Cathy, a small business owner, spent a lot of money on the front end of a social media campaign for her bakery. She set out to incrementally build her following on Facebook, Twitter and her blog. She slowly built a following with her in-store business as well as her distribution nationally. She carefully crafted flyers to put in boxes, an email campaign and newsletters. Her followers steadily grew until she hit a plateau. She wondered why it took so much effort to build her following, just for her drop out rate to steadily increase. What Cathy didn’t realize is while it’s important to build a following on social media sites, it’s just as important to keep that following engaged.

In order to keep your customers engaged, you must create an emotional bond in order to keep their attention.  The average customer is exposed to hundreds of messages everyday on their computer, on their phones and on TV. They have become artificially attention deficit disordered, and that doesn’t help your advertising brand. In order to be successful in the social media market you must engage the customer. Cathy can do this by turning to the creative spirit of the company and think outside the box using the following strategies:

1)      Create great content. If Cathy posted interesting antidotes about the history of certain desserts or the story behind a certain dessert, it is sure to create more buzz. If you have a consulting business, talk about some of the best ways to move a customer’s business forward in a down economy.

2)      Consider adding video. The average consumer responds to video better than written content. If Cathy showed a video of the bakery making their new three layered rainbow colored cake, that is more engaging for her followers than the average post. Rick’s auto mechanic shop could post video on how to look for seals corroding. The options are endless.

3)      Add humor to get the customers laughing. If an employee turns the mixer on high accidentally and splatters cake batter all over the place, snap a picture and post it across your social media network. If you are an accountant, you may post the top 10 funniest tax excuses. If you are an author, have some friends act out a funny scene in your book.

4)      Look at your competition. Look for the top 10 competitors that you have in social media. Keep an eye on what they are posting and how many followers they have.  Then develop your content in a more interesting and out of the box way from what they are doing. Do it faster, more cleaver and better.

5)      Look for other companies that are a good fit to team up with. Make an agreement to swap content on each other sites so that you can take advantage of co-marketing. This could be another manufacturer or service that complements your business. Take advantage of the communities that have already been built and cross-pollinate them through your posts.

6)      Look to younger employees in your company that may be on the pulse of social media. Put them in charge of reporting to you once a week about what the buzz is in the social media realm. Have them come up with different ideas, promotions or creative posts of interest and test them out in the market.

All of the content-rich aspects of social media will attract, but more importantly keep, your customers watching your brand grow. Standing out in the market place is becoming even more important as competition is always knocking at the social media door. Do it better, be more nimble and you will catch your customers sticking around to see what is next.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Genae Girard is a speaker, author and entrepreneur. She is the founder of www.BeyondtheBoobieTrap.com, an online social media tribe of over 23,000 breast cancer survivors and regularly speaks on the topics of women in leadership and building a tribe. She is also the author of “Off the Rack: Chronicles of a Thirty-Something, Single, Breast Cancer Survivor.” For inquiries, email: info@BeyondtheBoobieTrap.com or call 512-796-1618.

Like the TV commercials say, “Free is better.” The only problem with the Internet is that it’s not always free, and sometimes the price can be steeper than you’d ever want to pay.

That’s the warning offered from Todd Drowlette, Chairman of classified listing site Move That Block (www.movethatblock.com). Drowlette said that his research into the consumer-to-consumer advertising space on the Internet revealed a wide variety of practices that exist for the sole purpose of deceiving the consumer.

“We all tend to have faith in the ‘truth in advertising’ laws protecting us from bait and switch scams,” Drowlette said. “The problem is that the Internet is so saturated with bait and switch sites, the government would never have enough resources to prosecute them all. So, it’s really up to consumers to beware and be aware of the kinds of sites that are out to get their money, get their email addresses or just flat out rip them off.”

His tips include:

• Free or Premium – Before signing up with a listing site, surf it carefully to ensure that all their user listings are free. It’s common for them to charge companies for display ads and banner, but that’s only one of their revenue models. Many sites advertise free user listings, but in reality, only the first one is free and only after you sign up for a paid membership. Make sure you understand exactly what you will be getting for free before you sign up.

• Credit Card for ID Purposes – Some sites will ask for your credit card information to determine that you are of legal age to place an ad. Don’t believe it. If someone wants your credit card information, it’s because they want your money, not your ID. In some cases, you’ll find an unauthorized charge on your card, but because you didn’t read the fine print when you signed up, it’s impossible to get the charge reversed.

• The Fine Print – When you register on a classifieds or pay-to-use site, don’t just click through all the registration procedures. Each click constitutes an agreement with the site, so read the Terms of Service and Privacy Policies carefully. This is not just fine print. These documents spell out your legal rights, and the site you’re visiting is counting on the fact you won’t read them. In addition, the privacy policy spells out whether they will sell your email address to spammers once you sign up. Sure, the ads are free, but you’re actually paying with your email address and personal information, which may be sold to spammers and other promotional companies who will inundate you with junk mail.

• Free to Post – Sure, it might be free to post, but that may be all you can do. Many sites use that as the come-on, and then advise you that only premium (paid) members can see your listing, or that you cannot get responses until you pay for a premium membership yourself. Make sure everything is free before you post. After all, what’s the point of posting if you can’t communicate with anyone who sees it?

About Todd Drowlette

Todd Drowlette began his entrepreneurial career at age 11 with a morning paper route in the Canadian border town of Malone, New York.  In 2003, he went on to graduate from Siena College with high honors before becoming a member of Siena College’s Associate Board of Trustees. In 2010, Todd authored the book “Everything I Needed to Know About Real Estate, I Learned on my Paper Route.”  He has spent the last four years running IKON Realty Group, LLC, one of the country’s premier boutique commercial real estate firms, specializing in retail real estate.  Todd’s firm has represented some of the nation’s largest property owners and tenants. It was from this career that the idea emerged to create the world’s first premium quality, free-to-post and search site, MoveThatBlock.com.

When those fans go back home, they’re on fire.

But as the days and weeks progress, they ease back into their lives and that mountaintop high fades away. So we designed this section

of the curriculum to sustain that feeling and encourage action. To keep the movement, well, moving. The program’s success is not

at the headquarters of the company; it takes place in small towns and big towns, face – to – face, all across the country. That’s where it

has to live and breathe: on a local level. That’s the lifeblood of a movement. The curriculum for Best Buy’s Mi11 movement followed the

same outline but was devised to speak the language of people who were passionate about helping others find their “music inside.”

The training started out with a list of introspective questions, such as “ If you could bring three foods with you to a desert island

to eat for the rest of your life, what would they be? ” That led to more revealing questions, like the kind of books

participants love and which movies have influenced them. Then we go even deeper. For example, we’d present them with an object and

ask them the first memory that comes up from their childhood — all to help them remember and then share with the others who they

are as persons and what makes them tick. The result? At the end of the first day together — even though You’ve  just met these people that

you’ve exchanged some e – mails and talked on the phone with — you walk out of the room knowing about their passions, hopes, and fears. You

really see them as individuals, not employees or colleagues, but people. At its most basic level, the curriculum teaches our leaders how

to create fans by spreading their passion. We call this the fan cycle. The fan cycle is a series of steps that provide a blueprint for turning

passive participation into ownership for a brand, product, service, or cause. It is based in part on digital marketing expert and avid

marketer David Armano’ s people graphic, and partly on Citizen Marketers authors Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell ’ s loyalty ladder

model. It is a guide for developing tools for online and off – line conversations and for measuring those tools ’ success. As we start

to engage the customers, employees, and others who make up a fan community we ’ re developing, the fan cycle allows us to index

behavior, engagement, and tools in a uniquely actionable way and create a fertile ground for meaningful interaction.

Don’t miss Geno Church’s #optsum workshop Lessons Learned in Igniting Word of Mouth Movements Part One and Two

Authentic, sustainable word of mouth marketing is one of the truest forms of brand communication, and it can’t be manufactured or bought.  And yet, as more institutions dedicate marketing dollars to assemble word of mouth and buzz marketing programs, how can you build an effective, meaningful movement for your brand that will directly impact your bottom line?  How can you identify those brand advocates already speaking out on your behalf, and work with them to develop a natural two-way word of mouth program?

Geno will explain how word of mouth marketing works and how it doesn’t, providing techniques on how you can start to identify movement-building opportunities for your brand, with authenticity and clear measurement results in mind. You’ll learn how to identify passion conversations versus product conversations, and how to “open the kimono” to your customers and fans. He will highlight successful WOM case studies, as well as talk about ways to define ROI.

In addition, Geno will draw from lessons discussed in the book Brains on Fire – revealing how to ignite powerful, meaningful, sustainable word-of-mouth movements that are a “win-win” for both customers and business. Believing the focus should be on people and not simply new tools and tactics is the key to building long-term momentum both online and offline for companies, products, services or organizations.

