But there’s a giant upside, probably accounting for all those folks taking that 25^th hour to learn more and do more to market online. All of that sweat equity can deliver sharper focus and more success.

Take social media marketing.

There’s a learning curve when you begin blogging, Facebooking, Twittering, etc., and it takes time to get started. But these venues are designed for the average time-challenged human being. They’re forgiving, a necessity for busy entrepreneurs, right? You can dip a toe into social media marketing any time, day or night, and then build on it at a pace you can handle.

Who has time to Facebook? Why Twitter? The answer to these questions may be a few other questions: Who are my customers? What are my customers looking for? What are my peers in my industry thinking about and what are they saying?

So maybe you can’t afford a PR firm to answer these questions for you, but you sure can Tweet, Facebook, blog and, generally, jump in on the conversation. You can get some answers.

There are guides to social media marketing out there for sure, written by enthusiasts eager to share their struggles and successes. Consider us one of them, because we are sold on the marketing power of social media. Here’s a white paper to help you get started on getting social: “Using Social Media Marketing to Drive Traffic to Your Website” (more)

Follow-up reading: Wondering how social media marketing helps with SEO? Steve Fisher addresses the effect social media is having on search engine listings.

Located online at www.twitter.com, Twitter stands for “Typing What I’m Thinking to Everyone Reading,” and is easily accessible from the Web or the latest generation of smart cell phones and PDAs. Twitter users compose “Tweets,” quick entries consisting of no more than 140 characters. Tweets range from talk of today’s lunch to breaking news; many forward-thinking businesses use the service to get quality content to readers and to build brand loyalty while promoting awareness.

Like many tools on the Web, Twitter began as purely social—a tool for friends to keep tabs on one another via quick updates about their days—but quick-thinking entrepreneurs and businessfolk knew a good thing when they saw it. Now many businesses are on Twitter, monitoring chatter about their brands, promoting deals, and answering customer questions. The great thing about Twitter is that it’s not a purely promotional tool—what it really promotes is good conversation.

If you’re not on Twitter, are you missing out? Wondering how to get started, and what to do once you’re on board? Take a look at our white paper, How Can Twitter Help My Business, and you’ll be setting hearts all a-Twitter in no time!

Once you’re set up, be sure to follow our Social Media Swami, Shashi Bellamkonda, @shashib.

Good luck, and happy Tweeting!

Fast forward a year later and I signed up for this new product still in beta called PeopleBrowsr (spelling is correct here) and was intrigued by its approach to monitoring your life stream. I used it a little bit over the last year and when I was in LA last week for the 140 conference I saw that PeopleBrowsr was sponsoring and Dave was there with the PeopleBrowsr team to promote its new release and demo the product.

According to their site “PeopleBrowsr is a data mine and social search engine for real time conversations. We’ve built a set of applications sitting on the data mine to monitor your brand, identify your audience, analyze tweets sentiment, filter the buzz, manage feedback, share accounts, run campaigns, track keywords, build widgets and engage across multiple social networks simultaneously.”

I find it is great for personal brand and corporate brand monitoring but I will let Dave tell you himself. Here is the interview with him and the demo in the video below:

Find out answers to all of the above and more at the Social Media Workshop sponsored by Network Solutions in Richmond, VA. Key learning points from this half-day FREE workshop include:

• Advantages of social media marketing over traditional tactics
• How to start blogging with WordPress?
• How to turn Twitter into a customer service tool?
• How to increase your Google ranking with Search Engine Optimization tricks?

Speakers to include:

• Doug Meacham Managing Consultant – Retail Delivery at IBM
• Shashi Bellamkonda, Social Media Strategist, Network Solutions
• Randall Windsor, Web Marketing Manager, Network Solutions
• Priya Ramesh, Director, Social Media Strategy, CRT-tanaka

Event Details:

• DATE: Friday, Nov 20th, 2009.
• VENUE: CRT-tanaka, 101 W Commerce Rd, Richmond, VA 23224
• TIME: 8:30AM – 12PM

Agenda:

• 8:30AM – 9:30AM: Light breakfast and Networking
• 9:30AM – 10:00AM: Intro to Social Media Best Practices (Doug Meacham)
• 10:00AM – 11:00AM: Maximize Customer Satisfaction Via Blogs and Twitter
• 11:00AM – 11:30AM: Importance of Search Engine Optimization
• 11:30AM – 12:00PM: Q&A

Sign up today! Limited seating available. Don’t forget to bring you laptops to take your first steps in blogging. Attendees will learn how to use the Network Solutions WordPress Hosting package for free!

