In my seminars and workshops, I frequently talk about the dramatic plunge in consumer confidence and how that impacts their willinging to buy your goods and services. I cite a study conducted by PR firm Edelman which studied “informed publics” between the ages of 25 to 64 and explored this group’s level of trust in four institutions: business, government, media and NGOs. Results reveal the lowest across-the-board levels of trust since the survey began ten years ago. What does this mean to you? Your consumers don’t trust you!

The solution I am proposing is to use social media to reestablish trust by allowing your raving fans to do the selling for you! Who do consumers trust? Each other! We naturally trust our neighbor’s referral over any type of formal advertising. Traditionally this has been called “word-of -mouth” marketing.

Here is the GREAT news. Social media is word-of-mouth networking on steriods. And, this is no longer just my supposition. Today eMarketer.com published a study that confirms online advertising trust is on the rise worldwide. “According to the “Global Online Consumer Survey” by Nielsen, 41% of worldwide Internet users trusted online advertising.” In fact, the study reveals the number one advertising tactic trusted by consumers is “recommendations from people I know”. You should definitely check out this fantastic article by eMarketer.com.

This strategy will require risk on your part. What if the reverse happens? What if someone says something negative? Can negative comments destroy all the trust you’ve worked to build up? Yes, if you don’t have a service recovery plan in place. You need a step by step plan in place to handle any negative posts. The plan should answer the following questions:

• How fast will you respond?
• What will your message be?
• How will reassure your other online followers?

With a plan a place you can effectively handle negative posts. AND, get this….you can actually earn MORE trust by allowing an honest dialogue to take place, showing that you have a plan in place and that you take your customer’s concerns seriously. This is the mark of a trustworthy company.

But, let me quell your concerns about negative posts. I monitor a lot of “business” social media sites. I don’t see a lot of negative posts EXCEPT for the big “corporation” type companies. Why? No one wants to fire the first shot across the bow. I believe we are all thinking “If I start the negative avalanche it will eventually catch up to me!” We are afraid to say something negative about another business in fear someone else will do it to our business. Make sense? In fact, I mostly find social media pages for small businesses to be a sickening love fest of unrealistic proportions!

Start allowing your past, current and future customers to talk to each. They can sell you better than you ever will. Open up the dialogue and reap the rewards.

We practice what we preach! Please post a comment below and we invite you to disagree! And, we invite you to become a fan of the Internet Marketing Hotline on Facebook!

Need help with social media? Sign-up for Meredith’s Social Media Boot Camp, Aug. 11, 18 & 25 at the HBA of Metro Orlando.

LinkedIn is the best un-new social networking site for business professionals in today’s market.

Why?

First of all, let’s get the basics of LinkedIn and why it’s a site you should be on. LinkedIn was actually launched back in 2003, but had a slow following until the recent popularity of social media sites for business. Prior to that, using LinkedIn was a bit taboo because no professional business person would ever resort to social media to advertise themselves! Oh, how things have changed.

The main idea of the site is to connect business professionals with other business pros that they trust, have worked with or know personally. These connections are carefully maintained by the site to avoid spammers and friend gatherers by asking questions before making a connection with another person. It also helps connect your “6 degrees of separation” by joining groups of other like-minded professionals that you can network with.

Here are the best ways to optimize your experience on LinkedIn:

Write Recommendations
Recommendations are critical in the LinkedIn business experience. Knowing your connections and sharing kudos of their diligent work ethic, creative chutzpah and reliable lunch-dates shares not only help them look good, but you, too! I still believe  that the kindest compliment one can give is a recommendation or referral of their services to others. Proper LinkedIn etiquette states that you should always return the favor of a recommendation.

Join Groups
Joining, and actively participating, in groups will not only establish yourself as an expert in your field, but also connect you to other like-minded business gurus. Participating in the groups helps you to share interesting news articles, questions you may have relating to your business, or just asking thought-provoking questions. There are groups out there for nearly anything you can imagine, and if you can’t find one that suits you – make your own! Becoming a group administrator is super easy, so long as you have the time to keep up with it!

Meet new connections
Your connections connect you with their connections (wow, that’s a mouthful!) and gives you the opportunity to meet and share your experiences with other people in your industry or neighboring industries.If you see people in a “people search” with a “2″ or “3″ by their name, they are connected to you through one or 2 other connections. Bridge the gap! You may also see people with “group” next to their name, showing you that this person shares a common group with you. These are all great people to connect with on a more personal level!

