Mediaboss Marketing

You may have something to say. Something pertinent, pressing, academic, or revolutionary about the theoretical, research, and practical issues confronting todays social marketers.

So you publish with Social Marketing Quarterly. More than just an industry journal, the internationally circulated SMQ is the only journal focused exclusively on social marketing issues, serving as an invaluable resource for practitioners, academicians, program developers and administrators alike.

And if you dont have something pertinent, pressing, academic, or revolutionary to say?

You sure as heck stick around to read.

SMQs writings, from authors the world over, are in the company of feature interviews with key field leaders, such as Alan Andreasen, Carol Bryant, Bill Smith, Nancy Lee, and Gerard Hastings. They address special issues pertaining to current topics of interest and relevance to those involved with or interested in social marketing. And they leaving a mark, opinion, or revelation in any of our established sections: Applications, Theory and Review, Training Initiatives, Book Reviews, Notes from the Field, Resources and Looking Ahead.

We recently awarded the affiliate marketing masters of the year award from the guys from Corelnet.com/carbonite.com. They help promote Carbonite offer codes and are doing such a fantastic job, we thought wed give them a home page mention. They have won the award for excellence within their peer group.

All of our manuscripts are submitted to a double-blind peer-review process. Those published help to foster a cooperative exploration of ideas and practices, which builds and strengthens bridges among various disciplines. And this, as you know, is how innovative change strategies and alliances are born.

From research studies, case studies, conference notices, and essays, to editorials, book reviews, and other relevant news regarding social marketing efforts around the world, this is one journal that is so much more than a journal. Heres a taste:

See the rest here:
Social Marketing Quarterly

February 13, 2011

By Wendy Suto in Featured

Theres a lot of fuss surrounding social media these days. If you still havent jumped on the bandwagon and arent sure why so many people are making such a big deal about it, here are 14 benefits of social media for your business and you from Success magazine.

For Business:

Establish a Brand and Raise Awareness

Since the majority of the population is already visiting social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, getting your brand name all over those networks can help let people know that youre around. If you have yet to create a company image online, social networks are the place to do it.

Create a fun YouTube video that entertains and informs. Funny videos tend to make their way around the Internet a lot faster than any other kind, so when making a video, keep in mind that you want it to be interesting enough for your target audience to want to share. Using Facebook and Twitter to create a fun online community that your customers will want to visit will boost brand loyalty and drive traffic to your Website, allowing you the chance to make more online sales.

Spy on the Competition

Follow your competitors on Twitter and Facebook and youll be able to see what they have up their sleeve. Just make sure to provide a better deal than whatever they have going on.

Pitch Products in a More Human, Interactive Way

Since people visit social media sites to get personal rather than be bombarded with ads, discuss your business in a fun way and engage your customers with questions. Ask their opinions and entice them to respond back. This way youre making a valuable connection that will help grow your number of return customers.

Bring Attention to Your Products

Featuring a product on a social media site is one of the fastest ways to bring attention to it. Offer a promotion along with it for your online community members and watch your sales skyrocket.

Increase Customer Loyalty And Trust

Speaking to your customers in a personal way will make them feel like they are talking to a friend, not a company. This will help build their trust in you, which will make them do business with you rather than your competition. It will also improve the chances of customer recommendations.

Listen to Your Customers Opinion

Social media sites are an awesome way to see what your target audience is saying about your company or your products. Take their constructive criticism and use it to enhance your product to better meet their needs.

Conduct Market Research

Listen to what your customers say about your products and track what links they click on and youll begin to see what your customers like and respond to. People love to express their opinions on social media sites, which will allow you to hear the truth. Then you can use your new-found information to tweak your product or service to please them as well as continue to post more information and links that they will enjoy.

Strengthen Customer Service

Social media networks allow your company to answer your customers questions and concerns directly in a timely manner. This will improve customer satisfaction and also save you money on long distance customer service phone calls.

For You:

Build Your Personal Reputation

Social networks allow you to get your name out to the world and talk about things that matter to you. This will help you build a good online reputation, which is critical nowadays if youre looking for a job or even a new business contact.

Display Your Resume

LinkedIn allows you to display your full resume online for any future employers or recruiters to see. This will help bring you new opportunities that never would have existed otherwise.

Find a Job

Jobs are posted every minute on social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter along with the links or information you need to apply for them.

Showcase Your Talents And Establish Yourself as an Expert

If youre passionate about a certain subject, whether its work-related or a hobby, the Internet is a great place to show off your knowledge. Soon people will be coming to you for the breaking information on that topic, and talking about you to friends.

Enhance Your Business Contacts and Enhance Personal Relationships

Through professional sites like LinkedIn, you can build your number of business contacts and enhance your reputation as an expert in your industry. You can also connect with those long-lost high school and college classmates, old colleagues, and out-of-town family members.

Share Information with Like-Minded People

Connect with other professionals in your field to share information. Where else would you be able to connect with industry professionals across the globe to swap stories and advice?

Read the original:
Top 14 Benefits of Social Media Marketing - SiteProNews

If it seems like nearly every business on the planet is connecting with fans on Facebook, Tweeting, uploading videos on YouTube and getting LinkedInexcept youyoure not alone. Many organizations who havent gone social yet are feeling the same way, scratching their heads and wondering: Are businesses really making money using social media? Can my business still get in on the actionand the profits?

The businesses that are making money set goals and objectives, follow a plan, choose and use the best tools, carefully monitor their results and faithfully measure their ROI. In other words, there are a lot of things youll need to get up to speed on to get started with social media and be successful.

