at that time).
• 6,939. Current TPS record, set 4 seconds after midnight in Japan on New Year’s Day.

#accounts

• 572,000. Number of new accounts created on March 12, 2011.
• 460,000. Average number of new accounts per day over the last month.
• 182%. Increase in number of mobile users over the past year.

#employees

• 8. 29. 130. 350. 400. Number of Twitter employees in Jan 2008, Jan 2009, Jan 2010, Jan 2011 and today.

GETTING SOCIAL WITH YOUTUBE

According to YouTube:

• Over 4 million people are connected and auto-sharing to at least one social network
• An AutoShared Tweet results in ~6 new youtube.com sessions
• Over 5 million people have found and subscribed to at least one friend on YouTube using friend-finding tools
• Millions of subscriptions happen each day. Subscriptions allow you to connect with someone you’re interested in—whether it’s a friend, or the NBA—and keep up on their activity on the site.
• Users like Machinima, MysteryGuitarMan, Fred, collegehumor, and UniversalMusicGroup have millions of subscribers
• More than 50% of videos on YouTube have been rated or include comments from the community
• Millions of videos are favorited every day

Views

• YouTube mobile gets over 100 million views a day
• The YouTube player is embedded across tens of millions of websites

Hmmmm…need we say more?  The numbers speak VOLUMES!

With those statistics, and even though you may not like or give credence to YouTube, just look at the numbers!  You cannot discount the value that YouTube brings to the table.  Again, using your new home, as an example…when planning your snacks and appetizers for your next cookout, aren’t you planning to serve what your guests are going to like?  Even though you might not like chips and dip, some of your guests do!  To keep them coming back for more, serve them what they like!!!

So as I preach to new prospects and new clients alike, YOU may not like the thought of building that online city, but the world, it is a changin’ and without a social media presence these days, you’re missing the opportunity to showcase your business to millions of…not just people…BUT prospects!!!

One last comment.  Many clients who look to us to build their online presence shake and shiver when we hand over the ‘keys’ and their instruction manual.  With that in mind, one of the best product lines we offer is to quell the fear and alleviate the shakes and shivers of running your online social media city.  Just like your house, if you don’t like doing the daily and weekly maintenance on your home and outsource that task to experts, that’s exactly what we can do for you with your online city!  We are marketing experts, and our challenge is to provide you with daily interaction that keeps your online city fresh, crisp and up to date providing interesting content for your brand!

We’re here to help!  Contact us today for your personalized quote to build your social media and online marketing presence!

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If you’re an entrepreneur  and have a small to medium size business, it is important that you make the most of your advertising and marketing dollars.  Getting the most for your dollar is as true for the small business owner as for the big business owner. Social media marketing is literally FREE and a resource worth its weight in gold!

Social Media Marketing Tips For Small Business

Here are some quick tips for small business owners.

Facebook has several great opportunities for FREE and also at low cost.  If you have not  yet created a personal profile on Facebook, I would highly encourage you to get on the social media bandwagon and start today. You can create a business account on Facebook without creating a personal profile, but the advantage of having a personal profile connected to your business page on Facebook is VERY powerful.  Friends from your Facebook’s personal profile are your bucket of  ‘prospects’ for your business.  Best of all…this is all FREE !!!!   After you’ve created your personal profile and created your business  page, take a peek at your competitor’s Facebook business pages and get an idea of how they are  showcasing their products to Facebook users.

Twitter is growing rapidly.  Again, Twitter is FREE.  All you have to do is create an account and start tweeting.  Keep in mind that keywords play a HUGE role on Twitter.  If you get lost in the Twittersphere, they have put together a guide that will help make the best use of their site.

LinkedIn is another useful social media tool to add to your social media marketing toolbox. LinkedIn is a great resource for B2B engagement.

YouTube is right up there with all the social media sites!  Do NOT leave this trusted social tool out of your online marketing toolbox.  Humans love videos that are not infomercials!  Humans like watching ‘real’ humans talk about ‘real’ things in less than one minute!  Why spend thousands of dollars on a videographer when you can literally reach thousands if not millions of prospects by harnessing the KISS methodology – Keep It Simple Stupid!

Blogs are a super complement to your already existing website.  If you don’t have an existing website, I would highly suggest building a hosted blog site.   WordPress blogs can aesthetically resemble a website AND they have the power of NOS on the internet. Google loves keywords. Feed your blog with rich keyword articles to assist in enhanced ranking on the internet.  And…drum roll…blogs have RSS feeds, giving your blog the ability to go viral all over the internet! I also suggest that you read and participate in other businesses blogs. Roll up your sleeves and start sharing some stories  and helpful hints of what has and has not worked well for you.

You may want to also consider utilizing mobile social networks.  Take a peek at Foursquare and Gowalla.  Setting up Google Alerts to watch for comments and conversations, and overall general mentions of your company!  Great way to be ‘alerted’ when  your company is being talked about.  Adwords are also a great  tool.  And always remember to review your web analytics!!!  Without reviewing your analytics, you don’t know how to steer your business!

