Personally, I think that Facebook is still going to hold strong for a while longer but sooner or later there is going to be huge shift from the online community towards whatever is going to be the next social tool. Maybe a sort of Mobi-Location based-refereal/sharing-shopping-news all-in-one version of Facebook.

Take a look at the infographic below and let me know what you think.

In my humble opinion, Google+ is another version of Facbook, not a huge amount of REAL difference.

I read something the other day where they said that it would grow even faster than Facebook.

Well take a look at it and let me know what you think. I look forward to comments on Google+

http://acutereality.wordpress.com/2011/07/14/google-cheat-sheet/

Firstly, the fact that one of the authors had the balls to claim that he would guarantee that your website would rank on the first page of search results. And, secondly, that the publisher would publish such an article. Are they that hard-up for content.

Please, please people, when you are looking for a consultant to assist you with your online marketing and social media marketing, be very carefull of anyone that claims to be a “Guru”, “Expert”, or anyone that makes any sort of guarantee that they can get your on the first page of SERPs or that they can increase your traffic by ridiculous amonts.

Social Media Networks

Yes, there might be SOME people that are very good at social media marketing or internet marketing but, please make sure that they can give you evidence of their “claim to fame” ask them to show you some case studies, reports for previous campaings, contactable references, etc. If they can’t give you something that backs up the claimed expertise then please be very weary of them.

I am currently reading a book by Lon Safko, called The Social Media Bible this book is over 770 pages jam packed with tons of information on Social Media Marketing it covers hundreds of Social Media Platforms and discusses a number of topics relating to social media, deffinately worth getting your hands on if you want to take a serious interest in Socail Media.

The Social Media Bible

There are just too many social media paltforms out there for ANYONE to consider thenselves an expert. And as for online marketing if anyone can keep up with the changes the Google, Bing and Yahoo make as to how they rank pages I will be surprised, things change so quickly that I sometime thing that even Google is loosing track of what is going on.

Just to get an idea of how many social media networks there are please take a look at Wikipedia’s List of Major Social Media Sites.

If I can give you one hint here, take the time to look into where your audience is “hanging-out” in the social media community, then, take the time to research people that clain to know these networks. When you feel comfortable with their skills and knowledge that the seem to display on their website, blog, tweets and anywhere else that you can find them, contact them and ask them to give you some evidence that proves their claims.

clintonlord

print and online media consultant

Skype:clinton.lord | Email:clinton@clintonlord.co.za

Website: clintonlord.co.za | Blog: blog.clintonlord.co.za

LinkedIn:za.linkedin.com/in/clintonlord | Facebook Page: Clinton Lord Professional Profile | Twitter:@clinton_lord

Workers Day Competition

During my initial 3 month contract with Jobs.co.za they approached me to continue working with them for a further 6 months,  but expanding my portfolio to include the development of their social media strategy and the administration of their social media interaction.

During the next 6 months I will be developing and growing on their existing social media strategy and working on implementing some exciting new projects which I hope will take their SMM to new levels and position Jobs.co.za and a leader in social recruitment.

I have spent a fair amount of time understanding how the company works and how they are currently using social media to interact with their clients and their job seekers. During the past few weeks I have given a lot of thought as to how Jobs.co.za can use the social media platforms better to communicate with both their clients and their Job Seekers. I am excited about some of the projects that we have already started working on and those that will be happening in the following months.

As a sort of experiment we ran a small competition on Facebook during the month of May 2011 to see how something like this would increase the traffic that we have on both the website as well as the Facebook page. Although we did not spend a lot of resources on marketing the competition we have seen a great increase on our Facebook Page, we did minimal marketing on Google Adwords, Twitter LinkedIn and Facebook

During the month we saw the “Lifetime Likes” increase by over 2 000 (+/- 450%), while the monthly active users had increased by over 100%. We saw an increase on close to 400% in our post views and a 96% increase in interaction.

Based on these great increases which we saw during a small competition on Facebook, we have already started planning an extensive social strategy over the next six months.

For more information and to continue to see how thing grow during the following moths please follow me and Jobs.co.za on out various social profiles or feel free to contact me. Oh, and don’t forget to like the Jobs.co.za Facebook page and enter the competition to stand a chance to win an online Business Skills Video Course.

clintonlord

print and online media consultant

Skype:clinton.lord   | Email:clinton@clintonlord.co.za

Website: clintonlord.co.za | Blog: blog.clintonlord.co.za

LinkedIn:za.linkedin.com/in/clintonlord | Facebook Page: Clinton Lord Professional Profile | Twitter:@clinton_lord

This infographic is provided by: Flow Town

Flowtown – Social Media Marketing Application

Online collaboration is vital

First and foremost, always remember that an online community is a community. Like a any other community it is a group of people that share common interests and work towards a common goal.  The first rule of online community building is; it’s not about you it is about them. The second rule, strategical planning is critical.