Our conference is set up in a convenient 2-track format with 10 exciting sessions to choose from. Attend one track from start to finish, or mix and match the sessions to customize the conference to your own particular needs.

CONFERENCE AGENDA

Program hours: 9:00 am 4:00 pm

TRACK 1

Click on a session title to view details

Session 1: Show me the money: How social media actually pays off+

Session 2: The key to social media success: Getting off to a good start+

Session 3: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter: Choosing the right platform for your business+

Session 4: Measuring whats really importantyour return on investment+

Session 5: Success stories: What the best social marketers do better than the rest+

TRACK 2

Click on a session title to view details

Session 1: Cool tools and how to use them to grow your business+

Session 2: Mistakes rookies make but you dont have to+

Session 3: The art of writing for a social audience+

Session 4: Managing your on-line reputation+

Session 5: Monitoring what people are saying about you on-linein 15 minutes a day+

Read the original here:
SkillPath Seminars | The Social Media Marketing Conference

Social Media Marketing requires a large investment of time and effort. For any business owner, time is a valuable commodity, and you often dont have the capital to staff a department dedicated to managing your social media campaign. What you need are Social Media Experts, who, with the right tools and analytics, can deliver the results you need. Did you know that social media is one of the most cost-effective strategies over any other traditional form of display advertising? Social media marketing continues to build your reputation and bring in leads even when youre not actively working on it.

Even if you have thousands of likes on Facebook, a large and loyal following of fans, and a flock of Twitter followers actively tweeting about your brand you can still be missing the mark. Exposure is fantastic, but if you cant tie social media interactions to the metrics that matter most to your business (e.g. revenue, conversions, leads, sales or orders), then consider replacing your social media marketing agency.

We Evaluate, Plan, Design, Market, Manage and Most Importantly MEASURE Your Social Media efforts!

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Social Media Marketing | That!Company

Social media is becoming an indispensable part of the marketing mix for many businesses and one of the best ways to reach customers and clients. Social media platforms, such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have a number of benefits for companies and are fast overtaking traditional media formats such as print and TV ads, brochures, flyers and email campaigns. On top of that social media is now an integral part of your organic SEO efforts because of the links that social medial can naturally generate to your site. Here are just a few of the many advantages social media has over traditional media.

Traditional media can be extremely expensive, especially for small businesses. In contrast, most social media platforms are completely free to use, the only cost to businesses being the time spent on updating profiles and interacting with contacts. This is one of the initial benefits of social media, in that it is accessible to more business owners because of the low cost barrier of entry.

The low cost of entry to social media makes it particularly useful to small businesses who often find the costs associated with traditional media prohibitive. Businesses can use social media to create and distribute promotional material, such as articles, videos and audio for a fraction of the money it would cost for this content to appear in the press, on the radio or on TV. And distributing this content via social media provides you with more opportunities to entice others to link to your content. This is a great way to enhance your organic SEO authority.

In many ways, social media levels the playing field for businesses as it is accessible to anyone, regardless of company size, turnover and contacts. Social media tools are open to anyone, whereas reaching the traditional media often requires a lot of money and a good network of media industry contacts.

A high level of skill, training and specialist equipment is involved in traditional media production. In comparison, social media channels are extremely simple to use, even for people with basic IT experience; all that is required is a computer and an internet connection.

Traditional media can reach a global audience but this is usually very costly and time-consuming. Through social media, businesses can communicate information in a flash, regardless of geographical location. Social media platforms also allow you to tailor your content for each market segment and give businesses the opportunity to get their messages across more widely than ever before. Indeed, once a piece of content goes viral, there is no limit to the amount of people it could potentially reach, all at no extra cost for the business.

Social media channels offer unparalleled opportunities to interact with customers and build relationships, largely due to their real-time, interactive nature. Companies can source feedback, test ideas and manage customer services quickly and directly online in a way traditional media could not. Whereas traditional media only allow for one-way communication, Facebook, Twitter and the likes give customers the chance to select the type and frequency of messages to receive and send out. The business customer proximity characteristic of the social media outlets also allows for a more open communication process, as opposed to simply pushing out sales messages.

Social medias adaptability makes content management generally more flexible. Information can be updated, altered, supplemented and discussed in a way completely unknown to a printed advertisement, a newspaper article or magazine feature. What is more, information can be published in seconds, making it possible for businesses to ensure that their content is always up to date a condition to a more prominent spot in the search engine rankings.

Social media stats are immediately measurable, whereas traditional media figures often need to be monitored over a long period of time. With social media, businesses can test marketing messages and approaches, gauge user responses and tweak the message accordingly. This is done through the ever-growing number of free, easy-to-use social media measurement tools.

Although many businesses are getting on board with social media, others are still a bit cautious of completely breaking away from traditional media and embracing the social media. But can your company really afford to ignore the social media, given its unquestionable assets?

If after reading this, you are still intimidated by social media, think about the opportunities that you could miss out. Theres nothing to lose so why dont you dip your toes in? Get online, listen, get a feel for different spaces and start experimenting with content and interaction. Youll soon discover the benefits for yourself.

Christian Arno is the founder of Lingo24, one of the worlds fastest growing translation companies. Launched in the UK in 2001, Lingo24 now spans three continents and has clients in more than sixty countries. Lingo24 has translated for businesses in every industry sector. Follow Christian (@l24ca) and Lingo24 (@Lingo24) on Twitter.

The rest is here:
Benefits of Social Media and the Advantages of Using ...