As suggested by Elizabeth Arritt, Director of Marketing for the National Board of Teaching Standards (US), although the social media platforms that are appropriate for your business will vary depending on your industry, relying on just one won’t get the results!

Here are a few tips on how to select the appropriate activity for your business’ integrated social media strategy:

* Make sure you are where your target market is, to maximise the impact and effectiveness of your message.

* Try to avoid a baptism of fire. It is best to first observe and understand each social media platform so that you can establish the etiquette or unwritten rules, before you participate.

* Make it easier for yourself – there are now many ‘apps’ out there that can assist you in linking your social media accounts – if you update one, the others are automatically updated. However, it is important to remember not to get caught up in ‘blasting’ out the same updates, across all the mediums, all of the time.

* Make sure that your target markets know where to find you. To achieve this you can link to your business’ social media profiles on a new page on the company’s website or to its existing ‘contact’ page, on email signatures, in your corporate or eNewsletter and on your blog. You could also mention your Facebook account on your Twitter profile and vice versa.

The CME Group has successfully created an online community through its Twitter account, attracting nearly 800,000 followers.

So how did they do it?
According to Andy Sernovitz there are three top tips from CME Group’s Director of Corporate Communications Allan Schoenberg.

* Don’t be so self centred – It is best to limit tweets about your business to 30%, using the other 70% for industry information and interaction.

* One of the keys to the CME group’s success was being where its customers are. It knew that their customers were active users which made it worthwhile investing in.

* As well as sharing links to interesting content, CME group has become actively involved in conversation, engaging with its followers and conducting weekly live interviews with influential leaders in the marketplace.

Previously we have written about protecting the image and reputation of your business. As reported by Bnet, in a world of social media which has led to the blurring of the lines between our personal and professional lives, it has become increasingly important to take steps to protect your personal reputation. It doesn’t take much for a smear campaign against you to quickly spread across the internet which can be seriously damaging to your career.

You can use the following tips for tracking and repairing your online reputation:

Tracking your online reputation

* Make a list of the most likely places your name would appear online to begin monitoring your online reputation. Identify blogs, forums, and social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, which anyone within your professional circle may also use. You can even track your company’s corporate site and previous places of employment.

* You can then set up your own individual Google alerts for the sites you want to frequently monitor at www.google.com/alerts. Other monitoring tools include Twinbox, which tracks comments made on Twitter through Microsoft Outlook.

Repairing your online reputation

* Although the above tips are useful, unfortunately they will not prevent online attacks. The first thing to do is examine what has been said about you and whether it is accurate or not. If not, you should correct them immediately. If it is true, you should apologise via the same medium as the message.

* If your professional realm is under attack, consider advising your employer as well as the legal department – especially if the comments made are defamatory.

Other useful information

An important aspect of creating your own personal brand online is to separate your business and personal social networking contacts. For example, you could use Facebook for personal networking and LinkedIn for business networking.

You build and maintain others’ brands every day, why not start doing it for yourself?

Create your own PR that reflects the real you – the professional you. By circulating positivity around your name, the likelihood of negative commentary being regarded is reduced.

We came across this article by Lee Odden, which is a guide to assessing if your PR agency is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and social media ready.

We are pleased to note that we have been implementing the suggested SEO and SMO strategies for our clients for some time now.

So how do you know if your PR agency is SEO and social media ready? Odden proposes a six question quiz. The main points are below.

* You need both social media and SEO strategies.

* As discussed previously on our blog, Social Media Optmisation (SMO) can be integrated with SEO strategies to increase your business’ online visibility, particularly through organic search on search engines such as Google.

* When it comes to SEO keyword optimisation, the keywords you have been optimising for on your web pages and in your blog posts should also be optimised for in social media content, along with links back to your website pages on these particular topics.

* You need to get to know your target audiences so that you can customise online content to their interests. A good way to do this is by conducting a survey including questions such as: what social media sites do you visit and how often? What type of search do they use for story research? etc. This should ideally be the first thing you do, in order to assist with developing a blog content plan.

* Develop a blog content plan that not only includes content on your company but also industry specific topics that will be of interest to your target audiences, including journalists and bloggers. Ideally, you want blog content to reach social media news and bookmarking sites and this is where providing quality content can help.

* Have good quality, keyword optimised blog posts on your website as well as interesting and useful content on your social media profiles.

Odden also speaks about establishing your PR agency’s true core competency: traditional or digital PR. We believe that with a highly qualified team with experience in varying fields, it is possible to have a PR agency that can operate competently within both areas.

