Archive for the ‘Social Networking’ Category

Top 4 Ways Executives Can Survive During Tough Economic Times

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

jfcropExecutives Must READ-

Research, Education, Attitude, and Drive

These are the only ways to survive in today’s market place.

The Internet is NOT going away so get educated! Education is the #1 failure of internet marketing strategies so don’t let your corporation fall short. Take a competitive edge and gain first mover advantage. There are some very knowledgeable internet consultants out here in San Diego so grab a hold of one of us and start formulating a plan. Remember, business professionals don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan!

I assure you, there is no easy answer and no get rich quick scheme to internet marketing for business purposes. Myspace and Facebook are not just for personal use anymore! There is a BUSINESS use and us on Linked-In are well ahead of the curve. It just takes the right strategy and approach, and then my favorite- execution.

Its not if but when. Its not why but how. Its hard work believe me, and developing relationships just like in the off-line approach is where we as marketing professionals need to help educate the local business community.

But the firms must but be willing to “invest” in their online marketing strategy. its not an expense. I look forward to assisting you any way i can-

I would appreciate any executives or professionals you may know who are ready to turn their company around with a proven internet marketing strategy. We work strictly through close referral (off line and online of course)

Cheers,

Justin

“We consult and educate our executive level clients how to form a strategy on using social media and social networking sites like twitter and linked in to build business relationships and brand awareness in the digital online market place, which in turn increases traffic to company websites and increases sales.”

Please help me spread my message! I do Webinars, Internet Consulting for Business, Twitter training, Linked-In training, Social Networking Packages for businesses, and also Speaking engagements in educational facilities and corporations on this growing trend.

Justin French President
Social Networking San Diego
“We use social networking to grow your business”

Summary on Obama news conference, and 3 Tips for Small Business Owner Success in the digital age

Monday, March 30th, 2009

Summary on Obama news conference, and 3 Tips for Small Business Owner Success in the digital age

Twitter Grader

Special Thanks to my followers and friends on Linked-In for you support! Yes we can!

1. Find out more about how internet marketing can help your business (this is the current trend)
2. Upgrade your Business Development Department- Develop a 21st century Business Development Strategy
3. Find a good CRM software to help keep track of leads

“business owners and CEO’s don’t plan to fail, they fail to have a plan”- twitterholic justinrfrench

Need help on any of this? Call Keith- 760-500-6043 and schedule an in depth internet marketing assessment for your business

JustinRFrench, CCNA

CEO & Chief Internet Marketing Strategist-

Social Networking San Diego

http://www.socialnetworkingsandiego.com

LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/itconsultantsandiego

Twitter http://twitter.com/justinrfrench Follow me on twitter

Twitter as a Marketing Media

Friday, March 27th, 2009

Twitter as a Marketing Media

Marketing through twitter! Does that sound odd or is that obvious? Many people are still uncertain about the use of twitter and other social networking podium for marketing products. The truth is that these networking sites work as a great channel for marketing in more ways than one. Marketing is about presenting your product to the mass in a way that gets you the attention of the consumer. Converting this attention into a value to your business is obviously the objective. Twitter is certainly the answer to a marketer’s prayers.

We at InRev are constantly trying to challenge tools and technologies to estimate their worthiness. We have already been testing the social networking tool through our web application InRev Twitin to evaluate the usefulness of Twitter as a business accelerator. Following are some interesting finding from the InRev team.

Below is the world map, categorized with respect to the time zone. Why Time Zone? Because, in marketing, timing is a crucial factor to determine its effectiveness. In today’s global market, we need to reach out to the wide range of the audience and understanding the timing difference is the key.

World Map - Time Zones

We have collected data from twitter and prepared a report which will reveal some very important and interesting facts.

Distribution of Population and their Tweets

The first step is to understand the population of the twitter users. The following graph shows the distribution of population with respect to Time Zones. Graph1 shows that the majority of twitter users lie on GMT-5, GMT-6, and GMT-8 Time Zones. These time zones cover: Pacific Time (US & Canada), Tijuana, Arizona, Chihuahua, Mazatlan, Mountain Time (US & Canada), Central America, Central Time (US & Canada), Guadalajara, Mexico City, Monterrey, Saskatchewan, Bogota, Eastern Time (US & Canada), Indiana (East), Lima, and Quito. Furthermore, the distribution of tweets shows that the location with higher population has more tweets, which is obvious.

Graph 1 : Distribution of Population

Distribution of Population

Graph 2: Distribution of Tweet Count

Distribution of Tweet Count

The result from the above graph can be used to change your marketing strategies to increase your number of followers in twitter and to stay more visible in the online social media. This is very clear that most of the twitter user is from the western region and that their population is very large among the total population. This timing knowledge is very important here because this will give you the right time to tweet your products.

