The growing topic on Twitter and the Blogosphere is how Online Marketers are becoming very bitter with the increase competition in Social Media Marketing.  You may have witnessed statements like “Everyone is a Social Media Expert” or “I hate how everyone thinks they are a Social Media Marketer”

Put Away The Social Media Hatorade

There seems to be a lot of animosity going on lately but the Top Social Media Strategists in the Web 2.0 world doesn’t seem to care to be affected by this battle.

The truth of the matter is this and its quite simple really.

“Social Media Marketing is the new standard and instead of fighting it, we must embrace it or be left behind”

Embracing Change

Remember back then in the DOT.COM boom where supposedly have a Dot.com business will make you MILLIONS & MILLIONS of money for everyone!!!  Well of course we found out the hard way just because we got online does not mean it’s instant cash.  Keep in mind everyone back then was gunning for a dot.com business, it was a race more or less.  Back then, entrepreneurs were hating on the competition and wanted to be the first to win the race.  However, the race and dot.com business bubbled and simmered down and now everyone is online.

The same concept applies to this day, who cares if everyone is using Social Media Marketing tactics.  Guess what, this is starting to become the normal practice and eventually everyone will use Social Media Marketing tactics in their business.

This is Business 101 folks, instead of being paranoid and bitter about competition.  Embrace competition and find ways to improve yourself and focus on how to be successful rather than pouting and complaining because your Mother is right, “It won’t do you any good”.

So what can we do while the Marketing Revolution shifts and starts conforming the entire world to this new change?  Instead of whining about the competition lets focus on these aspects, shall we:

• Start building your online presence in full affect to get a head start from your competition who hasn’t signed up on board with Social Media Marketing yet.  We are at an advantage while most people are afraid to embrace this new change, why not start building a great gap in your head start before your competition wises up and hops on the bandwagon.

• For your current competition who use Social Media Marketing now, constantly learn and read new things on how to improve your current marketing methods,  You can never learn too much.  Also, learn from the best even if it’s your direct competitor.  Just like Microsoft and the great painters in the world, they steal great ideas, upgrades it, and make it their own.  Sometimes to be successful you have to mirror the best but make it your own.

So let’s all put away the Social Media Hatorade and re-focus our efforts on how to be successful instead of focusing on things we can’t change.  Social Media Marketing is here to stay and we can either embrace it or be left behind.  Whats your decision?

Post from: Social Media Vision

Put Away The Social Media Hatorade

Is Social Media a fad?

Or is it the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution?  We are definitely in the Generation Now and you have to be oblivious to believe that Social Media is not the new precedent in marketing.  The powers of Social Media below…enjoy!

See Social Media Poll

Statistics from Socialnomics Show Social Media Is Bigger Than You Think

Post from: Social Media Vision

The Social Media Revolution: Statistics show Social Media isn’t a fad anymore

Social Media Made Simple

I often see many large corporate companies out there over analyzing and over stressing marketing methods of Social Media to make it very complicated.  The approach tatic these way too serious companies use makes the the average Joe Schmo feel inferior.

How can you put your trust into something that you are blindly leaping into?  If something is that complicated and that detailed that for a simple marketing strategy in just increasing your presence and bringing in more business is becoming way over your head, then it’s time to take a step back and re-evaluate things.

What are your goals?

• Increasing your online presence
• Developing your brand and engagement with the online community
• Staying Cutting edge
• Getting the best Return On Your Investment
• Increasing your business

You see you can pretty much sum up what you want in 5 bulletin points or less.  To break it down even more, Social Media is all about engagement, building an online presence through a social community that leads to building relationships.

Lets not make matters more complicated than it really is.

Keep It Super Simple (K.I.S.S)

Let’s think about this for a second, the methods they are offering you and the 300 page essay campaign they are drawing up for you, is it really a Super Secret Method that nobody has?

Are the methods they bring to the table really that complicated that an average business can’t even fathom of comprehending on what to do next?

The answer is no.  Everyone knows what must be done for their Internet presence and its either 1 or 2 things

1.)  They are afraid to embrace new changes

2.)  They don’t have the time to do or don’t want to do Social Media

For example:  We all know how to cut the grass but do we sometimes either pay a local neighbor kid to cut the grass for us even if we are very capable in cutting the grass ourselves?  Of course we do, why because its easier paying the kid to do it than ourselves.

