Supposedly there’s some ultra-mega-super-awesome secret to social media marketing. FACT! That’s not really, 100% true. It’s a lot simpler than that. While kicking ass at social media requires an investment of time, effort, and ambition (maybe even passion). I wanted to give you three easy ways to get ahead on social media and make it an effective outlet for your brand and marketing efforts.

Be valuable

(I give the worst, best advice, ever.)

Your network looks to you for a reason, or vice versa. Whether you are creating content, aggregating from other sources in order to provide a hub for valuable knowledge and thought leadership, or you’re simply driving thought provoking conversation, your network has a certain expectation of you.

If you’re providing value to your audience you know what they want. Whether it’s articles relevant to marketing, entrepreneurship, small biz, or how to create awesome web designs you will know. Nurturing relationships online is one of the most valuable things you can do for yourself and your network online.

Automate some stuff, not everything.

I automate.

The bane of existence on social media. It’s supposed to be personal, and engaging, and stuff……right? Well, it is. There’s no harm in posting an interesting article that you found the night before, or during the day for a later time. Allow people to engage with content you have found on your time & schedule. Or, even better, automate to match your audiences schedule. Use tools like Argyle Social, or Crowdbooster to monitor interaction levels with your tweets an to find the best times to tweet according to your audience.

Embrace competition

You’d be surprised, or not, at how much content is recreated, repurposed, rephrased, reused…the list goes on. Your competition is a source for many things. Amongst others they can be a news source should you not be the leader. I read other blogs and huge content creators every day. As a matter of fact this blog post was an amalgamation of thoughts from multiple blog posts. It happens, but the thoughts and opinions are still mine. I still tell you how I think about them and I choose which ones I believe work best, and recreate them here for you.

There are three easy ways for you to kick ass at social media. If you have any more, please add them in the comments, I’d love to hear from you.

Image Credit - Tattoo_Lover

So here’s the deal. I’m an adrenaline junkie, rock climber, and I’d pretty much look for an excuse to bungee, BASE Jump, climb up, or in this case rappel off of the Wachovia Building in downtown Raleigh, NC.

The Special Olympics of North Carolina (SONC) has set up Over the Edge, and if I can raise $1000 I will get the opportunity to launch myself off the side of this building. Now, I’ll tell you what, I want to do this face-down as I rappel down.

Here is what I ask of you:

1. Follow SONC_BeAFan on Twitter.
2. Donate – Any bit will help!
3. Donate AGAIN!
4. Share this page using the Tweet, Likes & +1′s below!

Yes, ROI matters. There’s nothing I can say that will disprove that ROI is a huge aspect of marketing, business, and sales. The reality comes down to: Does ROI matter to YOU?

Find what is important to you and track that.

What matters are your KPIs. Key Performance Indicators. In an older Argyle Social article there were four KPIs addressed. The KPIs that I choose will not be the same that you choose for many, many reasons. Here’s an example: my KPIs have nothing to do with conversions, or leads, or sales. My KPIs should be indicators of: what are people reading on my blog? How long are they reading these articles? Do they opt to learn more about me?

These indicators tell me whether or not my content is applicable to my readers and if what I am doing is providing value to them. Values that you choose can be tangible, monetary value or value can be knowledge. Either way, a value must be given to your readers or visitors.

Stop thinking about ROI and think about the people.

A Harvard Business Review article brought up a good point from a study that was done about 50 years ago by Ernest Dichter. Essentially, what it all comes down to is Word of Mouth. Now, we’re all going to pretend that we’re smart and that we knew this already (which we did, obviously). I may just be naïve, but I believe that we’re trying to track and put a monetary number on something that just doesn’t matter.

Word of mouth is a part of any product, service, business, blah blah blah (insert whatever it is you’re marketing here). I don’t deny that it is an extremely valuable aspect of marketing to track. But! Do we really need to add a dollar value to it? Thik abot the conversations around what you do.

Sentiment, maybe? Are there concerns? Are people trying to understand more about you?

Stop measuring start talking.

The bean-counters want their numbers. Give them the numbers. The key to marketing, PR, and advertising today online, isn’t about whether or not you have an effective campaign. Marketing today is about being a part of the customer’s interaction online. The consumer wants you to answer their questions. Consumers want companies to give feedback, give help, or even just give them a pat on the back sometimes.

The only thing I ask you to do when you become “a part of the conversation”: Don’t sound like a damn robot!

Be yourself. Build relationships. And give back to your customers, leads, and even random people talking about you online. Be a person, it doesn’t hurt.

Image by – Socialspice.de

In case you haven’t noticed, the trend today in marketing is going one way. Back to the roots. Now if you’re like me you question things, and you ask yourself: “What the hell are the roots?” In my perspective there’s one root to any form of marketing. It doesn’t matter if you’re using social media for marketing, if you’re using print, TV ads, whatever.

When I look at marketing I tend to try to ask myself one question:

What is the value of what I’m giving these people?

This seems like a fairly straight forward question. But the reality is so many marketers aren’t answering this question. It doesn’t matter if you choose Facebook, Twitter, a Blog, etc. You absolutely must provide some sort of value to your consumer.

