Creating your own social media program online can be a daunting experience when you first start out. Fortunately the internet is a vast resource that is the perfect information tool to give you all the information you need to get the job done right. There are 1000’s of pages online where you can get all the details. While some of these sites may not necessarily be that accurate, we  have put together a few links of some of the best reads for your research when building your program.

When you first start out you will need to decide on the effectiveness and possible return on investment from managing a social networking program. Essentially you have to figure out whether or not it will be worth your efforts. The Brandbuilder blog will give you a solid understanding of the how and why’s when you are looking at the ROI for social networks.

Using Social Media is for everyone.

Getting as much information as possible is a must if you want to find your feet in the social networking environment. This social media program will outline all the details for you in plain English.

Getting into the swing of things might leave you in a bit of a spin. If you do get stuck, then you can always read up on how some of the other players have done it. This site will give you valuable insight as to how Rogue resources started off with their social media program. If you are still not convinced by an unfamiliar company, you can take a look at how NASA implemented their own program in order to substantiate how it got done by a well known company.

Social Media University is a useful site that will give you a lot of detail on social media. They are primarily focused on educated people, creating links to a variety of dedicated articles and videos that will show you exactly what to do. This particular resource gives you a quick rundown in 12 easy steps.

Wikipedia has been disputed as a reliable source of information, the basic principle still allows for useful and in most cases highly accurate information on any given subject. They have a really detailed page on how social media works and you can view it here.

Karen Snyder has put together a nice slideshow for those that don’t really feel like doing a lot of reading. She has posted an actual social media program presentation on slideshare.net .

This particular option is definitely something for the more advanced social media managers. Instead of utilizing the existing infrastructure of facebook and twitter, you have the option to create your very own social networking site. You can download and customize your own site from jcow.net. Boonex.com, socialgo.com and socialengine.net all do the same thing, they just offer different variations with a number of useful choices. You can read up on a couple reviews of these sites and get a detailed view on what they have to offer from e-commercewebdesigners.net. If you are not really interested in creating everything from scratch, you can always integrate social media functions into your existing website – kickapps.com has a number of widgets, apps and templates to create the social user experience you need for your own site.

Once you have made your decision about the medium for your social networking plan, you then have to set out a plan to implement it. Making use of existing infrastructure simply requires a presence online and then you have to begin the process of increasing your contact list. Building your own network requires a complete strategy on every detail so you may want to look at possible strategies for your implementation. If you need additional information on this you can visit socialmediaexaminer.com for a more ideas on how you can get started.

As you can see, there a wide variety of options available to you when you start out with your social network program. You can work with the existing sites that already have all the infrastructure in place and you simply build your contact network, or you can build up the actual network infrastructure itself and create an entirely new niche group that can access your networking.

The options available are very versatile and can offer you the right solution depending on your needs.  Help us bring more resources and education our reader by letting us know your experience, strategy or feedback. If you have already put a social media program in place was it biult on a strategy of using a current social network platform or did you build your own social network site?

Facebook is used by millions of users around the world daily.  Ads are displayed on each user’s profile, from different companies, on each side of the home and profile page. There are often about 10 ads on each page containing information about 10 different products/services or organizations.

Since there are many people online looking at these ads at one time, they are likely to interest a user because these ads are displayed only to appeal to the interest of the logged in Facebook user. This is done by monitoring what is being clicked on and viewed by the user. These ads are attracting possibly, thousands of new customers to businesses worldwide.

How can you use Facebook.com for your business? One strategy is to make your page useful. For example testimonials and product/service reviews. You want people to know your business and to get the word out how great you are at what you do. Facebook is like creating word of mouth online.  Making your page useful and not just a sales pitch can help drive users to look at your website

Let’s take a look at your Facebook business page. You have only a few likes, some photos and you have maybe some links to external sites. Where is the interesting part? What does your business do and why out of the hundreds of thousand businesses on Facebook should they use yours? Are you good at what you do? Do customers love you and give you thumbs up. You need to include some information on your page that makes the customer want to know more. This is then provides a good incentive to click on external links. Link to a blog you have, link to articles that are related to your product or service, link to videos, link to forums where discussions take place, etc. You want people to seriously like your page, not just be another number.

A few possible Facebook goals and strategies.