Workshop Details

* Date: September 13,2011
* Time:
* Room:
* Level: Intermediate to Advanced

Geno Church, Word of Mouth Inspiration Officer, Brains on Fire

Geno was born and raised in the South and proudly calls Greenville , SC his home. He spent two years at Furman University and went on to the University of South Carolina to receive a degree in Advertising. In his 13+ years with Brains On Fire, Geno has helped build word of mouth into the identities of brands that include Fiskars Brands, the American Booksellers Association, Rawlings Sporting Goods, National Family Partnership, Earshot Independent Music Stores, the US Office of National Drug Control Policy, Ronald McDonald Children’s Charities, and Rage Against the Haze (South Carolina’s youth led anti-tobacco movement). Geno is responsible for developing word of mouth, buzz, viral and evangelism strategies for Brains on Fire’s clients.
Geno has been repeatedly recognized as a thought leader in both the identity and word of mouth realms and has also received awards from numerous organizations, including the 2004 National ADDYs, where he received honors for his work with Rage Against the Haze. Rage also won a coveted gold Effie award in 2008 and a Wommie award in 2006 from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. The Fiskars Brand Ambassador movement, of which was Geno’s brainchild, was also recognized by ad:tech and the Forrester Groundswell awards in 2007. In addition, the children’s book he helped illustrate and create, The Red Ribbon Works, was used as a backdrop for President Clinton’s War on Drugs.
Geno has given presentations at numerous events, including the National Conference on Tobacco and Health, the American Public Health Association Exposition, several Word of Mouth Marketing Association conferences, Social Media 2007 in Atlanta and Customer Management World 2007 in Johannesburg , South Africa . He is a frequent contributor to the Brains on Fire blog, which is one of the top marketing and word of mouth blogs in the world and referenced industry wide on a weekly basis.
Geno is a co-author of the book Brains on Fire published by Wiley Publishing in 2010.  Books will be sold at the event.

Join in the conversation on the Brains on Fire blog at www.brainsonfire.com/blog, or follow Geno on Twitter @genochurch.

Geno Church: Word of Mouth Inspiration Officer at Brains On Fire
Arbitrary Facts:
• USC grad
• Furman football fanatic
• Scored 50 points in a basketball game
• Played in a glam-rock band

Old-Fashioned Contacts:
864.676.9663
geno (at) brainsonfire.com
Brains on Fire  148 River Street, Suite 100 Greenville, SC 29601

The people you need to look to for igniting your movement may not be the people you originally thought of. They might even be the quiet leaders. And as this whole word – of – mouth marketing thing keeps growing and evolving — especially with the rise of social media — we often overlook the quiet leader. Quiet leaders let their actions speak louder than anyone’s words ever could. People watch them intently, and they don’t really know why. There is strength in their silence, and they choose their actions deliberately. Quiet leaders leave ego by the wayside. They understand that ego is a powerful, ugly beast that can easily take over a typical influencer’s life, and when it does, they’re no longer leaders. Just noise. Quiet leaders elevate those around them instead of always trying to elevate themselves. And when you elevate others, they never forget it. They are loyal. They are always happy to return the gesture. When we were searching for leaders for Rage against the Haze, one of our most active and effective teens actually found us. Zack was a quintessential quiet leader. Both of his parents smoked, and his goal was to get his mother to quit. But in getting involved, he found that he had a voice. This guy was six – foot three and 15years old, and he wore button – down shirts with pocket protectors every day — certainly not the type of guy to stand on top of a van and lead chants. Instead, he was having quiet conversations with kids who were struggling with the same issues he was. He was warm and approachable, and he is the perfect example of the assertion that it takes a lot of different kinds of people to move something forward. Zack was always there. He always showed up and was always the last one to leave. On his last day with the movement, before he aged out of it and went off to college, Zack was having lunch at a Rage event in downtown Greenville. All the teens were going around the table reminiscing about the summer and about Rage events all over the state. When it came to Zack’s turn, he couldn’t say a word, because he was overcome with emotion. All these other teens, from all walks of life and all social groups, gathered around him and hugged him. That’s the kind of emotion that you can’t get from a campaign, and that’s the kind of passion that brings us together. So don’t forget the silent leaders. They just might be the ones you’ve been overlooking, and they could very well be the key to your success. There could be one answering the phones at the front desk. Maybe there’s one in the accounting department, or down in shipping. You never know until you start to listen to what others are saying and start to dig in and see where people are getting their input and information. Because in this case — even though it may be counterintuitive — silence is indeed golden. BUT I WANT ONLY THE COOL, SEXY PEOPLE TO BE THE LEADERS OF MY MOVEMENT Then you ’ re going to have to move your company to dreamland, because that’s where your head is right now. Listen very closely: You cannot choose the people who will love your company. It’s not up to you to do the choosing; it’s up to them. People come in every shape, size, and color. They come from different backgrounds and espouse different belief systems. If you pick your leaders for their appearance, you’re doomed. Because unless you’re in the high – fashion model industry, that’s not reality. It takes all kinds, and passion comes in a lot of different packages. So learn to deal with it now.

Don’t miss Geno Church’s #optsum workshop Lessons Learned in Igniting Word of Mouth Movements Part One and Two

Authentic, sustainable word of mouth marketing is one of the truest forms of brand communication, and it can’t be manufactured or bought.  And yet, as more institutions dedicate marketing dollars to assemble word of mouth and buzz marketing programs, how can you build an effective, meaningful movement for your brand that will directly impact your bottom line?  How can you identify those brand advocates already speaking out on your behalf, and work with them to develop a natural two-way word of mouth program?

Geno will explain how word of mouth marketing works and how it doesn’t, providing techniques on how you can start to identify movement-building opportunities for your brand, with authenticity and clear measurement results in mind. You’ll learn how to identify passion conversations versus product conversations, and how to “open the kimono” to your customers and fans. He will highlight successful WOM case studies, as well as talk about ways to define ROI.

In addition, Geno will draw from lessons discussed in the book Brains on Fire – revealing how to ignite powerful, meaningful, sustainable word-of-mouth movements that are a “win-win” for both customers and business. Believing the focus should be on people and not simply new tools and tactics is the key to building long-term momentum both online and offline for companies, products, services or organizations.

Workshop Details

* Date: September 13,2011
* Time:
* Room:
* Level: Intermediate to Advanced

Geno Church, Word of Mouth Inspiration Officer, Brains on Fire

Geno was born and raised in the South and proudly calls Greenville , SC his home. He spent two years at Furman University and went on to the University of South Carolina to receive a degree in Advertising. In his 13+ years with Brains On Fire, Geno has helped build word of mouth into the identities of brands that include Fiskars Brands, the American Booksellers Association, Rawlings Sporting Goods, National Family Partnership, Earshot Independent Music Stores, the US Office of National Drug Control Policy, Ronald McDonald Children’s Charities, and Rage Against the Haze (South Carolina’s youth led anti-tobacco movement). Geno is responsible for developing word of mouth, buzz, viral and evangelism strategies for Brains on Fire’s clients.
Geno has been repeatedly recognized as a thought leader in both the identity and word of mouth realms and has also received awards from numerous organizations, including the 2004 National ADDYs, where he received honors for his work with Rage Against the Haze. Rage also won a coveted gold Effie award in 2008 and a Wommie award in 2006 from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. The Fiskars Brand Ambassador movement, of which was Geno’s brainchild, was also recognized by ad:tech and the Forrester Groundswell awards in 2007. In addition, the children’s book he helped illustrate and create, The Red Ribbon Works, was used as a backdrop for President Clinton’s War on Drugs.
Geno has given presentations at numerous events, including the National Conference on Tobacco and Health, the American Public Health Association Exposition, several Word of Mouth Marketing Association conferences, Social Media 2007 in Atlanta and Customer Management World 2007 in Johannesburg , South Africa . He is a frequent contributor to the Brains on Fire blog, which is one of the top marketing and word of mouth blogs in the world and referenced industry wide on a weekly basis.
Geno is a co-author of the book Brains on Fire published by Wiley Publishing in 2010.  Books will be sold at the event.

Join in the conversation on the Brains on Fire blog at www.brainsonfire.com/blog, or follow Geno on Twitter @genochurch.

Geno Church: Word of Mouth Inspiration Officer at Brains On Fire
Arbitrary Facts:
• USC grad
• Furman football fanatic
• Scored 50 points in a basketball game
• Played in a glam-rock band

Old-Fashioned Contacts:
864.676.9663
geno (at) brainsonfire.com
Brains on Fire  148 River Street, Suite 100 Greenville, SC 29601

Michael owns a bakery that has recently started using social media. He decided to get on board and try to build his following through Facebook and Twitter, yet consumers that “Like” his Facebook page keep dropping off. He has been posting facts about his business including specials and new products with limited success. Michael knows that Social Media is important to grow his business, but is confused about consumers jumping ship.  How can Michael keep his customers engaged so that he can continue to build his social media following?

There is a new goldmine in social media that more companies are discovering. That treasure consists of a doorway that bridges the gap between your brand and the consumer. That gold nugget is nostalgia. That’s right, talking about the yesteryears creates that warm fuzzy feeling conjuring up images of childhood, fun and remembrances of a less fast-paced hectic life. In this world of constant change where we are bombarded by texting, e-mails and other forms of marketing, we long for the less complicated times of hot dogs, baseball and apple pie.

