Social Media Archives

It’s Time for You to Start Video Marketing Right Now

In the online marketing world, videos are quickly becoming the king of content. They rank extremely well for SEO purposes, people love them so they are much more likely to share them to create a viral marketing effect, they are engaging and make it easy to get a lot of information out in a relatively short period of time, and the trend seems to be rising quickly in favor of video marketing over most other strategies. Internet marketers are jumping all over video marketing because it has proven to be a highly effective way to promote your business and/or expand your brand on the internet.

So, you need to start video marketing now before your competition leaves you in the dust. The longer you wait the further you fall behind!

This is true whether you are setting up an affiliate site or are building a website for your business. One of the biggest barriers that seems to exist isn’t necessarily the lack of desire to create videos but rather an inherent fear of actually doing it. However, the benefits of video marketing have become even more solidified over the past several years, and there’s little chance that video’s will become less important in the near future.

Here are some things to think about when deciding whether or not you should take the plunge into the realm of video marketing…

One of the first things to get over right away is that the people watching your videos are going to know whether you are an amateur videographer or a professional, and it doesn’t matter. You will find very few niches where your target audience will actually expect you to create super high quality professional videos. Most people who visit YouTube are expecting to find amateur videos shot at home or “on the run” in some random location. In fact, the vast majority of the most popular people on YouTube simply shoot their videos in front of a webcam, handheld camera, or their phones. You can do the same.

Your online marketing video may not be some big dramatic production, but that doesn’t take away from the value included in it – Assuming you are creating useful videos, which you should be! Like I said, many of the most successful videos are nothing more than someone sitting in front of their camera and just talking to the world. There is truly no need for you to waste a bunch of time and effort buying or figuring out how all those complicated video editing software’s work. All you need to do is sit down in front of your computer, record a video, do a few simple edits (or just leave it as is), and then publish it.

Another way to think about it is like this… Do you have to be a professional writer in order to become a blogger? Of course, not! The same rule applies to video marketing. In fact, you will likely relate to your audience better if you are just a “regular” person talking to them in real terms. No need to try to be bigger and better than everyone else. Just give useful information and they will respect you for it.

Clearly it is obvious that video marketing has more than proven to be incredibly beneficial for several reasons and isn’t going anywhere in the near future. And a huge reason why you should be utilizing it is because it gives you access to a unique traffic source that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to tap into, and it can be a huge amount of traffic. If you create a short video that someone watches and then they click over to your website, or share the video with others, they are already invested in what you are trying to tell them. As a result, they have prequalified themselves in a way that is difficult to replicate elsewhere and their sharing may end up making your video spread far and wide to thousands of people! You can’t buy that kind of publicity.

Another somewhat obvious but also very significant benefit to video production for marketing purposes is that videos are much more captivating so they allow you to capture the attention of people that would otherwise ignore your content. People learn in all types of different ways and will naturally choose options that they are most comfortable with. So it’s best to use a combination of text, images, audio, and video content on your website and in your marketing efforts in order to cover all bases. Not only will this pull more people to your website, it will also improve their user experience once they are there. Therefore, they will stay on your site longer, be more likely to share your content with others, and will be far more likely to purchase from you.

So, as you can see, there are a lot of benefits to video content and not really a whole lot of negatives, if any. It’s something that can only help with your overall internet marketing success. And that’s why it’s time for you to start video marketing right now!

So You’re a Social Media Marketing Consultant? That’s Great, What Do You Do?

Today I want to talk (rant) about something that is a huge pet peeve of mine… The short of it is when someone is a self-proclaimed “expert” at something but they don’t have any evidence to back it up. This extends to all sorts of different types of people but in this post I specifically want to discuss social media consultants.

Now, before I get into it, let me say that I am not talking about all SMM specialists. I know there are plenty of you out there that truly are experts at social media marketing and rock at it. This rant is not aimed at you, it’s about a specific type of person that is trying to emulate you.

What I’m talking about here are the people who are out there marketing themselves as social media experts but they don’t even have a following to speak of, or any other credentials, or proof of what they can do, but they are still charging (usually astronomical amounts) for their services. That just doesn’t seem right to me. I’m not going to specifically call anyone out – although I probably should – but you know who you are if you are reading this!

I first started noticing this a few months ago when I was at a small business networking group (and have seen it over and over again since that time). Another person there owned a social media company, and since I’m an internet marketer, I figured we would get along well so I immediately wanted to connect with him.

Turns out he was a real jerk and not someone I wanted to associate with. It’s a long story that isn’t relevant here so I won’t go into detail. Let’s just say he was a bit of a crybaby — to put it mildly. So that meeting didn’t go far but it didn’t stop me from researching him anyway.