Three Ways Social Media Helps SEO

Search Engine Land has three ways Social Media helps SEO and they are:

1) Getting quality, relevant inbound links – The best thing about this is that the majority (if not all) of the links that come from a social media marketing campaign are natural links; they’re not reciprocated, bought, or solicited

2) Using social media websites for reputation management – Lots of social media sites, especially the more popular ones, rank very well within the search engines. This can be both a positive and negative thing when it comes to managing your reputation.

3) Ranking pages on social media websites – If you’re launching a brand new site and you know it’s going to be awhile before it ranks, you might want to consider uploading some videos to YouTube or creating a MySpace profile and building a few good links to it. I’m not saying it’s better to have these pages rank than your own site, but it’s definitely better than not having anything ranked.

Social Media and SEO from Mashable

A few months ago there was a great article from Mashable on “Social Media and SEO“. Below is a partial exceprt:

From a marketing standpoint, you can look at the benefits of SEO and social media two different ways:

First, implementing a social media marketing program without optimizing content is leaving money on the table. Useful social content (blog, video, images, audio) that cannot be discovered via search is a lost opportunity to reach an audience that is looking.

For example, the popular blog about student loans and college financing from Wells Fargo identifies 29 keywords in its Keyword Meta Tag and doesn’t rank in Google’s first page for 26 of them. Those that do rank are variations of the blog’s name.

While there is a generous amount of cross linking within posts, a basic blog template optimization effort leveraging keywords and other minor adjustments could improve search traffic for this site substantially – without any compromise in content quality or user experience.

Social interactions and media sharing amongst social network participants create the kind of content that can improve a brand’s visibility within search results through profiles, videos, blog posts, or other media. A good example is Stormhoek wines’ first page Google rankings including blogs, Facebook and Twitter.

On the flip side, implementing SEO programs without leveraging the content distribution and linking benefits of social web participation makes link building for SEO an uphill battle. The nature of the social web encourages participation: sharing, voting, commenting & linking. Popular social content gets exposure, traffic and can result in a substantial number of relevant inbound links.

Bottom line? Content + Links = Search Engine Success!

Some Final Thoughts on Proper Use of Social Media on Your SEO Strategy

Remember, putting in various keywords in your social media profiles and other content won’t really help you reach your goals. To get the best results you should research the best practices of social media campaigns are being done today. Here are the things that other smart companies are doing these days in their Social Media and SEO activities:

1. Identify the specific audience you are trying to reach
2. Set specific goals and objectives that can be measured
3. Plan a strategy for reaching those goals with the intended audience
4. Decide on the mix of tactics that will support and execute the game plan
5. Measure and identify what events and outcomes from your activites

Take  a look at this video interview where she not only talks about Small Business success stories using new media and also the reasons why you should attend the GrowSmartBiz conference.

This all day conference will take place on Tuesday, September 29^th at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, DC. Chris Anderson, the Editor from Wired magazine and renowned author of The Long Tail, will be the keynote speaker discussing the concept of thriving through freeconomics—what business models look like when free has emerged as a full-fledge economy. We are also honored that Senator Mark Warner will be attending the conference as a special guest speaker, sharing his personal lessons learned as an entrepreneur turned state legislator. In addition, we have a number of other notable speakers lined up. You can learn more about what is in store at this link–there’s a full agenda and a list of speakers.

The conference is positioned to focus on actionable items that small business owners can take to improve their business. We will have industry experts sharing their experiences and providing advice on innovative marketing ideas, raising capital, and insight into the mystery of social media. There will be plenty of networking time and all attendees will receive a bag of useful business resources including a free domain name from Network Solutions, Free Business Planning Software from Palo Alto Software, a copy of Chris Anderson’s book, and actionable tips that business owners can begin working on for tangible results.

The registration fee is normally $299, but if you use the discount code — POWERGSB — your cost is only $99/attendee. This is a one-day conference you won’t want to miss, so click here now to register for only $99: www.tinyurl.com/gsbiz

Here are a few things upcoming for the metro DC area, culled from DCTechEvents.com, Social Media Club DC, and other sources. While by no means comprehensive, if you know of an event, leave a comment and I’ll add it to the list.

