Internet Marketing and Advertising

Dallas Social Media Marketing Consultant and Trainer Lee Thurburn offers advice on how to kick off 2010 with social media marketing.

We have all heard plenty about Social Media. The last decade may be best recognized as the time when the concept of Social Media rose and gained a foothold in both our national psyche and in our technical lives.  We all know about Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. Most of us have an account with one or more of these online services, but, for the most part there has been very little real business done through these systems.

Pronouncements are abundant that social media is the business tool of the future and the truth is that we will most likely see that over the next decade social media will become truly entrenched in our marketing mindset. But exactly how can we begin the process of using social media as a marketing tool? When we look back in ten years at the evolution of social media as a business tool what technologies will we see then as obvious in hindsight?

SIDE NOTE: Simply put, as a marketing tool there is nothing that has come along in the last 10 years that is more powerful as a marketing tool than using a BLOG to deliver a message to the market about your product or service.  This is not likely to change over the next 10 years, but, how you use a BLOG and how social media services interact with your BLOG will evolve.

If you look at the year 2000 you will remember that Google was just getting started and Yahoo was the undoubted King of the Hill for search engines. Amazon.com was well established and eBay was, along with Yahoo, probably the best recognized stars of the Internet universe.  Not many people had actually accepted online retailing, what with the security concerns and such, but over the next 10 years that would change.

As we look back from the vantage point of 2020 what are we likely to see in hindsight?  Here are a few predictions that I think make sense:

1. Google will still be the dominant search engine but that dominance will be lessened due to either anti-trust actions in the US or Europe, or due to the emergence of another strong competitor.
2. Microsoft will still be the single largest purveyor of operating systems for independent machines, but, distributed processing systems will regain a significant portion of the market.
3. Centralized software services on cloud-computing systems where you subscribe to a variety of services on a monthly basis will gain increasing market share.
4. Convergence of of platforms will occur with the capability of accessing your data from any device that is convenient.  This means that your desktop, television, laptop, and cellphone will all have access to any information within your personal portfolio at will.
5. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube, and others will each offer the same functionality so that there is little or no difference between any of the individual services.  Barriers to the various systems will decline and people will find that there is cross-system portability of connections making the individual systems less dominant and the individual user more powerful.

One of the most glaring dis-connects in the market place currently is how the social phenomena sites like Facebook and Twitter get the benefit of market cap valuation due to their position as a social phenomena. Traditional media such as radio, television, cable, telephone and print publications are currently building value for their competitors by allowing their creative and entertainment talents to focus public attention on technologies that are detracting from their core business.  This can not be allowed to continue and one of the major changes that will occur will be the way that the traditional media confront management of these technologies.

Traditional media will begin to impose contractual restrictions on what their creative talents can say or write so as to re-capture the value that is being lost to social phenomena technologies. Focusing creative content on technologies that either are under the control of the media or that more readily allow the media organization to convert that recognition into revenue will be a major change from what is currently the way things are handled.

While it is impossible to say with detail exactly who the winners and losers will be there is certainly going to be many changes and many opportunities.

It is the goal of NetOffer to provide the most competitive technologies that allow individuals and companies the ability to control their own information and presence in the social media universe.

Please take time to read a few of the prior postings to learn some specifics as to how you can use the technology that we offer to promote your business.

Happy New Year.

Lee Thurburn - President.

Dallas Social Media Consultant Lee Thurburn, President of NetOffer, offers specific advice on how to use Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to market your business.

One of the key things to keep in mind is that blatant sales pitches are generally considered extremely impolite and inappropriate on all three of these services, with a few exceptions.  With that thought in mind you should focus your efforts on being a good ‘citizen’ of the community before you start trying to use your status as a good citizen to promote your products or services.

• Q: What does it take to become a good citizen?

• A: For the most part the secret is to share things of value and interest with others.

That leads to the next question…

• Q: What kinds of things are considered to be valuable and or interesting?

• A: Most people find the following list of things to be valuable and or interesting (not presented in any special order:

1. Notices of upcoming events that others may want to attend.
2. Reports on recent events that you attended that others may appreciate knowing about.
3. News events that you have come across that are obscure.
4. New developments and announcements in your field of expertise that others may find interesting.
5. Reports on businesses that you have dealt with where your experience is particularly positive.
6. Recommendations about people who you have in your circle that others may want to know or work with.

A great example of the power of social media is the following…

Daniel has a Facebook page and his friend Denise is a photographer who offers a service where she uses digital technology to restore old, aging, and damaged photographs to like new condition. Denise sent Daniel some before and after photos and Daniel posted them on Facebook touting Denise’s abilities. Someone who just found Daniel’s Facebook page noticed the posting about Denise and asked Daniel how to connect to Denise. Denise got some business and Daniel was able to help a friend connect to someone who provides a quality service.

The above example is a perfect example of how social media can be used to build business. It is sort of like the concept of Karma… doing good things for others will result in good things happening to you.  Zig Ziglar has always said… “the Key to Success is to help others get the things they want.”

I like to keep it short… “The Key to Success is Helping Others.”

Use social media to help others and you will be able to build a vibrant community and become a leader in that community.

As you develop that community and become a leader in the community you can gradually, and occasionally, insert messages about your business.  But be careful to not overdo it and to follow these guidelines…

Do Not Post a Sales Pitch!

Use a BLOG to create an Article about your Products or Services. Post a message in the social community forums about how you just wrote a new BLOG article and ask for comments or feedback. Provide a link to the Article. Keep these types of postings to between 5% and 10% of your total postings.

Posting a note about your BLOG and using the BLOG Article as a way to exhibit your authoritative knowledge and expertise is a great way to maintain top of mind awareness within your community about your expertise on your industry and people will have the chance to read your postings and realize how much you know and how you help others.

Lee Thurburn is a Dallas Social Media consultant who has developed a Business Social Media Marketing System that is extremely effective at helping small and medium size businesses reach page 1 of Google. The technology is free, however, marketing services and assistance is available for a nominal fee to those who would like to speed up their Google Page 1 Rank positioning.  If you are interested please call 972-239-0850 for a personal consultation.