@SocialMediaLand Updates from Twitter about the Social Media Landscape


Small Business Brand Management on the Social Media Landscape Part 3

August 25, 2010

In the last article I talked about the most important thing about your social media profile.  I also talked about the actions your visitors will take once they land on your profile.  If you missed it, make sure you read it here: Small Business Brand Management on the Social Media Landscape Part 2

So far, your image is nice and inviting.  Someone sees your inviting image and decides to check you out further.  They click and land on your profile page.  This is where they’re going to get their first impression.  They’ll see what you’ve said, some of the things you’ve done, your friends, but most importantly… they’ll read your bio.

Now that they have read your bio, you want them to take an action to get to know you better.  Some will just follow you and keep an eye on you to see if they can trust you.  Others will click the link you have in your profile to find out more.Brand Management Golden Link

It is that link and where it takes them that is golden.

The URL you have in your profile is what will make or break this social interaction.  They are looking to trust you here.  Don’t give them a reason not to like you.  Remember, they are looking for a person here.


Where I recommend you take them is to a website where they can get more information about you.  Let’s take a look at Rick again.  His only website is his online store for his fishing reels.  Sending someone to a sales page is a big “no-no” and most people look at it as you’re just trying to make money and don’t really “get” what social networking is all about.


If your site is an online store, you should have an “About” page, right?  I’d suggest you create a specific page to send people from your social profiles.  The page should be about the person they’re getting to know better.  It should give them a reason to “friend” you. If this won’t work for you, then make sure you at least send them to the “about” page.


Once they see your site and they decide to “friend” you, they may take a look around your site to see what it’s all about.  It may be of interest to them and you may have just gained a customer.  The difference between this customer and a customer from the search engines is that some from a social environment is more inclined to buy, recommend, and may even become an evangelist.


The value of someone coming from a social site is far greater than anything else.  It’s about relationships.  Even though you may not ever meet, tweet, chat with or talk to that person, there is still a perceived relationship.  Let me explain using Rick again:


I read a blog post on one of my favorite blogs.  There are a lot of comments and I notice the comment from someone named RicksReels.  I click on the nice smiling face, which takes me to their profile.  I notice he is passionate about fishing, family, and fun.  So I click the link he has there which takes me to a page on his website explaining more about him, why he’s so passionate, why he created his business, and how he teaches others to have fun fishing.


Since I’m on Twitter, I look for RicksReels there and Follow.  I find him on Facebook and “friend” him.

Now through regular interaction on Facebook, Twitter, and other places, I notice someone talking about fishing.  I join the conversation and tell them about RicksReels. It’s what we do everyday offline, so why not do it online too?  If someone you meet is a caterer and you meet another person who is thinking of doing a big party, wouldn’t you mention them to each other?


This is the social value quotient.  Because my recommendation has more clout than if my “friends” found Rick themselves, ROI is really a thing of the past.  Trying to measure an interaction or an engagement is hard to do.  I may tell my 20,000 “friends” about Rick, or I might just tell 1.  That 1 person I tell may tell their 5,000 “friends”.


It’s not ROI, it’s ROE.  There is a huge Return on Engagement.  What that return is, can only be discovered if you don’t do it.  They don’t call this Web 2.0 for nothing.  The old, static websites are a thing of the past, or should be.  It’s time to engage your customers or potential customers.  If you do, your returns will be far greater.  3D-Character-(101)_SML


Brand Management is so important these days.  If you want to succeed, you have to build relationships and increasing your social brand equity is the key.  Every business and every person should have a presence on the social media landscape.  In the next article, I’ll show you how.


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Small Business Brand Management on the Social Media Landscape Part 2

June 20, 2010

In part 1, I talked about you or your business’s brand management, and how important it is in an online environment.  I talked about building up your social brand equity and how your KLT factor can increase considerably faster in a social environment.  If you didn’t read it, please start there:
Small Business Brand Management on the Social Media Landscape Part 1

Now that you know how important your image is on the social media landscape, let’s dig a little deeper into your social profile.  Your image is what invites them in now what do they do when they’re there.  They read about you, they read your bio and a few other things I’ll get into later.

Social Networking Profile

So let’s take a look at the requirements for the bios first.  There are many different social networking sites and each one seems to allow a different amount of characters for the bios.  Some allow you to write a book for your bio allowing 1000 characters.  The thing is, people aren’t going to read a 1000 character bio.

The Social Media MatrixMost social sites keep it shorter and what I recommend is you keep it to 160 characters.  The reason why is because you need to grab the attention of the people going to your profile.  Like I said, they’re not going to read a long bio.  You have 5 seconds or they’re gone.  So what are you going to say?