(Oh, and I’m not saying I’m going to be at every one of these. That would be… challenging.)

August

* Wednesday, August 19 – Washington Blogger Meetup. Free; a casual, mostly social gathering of bloggers of all stripes. 7pm, Madam’s Organ (2nd floor) in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of DC.

* Thursday, August 20 – Social Matchbox DC. $15. “Speed dating for geeks” (I’m telling you, Bob, slap a trademark on that), with presentations from startups looking for talent, along with the usual networking. 6:30pm, E Street Cinema, DC

Also, that night, Refresh DC’s August Meetup. Free. This design-focused talk is entitled, “From Goya to Google: Traditional Design Principles at Work on the Web.” 7pm, AARP in DC.

* Wednesday, August 26 – DC Media Makers. Free. This edition is a mashup free-for-all, so bring your hardware and participate in your medium of choice. 6:30pm, NPR in DC.

Wednesday is also DC’s First Official Google Meetup. Free. Open to Googlers and Google users (so, basically everyone). 6pm, Lima Restaurant & Lounge, DC (right off McPherson Square Metro, great for an Orange Line suburbanite like me).

* Thursday, August 27 – TechCocktail DC 6. $10. Tech networking and demos. 6:30pm, LeftBank in Adams Morgan. (And of course, all the movers and the shakers will be at Amsterdam Falafel afterwards. Well, at least I will.)

* Saturday (yes, Saturday), August 29 – TechAdventure DC. $40. Destination socialization, featuring a bus ride out for a day of wine tasting at the Rappahannock Cellars winery. Charter bus leaves from Capitol Hill at noon. (Space is limited.)

Looking forward into September:

* Wednesday, Sept. 2 – Tap the Collective. $5. Panel discussion on collective intelligence, looking at Intellipedia and other tools. 6pm, LeftBank.

* Tuesday, Sept. 8 – Gov 2.0 Expo Showcase. $140 (early bird price to August 20). Even if you can’t finagle a way into the invite-only Gov 2.0 Summit (Sept. 9 and 10), you can still check out these Ignite-style presentations on various Government 2.0 topics, divided into 5  categories, featuring gov’t agencies (from federal to local), advocacy groups, and the private sector. 8:30am-5:30pm. Walter E. Washington Convention Center.

* Thursday, Sept. 10 – Washington DC Twestival. $20 (Proceeds benefit Miriam’s Kitchen.) The second installment of an event mobilizing Twitter-engaged communities for social good, this time benefiting local charities. 7pm, Midtown Loft, DC.

* Saturday, Sept. 12 – Sunday, Sept. 13 – CongressCamp Unconference. Free (the price of admission is participation). For Congressional staffers, advocacy groups, social technologists, and citizen advocates to talk about Government 2.0, with a particular focus on Congress. Location TBD.

* Wednesday, Sept. 16 – Web Content Mavens monthly meetup. Free. This month’s topic is Web Analytics Usage Among Government and Nonprofits. 7pm, location TBD.

* Tuesday, Sept. 29 – Of course, I would be remiss if I left out the GrowSmartBiz Conference, presented by Network Solutions and featuring keynote speaker Chris Anderson (editor for Wired, who’s shaken things up with books The Long Tail and Free.) For small businesses looking for ways to grow their business. $299 (say you’re a friend of Shashi by registering with the discount code “FRIENDOFSHASHI” and get half-off, a savings of $150, or share your small business success story for a chance to win a free admission). 8:30am-5pm, Renaissance Hotel, DC.

That should keep you busy, right? If you’ve got your own event to add, leave a comment, and maybe I’ll see you out at one of them.

With the proliferation of Social Media as a tool, a trend and a strategy, there has been en explosion on the social media related podcasts. So many that Staci Wood at Small Business Trends has complied a list of the Top 50 Social Media podcasts that rock. I have listened to many of these are here is a shortened list of the best of the best:

Series Podcasts

TwitCast – With Warren Whitlock. This show is about all things Twitter and covers the gamut of everything and anything you’d ever want to know about the popular social media site.

Social Media Web 2.0 Sites Exposed – With Martin Canchola. Short podcast snippets containing “how to” information on Twitter, Digg and more.

Twitter Today – With Michelle Price. A weekly interview series where you can hear from influencial Twitter bugs and learn tips and strategies to build your following.

Social Media Strategies – With Giovanni Gallucci. A high quality video podcast series that features discussions on social bookmarking, chat rooms, forums and plenty of social media strategies.