Look for new opportunities
LinkedIn’s job search is one of the highlights of this social site, branching the gap between social and business. Since your profile is much like a resume, full of job experience, personal statements and recommendations – their job search is a great place to look for local (or non-local) employment opportunties. In an economy with high unemployment, if you’re recently laid off or just looking for the next best thing, LinkedIn’s job boards weed out the junk, don’t spam you with offers for community tech-colleges, and keep your job search simple. It’s also a great place for employers to find qualified candidates for their company, by noting when candidates with multiple recommendations are preferred; as well as other important criteria for their business.

Advertise your blog
Who doesn’t have a blog these days? Whether it’s a personal blog of your child’s first year, about your latest hobbies, or business related – you can use the WordPress plugin to showcase your most recent blog posts on your profile. This helps to drive traffic and interest to your blog.

Use the apps
Whether you’re using an iPhone, Palm Pre, or Motorola Startac (ha, remember those? I used to have one!) you can access the LinkedIn app or mobile site for easy, on-the-go, access to LinkedIn! All you need is a web browser and data plan and you can keep up with all things LinkedIn!

So what’s the end result here? LinkedIn can offer a slew of new opportunities if you just know how to get the most out of the site and optimize your Professional-Social Media experience!

Today I had the pleasure to speak for the Altamonte Springs Woamtec Chapter and what lovely ladies! Their energy and enthusiam was contagious. Thank you for having me!

I shared with them my ”fab five”…my five favorite FREE online tools. As a busy power mom, I use these tools on a daily basis. I believe technology should make our lives easier not harder! If a technology tool doesn’t save me time and/or money it is off the list! Enjoy my list and I hope they make your life easier as well!

Read more »

Social Media: What do you offline, you do online!

Social media is the next generation “rat race”, and in this world where thousands try to stand out, what will make you different?

What things can you offer that others won’t? Contrary to some beliefs, social media is far more than just a popularity contest (where your success is measured by the number of Twitter followers or Facebook Fans).

So here are some important ways that you can set yourself apart from every other social media cool-kid, and gain a true following.

Be an expert. People will listen if you have something important to say. By showing that you’re an expert in a specific field or on a specific topic, they will appreciate and follow your insight. This will also keep them coming back for more.

Interact. Don’t just wait for fans or followers and then let them sit there. Use these people to interact, comment, question and chit-chat. This will also give you access to their list of contacts, who will see you interacting and want to know who you are and what you can offer them. If time is a problem for you, just send some quick one or 2 word comments every once in awhile so they know you haven’t forgotten about them.

Don’t be self-centered. This is all about your status updates. Everything can be updated these days – from Twitter and Facebook, to your LinkedIn and Loopt  statuses. But if you’re only talking about you, people will get bored. It’s great to offer insight in to your day and gain a personal connection with your followers, but remember that there needs to be something in it for them. So try status updates that ask a question, or provoke a response. Like this one I saw the other day:

Is happiness a choice? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the Discussion board!

Mind your manners. No one likes a Negative Nancy, so remember that making friends (and keeping friends) in social media is a lot like making (and keeping) friends in real life. If your comments and updates are always negative, or calling out other businesses or friends – you’re liable to scare people off. If you’re going the route of joining business and personal lives together – remember you have to act professionally at all times. If you’re not willing to do this, don’t combine them. It’s a fine line to cross, and sometimes we all need a little reminding.

Take a step back once in awhile. Keeping up in social media can be an exhausting job, especially if you’re doing it right. But remember to take a step back once in awhile. When you get burnt out, your quality of information can suffer. Take a couple days off, your blog readers will understand When you come back, you’ll be fresh and full of great ideas!

If you’re in business for yourself, I want you to stop everything you’re currently doing and follow these simple instructions.

1. Enter www.google.com (or try Bing, Yahoo, Ask…) in your address bar. Click Go.

2. In the search bar, type in some key words in your industry. How would people find you?

3. Where do you rank?

If you’re not on the first page of results, it’s time to re-evaluate your web content for keywords, metatags and possibly invest in a serious SEO program.  I don’t want to get in to anything too technical for the purpose of this blog – but I did want to cover some of the basics and why these things are critical to the success of your company. Read more »

Have you noticed that the iPhone has an app for everything? Maybe you’ve seen the commercials…

• Need to find a restaurant? There’s an app for that.
• Need to buy a car? There’s an app for that.

