What to Do Before You Interview a <b>Social Media Marketing</b> Firm <b>...</b>

I’ve heard it at least a bazillion times … You’re starting to feel like your marketing strategy is falling behind the times. You know you should at least create a Facebook page and use Twitter, but you don’t really know how to use them. (Is it worth the time?) And, even more frustrating, you don’t know what you don’t know.

Can you learn how to do all this social media stuff, or should you find a social media marketing firm to launch you online? (Yikes, how much will THAT cost??) And, if you DO engage a firm, how do you find a good one? A good one could be defined as a team that ‘gets’ your business, with the objective of attracting new customers. 

Before you start the hunt for the right social media marketing firm, gather your management team together and focus on articulating your offline marketing and sales goals FIRST. The result of any social media marketing firm’s work is only as good as the goals they work toward, and those come from your company. No management strategy and/or targets – no bullseye.

Once you have the offline marketing and sales goals articulated and prioritized, you’re ready to define your social media business goals. The offline and online goals work together hand-in-hand. Each supports and supplements the other. Good social media goals should at least include:

Identifying your online target marketFinding the places that they congregate onlineEstablishing your brand in these online communities (social networks)Listening, listening, listeningAfter listening, easing into engagement with the target audienceGiving valueOffering solutions and converting the audience into customersMonitoring, measuring, and continual improvement

You might also spend some time searching online and reading blogs about how other businesses establish their social media campaigns. They may or may not apply to you, but you will learn an awful lot, and give you more confidence before approaching a social media marketing firm.

.. _____ ..

ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book, How to Make Money Online With Social Media: A Step-by-Step Guide for Entrepreneurs will be available very soon. With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

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Three Tactics to Approach <b>Social Media Marketing</b>

In one sense, 'social media marketing' is an oxymoron, a self-contradictory term. Implicitly, it describes media that are personal and non-commercial. So how does marketing fit in? As the punch line in the joke about porcupines goes, "very carefully".

Nevertheless, there are tactics available that can maximize your social media marketing effectiveness.

If you have not yet created a Facebook page for your brand, you must do that first. You should also look at opportunities available on Twitter, MySpace and Linked In. With those in place, apply these three tactics.

Tactic #1: Create Your Own Social Media Marketing Profile

Who are you? What is your background? What are your objectives? What do you do or would like to do. Your profile can be as detailed or as fanciful as you like, remembering that credibility is critical in social media.

The social media profile can differ from social media site to site.

For example a LinkedIn personal profile might be more of an online resume, detailing all of the previous companies one has worked for in the past, where as the LinkedIn company profile can focus more on the company's products, services, vendors and customers. Facebook and Twitter profiles can be set up for a company to communicate effectively with the new generation of consumers who depend on social media marketing to make decisions.

Tactic #2: Reach As Many People As You Can

Sites such Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Linked In, are frequented everyday by millions of potential customers. Each has its own distinct approach to its subscribers. All, however, expect a degree of socially acceptable behavior.

Unfortunately, flat-out, unadorned advertising is not considered socially acceptable by most users. That said, almost every visitor to Facebook is there be entertained or informed. An approach to this audience that features a friendly tone and that promises a benefit has an excellent chance of making customers and brand evangelists out of visitors.

By learning the different ways to reach people on each site, you can reach a wide audience without ever purchasing an ad on the site. For example on Twitter, retweeting the top tweets (the insiders term for a Twitter message) of the day can attract people to your page through searches. Using URL link shortening services such as bit.ly allows you to track how many people actually clicked on your tweet or status update as opposed to clicking on the URL page directly.

Tactic #3: Build An Audience

Solicit friends, fans and followers through mutual contacts and other online and offline vehicles, in order to qualify prospects from among the millions who may be exposed to your Facebook messages, your tweets and your postings on LinkedIn.

Many companies promote their Facebook page on their web sites, in brochures or in ads. The point is to develop a core group of followers who will participate regularly in your social media communications. These are self-selecting prospects of high quality and high potential.

When you have this core group amassed, feed them as much helpful (and persuasive) information as you can as often as you can. Don't stint on pictures. One authority claims 550,000 images are presented on Facebook every second, with 220,000,000 photos added to Facebook every week. Use your postings as portals to your web site where visitors will get a more complete story about your brand, product or service, stories that generate leads and even, conceivably, close sales.

