According to Nielsen, 79% of large businesses are using social media “to engage their audience…build buzz, establish relationships, foster communication…and cultivate long-term brand awareness and consumer trust.”

The article claims that it doesn’t matter what type of company you are or how much experience you have. All you need is to learn a few simple rules. “Social media is not so much a new idea as it is a way to communicate ideas, and the nature of a good idea hasn’t changed. The same marketing principles from 50 years ago apply today; they are simply communicated in a different way.”

This is a very good article that offers concrete suggestions on how to use social media. There are four “take aways” that you can immediately utilize in your own business.

• Raise Brand Awareness

• Drive Valuable Traffic

• Grow Consumer Loyalty

• Build Brand Equity

In addition, the article gives a handful of very valuable examples of successful social media campaigns from which we can all learn.

1. LinkedIn

2. Merchant Circle

3. Facebook

4. Twitter

5. Yelp

6. Plaxo

7. Fast Company

8. MyWikiBiz

9. Ecademy

10. Spoke

11. 123People

12. BxBusinessWeek

13. Fast Pitch Networking

14. ZoomInfo

15. Google Profile

16. Naymz

In a blog post entitled Looking for clear-cut social media ROI? There’s an SEO for that!, the author, Hugo Guzman, claims that you can calculate the ROI of your social media efforts by correlating the relationship of these efforts with the improvement in search engine rankings. Simply stated, social media marketing improves SEO, which increases website or blog visitors, which increases leads, which increases conversions (or sales).

Truly, it’s a lot more complex than this, and Guzman lays out a very convincing case for the importance of social media marketing. You be the judge, though, and determine for yourself if your business can benefit from marketing on the various social media sites.

Abrams cites the example of small company in California, which has built a thriving business as a result of the owner spending “about five around hours a month” working social media sites.

According to Abrams, “The truth is that social media marketing for small businesses can work. Or, it can be a colossal waste of time. Like every other part of your business, it doesn’t just happen, it takes work and strategy.”

How can you make social media work for your small business? To summarize:

• Get beyond Facebook and Twitter

• Develop a niche

• Keep LinkedIn up-to-date

• Make a commitment

• Understand your goals

• Watch review sites

If you’re trying to figure out a social media strategy for your business this is a “must” read.

According to Wikipedia, cloud computing is internet computing whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand similar to an electricity grid.

Cloud computing is a paradigm shift following the shift from mainframe to client-server in the early 1980s. Details are abstracted from the users, who no longer have need for expertise in, or control over, the technology infrastructure “in the cloud” that supports them. Cloud computing describes a new supplement, consumption, and delivery model for IT services based on the Internet, and it typically involves over-the-Internet-provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources. It is a byproduct and consequence of the ease-of-access to remote computing sites provided by the Internet.

The term “cloud” is used as a metaphor for the internet, based on the cloud drawing used in the past to represent the telephone network, and later to depict the Internet in computer network diagram as an abstraction of the underlying infrastructure it represents. Typical cloud computing providers deliver common business applications online that are accessed from another Web service or software such as a Web browser, while the software and data are stored on servers.

Most cloud computing infrastructure consists of services delivered through common centers and built on servers. Clouds often appear as single points of access for all consumers’ computing needs. Commercial offerings are generally expected to meet quality of service (QoS) requirements of customers and typically include SLAs. The major cloud-only service providers include Salesforce.com, Amazon and Google.

According to wikiinvest.com, a simple example of cloud computing is Yahoo email or Gmail. You don’t need software or a server to use them. All a consumer needs is an internet connection and you can start sending emails. The server and email management software is all on the cloud (internet) and is totally managed by the cloud service provider Yahoo, Google, etc. The consumer uses the software alone and enjoys the benefits.

The article is filled with excellent tips – some general, some very technical – that might require the help of your web designer, but there are some that you might be able to do yourself if you have a content management system (CMS) or can edit the content in your site. To name a few: page names, directory structure, Meta tags, flash, navigation, and much more. Even if you don’t want to do your own SEO, you’ll find good information in the article that is useful for any website owner.

Gary Przyklen, in this article on how to optimize videos for SEO, shares some of his success formulas for optimizing videos using YouTube. If there were an algorithm for YouTube – as there is for Google – it might involve the following three criteria:

• Text in your titles and descriptions
• Number of views and recent trending
• Ratings

Gary ends his article with the following advice: “Although video isn’t new to the web, many marketers and businesses fail to make the best use of tools and social networks that will take their video and SEO results to the next level. If you’re going to invest time and money in boosting your SEO efforts this year, do yourself a favor and start considering video in your marketing mix. You’ll be glad you did.”