So if you are going to pay for a Social Media Consultant rely on tips & advice where they treat you on the same respect level rather than talkign down to you making you believe you don’t know squat about trying to even do this on your own.

Here’s the secret,

Every powerful marketing, technology and Social Media campaign strategy out there……can be found on the internet!

Nothing is hidden no more, no more hidden information, all the information out there can be found online now.  Don’t fall for the uptight corporate sales man pitch..

In the words of the “Waterboy” – “You can do it!”

Post from: Social Media Vision

Social Media Shouldn’t Be Corporate Complicated

Call To Action In Social Media

Techniques to boost your conversion

You bought a new office, a high-tech laptop, and a spanking new leather chair for your hiney.  On top of all the new things you just bought for your new blog adventure, you also have written the best blog article you have ever written, your blog post is so awesome it just screams to be ReTweeted by Guy Kawasaki.

The blog post is getting many hits but why aren’t you converting the new visitors to stay longer, click on your ads or even subscribe to your RSS feed?

Many blog sites out there have trouble converting traffic to loyal visitors, revenue generators and subscribers because of a lack of call to action.

A Call To Action is a simple method to show your readers the next step for your blog like clicking on subscribe, clicking on affiliate links or reading a next post etc etc.  Its the driving force for your readers to click on something you persuade them to.

Below are some simple techniques to use for your Social Media site to incorporate Call to Action

Banner – Your banner or header is the easiest and most important Call to Action to incorporate.  A simple change of getting a logo designer to create an attracting header for your Blog or Social Media profile will do wonders and will brand your site to the visitors.  Make sure that your new header is click-able to go back to your homepage and is large enough to be clicked.

Complete Profile – As with any social media site out there, make sure you try to have most of your profile complete.  There is no penalty in having too much information filled out for your profile.  Visitors will want to find more information about the Author and if they come to a blank page then the visitor will unlikely return.  On your blog make sure that readers can find a spot to click on to get more information about you somewhere.

Vanity URL – Most social network sites will allow you create a unique custom vanity url to link to your profile.  Most recently Facebook just launched vanity urls for your personal page and fan page.  Having a Vanity Url will brand yourself and is much easier to remember/click/drive to your site than a bunch of numbers.  It’s like remembering your friend’s car’s license plate because of the vanity plate, it just makes it easier to direct your reader to your site.

Easy to find links / RSS – Easy as pie right? Make sure your links are easy to find, you won’t believe how many sites out there still have the RSS Subscribe links hidden and the archive links no where to be found.  If anything make sure your subscribe to rss feeder link is visible and on the top portion of your site.

Next Post / Related Posts – A nice little plug-in out there is having all your footers in your posts show relevant posts and next post option.  This is a great call to action due to making your readers explore more of your website and thus hopefully capturing them as loyal readers instead of just stopping in to read 1 post.

Motto / Mantra / Theme – Whats the point of your site? Whats the main theme of your site? If you don’t know then what makes you think your readers will.  Somehow incorporate a Tag Line or Theme for your site.  Stick with it to help brand your site and capture new readers.  Most blogs out there are sporadic in just throwing everything at the site and not being unified.  A simple theme like Mashable’s “The Social Media Guide” works wonders.

Contests & Free Gifts – Nothing attracts readers more than free gifts and contest give aways especially if you are just starting out.  I seen some viral contests out there that spiral into a huge snowball effect thus attracting vast amounts of new readers and more than likely capturing new subscribers.  I gave away 2 books on my Financial Blog and my traffic spiked 200% and I received 22 new subscribers that day.

Limited / BETA – Most sites out there take advantage of the limited hype or the secret beta club hype that makes people want to come to your site even more because of the illusion of exclusiveness.  Remember when Brightkite and Gmail were invite only, this made users go crazy in trying to get invites to these sites and thus hyping up the exposure.  A great simple method is ping your social network sites saying something in the lines of “Created a brand new blog, click here to get a secret beta preview before it goes live” see how that works?

6 Second Window – They have a saying for most websites out there that new readers will only take 6 seconds to browse your site and if not interested they will move in.  This is very important to have all you key call to action methods in place.  If you can’t find anything to keep you staying longer on your site then you need to reevaluate your site to include better call to action items.