This may seem like a lot of work. Fact is, it is. Most companies already have full plates, so social media marketing including regularly posting Facebook status updates and tweeting on Twitter requires constant and consistent attention, can appear formidable before even starting.

One solution is to consult with experts in the field of social media and Facebook marketing. These companies have the software, the experience, the databases and the knack for making marketing in Facebook and other social media wo

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Top 7 <b>Social Media Marketing</b> Tips for the Holiday Season 2010

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Building on from the recent theme of preparing for the holiday season sales rush, this week I’m delving into the world of social media marketing.

The numbers around social media at the moment are mind blowing, so it should definitely be a consideration of any business before heading into the holiday period.

Before I delve into the tips, here’s a video I shared during a social media presentation I gave last week. It helps set the scene for the importance of social media for modern businesses.

So now that you’re pumped about social media, here’s my top 7 tips for boosting your holiday season sales using social media marketing.

1. Give your social media profiles a makeover:

When was the last time you checked how engaging your social profile is? Social media is an extension of your brand. Use the holiday season to give your profiles a make over:

1. New twitter background: did you even realise you can customise your twitter background. Check out these backgrounds to get inspired.

50 great examples of business branded twitter pages: http://www.creativeopera.com/2010/corporate-branding-on-twitter-50-excellent-examples/

2. Business Pages on Facebook: Is it time to create a Facebook business page that is more interesting than just a feed of your business’ activity and discussions?

Look at some of these company pages to see how you can take your business page to the next level.

Here’s a list of 40 more: http://speckyboy.com/2010/08/15/40-highly-effective-facebook-business-pages/

3. Blog Design: Let’s not forget our good old blogs. Perhaps its time to add some new banners, change the template or even update our widgets on our blogs to give them a bit more sizzle.

2. Build your followers and connections

The size of your social media captive audience is a key influencer on the success of your campaigns. So it’s important to build your audience so that when you distribute content, engage in conversations and share offers – there’s enough people listening/watching.

1. Migrate existing clients across to social media

Use this as a time to try and encourage existing customers to connect with you via their social networks. It will provide you with another way to communicate with your clients outside of emails, the phone etc.

2. Encourage prospects and browsers to join your network

Even if you don’t convert a prospect or browser on first visit, persuading them to connect via social media gives you further opportunities to engage with them which can help you convert them later.

3. Get more reviews

Peer reviews are becoming more and more important in people’s buying process. So have you checked how many reviews your business and products have? Are they positive or negative.

It’s important to encourage your new customers to post reviews (preferably positive) on the major reviews sites. Make it easy for them and suggest where to go after the sale (either in person or via follow up marketing)

Here’s a list of the some of the review sites to focus on:

4. Special Offers for your followers

Use the holiday season as a chance to create social media specific campaigns and offers. IT’ll serve two purposes

Reward the people who have taken the time to connect with you in the social media sphereIt’ll give potential new social media followers a reason to connect with your company.

5. Engage in the Conversation

While social media is a great marketing tool, it’s often most effective when it’s used in a non direct marketing manner.

Commit to engaging in your social media sphere through conversations and contributions; comment, answer questions and posing opinions rather than just trying to promote products and services. You’ll be amazed at how effective this can be at driving new business if done effectively.

6. Integrate Social Media with other marketing

Social media is another one of the channels in your marketing mix. So use it in conjunction with other online and offline campaigns. It can help extend the reach of your marketing message, or alternatively provide another form of conversion from other campaigns.

7. Commit to creating some quality holiday valuable content

One the major strengths of social media is the viral nature of the medium. By creating and sharing valuable content (e.g. articles, videos, industry news, etc) – your social media audience can become your marketing force. They’ll share your content and ultimately promote your brand. The sort of marketing that money can’t buy!

So that’s my Top 7 Social Media Marketing Tips for Small Businesses this holiday season. As with most of your holiday season marketing strategies, the sooner you get started, the better the results will be when it counts.

There’s plenty of other social media marketing strategies to leverage during the holiday season, so what will you be using this year? Share your tactics with our readers below.