At social gatherings you often hear of people bringing up childhood games, toys or food with great joy and camaraderie. An old Radio Flyer wagon, or grandmother sneaking them a brownie before dinner brings a broad smile and instant conversation. Why not use that joy to your marketing advantage? When used properly, nostalgia can be the social media glue between you and your consumer. Here are some tips on how to use nostalgia for your advantage:

Dos

-Pick topics that are directly relatable to your demographic. For example, if your consumer base grew up in the ‘80s, pick topics directly relatable to that timetable including music, social references or trends.

-Ask open-ended questions about the history of your group to get them talking about fond moments in their lives. This can be as simple as asking the question, “ What was your favorite song in the ‘80s?”

-Get creative. If you are in the grocery industry, try talking about the fact that you remember when generic cans were black and white. If you are in the communications industry, try talking about when cell phones were the size of a bread machine.

-Keep it light and humorous. People like to laugh. Humor wins their hearts and their buying habits. Often in social media, consumers are surfing Facebook or Twitter in their spare time. A break of laughter endears your brand to them.

-Be a listener. As your consumer base responds, keep notes on what topics get the most discussion responses. Note them in a file and use them to your advantage. Use responses to tailor future posts as well as your marketing materials.

Don’ts

-Never pass judgment on responses to your posts. Let them unfold organically and you will be amazed at the creativity people use to get involved in the discussion.

-Never talk about historical events like politics or religion that could spark too much negative debate.

-If you are missing the creative gene, don’t be in charge of creating the posts. Determine the focus and overall content and have someone on your staff who is creative be in charge of posting.

Need a source of information and inspiration? United Online, Inc. has launched MemoryLane.com^™, the largest archive of nostalgic content on the Internet. This website allows visitors to relive the past with over 100 million pieces of content dating from 1940 through 1999.

Using the tools out lined above will develop the dialog between you and the group and endear your customer to your brand by bringing to the forefront topics that they miss from their past.  Echo their history, warm their heart and solidify your brand.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Genae Girard is a speaker, author and entrepreneur. She is the founder of www.BeyondtheBoobieTrap.com, an online social media tribe of over 18,500 breast cancer survivors and regularly speaks on the topics of women in leadership and building a tribe. She is also the author of “Off the Rack: Chronicles of a Thirty-Something, Single, Breast Cancer Survivor.” For inquiries email: info@BeyondtheBoobieTrap.com or call 512-796-1618.

I was learning my around on Quora and ran across a question that grabbed my attention.

“Who originated the Four C’s of Social Media?”

We may never know for certain but Colin Walker gave us the Five C’s of Social Media in June of 2008.

1. Contribute – easy sharing of information
2. Comment – your chance to have your say
3. Conversation – getting involved in discussions with others
4. Collaborate – work with anyone, anywhere to achieve a common goal
5. Community – building relationships online

And as is the curse of my mind I took off researching the chain of thoughts that followed and found that many people have come up this their own set of  C’s.  The version  that I tend to side with is that the Five C’s of Social Media ties into the famous Four P’s. Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Well, as we all know there is now one more P.  Participation.

Do you have your own set of C’s?

Do you think these Five C’s are correct?

By: Erica Campbell, Sr. Manager of New Media Marketing for For Rent Media Solutions

The Internet connects us like no other medium, and social networking sites are a great way to stay in touch and turn connections into business. Here are the top ten opportunities that social networking offers and why you should stay connected in 2010:

1.    Spread a consistent message/image to a large audience about your brand, identity, and products/services
2.    Meet people in your industry, find employees and employers, ask for referrals, and get/give advice
3.    Put a “face” on your business and show your corporate personality
4.    Help build your website’s search engine ranking by cross-linking on all sites and optimizing media assets (the more quality links to your site, the better!)
5.    Compliment your existing online and offline presence (Do not replace them)
6.    Provide helpful, relevant information that is useful to the masses
7.    Turn your new and existing customers into repeat customers and fans
8.    Target specific demographics/industries/companies by using proper and consistent keywords/phrases for your audience
9.    Promote your events, promotion and specials to a wider audience
10. Elevate your customer service to a new, transparent level

Top 10 favorite social networking sites:

1.    Facebook
2.    MySpace
3.    Twitter
4.    YouTube
5.    LinkedIn
6.    Yahoo Answers
7.    Flickr
8.    del.icio.us
9.    Digg
10.    Stumbleupon

Erica Campbell has experience across multiple industries including automotive, real estate, heavy equipment, travel, sports and entertainment. Campbell joined Dominion Enterprises in 2004 and currently serves as the Senior Manager of New Media Marketing for For Rent Media Solutions. Her experience includes developing, executing, optimizing and analyzing social media strategic plans across multiple channels including blogs, social networking sites, video sharing sites and other conversational media. She spends a great deal of time building relationships with social media influencers, bloggers and new consumer business to generate awareness of clients and products. Campbell is also responsible for managing the email marketing campaigns. In addition, Campbell is an industry speaker and conducts added value Webinars for customers as well as training for For Rent Media Solutions employees nationwide.
erica.campbell@forrent.com | www.ForRent.com
Find Apartments For Rent on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube!
Follow Me Here:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ericawcampbell
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ericacampbell
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ericawcampbell
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/apartmentsforrent
Blog: http://blog.forrent.com/

Jun Loayza is the President of SocialMediaMarketing.com, a company focused on building social media campaigns for companies. He is also the co-founder of Viralogy.com, which measures and ranks your social influence online. He loves to meet other young, motivated entrepreneurs, and can be reached though his personal blog. Jun  lead How To Implement Ambassador “Experience” Campaigns workshop on  at the Social media Optimization Summits this past September.

Twitter () is my news stream. I use it to get the best news and information from people that I trust and admire. I barely even use my Google Reader () anymore because I carry my Twitter with me everywhere I go.

As you find more and more interesting and valuable people to follow, you’re going to find it difficult to keep track of all of the tweets you receive. You’re going to need something to help you manage all of the noise.

Just take a look at Gary Vaynerchuk (2,800+ following) and The Busy Brain (5,000+ following). I’m sure that at times, it gets difficult for each to keep track of all of their tweets because of the sheer volume they get in their stream.

So what do you do when you want to quiet the Twitter noise but don’t want to de-friend people? You currently have a few options:

1. Instead of listening to all of the noise, you can focus in on certain signals
2. You can use a platform to group your favorite tweeples and focus only on them
3. You can mute the tweeps that you don’t want to receive tweets from

Focus on the signal rather than the noise

Just Signal
Just Signal is an early-stage site that promises to stream in the tweets and FriendFeeds that you are interested in. The way they facilitate this is through a “filter” text box. In the text box, you input all of the keywords that you would like to filter in from Twitter, and they will feed “almost in real time.”

Tweetbeep
Tweetbeep is a great site that is very similar to Google Alerts. Using Tweetbeep, you can track any keywords that you want on Twitter and instantly get emailed when your keyword has been tweeted. This platform is much better than Just Signal because you don’t have to sit idly waiting for your keywords to stream in. With Tweetbeep, you just set your keywords and let them come into your email box.

Twilert
Another great alternative is Twilert. Like Tweetbeep, Twilert lets you create keywords that are tracked on Twitter and sent to you via email. Put simply, it’s Google Alerts for Twitter.

Isolate your favorite tweeple from the rest

To be perfectly honest, I’m a twhirl () fan, but Tweetdeck () has a killer function called Tweetdeck Groups that allows you to isolate your favorite tweeple from the rest of the noise. Just choose who you want to stand out, and Tweetdeck will create a column specifically for this user’s feed.

This is especially useful when you’re following over 300 people. So instead of sifting through all of the noise, just go to your favorite group and read the tweets that matter most to you.

You can view a comparison of Tweetdeck and twhirl here.

I just want to MUTE the noise

Twalala promises to mute certain people on Twitter without actually de-friending them. Why on earth would you want to actually mute someone?

• If you don’t want to see someone’s rant about their bad day at the office, you can mute them for the day.

• If you missed the season finale of Dancing with the Stars and don’t want to find out who won, you can mute any tweets with the keywords “Dancing with the Stars.”

Twalala feels that people would rather mute than de-friend because de-friending can be seen as offensive. Also, many people wouldn’t want others to know that they have just de-friended them, especially with sites like Qwitter out there.

Of course, by muting the people you follow, you selectively lose the opportunity to read that great 10% of information or breaking news that you would have received otherwise.

How do you manage your volume of tweets? Leave your favorite tips in the comments.

Yeah, I know you’ve heard it all when it comes to social media and marketing … that it slices and dices, is the answer to world peace, and will make your teeth up to three shades whiter with only one use.  But from the sea of hype that we’ve been sailing—filled with assertions about what social media is and isn’t and what it can and can’t do—are beginning to arise some proven truths. Having had the opportunity to put many, many new media opportunities through their paces, we’ve zeroed in on six truths we’ve discovered from personal experience—not in any specific order, but intended serve as food for thought as you decide how to apply social media in your marketing strategies, and prepare for what comes next!

1.  Social Media Isn’t Singular

We really have heard it all … “Show me the ROI.”  “Facebook isn’t a marketing channel.”  “Social media is for conversation, not conversion.”  Fact is, social media isn’t any one thing, and therefore doesn’t fit neatly into any one box.

