Allen & Lani Voivod

Social Media 101: Breaking It Down for the Busy NH Professional

Are you a tad overwhelmed by the tools, choices, details, lingo, sprawl factor, and relentless buzz of social media, social networking, and social marketing?

You're not alone.

Everywhere you turn, someone's yammering about Facebook Pages, Twitter feeds, LinkedIn connections, YouTube videos, and various combos of them all.

Respected news sources like CNN are sharing real-time "tweets" from viewers as part of their news commentary.

Billion-dollar brands and businesses - Target, Red Bull, Jeep, Barbie, Ticketmaster, Nike, American Idol - are amassing enthusiasts with content-rich and target-relevant Facebook Fan Pages.

Even members of the U.S. House and Senate are tweeting from the floor of the House Chamber as the President addresses the nation!

Sure, you can cast off the entire social media dog-and-pony show as utterly ridiculous and culturally asinine.

But as a NH business owner, entrepreneur, thought leader, marketing professional, consultant, or meandering sovereign forging ahead in this age of ideas and technology, why would you?

The Great Social Divide

Essentially, there are two types of professionals these days: Those who have jumped (or are jumping) into the social marketing game, and those who haven't (and won't). Don't be in the second group.

If you sincerely want to be in business, recruit-able, or relevant five years from now, 2009 is the year you have to take the plunge into the social waters. Forget about the "right way" or the "wrong way." The only "wrong way" is to end 2009 without some sort of presence on the top-tier social marketing sites, at the very least: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.

But ... But ... Why?

As of this writing, Facebook is the fourth most-visited site on the Internet. According to Alexa.com, five of the top eleven sites are social media sites, including YouTube, Wikipedia, MySpace, and Blogger. Twitter is #36 and climbing fast. LinkedIn is #96. Have a presence on any of these sites, and you become infinitely more findable, leveraging the power of the world's most dynamic minds, platforms, and algorithms.

Not to mention the fact that your competition is learning this stuff.

What's more, your Target Market is looking for you - or will be looking for you - in these forums. They're looking to connect, see who you really are, what you and your business are thinking about, what's behind the curtain, and what's in it for them.

As you likely know, people aren't sitting around trying to figure out ways to give you money. But they DO want to: learn, be entertained, find specific information, get more time, freedom, money, pleasure, and especially AVOID PAIN AND MISERY.

Help them do any or all of the above with the content you dish out on your highly-integrated, viral friendly, easily RSS-able social media platforms, and they'll reward you for it.

The #1 Rule and #1 Truth of Social Media, Marketing, and Networking

The #1 Rule of the social realm is simple: There are no rules.

For every Tom, Dick, and Harry who pontificate about what you must and must not do, what works and what doesn't, there are 100 times as many people doing it all, and making it work successfully for them.

"They" say: "Don't sell on Twitter!" But Dell has sold more than $1 million in computers through Twitter in 2009 so far.

"They" say: "You can't measure social media results!" But Jeremiah Owyang at Forrester Research says they're getting a measurable return on investment from their social media lead generation (though they're keeping the number a secret).

Comcast is generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in earned media value with free press coverage of their "Comcast Cares" social media efforts. Software company Intuit has cut their customer service costs with Web 2.0 community tools.

NH's own Katie Paine, hailed globally as the "Goddess of Measurement" and publisher of the "The Measurement Standard" blog, says you can unequivocally measure things like web traffic, search effectiveness, and quality of relationships in the social media sphere.

Even in our own company, we've added more than $20,000 to our bottom line so far this year thanks to social media, and expect to see a lot more in the months to come.

As in life, there are basic guidelines that will serve you well. Play nice with others. Be authentic. Give more than you take. Be conscious (and conscientious!) about what you put out into the world. (If you wouldn't want to see it on the cover of the NY Times, don't write it!)

And the simplest recommendation that becomes a struggle for too many people: Have FUN.

If it's painful, annoying, and overwhelming for you, take a step back and see what you can do to make it easier, and/or enjoy the ride. If that means automating, delegating, or outsourcing your efforts, so be it. For the sake of your long-term professional success, make it as easy as it can be, inject a bit of levity into your approach, get help when you need it, and trust the process.

Now, as for the #1 Truth ... whether you're a microbusiness owner or a Fortune 50 company, know this:

Creativity is your capital. Period.

