Super Bowl XLVII – Let the ad discussions begin!

According to Nielson, 48% of households viewed our nation's quintessential gladiator event, the highest rating yet for a Super Bowl.  We gathered to watch football, eat wonderfully spicy foods, and fixate on the much-hyped commercials.  We lit up the Twitter-sphere with about 24.1 million tweets. We carried on Facebook discussions with loved ones hundreds of miles away.  As a nation, we were engaged. 

We recognize that humor and taste are very subjective, and we know that our readers won’t necessarily agree with us about which commercials were good or bad.  We've been back and forth, adding and deleting, and finally decided on our four favorites:

•       Dodge – So God made a farmer.  This ad grabbed us and silenced us in spite of ourselves. The imagery, the rugged individualism, the sense of community and sacrifice, and even the font choice – the combination is a beautiful montage of American values.  We thought we were too sophisticated for this simple approach, but in reality, we were humbled.    
•       Tide’s holy stain. Iconoclastic with a great punch line.  We all knew where the ad was headed, but the Ravens t-shirt at the end was a fun twist and befitting of the evening’s results.
•       M&Ms – what won’t we do for love?  Love tests our limits, and this ad “exposes” the extraordinary dilemma faced by M&Ms who date.
•       William Defoe’s Faustian deal for Mercedes Benz.  Well-executed, self-deprecating humor for a luxury brand.  Defoe almost seals the deal, but our hero can have the car AND his soul.  Sweet!

Regarding the worst ads, three topped our list because they missed the mark or left us feeling like we needed a shower:

•       Budweiser’s “cool” party. Did we just enter one of Dante’s rings of hell?  People dressed in black at a party are trendy and hip? Have these advertisers ever been to cocktail party in DC on a week night?
•       Gildan Apparel’s creepy sleep-stripping.  This commercial is wrong on so many levels, and our bet is that this ad will be a one-night stand.
•       GoDaddy. Sexist, insulting, stereo-typical, and repulsive – need we say more?  The Taco Bell ad with octogenarians petting was far superior and in comparison, endearing.  Maybe it’s time for GoDaddy to grow-up…

At $3.8 - $4.0 million for a 30-second segment, are any of these ads a good investment?  Do you remember the advertisers behind the various ads?  Are you be moved to action? Did you learn something that you didn't know before? Are you more engaged with a brand, because of these commercials?  

  

Despite the potential failure of these ads to convert you, they do provide excellent fodder for discussions around the office or in the car-pool.  Thank you, advertisers, for dropping the big bucks on the ads.  You kept us entertained during power outages, engaged during a lop-sided first half, and too busy discussing the ads to worry about the calories in those great Super Bowl nachos, wings, and adult beverages.   

“World’s largest professional network” — LinkedIn and small business

By Monica W. Wamsley

As of January 2012, LinkedIn was adding an average of two new accounts per second, according to The Boston Globe, and closer to the end of 2012, LinkedIn reached 187 million users.

LinkedIn is indexed by major search engines Google and Bing, so all of that SEO stuff you’ve been reading about comes into play with the keywords you use in your LinkedIn information. In fact, LinkedIn has a very high ranking authority on Google — odds are good your LinkedIn profile will appear on the first page of results if you search for your own name.

Often referred to as “Facebook for professionals” and utilized as an online résumé, LinkedIn bridges the gap between socializing and displaying work achievements.

Getting started

An important distinction to make about LinkedIn as a network is that it tends to be more business-to-business and less business-to-customer, Small Business Computing reminds us.

In fact, Dr. Witzig is working on a paper about LinkedIn as a business-to-professional function: Small businesses can use the network to support employee morale and find and assess potential employees, clients, and donors.

For being free exposure, LinkedIn provides great resources for those looking for clients and for those who are jobseekers. Dun & Bradstreet — yes, that same D&B — recognizes the potential and did its own writeup.

Like Facebook’s business pages, LinkedIn’s company pages function much the same way and aid small businesses: information about the owner, employees who might also be on LinkedIn, skills and services, the logo, and the website. You don’t need to write yet another business profile for this network, but you shouldn’t skimp, either.

“The worst thing you can do as a small business owner is set up a LinkedIn Company Page without a robust description or overview of what your company does, then wonder why nothing is happening for you,” Krista Canfield, of LinkedIn, told Jason Keith of The Boston Globe.

