Web Developers Don’t Know Social Media

A web developer knows how to build a website and how to create a web page that interacts effectively with visitors. Web developers can often organize information and design web sites with great visual appeal.

Generally speaking however, web developers are neither experienced Internet marketers nor skilled copywriters. They specialize in following, tweaking and implementing the specifications provided to them by small business owners and corporate marketing departments. A web developer is a technician skilled at converting a set of instructions into an interactive web site.

Launching and promoting a web site and building an Internet presence require more than a development effort. Here are eight other elements that will likely figure into your online presence:

1. Your niche and perhaps micro-niche - What specific need or needs will your products or services fill?
2. Positioning and branding - What distinguishes you from your competition? How can you position your brand so that it’s at the top of it’s own category?
3. Targeting - Who will use your brand and how can you connect with them online and offline?
4. Your keywords - What terms are people searching for that are relevant to your brand and which are the best ones to compete for?
5. Content - What do you say on your site? How do you communicate your ideas, and how do you weave in the keywords indicated by your keyword research?
6. Contextual linking - Creating meaningful hyperlinks within your site content that help the reader and the search engines.
7. Link building - Getting the best sites to link back to you and other SEO strategies to attract search visitors and drive referrals to your website. Listing your site in appropriate directories. Submitting your site and content to social bookmarking sites, and writing press releases and articles that will also link back to you.
8. Web promotion and list building - Leveraging social networking sites, video sites, e-zines and PPC ads to drive even more people to visit and register at your website or your blog.

To build a successful web presence requires a team of marketing, design and development professionals to tend to each aspect of your online campaign. In many organizations, some people will assume several roles.

If you’re a small business owner, I recommend that you let a marketing consultant bring together and manage the expertise and skill sets that will be required.

If you have more time to invest than money, Site Build It! is an inexpensive option. You learn each phase as you go and are guided step-by-step through your project.

Who Owns Social Media?

I’m not asking who owns social media content, although that’s an interesting question.

I am asking who’s responsible for your social media strategy and policy? Who determines your overall social media agenda?

If you’re on your own, and you’re promoting yourself, your ideas or your business, you presumably own your social media. The buck stops with you.

However, if you don’t don’t have a plan, perhaps your social media owns you. Your social media can own you whether you’re a one person show, or whether you’re a large enterprise employing many people.

Ownership is more than simply calling the shots. It’s setting objectives, formulating strategies, devising plans and implementing them. Neglect taking responsibility for these activities, and the likely outcome will be total chaos.

If you’re on your own, you now know that you must develop a sound plan, but what if you’re a large organization? Who will own social media in your organization? Who else will participate in social media?

Here are some possibilities:

• Marketing is a likely choice for social media ownership, since marketing typically owns traditional media and is the department most likely to turn social media into a money making proposition. In addition, social media is a good branding tool, and marketing ought to understand and own the branding process.
• Public Relations is another possibility, since PR regularly uses media to communicate with shareholders and the general public. In a business that does little marketing through media, such as one that sells only to government agencies, PR might be a good choice to guide social media strategy and policy.
• Human Resources can use social media to communicate with employees and must help enforce internal social media policy.
• Information Technology can use social media to collaborate and manage work flow. Moreover, social media use can expose the company network to additional risks. IT maintains network security and protects both the company and individual computer users from hackers, viruses and malware.
• Knowledge Management, and Engineering can use social media to compile knowledge, collaborate and manage work flow.
• Legal must help Marketing, PR and HR determine what they can and cannot say on websites and in other communications.

I’ve discussed the basic issues surrounding social media ownership. However, I’ve purposely ignored such factors as inexperience, skepticism, company politics, red tape, inertia, denial and whatever else may get in the way of implementing a successful social media plan.

An article that covered these issues in any detail would be too long and much too depressing for both of us, but please do read Top 10 Social Marketing Challenges.

Three Phases of Social Media Maturation

By Marc Hausman

At Strategic Communications Group (Strategic) we've been through the cycle.

From start-up to execution and now ROI evaluation, we have lived the maturation of social media and digital public relations programs. Our client work has also covered a broad spectrum of organizations, with representation of global firms like British Telecom (BT), Microsoft, Spirent Communications and BearingPoint, as well as emerging growth companies such as GovDelivery and Epok.