The brainiacs building these platforms all say they're amazed by the countless ways users invent to apply these tools in order to fulfill their own objectives. You're not a victim of social media overload. These tools exist to serve you and your priorities.

You make the rules. You set your own limits. You create your own opportunities.

So, Where Do You Start?

First off, don't get hung up on what a "Social Media Marketing Strategy" is or isn't. The fundamental questions are much the same as for traditional marketing:

• "What are my goals?"
  
• "How will I measure success/progress toward my objectives?"
  
• "Is my audience there? (Or will they be?)"
  
• "Is my competition there? (Or will they be?)"
  
• "How much time and money am I budgeting for this?"
  

Set up a bare-minimum strategy. Make a plan. Learn as you go.

Truth is, using social media tools gets easier and makes more sense as you muddle your way through, pay attention to best practices of colleagues and competitors, find your own groove, invest in training and support, and most importantly, start seeing results.

And you WILL see results.

Results like more leads, boosts in web traffic, easier access to strategic partners, valuable feedback from Fans, Followers, and Connections, ramped-up biz visibility, increased sales, more inbound links and better search engine rankings, and seemingly inane chatter morphing into legitimate business opportunities.

With 300 million folks on Facebook, and hundreds of millions more on other social sites, chances are your next big biz break or synchronistic connection is just a click away.

Thank you for reading, and if you have any questions, bring 'em on!

Lani & Allen Voivod, co-owners and Content Lovers of Epiphanies, Inc. share powerful social marketing & success strategies with imperfect-preneurs, multi-million-dollar businesses, and mission-driven organizations through speaking, workshops, customized training programs, and consulting. Lani and Allen are "Expert Authors" on EzineArticles.com, have been quoted on Forbes.com, interviewed on Blog Talk Radio and NHPR, and recently designed and delivered the first-ever "A-Ha!" NH Social Media Business Summit, sponsored by PSNH in partnership with the state's Division of Economic Development and the "Stay, Work & Play" Initiative. Get their free Special Report, "37 Easy Ways to Boost Visibility, Revenue, and Results With Twitter," which reveals how to the leverage the power and potential of the world's fastest growing social network, at www.EpiphaniesInc.com/twitter.

QUESTION:  I want to get involved with the social media opportunities, but I'm wondering if I'll have the time to keep active on all the sites. I'm a small business owner and don't have money in the budget to hire someone to do it for me. Is there an easy way to it all the sites at once with one update? I look forward to your response.

ANSWER:  Staying active on multiple social media sites is a challenge we all have as small business owners. We've even been asked to help bigger organizations like the state's Division of Economic Development to eliminate redundancy and streamline their social media efforts.

The good news is, there are quite a few ways to LEVERAGE your time and content in social media.

RSS feeds are key.

"RSS" stands for "Really Simple Syndication." Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and many other social sites automatically generate RSS feeds. For example, if you have a blog (we use and recommend WordPress), you can use its RSS feed to send your blog posts to other sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) and even to your email subscriber list automatically. In other words, you set it up once and forget about it.

Using a syndication service is another time-saving method.

Websites like http://ping.fm/ or http://www.hellotxt.com/ (yes, that's "text" without the "e"), are one-stop shops for sending status updates to multiple social networking platforms.

And if you're on the move a lot or you simply don't like to be tied down to your computer, using Twitter as your content launcher may be the way to go. You can send quick, easy content shots - messages, links, exchanges with other professionals - via your cell phone, smart mobile device, or computer, and use your "tweets" to update your presence on other social platforms.

Finally, while you may not have the budget to hire an employee, there are affordable alternatives. Virtual Assistants - entrepreneurs who provide professional administrative, technical, or creative (social) assistance to clients from a remote location - can be hired for specialized services, for as little as 5 hours per month, for $20-$60 per hour. You can also find freelancers through services like oDesk.com or eLance.com, for $5-$20 per hour.

Thanks for your question. Whether you spend an hour a day or an hour per week on your social media presence, it's an ongoing learning process. As you start to see results and get more comfortable, you'll know how best to budget your time and resources.

Good luck with your business!

QUESTION:  Thank you for your eye opening article. Are there any significant competitive patterns emerging in this online social market? Also, how do you see this type of market evolving?

ANSWER: Yes, there are significant competitive patterns emerging in this online social market. Here are two that come to mind.