He owns a social media marketing company that caters to local offline small businesses. He charges $150 per hour and requires a minimum of 10 hours per week. So what he’s really saying is that it costs $6,000+ a month for his services! Holy crap, what small business owner can afford that?!

I actually talked to some of the business owners in there about him and they flat out told me that they had no idea what he really does. Even though he had been coming to that same group every week for several months the other people still didn’t have a clue what his business was all about. Something is very wrong with that picture!

On top of his insane prices and mystery services, he barely even has a social following online. I added up ALL of his friends, followers, fans, connections, and so on from Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, and Linkedin — He has a grand TOTAL of 1455. And most of those are from Twitter where he is following close to double the people who are following him back, so those shouldn’t even count. Yet he’s supposed to be an expert on the subject?!

I’m not saying you necessarily need a huge following to be a SMM consultant, but I would think any expert would have a hell of a lot more than that. I mean seriously any half-assed wannabe internet marketer could build that many up in one day if he really wanted to. I have more than he does and I rarely do anything with my social media profiles, and I certainly don’t claim to be an expert or charge outrageous rates for consulting on it.

Now, for the sake of argument, let’s say that he really is a social media marketing guru and just doesn’t spend time doing it much for himself. Rather he saves it for his clients. Ok great, so what does he do for each of them to be worth that $6000 per month?

I bet most 3rd graders nowadays wouldn’t have any trouble opening a Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or any other type of social media account. Heck, a lot of them could probably even start a blog if they wanted to. None of it is hard to do. My grandma is quite active on Facebook and she doesn’t even know how to run her DVD player. I’ve showed her many times over the years but she just can’t seem to get it. But she still knows how to rock her FB account like a champ!

Yes, I know, there’s a lot more to SMM than just being able to register profiles on the various sites and update your statuses. But the so called experts and consultants seem to be appearing out of thin air. And because social media is such a huge buzz in business right now, they are able to charge outrageous fees for their services.

It may seem like the guy discussed above is an isolated case and I am just picking on him, but I assure you it is not. I’ve come across numerous “social media specialists” in one form or another that I could tell a very similar story about. And new ones seem to keep popping up every day.

Now, let me ask you this…

What exactly does a social media marketing consultant do?

If you can answer that question then more power to ya! Please leave a comment below so we can all learn. I’m not joking, I would love to know! And if you can do it honestly with a straight face, then I would like to talk with you. Seriously, I mean it, contact me.

I’ve been a full time internet marketer for just under a decade at the time of writing this. I started in the summer of 2003 and have built a nice online empire since that time. I own a lot of websites and blogs, contribute to several others that aren’t mine, have a pretty good social media presence, and even own an offline marketing company. So you would think I could tell you what a social media specialist does without skipping a beat, wouldn’t ya? But I honestly can’t!

Don’t get me wrong, as I stated above, I know there are plenty of true professionals out there who really are rockstars of social media marketing, and are worth their weight in gold as a consultant. However, from what I have seen, most people claiming this rockstar status and charging fees as such, basically just rolled out of bed one day and decided they were going to become a SMM consultant because they read an article about it the night before and it sounded like a good idea. In reality, they are just average Joe’s trying to fake it till they make it.

So, if you run a social media marketing consulting business or something similar, then please tell me what you actually do and why it is worth paying you so much money? Thank you very much. End of rant.

10 Common Mistakes When Building a Business Using Social Media

Social media marketing has made starting a business today easier than it was twenty years ago. Back then, as a business owner, you would need to come up with a good deal of capital and/or time just to invest in marketing activities that would spread your message far enough and often enough to get the attention of potential customers.

Now, it doesn’t takes as much money and certainly a lot less time to begin marketing a new business. However, it’s not fool-proof. Here are 10 common mistakes to avoid when building a new business using social media.

1. Focusing on numbers rather than ideal, targeted fans.

Despite the fact that the most ideal form of business is repeat business, too many small business owners focus on reaching as many people as possible with social media rather than on those who are most likely to buy their services. This lack of focus often leads to desperate tactics designed to inflate the popularity of a business by increasing fan counts superficially, instead of real prospects.

Buying fans or simply gathering followers who are not in your ideal target market is a waste of time. It is far better to build a small fan base of people who will not only buy your product or service, but will talk about it and interact with you. This will make your social media experience more profitable as well as much more enjoyable.

