Highlights from the collection broken down by categories are:

Inbound Marketing

• In 2011, 61% of marketers invested more in earned media compared to 58% in paid digital media and only 14% in paid traditional media
• B2B marketers are shifting their budgets towards inbound marketing with 69% investing in social media
• More than half of marketers increased their inbound marketing budgets in 2011
• The average budget spent on company blogs and social media has nearly doubled in the past 2 years
• Inbound marketing is a lot more cost effective than traditional outbound marketing with a cost per lead  62% less on inbound than outbound lead

Search engines and SEO

• Google is the new yellow pages. 20% of the monthly Google searches are for local businesses
• 75% of users never scroll past the first page! If you are not on first page of Google for your keywords, you need to improve your SEO

• 2/3 of Internet users regularly use social network
• The world and business is becoming more and more social
• Social media conversations actually influence purchases
• More than 1/2 of small business owners say social media sites play an important role in active sales

• 2/3 of marketers say their blog is critical or important to their business
• Blog articles influence purchase decisions
• Companies that blog have 55% more website visitors
• B2C companies that blog generate 88% more leads per month than those who do not and B2B companies generate 67% more leads

• Facebook has become the preferred method for sharing content second only to email
• 51% of B2B marketers agree that Facebook is an effective marketing tool
• Both B2C and B2B acquire customers on Facebook

• More than 1/2 of active Twitter users follow brands and companies on social networks
• 79% of US Twitter users are more likely to recommend brands they follow
• B2C companies with over 100 followers have 146% more leads/month than those with less than 100

To see the charts and graphs of these and many more stats as collected by Hubspot, check out the PDF document below. Enjoy!

Photo credit: Flickr. Sean MacEntee

2012 is the year that you need to create a social media strategy for your business if you don’t have one yet. Just make this your goal and I promise you it will pay off.

Radian6 report recently released states: “Strategic users are almost three times more likely to execute activities for engaging prospects than informal users (53% vs. 19%)” — and they were likely to see increased revenues.”

A few critical items to include in your social media strategy are:

1. Company Goals and Objectives – Why are you on social media and how does it align with your business goals. You can’t look at social media alone. You need to consider how it complements your existing marketing efforts and how it contributes to your overall business objectives. Starting off with your goals is the best way to make sure you are actually getting involved on social media in the right places and for the right reasons. Measuring your success down the road will also depend on the type of goals you are setting up for your company.
2. Listening – what are people saying about you, your brand, your competitors and your industry. Is it positive or negative. What can you learn from this information and how can you use it to improve your business, your marketing and your social media efforts. An absolutely critical part to every social media effort, listening is what will make you successful on social media. I see way too many companies skipping over this part and not spending enough time and resources to actively listen. Yes, it takes time but thankfully there are plenty of free and paid software options to streamline this process for you.
3. Content Strategy – a very important part to your overall social strategy is the content that you are going to send out to your community. Identify who is it that you are speaking to, what interest them, what makes them share your content, how often they would like to receive it and in what form – video, podcast, text, photos. Create an editorial calendar with your topics and leave some space for breaking news and stories that will come up. Think of the Call to Action you want to include with each piece of content and identify how your content relates to your business objectives.
4. Engagement Strategy – now that you have a clear picture of the type of content you are going to create, think of how you are going to distribute it on the social web. What are your internal or external resources for engagement? How much time can you dedicate daily/weekly to engage and be present? If you don’t have sufficient internal resources what can you outsource to a qualified person or an agency. I don’t recommend outsourcing everything you do as you lose your voice and your authenticity but done properly you can outsource certain tasks.
5. Tactical Strategy – only after you have considered all of these steps, you can dig deeper into the tactical area of your social media. What platforms are best to use to reach your customers. Obviously, we have the BIG FOUR: Facebook, YouTube, LInkedIn and blogging but there are niche social networks that may be more applicable to your business. For example, Pinterest is driving more traffic than Facebook to retailers. So even if Facebook has a huge population base, a social network like Pinterest may be your winner for increasing sales. Having a centralized social media hub from where you can distribute your content will help tremendously with saving time. A good social media platform will also help with your engagement and measurements. We work with a few and can make a specific recommendation for your business if you need assistance in this area.
6. Measurements and Benchmarks – a big conversation topic these days is the return on investment from your social media marketing. Although, there are no industry established measurements yet, there are so many ways to measure your efforts that unless you link them to your objectives (see 1) you will get flooded with data. Starting with your reach (fans and followers), engagement rate, leads, sales, share of voice and customer service just to mention a few, there are indeed ways to measure your efforts. If you are not sure where to start, give us a call and don’t be too alarmed. Only 13% of marketers today are saying that they are very effective at measuring their social media marketing.