In my book “The Social Media Matrix” I use a scenario of Rick, who loves fishing so much he even makes his own reels and created a business out of it.  The name he chose for his social profiles like Twitter, Tumblr, etc., is RicksReels.  So with that in mind, here is what a short bio would be for Rick:

“I am passionate about fishing and make my own reels. I like to teach others to have as much fun as I do fishing solo, with friends, or family.”

Now let’s analyze that for a quick minute.  What can you gather from Rick’s 143 character bio?

First I know he’s passionate about fishing.  He’s inventive and makes his own reels, in part due to his passion.  Rick teaches others how to fish.  I wonder if he does that live or if he has DVDs or some other form of teaching.  I love to have fun, fish, and hanging out with friends or family.  I want to know more about this guy and what he has to offer.

And if I ever needed a reel or anyone ever said something to me about it, you know where I’m sending them?   Right to Rick!

It is your short bio that will get people to take the next step.  It shouldn’t be “salesy or pitchy”.  It has to be true and honest.  It’s what you want people to know about YOU, not your business.  People buy things from people, so when they know you, like you, and trust you, they’ll buy from you.

Once someone reads your bio, they are going to take an action.  They’re either going to leave, click your link in your profile to learn more, and/or “friend” you.

Build Relationships

Making a first impression is very important and your image and bio is it.

See, brand management is about those positive relationships you build.  Those relationships will grow your business more than you can measure and social media is a major way to get you there.  They say it takes seven interactions with someone before they will trust you enough to buy from you.  With social media, those seven interactions can take a matter of minutes.  That’s how you’ll build your brand equity.

Next:  Small Business Brand Management on the Social Media Landscape Part 3
We’ll talk about what happens after you make that positive impression and more!

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Small Business Brand Management on the Social Media Landscape Part 1

April 30, 2010

Managing your brand is hard enough offline, but now with the advent of social networking sites, the social media landscape can be a scary place for brand management. One of the most important ways to ensure you are recognized online is to have a uniform presence.

Your presence on the social media landscape shows your customers, clients, and would be clients, that you care to be where they are. Not only that, you are able to build relationships faster in a social environment than anywhere else. It is said that it takes seven (7) interactions with someone before they trust you enough to buy from you.

The more interactions you have with someone, the better it is in building your relationship. You do know that people buy things from people, right? Well let me explain how to build up your KLT (Know, Like & Trust) Factor quickly which will, in essence, help you manage your brand.

One of the biggest things you need to ensure is uniformity. Most businesses have a logo, image, saying, or if you are going to brand you, your own personal pic. Whatever it is it needs to be the same across all of your profiles. My recommendation is to use a face instead of a company logo.

Why use a person’s face instead of my logo? It’s simple, and I’ll reiterate what I said before: People buy things from people. I mean you can’t have a relationship with a slice of pizza, or a swoosh can you? No. You must remember this is a social environment.

Brand Management

Think of the last business meeting you went to, or seminar, whatever. Did you have a conversation with a piece of pizza? Well I hope not! Let me break it down like this:

Imagine you are at a local Chamber of Commerce after hour’s business mixer. There are people there from local businesses, networking. Who do you think would be the person that meets the most people or who gets the most contacts? A person who has a nice smiling warm face, a person who has a frowning face, or a person dressed up like a slice of pizza.

What I’m hoping you’d say is the person who has the smiling face would get the most attention. If you did, you’re right. So what I recommend to you is that the image you put on all your social profiles be a person’s face. They should be smiling and inviting. The image should say “Hi! Nice to meet you. Let’s get to know each other.”

Michael S. Copeland

Now the question is, whose image should you put up there? Should it be the person in your company that is going to handle the web and social media stuff? Let me ask YOU a question. Even though your web or social media person may be good at what they do, what happens if they leave the company and your presence online is now tied to their face?

The person’s face should be the owner, vice president, president, or someone who will be with the company for a very long time. It should be someone who lives the mission statement and follows the vision. They should be a leader, someone who you want to represent the company to thousands, tens of thousands… heck hundreds of thousands or millions of people.

To learn more about building your brand equity on the social media landscape, go to http://SocialBrandEquity.com. There you will discover more information on the subject of branding yourself or your business and how to save time and money secure your presence at over 50 social networking sites. Brand management is key to increasing your offline and online social brand equity.

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UN Uses Social Media to Raise Awareness for Malaria

March 15, 2010

unitednations1The United Nation’s Special Envoy for Malaria will be announcing a special Social Media Envoy group that would be using the far reach and power of social media in order to help raise awareness for malaria control in Africa.

