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Social Media: the New Cure-All for Marketing and Sales or a Waste of Time?

Guest post by: Phil Richardson

Article Overview: In this article, the author, a professional business coach, provides insight, perspective and recommendations on why and how businesses can adopt and implement Social Media to substantially improve marketing impact. The focus is on how the owner or senior executive responsible can learn and then implement the many tools, sites and software now available to achieve the maximum benefit.

Social Media: the New Cure-All for Marketing and Sales or a Waste of Time?

As a professional business coach, clients often ask my views on Social Media. The question most often asked is "can it boost my marketing campaigns and create explosive sales growth?" Until now my answer has always been one that most people, and particularly clients, don't like to hear - "Well that depends."

I've been studying the topic intensely for the past year, both to advise clients and also as a means to expand my own practice, and now feel I can confidently give advice to business owners or executives who are considering investing time and money on a Social Media strategy.

Social Media Works for Most Businesses

There should be no doubt ... if implemented correctly, Social Media can greatly increase the number of unique visitors to your website and hence the number of prospects you're reaching who can buy your product or service. In a recent training course, by implementing the tools that were demonstrated, I was able to increase the number of new unique visitors to my website by 68 in less than 15 minutes. That's more visitors than I previously had in a typical day!

Get TrainedIf you are a business owner or champion of the project it's important to understand the basics of how Social Media attracts high quality prospects and how to convert them into paying customers. You may hire someone to do the routine work and maintenance once you've implemented the strategy, but you need to be the architect and director who charts the course. Start by becoming familiar with the major social media sites: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, My Space, Flickr and Plaxo.

Here are three excellent and affordable sources of Newsletter, Webinar style and classroom training: Paul Tobey of Training BusinessPros.com, Hubspot and Mashable.

Use the Tools Available

There are some great tools available to help you develop and implement a Social Media internet marketing strategy. Most are free but for those which are not I recommend that you sign up for the free Trial and then subscribe to the ones you find work best for you:

• TweetDeck - described as "your personal real-time browser", it allows you to connect with all your contacts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Plaxo and most other major sites.
• Market Samurai - considered by many to be the best source for identifying the most important keywords for your business and an essential tool in Search Engine Optimization.
• Ping.fm - provides you with centralized coordination and control of all your Social Media sites and the posts you make.
• Stumble Upon - is an excellent way to stay abreast of the latest developments, coverage and videos of interest to you and your business.
• Disqus - keeps you informed on the hot topics and current discussion themes in the web community, so that you can actively participate.

Dive Right In Frankly, I'm amazed at how much thought, time and resources many businesses put into analyzing and discussing whether they should implement a Social Media marketing strategy. The costs to "GET IN" are minimal and if you stay true to the core Value Proposition of your business and are honest with your audience and subscribers, the risks are negligible. The only way to find out what works best for your company and industry is to try it!

Build on Your Successes - Many others have

There are many real success stories of big and small companies that have reaped huge rewards from implementing Social Media marketing strategies. B2B Social Media recently ran an article "How IBM Uncovers Millions of dollars in Sales Leads."

At the other end of the spectrum, Feather Your Nestis a specialty shop for homemade and vintage-looking gifts in the small town of Eureka Springs in Arkansas. In an interview with Mashable, Owner Gina Drennon says: "I've seen our web stats increase, followers increase, interactions increase, and most importantly, sales increase. But not only that, I've made many meaningful connections with bloggers and magazine editors ...... which bring us huge amounts of attention that you really cannot put a price on. I can positively say that at least half of the national press we've received is due to contacts we've made over social media."

Phil Richardson

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Article Tags: business advisor, business consultant, business owners, executive coach, httpwwwbizgrowthcoachingca, professional business coach, Toronto
Referred by: http://www.actioncoaching.com/warrencoughlin/



Related Forum Posts
Re: Kevin needs "social glue" ideas - Hi, I like the idea of "10 items that could act as "social glue" because I am an internet marketer. But I agree with the rest that the 10 recent post is nice. Maybe we should open up a new section in the forums on Social Media...or Social Media Marketing. I will tell you that the world is about 1 1/2 behind when it comes to understanding social media. Building a section now will put EvanCarmichael.com is a great position a year down the road when people realize Social Media can produce more traffic than SEO. Jeff
Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing
Re: Kevin needs "social glue" ideas - [quote="WebBizIdeas.com":gvtxsu7g]Hi, I like the idea of "10 items that could act as "social glue" because I am an internet marketer. But I agree with the rest that the 10 recent post is nice. Maybe we should open up a new section in the forums on Social Media...or Social Media Marketing. I will tell you that the world is about 1 1/2 behind when it comes to understanding social media. Building a section now will put EvanCarmichael.com is a great position a year down the road when people realize Social Media can produce more traffic than SEO. Jeff[/quote:gvtxsu7g] Hi Jeff, Thanks for the suggestion. Why don't you start a new post (with a poll) to see if there's enough interest in your idea for a social media section?
Re: Should Evan add a "Social Media Marketing" category to the f - Hi, Online Marketing would be a great title, and having sub categories would make it even better, there would plenty of categories to choose from, Social Media, SEO, Article Marketing and yes even Affiliate Marketing to name just a few, great looking site btw Jeff, take care, Carol
Re: Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - [quote="ltrahan":31w9r2iz]Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing[/quote:31w9r2iz] I second the request...


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