The beauty of social media marketing is that you can reach local, regional, national and international markets for FREE.

What we hear almost on a daily basis is:

• I know I need an online presence
• I don’t know where to start
• I really don’t want to manage all these sites
• I just don’t have the time to build and manage all these sites

Your first step is to contact Personalized Marketing to build and outsource your small business social media.  We know how to get build your social media online presence and get ‘er done; and we take it a step further.  We’ll even manage all your sites so you can do what you do best, and that’s run your company!

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That is the question that has many a business owner twiddling their thumbs.

Your staff keeps nudging  you to roll up your sleeves and start tweeting on Twitter, get moving on creating a Facebook presence and building that custom Facebook business page; oh, don’t forget about getting the company blogging, video blogging (vlogging) and…hmmm…where do you start?

At Personalized Marketing, we know that outsourcing social media can be tricky business.  Who do you trust your company’s social media online presence to?  Not an easy decision.

Let’s start with Outsourcing Your Social Media 101.

Outsourcing Social Media…

The first step to a successful social media campaign is for the business owner to acknowledge that it’s imperative to be ‘out there.’   Social media is here to stay and it’s only going to get more complicated and intense.  As a business owner, if you embrace the importance of what social media can do to benefit your business,  the flood gates open to discussion on how we can orchestrate a cost effective, results driven, custom social networking plan.

Outsourcing your social media is like having a full time team member with part-time expense.  That’s the beauty of outsourcing.  First and foremost, you begin by cutting in-house operating costs.  And that’s HUGE in this day and age.   As an example, one less staff member on premise is one less computer to maintain; less money spent on electricity. Let’s not forget to mention the cost savings on insurance and overhead expenses.

There are other many advantages of outsourcing social media for your business that go beyond money. At Personalized Marketing, we preach ‘do what you do best, and that’s run your business.’ Focus on your potency and outsource your weakness. Concentrate on your core operations.

Taking time from your busy day to tend to social media can be time intense; and is it really prudent to have an internal employee managing the social sites, in addition to their regular full-time duties?  Logging on to Facebook can be like reading your favorite book and you can’t put it down!!  So much for the full-time staffer’s full-time job duties getting accomplished!

As mentioned above, social media can be ‘tricky business.’  It takes an expert to understand how each of the online social sites ‘tick.’  Facebook, Twitter, YouTube have their own distinct personalities, and each require specific TLC.  Knowing how to integrate these social sites to inure to your company’s benefit is critical!  Anyone can create a Twitter and YouTube account and build a Facebook business page.  It’s what happens after these accounts have been born that is the challenge.  Like a newly planted garden, these accounts will require nurturing and fertilizer to grow; and with that comes more TLC to ensure they are working to their full potential for your company.

There are many social media companies popping up all over the internet.  Be cautious. Do your homework.  Ask for references.

At Personalized Marketing, we give you peace of mind that we are in business for the long haul.  Our success is bringing success to your company’s bottom line.

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Recently, Nielsen reported, “ The popularity of social media is undeniable – three of the world’s most popular brands online are social-media related (Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia) and the world now spends over 110 billion minutes on social networks and blog sites. This equates to 22 percent of all time online or one in every four and half minutes.

For the first time ever, social network or blog sites are visited by three quarters of global consumers who go online, after the numbers of people visiting these sites increased by 24% over last year. The average visitor spends 66% more time on these sites than a year ago, almost 6 hours in April 2010 versus 3 hours, 31 minutes last year.”

Pretty powerful stats!

After shooting five hours of client marketing videos for YouTube upload yesterday, I thought it might be time to chat about vlogging/video blogging! Video Blogging has been one of the most effective online marketing tools that I’ve found for my client base.  The YouTube distribution platform provides an avenue for my clients to reach out and gain new prospects, while at the same time, feeding new information to their loyal followers.

What I’ve found to work well for my clients is to complement video content with blog content.  As I always say, ‘there’s a flavor for everyone,’ as some folks love the audio/visual, while others prefer written content.  So we’ve given ‘two flavors’ of information sharing for our prospects and customers to utilize!

If you’ve not signed up for an account, YouTube, has produced a “YouTube 101” series to learn the basic features.  YouTube’s Help Center is also chock full of useful tips and tricks!

The TestTube is one of my favorites.  This is YouTube’s ‘ideas incubator’ where engineers and developers “test out recipes and concoctions that aren’t quite fully baked and invite you to tell us how they’re coming along.”   As YouTube explains, “Your comments will help us improve and perfect the mixtures we’re working on. So jump in, play around, and send your feedback directly to the brains behind the scenes.’

If you’re a small to medium business owner and would like to learn more about Personalized Marketing’s video marketing services for your company, we invite you to contact us for more information!

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