Think multiple person skype chats, stumbleupon, facebook and youtube – in one. Hangout virtually with friends or collegues, (or hold a conference with people out of town), search and read things that you or your company are interested in, connect with people and share your videos and photos effortlessly. Although Google+ isn’t open to the public yet, it seems like it might be something to watch out for. If you like social media and believe it’s here to stay, keep your eyes open and your google search bar open!

Facebook Tip: Social media marketing, and any networking, should be aimed at letting other people know what you do. This is NOT because you want to sell all the first line contacts you have. This is because every person you meet knows so many other people. You want that person to think about you when they talk to their friend who needs what you do. It’s not about who you know, it’s about who they know!

Who do you know?

These are well worth reading; they describe what social media coaches and consultants are up against in trying to foster adoption of social marketing paradigms:

Advertising Agency Campaign Mentality

PR Agency Pitch Mentality

Ridiculous Social Media Client Mentality

Executive Micro-Management Mentality

Here’s a bit of InSights perspective. Social media implementation should be a team sport. You need participation from the company CEO to the customer service representative on the phone. Working with a coach, a firm, or an agency is a must. There is so much to know that your team needs to know how to prioritize to implement your plan successfully. Finally, your team will be most successful if there is someone in house that works social media as a full time position. I realize this may sound overwhelming, but take it from experience. If you are looking for the type of engagement that I am sure you are, you need this person. It’s a must. We’re here to help. Let us know how we can.

Google changed their search algorithm a couple of weeks ago. The changes brought traffic changes to many sites, including some big names. Google’s algorithm always remains a secret. As soon as the changes are made, people who rely on Google spend time trying to find a way to make sure their site continues to rank.

Content is still super important. Your blog posts, updated content and your social media accounts will.

Carol from Brandeur (http://www.brandeur.com) shares:

Spammers, scammers and site scrapers around the US are freaking out about their traffic drops, while legitimate businesses with something real, unique and useful to say are in the sweet spot. It’s never been more important than it is right now to blog consistently, and engage via social media.

So it really is all about content. How does your content creation measure up? Do you wish you had more? We can help. InSights develops social media strategies, can help you create your content, and get your website noticed by the search engines. Let us know if we can help.

Here’s a link to our Webinar that was recorded previously with a great bunch of people! *We experienced some audio difficulties. Playback is best with headphones plugged in vs. computer speakers. Continual upgrades in progress.

Also, enjoy just the slides for a quick peek:

It depends on where your customers are. Each social media platform has it’s strongest attributes, and it attracts people who enjoy the interface. If you are dealing with B2B contacts, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are great. They will each let you interface with your customer as well.

If you start your social media strategy on a blog platform, (we recommend wordpress), you can hit publish and automate your posts to all of your social media sites. You can choose to spend time interacting on the ones you like, and still have your message in front of the people who like each of the sites.

You can also find out some information about the demographics of each of the sites. What is the age of the average user? Using the Facebook ads system you can find how how many men vs women are within a radius of a zipcode and craft messages specifically to those users. It would make sense to create a strategy, considering who your target customer is, and who the bridges to those customers will be. That can help you determine what sites may need some more of your attention.

Who is your customer, and what is your favorite site to interact with them?

Did you like the first set of cartoons? We sure hope so, here’s round 2!

Hey… I saw a Twitter costume at the InSights building once…

Do you like social media? Well we do! What better than to enjoy our love and get a laugh with it. Check out these three social media related comics.

“I have some, three hundred friends on facebook, this news feed CAN NOT be all the status updates, comments, wall posts, pictures and links that everyone posts. Why can’t I see all of them?”

Good question! And that was actually one that I had and needed to investigate. Now knowing the answer, I am able to bring it to you! With your facebook home, you are automatically given “relevant posts”, or the stuff by people who you facebook believes you interact with most and have the most connections with.

It was good enough at its job that I didn’t even realize I had 300 OTHER friends! However, ignoring any part of your friend group is probably not the best business strategy, so, up where it says  ”News Feed”, on the right there is “Top News” and “Most Recent”. More than likely, “Top News” is highlighted. Well click “Most Recent”. (The number next to it are the number of actual new posts by friends) Voila!

Although you can also adjust in more ways. After clicking “Most Recent”, click it again to see all the different options you have.

Take a look at this picture.  Which thumbnail gives the best representation of the person it depicts? The oddest? Which thumbnail looks most like yours? When we first upload a profile picture we deem appropriate onto facebook, we plop it up there and call it good. When someone’s on our profile they can see us right? But what we fail to consider is that when we partake in activity outside our profile we show up as a thumbnail, and not always as a centered one. (Take a moment to note the man in the upper left corner versus the man at the bottom middle).

To change your thumbnail then, go to your profile, and at your picture in the upper left hand corner, click “Change-picture”. (It is not visible all the time but will reveal itself when scrolled over). Under your image that comes up, click “Edit thumbnail”. In the pop-up window, use your mouse to drag your picture to fit within the premeasured boundaries. When you are satisfied that what is showing is what you want to show so that people can recognize you, click ‘save’. Voila.