As an online marketing dude, specifically my blog – I know that the value I attempt to provide is knowledge value. The ability to give my readers the opportunity to think about what they’re doing in their online marketing strategies.

So I ask you if you’re reading this, to leave a comment and tell me: What value are you giving your blog readers, your consumers?

Image Credit – James Cridland

I’m going to hop on the bandwagon here and establish the fact that I am not a fan of certain terminologies that have made their way around the social sphere. Terms like Guru, Ninja, and even on the occasion, Expert.

I am none of these and neither are you.

With the constant evolving, changing patterns online a person can migrate their skills and abilities from one platform to another and get to a level where yes, they have a proven track record of improving a brands social media and maybe have monetized it. But the reality is, expertise takes time. Quite simply social media hasn’t been around long enough for anyone to become “the best”. Sure the likes of Chris Brogan, Gary Vaynerchuk, Scott Stratten and plenty others have made their mark online and have a sense of status.

But what makes them more of an expert than anyone else? More money in their pocket? More speaking gigs? When do I become a Guru?

Honestly, we are always constantly learning in today’s online atmosphere. Trends change, behaviors repeat themselves, and patterns emerge. In truth though, the same concept that applies to X may not apply to Y.

Learn. Adapt. Change.

Every client or opportunity is a chance to learn something new. Whether it’s a new strategy or technique, you have the opportunity to learn and find out new information, expanding your horizons. The online community is a constant learning curve. From industry to industry, network to network, “we” as community managers, marketers, or Public Relations managers consistently have opportunities to find something new, and expand upon that.

Don’t let Gurus & Ninjas take all the joy. Honestly, what I’ve found is that these self-proclaimed “experts” are probably the most likely to give you some black-hat method of getting quick, one-time results and not giving you a tangible strategy that can be leveraged in the future.

Stop Being an Expert, Be A Student

In a matter of a week and a couple of days I will no longer be a College Undergrad. But for the rest of my life I will be a student. For the rest of my life I will be learning. So should you.

Image by – Krisuuu

Final Update – I have closed donations at a final total of $1,448.50 Thank you to the 40 of you who have contributed throughout the day. If you would still like to Donate please consider the local Red Cross who is still helping the local area.

Update 2 – As of 13:03 we now have $365!

Update – As of 13:01 we have raised $240 (24%) of the total $1000 Goal. Please repost this, ReTweet it, and if you can please donate!

Hello Everyone,

On Saturday April 16th, an EF-3 tornado swept through Raleigh, NC causing millions of dollars worth of damage. Leveling a Lowe’s, claiming lives and injuring many. Thankfully, only one of my friends was affected, Jeremy Smith (@jeremysaid). His home was irreparably damaged, and thus is being demolished today. To make matters worse, Nationwide insurance has dropped his coverage for not having an “Occupied Dwelling.”

See the damage to his home: http://twitpic.com/4lrztg http://twitpic.com/4ls0b8 http://twitpic.com/4ls1fw

This has been a major blow is something no one should have to endure.

In that light I would like to raise at least $1000 to help him get back on track whether we help put him up in a hotel or buy him tools and equipment to help rebuild. I will use this ChipIn widget to help raise money with the goal of getting him those $1000 by the end of May. I’ve also set up jeremyfundraise[at]gmail[dot]com if you would like to email me any questions. Any funds that get sent to me through this ChipIn will be sent straight to Jeremy via PayPal.

Please help and donate as much as you can, whether it’s $1 or $50 or $100.

Thank You,

Greg

In the past 3 years, every job interview I have had has been one that I’ve either known the person through Twitter, or I had at least found the job opening through Twitter. The power, reach and possibilities that being able to seek information on Twitter gives any internet user is – to say the least – Amazing. When using only Twitter, I usually will tend to take two approaches, both of which are as effective. However, one is much more personal and probably better off for you in the end.

Hunt & Apply

In hunting and applying it’s a much less intimate and more of the, “Go on Monster.com and submit your résumé” approach. Here’s your opportunity to show your Search Skills.

Search.Twitter.com – depending on your industry you know what kind of job you’re hoping to get into. Hashtags like #jobs, #job, and #hiring are some of the most common, and usually lead to decent Twitter postings to a job description. By using Boolean search operators like AND or OR (they must be capitalized), you can add in multiple search terms and get rid of irrelevant posts.

For example, if you are looking for a freelance writing job your search terms might look like this: Freelance writing OR writer AND #Jobs OR #Job. This will find Tweets that have the words Freelance writing or in place of writing, writer. As well as the hashtags #jobs,or #job. The AND forces the search to include either of those hashtags.

Besides a solid Twitter search, there are many profiles which are automated aggregations of postings. One of the best ones for the D.C. area is the Washington Post Jobs. They have over 30 accounts with job opportunities listed in bulk on their Twitter feed, each feed for a different industry. See the full list. Looking for accounts like these are incredibly helpful, and you can build a list of only these feeds to keep a solid eye on them.

