…words

This is the fourth post in a series about Social Media Strategy. You can read all of the posts here: series one – social media goals and tactics. Dosh Dosh ran a series on the Fundamentals of Social Media Marketing late in 2007, and I believe that it is worth taking another look at it in light of the changes that the Social Media marketspace has undergone since then.

Search has become vital to every business interest, from marketing to sales to customer service. Using social media networking tools is one of the best methods for improving the results for your business. In fact, real-time search is the newest concept that marketers and news organizations are looking at:

Real-time Search Results

…take a simple example of how Twitter Search changes everything. Imagine you are in line waiting for coffee and you hear people chattering about a plane landing on the Hudson. You go back to your desk and search Google for plane on the Hudson — today — weeks after the event, Google is replete with results — but the DAY of the incident there was nothing on the topic to be found on Google. Yet at search.twitter.com the conversations are right there in front of you. The same holds for any topical issues — lipstick on pig? — for real time questions, real time branding analysis, tracking a new product launch — on pretty much any subject if you want to know whats happening now, search.twitter.com will come up with a superior result set. [Silicon Valley Insider]

People are talking to each other about your business and you. What does this mean for your business?

3. Improved Search Engine Rankings. When considered within a larger SEO and link building framework, content can be creatively developed and promoted for the purpose of obtaining links from the members of the social news websites.

This means you should primarily target social sites with the highest potential to give you links, instead of smaller-sized communities which only offer interested traffic. While important, your site’s profile need not be entirely relevant to the social media website in question; content can be created specifically to appeal to different audiences. [Dosh Dosh]

Your social media strategy is about creating a connection with other people that leads to a relationship. Building these relationships is the number one thing that you can do to build your business. The internet is a fantastic tool for doing business, but it is only a tool. It is a cheap and easy way to get your name and brand out into the world, but you still have to be there in a very real sense. It is up to you to use the social media networks out there to engage the people that find you online with your friendliness and authority on the topic of your business.

I am not going to dig too deeply into the idea of friendliness, as that is something that you should be pretty familiar with. Essentially it boils down to one concept: Be nice. Authority, on the other hand, can be a little trickier.

How do you showcase your authority?

Give value first, prove your reliability second. It is as simple as that.
Well, there is a little more, but those two points are a good start. Let’s begin with “Giving Value“.

• What value is involved when people meet you?
• What value do you provide with your business?
• What is in it for the people who visit your website?

Take a moment to consider the answers to these questions. While you are at it, think about how you feel when you meet other people. What do you like to get from them? I have found that total strangers generally have at least one thing in common with me, whether it is geography, background, work, skills, hobbies, or interests.

It is your job to find that common ground and plant a seed of interest there. The relationship that grows from that seed will provide the backdrop for many of your future interactions with that person. Even if the relationship begins with something as basic as a common interest in a hobby, you will always have something to talk about before you start talking about business.

Hold the conversations in public

The key to harnessing the power of the social networks is in the fact that these conversations are open to everyone. The topics of these conversations become search results, search results that point back to you or your business!

Mark at M-T Hacks has put together “a Greasemonkey user script that does exactly this. It displays the most recent 5 tweets for the query that you are search for, giving both real-time Twitter search results and Google results on the same page:”

Twitter Google Mashup

Get realtime Twitter results on your Google searches:

1. If you don’t already have it, install the Greasemonkey add-on for Firefox.
2. Click the “Install” button on the “Twitter Search Results on Google” page on userscripts.org.

This is a fantastic tool and I highly recommend that you install it and start using it to guide your social media marketing.