Category of People in the Twitter

Now we know that most of the twitter users are from the GMT – 5 Time Zone. Let us see what kind of people are twitting from that zone. The following tag cloud has been created by taking the description written by the people in their twitter profile.

Tag Cloud 1

Tag Cloud 1: Description of People at GMT – 5 (generated using http://www.wordle.net/)

The result clearly shows that most of the people are related to Social, Media, Web, Geek, Blogger and Marketing. Therefore, it’s evident that twitter is more popular among the marketers and media personals. This information is very important, as it shows you the profile of your audience and will certainly help to better market your product. To explore further, let’s see if this is the trend in other time zone.

Tag Cloud 2

Tag Cloud 2: Description of People at GMT – 6 (generated using http://www.wordle.net/)

Tag Cloud 3

Tag Cloud 3: Description of People at GMT – 8 (generated using http://www.wordle.net/)

Tag Cloud 4

Tag Cloud 4: Description of People at GMT + 1 (generated using http://www.wordle.net/)

The above tag clouds 2, 3 and 4 show some similarities with the GMT- 5‘s profile structure. Though, the marketing profile seems high, in terms of percentile distribution, it is only about 1.77%.

The scenario changes as we move towards east. The percentage profile of marketers changes to 0.89%. We already have a less share of population in the east and among them only few percentage of marketers. This could be due to the conservative nature of the eastern culture. We can see that the higher percentage of people in East is from blogging and student background.

Tag Cloud 5

Tag Cloud 5: Description of People at GMT + 8 (generated using http://www.wordle.net/)

Summary

All the above data analysis was carried out by taking a random population of 31691 of the current tweeter users. The cloud tag analysis was carried out with the help of tool at http://www.wordle.net/. The analysis does not present any precise statistical analysis or conversions. The goal of the analysis was to show the demographic distribution of the people on twitter and its implication on efficient marketing.

The analysis tells us that niche marketing is possible through twitter, if marketers are willingly to study the population of twitter more closely and understand them better.

Any Media or Marketing Analyst needs to segment the population to have better ROI on time they spend on Twitter; a generic line might not work.

Article by InRev, written by Deep Sherchan

About InRev

InRev Systems Bangalore Pvt. Ltd** *transforms business by making all possible information available at all times. InRev combines domain knowledge, trusted reporting structure and innovative applications to help companies advance their business decisions. It serves across all stages of Business Intelligence and Decision Management right from Data Extraction and Integration to Strategy Consulting using the intelligent insights of the business. More information can be found at http://www.in-rev.com.

Can social networking actually get you a job?

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

Well, isn’t that the truth! It’s a fact that its not what you know but who you know that can get you a job. That old adage works in the real world and very soon going to be applicable on the internet too. Think big with sites like LINKEDIN and FACEBOOK being the new ways that employers become familiar with you and possibly hire you instantly.

social-networking

But do these social networking sites actually work as self-marketing on the internet?
The internet is the only medium where you do not actually immediately meet and greet a potential employer for your job. No more toting around of large resumes, references, and other documents to impress potential employees. Sites like TWITTER, FRIENDFEED, and ORKUT have made marketing on internet as easy as pie!

Let’s find out how it works…
Take my own personal experience. Without even getting up from my warm leather computer chair, I’ve gotten several clients for my online services. I’ve also got a few good references for future jobs all through my online social networking by using internet marketing my niche services. I’ve made a few good friends and several good contacts all by social networking. The process is very simple. Just log on to the social networking sites like TWITTER to upload your resumes and private contact details. You’ll find one of the best networks on LINKEDIN. That site is best for finding potential employers and personal marketing on internet. You can use the site to promote your own services for free while connecting to several social groups and potential employees. Internet and marketing is also the best way to be eco-conscious and green; just imagine the paper and trees you are saving for the planet to breathe by skipping the use of paper!

Another way to make your impression on the internet is by online marketing on the internet and by building your own website. Once your website is up, you can then link up and use the social media sites to link up, promote your site and drive traffic there. More and more customers also use the LINKEDIN network to find reliable sites that offer professional and reliable services. That was just the reason that my website and profile became so successful.

No matter what industry pundits say; I say that social networking marketing on the internet is here to stay!

Internet Marketing Basics for Business In The Digital Age

Sunday, March 15th, 2009

Does Internet marketing for business really work?  And how do you make sure that your products and your website get the best customers who have the money to buy?