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Review-<b>Social Media Marketing</b> All-In-One For Dummies

Social Media Marketing All-In-One For Dummies
by Jan Zimmerman and Doug Sahlin
Wiley Publishing
More info
ISBN: 978-0-470-58468-2
818 pages
$29.99 US, $35.99 CN, £21.99 UK      

Almost everyone is now active in the social media arena. Who doesn’t have a Facebook page to keep in touch with family and friends? How often are you making your thoughts known 140 characters at a time on Twitter? Do you listen to podcasts on your favorite topics during your daily commute? Facebook, Twitter and podcasts are all forms of social media, but can they also be used for social media marketing?

In their book, Social Media Marketing All-In-One For Dummies, Jan Zimmerman and Doug Sahlin go into great detail about how to use social media to market your business or service. The tome is divided into eight books, each addressing a different aspect of social media.

Book I discusses the Social Media Mix. Basically, this book talks about how and why you should use social media, how social media is a tool in your overall marketing plan, how to prepare for your social media campaign, and how to engage your audience. Using social media can be a free, or very low-cost way to get your message out to consumers.

Book II, Cybersocial Tools, goes a little deeper into search engine optimization and social bookmarks. Never heard of social bookmarks? If you use Delicious or StumpleUpon, for example, to get recommendations of web sites you may enjoy, or to share your favorite web sites with others, then you’re using social bookmarks. Wondering how it could help your particular business: read Book II, Chapter 3.

Book III is where the real meat and potatoes begin. If you ever wanted to know how to create a blog, podcast or vlog, this is the book to read. While there are other books and resources that go into more depth, just reading Book III of Social Media Marketing All-In-One For Dummies is enough to get your brand new podcast up on iTunes in a matter of days. If you’d rather skip the podcast and go right to blogging, everything you need to know, from finding a blog host to handling comments can be found in Book III.

Books IV-VI talk about the kings of social media: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. How will Twitter help your business? Should you have a Facebook page for your business, and should it be linked to your personal Facebook account? Are there risks involved? Is LinkedIn worth it? Using Facebook and Twitter as marketing tools is a bit different from using them on a personal level. Zimmerman and Sahlin talk about these social media applications in a conversational way, making them a little less scary for those who are new to social media, and informative to those more experienced users. Did you know that using LinkedIn will help you meet people in businesses similar to yours, and can connect you to business professionals in nearly every industry?

Book VII, Other Social Media Marketing Sites, covers lesser known or used sites, including Flickr, Ning and MySpace. Just because they’re not as popular as Facebook or Twitter doesn’t mean they couldn’t have a place in your marketing strategy. The authors help you decide if these sites are right for your business, and if so, how to use them to their fullest potential.

Finally, in Book VIII, Measuring Your Results; Building On Your Success, the authors explain how to analyze if all your hard work is paying off. Here the concepts of metrics, analytics, integration, tracking, and social mapping are introduced and discussed. If your social media campaign isn’t giving you the expected results, Book VIII, Chapter 4 describes what steps to take to fix problems.

Social Media Marketing All-In-One For Dummies is an excellent book for people who want to expand their businesses by entering the social realm, or for people who are just curious about what social media is all about. The authors include links for resources based on each chapter: everything from social media dashboards to web hosting to Twitter metrics. A very nice feature of this book is the generous use of real-life examples of businesses successfully using social media. Read how luxury footwear company “Omelle” markets their products strictly through social media outlets, or how social bookmarking helped laptop sleeve/creator “Barry’s Farm” increase their business and online presence.

The Dummies series of books have always been a favorite of mine. They’re easy to read, well organized, and contain loads of information. This book is no exception.

MyMac.com rating: 10 out of 10

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<b>Social Media Marketing</b> – Is It Right For You? | Social Marketing Tips

What Is Social Media And Why We Have It?

Social media, as the name implies, is a means through which people online can stay in touch with each other. Social media sites are gathering places where you can go, log in and instantly see all the news that happened to your family members. You can go to Facebook and find out your friend Marry’s new baby’s name, you can go to YouTube and actually see Marry’s baby walking around, you can go to twitter and tell all your friends about Marry’s new baby’s new adventure, etc.

Makes sense? Social media sites are there for us to be able to stay in touch with each other.