2. Underestimating the amount of time required to build a loyal social media following.

Social media marketing is not a quick, 5 minute task. It takes time to build awareness, build a following, and then subsequently, to get your fans and followers to engage with you via your various channels. If you underestimate the amount of time it takes, you may end up spending too much time on social networks, or worse, too little time.

It is worth it to either allocate a significant portion of your time to social media, or to hire someone in-house (even temporarily) who can spend a lot of time nurturing and growing your presence online.

3. Not having clear roles or goals for social media in the business.

This is perhaps one of the biggest and most detrimental mistakes any business can make regarding social media. Not having clear roles or goals for social media marketing can lead to activity that doesn’t benefit the business or increase the bottom line.

Social media is about more than just being social online. Many businesses have grown from the ground up using specialized marketing and advertising techniques, but it’s crucial to realize that they are well-planned, well-funded, and measured along the way to ensure that they are actually accomplishing goals.

Take time to think about what you want to gain from social media activity. Use the goal to identify the tasks and milestones you will need to accomplish along the way. This will ensure that your social media activity makes sense for your business.

4. Neglecting the power of business to business referrals.

Many businesses become active in social media sites only to meet and greet prospective customers; however, neglecting the power of the business-to-business referral is a mistake. Making friends with other business owners via social networking could put you in contact with an already identified circle of target customers. Most businesses are open to developing mutually beneficial relationships online; it is worth reaching out to other businesses on social networks and establishing a referral network that would put your business in front of their fan base, and vice versa.

5. Focusing too heavily on one social network.

While you should definitely spend time on the network that feels most comfortable to you, it’s also very important to develop a presence where your fans are, and that might be on another site. Get to know all of the sites, and give yourself enough time on each of them to clearly identify which networks are the most worthwhile for your particular business and personality type.

Remember, not all of your customers are going to use all of the networks. Increase your reach so that you can be where they are.

6. Underestimating the power of blogging as a central part of social media.

Blogging is a central part of social media. You can do much more with the combination of blogging and social networking than you can with social networking alone. Use a blog as the hub of your activity, and then use the various social media channels as spokes, reaching out to your fans where they are and leading them back to your home base (your blog). You can also control and steer the conversation about your product much better when it is centralized on your blog, so allow your fans and followers the opportunity to communicate with you via comments.

7. Spending too much or too little money on social media marketing activities.

A common misconception about social media is that it is a free way to get the word out about your business. That may or may not be true, and even if it were 100% true, it’s not always wise to approach it with that mentality. Businesses that invest in things like contests, scholarships, and advertising via social networking often see a return that’s far greater than those who refuse to invest any money at all.

Likewise, spending too much money is also unwise. Before you spend any money, do some competitive analysis on social media campaigns that have worked in the past for other companies. If you are creative, you can find a way to make even the smallest amount of money go very far in terms of ROI with social media.

8. Outsourcing tasks that should be handled internally.

Not all social media marketing can be outsourced easily. Sometimes, it really is better to get familiar with the platforms so that you can personally engage your fans and followers. Not only is this a wise long-term strategy, but it is better for your customers all around.

There are going to be questions that only you can handle, and there are going to be times when it is simply most efficient and cost-effective for you to make real-time status updates yourself. However, some tasks, such as the physical development of your social media accounts and pages, can be outsourced with no impact on your ability to meet your fans and followers needs.

9. Limiting the role of social media only to marketing.

One trend that’s becoming more and more common among businesses using social media is the use of the networks to do more than just market to new customers. Many businesses are now using social media to take orders, respond to inquiries, and even for full-scale customer service issues.

Using social media for more than just marketing significantly increases social media awareness, so the benefit is extensive. The only downside of this is that customers who do not use social media still need a way to place orders, contact customer service, etc. So be sure to use social media wisely in this manner (e.g., don’t require it, only add it as an option).

10. Expecting too much out of social media marketing.

At the end of the day, it’s important to keep your goals and resources in perspective. If you have very little money or very little time to invest in social media marketing activities, it’s unreasonable to demand a huge return on investment. So often, you will reap what you sow when it comes to social media.

Keeping in mind that it takes time (and usually some money) to get something tangible out of social media marketing, manage your expectations. While it’s important to measure effectiveness, don’t do that too soon. Too often, small businesses quit while they are really ahead, just because they haven’t been able to manage expectations well. Go into it with some goals, but keep in mind what you have to work with in terms of time and money and always be sure you are not asking for more than you can reasonably expect.

