1. Announce Something Special – I’m not just talking about a discount, promotion or sale. Obviously, you’ll want to promote a new product or service offering.  Consider tweeting or wall posts on Facebook.  Make sure your website is updated with the good news.  But, you have to do more!
2. A Window into Your Business - Share what’s happening.  Give your fans a peak inside.  Pictures and videos tell a special story and bring a sense of familiarity and warmth and loyalty.
3. Always Be Teaching – We’ve talked about teaching before. Use social networks to respond and out-teach competitors. Turn questions and complaints into teaching opportunities that create new relationships and strengthen loyalty.
4. Old-Fashioned Networking – When you meet people in your business life, be sure to connect with LinkedIn or even Facebook if it feels appropriate. LinkedIn is a particularly natural way to stay connected with with new acquaintances.
5. Find Qualified Candidates – Trusted referrals are the most reliable way to hire. Use LinkedIn to announce the opportunity to your network, and use Twitter to spread the word. Look for solid candidates with meaningful recommendations by former employers and peers.
6. Promote Special Events,Talks or Conferences – Let people know about upcoming professional events. Make it easy to register and spread the word using modern plug-ins and technology services. I like to follow-up the event by sharing pictures or videos. You can also post your slide presentation on a blog or on Slideshare.com. And, a blog is a great place to close the loop on open questions from the event.
7. Solve a Problem, Ask Questions, Answer Questions – There is no better way to remind people in your network about your capabilities. Look for opportunities to answer a question or solve a problem. LinkedIn is an easy place to start because it has special features for asking questions and starting discussions.
8. Celebrate Special Business Milestones or Occasions With Your Fans -  Celebrate success (but don’t brag). Be thankful and let your fans and supporters know that you are grateful – chances are they helped you along the way.
9. Don’t Brag and Use Good Social Etiquette – Socializing involves a conversation, with give and take. Talking about your own success can be a fine line between talking “with” and talking “at” people.

What did I miss? Leave a comment.

Smaller nimble businesses can use social networks to respond and out-teach bigger competitors. They can turn questions and complaints into teaching opportunities that create new relationships and strengthen loyalty. And they can do it faster.

Large organizations obsessed with secrecy often avoid social media as a marketing channel. They find conversations impossible to have online. And these conversations are your greatest advantage as a mid-size business. This teaching conversation is one of the most powerful takeaways in the terrific, game-changing book titled Rework by Jason Fried and David Hanson.

Class dismissed!

AdBean is an exciting Chicago start-up.  Their powerful new technology makes effective digital display advertising easy.  AdBean has a simple idea: improve workflow in the creation, composition, and placement of interactive online banner ads.

A Lot to Talk About

AdBean’s technology and value are multidimensional.  Fortunately, there is a lot to talk about. AdBean’s marketplace is complex – their customers range from huge advertising agencies to small web publishers. They need to reach every player in between. Our challenge was to provide leadership for their digital marketing channel starting at the ground level.

Search Engine Optimization via Blogging

AdBean’s blog is critical to the interactive strategy because modern social marketing doesn’t happen without worthwhile blog-based content.  ChirpUp drove blogging and SEO activities from the beginning. We defined the keyword priorities and helped orient content around targeted SEO objectives. After about six months, AdBean’s organic traffic is climbing.

Being Heard with Twitter

Another very visible effect of our interactive marketing collaboration is the driving of traffic to AdBean.net via Twitter.  Through careful handling and patrolling of the business space, ChirpUp cultivated a community of over 6500 relevant, interested Twitter followers. Through Twitter, the great content at AdBean is piped to industry players big and small, established and new, local and global. @AdBean_net‘s reach and  impressions drive traffic at AdBean.net and ensure that AdBean is on the tip of everybody’s tongue – big players now know about this startup, what they do, and why they do it.

Perform, Monitor, Optimize and Adapt

We got  there by establishing and monitoring interactive marketing metrics. We measure everything for AdBean! We measure clicks, messages, google page ranks, relationships, posts, tweets, retweets, changes, likes and dislikes. We measure compulsively to be sure our strategies drive business value.

What’s the Difference Between Community Pages and Facebook’s Existing Official Pages?

The major difference is in the notion of community and the application to social media marketing. For conventional pages (individual, business or groups), the news and update streams on a Facebook wall are self-oriented. Most of the items relate to the owner.

In the case of community pages, the orientation of the news stream is different. Page maintainers are “authorized representatives of a business, brand, celebrity of organization”, so the kernel of the community remains determined by the establisher of the page. Further, page maintainers may still create and share content about the entities they represent.

The biggest differences between Groups and Community Pages is that there is no single maintainer – and that news items in Community Pages will not appear in your personal news feed. So where Groups allow you to communicate with other individuals about a particular subject, Community Pages allow you to learn and participate in knowledge sharing network.