Etiquette

Page-related conversation is not as robust on LinkedIn as it is on other networks — because that’s not the point of LinkedIn. Updates and posts should be industry-related and professional.

Don’t be idle, either, though. Answer messages in your inbox, join relevant groups, and participate in group forums.

Blank profiles also result in a poor impression, says Constant Contact. Make sure you fill out all sections of the profile and add a photo: Incomplete pages come across as spammy, irresponsible, and inactive, and users with a photo are seven times more likely to be contacted on the network.

On top of being professional and polite, updated and customized company and personal pages also help vendors find you in keyword searches, according to the American Express Open Forum. Wouldn’t you want to make it easier on everyone to find your business?

Those groups we mentioned earlier? Don’t try to sell yourself all the time. Use the group discussions as opportunities to help others and display your expertise. …Besides, shameless and excessive promotion will get you kicked out, and swiftly.

Two old adages come into play with recommendations: “Don’t ask, don’t get” and “What goes around comes around.” Want an endorsement? Ask for one! Writing a good review of a business partner brings you that much closer to getting one from her, too.

Engagement

Certainly, making connections is the biggest reason to spend time on LinkedIn; it is a virtual networking event.

You can connect with alumni by adding college to your personal page, with current and former coworkers by including positions, and friends and family by searching e-mails.

Join relevant groups, and participate in the discussions. It can be all too easy to join and then never even click on the link again. However, other professionals will take note of your activity, especially if it is insightful or helps others with job or internship searches. Word of mouth is just as important for professionals and, by extension, the small businesses they represent.

Sometimes, groups do require admin approval for your admission. Plenty of groups have local chapters that meet in person, too, e.g., a lot of young professionals groups. The Small Business Online Community, among the first “small business” results in a group search, boasts 21,586 members at the time of this writing.

You can stay in the loop on industry news with LinkedIn Today and the “News” tab on the mobile app, and making your own posts weekly is a great way to be connected with and exposed to your contacts. You can set up your various other feeds to automatically post to LinkedIn, but be wary of how frivolous posts appear to your customers and clients. Blog entries and press releases are the ticket to build your brand; save the personal updates for Facebook.

Many companies list job openings on LinkedIn and even encourage applicants to use LinkedIn for the process. Not only does it cut down on e-mails and paper résumés, but it takes a mere instant to click the link that leads to a profile.

There are, of course, upgraded accounts (with monthly fees) that allow access to more search results and display all users who viewed your profile, aiding in hunting, recruiting, and marketing.

Measuring

As this blog tends to recommend, track your website traffic via Google Analytics and Bitly. Was LinkedIn the source for any hits?

Lots ofWeb articles have the LinkedIn “share” button on the top or side of the page — easy to post to users’ own LinkedIn pages and share with their networks — and if you’re a business with share-able items, why not add the HTML for the button and do some tracking?

Perhaps you can measure your return on investment via the number of connections you have, the messages you receive, or how many business deals are initiated via LinkedIn. ROI for LinkedIn seems to be a bit harder to determine than for other networks, but it’s never an overnight outcome.

Conclusion

As we’ve said in the past, it is important to always have clear goals and a strategy for your social media presence. Are you looking to connect with others in your field? Find new clients? Find talent to add to your team? It is easy to fill in a few fields and lose interest, or to assume the requests to connect will come to you. If you’re clear about your goals, it’s fairly easy to get started on LinkedIn, “the world’s largest professional network.”

If you’re unsure of what to do next, contact us at Ideen for a free consultation.

Rebranding Web Moxie - It's all about the trust

Brand. Branding. Noun. Verb.   

If only it were that simple.

Recently, Ideen, LLC assisted Web Moxie (formerly Web Diva) rebrand its services through the company’s most visible medium: its website. By working closely with the client in a partnership that established trust and the free exchange of ideas, we were able to help the Web Moxie create a brand identity that was unique, refreshing, and memorable.

Rebranding requires more than just changing a logo or company name: it takes a conscious analysis of the product or services being offered and the kind of clientele that the business wants to reach.  Branding is all about the promise that a company makes and fulfills.  Branding is about trust.