7.  Review and Adjustments - a very important part of every social media strategy is the periodic review and adjustment. Once a month, take a look at what’s really going on, compare it to your plan and make the necessary adjustments to improve your social media effort. Drop the things that are not working and do more of the stuff that’s working. Only after applying your strategy in real life you will know what’s really sticking with your audience and what makes them engage with your brand.

If you need help with your social media strategy, give us a call. We’ll be glad to help out. And if you need more ideas for your social media plan, take a look at Radian6 30 ideas for your 2012 social media plan. I’m sure you’ll find some interesting nuggets of information that you can apply to your business today. Your turn – do you currently have a social media strategy and if not are you planning on creating one soon? Let us know in the comments below.

What does the future hold? Quora, the people questions and answers forum may replace Google as we count on our friends recommendations a lot more than on robot suggestions. There probably won’t be any more PCs and laptops, just smartphones and iPads/tablets.

I created this short video on social media history, trying to fit the last 40 years in less than 4 minutes to put into perspective where we came from. Let me know what you think.

I really like LinkedIn and have been using it for a long time to stay in touch with my professional network. Recently, they introduced changes to Groups. You can join various Groups on LinkedIn to stay close to people of the same interest.

Below is a short video on the new features within Groups. Give them a try – you will see the benefits from Groups very soon. Enjoy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

What are your thoughts on LinkedIn? Are you on LinkedIn? Connect with me.

1. Photo: Upload a professional looking personal photo. I know this is a no brainer but I still see some people with no avatar on their profile. I wouldn’t want to connect with faceless person, would you?
2. Profile: Fill out your profile completely. Try to avoid copying and pasting from your resume. If you want to show up on search engines, make sure to use keywords that describe what you do and what you want to appear for on Google. List all companies you have worked for and all schools you have attended. You will grow your network faster if you do. Search Engine Optimization works on LinkedIn if you fill our your profile with selected keywords.
3. Grow your Network. This one is the most important step. After your profile is complete, start growing your network. Connect with all contacts that you would like to from your existing contact list in Outlook or wherever you are keeping your contacts. Keep in mind that LinkedIn can act up sometimes during the upload. I hope they fix that issue soon. As you meet more people, check to see if they are on LinkedIn or periodically upload your contacts and see who you are missing. Networks take time to grow so be patient but at the end it’s worth it. It’s all about who you know, right? Just make sure you are connecting to people you actually know and want to be connected with.
4. Groups: A great way to meet more people from your industry is to join groups on LinkedIn. There are thousands of groups in each industry. Find some that look interesting and ask to join. I have never been denied participation in any group, but I’ve mainly joined marketing and internet groups, which fits my profile. Be careful with how many groups you join as you may get bombarded with emails if you opt-in for the daily digest. You can choose weekly or turn off all emails. Groups are great way to meet more people, keep an eye on trends, post articles you’ve written, ask questions and respond to questions that you have expertise in. Please, make sure you provide some value to the group.
5. Keep your status update fresh. If you are on Twitter, you can update your status from there. I use HootSuite to update all of my social networks.
6. Recommendations: Recommend some people you have worked with and ask for some recommendations from people who know you well. Please, make sure you don’t always have the same recommendations written for you as the recommendations you have received. It looks way too cheesy.
7. Applications:  LinkedIn comes with some great third party applications that will help keep your network informed about your interests and activities and keep your profile fresh. For example, I use their SlideShare application to display my PowerPoint presentations that I have made available online, WordPress plug in to show my latest blog posts, Reading List on Amazon to display what I’m reading and my recommendations of that book, TripIt to show my trips to my network and see who’s close to me if I want to connect in person while on the trip.

What’s the value of LinkedIn? Personally, I have found it to be a great network to stay in touch with people I have worked with in the past and present who I may not necessary want to friend on Facebook. It keeps contacts up to date and it’s a valuable tool for putting people in touch with each other and letting your network know your latest activities. I have found people I need from my network.  I have received recommendations on potential vendors and stayed in touch with people. The latest LinkedIn development is that now you can subscribe to company’s updates, making following a company look a lot more like your experience on Facebook.

LinkedIn is useful only if you use it right. What experience have you had with LinkedIn?  Are you still using an old style paper resume or have you completely moved to using LinkedIn for it? Any other tips you’d like to add? What mistakes to avoid? See this post from Neal Schaffer. And finally, let me know if you want to connect with me on LinkedIn.

Social media is more popular than porn. Is social media a revolution? An evolution? Here to stay? Let me know what you think.