Marketing articles are the best way to sell your product on the internet. That means you may have a website or a blog of your own but unless you are totally familiar with SEO and link building; your maiden venture into internet marketing for business is going to fail miserably. SEO means Search Engine Optimization and it is one of the core rules to draw customers and relevant traffic to your website. One of the simplest explanations of SEO is that if you want to sell handbags, you better make sure that your website content is filled with the correct number of words all talking about handbags! Search engines like Google and Yahoo trawl the internet daily searching for new content and then indexing the content in their archives according to the most number of words (keywords) in the content. If you have more than 10% of words in the content about handbags, then you get indexed in the search for handbags. The more the amount of words and relevant links about handbags the higher you go on the search results pages of Google. Of course, it isn’t as simple as I’ve said it but the gist is the same. A few more tips you can try out to optimize your content are-

1. Put your keywords high up. That’s very important. The higher your keywords come in the content and the title, the more traffic and page rating on Google you get! Keep your title within 200 characters and with a description of about 20 words.

2. Stick to a 10% density of keywords. Any more and the search engines automatically list your site as spam or worthless content.

3. Place relevant links to authority sites and get them to link to your website for internet marketing. Ask other blogger friends to link to your site and post about your product and you can post about them in reverse.

4. Try using simple paid post networks like PAYPERPOST and SOCIALSPARKS that take up paid and free posting for a nominal fee. You have to pay the sites a minimal amount to put up your product for bidding. Bloggers pick up the product and write about them on the blogs for a small fee.

I am still writing an E-Book on Social Networking and Internet Marketing basics for Business so be on the look out!

cheers- twitterholic justinrfrench

Twitter finally going mainstream – is your business on board yet?

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

All of the followers of Social Networking San Diego know we support the awareness, education and assistance to the business community on the power of social networking for business purposed by building your product or personal brand on-line. Successful hip hop icon P-Diddy (Sean Combs) who is a VERY SUCCESSFUL business person I have admired for quite some time on his accomplishments explains it best for those non-savvy and non-teccy business people.

Check out the video of P-Diddy on the Ellen Show here:

If your business is ready to jump on board and formulate an internet marketing strategy around your business model- then click above on the FREE website evaluation so we can see where you at in the whole “internet” puzzle. I look forward to hearing from other business professionals, entrepreneurs, and small business owners! Basically put- Social Networking San Diego functions as your virtual marketing department

twitterholic justinrfrench (follow me)

Need more help? Contact me on linked in-

Top 5 Ways To Properly Do Business in the Digital Age

Monday, March 9th, 2009

pi-ad
By now, if you are a business professional, have a linked-in account, and know what “twitter” is, then I applaud you. I would even be willing to give you a gold star for excellence if you have an actual internet marketing “plan” of some sort. Or maybe you’re marketing budget (though limited right now, just like trying to get a small business loan) which may or may not include some internet or social media sites, you are still ahead of the majority of your competitors.

Most small to mid-sized businesses (even some fortune 500’s) actually don’t even know what “social networking” means let alone have some type of on-line marketing budget. Those baby-boomers however are just starting to see an actual business value in conducting business on the internet, or at least they see how popular social networking sites like myspace, facebook, or twitter have become part of the local evening news topics. You may want to even scroll down and read some of my previous posts on the importance of why your business should start doing some form of internet marketing. Some companies try to provide ad words or you tube videos, but have they proposed an over-all strategy that over-time becomes an “organic viral marketing campaign?” (Don’t know what that means- Google it)

Let me talk directly (no B.S.) to those firms who are still baffled with this new on-line business phenomenon- “strap on your seat belts because if you thought forming an OFF-line marketing strategy was tough, then you aint seen nothin yet!” Wait till you find out what REALLY goes on behind the scenes. And if you think for a SECOND there is an easy way or get rich quick scheme out there to marketing your business online that will work for $199, then just give ME the $199 and I’ll at least draw up a plan for you to execute and I’ll even email it to you!”

Allow me to give you 1 simple tip to add to your internet marketing strategy, or at least pointers on getting started because you will quickly learn just how overwhelming, tedious, complex, and time consuming this whole internet marketing thing really is. And the local “teen” might not be the right person fit to build your on-line brand. I have spent 8 years of training, business schooling, Microsoft & Cisco certifications, countless nights of research, and testing software to form this proven proprietary system. (those close to me can attest for those long nights of me researching) But time is money and If you think I am just going to give you a magic wand to wave over your business that will make your website appear #1 on Google the next day then we may not be a good fit in doing business together.