When building an online community make sure that you are giving them something back, don’t expect them to come to you with the sole purpose of hearing about your products. This is not a community, then you might as well just stick with the traditional marketing platforms.

Online communities are looking for a place where they can not only hear about what you have to offer but also where they can get involved and share their input. Give them away to collaborate with your team in developing their favourite brands, make them feel valued and they will come back.

Never underestimate the power of social media and online communities, if your social community does work there is a very good chance that it could grow well beyond your expectations. But, if you get it wrong, it could potentially be very damaging to you company/reputation. That is why it is vitally important to take the time to listen and watch what is happening before you start planning.

Find out where your audience is spending their time, what they talking about and what they are interested in and then provide them with a relevant and beneficial environment where they will want to spend their time and participate with your organisation. Spend some time looking at some of the current successful online communities, including the niche online communities and see what works and what does not.

If you are looking to start an online community but you don’t have the budget to have an entire system custom built, take a look at www.xing.com. Xing provides a cost effective way to build a social community based on an existing infrastructure which can to a certain extent be customised.

Here are a list of online communities that you can look at:
Sony Backstage 101 community – www.sony.com/learn
Springleap – www.springleap.com
Big Blue – www.bigblue.co.zaIt would also be worthwhile to look up the Stimorol Spring Break hosted by Sun International on Facebook, also take the time look at Coke-Cola, Intel’s Black Belt program and Dell for more examples how online communities/social media can work for you to build strong online communities that will not only benefit your audience but grow you companies brand.

Resources:
Entrepreneur Magazine – March 2011 – www.entrepreneurmag.co.za
Social Media Marketing, The next generation in business engagement – Author: Dan Evans with Jake McKee
Small  Capital – The social media issue (March 2010)

Dan Zarrella - Hubspot

In a webinar by www.hubspot.com Dan Zarrella, a “ Social Media Scientist” discusses the results of a study he has done on what is the best time for social interaction with your audience. I have summarised the main concepts below. I have also included a link to the actual webinar if you want to take a look, it is pretty long (53 min.) but well worth it.

1. Tweet about once an hour if you can.
2. Share on Facebook every other day and especially on a weekend
3. Email click-through rate is better in mornings and on weekend, more is better, at least once a week,
4. Blogs – Men read more blogs at night and women more in the morning.
5. Mondays are better for posting blogs and around midday, although later in the week is also good.
6. Weekends and early in the morning are better if you want comments on your blog posts.
7. Links are higher during the week from Monday to Thursday and early in the mornings.
8. More than once per day is better for blogging
9. Measure your marketing efforts.
10. Experiment with you audience, see what works for them, maybe do your own survey.

In summary, more seems to be better except with Facebook where your friends/fans tend to dislike being flooded. How ever on Twitter more is much better.

Click on the link below to view the webinar. Enjoy.

http://www.hubspot.com/the-science-of-timing/

By Kristina B

Content is king… or is the audience king!!!
Remember in social media you are engaging with actual people.

Some things to be thought about when you consider blogging:

Why do you want to blog?

What is it that you want to talk about, what do you want to say to your audience?

Who do you want to blog for?

a)      What do they want to know?

b)      Talk to them. Think of the actual people, not just the industry.

What do you want to get out of it?

Take the time to think about what it is that you want to achieve with your blog.

Think of easy and engaging ways to share your information.

People no longer have time to sit and read long articles and need to get the information in small bite-size chunks.

c)       List posts – Top 10 items where you list a few items that are easy to read and skim through.

d)      Tell a story – People like to read interesting stories and you could use your story to get a point across

e)      Case Studies – Share your experience with something, or that of someone else, that was a success and explain how you managed to achieve it.

f)       Disasters – Explain something that went really wrong and what you learnt out of it.

Not an academic report. Write it for a person.

Remember that when you writing for a blog try to keep it as short as possible and to the point. As I mentioned earlier, people don’t have the time to sit down and go through a long report. Try using bullet points to keep it short and easy to skim through.

Schedule posts

Either schedule the days that you are going to sit down and writ for you blog or use the facility wheree you can set a date for your blog to be published. This way you will be able to write a numer of items ahead if tiem and set it to be published later in the week/month.

Mistakes in blogging

1)      Stick with it; don’t give up after a few months if you don’t see the results.

2)      Respond to your audience’s comments.

3)      Be prepared to be attacked and criticized by some readers. Deal with them calmly if you need to but if it is unjustified consider just ignoring and deleting it.

More info:

• Interview is Chris Garrett: How to Create Compelling Blog Content (www.socialmediaexaminer.com)
• Problogger, Secrets of blogging your way to a six figure income, by Darren Rowes and Chirs Garrett

To sign up for the launch click on the link below to be notified when it is available.

http://signup.marketinggrader.com/q3gyv