The Social Mediasphere – With Jim Turner. A podcast series that features reviews of social media issues and includes discussions on social media and the presidency, life without Twitter, sponsored conversations and more.

Tutorials

Twitter Handbook – With Warren Whitlock. A page of Twitter related podcasts and video podcasts by Twitter guru and co-author of Twitter Revolution, Warren Whitlock.

Using Linkedin As A Small Business Owner – By Jim Kukral. A video tutorial podcast about the social media site Linkedin – what it is and how to use it.

Individual Episodes

Twitter Strategies And The Twitter Handbook With Warren Whitlock – With host Rob McNealy of Startup Story Radio. An in depth interview with Warren Whitlock, co-author of the Twitter Handbook, providing tips and strategies for using Twitter.

What Not To Do When Working With Social Media – With Tim ‘Gonzo’ Gordon of Communication Steroids. Tim discusses the importance of value-driven communication and some of the pitfalls on sites such as MySpace, Twitter, Facebook and more.

How To Network The Easy Way With Linkedin – With Michael Senoff. A tutorial episode that features discussion on the tiers of communication, Linkedin training, how to use toolbars, features and more.

How to Drive Traffic to Your Blog with StumbleUpon and Twitter – With Michael Martine. Learns the ins and outs of steering traffic into your blog using these two popular social media sites.

The Basics of Social Media: How to Use it to Grow Your Business – With Linda Daichendt. This episode is for those seeking new ways to promote your businesses visibility online and covers the risks along with the benefits for business.

ScottFox.com with host Scott Fox:
LinkedIn Success Strategies – With Scott Fox. Get updated on LinkedIn’s newest tools with Scott’s interview of Lewis Howes, co-author of “LinkedWorking.”

Twitter Power Podcast with Joel Comm – With Scott Fox. Scott interviews Joel Comm about his new book, Twitter Power, that can help you put Twitter to work for your business.

Tech In Twenty with hosts Luis Sandoval and Jennifer Navarrete:
Social Media Mobile Apps – Tech In Twenty discusses which apps many like best and find most useful for their iPhones and Blackberry’s to stay in touch across the Net via your mobile device.

From Small Business Trends

How To Use Facebook To Market Your Business – Part 1 – Featuring Shama Hyder. This is Part 1 of Shama’s Facebook tutorials on Small Business Trends Radio which focuses on the benefits for small business owners to use Facebook. Shama walks you through the beginner steps to get started on marketing your business on Facebook.

Facebook: Online Business Marketing, Advanced Tactics – Part 2 – Featuring Shama Hyder. Part 2 of Shama’s Facebook tutorials which focuses on advanced marketing tactics to expand your visibility.

Video Podcasts

How and Why To Use Twitter For Small Businesses – By Jim Kukral. A video podcast about the social media chat site, Twitter. More specifically, “how & why you should use Twitter from a small business perspective.”

Social Media in Plain English – A overview of the world of social media told via a story about ice cream and a small town.

Which ones did you like? Which ones did we miss?

Well, that should keep you busy for a while and your bandwidth meter at full capacity. Let us know what you liked and if there are some that we missed or should have kept on the list.

Rocketboom Needs A New Anchor.

If you haven’t heard of Rocketboom, then you’ll be interested to know that they’re a video production group that puts together journalistic/newsworthy pieces of information in three-minute segments covering information & commentary relating to “top news stories and contemporary Internet culture”.  Since their whole product is producing videos online, it made sense that when they were looking for a new anchor that they would choose someone with video experience. And that’s what they seem to have done, at least in the first round. People were invited to submit a short video showcasing their interest in why Rocketboom should choose them for this position. Keeping in mind the theme of what Rocketboom is and what they do, interested applicants submitted some videos with class, humor, and perhaps something off-the-wall to really capture the attention of the judgets – plus it also went to show that these applicants got what the brand is all about – it’s not your CNN or FOX News online…

A Really-Goode Job Takes A Really Bad Turn.

Several months ago, a local winery here in the San Francisco Bay Area announced that they were looking for a new digital marketing strategist – basically someone “who really knows how to use Web 2.0 and Facebook and blogs and social media and YouTube and all sorts of good stuff like that“. The winery, Murphy-Goode, decided that it would be great to have people submit their “applications” using YouTube to help make this interesting – what better way would it be for people to show that you’re social media savvy than by abusing yourself on an online video, right? It was a great idea. People submitted and once the submission process was over, the general public was encouraged to vote for their favorite. Everyone thought this would be a great idea.