When the owner of Web Moxie came to Ideen, she had already made a big first step in the rebranding process by changing the name of her company. With the help of Ideen, she developed a one-page brand summary that clearly stated each of her brand elements, a process that, while challenging, produced an end result that appeared simple and intuitive.

Next, Ideen helped revise existing text and craft new content to better reflect Web Moxie’s updated brand identity and bring life to the project. Ideen did not work directly on the graphic design of the website, but we made sure that the new look-and-feel was consistent with the client’s rebranding strategy.

And the new tag line – “Where art meets function” – succinctly captured Web Moxie’s sweet spot.  Web Moxie is masterful at providing back-end web design functions, while also capturing the graphic spirit of a client’s company.  This is Web Moxie’s promise to its clients.

By this step in the rebranding process, the partnership between Ideen and Web Moxie was steeped in trust. Working closely with the client through each step in the rebranding process, Ideen was able to support and make suggestions for the owner of Web Moxie without forcing any ideas on her. This kind of trust is crucial in every Ideen partnership, since the whole reason for rebranding is to create a visual and verbal representation of a company consistent with the client’s vision, not our own.

The process of developing Web Moxie’s new brand was not arduous or dull work for the client – creating a new brand can and should be exciting for any business. All it takes is asking the right questions to get the kind of answers that will open up worlds of possibilities for new brand ideas, making rebranding as much a process of self-discovery as a calculated business decision. We hope that by giving you this insight into our process, you will find that Ideen has the tools and expertise to guide any company through a unique and successful branding process. 

Contact us for a free consultation.

Santa and the Fiscal Cliff - A Letter from Denver

On Friday, 14 December, we had the pleasure of joining 800 Denver professionals for the 26^th Annual Economic Forecast Breakfast.  The event, sponsored by the South Metro Denver Chamber, featured a panel of CEOs and senior executives from large corporations doing business in Colorado.

As expected, the looming fiscal cliff figured prominently in the discussion. While there was the opportunity for these business leaders to rail against one side or the other, this did not happen.  Whether taxes increase or decrease, whether spending cuts occur in entitlements or the defense budget, all agreed – just get on with it.

The key point was this: make a decision. 

It’s the uncertainty of the situation that is keeping companies from investing in the future, creating jobs, and moving forward with the business of business.  The Denver Market President for Wells Fargo commented that companies are sitting on large cash reserves, unwilling to invest these funds in an ambiguous environment.

And how are small businesses fairing?  Small business lending is at a 12-year low.  Small businesses that rely on sub-contracts to the bigger companies – yes, those big companies that are staying on the sidelines until the fiscal crisis is resolved – are starving for work.

So, during the holiday season, our letter to Santa might read something like this:

Dear Santa,

Please bring us a solution that both the White House and Congress find satisfactory.  They don’t have to like it; they just have to live with it.  Make sure the solution doesn't just kick the can down the road for another six months – the can is flat and the road has ended.  If you bring us a solution, we can focus on planning for the future and kick-starting the economy.

Oh yes…and a bit of snow for Colorado’s mountains would be nice, too.

Yours,

The Denver Business Community – large and small businesses alike

Something weird, wonderfully weird, on Small Business Saturday

When you get off the plane in Austin, you sense immediately that something is different.  There's a different vibe, a beautiful array of colors, and unique products displayed in creative ways.  The folks here advocate "Keep Austin Weird" with signs, posters, and t-shirts.

At the baggage claim, there are a set of over-sized guitars that are decorated using different themes.  As the photo shows, one of these guitars is inspired by the theme "Keep Austin Weird."  When you look closely, you see that many of the small images on the over-sized guitar promote small businesses.  Indeed, the guitar screams, SUPPORT SMALL BUSINESS.  And we couldn't agree more.  You've heard it all before -- small businesses are the back-bone of the American economy, small businesses are the engine that create jobs -- but we like Austin's approach.  Perhaps we should support small businesses because that's where real creativity and innovation lives.  Yes, let's keep Austin weird on Small Business Saturday.

Facebook for small business: Do you “like” it?

By Monica W. Wamsley

Facebook has altered the vocabulary of social-network users and non-users alike: All of a sudden, “like” is a click of a mouse, and Oxford Dictionary declares “unfriend” the word of the year.

As of October 2012, Facebook boasts one billion monthly active users. A large audience, which willingly displays demographic information and interests, could not be easier to find.

