Why does your business need Social Media to stay ahead?

Q: WHY does my company need social media?
A: Let us help you understand how it can help your business

Social Media Marketing (SMM) is an effective way for you to interact with new and existing customers and provide value for your brand.

With new competitors emerging daily, your brand must keep customers engaged. Today, social network use is one of the top 4 online activities.

Social media marketing is an unobtrusive marketing platform that allows buyers to interact with your brand at a personal level.

By tracking comments and feedback on social networks your company can determine if customers are happy with your products and services.

This vital, direct-from-consumer data will help your company predict and track emerging buyer trends. If you haven't yet considered this type of marketing, you're already behind the competition.

visit the MMCG website for more help with your social media needs

Social Media Savvy and Marketing your Business

METRO MEDIA CONSULTING GROUP:  Strategic Social Media for the 21st Century

Excellent article from Mashable - one of my all-time favorite blogs  -  about how social media know-how can really give your business maximum exposure and search engine optimization for the 21st century.   Excerpt and link below: 

Here at Metro Media Consulting Group,  we have the savvy and the expertise to help put together strategic social media packages which include professional writing services.  

  It is easy enough to understand that social media venues such as Twitter,  Linked-In,  and Facebook can help with your online business profile and getting the word out,  but for a truly strategic social media campaign,  experts at MMCG are eager and willing to give you that extra  comprehensive and well-thought out package which will give your enterprise the advantage and edge.  

1. Facebook

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Facebook offers exceptional, low cost marketing opportunities for small business. Facebook now has over 300 million users, and while that seems like an outrageous number for small businesses to be targeting, Facebook offers a very powerful platform on which to build a presence. If you’re not already active on Facebook; you should get started right away.

Basic Strategy: If you haven’t signed up for Facebook yet, you absolutely should as soon as possible. Once you’ve signed up, you should also consider securing your company’s username. Be aware, however, that if you reserve your company name for your personal account, you won’t be able to use it for your Business Fan Page (more on those in the Advanced Strategy), so you may want to create a Page before registering your company’s name. Fan Pages have special rules regarding usernames, which you can read here.

You should do one other thing: search for your competitors and evaluate their Facebook presence. What types of Pages have they built? How many fans or “friends” do they have? Spend 15 minutes (per competitor) looking at their posts, photos and/or videos to understand how they’re using Facebook.

Advanced Strategy: You may already have a personal Facebook account, but how do you extend that presence for your business? You have several options. You can register a Business Account – which is designed for a very simple presence on Facebook. There are many limitations on such accounts (read the FAQ here), however, so you’ll most likely prefer to have a Business Fan Page. A Business Fan Page lets you create a page where customers or fans of your business can register as a “fan” — expanding the presence of your business (because your updates will also flow to their pages). You might also want to consider running hyper-local ads on Facebook.

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2. Twitter

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Twitter has grown tremendously over the past year. For some small businesses, it offers an incredible marketing platform. BusinessWeek’s recent profile of 20 ways businesses use Twitter might give you some ideas about how you can leverage Twitter for your business.

Basic Strategy: If you haven’t signed up on Twitter yet, you should sign up today and reserve an account in the name of your business. While you might ultimately tweet in your own name, you’ll want to have the option to tweet from a business account. More importantly, you don’t want your competitors to register your business name. Twitter has put together a simple guide to help you understand what Twitter can do for business. You can also check out Mashable’s Twitter Guide.

Next, you should spend 15-30 minutes on Twitter’s homepage, doing basic searches to become familiar with the type of content available on the service. For example, if you are operating a small gift basket business, do some searches for various terms and phrases such as “gift basket,” “gifts,” “gift basket business,” etc. You should also search for the names of your competitors to see whether they’re on Twitter and if they are, how they’re using it. And don’t forget to search for your small business name – your customers may already be talking about you! Once you become comfortable with the content that’s already available and how your competitors are using Twitter, you can begin thinking about a strategy for how you’ll leverage Twitter for your business.

Advanced Strategy: To truly leverage Twitter, you’ll want to learn and use a few more advanced tools. This includes desktop and mobile Twitter clients like TweetDeck, Seesmic, and Tweetie. Desktop clients give you more flexibility and more control over your Twitter strategy than you’ll have on the Twitter website. Among other things, you’ll be able to pre-define searches (so that you can monitor certain keywords, including your business name) and group people you follow so that you can minimize the noise and focus on the real content. You might also consider using a web tool like Twitterfall, which will allow you to define (and color-code) various custom searches that you can review from time to time, and also to follow trending topics. For example, I use Twitterfall to identify helpful graphic design and industrial design resources to share with the crowdSPRING community.

