It’s that time when people are saying things like “I can’t believe how fast this year has gone”, “Hasn’t it flown”, “Christmas already” and of course “How crappy is this weather!”, which is a new addition for 2011′s summer.

For many of us, it has been quite a year.  We’ve had clients that have struggled under the weight of the GFC, others who are reporting their best year ever and some who have planned to make 2012 a cracker.

In 2011, social media really ‘bedded down’ – it became a main stream marketing activity for business and absolutely necessary where searchability and indexability by Google is concerned.  Remember 10 or 15 short years ago, a website was not necessary?  In 2011 any business without a web presence was (and is) doing themselves a serious disservice.  Given that 80% of people search the internet before they make any buying decision, to be without a web presence ensures that you are missing a huge slice of any market.

Social Media has become the next layer of the web – first we adopted email, then we began to realise the power of a website and now, social layering is critical and adoption of social media of some description is required.

We saw the rise of Google + although it’s still in it’s infancy, I do think it will gain traction for a number of reasons, particularly as I am sure the Google Apps will all interface in a nice and easy to use system.  Of course, anyone utilising Google apps will gain themselves some traction in the search engine rankins and with that said, YouTube is also a Google site – so make 2012 a year you use video for your business!  Video says it better.

Facebook continued to change and whilst some love it – clients often struggle with the constant changes.  Business pages have not seen significant change for a few months but the changes to personal profiles always keep clients guessing.

Twitter is on the verge of launching widely available brand pages – we’ll see how these take off in coming months although I find that even companies tend to have individuals who wave the batten for tweeting, rather than necessarily having an ‘organisational voice’.

LinkedIn is still a great way to touch your database and to use as your online “rolodex” – why business people don’t use this fantastic, highly indexed social site more effectively is just beyond me!  LinkedIn provides us with so many opportunities and I encourage clients to use this – even if this is the ONLY social site they use.

Finally, 2011 has been an enormous year for me and Video Social Marketing.  Professionally the business was awarded a “Highly Commended” award in starting a new business and the absolute highlight was being awarded “Entrepreneur of the Year”.

To have been named as an award winning business person, in a category of business that is still in it’s infancy was truly amazing and humbling.  So as 2011 comes to a close, I thank all the clients that gave me the opportunity to become an official “award winner” and sincerely look forward to working with clients in 2012 to put their businesses on the (new) Google and online map!

With greatest of thanks for a fabulous year, the team at VSM wish you and yours an outstanding and restful Christmas and I look forward to being part of your winning team in 2012.

Turn social media to business profits

Meredith

This week, we are back to basics. Being immersed in the industry of social media, I have to remind myself that not everyone, particularly in small business is really across what is happening on the social and business web. So, today we are looking at some of the benchmark areas that are widely accepted as social media today.

There are many definitions that cover social media and the role it plays. Perhaps this definition best describes social media:

“Social media is content that is generated by the individual user which is shared over the Internet via different platforms where you can promote sharing, engagement and collaboration.”

The main social media platform that has seen a huge increase is Facebook. It actually surpassed Google for traffic for one day in March 2010; that is truly amazing.

As you can see the effectiveness of social media is huge and therefore should be added to your marketing strategies as a vital marketing tool. Having a good website is just not enough, you must implement a strong social media strategy to compliment your site – and you can do this well, whether you have a large budget, or a minimal budget! (see the “competitive edge” series of webinars if your budget is smaller than you’d ideally wish and you need some fast, effective support!)

The most effective process of social media is by building your social authority on the Internet. You must always remember that a good strategy is not to keep marketing your product or service all the time, even though this sounds counter-intuitive, it is why you should build your social authority with credibility so that people know that they can trust you.

Following are some statistics showing you what affect social media has worldwide:

- Facebook now has over 750 million users as at June 2011
- YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world
- Twitter processed more than 1 billion tweets in December 2010 and on average has 40 million tweets per day
- Social media has overtaken pornography as the No.1 activity on the web
- Australia has some of the highest social media usage in the world. In Australia the usage of Facebook ranks the highest with over 9 million users spending almost 9 hours per month on Facebook
- In the US, 22% of social networking now accounts for time spent online, and
- The US Department of Education ran a study that showed online students out performed those that received face-to-face education

Considering these statistics, if you aren’t using social media as part of your marketing strategy to increase the traffic to your website, then you are leaving some serious money on the table.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences - positive, negative or otherwise…

Turn social media to business profits

Meredith

Social media for business and exercise are more closely aligned than you may think.

When choosing social media for your business, make sure you choose a social media strategy and tactics that are sustainable, you can manage and keep you looking good online. Just like choosing an exercise strategy.

Turning social media to business profits
Meredith