You may have heard of Search Engine Optimisation (learn more about SEO) but SMO is slightly different.

SMO is fully leveraging the marketing potential of social media channels.

What does this mean for you?

Due to their individualised and localised preferences, social media sites such as Facebook allow you to be creative and interactive with your marketing activities.

E.g. You could produce a short video that is topical to your business and perceived by others as genuinely useful information, and post this on your You Tube channel, in your Facebook group and tweet about it etc.

Including a link back to a landing page on your website during such SMO activity, assists with SEO by driving traffic. Hence, SMO can be part of an effective overall SEO strategy.

In order to fully utilise SMO and provide your business with the best results possible, we’ve pulled together a few tip on ‘best practices’. These include:

* Be Participative - Web prospects like to participate in communities. You can encourage them to do this on your web pages, blogs and social media outlets through posting compelling content and providing advice that addresses genuine concerns.

* Converse instead of advertising – The average person will view 3,000 advertisements in one day, which leads to overload therefore in order to reach out to consumers, engaging web conversations should be utilised. Being able to have ‘personalised’ conversations with your customers and respond to customer complaints in real time also helps to build your brand.

* Be Transparent - Trust is important when communicating with online consumers. Being participative, sincere, open and 100% accurate and truthful is extremely important.

* Belong to Communities – Social media thrives on the feelings of community belongingness fostered by web conversations on mutual interest and niche-communications that are based on typical content. SMO is a great way to utilise social media to bond people with similar preferences and tastes to provide helpful advice on various products and services.

This week we came across this video on the importance of social media in today’s society. While this remains a contested area of discussion, Eric Qualman author of Socialnomics and creator of this video argues that it is perhaps the biggest shift since the industrial revolution. What do you think?

A recent study has revealed that brands that have achieved high levels of engagement on social media enjoy greater financial success.

As reported by Digital Media, the study conducted by the Altimeter Group and the resultant report, ENGAGEMENT db, assessed and segmented the top 100 global brands based on their level of engagement  with various social media outlets including Facebook, blogs, Twitter, You Tube, forums and wikis and their financial success.

The brands were segmented into one of the following categories: Mavens – high presence, high engagement; Butterflies – high presence, low engagement; Selectives – high engagement, low presence; Wallflowers – low presence, low engagement.

The report indicates that ‘Maven’ companies such as Starbucks, Toyota, SAP and Dell showed the greatest revenue growth as compared to those with lower engagement levels.

Arguably the results of this report apply to large organisations with suitable levels of brand recognition amongst its targeted communities in order to achieve sufficient levels of engagement.

What does this mean for you?

Although there may be a different social media strategy required for small to medium sized businesses, these new channels of communication have now proven their worthiness. There is a direct link between revenue increases and a business’ level of engagement with its target audiences.

It is important to consider how best to create this engagement for your business and communicate with audiences that would previously not have been aware of it or its services.

Want to find out more? Read the full report.

So what next?
Connecting Images can assist in forming effective consumer engagement strategies for your business. Call Merilyn or Cal on (03) 9819 2566 to arrange to come in for a coffee and a chat.

According to Neilsen Online, Australians are spending a staggering 37.5 hours per month on average in front of our PC’s, we also use the web 39 times and visit 65 different domains.

While the Connecting Images team no doubt skew these figures (after all we live online) we were intrigued by what everyone else is up to and how their behaviour is relevant to our clients.

Twitter vs Facebook vs Blogs vs Email vs Google (and other search engines)

Thanks to recent hype and celebrity usage Twitter is now well and truly part of our pop-culture. As the new kid on the social media block, estimates put user numbers at approximately 700,000 (or roughly 6% of the total active online population).

This user volume (predominantly early adopters with an interest in tech) has real potential to drive traffic. User web savvy content creators who wield influence in their networks and will comment on (both positive and negative) and link to content they find online. The technographics of the Twitterverse indicate 5% of users account for 75% of all activity. ie There’s a small group of heavy users driving the trend. These super influencers are self-confessed Social Media Geeks, many Twittering about the topics of online marketing. Source.

Twitter’s recent growth, combined with the 3.9 million Australian Facebook users (approx. a 40/60 male to female split) indicates a real shift in web users’ behaviour, from predominantly information consumption to active networking with social and business applications.

While growth rates of new blogs and web based email accounts remain relatively static, visits to Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Blogger and Wordpress are still higher than Facebook and Twitter combined. Google is still number one for traffic generation with over 10% of total visits to all sites in the first week of July out-performing Facebook by nearly 250%. Source Hitwise.

