Create an email that you use exclusively for social media.

1. Track success
2. Filter/do social media communication once/day
3. Take action/update database/delete

Plan to communicate.

1. Blog regularly
2. Be interesting
3. Optimize your feeds

Be where your customers are.

1. Survey your customers
2. Setup presence on most popular social media spaces
3. Automate with feed from your blog and supplement where appropriate

Participate regularly.

1. Be social / interesting.
2. Update your status regularly
3. Interact with your friends.

Never stop.

1. System to stay current
2. Where else should you be?
3. Reserve your name in all promising social media spaces

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Google Wave arrives on September 30th. On that day, Google will start sending out 100,000 invites to non-developers to its much-anticipated real-time communication platform.

It’s not even released and it’s generating more hype than almost any other web product in recent memory. The reason stems from its game-changing features and their potential applications on business, education, customer service, email, social networking, and more.

via Google Wave: 5 Ways It Could Change the Web.

In order to keep up with your ever-growing Twitter following and growth of friends and business associates across all of your other Social networking sites, you must utilize some of the vast online social networking tools available at your disposal. Most social networking tools that are designed to streamline the organization and management of your online profiles are very inexpensive or free to use, so it’s one of the best values available to social networking addicts and social media professionals alike

via 15 Tools to Help Manage Your Social Networking Profiles More Efficiently | Huddle.net’s Collaboration Blog.

As social networking evolves into a primary vehicle for establishing relationships, the medium’s impact on the world of business is unquestionably significant. Where will social networking take us in the future, and will it ultimately become one of the key differentiators for companies in terms of bottom line success? To answer this as well as other questions we will be joined by an esteemed panel of social networking experts which includes Ecademy Founder Penny Power, bestselling author of 27 books including “The Truth About Profiting from Social Networking” Patrice-Anne Rutledge, and social marketing guru Andrew Ballenthin.

Click here to listen to Jon Hansen on Blog Talk Radio.

Andrew Ballenthin, Founder of The Community Marketing Blog, Speaker and President of Integrated Marketing Consultancy Sol Solutions wrote…

1.  The term social media is preventing many businesses from seeing what the true value of this communication evolution is about. Leave the words behind, think of it as “interactive communication”.

2.  From a marketing perspective this is one of the greatest moments in communication history as mega brands through to entrepreneurs now have a vehicle for building engaging relationships based on two-way communication.

3.  Social media has the potential to humanize a business, and when executed correctly, new customers, additional sales and improved customer retention become possible as a result of following the rules that are govern any quality relationship.

4.  Now and over the next 5 years we will see a transition where mass communication converges with a greater weighting on the quality of the database’s relationship with a business.

5.  There is a timing-risk-reward factor for businesses that start this journey now, especially during an economic downturn, as it will enable them to separate themselves from competition, build loyalty, and continually learn how to fulfill client’s ongoing needs.

Continue reading this article. Visit the Community Marketing Blog.

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for Durham Region by Durham Region.
Promote events and your business.
Create a group. Tell your friends.
Make it yours!

Do you know the difference between social media and social networking?  If not, you’ll find the article, Social Media vs. Social Networking: What’s the difference?  by Mark Stelzner for Networking Examiner quite an interesting read.  Mark says that

Social Media are tools for sharing and discussing information.  Social Networking is the use of communities of interest to connect to others.  You can use Social Media to facilitate Social Networking.  Or, your can network by leveraging Social Media. 

For example, this blog is a social media tool that allows me to share and discuss opinions.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.san&s=95567&Nid=51093&p=969041

1. The much-touted location-based services (LBS) that marketers dream of leveraging for laser-geo-targeted promotions have not found their own way yet. A small percentage of U.S. phones have GPS built in, and while many more will come to market this year, carriers can’t figure out how to price and promote them.

2. According to comScore M:Metrics, in June 2008, 20.8 million U.S. customers and 4.5 million Europeans accessed search services on handsets, up 68 percent and 38 percent respectively from a year ago. And, yes, Google owns it, with 63 percent market share in the United States. Time to get mobile SEO in gear.
3. There will always be room for QWERTY and multitap pads, but touchscreens will flood the phone market. More than iPhone envy, the interface streamlines most mobile Web operations and opens up whole new worlds of application and game creativity.

4. A torrent of inexpensive, turnkey SMS messaging vendors will let anyone develop and launch alerts, coupons and messaging campaigns. But is this good for a nascent platform that still requires expertise and marketer self-discipline to maintain good relations with customers? Mobile agencies might take exception to too much automation too fast.

5. With too many mobile ad networks out there, not enough revenue to support them all, and an economic downturn that threatens everyone’s second round of funding, look for accelerated consolidation. Growing the size of the network will be critical to providing media buyers with an easier buy of more reach. Many companies will have to merge or die – some will do both.

6. In categories like weather and sports, consumers are starting to access their key data more often on phones than on the Web. Mobile-only access in some segments will begin to challenge the Internet for mind share. Also-rans on the Web and mobile-only start-ups have an opportunity to stage a march on slow-moving legacy media.

7. Nearly 40 million of us access e-mail on phones, according to Nielsen. As smartphone users triage their messages on a regular basis, publishers are starting to report unexpected numbers of hits to their standard Web sites, evidence that mobilistas do click through on e-mail links. Get the message? E-mail marketers may be the next segment to ponder a strategy for mobile click-throughs.

8. Android, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile operating systems will offer application storefronts. The opportunities for marketers to create their own branded applications and serve ads into apps will explode. But if the iPhone App Store is any indication, consumers may have to drill through a lot of clutter and garbage to find the gems. Discovery remains mobile’s Achilles’ heel.

9. The mobile retail experience in ticketing (Amtrak and American Airlines), books (Amazon) and entertainment (Fandango) has improved substantially, and many vendors are surprised by the volume they see already. More consumers will be ready to transfer existing Web loyalties and e-commerce accounts to the mobile platform.

10. Still holding: Look to next year’s Survival Guide for clearer signals coming from a number of well-hyped mobile models that won’t be ready to complete a call until at least 2010. Social networking has massive page counts but still lacks advertisers and a good format for them. Mobile video and TV have cool technology but slow-growing scale. And all of that wonderful targeting data that carriers keep in their back pockets will probably stay there for quite a while.

Alyssa Schwartz
Specials Editor
Consumer & Online International (MSN), Microsoft Canada Co.