1. Create more awareness of your business throughout the Facebook site

2. Get 1,000 likes or more by the end of the Year

3. Have at least 5 visitor comments or shared items on your page every week or every other day

4. Turn Facebook into the top referrer of traffic for your business page

5. Get 2000 entries into a Facebook contest that you are holding.

These goals are simple enough to follow and once you make them the next step is to break them down into small tasks easy enough for you to reach. Let’s take a look at the first goal. You want to create more awareness of your business throughout the Facebook site. How can you do this? Try linking and building networking connections with already well established Facebook businesses. These can be your affiliates. They can help promote you to their already loyal followers and help give more visibility to your business out. You can also create a twitter account in conjunction with your Facebook. Having a lot of followers on Twitter and directing them towards your Facebook is a good way of helping create more awareness.

There are many ways to use facebook for business.  Yet these suggestions are quick and easy to follow and can bring more awareness to your business Facebook page. Check out Facebook’s create-an-ad feature as a lot of ads are shown everyday.  Let me know what you thoughts, do you think Facebook is a good tool for business?

What is your time spent on building new business? What are your new business social media marketing percentages?

Clearly these days there are many ways to take action for building business; some are more proactive and some passive.

With the immense amount of new information available to us today, it seems that the decision-sales cycle has gotten longer. Why,.. perhaps for the need to get all the information before moving ahead with a decision.

The days of the sales guy just making the phone call is becoming much more expensive for businesses. It takes time to make sales calls. While it may be the most direct way to build business… is it the most effective way today to build relationships and business?

Perhaps it is now most effective to meet in person, and solidify relationship foundations, once initial connections have been made through one of the many new search marketing vehicles.

Building Business the New Media way

I hear a lot of people in business, small and enterprise level, discount twitter for its ability to drive sales. Well maybe it’s because the scope of how twitter is used needs to be thought of in a broader sense.

Allocating time and a strategy with other search marketing choices may be needed to help your audience/target market, reach the excellent service, products or resources you offer!

In other words, from the view point of open source model, what are you working on and how can I help you move forward? Instead of just looking at the immediate solution people are looking for great value first or as Seth Godin might say the Free Prize inside!

Big business with larger overhead may want results immediately. But instead of management expecting that new marketing work like the “old sales call system” they might be better off rallying more diligently around new marketing to discover a short term and long term game plan that will yield foundations for new business; Foundations that use new media and marketing tools that will be platforms for in person meetings and discussions.

As an example, an accountant friend of mine is in the first spot on the first page of Google for a competitive and relevant key word search term. He does not participate in social media or any of the new search marketing ways. Results = “0” leads, “ 0” calls. What can this tell us?

Clearly, just ranking in Google is not doing it for his business. Most of his business is generated from word of mouth, old school. My question is, by being more involved in search marketing and social media, could he perhaps build more relationships and more word of mouth and possibly more business.

What do you think? Let me know your experience with social media marketing and if it has helped you build more business.

Since there is a lot of talk about social media these days I thought it would be appropriate to list some of the top articles on the subject. Do’s and don’ts, analytics and key factors are all important, yet the bottom line question is whether there is any ROI – Return on Investment. My readings indicate that social media development is very individual and certainly different between industries.

For many companies currently, the scope of social media development is best kept to the main stream basic’s. i.e Facebook Linkedin and Twitter. If you are an early adopter then you may want to expand this list,” in your spare time”. However in many industries the ROI is either too long, or has not yet been determined. In a significant way that is. While there are many people working diligently at finding appropriate ROI metrics it is still too early to tell whether it is worth spending the time to build and maintain a social media momentum.

For independent contractors and branders and the self employed there seems to be some real ROI. Meaning – conversions – new business. For writers, blogger’s and such my research shows some good stuff. For the guy or gal that owns the tile business, the distribution company or the brick and mortar retail shop I haven’t seen the returns. Yet if ROI is measured in good will and PR and online presence then I would say then sure I see some evidence of ROI.

Here is a list of some articles that may help tighten up your approach to social media as part of building the over all search engine marketing mix, for your business.

About Getting Started
40 Key Elements to Getting Started in Social Media by Louis Gray

About Planning
How to Create Measurable Objectives by Altitude Branding

About Strategy
Two Approaches: Shotgun vs. Laser by Web Strategist

About Small Biz
Why Small is the New Big in Social Media Marketing by Jonathan Fields

About Hiring
Hiring for Social Media: What I’d Look For by Altitude Branding

About Measurement
Social Media: Who Can Show Us the Real Value? by Econsultancy

About Time
Social Media Tips for Optimizing Time Spent by Marketers by Online Marketing Blog

About Expectations
The Hardest Things to Teach Your Clients About Social Media Marketing by 10e20

If you can spare a few moments let me know what industry or market you are in and whether you are finding it a worth while investment of your “business time”.

