Did you know that 80% of businesses involved in Social Media or what I have been referring to  since 2009 as “Social Business” have still not seen an increase in leads, revenue, or cost savings company wide?!  I know crazy right? Because of their weak social media management? Lack of tying business goals to social media or online marketing? Or how about not giving social business enough time? Or maybe not bringing in the right Social Media Specialist.  I have done a lot of social media management in San Diego and as businesses continue to struggle with “Change” I continue to deliver results. It’s not about the latest tool, or CMS system (Google it if you don’t know what it is) it’s about the 7 C’s to Social Business Success and it always will be.

To not overwhelm you with data, case studies, etc, lets just take one example of the facebook  marketing effect:

How would your business “Like” a 939% increase in reach to over 150,000 people in less than 3 weeks? 

Got Results?

If you are looking for help with your social media strategy, or not seeing results, then mossy on over to social media solutions for business and let me know what questions you have about tying these types of results to your social business efforts.  Cheers,

Justin “Results” French

Today’s Blog Post Sponsored By:

After being connected 3+ years to one of my favorite thought leaders in the social media space, Brian Solis and I finally had the opportunity to meet in Orange County at the Linked-OC event. We shared some laughs, he answered my questions, and I even got my copy of “End Of Business As Usual” signed that I had picked up at a local Barnes and Noble the first week it was out! Yes- I am a true Brian Solis fan but who wouldn’t be. Brian has been a huge inspiration to me and many others throughout their social media consulting journey and I did not miss this amazing opportunity to finally meet him in person. I wanted to thank him personally for all the valuable knowledge and insight he continues to share with the business community. His insights are always ahead of the curve.

Here are the Top 5 takeaways from Brian Solis at the Linked OC Social Media Event:

1. Meet in real life- Even though you may have connected with someone on-line, always take an opportunity to meet off-line as this will help strengthen the context of the relationship and create a deeper impact and emotional connection which can help reap huge benefits in your professional career. It’s sociology 101 people.

2. We are forever students- As Brian so rightfully mentioned in his presentation; these current times are trans-formative. Things are changing so quickly. I feel change is occurring in people not only personally but professionally. Embrace change. You must be constantly learning to stay relevant and current in today’s digital age OR risk being left behind. Life is a marathon so enjoy the music and March to the beat of your own drum.

3. Social Media is disruptive- just like Entrepreneurs. To get ahead in life, you MUST take an un-conventional approach. Conventional wisdom does NOT work anymore. You must think out-side the box, especially with your marketing. Just going to school, graduating, getting a job, and getting retirement after being with a company for 30 years is a RARE occurrence. This is now an exception to the rule, NOT the rule. The rule is to work your butt off doing something you love and make sure building a sustainable lifestyle you can be happy with at the end of the day saying you gave it your all each day before you go to bed.

4. Ask yourself and your clients- what defines success? How are you staying relevant to your connections on-line? How are you continually adding value? If you can’t answer these questions in your own life, you might have a hard time helping your clients see the social media success factors in their business. Think of yourself as a doctor. Ask questions. Really find out what impacts their business and help them to improve. Social Media Consultants have a rough job- convincing upper management, showing short term success even though it could take months to deliver ROI. If you are a social media manger or a social media specialist, you had better love what you do otherwise do something else and leave it to the professionals who are in the social media trenches every day. They eat, sleep, and breathe this stuff.

5. Big data is only valuable to you if you can translate it into decision making processes.  Word of mouth online generally is positive or negative. This sentiment can be measured. But data overload still exists in today’s business climate. The REAL question is how are you using this data to help make better decisions on product development, risk mitigation, client retention, etc. This word of mouth online trend is becoming more and more appealing to big brands and we will continue to see this space develop more and more over the coming years.

I hope you enjoyed this post.  Please share it with your social networks by using the buttons below.  Sharing is caring 😉
Have an amazing week-

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.   

