Social Media Success start met LUISTEREN

Source van het artikel

http://socialmediatoday.com/tompick/237898/social-media-success-starts-listening?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Social+Media+Today+%28all+posts%29&utm_content=Twitter

The grandmotherly maxim, “The good Lord gave you two ears but only one mouth for a reason” applies to social interactions in general, but is nowhere more critical than in social media marketing. A common mistake in social media is that companies will dive right in, setting up a Twitter account or Facebook page and blasting out tweets and status updates about their latest company news and new product announcements—and then wonder why their Twitter following isn’t growing and there’s no interaction on their Facebook page.

It’s not just that most people aren’t waiting on eggshells in eager anticipation of XYZ Company’s latest PR announcement, it’s that the marketers and PR people at XYZ didn’t take the time to figure out what their prospective buyers and influencers do really care about and want to discuss. Without this information, the company’s social media pronouncements appear off-topic, unsolicited and out of touch.

So how exactly does a company “listen?” Whether you’re just getting a social media program started or are trying to revive a flagging effort, here’s a process that will tune your social media marketing efforts for greater success.

Find out who’s talking. Use social media monitoring tools to find the people who are talking about your company, your competitors, and key industry terms. Social Mention, Alterian’s SM2 Freemium and Google blog search are helpful free tools, and a growing number of commercial suites are available. These tools will reveal who’s talking about your topics of interest, where online they are talking, and what they’re saying.


Filter to find the influencers. Your initial searches will inevitably pick up a lot of “noise”–someone mentioning an important term, but only in an isolated, off-handed way. For example, your company may be mentioned in a tweet or status update that’s something like “Had lunch with my friend from XYZ corp yesterday.” Filter out the noise and highlight those who mention your company name, product name(s), competitors or key industry terms with some frequency. These individuals may not all be true influencers, but they are worthy of further investigation.

Follow the influencers. Just because you’ve identified influential social media users in your industry doesn’t necessarily mean you should immediately start talking. Follow them on Twitter. Subscribe to their RSS feeds in a reader. Join the same LinkedIn groups. Listen to what they are saying before jumping in.

Promote select influencers. Once you have an idea of who your true current or potential advocates may be, promote their content—whether it’s about you or just interesting industry news or commentary. Retweet them. Tag them on social bookmarking sites. Endorse them via Twitter’s follow Friday.

Contribute to the conversation. Thoughtfully and non-promotionally comment on your influencers’ blogs and/or LinkedIn discussions. Ask and answer questions. Don’t try to “sell,” but rather to establish a relationship built on the groundwork laid in the previous two steps. Share your own industry-related content. Focus on being social, and on being an industry resource.
With this foundation in place, the conversation can naturally turn a bit more commercial (though still not “hard sell”). The influencers will notice that you’ve been hanging around, saying some nice things, contributing to some interesting discussions. They may be willing to help you, as long it also enhances their image and helps their audiences. “I’m from XYZ Corp, and we sell blah blah” isn’t interesting, but “I’m from XYZ Corp, and we’ve got some ideas for simplifying network security and reducing costs” is.

Social media marketing is about earning your audience’s attention. By listening first, then contributing helpful information based on what your prospects and key influencers are discussing, you’ll be seen as an asset to the community and a valued contributor, rather than just another vendor schlepping its goods.

Social Media en Cijfers - November 2010

Volledig artikel op
http://socialmediatoday.com/soravjain/237864/fascinating-social-media-facts-year-2010?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Social+Media+Today+%28all+posts%29&utm_content=Twitter


