This has been blasting the internet lately, and a perfect tie-in to my social media bootcamps, going on now. Incredible video with amazing statistics that you have to digest!

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!

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!

Are you having trouble keeping all of those little status updates current? I mean, really – there’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Myspace… and it never ends! By the time you update your third website, the first one is already outdated!

There have been a lot of new widgets and applications that you can add to your blog, website and other social media places that will feed directly from your twitter account – but some are still incompatible, like LinkedIn.

So what’s a gal to do? Check out ping.fm! Ping is a free service which allows users to post to multiple social sites simultaneously.

As social media grows in popularity, more of these “hybrid” sites are popping up, allowing us to pull all of our other websites together with one simple interface. Ping is one of the most inclusive sites, with the easiest level of usage and broadest range of coverage.

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If you are like me, you already have tons of phone calls and emails to keep up with. Just the thought of adding more online to-do tasks like updating LinkedIn and remembering to “tweet” routinely on Twitter is mind blowing!

Here is the good news. It gets easier. Several months ago I made a dedicated effort to be more active with social networks and here is the secret; using social media is just like any other habit you want to cultivate, make it part of your daily routine and it happens.

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Twitter Icon

Wondering where to get the social media icons to proudly proclaim you are now on Twitter, Facebook or Wordpress? Look no further! I found a great source at http://www.iconspedia.com/. This site offers more free icons than you can possibly download! I found the categories in the left side navigation difficult to use and not particularly intuitive, but the search feature works very well. From Facebook, Google to Twitter,  just type the name of the icon you are looking for in the search field and it comes right up. For the purpose of posting icons on a Website or in an email signature, I recommend downloading the PNG file type and either the 32 X 32 or 64 X 64 size. The icon in this post is the 128 X 128 size so you can get a feel for that size. Click on the size you wish and then click save. The download will start and either automatically save to My Documents/My Pictures or to a file you designate manually. Make a note where you saved the image so you can find it later when you upload it to your site. I hate it when I forget where a file is! Read more »

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Kristen Weaver,  a web marketing expert, on how she is using social media to market new homes in the Orlando, Florida market. Kristen has pioneered social media marketing at her company and is one of the most progressive social media marketers in the industry. She is also a professional photographer and all around marketing maven! Her blog is the  www.thenewhomesalesguru.com and it describes her journey as a first time homebuyer. Check out our video interview and enjoy learning what Kristen does and how she does it!

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