Hi and thanks for visiting. I have written this article for a magazine. I would welcome any comments and opinions.

The article is an introduction to social media for beginers.  I also have a problem and that is that the article is currently 2,100 words long when the limit is 1,200.  So all input is welcome and I look forward to reading it. Feel free to contact me should you wish +442032862306 or +447900183311 or jonniejensen@tmandi.co.uk.

What is social media and what does it have to do with your business?

In case you hadn’t noticed the internet has changed. It is no longer just searching for something and then reading it or buying it. Now we connect with people and companies. We share our pictures on Facebook and our interests on blogs. We comment on other people’s articles and shout about poor customer service. It started with Friends Reunited, then MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and now Twitter. In actual fact there are many, many more and today they are defined as social media. But still these are just for fun right? They’re for DJ’s and kids and you are asking “what do they have to do with my business?”

The answer is they are the future of your business success. Nearly 19 million UK residents are on Facebook, 4 million are on Twitter. It has overtaken porn as the No 1 internet activity. Your customers and prospects are using these services. In this article we are going to look at how you can get started using social media and provide insights for your success.

You’ve already got a website – so what?

It is no longer enough to just have a website. The search engines are pulling in results from these services and are more likely to find content about you than they are your website – content that you won’t have written. If you want to influence the purchasing decisions of people then you need to be using social media to build a strong online presence. Social media platforms build awareness, boost business and serve as low cost/no cost marketing tools. When people search for your name or your business they will expect to find you on Facebook, see your latest blog article, your Twitter history, what you have been saying in forums relevant to their needs, and most importantly what others are saying about you. It is all about establishing trust.

People base their decisions on your reputation and recommendations. It harks back to the days when people only did business with local suppliers and people they knew. Whilst those communities may not exist or be relevant anymore, opportunities for businesses in online communities are booming. This recession and the backlash against corporations is the chance for start ups and small business to create relationships with customers, provide better more relevant services and beat the big name companies. It is happening and they are using social media. The case study with Sally Asling of SurreyLetsOnline illustrates (see box).

What exactly is social media?

Ultimately it is just a buzz word for today’s internet. On Wikipedia social media is defined as “a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. It’s a set of technologies, tools and platforms facilitating the discovery, participation and sharing of content. It is transforming monologues (one to many) into dialogues (many to many) and the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. Social media has become extremely popular because it allows people to connect in the online world to form relationships for personal and business”. Get your head round that if you can. To you and me it is a fancy way to describe the billions of conversations that people are having online right now.

That may well explain what it is but why is it important for your business?

There are two main reasons why social media is important for your business. The first is that it supports the promotion of your website on search engines. Google and the other search engines love social media sites because the content is conversational and therefore rich in everyday keywords – words that people use when they search for you. Having your own blog is the best place you can start.

Your great content will then be linked to by other people in their blogs and Twitter messages and on bookmarking sites like Digg and Delicious. In basic terms it is this is how Google works, it finds relevant content and then rates it by how many other sites link to it. The more content you have on the internet, the more you will be found. Better still, your marketing efforts on the internet never die. It all references back to you and done right, will provide a fistful of reasons for someone to choose you over your competitors. This is known as ‘long tail marketing’.

The second is reach. Your network of contacts is no doubt useful to you but it is nothing compared to what your online connections can do for you. Simply explained; if you tell 200 contacts your message and they then share it with 200 contacts who then do the same, your message will have reached 800,000 people. That is why it is important for your business.

Case Study – Sally Asling of SurreyLetsOnline

Sally Asling of SurreyLetsOnline started her business in March ’09. She came from a corporate background and was sceptical about social media. Twitter was for “radio DJ’s” and she “didn’t like Facebook”.

Q: What services do you use?

I have my own blog plus Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Ecademey and PropertyTribes.

Q: How did you get started?

Started using Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter and connecting content from GumTree with those. The conversations I had on Twitter with various people led to other referrals and I started strategic placement of Tweets like “I need a one bed flat in Guildford.”

Q: What kind of business have you generated?

It’s not always first hand. I had a person contact me from Sydney who had been retweeted a message. After checking me out on Google they let a flat without even seeing it. It can be very random. Since I started in April I have made about £7,000 directly from Twitter.

Q: What piece of advice would you give anyone just starting out?