Follow me here… back when the Internet was new, it took many of us a while to fully grasp what email or websites could do; but eventually we came to realize that they was more than fancy replacements for paper … that they supported a number of functions including customer service, communications, community, entertainment, advertising, engagement, marketing, PR, and more—and all to varying degrees depending on a company’s brand, marketing approach, culture, and (most importantly) how our customers prefer to engage with our brand.

Very much like email, social media is becoming the “Swiss Army Knife” not just of marketing, but also of customer service and retention, product development, internal communications, innovation and idea development, and so much more.  And yet, so many people still insist on trying to fit “it” into their existing marketing structure as though it is and does only one thing.

It’s not a one-trick pony, so don’t treat it like one.

2.  Customer Service Is the New Marketing

This isn’t new news to those of us who have always lived by “the customer is always right”— but in a world gone social and with increasing consumer demand for transparency, serving your customers not just well, but remarkably well, has become more important than ever before.

Communicating with speed and honesty to issues—and that goes for the flipside, too: enabling your customers and community to communicate to you—has become Priority One in your ability to acquire new customers.  People “talk” … they always have, and now that social media has enabled them to do it pretty much 24/7 and to whole groups of friends at once, they do it more effectively than ever before.  We also know that it’s human nature for them to share bad experiences more readily than good ones.  Ten years ago, a resident told a friend, and maybe that friend told somebody, and perhaps even that friend told somebody else.  Today a resident clicks a few keys on Facebook and tells a hundred people at once; and if that’s as far as it goes, you can thank your lucky stars. And I’m not even going to go into depth about how long a bad rating can hang around to haunt your reputation once it’s been posted to a community ratings site.

In this new social paradigm, your front line and marketing departments need to learn to work hand in hand to avoid bad customer experiences and make it easier and more likely for customers to share great ones!  In the old paradigm, onsite and marketing might have been separated by any number of tortuous lines and boxes on the old org chart; but in the new world, they must be aligned to facilitate the flow of communication between them, and create great experiences for customers as a result.

3.  Your Marketing Department Just Got a Whole Lot Bigger

Because it now includes your customers.  Way back in 1964, Marshall McLuhan told us that the medium is the message, and that’s still true today in that our various social media platforms lend undeniable character to what we convey there.  But what’s different now is that the messages have become vastly more personalized.  A great print ad is a powerful thing, but it will never possess the ability to persuade another human being the way that another human being can. And your social community is entirely made up of them.

Now that said, it’s important to realize that marketing is still marketing; and the game has maybe not changed as drastically for us in that our business has always been about creating and ensuring a great customer experience.  What has changed, though is that instead of working with mostly headlines and taglines and deadlines and other linear processes, you’re now working in the totally three-dimensional, round-the-clock online world where many people communicate to many people all at the same time.  Instead of identifying and managing great creative, your job description now includes identifying, enabling, and encouraging (due diligence) influential fans of your business (channel selection) to convince people that you’re their best possible choice (execution).  The job is still the same, but the medium has changed the game.

4.  It’s ALL Mobile Marketing

We’re all on the go, and most of us are consuming large quantities of our information via a mobile device of some kind or other; and the more that becomes a commonality, the less specialized that communications channel becomes.  It’s on the fast track to become the dominant way that we interact with other individuals and with brands and pretty much the whole world at large.  More customers are going to be interacting with you on the small screen, so if you’re not already focusing some of your marketing efforts on optimizing that experience, it’s time to.  Try to think of “mobile marketing” as less about being a channel and more about reaching people when and where they are (and are willing) to interact with your brand. That’s more and more likely to be via the small screen in their hand.

Oh, one more thing… while you might be tempted to dismiss the iPad as just another slick new tech toy, think again.  There’s a big gap to be filled between laptops and handhelds, and the iPad is just one of many devices rushing to fill that void. With more “tablet” sized devices on the horizon, you can expect more costumers to be found there, as well.

5.  Enter The Chief Marketing Nerd

As more companies come to terms with the fact that technology and marketing have merged, they’ll begin to see the justified need to hire senior level management (Chief Marketing Technology Officers or Social Media Marketing Officers, or some other titular combination that’s equal parts Creative and Geek) to oversee the tech-related facets of the marketing process and help marketing and IT work together as a seamless team.  The few and foresightful professionals out there who have reinforced their marketing expertise with technical know-how will be—should already be—in hot demand.  As even more new channels emerge and the pace of change gains even more momentum, companies that don’t invest in tech-savvy marketing expertise are going to be quickly outmaneuvered by the competition.

6.  Email is Still a Killer App

And finally, social media and mobile delivery may be hogging the spotlight, but don’t forget about your old faithful marketing steady: email.  Maybe it isn’t as hot as it used to be, but it continues to be a tremendously reliable way to deliver a message, engage people with your brand, convey value, and save you time and money … but there’s one important thing you do need to know.  A slight shift is happening as consumers begin using email less often for their personal communications than Tweeting, posting, messaging, or texting—the key word there being personal.  Permission-based email is still today’s consumer’s preferred channel for interacting with companies and brands; but now that more consumers are receiving it on the go, it’s more important than ever to deliver the right message at the right time.

Fore an in-depth analysis of what social media can quantifiable do for you, we recommend Social Media ROI in the Real World, presented by Mike Merrill of Bacon Marketing at our next Social Media Optimization Summits event!  We’ll see you there!

What are some of the new marketing truths you’ve discovered since the advent of social media?  We’ll see you in the comment box!

Social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have put the power of the media in hands of the average citizen.  Entrepreneurs, information marketers, and college students have learned that they can be the media for audiences both large and small.  They have also learned that the nightly news and the traditional print media will share their stories. This shift in the “power of the press” carries with it three rules of social media marketing for businesses large and small. These three rules are:

Silence is not golden…it’s guilty.

·    The first story told is the story most retold…and the story most believed.

·    Buzz is the bomb…it can propel you to the top, or blow up in your face.

Silence is Not Golden…It’s Guilty

In high school science, we learn that nature abhors a vacuum.  Well nowhere is this truer than on the Internet.  If a business fails to comment on an event, good or bad, then the social media will rush in to fill the void around the corporate brand.  It’s very simple.  The construction of search engines and social media is such that there will never be silence associated with any brand.

Whether the brand is the iPhone, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Disney, Universal Studios, or an unknown convenient store on the corner of Smalltown, USA; if something happens, somebody must comment.  That is the nature of the Internet and the social media in the 21st century.  With the advent of internet enabled cell phones, YouTube enabled smart phones, text messaging and location enabled Twitter, everybody is not just a news reporter; they are a video historian.  Watch the evening news in any market, anywhere in the world, and you will see YouTube video broadcast about a news event that has happened that day.  Nothing is more powerful than eyewitness testimony, both in a court of law and on the six o’clock news.

It is important to remember that is not the occasional user of the social media who is making these reports; it is the regular blogger, the regular Twitter broadcaster, and the regular YouTube poster, who is making these reports.  They have followers and their followers have followers.  The average reach of these individuals is over 20,000, and their audience is reliable.  This means that corporations cannot just broadcast a message in the social media when something happens, corporations must have a presence 24/7. The social media presence of a corporation must be part of an ongoing plan and deliberate social media optimization process that ensures that the corporation has an audience, and that the corporate audience is larger than that of any client or customer who may come through their door.

The First Story Told is the Story Most Retold and the Story Most Believed

The social media is a cultural phenomenon based on a conglomerate of social norms and behaviors that span age groups and demographics.  And as a result, the rules are difficult for many entrepreneurs and executives to negotiate.
But one of the rules that is constant across all social media platforms is the first story told is the first story believed. Further, in the social media, the first story about a major event, positive or negative, will be retold, retransmitted and shared among social media users.  The first story told in the social media will be converted to email and resent. The first story told is also the most likely story to make the transition to traditional media, in other words, it will become news.  Because of this, it is not enough to respond when a message appears on one of the popular social media platforms, such as Facebook for Twitter.  Instead, when an event occurs, a business must have a prepared statement ready to transmit immediately through an established social media optimization program to ensure that the corporate message is first story told.  Ideally, this corporate message will even precede those messages, blogs, tweets, and YouTube postings that may be coming from those customers actually involved as participants in the event.

And don’t believe for a second that blocking cell phone communications, disconnecting Wi-Fi, shutting down Internet or in some other fashion, disrupting access to the social media will delay negative social media messages.  This has been tried by major governments around the world and in every instance, not only has it in fact accelerated the rate that these messages have been transmitted, but increased the negative sentiment attached to the event. Ironically such attempts to block social media messages actually expanded the reach of every message that the perpetrators attempted to block.

The great Vince Lombardi once said, “the best defense is a strong offense.”
In the social media, nothing could be more true.  The only way to counter a negative message is to send your positive message, even before the first negative message can be transmitted.

Buzz is the Bomb…It Can Propel You to the Top, or Blow Up in Your Face

W.C. Fields once said, “I don’t care what you say about me, so long as you spell my name correctly.”  In the social media, W.C. Fields’ advice would be disastrous.  What is said absolutely matters.  The sentiment surrounding the brand determines the degree of influence that a message has and it determines the action taken by those who receive the message.  The goal of all marketing is to influence potential clients and potential customers to make a purchase.  In the social media, that means that they must be influenced to reach for the mouse, reach for the credit card, reach for their wallet and make the purchase.