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3. Company Blog

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Although there’s more attention focused today on social networks than on company blogs, blogs continue to offer great value for small businesses.

Basic Strategy: At a minimum, you should consider reserving a domain name for your blog – if you don’t already have a custom domain for your business. If you’re comfortable enough to set up your own blog, that’s generally the best way to proceed – although this requires a bit more technical knowledge (many hosting providers offer a 1 step easy setup for blogs that will automatically install WordPress for you). You can also setup a blog directly at WordPress.com (it’s easier to do, but you don’t have full control over everything that you would on your own site).

One easy alternative is to set up a simple blog at Posterous – a place to post stories, photos, videos, MP3s, and files. There are pluses and minuses to all of these options – you should take some time to compare them and do what makes sense for your business. I caution you only about spreading yourself too thin.

Advanced Strategy: Now that you’ve decided to start or improve your small business blog, how do you build an audience for it? It all starts with great content. Decide on a focus for your blog, and write awesome content that people will enjoy. For example, some months ago at my company, we decided that we wanted to write more about small business issues, so we’ve been writing original posts focusing on issues affecting small businesses. Think about your expertise and more importantly, think about the things that you’re interested in writing about. A blog requires a long term investment of time (and resources), and you don’t want to be stuck writing about things that bore you.

You’ll also want to consider how you can make it easier for your readers to help promote your content. For example, install helpful plug-ins, such as a TweetMeme button, which makes it easy for people to retweet your posts on Twitter. Don’t be afraid to experiment with plugins to add to the functionality of your blog, but keep it simple. You want to keep the blog focused, and easy for your readers to use.

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4. LinkedIn

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LinkedIn is a business oriented social network for professionals, and it’s huge, with nearly 50 million users from over 200 countries.

Basic Strategy: Once again, you’ll want to at least reserve your business name (or your personal name) so that others can’t use it. Similar to the way you might start exploring Facebook and Twitter, you should look around on LinkedIn to see how your competitors are using the service. You might also look up your customers and connect with them.

Advanced Strategy: LinkedIn has some powerful features that most people don’t use. For example, you can encourage your customers, clients or vendors to give you a “recommendation” on your profile. Recommendations are useful because they’ll make you and your business more credible with new customers. If you’re a roofer, for example, ask your customers to recommend you after a successful job. You’ll find such recommendations useful – particularly since your LinkedIn profile will come up high in search engine results. I recommend that you read Chris Brogan’s post from last year discussing the elements of a good LinkedIn recommendation.

Another strategy involves the many subject matter groups on LinkedIn. Find some groups that have a connection to your small business and become involved in the conversations. Answer questions when you can, and help to establish yourself as knowledgeable about specific topics related to your business. There are many small business and general marketing groups that will be very useful resources for you, and if there isn’t a group that interests you, consider starting one.  READ MORE @ http://mashable.com/2009/10/28/small-business-marketing/

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How to engage prospective online clients

Image via CrunchBase

Establish a schedule to keep your portfolio updated.


Notice this piece of advice isn’t just to “make an online portfolio” or “update your portfolio”. The secret to maintaining an impressive online portfolio is to make a plan on how and when you’ll update your content.  


Whether you decide to update every week, every month, or every time your finish a project, you absolutely need to get into a routine.  That way, when clients come to view your work, they always see the latest and the greatest content.


 This is an important thing because you always want to be displaying your current projects.  Maintain a level of professionalism in ALL your social networks.  There’s no problem with having a private face book page where you can rant about your in-laws or coworkers.  But NEVER use foul language, complain about clients or projects, or act annoying or irritable via your online networks.  Remember, your potential clients could be (and probably are) reading what you tweet.  For all they know, you are what you tweet. 


  Keep it professional and clean.Make your profiles and web site very personalHave you ever wondered why social media has grown to such great heights of popularity? It’s because people like connecting with real people.  


Make your twitter profile, face book page, website and more very personal by adding well-written, friendly bios, and including an image of your face.   The more people feel like they will be connecting with a real person when they contact you for design work, the more likely they are to call.


