Ideas and Strategies on Applied Social Media, Marketing and Business Development
The recent Business Women’s Expo held in Madison on March 1, 2011 had 
an all encompassing social media theme this year. Marian Walluks, of MCW Productions and promoter of this event, worked with Midwest Family Broadcasting as the major sponsor, Summit Credit Union as the non profit nook sponsor, and the social media sponsors were Wendy Soucie Consulting and Dane Exclusive Deals. [Read more...]
Have you ever felt that the time you spend on your social networking sites is a little excessive? Are you ignoring your friends, family and significant other so you can post your Foursquare location to become the mayor? Is chatting on Facebook more important than talking face to face with a real person?
Spending too much time social networking?
How do you know if you’re spending too much time online? There’s a 15-question quiz that might give you an idea:
Facebook Compulsion Inventory
In preparing for an interviewed by Carleen Wild, TV News Anchor on Channel 15 NBC Affiliate in Madison WI on the dangers of over using your social networking sites, I found some startling concerns. On the rise is the number of instances of Facebook being claimed as a reason in divorce filings.
Commentary from John Buri, University of St. Thomas psychology and author of “How to Love Your Wife.” indicated that Facebook is now mentioned in 20 percent of divorce filings.
Buri offered several thoughts on how you might keep from becoming one of the alarming statistics:
Do’s
1. Share your user names and passwords with each other.
2. Post pictures and include your spouse in status updates.
3. Tell your spouse when people ask to “friend” you.Don’ts
1. Don’t criticize your spouse online.
2. Don’t “friending” exes
3. Don’t engage in private chats.
Some tips I gathered from Jason Krafsky, co-author of Facebook and Your Marriage, a how to guide book on using social media the right way. If you are talking on social media to a spouse:
“Make sure you are focused, succinct and straightforwardly simple when talking to your partner.”
Social dating sites are also on the rise. Consider some of the statitics from Match.com
Video Clip interview with Carleen Wild of Channel 15 NBC Affiliate in Madison WI
Activities and participation on the social web following Social Media Academy’s NCP Model.
To be or not to be… on a social network by loriruff in Ask an Expert, LinkedIn, Social Media
In regards to conversation about whether someone needed to invest his time (gain ROI) by participating in the LinkedIn community since he had such a strong referral network.
Lori, I had a similar conversation with a professional who got top notch referrals. We had almost concluded that it wasn’t worth his time, when I asked him if he thought that his contacts would always be at their present jobs, or firms. Would they be smart enough to leave with their outlook contacts? Have you ever left a job, only to begin the long process of re-entering business contacts from collected cards.
As an online location to collect your business associates, that allows the contact to updates his data, Linkedin can’t be beat. Even if you do the bare minimum and you don’t need people to find you – it helps you have emails and contact data for your best contacts. The result was he had never thought about it this way. And no, he had not recently backed up his outlook files. He also tossed business cards after his assistant added them to Outlook. He ended up creating a profile and had his admin, start sending invites so he could have a backup, web based location at the least.
Although there are several online contact databases, none have the added functionality of LinkedIn. Perhaps your contact should reconsider his profile on LinkedIn?
Linkedin Questions, Ellen Martin, Receptionist at Campbell & Chadwick PC
Innovative Marketing, PR, Sales, Word of Mouth and Buzz Innovators Group
In regards to a question on how can you can use social media to find and develop business contacts into clients for a professional services firm?
Ellen,
First understand the business goals of your firm, then do an assessment of the social ecosystem to see where the possible customers are and what they are talking about. Build a strategy and action
plan after getting an understanding of the spaces and issues. Only then can you figure out how to solve the problem, build a action plan and then select the right tools. You may find that customer support is the best place to use social media that leads to leads for your firm. Hitting marketing and sales too early without a clear understanding of how to participate in the social web can backfire on you.
Other steps would be part of the action plan along with resource allocation – time, personnel and budgets.
Linkedin Group Social Media Marketing (with over 50,000 members)
In regards to Mike Crosson vigilant policing of spammers in the group. His policy is clear and I have included it in this post since I think it has great value for other group managers.
From Mike Crosson: Hello, everyone – there have been a number of people who have ignored the clear directive that spam and straight commercial messages are NOT appropriate for this forum. I have warned these people and banned two from the list as a result. Here are the simple common sense rules so that everyone gets real value out of our Social Media Marketing group:
1. You can post something you feel will benefit the group, even if it is somewhat self-serving or has reasonable costs associated with it. There will undoubtedly be a number of people who might
your product or service beneficial. What you CANNOT do is post the same thing over and over. That becomes spam and benefits no one.
2. Try to provide something of VALUE in every posting – a resource you have or found, a relevant article to a discussion, a presentation or research that is useful.
3. Be transparent and honest – a lot of very smart people are in this group and can see through flimsy or sales-y materials. We all benefit from sharing knowledge and resources, and respecting the value of people’s time.
Here’s to 2009, a great year for our business!
Cheers,
Mike Crosson
Here is my reply:
I have used this group and your techniques as a moderator on more than one occasion to showcase a great moderator and the type of group that is worthwhile. I have used your suggestion to keep the same spammer out of two other groups I participate in. Feels like a blog topic coming on.
However, face it, people have spammed email forever and continue to do it in spite of software to reduce it. So I am afraid that spamming social media is here to stay. In fact it chokes up Twitter all the time.
That doesn’t mean we should stop these efforts and we need to continually remind ourselves and new users in our social ecosystems what is consider good and bad form and what we will allow in our groups that we can control.
Take out the light sabers and may the force be with us!
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The Next Madison Social Media Breakfast will be held on October 2, 2009, at the University of Phoenix Campus on the Far Eastside. The topic for the meeting will be Social Media Profiles – Why these are so important and copyright laws.