1. General Facts

1. Australia has the most number of established users of social media in the world, followed by USA and UK.
2. In terms of the impact of social networks on advertising, word of mouth is the popular option with 78% of customers trust peer recommendations on sites. While, only 14% trust advertisements.
3. Advertising has also been impacted greatly because of social media with only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive return on investment.
4. Facebook, Blogspot followed by Myspace are the top sites visited by under 18s.
5. An average user becomes a fan of 2 pages every month.
6. 24 out of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing declines in circulations because the news reaches users in other formats.
7. 25% of search results for the world’s top 20 brands are linked to user-generated content.
8. In a sample survey of 2884 people across 14 countries, 90% of participants know at least one social networking site.
9. In a sample survey of 2884 people across 14 countries,72% of participants of the internet population are active on at least 1 networking sites. The top 3 countries part of at least 1 network site was Brazil (95%), USA (84%), and Portugal (82%).
10. In a sample survey of 2884 people across 14 countries, users of social networking sites are saturated. Connected people feel no need to further expand their membership on other social network sites.
11. In a sample survey of 2884 people across 14 countries, on an average, users log in twice a day to social networking sites and 9 times a month on professional websites.
12. In a sample survey of 2884 people across 14 countries, sending personal messages is the most popular online activity. The top 5 activities online are sending personal messages, watching photos, checking status, reacting to others’ status, and uploading pictures.
13. In a sample survey of 2884 people across 14 countries, people have about 195 friends on an average.

2. Facebook Facts

1. Facebook has over 500 million users.
2. If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s 3rd largest country.
3. An average Facebook user spends about 55 minutes a day on the site.
4. An average Facebook user spends about 6.50 hours a week on the site.
5. The average Facebook user spends 1.20 days a month on the site
6. Facebook’s translation application support over 100 languages.
7. There are over 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages)
8. Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
9. Average user creates 90 pieces of content each month
10. More than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each month.
11. In a sample survey of 2884 people across 14 countries, Facebook is studied to have the highest penetration. The top 3 sites include Facebook (51%), MySpace (20%), and Twitter (17%).
12. Over 300,000 users translate the site through the translations application.
13. Over 150 million people engage with Facebook on external websites every month.
14. Two-thirds of comScore’s U.S. Top 100 websites and half of comScore’s Global Top 100 websites are integrated with Facebook.
15. There are over 100 million active users accessing Facebook currently through their mobile devices.

3. YouTube Facts

1. The most popular YouTube video – Justin Bieber, Baby ft. Ludacris has had over 374,403,983 views
2. YouTube receives over 2 billion viewers each day.
3. 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube by users every minute.
4. 70% of YouTube users are from the United States.
5. More than half of YouTube’s users are under the age of 20.
6. To watch all the videos currently on YouTube, a person has to live for around 1,000 years.
7. YouTube is available across 19 countries and in 12 languages.
8. Music videos account for 20% of uploads on YouTube.

4. Blogger Facts

1. There are over 181 million blogs.
2. 34% of bloggers post opinions about products and brands.
3. The age group for 60% of bloggers is 18-44 years.
4. One in five bloggers updates their blogs every day.
5. Two thirds of bloggers are male.
6. Corporate blogging accounts for 14% of blogs.
7. 15% of bloggers spend 10 hours a week blogging.
8. More than half of all bloggers are married and/or parents.
9. More than 50% of bloggers have more than one blog.

5. Tweet Facts

1. 54% of bloggers post content or tweet on a daily basis.
2. 80% of Twitter users use Twitter on mobile devices.
3. There have been over 50 million tweets in 2010.
4. The 10 billionth Twitter’s tweet was posted in March 2010.
5. There are over 110 million users of Twitter currently.
6. 180 million unique users access Twitter each month.
7. More than 600 million searches happen on Twitter every day.

6. LinkedIn Facts

1. 53. Of the 60 million users of LinkedIn half of them are from outside US.
2. By March 2010 Australia alone had over 1 million LinkedIn users.
3. 80% companies use LinkedIn as a recruitment tool.
4. Every second a new member joins LinkedIn.
5. Almost 12 million unique visitors visit LinkedIn every day.
6. LinkedIn has executives from all Fortune 500 companies.
7. 1-in-20 LinkedIn profiles are accounted by recruiter.

7. Wikipedia Facts

1. If $1 was paid to you for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia, you would earn $156 per hour.
2. Wikipedia has the maximum number of articles at 3 million articles. This is followed by, German (1.08 million), French (958,000), Italian (697,000), and Spanish (608,000).
3. 69% of users edit Wikipedia to fix errors.
4. 73% of Wikipedia users edit Wikipedia because they want to share knowledge.
5. 4.4% editors of Wikipedia’s are PhD’s, 19% of the editors hold master degrees.
6. Bad weather usually results in more number of updates in Wikipedia.
7. 13% of the editors on Wikipedia are women.