1. Twitter search is fast becoming a threat to Google search dominance. As proof of this, if you look at the Advanced Search options for Google, you'll see a recent addition: The option to filter search results for the past 24 hours only. Twitter has demonstrated that stale news, websites, and Grandfathered search results aren't as relevant -- or in demand! -- as the latest, freshest, most cutting edge conversations and information.

2. According to a recent Wired magazine article, Facebook is essentially creating a "second Internet" within its borders. It's comprised of billions of bits of information that Google (and other search engines like Yahoo, Ask, etc.) cannot index, because it resides behind the user names and passwords of its 300 million+ members. This is driving many marketers and corporations crazy, because they've lost the reach and control they may have had just a couple years ago. Meanwhile, it's thrilling other businesses and online-savvy enterprises because you can target pay-per-click ads to a much more narrowly defined audience on Facebook than on Google, et al.

As to how we see this market evolving...

One way to get a sense of how (and why) the market is evolving is to read Chris Anderson's book The Long Tail, which does a good job at explaining what user feedback, consumer choice, and ultra-targeted niche identification means for business and profitability. Seth Godin's Tribes is another book to get a sense of how to be a leader during this fast-evolving environment.

Our take centers around this controlling idea: Social tools and platforms demand a new paradigm in terms of mindset. Like it or not, corporate transparency is the only option, with rabid attention to what consumers want. Real, respected corporate transparency is messy, and can't be controlled through tangles of public relations teams and spin doctors. Flaws exist in people and institutions, and will be outed, with or without consent. First impressions and snap judgments (i.e. BRAND, especially as it relates to web presence) can/will make or break everyone from the solo professional to the multi-billion dollar conglomerate. Authenticity is paramount, as are the abilities to stay open, embrace change, and trust employees and teams to make the right decisions quickly and effectively without a bunch of bureaucratic shackles and resistance. Creativity, collaboration, and community are the winners in this environment.

Also, the way people use the tools is evolving. Tom Peters wrote about creating "The Brand Called You" for Fast Company magazine back in 1997, and today, social media helps people create personal brands that can enhance the brand value of the companies who hire them. The sports world features great examples of how this could work in corporate America. Jason Bay replaced Manny Ramirez on the Boston Red Sox last year, and whereas Ramirez was considered a clubhouse distraction, Bay was viewed as a "Mr. Baseball" who could boost the morale and performance of the team through the power and authenticity of his personal brand. That same transference of personality can shoot right into the companies who hire people with good, solid reputations in their social networking circles.

While change is never a painless, fearless, or entirely predictable process for any of us, social Darwinism is very much at work in the global market's evolution.

Good luck with your own business ventures, and happy adapting!

QUESTION: What's your take on mixing personal with professional information on the various social networking sites?

ANSWER: The professional/personal divide for social networking is a big deal for a lot of people. Personal privacy concerns play into it. A company's legal liability and reputation also play into it. And the media highlights incidents of people who either aren't using common sense or don't know how to control their privacy settings properly.

You may have heard about the Philadelphia Eagles part-time employee who complained on Facebook about a trade the Eagles didn't make on a social networking site, and was fired as a result. Or the person who lost a job offer from Cisco for tweeting about the choice of taking a good paycheck but hating the work and the commute. Things like this happen all the time, and happened well before social media ever came along. Stupid emails accidentally sent company-wide, inappropriate remarks in meetings, bad behavior at office parties...the list goes on and on.

So rather than limit the professional/personal conversation to social networking, let's look at it in terms of networking in general.

When you go to an "offline" networking event, do you ever, only, and exclusively talk about business? Of course not! You talk about the weather, baseball, traffic, kids, movies, and all the other water-cooler-type topics that ultimately become fertile ground for creative collaborations, engaging services, and even striking business deals.

It's an open secret that, at its core, business is not about "business." It's about people and relationships. People want to create relationships, and do business with people who they enjoy, respect, and feel comfortable with. For that to be at all possible, mixing the professional and the personal - in a way that feels comfortable for you, demonstrates professionalism, and respects the tenets of respect and human decency - has never been easier, or smarter, for your business success.

As a result, when asked about "professional versus personal," we add a third category to the conversation - "private." You don't talk about the unexpected blemish that's developed in your bathing suit area. You don't talk about how you want to tell off your boss with every four-letter word you can think of. You don't put anything online that you would be embarrassed to see on the front page of the Union Leader.