During the last few weeks I have made the swing visiting with clients to share the best practices and lessons learned we've picked up along this journey. It was during one of these discussions at a Starbucks tucked in a corner of a shopping mall in Washington, DC that a client helped define the three phases of a social media initiative.

Phase One: Pockets of Innovation

Strategic typically engages with a client in a pilot program environment, with the scope of work aligned with a funded requirement, such as a product launch, thought leadership campaign or industry conference. I assumed this pilot methodology was easily digested because it kept the budget (and risk) relatively modest.

While this is partly true, it's also apparent that certain individuals within an organization emerge as champions of social media. They may recognize that their customers and partners have become engaged in social networks and online communities. You have to fish where the fish are, right?

Or, perhaps it is a competitive threat in which an upstart has stolen away mindshare and momentum through their use of social media as a thought leadership platform.

Regardless of the reason, the social media champion correctly concludes that how companies position, brand, promote and identify leads has shifted. Their desire is to drive innovation in their communications program in a meaningful and measurable way.

During this initial phase, the social media program wins funding, a strategy is defined, an editorial content direction is agreed upon and tactics move to execution. The benchmark is to attract a community of readers, which is carefully tracked on an ongoing basis.

Phase Two: Bridging to Pervasive

There is a proverb that states success has many fathers, while failure is an orphan. This has proved to be spot on when it comes to a social media campaign.

As readership grows, the word spreads internally about the traction generated through social media tactics. There may even be instances in which direct sales and business development opportunities are identified through online channels. This resonates across multiple departments within a company, such as marketing, sales and product development.

This internal buzz stimulates action. Others in the company closely track the campaign and begin to invest more time engaging in their own social media activities. LinkedIn profiles are updated. Discussion groups are joined. Twitter feeds spring up.

For our social media champion, this second phase is about accelerating readership and encouraging dialogue. The editorial content strategy may evolve and multi-media elements -- such as video, podcasts, customer Q&As, etc. --are incorporated into the program. We also see a more consistent flow of comments, as well as other examples of readers reaching out to engage.

The promotion strategy to drive interest and among target audiences also becomes more effective and efficient. There is now a baseline. Readership and participation is measured with hot topics and themes fed to the sales organization as a form of real-time market intelligence.

Phase Three: The Last Mile

With the social media program now established and clicking along, our champion turns to the issue of ROI attached to measurable benchmarks.


At Strategic, we view community, conversation and awareness as merely the starting point. Is there an appropriate way to cross this last mile to identify members of our engaged community as sales leads, potential partners or new hires? (Image created by Ryan Schradin.)

It's in this phase that interaction with the organization's sales team becomes paramount. Thought leadership-based lead generation tactics -- such as educational Webinars -- combined with good old fashioned sales outreach must be defined and put in place.

Although we never stray from what's appropriate in social media participation, the last mile phase is all about justifying the spend to date and making a business case for continued investment.


What has your experience been with the implementation of social media programs? I welcome your comments to this blog post or you can add specific content to this article at this wiki:

Three Phases of Social Media Maturation

Creative Use of Hashtags #

By John Lusher

http://johnlusher.com/

Hashtags, hashtags, everywhere I look on Twitter I see hashtags! First and foremost, what is a hashtag and why should I care?

As we know, Twitter is a great site to find and connect with people that share the same interests, business desires and hobbies as you have. Unfortunately as your followers continue to grow, it can become difficult to stay in contact with them all and to make sure the proper information gets to the right people.

Enter Hashtags. A hashtag is a symbol - # - followed by a name that can be used to broadcast to a specific group of people. For example, there’s a group for #googlenews, #love and even #kmart. If you are a regular Twitter follower, you are familiar with #tweepletuesday, #followfriday and even #sexysaturday. If you are having a large event, you can use hashtags to keep all attendees up to date on what is happening at the event; this can be especially useful for people that cannot attend the event.

To see which groups have already been created, visit hashtags.org - the official site that creates, organizes and displays these groups. Use the search box in the upper right corner to see if your group name is already available. If it isn’t, you can create it simply by tweeting and including the hashtag (#) within your post.