In this age of advanced technology and easy access to the internet, a business’ online presence has become so very important.  If you’re a serious entrepreneur or business person, you can’t “just” have a website, you have to have a website that is well designed, one that is not “just” attractive but (“just” as important) easy to navigate, complete with online support and services, professional-looking with valuable information and content, and able to not only capture the visitor’s attention but retain existing client loyalty for your product/service. In other words, the design of your website can either make or break your business’ brand.  This is why web design is so important to your business.

Your web design must convince prospects that you mean business.  It must reflect your company’s competence and reliability. You have to be able to convey all of the most important details your prospects should know right at the outset in order to keep them on the site and prevent them from clicking away from the home page. (Next time you check your site statistics, look for the number of bounces.)

As a web design company, we of course recommend hiring a competent web design company with experience and a portfolio of sites to show with testimonials from satisfied clients. There are so many “do it yourself” website applications – you could certainly try to design your own site. But don’t! It’s not worth the cost savings because in the long run it will end up costing more in terms of lost business and dissatisfied clients.

With a well-designed professional site – built by professionals – you will have a secure foundation on which to grow your business. You’ll also have a professional staff at your disposal to help you with marketing your site online and helping you expand your site as new technology emerges or as your needs for new features arise. Once your site has been launched and running properly it will be time to go into marketing mode. Be prepared!

Much like the computer giant Apple, Mediabridge wanted a website that reflected the efficiency of new technologies.  WWWC designed a website that incorporated clean lines, sharp shades, and easy navigation tools to reflect Mediabridge’s dedication to product quality and customer care.  This basic website design also symbolizes efficiency and helps customers find the products they need with the fewest page transitions.

In addition to color, WWWC customized the shopping cart software to provide Mediabridge customers with a safe, easy, and secure method of purchasing online.  “We fully customized ProductCart, a software program by Early Impact,” said  Savar, “to help Mediabridge transition their business from Amazon to their own website.”  Since ProductCart is fully compatible with PayPal, Google, UPS, and hundreds of other systems, the software gives Mediabridge customers the same purchasing flexibility they have on Amazon.  And, since the software is compatible with popular accounting and management software, Mediabridge has even greater control over their inventory and sales.

With the flexibility of their own online storefront, Mediabridge can experience unlimited online growth opportunities while still providing the same quality of service to existing customers.

- Website Traffic – 68%B
- Brand Awareness – 61%
- Engagement with Prospects – 60%
- Engagement with Customers – 52%
- Brand Reputation – 47%
- Prospect Lead Quality – 40%
- Revenue – 38%
- Prospect Lead Volume – 37%
- Useful Product Feedback – 26%

In order to determine the ROI you’re getting out of your blog and social media efforts you will have to decide which metrics are most important to you and determine a clear way to measure the success or failure of your efforts.

• Don’t read EVERY tweet. It’s perfectly okay. You have permission.
• Follow anyone who follows you (and unfollow spammers/jerks).
• Promote other people 12x to every 1 self-promotional tweet.
• Build lists to watch people who matter to you more closely.
• Retweet the good stuff from others. Sharing is caring.
• Set an egg timer. Twitter is addictive.

The best thing about social media sites is that they are accessed by a large audience. Social media marketing can be used effectively to build links for the site, manage online reputation of the company, and even increase awareness and visibility of the site.

Building a profile on social media marketing sites will help the search engines, and ultimately the customers, “find” the business.  The profile should tell readers about the business owner and the products/services, with links to the business site.

Build Brand

Entrepreneurs and business owners must brand and attach themselves to a specific topic, making them the experts. Writing articles and posting them on blogs in these social networking sites can help others become aware of the business’ products and services.  By contributing to these sites, the business is branding itself.  The key is to use a soft sell approach.

Once business owners establish the credibility and expertise, customers’ belief in whatever products or service the company offers will follow. The business will then make the sale.

To illustrate:  A house owner would not hire a plumber to paint his house, but he may ask the plumber to recommend a good painter if the plumber has a good reputation.  This is an example of offline social networking.

