Launch Your Business Into Social Media

A Small Step, A Giant Leap Launching your business into social media space

Any launch can be scary, and potentially risky. We can make things less scary by understanding. So let’s first cover the basics…

What is social media?

The “social”
It gives a voice to the individual
It allows people to share content
People can quickly find each other and connect
You can listen to conversations of the marketplace
You can participate in virtual communities

The “media”
Technologies that allow creation and sharing of content
Social media taxonomy
Blogs
Social networks
Social bookmarking
Wiki
Collaboration tools
Event scheduling
Etc.

Disruptive Technologies
Blogs disrupted the way we get used to get news
Social networks disrupted the way we make and keep friendships
Wikis disrupted how we acquire and disseminate knowledge
Flickr disrupted the way we create and share images
YouTube, Netflix disrupted the way we watch TV and video
Podcasting disrupted how we listen to radio
Twitter is disrupting how we have conversation
Others?

There are countless social media platforms and websites

How do we map the social media space?

So how can social media impact your business?

Why?
Your stakeholders (customers, suppliers, employees, etc.) are already engaged in social media.
The best way of connecting with them is where they are already talking about things that are important to them
You join in the conversation where it’s already happening.
Social media is a way of communicating faster, better and cheaper than ever before.
Social media allows your website to integrate multimedia such as video and audio.
Users to generate their own content, to share and connect with each other.
These channels help a non-profit connect with stakeholders with a higher resolution than ever before.
You might need to convince your colleagues that engaging in social media is a necessary step for the business.
With the risks is it really worth getting into social media?
Should your organization engage?

Take Facebook as an example #1: I see an invitation to a “cause”

#2: I see my friend Sheril has invited me to join a cause, “Science Debate.” I click “Join Cause.”

#3: I decide to join the cause and get a welcome screen. The screen then invites me to send my own invitation.

#4: A checklist appears, allowing me to choose which friends to invite.

#5. I click on the friends I think will be interested in the cause and hit send.

#6. I can set my status to show that I joined the cause. It appears on my timeline so even friends I didn’t invite can see I joined the cause.

What you can do…
You can create a cause on Facebook – free
You can invite your friends to join
They can invite their friends to join
You can supplement this with a targeted ad campaign in Facebook

And that’s just Facebook!
Other technologies
Blogging
Twitter, et al.
Wikis
Discussion boards
Social bookmarking
Other media
Photos
Video
Audio
Other audiences
Baby boomers
Blogger moms
Gen X, Y, Z, etc…

Social bookmarking
Social bookmarking provides intensive viral marketing of messages.
Free applications such as AddThis make it a snap to provide this service to users and provide useful analytics.

Social media…
Builds relationships
Employees
Customers
Suppliers
Impacts decisions
Engages new audiences
Maintains competitive advantage

Why your business needs social media
Gain market insights
Enhance your brand
Connect with stakeholders
Get ideas for new products
Save money
Generate revenue

Countdown to launch
10… Decide on staffing and consulting resources
9… Establish a budget and timeframe
8… Listen to what people are saying
7… Identify your audience
6… Understand your online reputation
5… Develop a social media strategy
4… Implement crisis management process
3… Evaluate online technologies
2… Establish success metrics
1… Take a deep breath (I’m cool, I’m cool.)
0… Blast off!

Key concepts
Honesty, transparency, openness
You are human
Be yourself, be individualistic
Avoid “corporate” messages
It’s not IT, it’s communications
These are musts

Are you here? So where is your business in social media space? This is a map of interconnections between Web sites in social networks. You need to be here.

When you’re trying something new, it can feel a bit lonely.

You want to take the right steps, to go carefully.

But also go boldly where no one has gone before. We can best do this by learning and understanding .

Getting started
Listen
Search
Web: Google
Blogs: Blogsearch, Technorati
Forums: Boardreader
Bookmarks: Delicious, Digg
Monitor
Google Reader (RSS)
Google Alerts

Use iGoogle and RSS feeds to monitor news and updates on need-to-know news channels.

But getting back down to earth, social media can be overwhelming. There is so much going on. The main issue is the sheer quantity of information. How do we deal with it all?

Aggregator-disseminator model
Basically there are two sides to the equation.
Information coming in and information going out.
The key to managing information, and the key to understanding social media is that it is the individual who has control, i.e., you.
You control information coming in and what information goes out.
Tools are available to help you do this more efficiently than ever before.
Aggregators allow you to manage information coming in.
Disseminator applications allow you to control information going out.
The beauty of the latest technologies is that they allow you to aggregate and disseminate in many different channels at once.
Let’s see some examples.

FriendFeed is an aggregator. It allows you to see friends’ (aka customers) activities on a whole bunch of different social networks.

Here’s a timeline of my social media activity. You can see that I joined the Science Debate cause on Facebook.

Here I can see the timeline of my friend Troy. He’s updated a blog, posted a couple of Tweets and bookmarked sites on Delicious. And I can see who else is following Troy’s updates

Ping.fm is a disseminator. With Ping you can update up to 30 social channels at the same time. You can use phone, instant messaging and even email, as well as your browser, to make updates.

Here are some of the sites supported by Ping.fm

Social media trends
Personal, customized info management
Aggregating
Disseminating
Lifestreaming
Mobile
QR codes
Virtual reality
Augmented reality, etc.,…
So that’s where we are. But where are we heading? To be a step ahead, your business needs to understand emerging technologies.

Whoa!!!
That’s a lot of stuff
You need to put it into perspective
You need to plan
You need a strategy
You need to strategize in context of your existing business goals
Consider if you need help…

By adopting a sound smart strategy you and your business can aim for the stars.

Thank you!
harrissocialmedia.com
[email_address]
919 662 1618
Twitter: @rharris
LinkedIn: rogerharris

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Launch Your Business Into Social Media

by Harris Social Media LLC on Nov 06, 2009

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