They Are NOT Intended To Be Marketing Tools

Although YouTube is a great place to do video marketing as it gives you free tools and virtually u[pnlimitted space to upload as many promotional videos as you want, it's not intended for you to use it to make money. Although Facebook is an awesome place to use for your new product launch as it allows you to get in touch with up to 5000 people all at the same time, it's not intended for you to make money. Both those sites are there to help you stay in touch with your buddies, so...

How Do You Use Social Media Marketing In your Business?

Well, don't get me wrong. People use social media to make tons of cash all the time, but there is one thing to remember: be very careful.

Let me put it this way: imagine that a long lost friend that you haven't seen for ages calls you up and invites you to dinner. You're way excited to meet with him and talk about the good old times.Mabe you'll get to refresh the friendship. You get to the restaurant. You guys sit down and start eating. Finally, half way through the meal, he starts selling you something.

You almost feel your steak lost its flavor, don't you?

You feel cheated. You feel used. If you're tactful, you finish the meal politely, say good bye and never get in touch with the guy again. If you're really upset, you say you don't want to talk to him anymore, get up and leave. In any case, friendship lost.

Do you want that to happen to you online? Do you really want to be seen as the "pushy salesman" type of friend? Not really? Then use social media marketing with caution. The same is true of video marketing of course.

Now, as I said, if you actually know what you're doing, social media marketing is perfect for generating additional income and traffic to your website or business. You just have to know what you're doing.

Here's an awesome place for you to go check out and learn how to use video marketing and social media marketing to make loads of cash. Enjoy.

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The Role Of Twitter In <b>Social Media Marketing</b> | Social Media Forum

Twitter is a social network, instant messaging and micro-blogging service that allows users to post “tweets”– 140 character updates that can be seen by other “Tweeters” who are following them. Users are prompted with the question, “What’s happening?” but tweets have evolved from descriptions of day-to-day life into conversations around popular topics, real-time news updates, shared links to interesting web content, photos, music and videos. For businesses, this ongoing dialogue makes Twitter a valuable social media marketing tool.

In order to successfully use Twitter in your social media marketing campaign, you have to post more than one-off advertisements and coupon codes. More than 50 million tweets are sent from Twitter each day, so hard work is required to make your business stand out. Stay afloat by gathering your target audience– the people who regularly tweet about your business’s subject. As well, if your posts contain popular keywords, people will also be able to find you. Once you have your preferred audience, interact with them. Pay close attention to their wants and needs and frequently post information they’ll find useful. After all, the most important part of social media marketing is being social.

Retweeting is crucial for a successful social media marketing campaign. Tweets that are exceptionally relevant and interesting have a chance to be spread and re-spread by other Twitter users, which allows your tweet to reach an infinite audience and possibly become viral. Posts that contain multimedia, such as links to videos, photos, fun articles, news and blogs have the best chance of being retweeted.

Tweetups, which are in-person gatherings of Twitter users, can easily bump your social media marketing plan to a higher level. You’ll have a chance to strengthen current relationships, make new ones and network with people who are just as passionate as you are. Afterward, participants will post followup tweets that contain valuable industry insight. Tweetups give your business a face and a name and close the gap between the virtual and physical worlds.

Twitter is a highly beneficial tool for social media marketing, but it still needs to be used in conjunction with other social platforms, such as Flikr, Facebook and YouTube. When used to its full advantage, Twitter will help create a far-reaching, robust social media marketing plan.

Before starting a social media marketing campaign, be sure to read this informative article on Twitter’s role in social media marketing.

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Three Tools for Hyper-local <b>Social Media Marketing</b>

With 500 million people on Facebook, 150 million on Twitter and every Fortune 500 company represented on LinkedIn, many marketers are overwhelmed and overspent trying to engage their customers and prospects. The answer is to think small, going after nano-markets using hyper-local social media marketing tools. A nano-market is smaller than a niche, and it's a group of people with a very specific set of interests.

Previously, these people were hard to find, and communicating with them was costly. But hyper-local search and social media have made it easier to target nano-markets, and most of the tools required to be successful are free or nearly free.

You can't outspend the big brands, and you can't put more hours in than them, either. What you can do is play the game differently by focusing on nano-markets. There are many social media outlets that can help you do this. I'd like to discuss three of my favorites.

Twitter Search
Twitter Search is already the second most used search engine on the internet. More than 1 billion twitter updates are created and indexed monthly; this puts 150 million Twitter members at your fingertips.