Here is a Top 8 list of our Most Popular Posts for 2009 according to our tracking statistics on Hootsuite. You the community, clicked on these posts the most, so I put together a list of the most popular ones just in case you wanted to bookmark it or share it with your contacts (always appreciated)

Please help share these with the Business Community as I’m sure they will find these extremely valuable in preparing their strategy for 2010. This is in order of oldest post to the newest.

1. Top 5 Lessons Learned about Social Media, Social Networking, Twitter, and Business”

This is the post that really kick-started our renewed passion for consulting, except instead of providing trusted IT consulting, our TEAM shifted into providing trusted Social Media Consulting because we identified the trends of businesses needing a team of consultants to help guide them on this new medium which should now be part of their marketing mix. Social media has been added to the equation of all marketing departments, or at least should be and the budgets will finally be there for 2010.

2. 10 Keys for Small Business Success Using Social Networking

This post gave actual tips small businesses can implement right away and gained much popularity among the small business community.

3. How CEO’s Can Create A Blue Ocean Strategy And Save The Company Using Social Media

As we know, good leadership starts from the top and works its way down, yet now we have seen a more bottom up approach thanks to social media. I would suggest any executives still trying to wrap their head around social media, you may want to read this popular post I did and the video explaining how to create a blue ocean strategy using social media with some examples in layman’s terms.

4. Top 5 lessons learned in the trenches of social networking for business and social media consulting

This post discussed what life has been like in the trenches of providing social media consulting and strategies for companies to leverage with even some lessons we learned early on. A good refresher like this is much needed for the New Year.

5. Top 5 Lessons in Trust relating to Social Media and Social Networking

Especially in today’s economic climate, we are extremely reliant upon the trust we have built with our network and community, and we must constantly be cultivating these relationships. The book I would recommend you read is by a fellow social media evangelist Chris Brogan. The title of his book Trust Agents speaks for itself. Here is where you can get your copy: Remember- leaders are readers!

6. San Diego Small Business Fair- Social Networking 101 Slides

This post gives the actual presentation I did at the local San Diego business fair. We received some very good feedback on the content presented so I encourage you to view this post just in case you missed the live event.

7. Top 10 Reasons Businesses Should Embrace Social Media and Twitter To Survive in 2010

Here was another Top 10 list I had put together explaining why businesses will should be embracing social media more as part of their business strategy for 2010. It received over 800 hits so there should be at least a few good points that you may find beneficial.

8. What are the ABC’s of Social Media For Business?

It is important to know the foundation of social media for business development purposes, so these ABC’s explain some of our processes we use (transparency) in working with clients to establish principles to ensure a solid foundation.

Here is to a great 2010 and we at the SNSD team wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Justin R French

P.S. As your trusted advisor, In case you were looking for a cost effective tool to stay in touch with your customers, prospects, and community, you may want to consider starting 2010 off with a tool we use at SNSD called Aweber. You can sign up here for a FREE test drive:

Can You Have More Sales, Too?

Helping over 65,000 businesses like yours raise profits and build customer relationships using AWeber’s opt-in email marketing software for over 10 years.

Take a Free Test Drive today!

GaryVee, Me, and Robert @ Syrah in San Diego- book signing of CrushIt (Still finishing up)

Buy it here discounted:

In case you haven’t noticed, Entrepreneurship is on the rise. Especially what I call “Social Entrepreneurship”. Why? I will give you 3 simple reasons:

1. No such thing as job security anymore
2. Average employee tenure at a firm is only 2 years and a few months
3. People are tired of doing things they are not passionate about, and are seeing new opportunities and accepting more risk to do something they love and follow their passion (especially Generation Y)