How Social Media Killed My Business

This post was inspired by Jill Whalen. She mentioned recently that she was waiting for the blog post “How Social Media Killed My Business” so here it is just for you Jill…

One upon a time, I used to have a thriving online business. I mean I was seriously kicking ass. The money was rolling in every minute of the day. I could do what I wanted when I wanted and didn’t have a care in the world. My life was totally amazing. It was way better than anyone else’s I know and everyone was jealous of me. I had it made!

I had a ton of websites and all of them were constantly bringing in a boat load of traffic and sales every day. My business was running like a well oiled super duper awesome machine. My system was flawless and I had it mastered. I was at the point where all I had to do was write up some content each morning and build some backlinks each evening. The rest of the time I did whatever the hell I wanted and the money just poured in.

But then something happened. My life slowly started falling apart. My business was fading away. I couldn’t control it. There was nothing I could do. It was a habit; no it was an addiction that I couldn’t kick. I didn’t even know it was taking hold of me until it was too late. My online business was ruined, gone forever.

I was told there was no help for what I had. It couldn’t be cured. But what was it? Nobody really knew for sure.

It was just something called…

Social Media!

Looking back it all seemed so innocent and fun. I got a Myspace account when I was in college. Then, Facebook started getting popular so I had to have both. Next, Twitter popped up. Somewhere along the way I also joined Linkedin, Youtube, Digg, Delicious, Mixx, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Hi5, Friendster, Blogcatalog, Mybloglog, and so many more. I can’t even remember them all.

All I know is that I HAD to be on them. I even told myself at first that all these social sites were helping my business and I was really working when I was on them. First it was weekly, then daily, then hourly, and finally every second of every day now.

There is no way out! And more keep popping up all the time. Google+ is my newest craving, desire, addiction. I think about it constantly. This must be insanity!

Now, my business is long gone and I haven’t had a real face-to-face conversation with anyone since I don’t know when. My social media accounts are all I have now. I wake up to them and I can’t sleep at night because of them. They keep me going at all times. I couldn’t exist without Facebook and the others.

So, that is the short story of how social media killed my business. Ok actually I just started typing and made the whole thing up in the past few minutes. However, now that I am done writing, I can see that it really does have some truth to it. Damn you social media, damn you!

Web Hack: How to Embed Facebook Videos

YouTube makes it easy to embed videos. All you have to do is copy and paste the code and you’re done. But what can you do if you come across a Facebook video you would like to share with your readers? Unfortunately Facebook is not quite as a accommodating as YouTube and they only provide the ability to share their videos in the Facebook world.

So, does that mean there’s nothing you can do? Of course not. Remember, where there’s a will, there’s a way and that includes embedding Facebook videos. However, before you embed any Facebook video into your website, it is important that you remember that Facebook videos are private property and aren’t part of the public domain. As a result, you should get permission before embedding anyone’s video, especially if you want to avoid a law suit. Plus it’s just good web etiquette to ask first.

Anyway, on to embedding a Facebook video…

So, you’re watching a Facebook video in your profile or news feed and once it reaches the end, you have three options:

– Share
– Play Again
– Go to video

Now, you need to get to the page where the video is being hosted, so hit “Go to Video.” Once the page loads, you will need to look in the browser bar and copy the URL address of the video. At the moment, it looks something like:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=12345678901

Unfortunately, this URL is the address of the Facebook video page and not the video itself, which means that it can’t be embedded. This address will have to be edited so that the actual URL of the video will embed and you will be able to play a Facebook video on your website. So, the edited URL will look like this:

http://www.facebook.com/v/12345678901

If you analyze the new URL, you will find that the number hasn’t changed. That’s because this number basically identifies which video you are looking at. So, essentially, when you look up at the browser bar, all you have to do is copy the ID number and replace it in the above URL. Simple and quick.

Now, let’s look at how to actually embed the video. You’ll be using the standard code that’s used to embed shockwave flash videos. Don’t worry, you don’t have to turn into a genius programmer just yet. I’ve included the code for you.

Upon closer inspection, you will find that this is the embed code for a YouTube video, which is exactly what we are looking for. You’ll have to replace the YouTube URLs with the Facebook URL you modified. So, in line 2, after value= replace everything in quotes with the edited Facebook URL. Likewise, you’ll have to do the same thing in line 5, after src= and that’s it. The final code should look something like this:

Once you’ve modified the code accordingly, you simply need to switch your post to HTML mode and paste in the code. Publish the post and you’ll soon have your very own embedded Facebook video.

It’s not as difficult as you might have thought at first. However, it is important to remind you again that you need to ask permission from the owner of the video before embedding their work since it is copyrighted material. The last thing you want is to have any trouble when all you need to do is send a quick message asking for permission. It’s much better to be safe than sorry.

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