And a plus for small businesses: Sucharita Mulpuru, a retail analyst at Forrester, says they seem to have more success on Facebook than big stores do.

Getting started

The New York Times channels Ideen with its clear introduction: Make a short list of goals before jumping in to Facebook. Take your time to plan.

Go ahead and “like” Facebook Marketing while you’re at it. That gives you access to a bunch of tips to advertising on Facebook and FB-authored white papers, including “Facebook’s Steps to Business Success” (a great one-pager to print and keep by your laptop), “Building essential connections: Engaging your audience by publishing to your page,” and “Facebook Offers.”

From Facebook itself, a memorable Web address is key. Constant Contact reminds us that your Facebook page extension is customizable once you hit 25 “likes”; NYT suggests asking your friends and family to like your page so that it has a good crowd before its debut.

Flyte New Media points out that Facebook pages are publicly available to search engines for finding and indexing — bonus traffic for your page.

The ever-awesome Mashable recommends a quick trip to Name Vine. Name Vine instantly checks domain names, Twitter handles, and Facebook and Pinterest extensions.

By the way, heads-up that you don’t own your Facebook page; Facebook does. Because of this, the layout can change at any time. Be aware, and be adaptable.

Once you get past the ownership and the all-Facebook-pages-look-the-same stumbling block, begin with your cover photo: It is the first thing a visitor sees. At 851 x 315 pixels, it is much larger than your 180 x 180 pixel profile photo.

First things first, though: Resist the urge to do a Google image search for a stunning picture. It could land you in legal trouble because of rights and permissions, AllFacebook reminds us. AllFacebook recommends TimelineImages.com for purchasing quality cover photos that are safe.

Check out examples of great cover photos over at Social Media Examiner’s 2012“Top 10 Small Business Facebook Pages,” especially Chocolate ForBreakfast. Chocolate For Breakfast is up 3,000 likes since the post from two months ago.

Notice that the cover photos relate to both the product (or service) and the customer. They are not trying to make a sale; they are trying to connect.

Additionally, your profile picture will be seen when you are represented in places other than your own page. Constant Contact is right on in asserting the main image for most companies is a logo. Choose something that represents you in a professional manner.

This author wants to suggest a brief stop at Hershey’s Kisses for profile photo and cover photo use, but she does not want to suggest that chocolate fares best.

The last elephant in the room as to getting started on Facebook is your advertising budget. It is no secret that the social-media budget of a small business is dwarfed by that of larger companies.

However, even $50 per month can help a small business make waves on Facebook, according to Mashable. You can control how much you spend by setting daily and lifetime budgets. The price of advertising is among Facebook’s most appealing features for small businesses.

Etiquette

This part of Facebook is wildly uncomplicated.

Use a conversational tone, and don’t hawk your wares constantly. According to studies picked apart by AllFacebook, “[o]vertly business-oriented posts consistently performed poorly. Facebook users expect to interact with friends; brands that don’t act like friends will be defriended.”

Be succinct: Facebook is not a blog. Feel free to post links to blog entries, but save the lengthy content for another medium.

Respond to posts from fans and other businesses! “You end up moving away from being an Internet marketer and go into almost customer service,” Jim Glaub,creative director at Art Meets Commerce, told NYT.

Engagement

Right off the bat, Facebook itself suggests adding at least one post per week. Facebook reports that most of its users’ time is spent on their individual news feeds — 40 percent of their time, in fact. Constant Contact recommends a few posts each week, varying the types of posts. Stay relevant by adding content.

According to Facebook, a photo album garners 180 percent more engagement; a photo, 120 percent more; and a video, 100 percent more. Those items get likes, comments, and shares. You can find more of Facebook’s engagement suggestions here.

Who can resist more numbers? AllFacebook broke it down for us last month:

• Posts that asked specifically for likes got 240 percent more likes than posts that did not.
• Posts specifically requesting input got 70 percent more comments. (Those that asked more than one question, however, received fewer comments.)
• Posts receiving the most comments averaged 144 characters — about the length of a tweet. (In case you missed our blog on Twitter, check it out here.)
• Fill-in-the-blank posts landed the best response rate: 370 percent more comments than open-ended questions.

Use personality on your business’s page. This goes hand in hand with being conversational.