Buzz is the bomb.  A positive buzz, means that there is positive message activity around your brand.  There is positive buzz when people are sending your message to their friends, their friends are sending your to other friends and it all influences someone to make that positive buy decision.

If the sentiment surrounding your message is negative, buzz can blow up in your face.  Research shows that a negative message will be sent on four times more frequently than a positive message, thus doing four times the damage, influencing four times as many people not to buy.

W.C. Fields was wrong, it is not good enough that your name is spelled correctly, something good must be said as well.  The easiest way to ensure that something good is said, influence those who influence others to say something good about you.  Again, this is done by having a constant positive presence in the social media, even before anything noteworthy happens at your company, at your place of business, in your brand.

There are three rules of social media marketing for businesses large and small. Turn on the news any night and you will see big business that have failed to follow these three simple rules.  Whether it is a cruise ship with a passenger falling overboard and 124,000 tweets telling the story of how they left him behind, or it is a major amusement park with the most anticipated themed ride in a decade breaking down, trapping riders for 45 minutes and generating 50 YouTube uploads.  To succeed in the social media
remember: Silence is not golden, businesses must be in the social media early, regularly, and constantly.  The first story told is the first story retold.  To be the one telling your story, influencing others to retell your story, businesses must take ownership of that message, or someone else will fill the void and tell your story for you from their perspective.  And finally, buzz is the bomb.  That buzz must be positive, so that the bomb does not blow up in your face.

About the Author:
Dr. Maurice A. Ramirez is founder of the consulting firm High Alert, LLC. He is a renowned speaker on the importance of social networking and has presented to national organizations.  As a consultant, Dr. Ramirez assists companies to align business continuity plans with personnel and customer behavior during adversity. Dr. Ramirez is founding chairperson of the American Board of Disaster Medicine and a Senior Physician-Federal Medical Officer. Please visit www.high-alert.com

Blogging can be a great way to attract and engage customers and communicate your brand; but say the word to a lot of small business owners, and you’ll find yourself talking to the hand. For some, it’s a tech thing, and building and managing the administrative end of a blog (OMG, there’s code in there!) is a problem in itself. For others, the prospect of putting themselves out there in writing just isn’t a comfortable idea.  Some people just aren’t sure exactly what benefits a blog can have, so why invest the time?  But here’s some encouraging news: it is possible to create and manage a blog with just a little inspiration and very little technical know-how, that’s actually worth your while.

Point of Fact #1:  The vast majority of those slick-looking blogs that you see out there weren’t built from scratch and didn’t require much expertise or expense.  They were created using one of the more popular (mostly free) blogging platforms available on the web. These applications—including WordPress, TypePad, and Google’s popular platform, Blogger—will take you step-by-step through the creative, letting you point and click your way through a menu of available formats (themes) to decide how your blog will look, then easily customize the various elements of the theme (header/title, sidebar, links, main content blocks, images, etc.).  With time, some experimentation, and a little self-education, you’ll get more familiar and comfortable with the creative/management end (the “dashboard”), and find that you can make more customized adjustments to your blog’s layout, including changing out images, colors, headers, and more; and add custom elements (sometimes called “widgets”) that perform specialized functions like displaying your Twitter feed in a sidebar, scrolling testimonials, a photo gallery, and more.  But it’s important to know that a blog’s quality isn’t determined by the number or widgets you can cram onto the page.  Even if the old adage that “Content Is King” were to die in relation to every other form of expression on the web, when it comes to blogs, it will always be fundamentally true.

Point of Fact #2:  You don’t have to be Shakespeare.  If you have any doubts, take a minute now to visit www.WordPress.com, www.Blogger.com, and www.TypePad.com and start clicking around.  You’ll see blogs of all shapes and sizes and levels of literary capability; and you’ll very quickly realize that pretty much everybody these days has a blog, and if they can do it, you can, too!  (You’ll also realize that there are way too many people out there who think it’s a great idea to put a cat in a dress, but that’s a topic for another day).  Here’s what you need to know about composing for a blog—and about writing pretty much anything, when you get down to it:  write what you know and the words will flow.  If you’re at all good at what you do, then you know your customers and prospects fairly well.  You’re familiar with their questions and their needs.  You know exactly what you have to offer and how to communicate that to them in a way they can understand.  Fall back on those real-world skills and channel them into blog entries that say it like you’d speak it, and you’ll be more than halfway to blogging success.  For a fabulous example of all of the above, visit http://sethgodin.typepad.com/.

Point of Fact #3:  When it comes to blogs, success is a seriously subjective thing, and it’s admittedly more than possible to totally waste your time.  As with every other business effort, it’s important to have a plan that states what you hope to accomplish, delineates how you plan to get there, and identifies all the appropriate measures of success.  If you want to get the word out about your products and services, then you’re shooting for high stats so focus on all the available opportunities to pull in more eyeballs by promoting your blog URL everywhere you can, and make sure you have tools in place to measure the visits you get. If you’re looking to boost brand loyalty, then focus on ongoing ideas like special rewards and “how to use our product better” features that focus on developing continuing relationships with the people who’ll visit your blog.  I’ve had more than one person tell me they blog simply to get the ideas out of their head and into a place that helps them analyze things more objectively, which is a completely worthy goal in itself.  The target here is incredibly broad, so just enter into the endeavor with your own idea of success as fully formed as possible if you care about making the most of your effort and time.

And finally, Point of Fact #4:  There are so many more possibilities in blogging than we could ever fit into one article, so if you want the whole scoop on building a blog, make sure your plan for our next #OptSum event includes Scott Ellis’ workshop on WordPress 101: Build a Website in 4 Hours; and if you’re ready to go beyond the fundamentals, don’t miss Jason Falls’ workshop on Practical SEO for Corporate Blogs, and Mike Merrill’s workshop on Social Media ROI in the Real World just to name a few.  We’ll see you there!

Jun Loayza is the President of SocialMediaMarketing.com, a company focused on building social media campaigns for companies. He is also the co-founder of Viralogy.com, which measures and ranks your social influence online. He loves to meet other young, motivated entrepreneurs, and can be reached though his personal blog. Jun will be leading the How To Implement Ambassador “Experience” Campaigns workshop on September 17th 2010, at the Social media Optimization Summits.

During the first Internet () boom, the most common business model was probably, “get a ton of traffic, then figure out how to make money” — which savvy readers will note isn’t a very good business model. Often, the way those businesses attempted to make money on that traffic was to use display or text advertising. Making money from advertising is still possible, but it’s no longer as easy as building a site and putting some ads on it. Fortunately, there are a number of business models to choose from.

Today’s social media startups are finding unique ways of generating revenue from the very beginning. Here are a few of the revenue models that they’re using and how you can apply them to your company.

1. Freemium Model

Description: This business model works by offering a basic service for free, while charging for a premium service with advanced features to paying members.

Examples of the Freemium Model: UserVoice, Flickr (), Vimeo (), LinkedIn (), and PollDaddy

The biggest challenge for businesses using the freemium model is figuring how much to give away for free so that users will still need and want to upgrade to a paying plan. If most users can get by with the basic free plan, they won’t have a need to upgrade. For example, I’ll probably never upgrade my LinkedIn account and because I don’t shoot high definition videos, I’ll never need a Premium Vimeo account either.

I spoke with Marcus Nelson from UserVoice about their use of the freemium model and how it works:

1. Is UserVoice profitable?
We’re “ramen noodle” profitable, but have recently taken funding to accelerate our growth.

2. How long did it take UserVoice to implement a business model?
Eight months, though I would not recommend that as a new startup. I talk a lot more about this in an interview on Mixergy.

3. How long did it take to get your first customer?
Depends on your definition of customer – we had sign ups immediately and grew by 30-35% a month. What we had built was core features, so as we spoke with customers we began asking what would they pay for on our UserVoice page. Once we had some premium features in place, we went back to those customers and began doing paid pilots to test out the service. The first paid customer arrived in November.

4. How many users do you have right now?
16,652 as of June 5, 2009.

5. What percentage of users are paying members?
Since moving to paid plans, our conversion rate is around 5%.

6. What are the biggest obstacles that UserVoice has for getting members to pay?
The same as most businesses, providing value that customers want to pay for, and overcoming objections for implementation.

2. Affiliate Model

Description: This is a model in which a business makes money by driving traffic, leads, or sales to another, affiliated company’s website. Businesses that sell a product, meanwhile, rely on affiliated sites to send them the traffic or leads they need to make sales.

Examples of the Affiliate Model: Illuminated Mind, ShoeMoney, DIY Themes

Like businesses that rely on advertising, high traffic sites predictably have a much easier time making money using affiliate links than sites that are just starting out. High traffic means that even low conversion numbers can equal big bucks. However, in just a year since starting his blog, Jonathan Mead from the Illuminated Mind generates enough income from affiliate links that he has been able to leave his full-time job. This is a dream of many bloggers and this is how he did it:

1. When did you start your blog and how long did it take you to generate enough revenue to be a full-time blogger?
I started blogging in February of 2008, so it took me a little over a year (15 months) to become a full time blogger.