  Remember, your website is a direct reflection of who you are as a business person.  Include positive reviews.  A great way to give a good first impression online is to offer reviews from previous clients. You can work this out however you’d like.  Include a form on your website, ask past clients to make comments, or mark unexpected positive tweets about your work as favorites and then link to your favorite page from your web site.

Related articles

• Handling Unprofessional Clients (xemion.com)
• Tips for Using Blogs, Twitter and Facebook to Find New Clients (blogs.sitepoint.com)
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• Use Social Media to Build Relationships Before the Pitch for Ad Agency New Business (fuelingnewbusiness.com)
• Number 10, how to make your fans love your brand! (007helen.wordpress.com)

MMCG can help with all your social media needs: Strategic Social Media for the 21st century

Image via Wikipedia

Metro Media Consulting Group can help with all your Social Media Marketing Needs :  "Strategic Social Media for the 21st Century" 

As set forth by Web Hosting Masters,  these are the top 5 strategic methods of social media to give a mega-boost to your business SEO:  

5 Top Social Media Marketing Strategies You Should Be Using

1. A Facebook fan page

If you have a business, whether it is all online or not, then you need to have a Facebook fan page. This is how you can communicate with your current clients daily and build more business. Plus you can add an icon to your website andblog to help you get more fans on your page.

The Facebook fan page is one of the best ways to keep all your clients in one place and let them know what you are doing. You can get repeat business from announcing special pricing, sales, and new products with your page as well. It is one more reminder for your clientele that you are out there and ready to work for them.

2. A Twitter profile

Have you become a part of the Twitter craze? If not, then you should be building your profile as soon as you finish reading the rest of these tips. You could even stop right now and go get a profile up and ready to go, and then come back to the final three tips here. Twitter is a very powerful website and you need to be using it.

Twitter will allow you to create a profile for your business and as you get followers you can gain branding, exposure, and traffic to your website, Facebook fan page, and blog. This is a great way to keep in touch and let your followers know what you are doing as well.

3. The outsourcing strategy

If you really want to use one of the best social media marketing strategies and gain exposure and backlinks, then you need to consider outsourcing or hiring a service to help you get more backlinks fast. Not all of the social media sites are like Facebook and Twitter. Some are considered social bookmarking sites and they are very powerful.

You can hire a service or a person that will bookmark all of your webpages, blog posts, your Twitter page, and even your Facebook fan page on these social bookmarking sites. This can give you a ton of different backlinks that have a good amount of power. This will help you rank better on search engines and get more traffic.

4. Adding icons to your website and blog

Another one of the top social media marketing strategies is to add the icons for each social media and social bookmarking site to your blog and website. This will allow all of your visitors the opportunity to share your posts and information on all of the different social websites.

Imagine if just 10% of your visitors shared your blog posts or webpages on their Facebook and Twitter account. This could bring you in a ton of traffic. Plus if they share it, then their friends can share it, and their friends, friends can share it, and so on. This can become very powerful if you use it correctly.

5. Combining all the different social media marketing strategies

If you really want to gain backlinks, traffic, exposure, and branding for your company, website, or blog, then you may want to use all of the different social media marketing strategies together in a full social marketing plan. This could help you get a ton of exposure and backlinks, which will make your site more powerful for the long run.

Why are Social Media Marketing Strategies so Powerful?

Many of those that are on the internet are on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Stumbleupon, FriendFeed, MySpace, and many of the other social sites that are out there. Some people actually get all their news from some of the social bookmarking sites and some people spend hours upon hours every single day on sites like Facebook.

This means that if you are in front of them in any way on these sites they will remember you better and your brand can be built. This will make your business, your website, and your blog more powerful. Social media marketing strategies are incredibly powerful and you need to have a plan to use them.

Another thing to consider is that nearly half the people carrying a cellular phone have a smart phone now. These phones have instant access to the social sites that are most popular and apps for the ones that are not as popular. This means that if you send out a Facebook post to your fans many of them will get it instantly right on their phone.

Could you imagine the business you could get when you announce a huge sale or a new product this way? Many have seen huge returns on launching a product over social sites and have used this to boost profits right from the beginning. This is why social media marketing strategies are so important and powerful.SOURCE

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Strategic Social Media for the 21st Century

Image via Wikipedia  From   Social Media Biz ,  a list of some social media policies :

"Social media policies

Here are a number of publicly available social media policies and guidelines for corporations, nonprofits and media companies. In some cases, we've reproduced them on this site because of how often they get moved around or dislodged.*

If you're in the market for a Social Media Policy, contact Socialmedia.biz -- we're created several policies for well-known brands.