Too many people miss the "Advanced" search button. And that's too bad because one of the most important features is the location-based search option. You can drill down and search for people only in your immediate area who are tweeting about topics related to your business or industry and engage them in real-time

One great example of this is Blenz Coffee in Vancouver, British Columbia. The company found people within 10 miles of each of their locations who were tweeting about coffee, lattes, Starbucks and other coffee-related terms, and then engaged them by inviting them to its locations. George Moen, CEO of Blenz, also created a short list of influential bloggers and Twitter personalities and booked one-on-one meetings with them.

According to Moen, the strategy has increased store traffic and sales of online gift cards significantly. The Blenz strategy also helped them achieve the status of one of the top Ambush Marketers during the 2010 Winter Olympics, according to The Global Language Monitor, an independent media monitoring organization.

Meetup
According to founder Scott Heiferman, the purpose of Meetup is to "use the internet to get off of the internet." With more than 18,000 organizers and a growth rate of 500,000 members a month, it has proven to be a powerful tool. For less than $100 per year, you can start your own Meetup on a specific topic. Members in your region who indicate an interest in this topic will receive notifications of your group and upcoming events. Additionally, you can search for people within other Meetups.

By holding Meetup events that build community, share best practices and improve people's lives, you can elevate your organization and be seen as a trustworthy community hub -- versus a vendor or salesperson. It will also give you real insight into how you can help your clients and prospects.

Contact complementary Meetup group organizers and hold quarterly joint events. This exposes each of you to the other's market. It also will accelerate the growth of both respective Meetups.

Another strategy is to target Meetups that interest your prospects. Many of these groups have forums and complete member profiles that allow you to connect with them through Facebook, Twitter or their personal blogs. Be sure to gain consent, and don't send unsolicited pitches to these people. Instead, look for opportunities to contribute to the success of their Meetup groups and communities. This contribution could be in the form of providing sponsorship, guest speaking or even finding a venue for the group.

FourSquare
Some might describe FourSquare as a social game. Users "check in" to a business with their mobile phone and whoever checks in the most times at a business will be named Mayor of that location. Often, users post this information on Twitter and Facebook. Many businesses offer incentives and rewards to frequent visitors, and with more than 3 million users globally, most major cities have several thousand users.

One savvy independent Apple retailer in California monitors who is checking into the other local computer stores and corporately owned Apple stores. He then follows them on Twitter and FourSquare. On Twitter he watches their conversations for opportunities to provide relevant advice. Many of these people have come to his store as a result of their online conversations.

Particularly for retail and service-based businesses, filling out a complete FourSquare profile is vital. You might also add FourSquare-only specials. People will see your special offers when they check in at your business or a nearby business.

Blenz Coffee encourages check-ins by giving a $5 gift card to a new Mayor at each location weekly. According to Blenz, this immediately increased and sustained the number of check-ins at its major locations.

These are only three of the guerrilla social media weapons available. While your larger competitors fill the marketplace with noise, you can connect purposefully with your nano-markets and win the marketing battle one customer at a time.

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Upcoming Workshop: Marcus Evans <b>Social Media Marketing</b> Conference <b>...</b>

Welcome to the Gauravonomics Blog for Marketers, Entrepreneurs and Activists! Follow the blog on RSS, Twitter or Facebook and you'll never miss a post again!

I’m delighted to share that I’ll be conducting a half day workshop at the Marcus Evans Social Media Marketing Conference 2010 at Novotel Mumbai on Novermber 18-19, 2010.

I’ll demonstrate the possibilities of a strategic social media program with the Dell case study, illustrate the 18 social media use cases around conversations, campaigns and community using short examples and close by arguing for my 360 redux approach to integrated marketing, with the Pepsi Refresh case study.

Other speakers at the conference include senior executives from Yum International, Viacom18, Cadbury, McDonalds, Taj Hotels, Nokia, Mahindra & Mahindra and Unilever.

Do consider joining me at what promises to be one of the most important conferences on social media marketing in India. More details here.

If you liked this post, you should check out some other posts like this:

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<b>Social Media Marketing</b> by SearchReadySeo | Underground Research <b>...</b>

SearchReadySeo is located San Francisco Bay Area and serves the greater part of East Bay, Fremont, San Jose, Berkely, . We offer top-quality professional Social Media Networking/Internet Marketing at globally affordable packages.