Anyone who expects to achieve immediate results in the form of sales by engaging in social media marketing will be in for a disappointment.  A tweet will not make phones ring, make a customer walk through the door, or fill out an order form on the website, although this may happen in some lucky situations.  If someone becomes a fan of a business fan page on Facebook today, it doesn’t mean this fan is going to buy the company’s product or service tomorrow. Having a website doesn’t mean people will automatically visit it. The key is to understand that social media marketing can be an effective marketing strategy. But first the business owner has to determine the available resources, decide on which marketing methods are currently working and which are not, and know where competitors and potential clients are hanging out online.

To sum up…social media marketing cannot be taken for granted.  Social media marketing has a huge upside potential to boost sales if used properly and executed effectively.

The target audience must first be determined in order to plan the marketing campaign.  Every plan must be based on a target market analysis.  You need to know the types of social media sites they are using, the things that they look for when they use those sites, and what content must be used to catch the attention of these prospective customers.

Blatant marketing/selling on social media marketing sites doesn’t work. The approach must be more subtle.  The goal is to increase online presence, create backlinks from a major traffic site, and build brand.

Increase Online Presence

Whether the business has been around for quite awhile or just starting, it is important to build its presence on the internet if it wants to be exposed to its target audience/market.

In our next blog entry we will discuss “Creating Backlinks” and”Building Brand.”

Social media marketing has been greatly used by open-minded business owners who understand that in this day and age, traditional marketing alone does not contribute much to a business’ competitive edge, especially if a competitor is maintaining an online presence.  Social media is seen by many marketers as the next gold rush.  Studies show that social media campaigns drive traffic, promote any brand, and generate leads that build influence, which eventually generate sales.

“Social” means a “friendly gathering,” “media” means “a form of communication,” and “marketing” means “processes for creating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society in general.”  As a phrase and in context, social media marketing can be explained as an online gathering for communications that are part of a process designed to create, deliver, and exchange offerings for customers, clients, partners, and society.

Strategies for social media marketing programs are focused on creating content that attracts online users’ attention, generates web conversations, and encourages readers to share it with their social networks.  Some of the more widely used social networking sites include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Digg, YouTube, and StumbleUpon.  A message posted on any of the sites spreads from user to user and gets responses because it is coming from a trusted source, as opposed to the brand or company itself.  It then becomes more like a social buzz or “word of mouth.”

The problem some people have with social media marketing is in their understanding of what it is supposed to do.  Some are interested but don’t know how to use it.  Others don’t believe in its value to their sites or businesses.

In our next blog entry we will discuss “How to Execute Effective Social Media Marketing” and “How to Increase Online Presence.”

According to Jim Connolly, in an article entitled Google, Social Media and SEO, “because of the secrecy that surrounds Google’s algorithm, it’s not possible to say definitely what kind of additional influence this is having on search results.” Connolly goes on to explain why he believes that if you want to improve your ranking in Google you need to incorporate social media marketing in your SEO strategy.

• Acquire RSS feed – this can have many different sources. Mine is from my WordPress blog.
• Set up feed through Feedburner. Gmail account is required to login. This step will involve a variety of configurations.
• “Socialize” your feed to publish to a Twitter account – this step is part of your Feedburner setup.
• Verify that your feed does publish to your Twitter profile page.
• Extra: you can also publish your Feedburner feed on a webpage as either headlines or full content.

I would love to hear from others as to how they do it.

Google PageRank is based on back links. Back links are links pointing to your website from another website. The more back links you have the higher your PR will be.” You might want to check out Wikipedia’s explanation of PageRank (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank). It has a terrific diagram that visually explains it. So read the article and how to increase the PageRank of the pages in your website.

The program we offer will not only boost your search engine rankings but also increase the number of times you show up on Google search results pages. The approach we use takes advantage of numerous “Google-acceptable” techniques for search engine optimization including link building, the most important criteria Google uses to rank websites. Also, there is no better way to put all your wonderful keyword-rich content onto multiple pages than posting to social media sites; plus the frequent updating of these pages tells Google you’re serious about providing meaningful content for your readers, which Google loves and tends to reward with high rankings.

Just as important, posting to social media sites and inviting your clients and associates to join you online is a terrific way to augment your customer retention efforts. And if it helps convert prospects to leads or clients, well, that’s not a bad thing.

Here is an article, which will help you build the first leg, the blog. Top 10 Easy Steps to Starting a Business Blog, written by Denise Wakeman, has terrific suggestions for getting your blog started – or if you already have a blog that has not been effective, you will want to read this article for help.