The speakers will be Wendy Soucie, covering profile building, Elizabeth Russell, covering copyright, creative commons and image use on the internet etc, and last but not least is Amy Lynn Schereck, Photographer who will be talking about head shots for use on social media and what works (or doesn’t) to convey the right perception.
Madison Social Media Breakfast is a LinkedIn group that meets for breakfast (hence the title) and discusses various topics around social media, strategy, tools, best practices, and even case studies. Recently there are two new managers, Marivic Valencia of Valencia PR and Wendy Soucie, Wendy Soucie Consulting. They will be taking turns organizing speakers and adjusting locations as the demand and topic requires. If anyone has good recommendations for a steady location, that would appreciate our breakfast business as well as have a good room for us to use, please add your comments and contact info for me to followup with.
Typically its been in a a coffee shop some where in Madison WI, and more often than not close to the downtown area. However for this meeting we have adjusted the venue due to pent up demand and a few coffee shops being scared of me telling them I thought 20 or more people might descend on them at 7:30 am. The venue is the University of Phoenix Campus at 2310 Crossroads Dr, Madison, WI 53718.
I would suggest everyone bring their own coffee to this event as no guarantees on breakfast goods just yet.
Wendy Soucie provides clients with strategic counsel and plan development to use and measure social media in the marketing mix. She trains clients to use social media tools through the use of webinars, group presentations and private one-on-one training customized for companies throughout Wisconsin. She has over 30 years experience in business development, sales, marketing, customer support for the B2B market area with special focus in the manufacturing sector, technical products/services and professional services.
Wendy is a founding member and certified Social Media Consultant from the Social Media Academy, completing Social Media Business Strategy and Leadership. She was recetly named a Black Diamond Consultant by Social Media Academy. Soucie holds her Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from the University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island.
Elizabeth T Russell is not a music teacher. She came darn close, but ended up becoming a lawyer. Suitably armed with an undergraduate degree in bassoon, she earned her law degree from New York’s Pace University School of Law, where she served as a member of the Pace Law Review. She is admitted to practice law in the states of New York, Connecticut and Wisconsin.
Following her public service, Elizabeth explored the field of arts administration. She held positions with the Albany Symphony Orchestra in Albany, NY; the Madison Repertory Theatre in Madison, WI; and Opera for the Young, a professional opera touring company. She returned to law in 2000 and opened Russell Law, providing quality representation for emerging artists and creative businesses.
Ms. Russell is the Chair of the Sports and Entertainment Law section of the State Bar of Wisconsin. She is a member of the Intellectual Property and the Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law sections of the New York State Bar Association. She currently serves on the executive board of directors of the Middleton (WI) Chamber of Commerce and on the board of the Middleton Community Fund.
Elizabeth wrote the curriculum and taught Copyright Management at Madison Media Institute in Madison, WI, and is a frequent lecturer on legal issues in the arts.
She is remarkably fluent in plain English.
When you work with Amy Lynn Schereck, not only will you come away with an amazing set of photographs, you will be surprised at how enjoyable the experience is!
Amy’s casual, approachable style makes clients feel at ease. That’s because she listens to you to help bring your vision to life. Whether it’s a commercial shoot, and event or a wedding, Amy excels at bringing out the personality in her subjects and capturing a unique perspective.
Though she’s originally from the midwest, Amy spent 22 years living in California. At age 11, she bought her first camera at a yard sale for a whopping 50 cents. Photography remained a hobby until she returned to Wisconsin in 2001. With great encouragement from her grandmother, she enrolled in the Commercial Photography program at Madison Area Technical College. During her last semester, Amy interned at Madison Magazine and her love for editorial photography began. In 2004, she graduated Dean’s List and started her career as a professional photographer.
An avid traveler, Amy has journeyed around the globe – Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Jamaica, France, Switzerland, Germany, and even Liechtenstein! In January 2009, she made her first trip to the white sandy beaches of Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, to photograph a wedding.
She is the photographer for the upcoming book, Bean Appetit (Andrews McMeel Publishing), due on store shelves in Fall 2009.
Has your social media link list been growing as you become more engaged in social media of all types and sizes? How do you choose which ones to put on your email, list on your website, attach to your blog, or link on Twitter?
New software is available and making these decisions easier every day. Recently I have had the opportunity to be part of a group using a BETA software called www.xeesm.com which is providing me a place to consolidate my growing number of social media links.
I was just beginning to sweat about my new business cards and how to read everything I wanted to put on them. Somehow a 5×7 card to hand out just doesn’t fit as well in a pocket.
The email links in my signature line was growing from just a website and LinkedIn profile, to 5 or 6 I thought were important. My glasses weren’t helping either.
I now have a new option from www.xeesm.com. They even seem to listen to suggestions because already 2 or 3 of the sticky points I pointed out have already been taken care of. One of my suggestions was prefilling the social media configuration for each common social media link. I can’t always remember how each URL is setup and the change made it easier to fill in just my profile name.
So far I have just ten links added here. The effort actually made me review all my social media profiles and begin to clean up a few so they were consistent. I also had to decide if I do want every one located there. I guess some are ones that people just don’t need to find. Easy enough to add over time when I have time.
I like the reporting, although basic, because it allows me to see my changes over time.
Wendy Soucie www.xeesm.com report
Since I started the test, they have added more networking functions but I am just beginning to explore those.
Another review of this software on Talent Zoo by Jeff Cotrupe (www.xeesm.com/Jeff) highlighted the fact that you can’t reorganize the social media sites in the list. I also found that I couldn’t add my own that weren’t already in the list. I am sure they are working on some of that but we will see.
In the meantime, my contacts have been giving me good feedback on my links and thoughts on the site. Many have chosen to sign up as well.
I will update my report once a month to check out my visits.
