http://www.thenetimpact.com Steve Thomas, President of The Net Impact discusses the importance social media.

1. Social MediaCan It Help My Business? Steve Thomas President The Net Impact www.thenetimpact.com Feb 11th 2011

3. Facts and Examples

4. Discuss opportunities and hazard

5. How do I know I need (want) it in my business?

6. Getting started

7. Q/A on any and all of the aboveToday #TNIAAIMEA

8. 3 Who is The Net Impact? Twenty years Market Experience Exceptional Technical Staff Strong Application Design Skills Design Expertise Internet Marketing Expertise Social Media Expertise Efforts strongly based upon analytics

9. Social Media Social media From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Social media is online content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. It's a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologues (one to many) into dialogues (many to many) and is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. Social media has become extremely popular because it allows people to connect in the online world to form relationships for personal, political and business use. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).

10. Social Media creates instant “stars”

12. VP Social Media, AMA-STL

13. VP Missouri Venture Forum

20. Social Media = Earned Media Authenticity reigns. Conversations cannot be bought. Conversation cannot be controlled, they can only be joined. Marketers have to be willing to listen and learn from their customers. Start by listening! Don’t’ ignore the buzz, good or bad!

22. “Covering your ears is not a viable strategy.” Sarah Hofstetter, social marketer

26. The University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business, 2010 “While we expect more small businesses to use Twitter as a customer service channel in the year ahead, as it stands, Facebook and LinkedIn have become the predominant platforms for small business owners.”

29. Marketing is always changing! If you are following a best practice that dates back to 2009 or earlier, toss it away. It’s now wrong. SES Chicago 2010

30. Marketing is always changing! “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.” General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff, U. S. Army

31. Marketing is always changing! Brands are becoming our friends on social networks like Facebook, Twitter and all of social media

32. Marketing is always changing!

33. Where visitors come from today

35. The same report also revealed that, on average, 900,000 blog posts are created within a single 24-hour period.

37. Social Media Drives Real Traffic

38. Blended Search - Mixed Media

39. Blended Search - Mixed Media

40. Blended Search – Local & Social

42. Where visitors come from today Regular question we get: “Which social networks are best?” Answer: “The ones that help you get more leads and broaden brand awareness.

47. Point of view expected

48. Conversations not content

49. There is spam, abuse and misuse

50. Layers of participation and participants

51. Essential part of your brandingBasics of Social Media “the time it takes to use social media sites is more demanding than I expected”

54. Find new authors to engage

58. How do I get started? Forrester Research describes six levels of participation or Social Technographics®: 1. Creators 2. Critics 3. Collectors 4. Joiners 5. Spectators 6. Inactives Find Your All-stars Network Listen

59. 42 How do I get started? Home Page Social Sites TRAFFIC Pathways TRAFFIC 1 2 3 4 5 Landing Page Landing Page Link Bait Page Goal Page TRAFFIC Link Bait Page Goal Page Link Bait Page Goal Page Traffic Based Design™ Invite-Connect-Engage® Goal Page

61. How do I plan? Courtesy of i360 Marketing

62. How do I plan?

64. Connect with them over products, services and their input.

65. Engage in real-time conversations with key influencers.

68. Social Media Final Thoughts Social Media is like a cocktail party. The question is, “Who is the host?” Social Media is “earned traffic”. Earned by level of interest and value to the visitor. Your level of “interesting” gets you found. How can this be employed? Measured? “We become who we hang out with!”

69. We become who we hang out with! So let’s hang out! Thank You! Email /Tweet us for a copy of this presentation! Steve Thomas @TNIMAN @TheNetImpact Steve.Thomas@thenetimpact.com #TNIAAIMEA