Well it was a good idea up until you realized the implications. Rather than making it a truly crowdsourced event (which I’m not entirely sure would have been a good thing), Murphy-Goode decided NOT to follow through with the results of the fan voting – which would have put finalists through to the next round. In doing so, they’ve regressed back to the traditional form of recruiting with the online videos just being a more modern form of a resume. The voting was a big sham and people who had garnered the highest votes soon realized that some were picked by Murphy-Goode and then others were not – had nothing to do with the popular vote. In the end it had to deal with the voice of the people that worked at Murphy Goode.

Granted the winery never explicitly stated that it wasn’t a crowdsourcing effort, but this has raised some backlash against the winery with people unclear why they were asked to vote in the first place. The owners of the Murphy-Goode winery, Jackson Family Enterprises, has admitted in an San Francisco Chronicle piece that they “screwed up” but adds that it was “never intended to be a contest”. Then why is the voting part of the process? Why not have people submit their videos and you choose? There’s some deception taking place here and unfortunately has screwed over people who thought they might have a shot at this opportunity – especially in the shape the economy is in.

Looking back, one of the key things that this position at Murphy-Goode wineries wanted to accomplish “…experience wine and good living, and then tell people about it.” Why wouldn’t you want someone with a huge popularity to be a finalist in the showcase that would have ultimately helped create an Internet celebrity that would have definitely accomplished what you wanted? Apparently having a huge number of followers doesn’t necessitate having the talent or the personality needed to be a success at promoting wine – even when the job description says that they’ll teach the winner.

Best Buy Wants To Hire, But Wants You To Write The Job Description.

About a few weeks ago, I received an interesting tweet from Jeremiah Owyang which he informed me that Best Buy was looking for a Digital Marketing Strategist. Then about a week or so later, I saw this blog post by the company’s Chief Marketing Officer, Barry Judge, about how they wanted to reshape the job by having the public tell them what type of person would succeed in that position. No, it’s not an invitation to apply (although you certainly can). Instead, it’s more of an invitation to submit your ideas. For someone who will be actively engaged in outreach across different networks, it would be nice to know what skills and requirements are needed for someone to succeed. It should be noted that Best Buy isn’t giving the entire job description up to the crowd. Rather, they make it clear that there are specific minimum requirements that must be met, most of them from a legal perspective.

Before you think that you can chalk up any ole’ requirement and expect Best Buy to take it in stride, be sure to note that they’re not accepting any and all suggestions. Rather, they are merely suggestions that people offer up to let the company know who should they be looking out for. So what did they do? The electronics retail giant has created a wiki site that allows people to submit their ideas using a standard format and at the end of the submission period, the company will parse through the list and produce a set of requirements that their next Senior Manager, Emerging Media Marketing should fit in order to succeed.

Overall it seems that social media is playing a big part in how companies look for talent. Long gone are the days of verbal word of mouth. Instead the “word of mouth” happens virtually through sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs. But with each new talent search comes some issues, as you can see from the review of Rocketboom, Murphy-Goode and Best Buy. Is your company engaging in social media recruiting? How are you framing it so that you find the right person for your brand?

The next called “Social Networking for Law Firms 102″ and will be held Wednesday, July 22, 2009 from 8:00 AM – 9:30 AM (ET) in Washington, DC at the offices of  Steptoe & Johnson, LLP. Register here for the event at  http://growsmartbizlaw2.eventbrite.com/

Here is the event description:

Increasing budget cuts due to the economy is on everyone’s mind this year. How can you advise your clients on the best strategies for engaging in social networks? What counsel can you provide in the way of guidelines, tips, and legal standards?

In this digital age and 24-hour news cycle, it’s important also for companies to be proactive in managing their web presence, especially in times of crisis. How can you best use social media to relay your message, and be within your legal rights? Join us for a breakfast meeting with Vice President of Digital Media at Levick Strategic Communications, Dallas Lawrence and TMG Strategies Vice President Gayle Weiswasser to discuss how to counsel your clients on these important issues.

This event is being sponsored by the Grow Smart Business, home of the Small Business Success Index. Special thanks to Steptoe & Johnson, LLP for hosting the event.

Join us in August for the final event of the series, where we talk about ethics in social media.