2. How much revenue are you generating through affiliate links?
I earn roughly $2-3k per month from affiliates. It depends on the month though, some are better than others.

3. How many page views per month do you have to receive in order to generate the status of a full-time blogger?
I don’t think page views really played a critical role in my success. I think creating a community based around living on your own terms and making self-development palatable, was really the key to my success. You can have tons of traffic without anyone really caring enough to value what you have to offer.

4. What is the best way to get your readers to click on your affiliate links?
I’ll try to break it down into what I think are the three most important factors.

1. You have to have your reader’s trust. If they don’t trust you, they will not buy what you recommend.

2. You have to target the products to your readers. Speak to their interests, personality and emotions.

3. You need to be able to write decent copy and communicate in a compelling way why they should buy what you’re recommending.

5. What are the best kinds of affiliate links: Low price point and low margin, or high price point high margins?
I only aim for $20 and above range, so I’m not sure how the lower priced products convert.

6. What are the biggest obstacles to overcome when generating revenue through affiliate links?
Reader trust and proper targeting. These things seem so simple, but it’s amazing how many people don’t get this part right. It’s worth the time researching those in your niche selling products and starting conversations with them. Ask them why their readers buy and then use that in your copy.

3. Subscription Model

Description: Sites using the subscription model require users to pay a fee (generally monthly or yearly) to access a product or service.

Examples of the Subscription Model: Label 2.0, Scrooge Strategy, Netflix

I talked to Greg Rollett, the founder of Label 2.0, a marketing school for musicians that sells its services for a monthly membership fee. The service teaches musicians how to use online tools to help further their careers, find more fans and navigate the business of music.

1. Why did you decide to use a subscription based model over a one-off sales model?
When Eric [Hebert] and I decided to work together I was actually presenting him with an offer to promote a product that I had created and he was working on something similar. Instead of offering a one-off sale for both products and fighting for the same niche (our sites have nearly identical target audience and traffic). We decided that coming together and creating a long term relationship with the people we were helping would be better for our business in the long run. We have enough content and features that every month will be an exciting new journey. The business model was pretty simple. We took the features that we liked the best and least from popular internet marketing strategies for membership sites, continuity programs, etc as well as different ways to run the membership software and found what was going to be the easiest for us to use and easiest for our members to digest

2. How did you prepare to have a successful launch to your service?
Luckily Eric and I had been building up trust and a user base for years through our blogs, Twitter (), live speaking events and client work. We have both worked on high profile projects and that helped us secure a great position in the market. We both posted teaser blog posts and within a few days we had over a 100 musicians testing it out and providing feedback for our public launch. We expect 300-500 paying members within the first 2 weeks.

3. What are your price-points and how are you maintaining a personal touch with your subscribers?
Our pricing model is high for the industry we are in and we know that. At around $50 a month and $400 a year we have priced ourselves to only work with those that really want to see an impact in their careers. If you look at the bigger picture and see that for consulting we typically charge $100 an hour, you are getting a great deal, but losing that one-on-one feeling. That is why we are having bi-monthly conference calls, webinars, walk-throughs, Q&A’s and really doing our best to ensure that every musician gets their bang for their buck.

4. What are the biggest obstacles in the subscription-based model?

1. Price – Musicians are used to free. MySpace is free, YouTube () is free, there is free information everywhere and musicians would rather spend $500 on a new guitar pedal than invest $50 into something that can find them hundreds of fans with which they can begin to make a living on.

2. Stereotypes – Musicians do not think of themselves as marketers. They feel like that is what a manager, record label or promoter is supposed to do. We are helping them turn that stereotype upside down by teaching them how to market themselves to create better relationships with their fans which is going to help their business in the long haul.

3. Monthly membership sites have a high attrition rate – The reason is after their 1st or second time they login, they forget about it and never come back. We are doing everything that we can to ensure that there is always something going on, from new lessons to trainings to calls and webinars to activity in the forums to leveraging the community to make everyone stronger.

4. Virtual Goods Model

Description: Users pay for virtual goods, such as weapons, upgrades, points, or gifts, on a website or in a game.

Examples of the Virtual Goods Model: Acclaim Games, Meez, Weeworld, Facebook Gifts

Virtual Goods come in all shapes and sizes. Hot or Not was one of the pioneers of virtual good in the online dating industry by allowing users to send virtual roses to other users that cost from $2 to $10. The beauty of virtual goods is that margins are high, since goods essentially only cost as much as the bandwidth required to serve them, which is generally almost zero. I spoke with Ali Moiz from Peanut Labs, a social monetization company that focuses on virtual goods and currencies.

1. What is the margin on each item sold?
Very high. There is little or no marginal or production cost once you setup an economy, so for game companies this is in the 90% or higher range.

2. What percentage of your users actually buy virtual goods?
10 – 20% buy it using credit cards, another 30 – 40% get it for free by doing surveys and offers through Peanut Labs Media and companies like us.

3. What are the biggest obstacles in selling virtual goods?
Creating something that users want and need, and that is relevant to the community.

4. What are the most popular types of virtual goods sold?
3 main categories: functional, status items, decorative. All 3 play a major role.

5. Advertising Model

Description: Sites that rely on advertising, sell advertisements against their traffic. In basic terms: the more traffic you have, the more you can charge for ads (additional demographics about your site’s visitors, such as age, gender, location, or interests, also affects the amount you can charge advertisers to place ads on your site).

Examples of the Advertising Model: Yahoo! (), MySpace (), Tweet Later

I spoke with Dewald Pretorius from TweetLater, whose site relies on a unique variation of the advertising model in which users are able to bid on daily sponsorships on his site. When researching the site, I found that the average bid amount for a completed auction was $50-$80. Predictably, most of the users that won the sponsorship auction also linked out to TweetLater web site from their Twitter profile — driving more traffic and potential bidders back to the site.

1. Is TweetLater profitable?
Yes, absolutely! I run my business with very low overhead costs, and TweetLater has been profitable since the very start when I monetized it in February 2009.

2. How long did it take TweetLater to implement a business model?
I started TweetLater in April 2008, and ran it as a completely free service until February 2009. That period allowed me to build a solid user base, which was very willing and keen to dive into the paid side when I released it. Personally I think some people are too anxious to start making money immediately and underestimate the value of being patient and first building a reputation and user base.

3. How long did it take to get your first customer?
After I announced TweetLater Professional? If I remember correctly, it was about 10 minutes after I made the announcement that I got the first subscription. I might be wrong. It could have been 5 minutes.

4. How many users do you have right now?
TweetLater has around 71,000 users, and is steadily growing by around 600 users every day, seven days a week.

5. What are the biggest obstacles that TweetLater has for getting members to pay?
It is never easy to monetize something that sits on top of a free service. I have done that successfully, and logically it is because folks feel they get real value for their money. Maintaining and increasing the value proposition is one of the things I think of every single day. I believe that giving people a free trial of TweetLater Professional has contributed to its success. People can test-drive it with no commitments and no catches before deciding whether it is the right service for them. I believe it demonstrates respect for the users, as well as confidence in the value that the service provides.

Conclusion

This post covered just a small number of the many business models available to web startups. Please feel free to use the comments below to discuss these models and others that you may be using or considering for your startup.

Optimization Summits founder, Tami Siewruk, speaks with (from left to right) Duncan Alney, Mark Juleen, Christopher Penn, Tami Siewruk, Mack Collier, Geno Church, Erica Campbell, Jason Falls and Jay Ehret about trending topics in social media.

What do you think the opportunity  do you see for brands using social media?

Optimization Summits founder, Tami Siewruk, speaks with (from left to right) Duncan Alney, Mark Juleen, Christopher Penn, Tami Siewruk, Mack Collier, Geno Church, Erica Campbell, Jason Falls and Jay Ehret about trending topics in social media.

Where do you think Social Media is going? We look forward to hearing your views!

Looking for a Better Web Strategy? Spy on Your Competition
By Heather Lutze

As a Web site owner, you wear many hats: webmaster, content writer, e-mail manager, and marketing guru. Keeping up with all the demands of managing a Web site can be daunting and keeping up with competitors near impossible.
How do you manage your time and resources as well as keep your site equal or above your competitors?
The answer is simple – you spy on your competition. In fact, with a little covert intelligence gathering, you can see what other Web sites are doing better, equal, or worse than you. And best of all, this spying is perfectly legal!
If you’re like many Web site owners, you may feel that your site is not meeting its full potential, causing you to lose revenue as well as repeat customers. Additionally, finding new customers may be challenging and you feel like you are spinning your wheels without moving forward. If any of this sounds familiar, rest assured you are not alone…and you can do something about it.

Gather Competitive Intelligence – “007 Style”
You can find many tools online that will enable you to assess your site’s Findability compared with your competitors. While you won’t find anything as exciting as a missile firing from the hood of a brand new BMW, you will find some cool tools that are free or low cost and that will give you an edge in marketing your site. Following are the essentials of your Spy Tool Kit:

·    Tool #1 – SEOmoz.org
This tool measures the strength of pages, blogs, and entire domains based on factors inherent to popularity, influence, and ranking ability. This allows you to see your impact compared against others in your industry.