Some other key insights for Australia:
-    The average viewing time on a web page is about 53 seconds
-    Google averages about 10 million visits per month
-    It has a 90% share of the local search market
-    Of the 12 million active web users nearly all had an email address
-    46% of web users over 50 consume social media (blogs, video, photo sharing)

Here’s our take on what this means for you:
-    Make sure your website is well optimised to be found in Google
-    Create great content that users want to consume
-    Offer them something free of charge in exchange for their email address
(you do have a database, don’t you?)
-    Send a snappy e-newsletter to your “fans” containing short snippets of articles, linking back to your website
-    Use platforms like Facebook and Twitter to drive traffic back to your site

Our team is continuously creating traffic generation strategies for clients. To find out how you can get the most out of your website, give us a call today on (03) 9819 2566.

We’ve all heard the speculation and at times cold hard facts. The sales of print media are down, particularly in the US and the UK and the popularity of online advertising is increasing!

According to an Online Advertising Expenditure Report, compiled by Price Waterhouse Coopers for the quarter ending September 30, 2008, “Online advertising has experienced a 30% growth year-on-year, with advertisers spending a record $450 million in the third quarter of 2008′.

These figures suggested that advertisers did not pull back on their online spend as the global downturn took hold. ‘In fact advertisers spent over $100 million more during July to September 2008, than they did in the same period in 2007′.

Meanwhile a 2009 market forecast by Frost and Sullivan indicated that for the first time “… advertisers will cannibalise their traditional media budgets, particularly print, to spend more on measurable and accountable online advertising, as opposed to increasing overall budgets.” Source.

Established online advertising methods like pay-per-click (PPC), think Google Adwords, and targeted banner advertisements on high traffic media properties are still gaining popularity, and their cost increasing inline with increasing demand. However, with social networking quickly increasing its chunk of eyeballs with advertiser competition still relatively low, the channel is fast becoming ‘the place’ for some advertisers to allocate their budget.

Is Facebook advertising right for your business?

Consider this case study, which came to us via Ken Burgin of Profitable Hospitality.

The ads he recommended produced some amazing results for retail and hospitality businesses targeting the lucrative 18-30 year old market.

‘I just thought I would let you know about some results I received with Facebook advertising after following your advice.

Previously, I have run out like most other businesses and spent significant money on glitzy ad campaigns to appear in the local paper and TV advertisements.  Little did I realise at the time that the kids and diners who i was trying to advertise too were either a) dining out with my competitors or b) on Facebook.

I have been running a Facebook campaign (linked to our websites) for a restaurant and also a clothing shop.  I have targeted this campaign specifically to the geographic market (quite easy to do on Facebook when you have a play with it) and to my surprise, we have had a significant number of visits to our restaurant’s website and last night for example, our $$$$ were up by over $1000 in the till. The shop has had record sales with revenue up by 80%…and the cost? About $0.05 per click.

“I was blown away by the response I received to these campaigns and even more blown away by the number of people who actually read Facebook adverts.”

Need assistance to determine what type of online advertising would best suit your business? Give Merilyn or Cal a call on (03) 9819 2566 and arrange to come in for a coffee and a chat.

The topic on everyone’s lips this morning is the passing of Michael Jackson. One of the most well known musical artists of our time, Jackson’s death has led to a media frenzy of rumoured and unconfirmed reports.

As previously discussed on this blog, traditional media is increasingly turning to websites and blogs as official sources of information when a large news story breaks, as these websites are often able to process news stories a lot quicker.

TechCrunch.com has this morning reported that several websites such as celebrity gossip website TMZ.com, which was the first source to break the story, the LA Times Website, Perez Hilton’s gossip blog and Twitter have all crashed or experienced delays in the first few hours after the story broke, due to extremely high traffic volumes. No doubt the capacity of these websites will continue to be tested throughout the day as more news becomes available.

TechCrunch.com claims that this story is currently ‘dominating’ the web.

“And just in case you didn’t believe this story is dominating the web right now, 9 of the 10 trending topics on Twitter are MJ-related. The lone exception is Ed McMahon, who also passed away two days ago.”

As an aside, hat tip to TechCrunch.com for its quick response taking the “hot topic” and creating newsworthy content, relevant to their own subject matter of reviewing new Internet products and companies. Way to leverage an issue!

News.com.au has also today experienced the impact of increased traffic when “big news breaks” with 900, 000 visitors to its website by 2pm today – a typical full day is 400,000 – and its internal system is predicting there will be 1.3 million visitors by the end of the day! This is proof that we now go to the web to validate word-of-mouth reports or radio “snippets”.