Social Media is the critical element for our business to get more exposure in ways not possible 10 years ago. Social Media opens up avenues of potential opportunity (both good and bad), not realized before in the areas of marketing and networking. What is very clear and critical for success in social media is developing a specific strategy before establishing an online presence. One approach that Social Media uses is the stipulation of requiring friends/business associates to become fans to our page and then leveraging them to attract new ones; the more fans we have of our page, the more exposure they have to our business and our message because they are notified every time we update the status of our page. As a result, fans can comment on status updates with hopefully, positive content about what we are doing. The goal of social media then is an online conversation that stimulates and promotes an emotional response towards our message. When that goal is achieved, people take pleasure in the feeling of satisfaction and then with a bit of luck, will pursue a business relationship with us.

But Social Media is not finished at this point, because not only is it a tactic to get our business message advertised in a public manner, but it can also be a way to personalize an ideal that we have about our business. For example; we use our business as a means to assist several at risk groups that rescue and save some specific people in Africa that would otherwise be enslaved or killed. This message focus rises above the day to day business routines and settles on what we believe is actually important in life and that is to make a difference in the world. Social Media allows us the capability to align ourselves with these charity organizations and demonstrate to the community we are more than just ink on paper, we stand for something greater.

Guest Post By:

Kent Wright

Digital Operations Manager

Convergence, a division of SOS Printing, Inc.

A Fellow San Diego Business

In this short post, I take you behind the scenes in the classroom of what it’s like to teach social networking, internet marketing, and social media to fellow business professionals in San Diego County. Teaching is another passion of mine (I know I spread myself thin sometimes) but I think educating the small business community is something I have always done and will continue to do especially during these times. Enjoy the behind the scenes look at me teaching social media for business at Mira Costa College San Elijo campus. Cheers,

Justin

p.s. If you are in San Diego County and would like to be part of my VIP Social Media Mastermind group then take this quick 20 second poll on social media for business, give your feedback, and join the group. I look forward to meeting you-

Justin

poll: http://www.meetup.com/Social-Media-Mastermind-Group-San-Diego/polls/231719/

listen to this video about how Justin French thinks cal state san marcos has one of the best business programs.

I had the privilege to attend the 1 year anniversary of Gravity Summit at UCLA this past Monday and I must say that it was well worth staying up there the night before and not having to rush to the conference in the morning. It ended up being an eventful and relax-full weekend and an all around great conference. As we know, being involved with Social Media, it is always good habits to take it off-line once in a while and get in a room filled with like minded people and if you happen to be part of the social media conference, then you know the talent they were able to pull was of the highest caliber in the industry. Not to mention re-connecting with those that I had seen at Harvard at another previous Gravity Summit. I recorded an inspirational video the night before (talking about the Three H’s- Hustle, Heart, and Helpfulness) that can be seen here if you’d like http://www.socialnetworkingsandiego.com/social-networking/twas-the-night-before-gravity-summit-heart-hustle-and-helpfulness/

Social media for business is still the hot topic but after being involved in this trend for the last year and a half can sometimes be draining. But the gravity summit expo just happen to give me that re-energizing boost I needed to re-spark the deep passion I have for this topic.

The content provided during the event was exceptional, but there was one presentation early on that really had an impact on me- an ecstatic, passionate, and over-the-top presentation from Kodak’s CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett. Now I hadn’t heard of Jeff before, but I knew how involved Kodak has been in social media and the drastic changes they had made to their workforce so I was interested in hearing some of the behind the scenes strategies. Not only did I get insight to these practices and policies, but he even had me laughing out loud!! I shared one of the better video clips below, but if you’re interested in the entire highlighted clips from the Keynote you can view them here: Gravity Summit Keynote CMO of Kodak

Please re-tweet and bookmark this post so we can share this insightful and valuable content with the rest of the business community. Hope you enjoyed-

Justin R French

“Those who keep asking what is the ROI on social media- I say what is the cost of ignoring”- Kodak CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett

I happen to be using the new Flip Video (took my Samsung back because of some issues with zoom) so in case your wondering why i am endorsing flip video- its what i will be using from now on to provide you with quality video content. (full disclosure) cheers –
Justin

here is a good deal from Amazon on one:

First- Congratulations to Beverly Macy and Rodney Rumford on their 1 year milestone for providing exceptional Social Media For Business conferences, workshops, and educational forums. The last one I went to was at Harvard and this was probably one of the best conferences I had been to. I am looking forward to what the 1 year anniversary will bring. Here is a link to the event. http://www.gravitysummit.com/ I will be tweeting live to give you the best 140 character highlights of the event so follow me on twitter here if you want: @JustinRFrench

Also, Enjoy this quick video I made (shout our to Chris Brogan for the Hotel Room idea) where I try to stay on topic with 3 main points: Hustle, Helpfulness, and Heart. Also, I ask, what are you doing to make sure you are being extra helpful to clients and colleagues these days? In times like these, we must be going above and beyond (one of my favorite groups by the way) in being extra helpful in providing quality customer serve. Just talking about it isn’t good enough anymore. (Thank Zappos for being the model example of this)

Enjoy

JustinRFrench

Gotta love that catchy headline right? Ok so yesterday when I logged into my personal Gmail account (I have about 30 Gmail accounts by the way all for a different business purpose because you know I’m all about business and occasionally having fun) and I happen to see a landing page come up introducing me to Google Buzz. I watched a quick video, got versed on it, and began exploring. After you watch the video I would advise you to play around with it a little bit. Do you think Twitter may be worried? My personal opinion is just like Linked-in, Facebook and Twitter. Google buzz will be just another means of me communicating to another online community of those I am connected with. (it just happens to be my contacts in my Gmail account and on my phone- the G1 Android). Buy one here and I’ll teach you how to set up a special proprietary workflow system I have created to streamline email and increase productivity

As the lines become more and more blurry between my professional life and personal life, I started out having two separate accounts but quickly realized how non time efficient this was. I am slowing trying to migrate to just 1 user account per social network, but we will see where that takes me. Right now I am more into twitter and Linked-In (obviously) but it depends on my goals.

What are you thoughts on the new Google Buzz? Should Twitter be afraid? I don’t think so, not for now anyway, BUT who knows what will happen in the next year. The world of social media and social networking for business changes every day. It is so hard to keep up BUT if this is your passion, you never consider it work. Its part of your life. It consumes you. You are addicted. But there are many other worse things you could be addicted to so until then, go get your Buzz on with Google and Tweet it up on Twitter. Cheers,

Justin R French

Social Media Monitoring Tools are key for Reputation monitoring. A lot of companies are quick to say they are ready for social media, but do they really know what they are getting into? Do they even have a social media plan written? Do they even know what people are saying about their products and services? Do they know best practices to use when engaging a prospect online?

These questions might seem odd considering how many social media consultants are popping up all over the place but how many actually have track records? What campaigns have they implemented, measured, and what results were achieved? Well, we have done all of the above. That is why we suggest to our customers a product called Trackur to give them a taste before they jump right into the unknown. Trackur is one of the first products we are finally telling people about as one of the tools we help set our clients up on which is a reputation management or social media monitoring tool. You can actually get a FREE 14 day Trial by going here:

This is actually one of the first posts we will be doing on occasion to help businesses know about which tools are good to implement for their business , what the benefits are, and how to use them. We will be recommending products to try based on what we have used that actually work. So please get started with Free Online Reputation Monitoring today!

As businesses constantly struggle to get leads, some companies have embraced Social Networking, SEO, and Social Media to assist with lead generation. This is something we stumbled upon over a year and a half ago and have been helping businesses develop their own online lead generation system or workflow to embrace this cost effective strategy. We have helped numerous companies develop a strategy around creating value for the community, building relationships, all while collecting information to maintain communication about helpful products and services. This enables prospects to do business with them or purchase from them when THEY are ready. This is the less obtrusive approach that is continually being embraced by the companies that are getting ahead.

The 3 model companies using social media for business development include Zappos, Dell, and Whole Foods.