·    Tool #2 – Websitegrader.com
This free SEO tool measures the marketing effectiveness of a Web site. It provides a score that incorporates things like Web site traffic, SEO, social popularity, and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how the Web site can be improved from a marketing perspective.

·    Tool #3 – SpyFu.com
SpyFu.com is a free Pay Per Click tool that gives great intelligence on how competitive certain keywords are in Google. In addition to giving insight on the cost per click and average number of clicks per day, SpyFu also displays the ad text for the competitors in this space.

After running all three tools on your site as well as the sites of your three major competitors, you can see how you rank in comparison and where you need to make some changes. You may very well find that the competition is stronger in terms of SEO, that they have a better Web site strategy than you, and/or that they are using Pay Per Click more effectively. But don’t give up. You can use the data you gather to make some key strategic changes, become more competitive online, and start to match or exceed your competitions’ high scores.

The Perfect Recipe for Success…Shaken, Not Stirred Knowing the spy intelligence data is one thing; now you have to act on it and make some positive changes to your Web strategy. Following are some common changes many Web site owners make after spying on their competition.
As you’ll see, it’s time to take your reconnaissance spy mission – and your web presence – to the next level.

Tip #1: Blog as if your company depended on it.
It’s very likely to find that your competitors don’t have a blog, or that they’re not blogging often enough to be beneficial. Therefore, by simply setting up a blog and using core keywords in your blog posts, you can gain a tremendous competitive advantage.

Tip #2: Have the best pick-up lines at the PPC cocktail party.
For many Web site owners who do Pay Per Click advertising, one of their biggest frustrations is having a low conversion rate. The key to running a successful Pay Per Click campaign is having solid ad text (the four-line entry that will display on the results pages in the area of the page called Sponsored Links). It is extremely important to understand the ad text landscape when you write your ads; otherwise, your competitors may have an identical or more compelling offer than you.
SpyFu shows what ads your competitors are running in PPC, as well as how competitive a keyword is. Using this tool, you may decide to select a longer tail keyword that has fewer competitors. For example, the term “video surveillance” has 21 competitors, while “Video surveillance security system” has only 7 competitors.
In addition, when crafting ad text, look at the key ad message of your competitors. If everyone else is advertising “low prices,” you should stand out by making a different offer, such as “Best Quality” or “Free Shipping”
to differentiate yourself from other advertisers.

Tip #3: Select your Spy Team.
While knowing what your competition is doing right now is great, you also need to monitor them for the long-term. But what if you don’t have a lot of free time to constantly scan the web for what your competitors are doing?
Wouldn’t it be great to have a team of spies crawling the Internet for you and sending you an email as soon as your competitors post anything?
It’s time to meet your spy team: Google, Yahoo, and MSN Alerts. Setting these alerts can keep you abreast of anything posted under your competitor’s names, Web site URLs, and core keywords.

-    Alerts.Google.com – Sends you updates to any targeted keywords from Google
-    Alerts.Yahoo.com – Sends you updates to any targeted keywords from Yahoo
-    Alerts.MSN.com – Sends you updates to any targeted keywords from MSN

Simply create your account with each alert system, list the keywords you want alerts on, and then sit back and watch the alerts as they come in.
Setting alerts can help you stay on top of your competitors without having to spend hours searching and reading the competitive landscape in Search Engines.

Mission Complete
Using these tools and tips, your Web site stands a much better chance of beating your competitors to gain valuable new markets of consumers.
Remember, for successful Findability, you must understand the Findability of your competitors and adjust your campaigns accordingly. By matching and beating the Pay Per Click, Search Engine Optimization, and Social Media offerings of your competitors, you are setting yourself up to succeed on your Internet Marketing mission.

About the Author:
Heather Lutze has spent the last 10 years as CEO of The Findability Group, formerly Lutze Consulting, – a Search Engine Marketing firm that works with companies to attain maximum Internet exposure. A nationally recognized speaker, she is the author of, “The FindAbility Formula: The Easy, Non-Technical Approach To Search Engine Marketing” (Wiley and Sons).
Heather is a lead speaker for Pay Per Click Summit, and previously spent two years speaking for Yahoo! Search Marketing. For more information, visit www.FindabilityGroup.com

Optimization Summits founder, Tami Siewruk, speaks with (from left to right) Duncan Alney, Mark Juleen, Christopher Penn, Tami Siewruk, Mack Collier, Geno Church, Erica Campbell, Jason Falls and Jay Ehret about trending topics in social media.

Thank you for stopping by!  We would enjoy hearing where  you think social media will be in the future so please feel free to leave us a comment.

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Jason Falls: Social Media Strategy, Measurement and ROI By Brett MarketingInProgress.com

6 Easy Ways To Implement Inbound Marketing Tactics By Workshop Leader Mark Roberge HubSpot

“Video & Photo Sharing for Optimum Growth & Brand Exposure” Presented by Erica Campbell For Rent Media Solutions

Social Media Marketing; Learn How to Move the Google Needle By Eric Brown

Move The Google Needle Presentation By Eric Brown

Takeaways from the Optimization Summits from #aptchat

“Content, Conversations, Community – How To Build Your Social Mullet” Presentation by Duncan Alney Firebelly Marketing

Email Marketing and Customer Retention by Christopher Penn Blue Sky Factory

Duct Tape Workbook PDF Presented by John Jantsch

Firebelly Marketing’s Duncan Alney had the opportunity to speak with John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing, about his new book The Referral Engine while both were at #optsum Video

Think Like A Rockstar: How to Build Fans and Community Around Your Social Media Efforts! Slideshare Presented by Mack Collier

Getting Out of the Social Media Bubble by Mack Collier

Sunday Night Confessions. Feeding My Inner Cookie Monster By Geno Church Brains On Fire

Blog Post by MarketingInProgress.com A Recap In Progress

Geno Church on Movements By Brett from MarketingInProgress.com

5 Things We Learned From The Dallas Optimization Summit by Ryan VanDenabeele

Beyond Facebook Part 1 By Mark Juleen, Brent Williams and Charity Hisle

Beyond Facebook Part 2 – Optimization Summit By Mark Juleen, Brent Williams and Charity

Achieving Measurable Results with Advanced Business Blogging Slideshare from Hubspot’s Mark Roberge

From 30lines Mike Whaling Here’s the video about Facebook he shared with the audience at My Mom’s on

Optimization Summit Resources by Jay

OptimizationSummits Recap: What Inspires You? By Jonathan Saar

Optsum recap Multifamily 5 by 5 video part 1 with Heather Blume

Twitter Stream for #optsum

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The Poken from #optsum Video by Mark Juleen

Optsum recap Multifamily 5 by 5 video part 2 with Heather Blume

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Dear Colleagues,

This is just a brief note to help you prepare for next week’s Optimization Summit event in Dallas!

• The event is being held at the Sheraton, Dallas; physical address 400 North Olive Street, Dallas, TX 75201. Should you need to contact the hotel directly, please call toll free: 1-866-716-8134.  Hotel, airport, and ground transportation information is available at http://optimizationsummits.com/?page_id=50.
• The event begins with a Meet & Greet Tweet Up, sponsored by For Rent Media Solutions, at the Sheraton’s Draft Media Sports Bar on the lobby level of the hotel from 6:00-8:00 pm on Monday, March 22.  Stop at the Multifamilypro staff table on your way in to receive your nametag and agenda booklet. If you miss the Meet & Greet, we’ll continue check-in at 7:00 am on Tuesday morning in the Houston Preconvene area located outside of Houston Ballrooms B & C on the 3^rd floor of the Sheraton Conference Center.
• The complete event agenda is available at http://optimizationsummits.com/?page_id=553.
• The Workshops on Tuesday and Wednesday are hands-on, so bring your laptop!  Electrical outlets will be available, but make sure your battery is fully charged just in case you’re accidentally unplugged.  Wireless internet access will be available in all Workshop rooms free of charge.
• General attendee prerequisites are listed at http://optimizationsummits.com/?page_id=996.
• If you plan to attend Erica Campbell’s workshop on Video & Photo Sharing for Optimal Growth & Brand Exposure on Wednesday, visit http://optimizationsummits.com/?page_id=281 now to review course prerequisites.
• If you’re attending Wednesday’s Beyond Facebook: Marketing On Other Social Networks workshops led by Mark Juleen, Charity Hisle, and Brent Williams, please take a moment to review the course prerequisites at http://optimizationsummits.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Prerequisites-for-Beyond-Facebook.pdf.

• Building An Awesome Brand!  Here’s a little prep work: Designing Brand Identity

• Please be careful to keep all your gadgets with you throughout the event or label them so we can easily reunite you with anything that gets lost, left behind, or might be easily confused with somebody else’s (especially laptop power cords).

Before Next Week:

• Take a moment to visit your registration file for the event at http://www..regonline.com/checkin.asp?eventid=804031# (click on “Already Registered” to access your file) and make certain all of your contact information is correct. This info will be used to create the event Networking Directory that all attendees will receive so that you can maintain the valuable connections you’ll make next week!
• You should already be following us on Twitter @Time2Optimize, but you can now also add our attendee-only twitter channel which we’ll begin using at the event, @optsumattendees The event hashtag is #optsum.  You can find us on Facebook at Optimization Summits, too!