The special Social Media Envoy is composed of well known figures from both the broadcast media and the social web. Those that have joined this group have pledged to do their part and to taking social action – like a Tweet or a Facebook post each month for the next year starting on the World Malaria Day which takes place on April 25.

1255980033_event_imageThe group aims to motivate the social media audiences to support malaria control through tweets, posts and other social media actions that can inspire people to support this cause. The United Nation’s goal is to provide all endemic African countries to have malaria control through interventions by the end of 2010. They aim to work towards near zero deaths from malaria by the year 2015.

Using the power of social media in the fight against Malaria is a good move for the United Nations. The disease is something that everyone malaria1should be aware about and this should be controlled immediately. Malaria takes one million victims to their death each year and 90% of those deaths happen in Sub-Saharan Africa.

There is a lot of money needed to be raised and there is a lot of work to be done for this cause. It would be better if the group would be able to go beyond the once a month social action that they have committed to. Malaria after all is not an easy battle to cope with.

The 2010 Social Media Envoys are the following:

  • Derrick Ashong, Musician, Social Activist & Oprah Radio host
  • Veronica Belmont, Host of “Tekzilla” and “Qore” and Internet Personality
  • Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, New Jersey
  • Sarah Brown, of MillionMums.org and wife of Gordon Brown, the UK Prime Minister
  • Pete Cashmore, CEO and founder of Mashable (Mashable)
  • Anderson Cooper, CNN Anchor of “Anderson Cooper 360?
  • Dennis Crowley, Co-founder of Foursquare (Foursquare)
  • Anil Dash, Director of Expert Labs and Partner at Activate
  • Justine Ezarik, “iJustine”, Internet Personality
  • Jack Gray, CNN Producer/Writer for “Anderson Cooper 360?
  • Arianna Huffington, Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post; www.twitter.com/ariannahuff
  • Guy Kawasaki, Co-founder of Alltop.com
  • Larry King, CNN Host of “Larry King Live”
  • Loic Le Meur, Founder and CEO of Seesmic (Seesmic)
  • Alyssa Milano, Actress
  • Dave Morin, Former Facebook executive- responsible for Facebook Connect and Platform
  • Jeff Pulver, Founder of 140 Characters Conference (#140conf) and Co-founder of VoIP (Vonage)
  • Kevin Rose, Founder of Digg (Digg)
  • Chris Sacca, Founder of Lowercase Capital
  • Ryan Seacrest, Founder, Ryan Seacrest Productions
  • Biz Stone, Co-founder of Twitter (Twitter)
  • Padmasree Warrior, CTO of Cisco
  • Jon Wheatley, Co-founder of DailyBooth.com
  • Randi Zuckerberg, Director of Marketing, Facebook

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Moneza MeCard Overview

March 13, 2010

This is an in depth overview of the Moneza MeCard.

In this video you will discover what Phase I of Moneza is all about. Beta Testing is almost over,

JOIN MONEZA NOW!

MeCard Overview from Mike Healy on Vimeo.

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What is Moneza? Is Moneza an MLM?

March 13, 2010

What is Moneza?

Moneza is a social platform designed to help you connect all of your social networking sites in one place.  This makes it easy to integrate and update all places.  So instead of needing to login to Facebook, Twitter, Plaxo, Tumblr, etc., you just use Moneza.

Is Moneza an MLM? Is Moneza a Pyramid Scheme?

ABSOLUTELY NOT!  There is no scheme here.  Have you ever heard of affiliate marketing?  Let’s make the example of Tupperware.  Your friend Betty has a party at her house.  You go.  You get some stuff.  Then Betty asks if you would like to have a party at your house and if you do, you’ll share in the sales.

Now that’s affiliate marketing.  You are an affiliate of Betty, so you are “under her”.  Is that a scheme?  NO!  Neither is Moneza.

In fact, there’s nothing for you to buy at Moneza.  You refer someone, they are “under you”.  They refer someone, they are “under them” and in all actuality, “under you”.  I guess you get points for the people you refer and the people they refer.

Not a scheme at all.

When is Moneza Launching?

Moneza is launching soon.  In fact Beta Testing is almost over, so hurry NOW and Join Moneza.

Phase I of Moneza will be the release of MeCards.  To better explain what MeCards are, watch this video:

Moneza Beta Test from Mike Healy on Vimeo.

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Facebook Give Lawsuit Threats to Daily Mail

March 12, 2010

facebook_1Reports from the Guardian and the Global Dashboard claim that Facebook threatened to sue Daily Mail. This is due to an article that wrongfully claimed that the social network giant makes it easier for older sex predators to seduce and approach minors.

