Now that we are in the year 2011 and social media continues to be a hot topic for people and businesses, I thought I would see where you are at in your social media journey.  In continuing to develop my own thought leadership in this space now for 2 plus years, one thing is for certain- the learning never stops.  And as you know, everyone has their own adoption curve when it comes to social media. Some more quickly than others. Some just talk theory. Some apply theory into action.  Some teach it. Some execute. Some sell.

Once you get involved and start engaging in social media for business or personal purposes, you will see these two worlds start to become blended together.  Some consider transparency in business and personal a separate thing.  Now with social media depending on how active you are no one is out of the limelight anymore.  Recruiters now use social media for hiring. News outlets are leveraging social media as a way to publish content for the changing landscape of media and charge premium subscriptions for premium content.

So my question for you in 2011 is how will you continue to adopt social media as part of your business strategy?  Is it fully integrated yet?  Are you still getting more educated first? Are you applying theories and testing with your business model? Have you been able to see the cost savings achieved from your efforts?

A funny yet ironic thing for me is that I used to run an IT consulting firm called Perfect Integration from 2002-2008. Now with our Social Marketing Agency, we are actually integrating social media as part of business strategies for firms to achieve much more cost effective marketing in ways they never dreamed while driving business results.  So I guess you could say the name “Perfect Integration” was a little early, and helped give form to  “Social Media Integration” which is what we do now.  We are living in exciting times my friends….

Continue your journey through the social media trenches and Godspeed ahead into 2011! Stay tuned because you won’t want to miss what we have in store for you 🙂

Happy New Year!

Justin Results French

looking for a job? You had better be on social networking and social media sites like facebook, twitter and linked-in otherwise you are getting beat by other applicants. Listen to someone I know, respect, and even met at Gravity Summit last year which took place at Harvard in Boston Dan Schawbel explain

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.   

Social Media Agencies are the newest of terms I have heard going around.  They usually have a combined offline and online approach to marketing and advertising but because of this new social media revolution occurring, social media agencies are coming to market.  The question is, how good are they?  Are they producing results for their clients?  Is their campaign on budget? Are they measuring results?  Our typical engagement is 9 months and this is the minimum time line i would suggest for a successful social media marketing campaign.

The internet has brought a tremendous change in our lives. Things all over the world are changing very fast, and people have to be on their toes to catch up with the changes in technology and media. The social media arena is just one vast area that has still not yet been tapped to its full potential. Opportunities are plenty, but unless you are aware of what social media agencies and social media consultants are about; you are not going to be able to use it!

Traditionally, social media was not considered a good market by agencies, but now times have changed. Marketers have now realized the positive aspects of using social media for marketing; and slowly but surely social media agencies are popping up. Social media campaigns are predicted to cause a great revolution online eventually, as 90% of the world’s population is online at one point of time or another.

At present, there are six different media that are used to support social media marketing and they are-

Social networking sites where individuals are free to build their own WebPages (personal profiles) and change the settings as they see fit. This allows them to be completely free about their individual personalities and thousands of people may popular pages and be influenced by their comments and ideas. A few of the more popular social networking sites are Myspace, Facebook, Linked-in and now my favorite twitter.

Blogs are another aspect where people can keep online journals with their personal ideas and thoughts about anything from products and services or opinions, but remember here that the value of the content to the audience is key.

Wikis are official pages hosted by Wikipedia but are open for editing and updating by the lay public. It serves as a communal store of information with over three million English articles.

Podcasts are available and a great source of advertising and spread of information through the internet.

Forums, communities and micro-blogging are the last three variants that allow large discussions to be held on several topics where thousands of people log in from all over the world. Twitter is the foremost leader in micro-blogging

Social media marketing companies can use these mediums to promote ideas or products and increase exposure of their product all over the world through a few simple click- throughs and a lot cheaper than traditional advertising such as radio and TV.  The returns on investment can be measured in a social media campaign, because basically social media is made up of people who frequently talk about what brands they like or dislike and what they buy and from where. An effective social media agency can maintain a brand presence in a social media campaign and can extract maximum benefit from a good social media commitment.

Social media or social marketing is about people and people buy things, its that simple.

What types of things do you look for in a social media agency?  Your feedback is much appreciated-

Justin

how can social networking help my business?

If i had a dollar for every time I was aksed this question form business people I would be a millionaire by now.  I’m not yet but I am on my way.  Why don’t you ask how social networking and social media has helped my early years idol MCHAMMER.  I don’t have my pants anymore, BUT we have something in common.  The use of social media and social networking for building our online business.

What business doesn’t want to increase traffic to their website, make money online, and have a constant lead generation system in place?

Making money online has become an art and a science that 80% of business people don’t understand. So I am starting to bridge the gap between technical and non-technical business people to help shift gears into new media marketing- how to market your business in the 21st century.

This ties together all social networking and internet marketing tactics into a proven “system” that gets results which is scalable over time.  It is like a snowball marketing effect. This internet marketing strategy has been developed by a team of business, technical, and marketing consultants who have degrees in business with a technical emphasis. The key to their success has been a full understanding of both business and technical know how and how to apply this knowledge to help businesses become successful and competitive on the internet in today’s competitive business landscape.

So if you are a twitter business person, or just a business person looking for answers to the internet puzzle, I promise you will enjoy this blog.

If you enjoy this content (and would like more), or are just a business person searching for news on twitter for business, you should contact us for a FREE Assessment at 760-576-4653 to see if your business qualifies to work with us.  We have a very unusual qualification process and only work with companies who understand the need for cost saving marketing strategeis that are organic, scale-able, and long term strategies.

I’m sure you have conducted marketing strategies that don;t work.  Have a look at what people are saying about our CEO Justin Results French

Social networking San Diego is an online marketing and social media marketing agency that helps generate awareness, leads, and sales for you business.  Social Networking – marketing your business in the 21st century and Twitter 101 for Business.