8. Foursquare Facts

1. Over the last first year of Foursquare, it has more than half a million users, 1.4 million venues, and 15.5 million check-ins.
2. Foursquare is five times larger than Gowalla.
3. Foursquare is growing 75% faster than Gowalla each day.
4. Foursquare passed the 3 million users milestone in August 2010

Social E-Marketing Dictionary

Hier een overzicht van belangrijke termen die bij sociaal e-marketing worden gebruikt.  Meeste links komen van de wikipedia

E-mail marketing

Waarde Facebook = $41 Miljard

Volledig Artikel op :
http://mashable.com/2010/11/15/facebook-41-billion/

In the past couple of years — it seems like forever, really — the tech world has been fixed on finding how much the biggest social network, Facebook, is worth.

Right now, if you trust the valuations at SecondMarket, an online marketplace for trading with otherwise illiquid assets, Facebook () is currently worth around $41 billion, Businessweek has learned from a source familiar with the matter.

Back in 2007, Facebook was said to be worth $15 billion; its valuation “dropped” to a “meager” $3.7 billion at recession’s peak, but it has risen unstoppably ever since.

In September, the Financial Times said Facebook was worth $33 billion, which meant it was bigger than eBay, a publicly traded company that was then valued at $32 billion. Now, with a $41 billion valuation, Facebook is once again edging over eBay, which is currently valued at $39.3 billion.

Of course, all these numbers and valuations that are thrown around have one thing in common — they’re not real. Yes, Facebook is one of the hottest technology companies around, and, yes, lately it’s been showing solid business results. But the current valuation is less concerned with the business side of things — eBay’s revenue, for example, is expected to top $9 billion this year — and more with expectations, which start somewhere at Facebook further expanding its huge user base and increasing ad sales, and end at more than 1 billion users and world dominance.

Unrealistic? Who knows. Risky? Definitely: one only needs to look back at MySpace () and how quickly it fell from a social networking powerhouse to a has-been. You can trust the current Facebook valuations on SecondMarket, and if you’re feeling really bullish about social networking and Facebook’s future, feel free to raise the bar even higher. But have in mind that only after Facebook goes through with an IPO, the market will determine its value. Until then, its valuations are mostly speculation.

Top 10 Redenen dat Online Marketing faalt

There are many reasons why online marketing fails. It is crucial to decipher the chief reasons. Online marketing helps you to build a successful internet business at the same time it also aids in building a brand. But if wrong online marketing strategies are applied then your internet business can fail. Let us take a look at the top 10 reasons why online marketing fails:

1) Not incorporating new techniques
This is a foremost out of the top 10 reasons online marketing fails. You must understand that using SEO, Digg, Lenses, Mixx, Hubpages, E-zine or anything related to Web 2.0 technique will get you required success. However, some online business owners ignore it and stick with the outdated techniques that result in no results.

2) Not taking your work seriously
It is essential that you don’t treat your internet business like a hobby. When you are in a direct sales business or any internet business commitment is a necessity. You cannot compromise on commitment and ignore putting in efforts. You need to constantly plan new goals and complete them within time.

3) Not building a relationship with consumers, jumping to make sales
Forcing your readers will not make them your consumers. If you need to get subscribers to your mailing list or e-zines then provide required and accurate information. Always be available to answer their queries. The most common mistake that the online business owners make is of forcing their viewers. People hate any kind of compulsion. If they are reading your content then they need authentic information and removal of their doubts. Instead of resolving their doubts if you try to force your products upon them then you will get a negative response.

4) Not putting in hard work, wanting fast success
Many people start or join a direct sales business looking out for easy money. There is no such thing as free lunch therefore, there is no such thing as free money. Hence, effortless online marketing won’t fetch any positive results.

5) Not having your own domain name
You need to get your own domain name. Getting a free domain name that is by becoming a member of a web hosting service won’t give the same benefits as owning your own domain name will. People refrain from purchasing their own domain name due to high costs. However, cheaper domains are becoming available day by day. Getting a monthly scheme will also prove to be beneficial for the beginners. So, buy your own domain name as it will help you to build your own identity. This domain name will become your brand name in a certain period of time. Having your own domain name will give you a permanent place on the internet acting as your internet office.