I went to Gallery opening a week ago. This invitation was for friends, family, fans and all those who were working with Mauruarend Art. Since MediaWright Inc. was hired to be the Internet Marketing company for Mauruarend, we were invited. My wife and I had a lot of fun! There were about 150 people invited and everyone was given a limited edition signed print by the artist – Maurice Middendorf.

Now even though I like to occasionally attend these events, I thought, this event would be a better opportunity to shoot some informal video and take some pictures. Well, even though we are the Internet Marketing company, professional video is something we would normally consign to a video firm. While I may have missed out on a few appetizers and a couple of beers, I was having fun capturing the moment and using this opportunity.

Even thought there was press coverage I thought why not promote this event a bit further.

My point this is something all small business owners can do. This is a perfect example of IN House SEM (Search Engine Marketing) work that can be given to anyone IN your business that can take a picture with a digital camera or hold a video camera steady and slowly pan a room.

Now there is one caveat, I did spend a bit of time afterword editing the video. The great news is there is free video editing software available online.

Video and photos can be used several different way to promote your business through a variety of social media. Great news is, there is no duplicate content rules for video so you can use this information in several different social media sites from You Tube to Facebook and so on.

So bring a video or digital camera to your next event, trade show or meeting and use this information as a vehicle to give searchers, clients, prospect or buyers more insight into your business.

I was reading an article the other day in a popular business magazine that suggested that social networks have still to prove themselves as a viable-profitable business model. Hummmm. Most of these more popular known social networks they said are not yet making any money, but they are busy attracting lots of visitors that they hope to pitch advertising messages from one of their media clients who they are trying to convince (their clients that is) that this will result in more site visits, thus more interest in their products or services and finally more sales. Wow! that even sounds complicated to me and I have been in the internet media business for 10 years.

You probably expected me to say that Social Networks are the best thing since sliced bread! Obviously, since we have a social network and are actively building our membership! On the contrary… social networks in my opinion are not for everyone and only have worth for individual or businesses with specific objectives. Meaning, depending on your business you should research which social network would benefit you and why. Unless you are an investment professional (I ‘m a former Morgan Stanley broker) or an insurance agent, everybody is not your client.

Recent data suggests, and it makes sense to me, that the average person can, and will only maintain activity in one social network. Why…because it takes time and most people are really just doing this for fun i.e. (that’s why Facebook and My Space have the highest memberships). While there are ways to leverage your relationships in sites like LinkedIn and Plaxo most people don’t know how to do this or have the time to spend to do this. Why, again, because it comes down to the relative payoff.

In my experience you need to work these systems diligently with an objective and tactics and a strategy plan in order to benefit with results, be it a new client or new job. Being an old school sales person having learned the direct method of sales…this new media method of social networking for sales can be quite frustrating even for someone that understands the system!

Now the positive message of social networks: There are many social networks developing every day. Just because you’re in business, it does not mean Linkedin is your best social network vehicle. In fact Linkedin is much more geared to salary professionals. Checkout all the smaller, new social networks (there are many, like www.questsocial.com)that are geared more toward you and your typical customer (Google, social networks).

Smaller is better. You have a much greater chance for connecting with the people in your network and in developing more quality relationships! And maybe, who knows, some new business!

It takes but an hour or so to get yourself setup in the Top Social Networks. You can even set up an online group in some of these. See FaceBook and Linkedin. The little time it takes to set up your profiles in these sites can yield ongoing contacts and connections! Especially with those people you may have lost touch with. In some of these I have not been to for a while but continue to get contacted. If you have a website it is a great way to develop your link connections which of course helps build search engine ranking. And of course will attribute to you accomplishing many objectives, whether that is just building a network, brand awareness, or growing your business. So check out some of these, get involved….heck it’s fun; especially reconnecting with an old friend or colleague that reaches out one day to find you and see what you are up to.

Top 10 include: Linkedin, FaceBook, MySpace, Digg, Friendster, Plaxo,Stumble Upon Ryze,Utube, and Meetup. Of course there are many more, but these will get you started!