If you're devising a social media policy on your own, a good place to start is Best practices for developing a social media policy. Developed by the Society for New Communications Research, it addresses the major issues related to employee blogging but its principles can be applied to more recent forms of social networking as well. All such policies need careful tailoring, depending on what sector your company is in. For a boilerplate but useful social media disclosure policy, see disclosurepolicy.org.

Know of other policies we should add? Drop us a line or post a pointer in the comments below. Thanks!"  SOURCE :  SOCIAL MEDIA BIZ

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Social Media Events 2011

Image via WikipediaA calendar of upcoming Social Media Events :

http://www.socialmedia.biz/2011/01/03/2011-conferences-social-media-tech-marketing/

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Social Media Management : The Persona and Character

Image via Wikipedia

I came across a superb article regarding what makes for  fantastic social media management and the ability to achieve maximum search engine optimization. 

   It is by Mike Sweeney and it appears on Social Media Today.

Besides the excellent writing and content,  I am surprised and pleased at how many of these traits my partner Suzan Pleva has.  She is a serious social media professional,  and I would like to emulate some of her qualitites: 

From Sweeney's article:  

The Must Haves

• You are a marketer first, social media marketer second.

Social media marketing is just another marketing tactic in a pool of lots of marketing tactics. If you don’t understand how social media works with content marketing, SEO or email marketing, you’re simply not as qualified as the next candidate who does.

• You are a very good writer.

Some argue that writing has become less important in a world of scanners, skimmers and tweeters. On the contrary, writing is more important than ever.

• You understand that content drives social media marketing.

Social media conversations can be very fruitful, but conversations plus engaging content is the formula that takes your social media efforts to the next level.

• You embrace the “social” aspect of social media marketing.

You have to like reaching out to people and engaging in conversations, albeit conversations that are a bit different than the ones you might have in your living room. I don’t care if you know how to use every Twitter application in the universe; if you don’t start with a passion for learning about people, you’ll eventually grow tired of this position.

• You know or want to learn the ins and outs of social media properties.

You have to possess a natural curiosity and penchant for exploring the nooks and crannies that others simply don’t pay attention to, because with social media, you never know where your audience is lurking.

The Nice-to-Haves

• You move quickly but with a defined purpose.

Social media is a fast-moving game, but fast cannot turn into sloppy.

• You are a real self-starter.

I hear the phrase “self-starter” at least once a day, and I only know a handful of true self-starters. If you are one of the real ones, you may have a place in social media marketing. In any industry or category that is still being defined, self-starters can secure an immediate advantage.

• You are not a diva (or the male equivalent).

Social media marketing is a team sport. Everyone has an ego, but if you want to play this role you’d better find a way to suppress it.

• You think strategically.

If you are able to articulate how social media fits into a broader marketing strategy and how it contributes to even broader corporate goals, you are golden.

Bonus Points

• You never call yourself a social media maven or guru.

Most social media mavens or gurus could never actually manage a social media campaign; they just play the super hero role in meetings.

• You come with a social media audience.

If you’re joining an organization and already have a social media following, you have a head start. That alone should not get you the job though.

For those of you who consider yourselves exceptional social media managers, what is missing from this list? For those of you who have hired social media managers, what separates the good candidates from the poor ones?

 Some more interesting banter on this topic ,  from Design Spike: 

• We like you if you know how to implement a strategic plan.
• We don’t like you if you just randomly start throwing stuff out & responding to g_d knows who about g_d knows what.
• We like you if you know how to monitor (no, not sucking up to Lisa & Marty, but they both rock this…take a look at their systems and try ‘em).
• We don’t like you if you ignore mentions or questions.
• We like if you if you try out the latest and the greatest to see what’s what.
• We don’t like you if you swear by all of them and think we should use ‘em all.
• We really really really like you if you are transparent and honest.
• We can’t even look you in the eye if you’re disingenuous, cheesy, salesy…you get the picture.

If you want a good job description for a Community Manager, check out Marty Weintraub’s blog post on the subject (um, heads up, we so think he’s the man.). And Jamie Lynn Morgan has a great quick blog repost on What Makes a Good Community Manager from 5to9 Branding.

So get out and find or create a great online social media or community manager. But look for honesty, ingenuity, brilliance, and integrity. Source 

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