Build the Relationship

Thanks to Chris Penn‘s amazing email newsletter, he forwarded on this little gem of a tool.

Followerwonk.com – Similar to Twitter’s advanced search, but lets you search users’ bio’s. This is powerful. What followerwonk lets you do is target by keywords in Biographies and by location. In a job hunt this is crucial. For example, if I am looking for a marketing job in Raleigh, NC, I would try to reach out to a marketing manager or director of marketing in the area. Thus, my search terms would look like this: Manager OR Director OR VP AND Marketing, and in the Location use Raleigh, NC. Watch as the influencers/directors/managers, etc. all show up in your search results.

Tack these results into a list, and let the relationship building begin. Keep these prime users in a separate list, and engage them. Make yourself, your expertise, and the fact that you’re job hunting known. As these relationships build trust and the people begin to know you, your relationship with them gets stronger and stronger. When the time comes for you to tell them about your job hunt, you’re much more likely to be looked at more closely.

Never Overlook a Handshake

While a good Twitter search, or online relationship building never hurts, you must never overlook the power of meeting someone face-to-face. Be yourself, and be the same person you are online. Meet up for a beer, or lunch, or whatever, but being able to talk to someone in person holds its own power.

In social CRM, Marketing, Community Management, or whatever aspect of online networking you are a part of there is always one thing that matters. The people that you interact with, the people you talk to, Retweet, however you decide to be “a part of the conversation” are all potentials. A potential client, a potential friend, really the potentials are huge.

Nurturing your online relationships is just like handling any other relationship. Online or offline the way we compose ourselves and handle situations is a genuine reflection of character. As someone who works mainly in maintaining these online relationships – even with people whom I have not met in person – is a trait that I take pride in. As many others can vouch, the relationships will build translate for business, long-term friends, or maybe even more.

The point that I’m hoping to drive home is that if you’re changing personas from what someone knows of you online into someone completely different (multiple personality disorder?) then whatever relationship you have built with that person online essentially gets shattered when the “IRL” meeting happens.

I Tweeted a few days back saying that I will do my best to never bullshit anyone. I do my best to be truthful, honest, and if that relates to sometimes coming across as hostile, for that I apologize.

The relationships that one manages every day, matter. As people connected in a social, online atmosphere we’re entrusted to be the same person wherever we are, whoever we interact with. One of the best, and possibly funniest examples I have come across recently is by my friend Phil Buckley (@1918). Read the comments on his post. As more people chimed in for the comments, the true reality of online relationships became more and more apparent.

As relationships get built, so does trust; what relationship ever works without trust? Build trust, build relationships, build social.

Image Credit – Bikingbettie

Every now and then I will come across a post that redefines the 4 P’s of Marketing, or changes from P’s to some other random letter of the alphabet-creating some other mnemonic device-but the reality is that the 4 P’s have been developed, studied, and analyzed day in and day out but thousands of people. I will say, unfortunately that this post was somewhat inspired by a couple of Beth Harte’s posts. One which re-evaluates the 4 P’s, and another which creates the 4 C’s-addressing the 4 P’s from the customers’ perspective-.

Now, I’m all for breaking “the rules” and sticking out from the mold that has formed from years of research in marketing. Sometimes though, things just work, like the 4 P’s. Beth makes a good point when elaborating her customers’ perspective.

I don’t think marketers are ready to shift away from the marketing mix—it’s what is taught as marketing theory. Until marketing textbooks make the move from internally focused to externally focused marketing (which I am all for, by the way), it will be what new marketers understand and the cycle will never be broken.

I would like to suggest that the Four C’s become the precursor to the marketing mix. Figure out first what it is customers need and/or want and then satisfy it. The beauty of customer-centric marketing is that a company is continually providing products and services that satisfy customers, which leads to loyalty.

I, personally, have no bearing on the thoughts and opinions on someone else, but can merely pose my own in reply. Beth is extremely insightful, and makes excellent commentary for her opinions. However, I believe that what she is getting at is redefining what is an industry standard.

Generalizations Are Okay

General consensus is forging the opinion of the 4 P’s as “Out-Dated” or overly general for the evolving marketing perspectives; I promise you though, that’s okay. On one hand there are already enough definitions, acronyms, mnemonics, etc. for every nit-picked detail of marketing-even business as a whole-. Should we sit here and re-define terms that encompass a whole of marketing for the sole purpose of establishing specifics? Probably not.

While technologies change, and updates are made, the overall perspective still applies. I believe that what Beth is getting it, is establishing these ideas from a separate viewpoint in a way that allows us, as marketers, to better understand the people we deal with. She does a fantastic job at elaborating how her Cs would apply for different markets, but I feel that she remains in a purely technological point of view that only becomes more restricted with her redefinition.

Keep the Cs

I fully agree that the consumer is gaining strength in control over suppliers, especially in a mass media setting. However we must see these 4 Cs as a part of the Marketing Mix, not a replacement. Continually think of her 4 Cs. But don’t forget about the important aspects of marketing that should be generalized.

Being too focused can lead to a close minded viewpoint of the product/service and the companies objectives.

Image Credit – Scott1723