Location – Finally make sure that all social media links are filled in everywhere this includes Myspace, Facebook, Friendfeed, Mybloglog and Twitter.  Simply by adding your link to all your online profiles out there will get you more exposure and allows you to connect with your readers more successfully.

There is no secret method here as you can see most of these methods are common sense but still most people fail to incorporate a call to action.

Post from: Social Media Vision

Call To Action in Social Media

Power 150: http://adage.com/power150/

I have been awarded the Power 150 Badge and my blog is now published in the Advertising Age Power 150 Blog Rankings.

If you don’t know what the Power 150 is here is an excerpt from the site..

“The Power 150 is a ranking of the top English-language media and marketing blogs in the world, as developed by marketing executive and blogger, Todd Andrlik. It’s really as simple as that, except that the name isn’t strictly accurate: It currently ranks more than 500 blogs written about all types of media and pretty much every imaginable marketing discipline. ”

Social Media Vision is a fairly new blog and in the short time span it has been live, I already recieved great success with a PR rank 3, over 105 GFCS, High Alexa & Technorati ranking but I have been having trouble in getting in the Power 150 ranking.

The Power 150 submission is very strict in accepting new Blogs.  Todd came up with a measurement and point system in order to rank blogs accordingly.  It uses a basic multimetric algorithm to obtain a final ranking based on the sum of eight sources, seven of which come from Google, Bloglines, Alexa, Yahoo! and Technorati.

On Wednesday, I received an e-mail stating I got accepted and I am so excited to display my Power Age 150 badge!!

This Java Scripted Badge below should update my Current Rank out of 998 (At the time of this post)

Post from: Social Media Vision

Social Media Vision has been accepted in AdAge Power 150 Ranking

If your a new Blog owner and wishing to explore ways to find Blog Sponsors you might want to try this neat little marketing approach in finding a sponsor.

Before I venture into this marketing tip you might want to brush up on some great sage advice on finding a sponsor for your blog by problogger.  Darren Rowse has created a short starter list on how to find a blog sponsor.

Now that you have been briefed on Blog Sponsors

I was thinking of a creative way in reaching out to my local market in finding a niche sponsor to help out my new blog.  I was relating it to my Finance Business and when I wanted to find Free and Fast traffic I posted to ad markets like Craigslist to find new clients and get instant exposure.

I thought hey why don’t I just create a FREE ad and find a local sponsor to help find my last ad spot on my blog.  Well wouldn’t you know when searching Google if anyone else does this marketing technique, I ran across this ad below.

 (click on Image to enlarge)

This is a great starter technique in finding a local sponsor

• It’s Free
• Less intimadating
• Provides Exposure
• Develop a local presence and audience

Post from: Social Media Vision

Creative Blog Sponsor Tip Using Craigslist Marketing

Bloggers, Twitters & Social Media Marketers Unite

The powers of Social Media can be very frightening.  We all know how news can travel fast but with the help of Social Media news can not only travel even faster than normal communication methods but can prove to be more devastating.

Example #1

A famous example of this is when friendly Real Estate Blogger Vlad Zablotskyy got sued from Eperks(Real Estate Ad Co.) Vlad was hired to write a review of Eperks from Sponsored Reviews.  Vlad wrote about the review here which just consisted of his opinion and an honest review but Eperks was livid and was determined to cause agony to Vlad.

Fortunately in the Social Media-Sphere, word got out pretty quick that Vlad was being hassled, threatned and eventually sued from Eperks.  The Social Media World united with Bloggers uniting to help support Vlad, Tweets going out lending a hand and helping spread awareness.  

The power of this online wave was powerful and was a force to be reckoned with. Take a look at these support sites.  Andy Beards review, Inman news review, and Bloodhound Blog’s support.

Example #2

Another good example of this is the recent news story of the Moms and Motrin Ad backfire story.  Motrin had recently created an ad that outraged many Moms in the real world in how the ad portrayed of carrying babies as “fashion”, being told it looks “crazy” and finally being told “in theory” carrying your baby around is a good idea.

This of course caused an uproar effect that trickled to the consumers across the world particularly Real Life Moms.  The one thing about Social Media is that everybody has the potential to communicate effictively and quickly to get thier point and feedback regarding about this subject.

Bloggers United and demanded boycotts, The Twitter world helped micro-blogged in disgust and called for a micro twitter revolution, and finally Social Networks like Myspace and Facebook were posting updates to the personal sites all across the world to voice their opinions.