I would at LEAST suggest you sign up for a $99 1 hr. internet consulting strategy session with me to identify some foundations to get you going at the least. This might well be the BEST under $100 business and internet marketing consulting session you spend all year. But if you really appreciate value & TRUST in someone’s expertise, understand your business is lost and needs help, has a marketing budget, then I suggest we speak.

Business Owners- Remember, “He/ She who fails to plan, plans to fail.
If you don’t have an on-line marketing plan yet, then you are failing.”

Twitterholic- justinrfrench

Top 5 accomplishments businesses can achieve through twitter, social networking, and internet marketing

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

First – A BIG thank you to those leaving comments on my blog.  Some of the comments are very moving and I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy day to leave your insightful opinions. Sometimes you all just make me want to climb on top of a mountain for a fresh breadth of clean mountain air and enjoy a beautiful sky view as blue as the ocean and say thank you twitter followers! 🙂

justin-mtn-top2

Tonight’s post will be short and sweet- but as usual, motivating and educational on the importance of understanding how small businesses NEED desperately to form some type of internet marketing strategy to stay in business. But first and foremost, they MUST understand- what rewards will come if they put in the time to get educated on this growing trend in online marketing or inbound marketing. This is still such a new shift for business professionals to comprehend, but is slowly starting to catch on and gain the public’s’ attention.

Social Networking San Diego is a some-what of a pioneer or first-mover for training businesses how to use social networking to generate NEW business and handling this out-sourced service for them.

  1. Global Reach- Twitter has allowed Social Networking San Diego to form alliances in countries such as Canada, Spain, UK, India, etc. All from Twitter. If you need clarification on how to use twitter for business purposes contact us for a complimentary 20 minute training session from me- twitterholic justinrfrench.
  2. Put in the Time- I have heard some business people tell me “I don’t have time to network or “tweet.” Well this is why your business is not bringing in any new business because networking and building relationships is required all the time especially during these tough times. Only the strong will survive, and maybe you can identify other professionals struggling with similar issues in their businesses and possibly brainstorm on solutions together.
  3. Actual Results- our clients that signed up on packages with us last month are signing up again (video testimonials will be out soon I promise) because they recognize the VALUE, have been educated on what an OVER-ALL internet marketing strategy looks like, how complicated it is, and they have gotten a peek behind the scenes from our consultants.
  4. Staying the course- We let the clients know that this is an 8-12 month commitment we make to them, but once those months have been reached, they will be able to see sustained results much better than they used to see with direct mail (remember you must be in front of someone 7 or 8 times to finally get their attention.)
  5. Education- Constantly be reading, researching, and refining your message you want to portray about your company brand or personal brand. Sometimes this can be difficult for companies on-line, so maybe having a Chief Internet Marketing Strategist like justinrfrench come into your firm may be just what the doctor ordered. This is very important to stay in front of people, but make sure your message is clear on how you or your product or service will help solve that clients problem/ or pain.

i look forward to your comments on this posting, and would hope you could spend just 30 more seconds on sharing this to your DIGG account or Re-tweet.  All The Best- justinrfrench

Social Networking, Business, Twitter, and Internet Marketing Wrap Up

Saturday, February 28th, 2009

flowchart-snsd
This past month has been one of the busiest months I’ve experienced in years.  A little overwhelming and draining but in a good way. It all started from me paying it forward on twitter or (sharing my knowledge and expertise about business, technology, entrepreneurship, etc. with the fellow twitter professional community.)  It was as if twitter had finally enabled me to get my voice/ message heard around the country (even the world) that I had been preaching for the last seven years- “to help small businesses bridge the gap between business and technology.”

This online twitter community is as passionate about business as I am which makes me feel right at home in a virtual networking environment.   Instead of going to the local chamber, twitter is on demand and real-time.  I would suggest we still need both in today’s society.

It seems as if all my ten years of business experience and technical skills have been developed to test me for this moment.  Those close to me say I’m relentless which may be so, but I couldn’t be more passionate about helping businesses make sense of the power of the internet, technology, and how to properly apply these tools for best business practices.  Also who could forget the help of the Social Networking San Diego team and my close twitter followers.

By sharing my knowledge and expertise with the small business community locally in Southern California and globally on Linked-In and Twitter, things seemed to have come back to me ten fold; even to the point where I have had over 400 emails to catch up on, 50 linked-In invitations, and hundreds of twitter messages!  We have even managed to gain the eye of some larger corporations which excites me even more because they need help too just as small businesses.

Businesses large and small struggle to develop a proper internet marketing strategy because of the many puzzle pieces and complexities that exist with the world wide web.  That is where our team of professional internet consultants assist with a so-called
“corporate restructuring”  to help implement the proper solution  based on specific needs, industry, budgets, and department structure.