What are your thoughts about the current trend in Entrepreneurship & Entrepreneurship being taught in business school? Agree or disagree? IBM embraces entrepreneurial minded people and formulates mini entrepreneurial teams to innovate, collaborate, and demonstrate products/ projects that create change and improvement over existing technologies. If there is one model company to follow its IBM. I have studied them for years, and they truly are an industry leader and we aspire to run our start-up the same way. For more on Entrepreneurship, please visit my blog “An Entrepreneurs Journey” here: The Journey Of An Entrepreneur Any comments? Do you agree/ disagree with my opinions? Let me know,

Thanks
Justin CEO Social Networking San Diego

Free? There is nothing FREE in this world as we know BUT if you don’t mind rolling up your sleeves, taking some notes, and working long hours then this may be the right opportunity for you to earn a FREE PhD using these FREE online tools and all your investing is your time. Not a penny more (except if you want to pay for some premium subscription services on some of these tools that help you listen better and teach you how to build systems) Times may be tough, but as business leaders and business professionals, we need to stay on top of education because at the end of the day, customers pay for our knowledge, experience and education and as consultants, we must stay up-to-date and constantly be learning.

I hear so often, “I don’t have time to do Twitter Justin, I have to run my business. Or I love this one,” My customers aren’t on twitter or social networking sites so we don’t need to get involved with that stuff.” Well ok, so I won’t sell you on the power of Twitter for your business anymore, or how building relationships in a virtual setting is just like networking at the local chamber. What I will try to sell you on is the importance of educating yourself on a new world- The Online world and how business has changed. If you don’t see that by now, I hope your still in business next year when we launch some new products that may help you stay ahead of your competitors online.

I can confidently say that with all the knowledge I have gained over the last 10 years of being an Entrepreneur and getting a degree while running small businesses, id like to give you a taste for the online education I received. This isn’t spending thousands of dollars with University of Phoenix or FullSail (Though Mira Costa College and the business program at Cal State San Marcos were hidden Jewels) for education, its just knowing where to look for the thought leaders, technology, listening, strategic thinking, and studying case studies.

Here are some of the listening tools I used to receive my PHD in online marketing for business over the last 4 years:

You Tube– I have watched hundreds of business videos on leadership, sales, marketing, CEO keynote speeches, Webinars, How To videos, technology conferences, start-up companies, etc. The point is YouTube can be used for educational purposes as well as entertainment, and there is plenty of great content out there which saves on gas and hotel expenses. Don’t forget savings from those pricey course fees. I can honestly say that a good portion of my learning relevant information to my industry (Business & High Tech) has been done using video and Google.

Small Business Trends– I have been subscribed to this site for longer than I can remember. Anita and her team have given me extremely valuable information in my journey as a small business owner over the years, and I continue to read the articles from this wealth of information. (Big thank you to Anita) Here is the link to this site (Click Here): Small Business Trends

Google Reader– I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used Google to find relevant information on a topic I was researching (I love to research, as we know, Leaders are Readers right?) Read a headline from one of my blog subscriptions, and was informed. As we know, knowledge is power and there is no better free tool than Google Reader (Google Alerts too)

Linked-In– At first I was skeptical about Linked-in (just like everything about on-line) but then I started engaging in the group discussions and realized how much valuable information you can receive from extremely successful people who have been in the trenches and have years of experience. I then would add my insights and the sharing of business experiences can help shape better decision making. 10 minds discussing an issue on business are better than 1 right? Linked-In was where I was introduced to the “Thought Leader” term online. If you have a passion about a particular area of business (find that group on linked-in), you want to demonstrate your expertise in your particular industry by sharing your insights and be the first to put out relevant information (first mover advantage) on a topic. Here is my Linked-in if you’d like to connect with me (but do me a favor when connecting, can you please mention what made you want to connect and how you see it being a mutually beneficial connection. This would help me out a great deal.

More topics to come tomorrow, I have been consulting for clients around the clock and am beat…..

What types of sites do you use to keep informed? What are some of your favorites? I’m interested in hearing your feedback- talk soon

Justin

P.S. We are launching a social media for business product soon so be on the look out