6) Not having a user-friendly website
You must have an easy to understand, uncomplicated and simple website. This is the real key to success. Many times online marketing fails because of disorganized websites. A website that is crowded with products, having too many pop-ups and imperfect instructions is a bad website. People need a user friendly website that interacts with people and looks hassle free. Simplicity will gain trust easily rather than too many sales elements.

7) Not following your subscribers or consumers
Somebody brought a product from you or subscribed to your newsletter or emails and you didn’t even bother to follow-up. Is this the way to generate sales? No, it isn’t. ”Who cares,” attitude is not for internet business or for that matter any business that demands growth. As online business owners you MUST maintain a special relation with their subscribers or clients. More healthy relationship will yield high success.

Not having your own e-zine or newsletter
You don’t have your own e-zine or e- magazine. Then you have a strong reason for the failure of your online marketing strategy. If you are afraid of writing then you can get many writers who will give good quality articles for free. You can also hire paid writers for good quality newsletters.

9) No Secure Ordering pages.
Non-investment will give you no gains. Lack of efforts is a one of the essential reasons online marketing fails. You must have secure ordering pages for people who wish to place the order. It is the convenient option. Other than this, it gives an authentic look to your website. There are some internet sites that provide free secure ordering pages.

10) No content on the website
This is a very frequent mistake that most online business owners make. When readers rush to a site feeling excited, they find nothing on the site. It frustrates people and they don’t wish to see the site anytime in the future. In this way, you lose out on prospective customers.

Tips voor Google Adwords

Lees volledig artikel
http://marketsubset.com/effective-marketing-strategies/tips-for-google-adwords/


One of the best Google Adwords tips I can give you is to not consider this a do it yourself type of traffic tool. Adwords has many elements to it and if you want to make more money than you spend you will need to find someone, or some course, to teach you how to get the most out of it.

Pay Per click (PPC) can work exceptionally well at getting hordes of very targeted traffic to your website virtually instantly. Of course, you may be asking, if it’s so good, why doesn’t everyone use it?

That is the crux of the matter. PPC is not an easy thing to learn how to do. It will take time and you need to be willing to invest not only the time but the money too. You will need to carefully test and track various elements of each ad that you place. In the start you will spend way more money than you will earn.
Another challenge is that Google isn’t really worried to much about you or your advertising budget, they are more concerned that their searchers get what they are looking for. The searchers on any of the search engines are the real customers and if they don’t find what they want they’ll go elsewhere. That is why Google wants to make sure to keep them happy by providing them with just what they’re looking for.
To do this, Google will periodically change the way they do things. They will rewrite an algorithm or make other changes and if you’re not right on top of those changes you can find that the ad that once made you a lot of money is now costing you a lot of money.


Here are a few tips that you can use to optimize your PPC campaigns:

1. Find a course or a mentor who can teach you the ins and outs of PPC advertising. If you try to just jump in and figure it all out on your own you had better make sure you have a lot of time and very deep pockets.

2. Carefully choose the keywords you use. Don’t even try to compete for the one or two word keywords since they will almost always have so much competition you’ll be spending way too much per click. Instead focus on the keyword phrases that have 3, 4, or 5 words in them. These ‘long tailed keywords’ can fly under the radar yet still get you some decent click through rates (CTR’s).

3. Always test your ads. You can do this by having several versions of each ad running at the same time. Find out which headlines get the most clicks. Which body text gets the most clicks, etc. Keep testing until you’ve got a winning ad. When testing make sure you only change one element at a time otherwise you won’t know which change really made the difference.

Out of all the Google Adwords tips I can give you the one I think is the most important is to find someone to show you the ropes. PPC is effective if you know how to do it right, but if not it can very quickly become a money pit.

The 7 Deadly Fears of Blogging and How to Overcome Them

For full article read : 

http://marketsubset.com/?p=4372

I remember back to early 2008, when I'd just started blogging, that even though I had great ambitions, my knowledge, expertise, and confidence as a blogger was sorely lacking. I stumbled through my blogging career for over a year before I felt I had a really good grip on things, and even then, there were many things I struggled with.