We are now in a world where we are not limited to traditional media sources to get the word out and rely on the the power of traditional media sources to relay stories of uproars.  We are in the Social Media Age where information is being transmitted in real time and spread like wild fire.  Be careful who you mess with.

Post from: Social Media Vision

Bloggers, Twitters & Social Media Sphere Unite

Myspace and Facebook and Twitter Oh My!

We live in the day in age of “Whats the next hottest thing to hit the web” its surprising that almost 2 decades ago there was no such phrase.

With the unstable economy we now face and the tough times we run into, we are inclined to find ways to help increase our marketing and boost our exposure in business.

From Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Social Media, Social Marketing, Social Networking, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Blogging,Podcasts, Video Marketing, Wikis,Forums,Classifieds, Single Site Websites….Ok you get the idea.

The whole concept of keeping up is a work in itself and not to mention can cause dizziness and nausea

So the Golden Question is … ” What works” and “Which one should I do?”
Expensive Marketing

The boot camp of marketing and branding in the real world was no small picnic before the age of computers.

A rough game plan is outlined below:

• Marketing consisted of big bucks to Newspaper Ads, Radio Ads, TV Ads, Magazine Ads, you name it, there was no cheap way of advertising to what was “perceived” as the must advertise avenues. This costs Money and tons of it to get your return of investment.

• You wanted exposure, you hit the streets, talking to everyone and anyone, getting your name out there,because lets face it there was no such thing as a worldwide connection resource built on data and Ips at your disposal at the time, guess what this costs Money too. Gas, Air travel, flyers, signs etc….

• You wanted to join a networking group, wanted to sponsor a local team, wanted to have your ideas/thoughts exposed on print media….Great!!, it costs Money

Take a look at the bolded words above, they all cost “Money”

The Answer to “What Works?”

To answer the question, “What Works?” the answer is…..”EVERYTHING”

Yes, many of the online presence websites out there is “Free” and what is the old saying “Exposure is Exposure and nothing beats free exposure”

We are so privileged that most consumers are hooked up online now, that getting your name out there in the cyberworld is gold.

Think about it, so what if you signed up to a million sites and have created a profile or that you advertised millions of ads on craigslist.

What have you lost? Time maybe but what have you gained from getting your name out there to those million websites?

FREE Exposure, you can’t beat that.

Which one should I do?

Everyone out there usually has 2 responses to the many of sites/services out there.  Success and No luck.

Think about it, has every real world marketing worked for you 100% of the time as well? Has every colleague you known all had the same success stories from every marketing out there?

You betcha bottom dollar that every marketing has different results for everyone.

So here’s my concept, what does it hurt, to throw as much about yourself out there in the online world and see’s what sticks, What could it hurt?

The Verdict

So the moral of the story ladies and gentleman, don’t worry about what works and deciding which one to take a test drive in.

Dive right in to this wonderful free world of online presence, you will only be helping your exposure more regardless if you spend time on it or not, you signed up, you posted your profile and now your presence is added more to your portfolio.

Last but not least, Have fun, Find a niche site you like, there are many addictive tweeters out there, myspace fans, Facebook heads…go find your own selfish pleasure in these sites and make it your own.

Post from: Social Media Vision

Which Social Media Marketing Works Best?

In the real world we may be Shy, Insecure and Nervous when meeting people for the first time or people we barely know.  Now granted some people are born with the ability of the Social Butterfly, but the rest of us are normal and have uneasy emotions about connecting with people in real life.

The telephone is a step up in coming out of our shell and comfort zone.  With the telephone all we have to rely on is our voice but still people are very terrified in talking on the phone.

Social Media breaks all barriers and has proven to be the most effective way to connect with someone without worrying about your insecurity and other emotions that may have prevent you from engaging someone new.

Through Facebook: You get a chance to connect with old classmates and everyone in your company.  It’s as easy as requesting to be a friend through association of going to the same school or same workplace.  

You shouldn’t be afraid if someone rejects your request because most of the time the other party will accept the request because of the common association you have with them.

If your business model is to find creative ways to break through your client base, my suggestion would be to dive into Social Media from the start and go break those conversation barriers!

What do you think?

Post from: Social Media Vision

Social Media Marketing breaks barriers in conversations