If you follow me on Twitter, @johnlusher you will notice that some of my friends and followers have fun with me and hashtags. Examples: #lush - referring to my nickname; #abusejohnlusherweek - one night when some of my followers were ganging up on me and my personal favorite #johnlusherisareallygreatguy. I created that one myself

There is also a hashtag wiki - providing a user-editable encyclopedia for hashtags found on Twitter - http://twurl.nl/qzdge4

That is the brief explanation, but for a more thorough information by Mari Smith, THE Relationship Marketing Specialist and Facebook Business Coach, check out this video.

So there it is, a brief explanation of #hashtags and what they can be used for on Twitter. Let me know how you have creatively used #hashtags on Twitter!

How To Provide Your Twitter Followers With Massive Value

Recently, while reading an excellent article by Jack Humphrey The 90-10 Rule For Successful Twitter Networking on the TwiTip blog, it started us thinking…so here are a few ways that you can provide your Twitter community with massive value 90% of the time.

Of course, you should aim to provide your followers with value 100% of the time, but we’ll leave the remaining 10% of self-serving value until another time.

Number 1: Answer Questions

In addition to asking questions, either to specific people or your group of followers in general, it’s important to spend time answering questions posed by your followers.

Every day, spend a few minutes looking for questions in your Twitter feed to answer. One of the best ways to achieve this is to use Tweetdeck.

The left hand column will display the last 200 messages in your account. Just type a question mark into the search filter at the foot of the column and it will show you all the recent questions that have been asked in your Twitter feed. Take a quick look and reply to any questions that you feel qualified to answer.

This is a powerful way to add value to your network of followers (both the people who ask the questions and others who may be facing a similar problem).

If everyone did this, just imagine how valuable it would make your Twitter account.

Whenever you needed a question answered, all you would have to do is ask your Twitter community and within minutes the answers would begin to roll in.

That’s the true power of networking - harnessing the combined experience of several hundred or even several thousand like-minded people.

This also explains how it’s possible to follow several thousand people yet still bring value to your community. You may not be able to interact personally with everyone every day (it’s doubtful whether anyone could sustain that level of interaction beyond following any more than 20 people), but by answering random questions you become a potential source of help for everyone that you follow.

Number 2: News

One of the best ways to find a constant stream of relevant news stories is to sign up for a Google Reader account. Once you’ve done this, subscribe to relevant blogs. As you build up a collection of blogs, it will provide you with a valuable news flow to share with your followers.

You can also sign up to receive Google alerts for keywords that are relevant to your topics of interest. Whenever new material which matches one of your selected keywords is indexed by Google, you will receive an email alert.

These techniques also carry one additional benefit - It will help you to keep up to date with everything that happens in your area of interest.

Number 3: Motivational Quotes

Motivational quotes are another great source of value. Whenever you find a quote that inspires you during the course of your day, consider sharing it with your followers.

They are quick to read and will provide many of your followers with an insight which will help to improve their day.

Number 4: Retweets

Retweets represent the real communal spirit of Twitter.

It spreads valuable information based on your own editorial criteria and allows important news to spread through the Twitter community with incredible speed.

So if you find a Tweet that provides you with good information, share it with your followers.

Just remember to include the person’s username with the message when you retweet. For example, if the original tweet is from @peterfrancis make sure that you add

RT @peterfrancis

to the front of the original message. This will provide your followers with quality content and make sure that the person who created the tweet gets recognition for it.

Number 5: Links

Due to the 140 character limit imposed by Twitter, posting links to other sites and blogs is a great way to provide value for your Twitter followers.

Focus on providing links to material that is interesting, entertaining and relevant to the type of information that you normally post (long-term, building a community based around a common set of topics will be far more valuable than a broad based community).

Number 6: @ Replies

And finally, @replies are an essential part of adding value to the Twitter community. It allows you to build rapport with different people and shows your followers that you’re sincere about building relationships.

Ultimately, if you spend time providing your followers with massive value you’ll build up a vast pool of knowledge, experience and goodwill that you can call upon when you need help in the future.

How do you provide value for your Twitter community? If you have any useful advice that we haven’t covered here, please leave your comments below.