Social Media Networking in Bay Area is more popular than ever in the online space today. People communicate, socialise and network increasingly online. Marketing in forums, social networking and social bookmarking websites can be more difficult than it seems. Normal marketing and advertising rules do not apply as communities are sensitive to their unique code of conduct that needs to be respected at all times. Adding value and building trust will be the key to our approach.

SearchReadySeo offers social media networking on sites like facebook, twitter, linkedin, yelp, digg, myspace & many more to all of our Bay Area clients.

Our consultants can help to introduce your company to these spaces and also advise you on how to better add value and rip the benefits of a well-positioned product or service.

Whichever method you choose, there are usually four main goals:
Increased brand awareness. You’re interacting with others on the social media channel in order to build awareness for your personal and business brand. You’re increasing your visibility in the right areas and trying to stick in the minds of others through active interaction on many different levels. From this perspective, networking also works to drive traffic back to your website.

Improved reputation. You want to improve how others think about your website so you hang out in forums or networking sites, in order to respond to feedback. You want to keep the communication channels open on all social media fronts. You may also want to improve your reputation as an expert by being consistently involved in discussions on topics that are relevant to your business or website.

Relationships with benefits. One can network with others with the aim of extracting future benefits such as testimonials, links or recommendations. Others are more likely to provide you with a benefit when you’ve taken the effort to interact with them. Networking is a way to build relationships that can be mutually beneficial.

We offer social media marketing services on a great number of networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Flickr, Delicious, Bebo, Digg, MySpace and others. We also offer viral marketing services for marketing in video sharing sites. The work carried out by Social Media has a structured approach of strategy, creative thought, analysis, close monitoring and timely execution. The experience of working in social media spaces since beginning days to maximize their presence and create a viral buzz about their brands with highly effective ROI. The cost of a social marketing campaign can vary but the basic packages still deliver outstanding value for the advertiser.

Social networking allows you to maintain light and more in depth contact with both acquaintances and established friends. Goal for SearchReadySEO is to establish “Web Presence” for websites. Any Website is more likely to get a higher returns in the future than the immediate present.

SearchReadySeo is a professional Search Engine Optimization and Website Design company based in the San Francisco Bay Area. We have been offering our clients one-on-one service which our clients will agree is second to none. We at SearchReadySeo Design believe a company stands or falls not just by the quality of service offered, but more by the continued success of our clients.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Tags: Advertising Rules, Amp, Berkely, Brand Awareness, Building Trust, Code Of Conduct, Communication Channels, East Bay, Francisco Bay Area, Internet Marketing, Main Goals, Marketing, Media, Myspace, Networking Internet, Reputation, San Francisco Bay, San Francisco Bay Area, SearchReadySeo, Social, Social Networking, Socialise, Visibility, Yelp

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4 Myths about <b>Social Media Marketing</b>

This is a guest post by Jennifer's co-worker Britt Brouse

Would you say no to a free ad for your freelance business on television or in a local magazine or newspaper?  Then you better be doing social media marketing!

Social media marketing is a free way to advertise, yet only a handful of freelancers are using sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to market their services and increase web traffic. The only cost to doing social media marketing is the time you invest in creating a profile, crafting messages and engaging with other users.

The more time and creativity you put into social media, the more leads and new business you'll get out of it. Below are four of the most common social media marketing myths, and how to overcome these falsehoods.

Myth No. 1: I don't have enough time

In order to start an active Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn presence you'll need about an hour a day for about two weeks. Once you have connected with enough followers and friends, the time investment drops to 15 minutes every day or 30 minutes three times a week. Hootsuite.com, is a free tool that aggregates all your social media profiles into one dashboard. The software saves time by eliminating the need to login to each site separately, and it allows users to schedule updates in advance. So by checking into Hootsuite for 15 to 20 minutes once each day, you can set updates to go out hours or days later.