I wish there was an app to go to the gym for me…

And have you also noticed that many of these app’s have a Twitter connectivity? It really makes you think about how revolutionary Twitter is, and why it’s picking up the kind of following it has.

While searching some favorite places, I found a cool new app site called TweetMic. Now, you can publish audio clips on your Twitter!

I’m fascinated. It works a little like 12 seconds, but just audio, instead of video. Not having a particularly good hair day? Stick with TweetMic.

This app has a super easy user interface and records at a high quality level, so you won’t sound like Darth Vader.

“TweetMic is a simple and intuitive Twitter client app for the iPhone that allows you to make high-quality audio recordings or “Tweetcasts” and publish them directly to Twitter. There is no limit to how much you can record and you don’t need to sign up for any additional service to start using TweetMic.”

It also won’t delete your previous recordings on the site, so it acts kind of like a live recording journal.

“With TweetMic you can publish tweets much faster, and you don’t have to break away from the moment to type anything. The energy and emotion of your voice conveys far more information to your followers than just words alone.”

Things like this actually make me want to get an iPhone!

Do you subscribe to newsletters? I love getting relevant content delivered directly to my inbox. How convenient!

Today, I received an email from Search Engine Land with an article by Greg Finn, Director of Internet Marketing for 10e20. Go to their website, sign up for their updates! It will keep you in the loop!

Now, on to the article!

You could be the next “Will It Blend” but if nobody knows about you, then it doesn’t matter how creative and awesomely original you are. One of the most important factors in social media is the promotion of your content, and this often leads to annoyance. There are many annoying social media habits, but perhaps the most annoying come from the promotion of social media. Avoid the following social promotion pitfalls to become a less annoying (and more effective) user:

The Impersonal Users. If asking for a favor, make it personal. Social media is supposed to be all about relationships, yet so many people are lazy and make things impersonal. Great, I’m glad you found my IM name in my social profile, but my full name isn’t ‘Can you Digg this for me,’ so find some manners and use them. This is the same for all social mediums. Instead of direct messaging “friends” and telling them to share something in 140 characters, take the time to chat with them on IM, talk about the story in mind, and inquire if they would be interested in passing information along to their friends. The more time and genuine effort that you out into something, the better it will come out – I guarantee it. Read more »

At the rate social media sites are popping up, it’s hard to keep track of the new stuff when you’re still trying to figure out making a Facebook Fan page! So I did a little research, and came up with the top new and interesting social media places that are going to start making a big impact on the way we all work!

You don’t need to run out and sign up for every one of these, but see what you think will work the best for you, and start there. You can use this list as you become more familiar with some of these applications and continue to add them to your arsenal of business tools!

12seconds - You like video? You like Twitter? What an ingenious way to connect the speed of Twitter, with the personalization of  web video blogs. 12 Seconds is a micro-video-blogging site that limits your video to… you guessed it, 12 seconds. You can connect your 12 Seconds account to your twitter and facebook pages, so they automatically update whenever you post a video. You can even upload from your mobile phone! On a fun note – one of the cool things on 12seconds is the daily challenge Check it out! http://12seconds.tv

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It’s like high school all over again! Doesn’t social media feel that way somtimes! Good news Facebook fans; even if you weren’t popular in high school, if you are on Facebook, you are in the most popular online “club” in the online universe.

eMarketer.com reported today that Facebook has overtaken MySpace as the most popular social networking site on the Web. According to comScore, Facebook totaled 70,278,000 unique visitors, up 97% from May 2008 to May 2009. MySpace hits shrank 5% over the same timeframe, fading to 70,255,000 unique visitors. Which is one is better for marketers? Read the full article and you be the judge!

Cell phones aren’t just for phone calls anymore, and with the new and improved cellular products vastly available (to anyone who’s willing to pay for them), your cell phone can do so much more than send a text message or take a picture. Many cell phones have the ability to navigate you through GPS, find a restaurant near you to eat, make appointments, take videos, listen to music, and even watch TV!

Social networking is all about time and communication – 2 things that cell phones have made so much easier. Many people are in a hurry now-a-days (who isn’t?), and cell phones have the ability to help keep you updated when you’re on the go. You can send e-mails through your phone to important clients or schedule an important meeting that you can’t forget in your phone’s calendar. You can even use the internet on your phone, whether it is looking up information or just checking your Facebook. There are many applications a phone can offer, but everything comes with a price.

So no matter who your carrier, here are a couple of great options for keeping you in the loop while you’re on the go!

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