NYT makes a great point: “Flaunt your personality. The page of an ice cream parlor should feel different than that of a funeral parlor.”

On top of having a page for your business, Facebook offers advertising options. You can tailor your ad to a gender, to an age group, to a geographic location, to those with certain keyword interests, etc. Facebook lets you combine your budget and your demographics — and lets you change your angle if you are not getting the results you wanted with a certain approach.

As mentioned before, Facebook advertising is affordable. A screen capture on a Facebook-authored document showed a $5 budget reaching upwards of 20 people (depending on the other demographics and keywords).

Jason Keath, CEO and founder of Social Fresh, a social media education company, told Mashable: “Facebook offers more options and data than any other online marketing channel. Ever. I can target an ad to editors that work at BusinessNewsDaily. I can target an ad at hiring mangers for The New York Times. I can target people in my ZIP code that love BBQ. The options are endless. That gives a business access to marketing gold and relevance.”

Although the power to find the people in 81147 who like Star Wars and cupcakes is remarkable, small businesses have to remember that others interested in their products are not as comfortable with social networks.

Your mother might not want to purchase something through Facebook, but a bourbon-chocolate cupcake and Darth Vader might indeed be her thing. Give users the option to head to a traditional website from your Facebook page — and track the traffic — says NYT.

TechCrunchlets small businesses in on a way to appear on fans’ news feeds: “sponsored stories.” Using some of your budget on sponsored stories makes your posts visible higher in users’ news feeds, when they might have otherwise missed them if they were not logged on when you published. You can also use sponsored stories to reach certain demographics and friends of friends.

As always, you want to interact, so announce your page via e-mail marketing, a physical sign in a store, and even QR codes on menus.

Measuring

Set goals, and keep track of activity.

No matter where you look when you Google “Facebook marketing,” you will come across Facebook Insights. This feature allows you to analyze demographics and content consumption.

You can export the data from Facebook Insights to an Excel spreadsheet for your own records — or for explaining progress to your boss, if you’re the social-media manager.

Summary

Just as your cover photo makes its big impression, your posts are always representing your brand, too.

Current, engaging photos are your sure-fire posts for interacting with fans and customers. Give them an inside look and drum up conversation.

Make your list of goals, set your budget, interact, and keep track as you take the plunge.

Twitter for small business: Brevity is the soul of wit

By Monica W. Wamsley 

We’re all familiar with that Hamlet quote: “Brevity is the soul of wit.” When it comes to social media, Polonius’s words surely refer to Twitter.

Twitter gives its users a scant 140 characters for each message. Polonius would have been fine, by the way: His statement above is 27 characters. What does this limitation mean for small businesses?

Beyond the character count, there is much more to do with Twitter and much more Twitter can do for you.

Getting started

Key in Twitter’s “Twitter for Small Business” PDF  and the piece of advice offered most in Small Business Trends’ “137 Twitter Tips: How Small Businesses Get the Most from Twitter” was to “lurk and listen.” Find the leaders in your field and watch their tweets. What are they doing well? What mistakes are they making?

Jen Harris (@JenHarris09) of Caffeinated Marketing, in “137 Twitter Tips,” recommended a short Twitter handle. Not only is a long user name hard on the eyes and the fingers; it also takes up characters of your followers’ cherished 140 when they send you a tweet.

Twitter for Small Business breaks a Twitter profile down into its basic anatomy. Lest you lose business — or worse: look like a spammer — make sure you have these Twitter profile body parts: an image that best represents your business, a clear and informative bio segment, a link to your website, and maybe a custom background for your Web-based Twitter home. Freelance Folder’s “21 Freelancing Social Media Faux Pas” adds that a way to contact you is helpful.

If you think you’ll use Twitter for more than business, go ahead and create two separate accounts, personal and professional, and keep them that way. Ideen blogged about this previously, and Small Business Trends agrees.

Etiquette

To channel Polonius: Everything you do on Twitter represents your brand. (Fifty-one characters.) But we have more to get into here.

Freelance Folder reminds us that although social media requires little or no cost and a minimal time commitment, it shouldn’t be taken lightly. A few no-nos from Freelance Folder: an unprofessional image or no image at all, typos in your bio, excessive automation, obscenity, lack of activity, and not responding to tweets addressing you directly.