Why Did Facebook Create Community Pages?

One idea is that this reduces the amount of patrolling pages Facebook needs to do when called upon to act by a brand manager or company who did not establish a page in question. This is a common problem on FB, and the admins have seen an interesting way around it by essentially saying: nobody owns this page, the community owns it. So when a brand manager for whatever reason arrives late to his or her own community, he or she has no problem influencing the community’s content on par with anybody else.

When you "Create a Page" on Facebook, you now have three options including the new "Community Page"

In his latest book Rework Jason Fried explains:

“Instead of going to reach people, you want people to come to you. An audience returns often – on its own – to see what you have to say. This is the most receptive group of customers and potential customers you’ll ever have.”

Customers are Transactions.  Audiences are Loyal Fans

And new media, social networks and inbound marketing are ideal tools for upgrading your customers into loyal fans who buy frequently and refer business.  Even satisfied customers only occasionally refer more customers. Fans are a different story. Fans are breathing, typing, posting examples for others to follow. Their genuine interest is impossible to fabricate. Your audience is the holy grail of word-of-mouth marketing.

Your Business is a Reality Performance

So how do I build an audience – I’m no performance artist?  You don’t have to be.  You just need to be yourself and teach people.  Teach them about your industry.  Educate them about best practices. How things are made? What’s changing?  Comment about current events or new regulations.  And yes – use a blog to syndicate your content. It’s never been easier to reach your audience through channels like RSS, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

I know it sounds hard, but it’s not. Giving your audience an authentic perspective and window into your business is no harder than writing that boring white paper or press release. Baby steps turn into habits.

And if you need a little help, give me a buzz or send me a note. I bet I can show you two or three topics and approaches after a ten minute conversation.

Now, thanks to Square (co-founded by Jim McKlevey and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey), we can process credit card payments with iPhones and computer scanners.

“In February 2009, Jim McKelvey wasn’t able to sell a piece of his glass art because he couldn’t accept a credit card as payment. Even though a majority of payments have moved to plastic cards, accepting payments from cards is still difficult, requiring long applications, expensive hardware, and an overly complex experience. Square was born a few days later right next to the old San Francisco US Mint.” Source: CrunchBase

Freelancers and small business owners are no longer hobbled by bureaucracy and expense. The iPhone’s portability and touchscreen seems ideal for transactions where immediacy is a key sales component. Smaller-ticket items are immediately handled, tracked and policed by credit card companies and software within seconds. And the customer walks away immediately satsified.

Despite the initial security concerns, democratizing technologies like Square are leveling the playing field for modern marketers.

Check out CrunchBase for a various video demonstrations.

A Guest Post by Michael Mitchell:

As an senior consumer trends analyst and consultant, Mike Mitchell has profiled and reported on emerging consumer trends throughout the globe. From people raising urban chickens for eggs to bolster the local food movement to the emergence of colored beers like electric green and fluorescent blue, he has continually unlocked some of the deepest and most fascinating forms of modern consumer behavior.  His interests lie primarily in crowd behavior and crowd intelligence, as well as consumer sentiment, sector blending,  the irrationality of buying and Gen Y trends.

Steps for Feeding LinkedIn with WordPress

After logging in, find and click on the “Applications” button in the bottom right corner of the page.  (Note that if you already have applications enabled, you can go to “More” at the top of thepage and select “Application Directory“):

Find and click “WordPess Application” icon:

Click the “Add Application” button on the WordPress homepage:

Enter the URL of your blog.

Keep in mind that you can conveniently filter which of your blog posts appear on your page by selecting the radio button option “Select only recent posts tagged as “LinkedIn”. If you set it up this way, only your blog posts that you tag in WordPress will show up in your profile. This is helpful if your WordPress blog is not 100% about business. Click  “Save”.

Soon after you finish, your profile will update with your WordPress posts that have been tagged “linkedIn” – and will do so automatically from here on out. You’re done.

While their assault and commoditization of dumb information containers like MS Office is bad for companies like Microsoft, their push to dominate media and the daily technology experience is good for your business (at least for now).

Information is B2B Interactive Marketing Power, Not the Container

Once upon a time, information was the stuff inside our desktops and servers. We made a big deal about these expensive “containers”, usually at the expense of the information they contained. Information was “ours”. We did the input, we controlled the output, and we used our own containers.

Google shattered the old concept of contained information when we began using it to organize and make sense of the Internet.  Information – organized by Google – led to platform development. What we used to conceive of as containers and connectors – desktops and cell phones – are now facilitators, designed with a Google-organized universe of information in mind. “

Google Business Products Nuked Interactive Marketing Barriers

By marrying the container with the payload and putting information in a business context, Google nuked interactive marketing barriers and opened the door for smaller business. The recent success of Buzz is only one in a long string of free converging Products that work together – Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Voice, Maps, Earth, Documents, Reader, iGoogle, Picasa Web Albums, YouTube, Analytics, Android…

By the way, Google TV is coming soon too. Watch out cable and and television networks.



