Social Media Strategies for Forward Thinking Businesses

In case you missed it, here is the guest post I wrote for the popular Chicago blog SpinSucks in early September (A Big Thanks to Gini Dietrich and Daniel Hindin for having me!).  I wanted to repost it here in it’s entirety because of how important this topic is.  If you are relying too heavily on Facebook for your marketing strategy, you might reconsider. I look forward to your feedback on this post and would love to hear how you are integrating Facebook into your overall social media strategies.

Businesses are flocking to Facebook these days, and with more than 500 million users, it’s easy to see why. But we must be careful not to let Facebook become the wizard of our Oz.

Nearly everyone wants to direct your attention to Facebook. Small and large businesses are spending lots of money to get us all to their Facebook pages, stay awhile, and engage. Facebook, Facebook, Facebook. It’s where we all want to be, all the time.

Or is it?

Is Facebook so great that we don’t even need our own websites anymore?

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Think you know everything there is to know about Facebook? Maybe you do! But did you know this social media tip?

A person can have only one personal Facebook account but unlimited business pages?

Facebook regulations require that each person have only one account that is listed in a personal name (not in the name of a business).  However, you can add Facebook “pages” for most businesses in addition to your personal page.  A facebook page functions much like your personal page.

Facebook calls this feature “pages”.

This feature is listed under “Advertising” at the bottom of all Facebook pages.

Example:

http://www.facebook.com/squaremartini

http://www.facebook.com/vw

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Social media has created a competition of artificial relationships and in doing so created the impression that having more contacts, followers, or friends on a social media network means that person has more influence. Makes sense right? I once met a witty man with a shirt stating, “Facebook Friends: 500, Real Friends: 2.” Once you stop laughing, I should draw your attention to the fact that this actually matters for business. Watch this week’s Social Media Minute as Alan Underkofler explores this social media myth a bit further:

So dedicated followers of the Social Media Minute remember these two things:

1. More followers does not mean greater influence. What matters is quality connections and active correspondence.

2. Make sure that you too search for and become a follower of people and things that you are interested in and want to be known for.

I hope you enjoyed the Social Media Minute and I look forward to your thoughts and comments. Please subscribe to the Square Martini Media YouTube channel and if you have a question you would like covered on the Social Media Minute, let us know by giving us your Social Media Minute Question.

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I am sure you have heard of that little search engine called Google, but there’s another easy and powerful tool that so many people aren’t taking advantage of yet.   Have you started using Google’s oh so powerful cousin the Google Alerts?  If you haven’t, stop waiting!

What is a Google Alert?  According to our friends at Wikipedia Google Alerts is a content monitoring service or what we call in social media, a listening tool.  Google Alerts will automatically notify you of new content published online as news, in a website, blog, or video based on your key word or phrase.

Google Alerts makes a users life easy by sending the results directly to their email account or rss feed. It may seem strange to get the results sent to email when the user could in theory receive similar results from a Google search, but this tool allows you to catch up on important information as its appears online in real time. This can really be convenient for two reasons.

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Host Angie Swartz welcomes Jeff Rago to talk about his new web series, “In Bed With”. They discuss all the important topics from Twitter to video blogs. Listen in for some advice you can’t afford to miss!

Twitter Names: @jeffrago,  @AngieSwartz

Twitter Talk Radio, hosted by Angie Swartz, is recorded live in the WSRadio studios in sunny San Diego! You can listen to the podcast by clicking on the links below and sign up for our RSS feed at the bottom of the page.

Each week on Twitter Talk Radio, we spend an hour broken up into four segments when we cover:

• Guests Offering Great Case Studies and Examples of How People and Businesses are Using Twitter and Social Media for Business
• Useful Tips for Listeners on Twitter for Business

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“I just got a new iPhone today!” “Oooh, ahhhh!” the room replies. Yes, iPhones may seem to be the new expensive toy on the block but it is also a very important social media tool. So if it wasn’t you with the opening statement, “I just got a new iPhone” then you are out of the loop! And this is a loop you can’t afford to be out of!

In case you were unaware, iPhones and Droids have access to all the social media sites that a computer would have, but it has the convenience of size. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube, and even your email are all at the tip of your fingers- literally!

Angie Swartz, the proud owner of a Droid, explains how it helps business through social media in this week’s Social Media Minute.

Here’s a quick review of Angie’s points:

1. iPhones and Droids make it easy to fit social media into your busy day because your phone is with you all the time.

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Do you have a LinkedIn profile? Do you wonder why this social media tool is just as important as all the other ones? Well, we have answers about why every strong social media strategy must include LinkedIn.

For starters, LinkedIn is the number one business network.  LinkedIn has over 50 million users all over the globe with every Fortune-500 company represented. This is a network you cannot afford to miss.  LinkedIn is easy to setup and forget.  But just like you forget LinkedIn, so do all your LinkedIn Connections.  Your connections forget about you.

Social Media Tip: One simple step to insure you maintain top of mind awareness with your connections is to Update Your Network Status on LinkedIn.  This update will be listed on your connections home page as well as the weekly email LinkedIn sends to its users.  LinkedIn asks the question: What are you working on now?

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Host Angie Swartz welcomes Gini Dietrich to talk about the many uses of social media. They discuss all the important topics from Twitter to video blogs. Listen in for some advice you can’t afford to miss!

Twitter Names: @GiniDietrich,  @AngieSwartz

Twitter Talk Radio, hosted by Angie Swartz, is recorded live in the WSRadio studios in sunny San Diego! You can listen to the podcast by clicking on the links below and sign up for our RSS feed at the bottom of the page.

Each week on Twitter Talk Radio, we spend an hour broken up into four segments when we cover:

• Guests Offering Great Case Studies and Examples of How People and Businesses are Using Twitter and Social Media for Business
• Useful Tips for Listeners on Twitter for Business

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Ahhh… Finally!! Labor Day is almost here.  Time to start planning for a long weekend to say goodbye to another great summer.

You’ve been working hard so prepare for a relaxing break but before you go plop down in your lawn chair, there are some things you’ll need: sunglasses, flip-flops, and a Hawaiian Martini. We can’t all go to Hawaii on our holiday but we sure can treat our taste buds to an exotic drink. Sip that fruity, fun drink and mull over the things that make your vacation day perfect.  What words would you use to describe that luscious holiday?

Remember these things when you go back to work…not only as a happy memory (though we’re sure those are nice too) but because you need these words! Language is a very important part of advertisement and business.

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