In fact, asking yourself that gut-check, common-sense question, "Would I be okay if this was read or seen by millions of people, including my neighbors, colleagues, and grandmother?" before you share your thoughts online is all you really need to do to manage the professional/personal/private divide.

Good luck with your business, and let the professional world know more about who you are!

QUESTION: Can you suggest some ways of how to attract followers to one's Twitter account?

ANSWER:  If you go to http://search.twitter.com/ and type in the words "twitter," "what," and "next" (without the quotes), you'd be amazed at how many people set up a Twitter account and one of the first things they tweet is a version of, "Okay, I set up a Twitter account, but I don't know what to do next!"

Building a following is one crucial part of that "what to do next" situation. We have a whole module dedicated to this in our Twitter Business Flight Plan training program online, and we'll summarize the high points here. When it comes to building followers, we divide follower-building activities into three categories:

1. Techniques.

Re-tweeting someone else's tweet, and replies to a tweeter, get caught in the "Mentions" for each tweeter. For example, when Leslie Sturgeon of New Hampton's Women Inspiring Women wants to see who's talking about her, she just clicks the @WomenInspiring button on the right sidebar when she's logged into Twitter. And if she's interested in the other things that person's tweeting about, she'll follow him or her. (Being interesting and sharing valuable information are two of the best ways to get followed.)

2. Tools.

Set up listings in Twitter directories like Twellow and WeFollow so you can be found. Then use these directories to find people that fall within your Ideal Audience. Follow them, and more often than not, they will follow you back. That's what got us past the 1,000 follower mark back in April. (Give people a few days to reciprocate, though. Everyone's busy these days!)

3. People.

Your industry's media channels, your business' vendors and partners, and your competitors have Twitter accounts. Follow the people who follow them. Those folks should be following YOU, too! Also, tell the people you're connected to in other ways (email, newsletters, in-person networking events) that you're on Twitter. In fact, that works for just about any social media platform - Squam Lake Science Center in Holderness added 400 Fans to their Facebook Fan Page by promoting it through their other marketing touches.

With all of that said, we beg of you - don't get too caught up in the numbers. It's still ultimately about quality, not quantity. Better to have a small but responsive list of followers than thousands of irrelevant, unresponsive people connected to you and your social media presence.

Good luck, thanks for asking the question, and consider connecting with us at http://twitter.com/LaniVoivod and http://twitter.com/AllenVoivod!

QUESTION: I know that Linked in has a feature that you can you to tell if anyone in your Outlook contacts is also on Linkedin.  Can you tell me if Facebook or Twitter have this type of feature too?

ANSWER:  When you first set up a profile on a social networking site, the site usually tries to give you a "running start," so to speak. It's no fun to be stuck at zero contacts and have to add to your network piecemeal! So they offer you the option of checking their records against your own email contacts to find matches, and help you build your connections at an accelerated pace.

Unfortunately, the top three social networking platforms - Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter - don't offer the same options to help you with your network building. Before we explain, though, one bit of terminology first - "web-based" email is where your emails and contact lists are stored at a web site online (like Google's Gmail, Microsoft's MSN Mail and Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, or AOL Mail). And "computer-based" email refers to programs installed on your computer (like Outlook, Thunderbird, Eudora, and others).

And now, here's the breakdown:

Facebook - If you log in to a web-based email services from Google, Yahoo!, AOL, or Microsoft, Facebook can automagically check for new contacts. (It can do the same with AOL and Windows Live instant messaging contacts.) If you have Outlook, Thunderbird, Eudora, or other computer-based email programs, it's a little more involved. You can go to http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/find-friends once you're logged in, and where it says "Find People You Email," look to the right, where you'll see a link that says  "Upload Contact File." Click it, find your program in the list, and follow the instructions.

LinkedIn - The most robust of the Big Three. They support more than 15 different web-based email services. Wow! You have to go through similar steps as you do in Facebook to bring in contacts from Outlook or other computer-based email programs, though. They guide you through as best they can, too.

Twitter - The most limited of the three. It can automagically connect you with your Google, Yahoo!, and AOL email, and that's it, at http://twitter.com/invitations/find_on_other_networks. You'd have to learn how to export your computer-based email program's contact files on your own (they don't give instructions), and either paste them into a form field at http://twitter.com/invitations/invite_by_email (instead of uploading the export file like you can do with Facebook and LinkedIn), or import the list into a program like Google's Gmail, which Twitter can then access. New applications, plug-ins, and widgets are being created all the time, though, so by the time you see this, there may already be a solution out there - just Google "Import Outlook contacts to Twitter" and see what comes up.