But more than anything, through all of the struggles I faced, there was one enemy that kept popping up time and time again, each time in a different form than the last. This enemy was fierce, determined, and relentless, and eventually I had no choice but to either confront it, or forever commit to a life of running.
Finally, in a Bruce Wayne moment of clarity, I decided to turn-around, face this enemy, and obliterate him. His name was fear, and there are seven ways that he tried to take me out. Here are the tactics I used to fight back.

1. Manic idea generation

Tactic 1: Stop running from idea to idea and ship the ones you're already committed to.

2. Holding back

 Tactic 2: Don't be afraid to be you. Turn your little flame into a wildfire. Some of the best bloggers I know are more personal and open than even I'm comfortable with, and guess what…their audience loves them for it.

3. Low confidence

Tactic 3: Seth Godin wrote about it in Tribes, and the truth is that yes, we need you to lead us. People do care what you think, in fact, much more than you can imagine. You owe it to them to share it; don't be selfish.

4. Little guy syndrome

Tactic 4: Stop cutting yourself down and give yourself permission to be great. No one is going to ask you to be great, but they'll step in line the minute you prove that you are. Claim your authority; don't wait for it. 

5. Irrational fear of guest posts

I remember shivering at the thought of asking a fellow blogger for a guest posting opportunity. Her name was Caroline Middlebrook, and though we?€™d talked a bit via email, I was nervous as hell asking for her permission. Finally one day I just did it, and guess what? Success! Unfortunately, I see many bloggers fear that step, and as a result, they toil in isolation for years.
I joked with Kelly Diels about this once?€”that asking a blogger for a guest post opportunity is like asking a friend to go on a date with you. You might have a great relationship on Twitter or in the comment section, but you don?€™t want to ruin it for the sake of a guest post ?€? so you wait.

Tactic 5: The word no is nothing to be afraid of, and instead of fearing it, you should get used to hearing it. Don?€™t view no as a crippling blow, but as a way to get one step closer to a yes. If the simple act of making a request is enough to ruin a relationship, then it wasn?€™t worth much in the first place.

6. Resistance to product creation

People aren?€™t just going to show up on your blog and offer to send you free cash via email; you need to be able to offer them something.

You've been told time and time again that you need to develop your own online store, which means you start planning a series of products, courses, webinars, and anything else you can think of. But that?€™s where you stop.
For some reason, there?€™s always something that gets in the way of your product actually getting finished.

• Blog posts
• Email
• Social media
• Emergency this and crazy that.

You know it?€™s true, but you do it anyway.
Look, I know it?€™s not easy to sit down and create a product, and the minute you try to do so, you get distracted. It?€™s easy to do, but you have to fight it.
Tactic 6: Don?€™t let the resistance win. Rather than focusing on the fear of losing time to do something else, or your inability to create a perfect product, focus on the positive … focus on shipping. Product creation, like blogging, takes time to perfect, but you?€™ll never get there if you don?€™t start.

7. Fear of asking for money

This is a big one, and sadly, it?€™s probably the most prevalent fear in the blogosphere. How can you ask for money when you love what you do? How can you ask a friend or a peer to buy something, especially when you like seeing them comment and retweet your blog posts?

Daily Digest Newsletter

Well here?€™s the deal, if you aren?€™t asking for the sale, then you?€™ll never get one. Case closed.
You can try to avoid ?€?scammy” sales pages, big launches, or affiliates, but unless you?€™ve got an army of people waiting for you to sell them something, a weak close is never going to work. If you want to make a living doing this, then you have to fight for it; you cannot be afraid of the close.

Tactic 7: Get comfortable asking for the sale. Find every opportunity you can to practice this, and keep going until the fear goes away. Eventually, it will become second nature, I promise you.

Commit, practice, and practice some more

I think the biggest fear that bloggers face is that all of this hard work they?€™re doing is never going to pay off. I know how it feels.
You don?€™t want to waste time on something that won?€™t work. You want to ?€?Crush It,?€? and you want to make a difference. You don?€™t want to lose, or to look like a fool.
The best advice that I can give you is this:
No one knows if what you?€™re doing is going to pay off. However, I can say without reserve that as long as you want to succeed, with every fiber of your soul, and you are willing to do what it takes to do it (this could mean shifting gears or changing your business), then the fear monster will not have anything close to a fighting chance against you.
Turn around, look fear into its eyes, and deal it a finishing blow, Mortal Kombat style.
.