A friend of mine sent me this video on YouTube and I can’t get the song out of my head. If you need to see a summary of statistics as to why social media is so powerful in combination with a really cool song, go ahead. I promise you will get it in 4:22 min. Just one caution. It’s addictive. You’ve been warned.

1. Check your username on different platforms

With check user names you can find out on where exactly your username is already in existence. It’s up to you to decide whether you want to register your username on all websites listed or not. If someone else registers your username before you do you won’t be able to get it later. I recommend that you register your username even if you are not currently using a specific website.

2. Register your name with a domain registration server. I like GoDaddy but there are many options available. When you establish a website or a blog under your name search engines will pick it up and list it. Potential employers and customers will be able to find you on search engines.

3. Start your LinkedIn profile. This is a great social network to connect with other business professionals. Keep your profile professional and business-like. It’s OK to be authentic and honest. Actually, it’s highly recommended. But keep your LinkedIn profile on the professional side. Make sure you fill it all out and start connecting with people in your industry. You can also connect with groups and organizations that are of interest to you. Make sure you check your profile daily and keep it updated.

4. Start a Facebook profile. Facebook is the 4th largest country in the world with over 175 million users. It’s a place to connect with family and friends. I consider Facebook a hybrid of personal and professional life. The only way you can manage the two of them on Facebook at the moment is to create different groups of the people you are connected with, such as: friends from school, family, work friends, industry contacts, etc. I wish Facebook had a better way to separate the two sides of your lives. However, with the transparency that has started with the Internet and the social media it’s becoming almost impossible to separate the two anyway.

5. Get yourself a Twitter account. Twitter is micro blogging platform with allows you to follow people and to have followers. It’s limited to 140 characters and that’s rather nice. They say the 120 is the new 140. There are many tools and applications already developed for Twitter. You can read my other blog on Twitter if you are interested in learning more about it. And if you want to read up more on everything Twitter just go to that category.

6. One of the most important personal brand attribute and the first thing that gets noticed: your email address. Make sure your email address is not something like: hottahoechick@aol.com. If that’s your personal email address, keep it to yourself. Get yourself a professional email address. Use GMail and put your firstname.lastname@gmail.com. Gmail is becoming a very popular email provider and it comes with many additional and very handy tools and applications that you are going to love: calendar, documents, feeder, photos and more.

7. Make sure you track your online presence and manage it properly. There are many tools out there from free to paid. Here’s a list of some of the most popular applications that provide an excellent tool to monitor your brand if you get really serious about it.

There you have it. Follow these 7 simple steps and you are on your way to establishing your personal brand online.

Additional Resources:

http://www.onedayonejob.com/blog/managing-your-employment-or-personal-brand-online/

11 ways to build your personal brand online

http://www.onedegree.ca/2008/02/how-do-you-mana.html

http://mashable.com/2009/02/05/personal-branding-101/

http://mashable.com/2008/12/29/brand-reputation-monitoring-tools/

http://mashable.com/2008/12/24/free-brand-monitoring-tools/

Quantcast data on Twitter demographics:

http://www.quantcast.com/twitter.com#summary

Quantcast data on Facebook  demographics:

http://www.quantcast.com/facebook.com

Quantcast data on MySpace demographics:

http://www.quantcast.com/myspace.com

Quantcast data on Delicious.com demographics:

http://www.quantcast.com/delicious.com

Quantcast data on YouTube demographics:

http://www.quantcast.com/youtube.com

Quantcast data on Flickr demographics:

http://www.quantcast.com/flickr.com

If I missed a site of interest to you you can pull the data yourself by going to the Quantcast.com page and typing in the name of the company that you are interested about. Please, leave me comments here as to what other sites you looked at. What do you think? Is this information helpful? Please, let me know what other topics interest you.

In my full-time job as a Marketing Director for Incline Village General Improvement District I deal with daily challenges on how to communicate better with our customers, how to engage them and how to listen to what they have to say. We adapt our marketing strategies based on our customer feedback. As the Marketing Director for Diamond Peak Ski Resort, The Golf Courses at Incline Village, The Chateau at Incline Village, The Recreation Center and Tennis Center I have a responsibility to serve our customers by providing the best products and services for their money. To achieve this I need to listen to our customers. I’m starting this blog as an opportunity to engage more effectively with our customers. I also want to provide lessons that I have learned, research I have found and real life experiences all in one place for people who are interested in Internet marketing, social media marketing and web 2.0. I will continue to update this blog with all things marketing, Internet marketing, web 2.0 and social media marketing that I find interesting and worth reading. This is my personal blog and my thoughts and opinions are not associated with the organization I work for (IVGID).

I hope you enjoy my blog. Send me your feedback and let me know how I can make it better, what interests you and what you would like to read about.