Myth No. 2: I don't know where to start

On all of the leading social media sites, there are built-in tools to help you find your friends and colleagues. Facebook and LinkedIn are pretty easy to use in this respect; however, it's a bit more challenging to build a Twitter following. The best way to build a Twitter following is to follow other graphic designers and industry thought-leaders, and they in turn will follow you. Look at graphic designers’ Twitter profiles and click on the list of people they follow. Then go ahead and follow any of the users who look relevant to you. Use Twitter search to find contacts by keywords and even ZIP code. As you get more advanced at using Twitter, you'll find that lists are a great way to sort and manage all the incoming updates.

Myth No. 3: Nobody cares about what I'm doing

OK, it might actually be true that nobody cares what you're doing. Leading social media marketers actually say you should promote other peoples links and content 12 times more than your own content.

One way to develop content to post is to visit Alltop.com where you can find lists of the best blogs in graphic design and other areas. Then create a Google Reader or a profile on a social bookmarking site such as Delicious.com and add those blogs to your list. This way you can check in with what's being posted in the blogosphere and select a handful of sites to link to and share with your followers.  On Twitter, the retweet button is a powerful tool, because it gives you content to push out to your followers and it’s a way to compliment and build a relationship with another user.

Myth No. 4: Social Media Wont' Pay my Bills

Business networking is happening online. LinkedIn.com is a powerful search tool where companies can find local experts and make contact with them for projects and jobs. A LinkedIn profile, complete with recommendations from past clients or employers, is becoming a new form of the cover letter. On Twitter and Facebook, you'll need to take a subtler approach to marketing your business. Let's say you are working on design for a nonprofit marketing campaign. If you share an update on Twitter or Facebook about what you are doing, then maybe another nonprofit client out there will notice and contact you. It never hurts to toot or “tweet” your own horn a little bit.

Britt Brouse writes for the PsPrint Design & Printing Blog. She has been writing about marketing, graphic design and online printing for more than five years. You can find PsPrint on Twitter and Facebook.

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New <b>Media Marketing</b> Summit Helps Business Owners Attract and Engage Quality <b>...</b>

West Palm Beach, FL / Orlando, FL (PRWEB) October 3, 2010

South Florida's most respected online experts come together to provide two opportunities to attend the New Media Marketing Summit organized to inspire marketers, entrepreneurs, and small business owners. This event includes one day, five speakers, a live website review, and an excellent chance to network with successful leaders in your industry.

The speakers are a group of experts that work with small businesses in all different areas of online marketing and created this event in order to help others keep up with the changes and fast-moving trends in the marketing industry. One will gain insights into the latest trends to optimize your online presence with topics such as how to use popular social media sites, ways to build relationships with your target market, and how to use search engines to your advantage.

A common theme among entrepreneurs and business owners that have attended the summit in the past is that they have heard of certain tools or websites, but do not know where to start and often feel too unprepared to begin promoting their business. Participants will get fully emerged into specific concepts and learn from real life case studies shown by the experts. The speakers will be explaining relevant topics and give concrete examples to prompt others to have their own success stories.

Guests can take advantage of group brainstorming and learning alongside others at the same level without the distractions of being in the office. Participants will be focused on the concepts and will be interacting with the experts to ask questions and get instant feedback on their concerns.

The speakers will include Jeremy Pound, co-founder and chief strategist of Juicy Results, an online marketing firm. Pound will reveal the real reason your website isn't getting your desired results. Klaus Heesch, creative director and co-founder of Juicy Results will also be attending. His expertise is creating strategies that combine appropriate technologies with consistent branding. Jennifer Hampton, owner and CEO of Superior Virtual Services and author of "The Art of Social Media" is recognized for her social media training and will give secrets on how to manage your own social media plan. Brie Wolf, founder and president of YOUnited TV, has extensive experience working with major publishers and PR firms. She will be discussing how to create effective videos that people actually want to watch.

If you are interested in this opportunity, now is the time to act in order to receive 100 dollars off your admission. To take advantage of this special price, register for the West Palm Beach summit by Friday Oct 15th or register by Nov 1st for the Orlando conference. The West Palm Beach summit will take place at the Hilton Palm Beach Airport and the Orlando location is yet to be determined.

To register for this event, see details on specific summit topics, or read testimonials from past attendees, visit www.newmediamarketingsummit.com or contact Jeremy Pound at Jeremy(at)juicyresults(dot)com for questions.

Contact:
Jeremy Pound
Juicy Results
Jeremy(at)juicyresults(dot)com
www.juicyresults.com

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