The article was written by Mark Williams-Thomas, a former police detective. His original title for the said article was “I Posed as a Girl of 14 on Facebook. What Followed Will Sicken You”. The writer talked about his experience when he posed as a minor on Facebook and how he was able to attract sexual predators immediately.

daily-mail2-oThe real issue was that the author was not using Facebook in his experiment and in truth was using a different social networking site. The article was updated at the bottom by the Daily Mail staff. The full text of the update goes this way:

“In an earlier version of this article, we wrongly stated that the criminologist had conducted an experiment into social networking sites by posing as a 14-year-old girl on Facebook with the result that he quickly attracted sexually motivated messages. In fact he had used a different social networking site for this exercise. We are happy to set the record straight.”

The article had caused a strong response from Facebook. According to the Guardian, a UK spokeswoman for Facebook said that the company was considering taking legal actions as the article has damaged its reputation. Aside from the erroneous reporting, Facebook do not accept members below 18 years old and has measures already in place to prevent that kind of behavior from taking place.

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MySpace Reveals Future Plans

March 10, 2010

myspace_logo2MySpace has been quiet for a while in the social network world. Co-Presidents Mike Jones and Jason Hirschhorn are now working together and able to come up with a few future plans to improve the performance of the said social networking site.

Hirschhorn admitted that MySpace lacked focus and he and Jones were making plans to speed up the site and learn more about the business at the same time. They plan to do this by doing a re-imagination of the site from both a user’s perspective and in the development of new products. The social network has a new overarching goal which is the promotion of user discovery and self expression.

myspace-beforeAccording to Hirsschhorn, MySpace is now going to be “pillars of broadcasting, discovery, self-expression, and making content a part of all those experiences.” He shared that engineering, quality and usability would be used as their major focal points.

Aside from instilling a new level of discipline in regards to the implementation process of user interface changes and new products, Hirsschorn made sure that MySpace will still always be about the “music that you love, the photos that you love, the video that you love, and the artistic stuff that goes on every day that says that you’re you. Those are the pillars of how we’re going to be building our product.”

When asked about how they are to deal with social network giants Twitter and Facebook as competitors, Jones says that there is ample space for numerous social sites these days. Cross networking is possible these days wherein Twitter and Facebook users can also work together their social online activities with MySpace.

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Tumblr Plans to Start Generating Revenue

March 8, 2010

OMOIT2Tumblr is known to be one of the simplest blogging platforms around the World Wide Web and it has been doing a lot of progress. If you rate their effectiveness, you can see that Tumblr is rated between WordPress and Twitter.

WordPress would require some effort in order to create some organized content while in Twitter the whole process is almost effortless. Tumblr offers something in between. It is viewed as a tool for users that want to have a blog with videos, photos and other content embedded but do not have the time to struggle with a more complex blogging platform.

In fact the traffic and the user base of Tumblr are growing fast and they have recently hit some milestones on the way. Of course if you compare it to the success of Twitter, Tumblr still has a long way to go but it is definitely growing fast enough in order to make an impact in the web.

robin-good-tumblrThe Tumblr team is doing their best to provide the best features as well. They have added the option to add static pages to your Tumblr blog recently and now there are also dead simple ways in order to directly upload videos in your blog.

Tumblr is now planning to launch two revenue generating features this month. The details are scarce but it is known that these features will be powered by a widget. The success of this revenue generating feature of Tumblr is viewed as paving the way for micro blogging networks – an area that is traditionally devoid of revenue.

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Facebook and Omniture Work Together for Better Facebook Ads Management

March 4, 2010

facebook

Big and small companies now have a better way  to use the world’s largest social network as their marketing channel.

Omniture, one of the best enterprise web analytics providers has gained a stronger partnership with Facebook as it introduces a new tool for managing Facebook ad campaigns. Omniture announced that customers can now automate, purchase and track their Facebook ad buys more thoroughly.

This offer is geared towards marketers who are interested in Facebook media buys. The new tool by Omniture has custom, reporting options for a more complete and professional outlook when it comes to the analytics and effectiveness of customer engagement that is generated by their campaigns.

The said tool by Omniture would be able to help companies understand how effective Facebook advertising is and would help encourage these companies to do more.

facebook-2Omniture’s products have gone through a lot of evolutions in the past years in order to help support not only Facebook application measurement but also Twitter analytics. The addition of the Facebook ad measurement tool was a good and logical move for the Adobe owned company.

A big part of Facebook’s projected revenue for the year 2010 comes from ad buys which is one of the reasons why Facebook and Omniture would want to help their marketers have a better analysis and get to spend more and optimize on their Facebook Ad campaigns.

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