Editing is key, even for only 140 characters. Be professional and knowledgeable, instead of perceived as a 13-year-old girl texting her friends. Small Business Trends stresses the professionalism of thinking before you post. Would-be followers are turned off by ignorance, irrelevance, and rudimentary errors.

Sending direct messages automatically to new followers is spammy and impersonal, and users can’t reply if the sender does not follow them.

Another oft-mentioned suggestion from professionals on Twitter via “137 Twitter Tips” was to use Twitter to build relationships rather than using it for selling. Focus on customer service, chat participants, said.

Along those lines, Twitter for Small Business reminds small businesses to reply to tweets directed at them — and to know when the take the conversation off the social network. Is there too much back-and-forth on your timeline? Are topics too specific? Send a direct message to a follower who needs your help, asking him for contact information so you can better resolve his issue.

Engagement

Twitter makes it easy to filter tweets via hashtags and to use its search box. Mashable’s “5 Advanced Twitter Tips for Your Small Business” suggests Topsy.com, for real-time searches of the social Web. Topsy is especially useful for mutations of your business’s name (e.g., omitting an apostrophe, a misspelling, etc.). Don’t be afraid to reply to relevant messages.

Twitter for Small Business recommends asking a question and answering it with a link. This is a way around longer messages and directs traffic to your business’s site of choice: a blog entry, a menu, etc.

Sample tweet: “What are the top 10 autumn cupcakes at Baked Alaksa? Yourlinkhere.com/10-autumn-cupcakes”

If you’re keeping score at home, that tweet was 87 characters.

Twitter for Small Business suggests the traditional media for following and retweeting: Follow reporters and news outlets covering your areas. Their content could be of interest to your readers, and mentioning their accounts provides attribution and gets you on their radar. Some reporters might even follow you back.

Likewise, Twitter for Small Business reminds you of the social media resources right under your nose. Are your employees tweeting? If their content meshes with your goals and messages, retweet or mention them. This shows the human aspect of your business and can provide glimpses of behind-the-scenes action your followers won’t get elsewhere.

One of the most mentioned tips in “137 Twitter Tips” is to set specific times for interacting on Twitter — and to limit your time, too. Otherwise, you’ll spend hours responding, searching, filtering, retweeting. It’s easy to get in too deep. Remember one of your basic tenets for success in business: time management. Apply it to social media too. In fact, you can schedule your tweets ahead of time with programs like TweetDeck and TweetLater.com.

Media Bistro has this infographic for you with daily and weekly Twitter checklists. One bit of warning here: Following 10 new people per week without a similar growth in your own followers can make you look like a spammer.

What if users can’t find your account or don’t even know you use Twitter? Both “137 Twitter Tips” and “Twitter for Small Business” stress promoting your handle everywhere: website, e-mail signature, business cards, and even your company vehicle.

Twitter for Small Business put the company name, its Web address, and its handle (@TwitterSmallBiz) on the bottom of each page of its report. Twitter practices what it preaches.

Before we move on to the final segment, let’s quickly discuss syncing accounts across social media platforms.

Although a convenient “post to all” option may seem great, what it really does is show your users your preference for one platform over another. A tweet sending your followers to Facebook to see photos makes them wonder why they are bothering with you on Twitter.

Remember the character limit on Twitter? What’s short enough for Twitter might not be catchy enough for Facebook, and what is catchy enough for Facebook is likely too long for a tweet. Here is your new mantra: Think before you sync.

Measuring

It almost couldn’t be easier.

First up, Mashable’s list lobs a giant softball your way with Bitly. A free Bitly account allows you to create custom URLs (bit.ly/fallcupcakes is better than bit.ly/asdfP3) and to track how many people have clicked your link with a simple addition of a + at the end of your link. You can knock that one out of the park.

Without fail, Twitter for Small Business has an original idea: Create Twitter-only promotions.

Twitter for Small Business also offers up a common-sense measurement: Are people tweeting at you? Are they retweeting you? How many followers do you have?

You could, of course, also just flat-out ask your customers if they follow you on Twitter. Old-fashioned word-of-mouth can play a part in your digital presence, too.

Finally, remember that every little tweet contributes to your big picture: Work through your Twitter strategy before you dive in and tackle getting started, etiquette, engagement, and measuring for your business.