Here is The Top 10 Ways to Use Social Networking and Social Media for Business Development:

1. Be where the People Are

2. Focus on Customer Service

3. Be Helpful

4. Be Courteous

5. Be Kind

6. Demonstrate your product/ service knowledge or expertise

7. Share a current customer’s story that relates

8. Kindly ask for referrals when appropriate

9. Connect with them everywhere to stay on top of mind

10. Online business development makes lead generation fun

Any tips you’d like to offer that we may have forgotten? Also please remember to subscribe to our blog (top right where it says subscribe to our feed) and Re-tweet this post for those in your network that might find these quick tips helpful. I’m sure they would appreciate it.

Are you involved in social media?  Are you in Marketing?  If you are, you have probably heard the term brand association.  Brand association is a growing trend in social media.  Many people are starting to capitalize on this while growing their social influence or social capital.  Yes even twitter has a grading system and measures your influence.  Because of this, personal branding is becoming a necessity in todays digital economy and I wanted to share with you my take on the topic.

First, when I think of personal branding, I refer to personal branding expert for generation Y  Dan Schawbel (click his name for link to his Blog) who I had the pleasure to meet at Gravity Summit last year in Boston.   Here is the blog post With a video I did interviewing Dan on online branding tips for small business: http://bit.ly/2jYUl Celebrities and other influential people in the online and offline world leverage brand association and capitalize on this everyday.

Now more than ever thanks to social media, we will continue to see this trend gain more popularity with big brand names endorsing people who build up their social capital, social influence, and trust with their audience.  Why should you pay attention to this?  Because thanks to social media, this levels the playing field and creates new opportunities that did not exist before social media.  Now just average people can possibly take advantage of this new opportunity to use social media to associate themselves with brands they are passionate about and capitalize thanks to their brand evangelism.   Affiliate programs do a lot of this too.  Thanks to our personal stories and testimonials (being transparent of course) the smart companies and brands will start reaching out to key influencer’s active in social media and social networking.  This is continually happening and this trend will continue growing so get involved, IF you don’t mind being transparent of course.

Here is my video that explains brand association in more detail.  I am interested in hearing from you-  what are your brand associations? Hint- follow products and services you are passionate about.  If you are not involved now with social media and associating yourself with products and services you are passionate about, then I suggest you start.  Do you see anything wrong with social media and brand association?  Have you been able to capitalize on this yet? I’m interested in hearing your stories.

If you are from Infiniti and intertsted in speaking more about the endorsement- I can be reached via email at snsdjf@gmail.com

Happy Branding!

Now that you have a strong sense of who a social media person really is, let’s fast forward to 2011.

You have 3 options for your social media marketing needs:

Do it yourself
Hire an agency
Hire an employee to do it for you

Now here are 3 reasons to work with us:
Results
Revenue
Relationships

Still need more info?  It is important to fully understand that Social Media is about people. And people care about WIIFM or “What’s in it for me?” or lately with the trend in real-time, “What’s in it for me Right Now?” Traditional forms of marketing and especially companies still struggle with this, which is why I have decided to start 2010 off with a very simple explanation and clarify what a social media person is.

1. Social media is about people. And people buy stuff right? That may be so, BUT, what’s also important about social media is it connects people to similar and common interests. The key take away here is still and always has been throughout societies, that engaging, interacting, and building relationships is key. That is why some people are just natural when it comes to social media because they like to help people (and help businesses understand social media)

2. Think of social media and your participation in these social settings as prospecting for the 21st century, which if you ask any sales person, does take a lot of work. But even in your personal lives, you must constantly be improving your relationships and communication right?

3. The last secret here is to think of the social media person as the director of an orchestra. You know, the guy in the orchestra who holds the baton. This composer sets the rhythm, the flow, and leads the team to a successful production of fine tuned music. The social media person does the same for a businesses online presence; guiding the targeted traffic into the various channels. It is an art combined with a science.

Would you agree or disagree? Any analogies you have in mind that you would like to add? Feel free to let us know any questions you might have about your social media campaigns. We’ve helped many companies in this area and are here for you.

Are you ready to start seeing RESULTS with your social media efforts? Call for a FREE 10 minute Assessment at 760-576-4653 and see if you qualify to partner with us on your next project- you won’t be disappointed.