It's Time to Stop Collecting Facebook Fans

And It's Time for Marketers to Start Engaging Them Instead

By Irina Slutsky

SAN FRANCISCO (AdAge.com) -- Companies have spent millions gathering fans on their Facebook pages and being "liked" all across the web. But what started as a volume play -- call it Facebook marketing 1.0 -- is shifting. Increasingly, it's not so much how many people are liking your brand, but who those people are and how many are engaging with you once you've got them.

For the rest of this very interesting and helpful article, please visit AdAge.com.

Is Your Company Missing Their Own Conversation Online?

Guest post written by Karel Zeman -  please see bio at the end of the article.

The social media landscape has been changed forever and whether you are on board with it or not, sites such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook are here for the long haul. They are mainstays of the new internet. Your customers, their friends, and their friend's friends, are all active on these social sites.

Do you know that upon last check, over 400 million people and businesses held a Facebook account? These numbers can't simply be ignored. If you are a business owner, you need to start getting into the conversation. Seek out your audience, see what they are buzzing about and take notice. Have a conversation with them, engage them, get them talking. Although you have little control over where the conversations are headed, you can become part of them and start learning about the habits of your potential customer.

Every business needs to implement a plan which gets them involved within the Social media. If you are not sure how to get started, then read on. 

The most important thing is to get in there. Don't wait any longer, get started planning today.

Each department of your company or every member of your small business staff should be involved in some way. There is a good chance that many of them already are. You may find that many members of your staff are already very involved online and have already talked about your company at some point.

Take advantage of this and use their knowledge to assist you in implementing a company wide approach to Social media. Remember that all interactions with your staff, regardless of their level within the company, are Public Relations interaction and bringing them onboard will make them part of the plan and more likely to embrace it.

Not only will you need to get the members of the staff onboard, if you are not the CEO, you will have to ensure they are also part of the conversation. You customers want to be able to have access to all members of your company when needed and not get stopped at the company logo. They want to know that they are in touch with real people, like themselves, and not a faceless corporation. 

It is critical to implement guidelines within the company for when staffers interact online to ensure your reputation remains solid. Create a handbook or other company memos which clearly outline the expected behavior of your staff when they are communicating online on behalf of the company. It is also wise to elect a member of the company to act as watchdog over the social media and monitor certain phrases such as the company name, the CEO's name, products you may sell, etc.  This can help to quickly identify a problem and address it before it becomes viral, which can literally happen in an instant online.

Social media is here to stay. You can either continue to pretend it is a passing fad and be left behind or embrace it and make it a part of your corporate culture.  Get started implementing a plan today and start getting into the conversation. The worst thing you can do is wait or ignore it.

There will be a learning curve, as there is with anything new, but the good news is everyone has to go through it. Just tweak it as you go. Your competitor is probably already at it, so don't be lost in their wake and remember, many members of your staff are probably already online and already talking about the company whether you want them to or not, so it is best to grab hold of it and use it to you benefit rather than let it run off wild.

Karel Zeman manages GO-Gulf.com , a web design Kuwait company that provides complete web development solutions in Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Middle East.

How to Connect Using Social Media

This article was originally published on MyMark’s Corporate blog. MyMark is a professional social networking website. For this and other original MyMark blogs please visit http://www.mymark.com/blog

Whether you are an experienced blogger or just beginning your viral marketing journey it is important to understand the necessity of building an online social network. Growing that network should always have some degree of focus. You may get to the point where you don’t have to do much outreach to grow your network but as long as you haven’t gotten to that point you must be making sure that you are spending time every day trying to grow your network and making new connections.

Popular Social Media Outreach Methods:

Twitter

One way to find contacts to start networking with is to used twitter advanced search. You can use this tool to help you find others in your niche who are worth following. In many instances these connections will end up following you as well although you shouldn’t consider it a failed connection if they do not follow you back. Following these other industry mavens will help you to stay on top of industry news and will also help you find other tweeters worth following. Remember to retweet valuable information already provided by your network and give them content worth retweeting as well.

Facebook

Have you found a thought leader who is worth following on Twitter? You may also want to add this person as a friend or become a fan of their business page of Facebook. It is important for this person to know that you are interested in more than just causally following their tweets. The more connections you make with the same person, the stronger that network relationship becomes.

Blogs

Which blogs do you read? Make sure that you are not only subscribing to these blogs but also reading and commenting on the blogs often. You can also add their blog to your blogroll on your own blogging site. The more involved you are with this other individual the more likely that will want to learn more about you and start following your tweets, news feeds and blog posts.

Digg

You may not be using Digg yet, but you should be. There are many Digg subscribers who are worth following. They spend their time finding great things to Digg about so that you don’t have to. You can Digg what they have already Dugg and also suggest new things for them to Digg as well. If they have already have a lot of clout on Digg and they end up Digging your submission as well your submission will likely get more Diggs.

Search Engines

I can’t mention all of these sources without acknowledging what a great resource search engines can be. You can easily find blogs and individuals worth following with a simple Google or Bing search. I have found many of the people I am connected with now by using a Google search. If I want to find the though leaders in a particular industry I use a search engine because I know I can usually find the most reputable sources on the first couple pages of results.

In all of the social media platforms you are using keep in mind that each is a great resource to expand your network. Most of these sites have search option that will allow you to search for others in your niche. Once you are connected with someone you can also search that individual’s network to find others worth connecting with as well. Don’t feel as though you must go track down each and every contact whom you network with. Take advantage of the information provided for you.

For this and other posts by Anne M Lee please visit http://www.mymark.com/blog

Self-Promotion or Death: PR Tips from Sara Dobie

Know your target audience. The world is too big to throw news and media tips willy-nilly. Therefore, do your homework. Case in point: Sylvan Dell Publishing just dove head-first into the social media terrain, with no map and no GPS unit. We’ve been having fun, but we’ve also realized that in most cases, it’s the writers who start following us. It’s the writers who want US to know THEM through OUR social media, because we’re a publishing house, and all aspiring writers really just wanna be buddies with a publishing house. So who are we really going after with this social media campaign? Teachers. Parents. Media specialists, and that is who we’re catering to. We’re going after the blogs that teachers read. We’re Tweeting about education. We’re learning—through trial and error—who our friends are, and we need their support. You are in the same boat, no matter who you are or what you do. You need to know your target audience, because the more targeted your audience, the more effective they will be when you need their help the most. So do your homework. Figure out who your friends are, and work together, lifting each other to the pinnacle of publishing success.