Look before you leap: Social media strategy for small business

By Monica W. Wamsley

Even if your small business is already head-first into the social media pool, it’s never too late to develop a strategy for making your splash. 

The Web is teeming with ways to connect with your clientele: Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+, blogs, Instagram, and MySpace (it does still exist).

According to this sweet Mashable infographic based on Myers-Briggs personality research and networking platforms, two-thirds of all “online adults” use social media. (To add a little perspective: We haven’t even had voter turnout that high in more than 100 years.)

So, should you utilize social media for your small business? Yes. But you don’t have to utilize all of the platforms.

Don’t spread yourself too thin, Social Media Today warns: Focusing on one major platform helps your business stand out — and be exceptional.

But first things first to guide yourself toward a perfect 10: Is your business based on services or products? Are you focused on your local area, or are you national? Should you go the visual route, or are press releases your strength?

Network choice aside, always keep in mind your goals: Are you trying to build your customer base? Are you looking for a forum to interact with your customers? Are you building brand recognition? Are you working to generate buzz? Are you promoting specific marketing campaigns? These questions will help lead you in your platform selection and your posts.

If you answered “yes” to all of those queries, you have an even bigger job on your hands.

Alas, social media success does not operate on a “just add water” approach. Social media — and engaging your followers — requires your attention every day.

Although social media platforms themselves are free, you will find yourself investing in social media in other ways: investing your time if you are the one managing your account(s), or investing in wages if you hire someone else.

And it is no small project: The social media manager will schedule posts for optimal times, write blog entries, add photos for behind-the-scenes looks, answer questions and provide customer service, reveal special promotions, keep followers abreast of news, research praise and criticism, build the customer base, and even seek out stories and angles. Your social media manager (or you!) might use a smartphone to do all of this on the go.

The social media manager doesn’t have to be on her own island, either. Harvard Business Review stresses embracing top-down social media pursuits, encouraging CEOs to take to the networks to interact with and relate to customers, suppliers, and even employees, regardless of company size.

Social media means being connected, engaged, tethered — but not tied down or drowning. 

Warm up on the diving board before you jump, and then make your splash.

Facebook: Mandatory marketing? Apparently not ...

With all the buzz around social media, we found a refreshing blog by a marketing company that quit Facebook.  What?  Quit Facebook? A marketing firm? That’s right – they quit Facebook, despite all the pundits encouraging companies to use any and all social media platforms.

Sisarina is a marketing firm empowering small businesses and nonprofit organizations.  (Hmmm…sounds like Ideen…perhaps that’s why we like them so much…) 

Late last year, Sisarina made the decision to pull the plug on Facebook.  As they point out, and we agree, this medium works best for B2C (business to consumer) companies that have products they can give away for free.  If you’re in a services industry or B2B (business-to-business), it may not be wise for you to invest your precious marketing time on Facebook.  

First, establish clear goals for your social media marketing activities.  Second, decide where you’re going to invest your time and energy.  Your decisions may or may not include the latest, hottest social media platform...and that's okay.

At the end of Sisarina's blog explaining why they shut down their Facebook page, they published their social media plan for 2012. 

It is a total of 54 words.  That’s right – this marketing firm concisely states their approach to social media in less than 60 words.

We’re highlighting this decision and Sisarina’s ability to boil down a seemingly complex and complicated world of social media into a 54-word plan because it is a refreshing alternative to the hype we see from other marketing or PR firms.  Well done, Sisarina, well done! 

Social Media -- What's Hot Today -- 20 June 2012

Today, we’ve been tweeting with the academicians and private sector participants who were lucky enough to attend the 2012 Academic Summit on social media.  By following the #2012Academicsummit hash tag on Twitter, we were able to gather some of the gems from the conference, insert our opinions, and otherwise participate in the lively discussion.  And, we’re in Colorado.  Fantastic!

Day Two takes place tomorrow.  You can catch the live stream and enjoy the action at it unfolds.

And, you may ask, why is this important to you?  There’s an informative infographic published by the folks at socialmediatoday that shows how businesses are using social media to support their communications strategies.  Check it out, especially the six helpful hints at the end of the graphic.

Stay tuned ... Ideen is working on new research in the area of social media to help separate the myths from the facts.