How About Games?

Gaming is no longer just an escapist outlet for Mountain Dew-guzzling teens spending twilight hours playing Warcraft. It’s a venue for everyone. And Gen Y is the first to grow up with video games from the point of birth. According to video game developer Electronic Arts, video games are a community of one billion worldwide users as of 2009. And it’s not all shoot-em-ups. Some have character roles and don’t even need a virtual world to inhabit.

Mob Wars, for example, is one Facebook’s most popular role-playing games. It’s a simple role-playing game. Players interact with other players, either by sending them messages or by attacking them. Like many Facebook applications, most of the play revolves around having friends join the player’s “mob”.

Gaming for Business

So what does this mean for your businesses? You’ve got some gaming to do. IKEA plays games. The swanky Swedish furniture giant launched a Facebook profile under the profile of its store manager in the newly opened Malmo , Sweden location. The IKEA store manager, Gordon Gustavsson, uploaded pictures of the store’s showrooms to his photo album. “Friends” who tagged the products with their names won those items. Click here for the video.

“Friends” began asking when the page manager was going to upload pictures again so they can have a chance at another item. And then friends told other friends about this game or scavenger hunt, and then the word spread. It didn’t take long for IKEA to have a vast network thanks to this creative brand building campaign. Everyone loves entertainment, contests and prizes. Players love people-to-people interaction. And brands love people.

A Simple Idea for Any Business

Is there a way to tie your business into the gaming world without paying big bucks to create software? Yes! Mid-size businesses can engage prospects and build brands through gaming. Some social network-based games use simple concepts like snapping pictures of others (in a spy-like theme) and posting them to the social board as a way to virtually capture their target. Use your imagination or try a virtual scavenger hunt with simple mobile photos as a word-of-mouth campaign.

The technology has changed the way we interact, but the rules of the game have stayed the same.

A Guest Post by Michael Mitchell:

As an senior consumer trends analyst and consultant, Mike Mitchell has profiled and reported on emerging consumer trends throughout the globe. From people raising urban chickens for eggs to bolster the local food movement to the emergence of colored beers like electric green and fluorescent blue, he has continually unlocked some of the deepest and most fascinating forms of modern consumer behavior.  His interests lie primarily in crowd behavior and crowd intelligence, as well as consumer sentiment, sector blending,  the irrationality of buying and Gen Y trends.

Either way, you know something is wrong don’t you? You’re not satisfied. You’re embarrassed by your website. And your mid-size business is facing a new, larger and more powerful online world.  You’re surviving the recession, but what about the competition or start-ups nipping at your heals?

Does Google Like Your Website?

Does Google even know you exist?  Is your content being spoon-fed into Google? The robots that come by to collect the information you publish just aren’t very bright. Do you accommodate them so that they don’t drop anything as they run back to Google to index the contents of your site? If you haven’t thought of this, chances are your search results aren’t what they should be. It’s time to work on the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of your site. Well configured sites built on free platforms like WordPress are immediately indexed by WordPress.

Can You Easily Update Content on the Fly, Anytime, for Free?

Most corporate solutions for web publishing are handcuffs in terms of keeping your site current, rich and relevant. If you can’t easily manage content, you need to look into moving your site into a modern Content Management System (CMS) like WordPress. Did I mention it’s 100% free?

Does Your Site Invite a Dialogue?

“Brochureware” sites stink of decay and neglect. Brochure sites talk at visitors – announcing: “We don’t get the internet as a business channel.” Modern sites are “marketing platforms”. They invite a dialogue, comments, analysis and debate.  Modern websites are a multimedia content syndication engine.

Is Your Site Networked With Social Media?

Is your site wired into new media? Do you have a blog with shareable content that educates prospects? Is your content shareable? Do you have a subscription service? Do you even have presences on social media sites? Don’t miss out on the single biggest business transformation in years. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook – these are serious commercial opportunities. And your customers know that.

Is Your Website a Measurable Marketing Platform?

Are you measuring how visitors interact with your business online? What are you doing to optimize the experience. Modern business websites measure every aspect. They orchestrate, analyze and adapt with intent and purpose. Modern living breathing sites have a purpose and measure how your market interacts – pages views, traffic patterns, time on site, subscribers, comments, posts, keywords – and yes these tools are free.

Does Your Site Generate Business Leads?

Cost Per Lead or CPL is an online advertising pricing model, where the advertiser pays for an explicit sign-up from an interested consumer interested in the advertiser. What isn’t well understood is that business websites can be a long term CPL campaigns. Modern marketing websites are purpose built and evolve based on specific lead conversion goals.

Bury that relic and upgrade your business.

Tombstone image adapted from photo by Lenore M. Edman, www.evilmadscientist.com