My question for my audience this evening is when you fall behind (in a good way) does your brain feel cluttered and if so could you offer some advice on how you re-focus and catch up? That’s how I have felt after this last month and now I’m trying to get back on track.  As professionals, we must sometimes fall behind and no matter how much project management, time management experience, or standard operating procedures we have in place, those feelings of being overwhelmed always come up.  It has been for good reason though because we were able to accomplish a lot though TEAM (together everyone achieves more) work and long hours at Social Networking San Diego.

Please give your thoughts/ advice it would be much appreciated.  Also, the next posting will be on the “Top 5 accomplishments businesses can achieve through twitter, social networking, and internet marketing”

– justinrfrench  Chief Internet Marketing Strategist of Social Networking San Diego

Does your business need help in forming an internet marketing strategy?  Here are some packages to look over

p.s. would you mind sharing this post? (see below) thanks

Social Marketing on the Cheap … Probably Not Prudent

Friday, February 27th, 2009

shelly

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m a strategist. I like to think about things, come up with a plan, work within my clients’ budgets and create marketing strategies that not only make sense, but which will … um, well … actually work for them. Go figure. Ready, aim, fire. Don’t spend money, time, effort or energy until it makes sense as part of an integrated marketing plan. Totally makes sense, doesn’t it? You’d be amazed at how many people forge ahead without a plan, looking for the least expensive “solution,” without any first-hand knowledge about what they’re attempting to undertake and without any understanding at how much potential damage they could do to their brand and brand image as a result of poor execution.

Well, after sitting in one too many meetings, listening to small business owners talk about social media – trying to get their heads around email marketing, mobile marketing and, heaven forbid, something like Facebook or Twitter, it’s my head that’s beginning to spin. And these same business owners just don’t seem to get it. Their eyes glaze over and they shake their heads and say “I know I need to do an e-newsletter, or write a blog, or investigate Facebook, but I just don’t have time. But I have a website!” Well I say “Woo Hoo for you!” Having a website does not mean that you’re on top of your game when it comes to promoting your business. In fact, having a website without doing anything to advertise, promote or draw traffic to it is about as useless as having a billboard in the middle of a corn field. Social media, email marketing, mobile marketing …. all of those things are tools that marketers use to promote brands, products and actually drive sales. Imagine that – doing something that would actually sell your product.

Well, in tough economic times, the gloves come off and it’s time to talk tough love. Don’t cry hard times because your sales are down. Of course they’re down. And the time to do something about it, to allocate some marketing dollars and some savvy tactics and stop the bleeding is now.

Social marketing is and should be a part of any serious business’s marketing and communications plan – especially today. But, the interesting thing is, that so often people (read that “business owners”) think that it’s just the perfect project to sink little Jenni on – you know, the one who just graduated from Community College last year and who just loooooves surfing the ‘net. Or, maybe Johnnie, who’s in college and has a Facebook page – that’d be something he could do for us and we could pay him $200 and save a bunch of money.

People – you don’t get it!

Social marketing is serious stuff and is well on it’s way to replacing the traditional kinds of media that we’ve known and loved. Display ads are going the way of the dinosaur. Who reads magazines and newspapers when you can get instant news and any kind of content you would ever want online – through more sources than I can possibly articulate.

Traditional media, while still an important part of brand management and strategy, is no longer the only game in town.

People are online. They are talking, sharing, opining, recommending, blasting, learning, blogging, ReTweeting and moving at the speed of sound.

The question isn’t “should I embrace this social media stuff and use it as part of my marketing strategy” … the question should be “how quickly can I find the right people to help me integrate this so that I can start taking advantage of the brand awareness – (and sales) that I can generate as a result.”

And the answer is that they are out there. People like my friends, Justin French at Social Networking San Diego (all things social media) www.socialnetworkingsandiego.com and Jason Werner at Opus Media (all things email marketing) www.opusbywire.com are knee deep in what’s going in their respective worlds. And there are a myriad of others – those guys just happen to be great friends of mine, and people that I would trust with my own brand.

Bottom line – DO get involved in social media. DON’T try to do it yourself (especially if you don’t know what you’re doing – and most people don’t). DO hire someone to help you not only do it correctly so that it produces real results, but make sure that it’s integrated with and compliments the other elements of your marketing efforts. And, most importantly, DO it now! And, if you don’t have the resources or know where to look ask me – I’ll be glad to help and/or refer you.

shellyShelly DeMotte Kramer is a marketing strategist specializing in planning, branding, product launches, creating buzz and awareness through non-traditional methods and is, clearly, a social media enthusiast. shelly@kramerandcompany.com