Finally, though the question doesn't mention it, here are two concerns privacy-minded people have about this whole process:

1. Entering your email password into a social networking site.

None of the top three sites will store your password in their databases, and quite frankly, none of them want to. They don't want the liability. If a bad guy hacked a social networking site and was able to get access to millions of email accounts on top of access to the social media accounts...that social network (and the business that created it) would be dead in less than a month. Period.

2. Saving your email contacts to solicit non-members.

None of the top three sites do this, either. (We don't know of a site that does, really.) Can you imagine how your contacts would feel if you let a social networking site spam them with invite requests? Your contacts would be annoyed, and so would the federal government - it'd be a violation of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. (Not to mention the hacker scenario mentioned above - same consequences.) So social networking sites only do enough to enable you to make the connections, and nothing more.

Thanks for the question, and we hope the answer offers a little something for everyone reading!

QUESTION: Can you give some tips for a business on how to decide which social media makes the most sense to use?

ANSWER: At a recent Social Media-themed breakfast event for the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce last month, Uptown Uncorked's Leslie Poston told the assembled audience there were 537 different social networking sites online. 537! And that doesn't even count all the networks on Ning and other services like it, which allow you to build your own social network using their templates, or custom-made communities like Greenopolis, created for Waste Management by Hampstead's web strategy firm CommonPlaces.

So when it comes to deciding which social media platforms make the most sense to use, the options can be overwhelming - if you let them. We can simplify it a bit for you here, and we actually consult with and providing training for businesses big and small on this subject. (In fact, we have a "Social Media Kick Start" Virtual Boot Camp which expands on these topics with self-paced learning modules, too!)

Let's start by keeping these two very important questions in mind: Where is your audience now? And where are they going to be?

Even if your target audience isn't on a particular social network right now, consider the fact that involvement is social networks is growing exponentially. Not everyone was on the Web 5-10 years ago, but you could see where the trend was going. Same thing with social networks. Here's how to dive in confidently.

1. Start with the big 3.

That's LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. The odds that your audience is on one or more of these platforms right now is very high. And if they're not on there, they will be within a year at most. Now, of the three, LinkedIn is the only one that doesn't get tarred with the "It's just for kids goofing off" brush. But consider this: The measurement company ComScore reported in April that the majority of Twitter users are 35+, and the 18-34 age group is growing as fast as the 55-64 age group. As for Facebook, InsideFacebook.com reports the largest group of users is between 26 and 44 years old, and the fastest growing demo is women 55 and over.

Blogging used to be thought of in the same way five years ago - "just for kids," "just for personal use," "just a waste of time." I think we can all agree blogging has passed the test of having sound business value. Social networks are already there, too. The word just has to get out farther and wider about it.

2. Time and money.

These are your resources, and if you're a small business owner, you're using them with care these days. A platform like Twitter is about as simple as it gets - 5-minute sign up, not much profile customization, a few communication conventions to learn as you go. Facebook, on the other hand, goes about as deep as they get in terms of customization opportunities. You'll either want to schedule a few spots over the course of a week or month to build it out. LinkedIn has a lot of detail possibilities, too, but they also a very helpful tool that tells you how complete your profile is, which can guide you through what options you need to finish to take maximum advantage of its features.

And you can set them all up yourself, have a team member or intern do it for you, or search on Google for "social media virtual assistants," where you'll find folks who can set you up for a nominal fee.

3. FUN!

It may sound frivolous at first, but there's sound business sense behind it. First of all, if you pick a social network that you dread going to, you'll find a way to put it off. And if you're not participating in the social network, then you won't get any value out of it! What's more, if you hate doing it, that'll come through in your interactions - and no one wants to connect with an unpleasant person. It's just not good for business.

On the positive side, if there's something that thrills you about a particular network, or there's something you've always wanted to try, that's a great signal for which direction you should go. (Love taking photos? Love talking? Want to try out video? PowerPoint wiz? There are networks that support all media options.) If you're passionate about what you're doing, you're more likely to stick with it. You're more likely to get creative. You're more likely to attract the attention and interest that leads to more prospects, clients, partnerships, and revenue.

Though we don't know what your particular situation is, hopefully this provides you with enough information to get out there and test the social media waters. Good luck!