• If you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to reply here or call us at 727-784-9469!

We’ll see you there!

Tami & Team Multifamilypro

• As part of your Optimization Summits registration, you’re going to receive a Poken! Visit http://www.poken.com/web/guest/go

before the event to open your free Poken account and enter your contact info so you’ll be ready to link your Poken to the account as soon as you receive it, and start sharing contact info with other attendees!

By V.Scott Ellis
Every year we start off with good intentions, plans and promises for the new year. Websites are a lot of work and are constantly evolving and changing. This year try taking it one step at a time and building throughout the year. Not only will you keep those promises, you might find that planned incremental change will have an exponential effect on the growth of your website. You might even exceed your own expectations.

Try these 10. Take them in any order you want, but they are listed in an order indented to build upon previous steps. Do one a month or one a week, whatever you can realistically manage but don’t try to do one a day. Some of these will take time and you’ll want to give them the time they need to work so you can determine efficacy.

I’m not going to promise you that these will drive your traffic from 10 to 1000+ visitors per-day, but they will enable you to go after that kind of growth and more importantly, capitalize on it when you get there.

1. Migrate to a Content Management System

If you aren’t already on a Content Management System (CMS) then this should definitely be your first step. If you’re not a coder then you’ll need to hire someone to help you but once you get it set up and designed they way you want you will be able to manage the content yourself and even change basic functional elements. Rather than having to call someone every-time you want or need to update your site, you’ll be able to do it yourself. It will be faster, easier and won’t cost you every-time you make a change.

If you are not sure where to begin I recommend WordPress for the CMS and contacting a professional to get you going.

If you are already on a CMS, WordPress or otherwise, make sure your CMS is running the latest version and that any plug-ins you use are up-to-date. If you are not happy with your CMS for whatever reason this is also a great time to either consider migrating to something else or contacting a professional to see what can be done about the issues you have.

2. Map Our Your Content

Most websites, whether we want to admit it or not, have been put together without much planning. But even for the small or medium business an effective content plan will make building, designing (or redesigning) and executing a much easier process. It will also help you stay on track and give your website a cohesive consistent message. By considering all of your content options (and there are more than you think) and figuring out how they fit together you will save yourself a lot of headache and do you visitors a favor. If you aren’t sure what content mapping looks like or how it works, see my introductory video tutorial on building the ultimate website content map. http://www.vsellis.com/qx1

3. Refresh Your Design

There may not be anything wrong with your current design but web sites do tend to look and feel out of date after a couple of years. Often, even a basic refresh or few tweaks will bring it up-to-date. If you haven’t updated your site in the last 1 – 2 years now would be a good time to touch it up or, if appropriate, consider a total overhaul. You may find that if you did the content mapping exercise (#2) that a big overhaul will give you many more options and help you leverage your marketing efforts better.

If you really don’t need to make any changes to your site aesthetically or have done so recently this is a good time to test things like validating your HTML, CSS and cross-browser compatibility.

4. Implement The Basics of Search Engine Optimization

You’ve been hearing a lot about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) over the last couple of years. The dirty little secret of SEO is that most of the mechanics aren’t really all that difficult but many sites still don’t take advantage of them making it that much more challenging for people who are looking for you (or your services or content) to find you. If you aren’t on a CMS based site (See #1) then this will take much more manual effort (one of the many reasons to move to a CMS). Once on a CMS platform your task should be easier. That said not all CMS’s are created equal and when it comes to out of the box SEO, WordPress is the clear choice. Regardless of what CMS you use make sure you have managed at least the following basic SEO mechanics:

1. Meta Page Titles

2. Logical Articles Titles

3. Good Use of H1 Tags

4. Meta-Descriptions

5. Friendly URL’s

5. Add One Marketing Element To Your Site

Have you thought about starting an email list/newsletter? What about a landing page for a product or service? Perhaps an auto-responder series that teaches something? Whatever method you have considered to help capture leads, make sales or build a mailing list, take the first step and choose one. Some of them may even work together so you can kill two birds with one stone like creating an auto-responder sequence that is delivered via a mailing system. This will not only help establish your expertise but build your mailing list at the same time.

6. Video

By now we all have a pretty good idea of the power of online video. You’ve almost certainly thought about adding video to your stie but may not have because the process of doing so probably felt daunting or you didn’t really want to be on camera or whatever. The good news is it has never been easier to create your own video. Whether you choose to do it yourself or hire someone (you’ll need a budget but it doesn’t have to break the bank). Easier still, if you aren’t ready to bite off your own video production or make your first appearance on camera, you can easily embed other videos on your site but looking for quality, relevant content on places like YouTube, Vimeo, WordPress.TV, Viddler or Blip.TV (to name a few). Start using video sooner than later, it’s still early and the use of video is going to do nothing but grow.

7. Start Blogging & Write A Piller Post

For now I’m going to assume that you are already blogging. If not it’s time to get started. Some CMS’s will allow you to blog within them so it is fully integrated into your site. If you are doing this professionally (as a part of your business, freelance work …) I don’t recommend using a hosted blogging service. You want to get your content on your domain. WordPress excels at this but other CMS’s allow for it as well. Either way, get blogging. But once you start, commit to it and do it regularly and you’ll reap the benefits.

If you are already blogging then this is the year you write your first piller post. Most blogs are composed of a lot of posts, some stronger than others. It’s these “pillar” posts that really keep people coming back and build your readership. How do you create a “pillar” post? It’s often a post that gives people some thoughtful, creative and well presented way to do something, overcome a hurdle or solve a problem. My recommendation is to give away some “secret”. Is there some way you do something that works really well? Will this make others lives easier? Have few if any other bloggers talked about it? I’m not suggesting that you give away all of your trade secrete or even give one away completely but give them something that is really juicy and meaningful and people will respond. If you want site visitors, quality content rules the day.

8. Burn Your Feed

Essentially this means driving your RSS feed through Feedburner. There are several good reasons to “burn” your feed:

1. If your feed URL needs to change for any reason it will be transparent to your feed subscribers

2. It allows people to subscribe and automatically get updates to your site when you post

3. You’ll get to see the analytics of your feed subscribers

9. Create a Landing Page and Split Test

Landing pages can be annoying (internet marketing for the sake of internet marketing anyone?) but when used well they can be very effective marketing and lead generating tools. Ideally your landing page is devoid of any that that distracts from the one thing you want it to accomplish (sell something, generate a lead, build your mailing list, …). Once you have created a landing page it is important to test the page to see what works and how it can be improved. The easiest method is basic A/B Split Testing in which you essentially monitor the effectiveness of your page, then change one thing and see if the effectiveness improves, gets worse or is unchanged. If it gets better then you use that version and make another change, and so on…. trying to constantly improve the performance (conversion) of that landing page. Start this sooner than later any by mid-late 2010 you could have a very refined landing page (or set of them) doing any number of things for you. But build this on your CMS (#1) in conjunction with the basics of SEO implemented (#3), your first true online marketing initiative in place (#4) and consider using attention getting video (#5). Do you see where this is going!

10. Integrate You Social Media Channels

Last but not least get your social media channels integrated into your site, whatever those channels may be that are most appropriate for your business. Social media isn’t going anywhere and continues to represent a huge opportunity, especially for small and medium businesses to connect with people. Your website is the foundation of your online presence but from there you can reach out through those other channels uncovering new opportunities and improving your overall business.

There are likely a million and one things you could do with your site but start with these 10. Pace yourself as you go through them to make sure you do them well and you’ll be way ahead going into 2011 and more well prepared to capitalize on business opportunities.

Join Scott when he presents WordPress 101…Build a website in a day!
WordPress is one of the most popular, flexible, and easy-to-use open source applications available for building dynamic websites and blogs. This interactive, hands-on session will teach you to use WordPress to optimize your web presence by actually creating a website or blog from setting up your domain; choosing a host; selecting a format template; customizing your design; working with “widgets”; maximum search engine optimization (SEO); and more.

V. Scott Ellis
Scott Ellis has been on the cutting edge of web technology since 1997 building websites, e-commerce engines and on-line marketing strategies for corporations and clients such as CSC, Vignette, IMB, Verizon and others. After a 2 1/2 year stint in Management Consulting with Risk Management Firm Protiviti, Scott co-founded BlackBox Technologies with partners Martin Wind and Victoria Wind who had been colleagues for the past 10 years. With a focus on Web 2.0 technologies and websites, BlackBox was established to provide technology guidance to all sizes of companies from start-up’s to large corporations interested in taking advantage of leading edge web technology.

With a background in web content management and design, Scott’s expertise has enabled him to build a practice around a philosophy of helping clients build technology into their business while keeping their business goals and ROI at the forefront rather than putting the technology first.

Scott holds a Bachelors in Psychology from Purdue University and currently resides in Dallas, TX.

You can find him on the web at:
BlackBox-Tech.com
VSEllis.com
Twitter: @vsellis
Facebok: http://www.facebook.com/vsellis
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/vsellis
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vsellis
scott.ellis@blackbox-tech.com