Write a personal profile of who you want to be. Think of those words to create a catch phrase. Link that into everything you do. Keep all your sites consistent. Do it bit by bit. You can’t do it all at once – it will frighten you. Do one or two things at a time and add to it. NEVER EVER use it to rant about something.

www.surreyletsonline.co.uk
twitter.com/SurreyLets

Let’s Get Started

The single most important thing to remember with social media is integrity and being genuine. Your success will be based on the trust you develop with your community. Thomas Power at ecademy.com describes it as being “open random and supportive” and encourages you to “share your knowledge and your contacts freely”.

1. Define your objectives

Establish what you want to achieve. This should include what you stand for or what you want to become known for. Not only will this help you focus on your audience and content but most importantly it will help you measure if it is working.

2. Start listening

Go out and look for the people who are talking about your products and services. This will help you decide which social media tools to use.  Just search on Google blogsearch, Socialmention.com and Twitter. Start a spreadsheet or simple database to note where these conversations are happening and to record info on who is out there in the space. You might like to add the RSS feed of the search results to a Google Reader account so you can easily revisit all the content.

3. Choose your tools

You don’t need to use every service to start with. Pick a couple and make sure you complete your profile with a good quality picture, honest information, a link to your site and keywords about your service. Chris Brogan (chrisbrogan.com) describes the process as having a Homebase, Outposts and Passports. I recommend you visit his site for more information.

Your home base – this is where you focus all your own content and where you drive people back to. For businesses this will mostly be your website. Make sure it has a blog or news section and update it regularly. I recommend you use Wordpress to create your whole site or to add a blog to an existing site. If you want an easy web based option go for Blogger, Wordpress.com or Typepad.

Outposts – these are the places away from your home base where you maintain a presence but split your time between interacting with people there and directing them back to your home base.  There are many to choose from. You could research some industry specific sites or choose from these recommendations:

• twitter.com – easy to find people, easy to follow conversations and easy to connect. If you follow the etiquette, share your knowledge and make sure no more than 2 in 10 of your messages are sales based you will have success here.
• facebook.com – if you’re willing to mix life and work, Facebook offers a rapidly growing user base (over 700,000 a day at this writing), and many ways to interact. With recent improvements to business pages and fan pages, Facebook seems to have even more new features on the horizon that will help.
• youtube.com – with over 13 billion videos served a month, ignoring the presence point of YouTube as a potential place to build community is no longer prudent. Video isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it might be of value to create at least a few video assets to start the conversation.
• linkedin.com – this isn’t an online resume; it’s a living business connections network. Complete your profile, upload your connections and join relevant groups. When you get active in the discussions and Q&A sections you will raise your profile and generate referrals.

Passports – these are the other social media sites that you register with and add a detailed profile to. They can make your social media presence more effective and simple to manage. See my blog post on Passports for more information http://tmandi.co.uk/passports

4. Make some content

Now you are ready to make some content. Use your Listening results to see what people are talking about. The best indication of what is popular is to see which articles and discussions have the most amount of comments. It’s good to reference others – always include a link to them if you do. Conversely if there is a subject you know is hugely unrepresented then this could really help you stand out. Whichever route you pick, be consistent with your topics and always look to forward the conversation. As you build up a following they will come to depend on you. It is fine to expand just don’t forget why people followed you in the first place.

5. Promote your content

Once you have put your content on your Homebase you need to use your Outposts to promote it. You can use your status updates to let people know what you have just written but don’t depend only on this. Find other blog’s, forums and groups where you could sensibly talk about the subject as part of an existing conversation. It is fine to then offer your article as a reference. If you are starting a topic then do just that. Open a discussion that invites people to debate the subject. This is much more interesting than just telling people to read your opinion on a subject.

6. Measure results

A negative that is often targeted at social media is that its benefit is not easy to measure. I disagree. So long as you are measuring all the available metrics then you can attribute value to your efforts.

• Number of followers/subscribers
• Referring URL’s to your website and blog
• Number of inbound links to your website
• Number of times your message has been re-Tweeted
• Views on your video
• Total comments
• Number of times a Twitter link has been clicked
• Revenue growth

There are many more. Any result measured over time will give you an idea of success. If your not measuring the traffic to your website then set up Google Analytics – it’s free!

Just get started

It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start. You can get more guidance from my blog or by searching through Google for other peoples help. Be yourself, add value to others and don’t say anything you might regret in the future.

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Jonnie Jensen is a digital marketing consultant. He provides training on social media. He also works with businesses to help them match their internet marketing with their business objectives. He makes it simple and helps you succeed. To work with Jonnie email jonniejensens@tmandi.co.uk or call 02032862306

www.tmandi.co.uk