There are 3 main reasons why social media programs falter – or fail altogether. First is that businesses should be using social media to build loyalty and trust with their customers. It’s called brand advocacy, and it helps to leverage your brand across a variety of marketing channels. The more your brand name is seen across the marketing universe, the more likely it will result in a new customer or sale.

So what are businesses doing wrong? They’re not utilizing the reach of social media. You need to promote social media as aggressively as possible. Optimize each web page to talk to your target audience. Share content that is useful to your customers, making sure you have social media “share” buttons on your website, blog, and all other marketing materials you put out there. Make sure you email your customers and remind them to interact with your social media platform. And interact with your fans and followers.

Here’s the second thing businesses are doing wrong: they don’t understand that social media is the new promotion. You should be using social media to drive web traffic – because increasing web traffic is one of the biggest benefits of using social media! By using social media, you can bring qualified visitors to your website – who may ultimately convert into a customer. If a person likes what they experience on social media, they can be encouraged to share their experience with friends on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pintrest and other sites. This sharing will ultimately bring more web traffic to your site, and if you integrate your social media campaigns with your web content campaigns by using the same SEO keyword list, both your website and your social media will benefit.

And here’s the third thing: businesses aren’t generating leads from their social media. While you may be getting traffic from your social media channels, you may not be getting leads – and that means you’re not maximizing your social media program. The key? Make sure you have a strong call to action in place, and create new landing pages. Here’s why: a landing page can give someone a clear path to what’s called, “deeper engagement” – where your prospect actually becomes a customer.

You can do this by offering something on the landing page like an eBook, demo, webinar, etc. Capture their email addresses. Do a drip email campaign to keep people coming back – and ultimately; they’ll become a customer. Do it right and you’ll have social media working for you!

Well, for starters – here’s a remarkable percentage: less than 10% of businesses are saying that they wouldn’t use social media in their marketing mix. That’s down from 24% last year. Put another way – over 90% of businesses ARE using social media. Wow! That’s huge. And it’s growing every day.

Here’s another interesting fact – those marketers who found using social media a challenge – said so because they lacked sufficient resources to dedicate to social media marketing. Translation: we don’t have people with the time, or the skills to do social media. Too bad – they’re missing out on a marketing phenomenon that will probably never be duplicated in their lifetime. There is an easy fix, however. Hire a firm to do it! It’s really that simple to do – and that important.

Here’s why. Right now, small and medium-sized businesses will be doubling their social media budgets this year. That’s about $2 billion. Yes, billion. If your business isn’t part of this media trend, you’re going to be losing customers. How many of your customers are on Facebook? Or Twitter? Or viewing videos on YouTube? You may not know the actual number, but you can rest assured that the number is high. It’s trending that way all across the United States, in every business category. So if you’re not visible where the target customers go, you’re going to be losing those customers to businesses who are there: and they’re called “your competitors.”

The reason you can count on this is that many companies are now tracking their social media presence. What’s being measured? Top of the list is the number of followers and fans. Next is the number of hits on their websites, followed by mentions on social media platforms. Whatever area of use that businesses are measuring, they’re finding that customers are using social media in huge numbers.

What type of social media is deemed effective? Well, the most effective use is optimizing social media sites to improve search engine rankings. The second most effective or somewhat effective use is using social media to build one-on-one relationships with bloggers, network moderators and other social influencers who have the potential to generate a buzz for your company. These are critical relationships; once developed they continue to pump your company name and information out there, without costing you one penny in marketing dollars.

Bottom line – as the year unfolds it’s becoming more and more clear that you must incorporate social media into your marketing mix. Here’s wishing you good luck!

Companies finally understand what social media is supposed to be used for – and that’s connecting with their customers in effective ways and providing relevant content that helps effectively communicate a company’s message. It’s all about engaging that customer – if you do that, you’re using social media effectively.

You may not have developed a comprehensive social media strategy yet, but if you are using any form of social media – from Facebook to Twitter to YouTube, you should have a plan and a budget in place. And if you don’t have one – you should make developing that social media strategy a very high priority!

First, have a mobile platform in place. Making an easy to use app available is another sound strategic move. Just be sure you have it for the right reason. Ask yourself why a customer would want to engage with you. Are you offering what he or she may want – from price promotions to information to a Facebook ad or page that is of great interest? If you aren’t – start developing what your customer wants!

You should build your budget planning around ideas, campaigns, information and applications that provide information that is of benefit to your customers. This information should help you achieve your business goals. Another aspect of your budget is allocating money for running ads on the major social networks, like Facebook, Twitter, StumbelUpon and more recently, Pintrest. Just make sure those ads support your branding and your traditional media ads. Plan for spending money on building apps, doing promotions and offering prizes. If you don’t have internal designers, plan for spending money on hiring outside help.

Another thing to remember is that you should monitor your social media for feedback. Make sure you track your likes, dislikes, requests and issues that your customers bring up. You can also track what the customers of your competition are saying by monitoring social media conversations. What used to require a survey or a focus group can now be obtained by tracking various social media channels. By learning what type of content your followers or competitive followers want you’ll be able to start delivering more relevant content and information to your customers.

Social media data provides an opportunity to really find out who your best supporters are and what information would help influence them in the future.

The problem for new entries into the digital marketing arena is that there are so many different approaches and tactics, that it’s hard to discern which ones are appropriate and viable for a particular type of business. But there are some universal “winners” – and if you’re looking to grab new prospects and convert them into customers, read on.

The core of all digital marketing is the smart user. Where consumers used to search for information, consumers now expect information to come to them and be a part of their lives. It’s already being done – small businesses are increasing their inbound marketing budgets and efforts, and there is increased attention to Facebook campaigns and location based advertising.

But there are other trends as well. One of the hottest trends is Group Messaging –with location based service is GroupMe and Beluga leading the way. Group Messaging allow users to communicate with one another in personalized groups of friends. It’s a marketers’ dream! I mean, what more could you ask for than to have groups of customers who are brought together by like interests, age and often location as well? Not much! Suppose you have a group message for those interested in mountain biking. The next logical step is to market to this highly targeted group with things like bikes, bike trips, gear and so much more.

Another hot trend is the attention being paid on the Internet to startups. Just look at LaunchRock. A company can use LaunchRock to create a landing page in no time at all. It’s a great way to collect email addresses and other user info that a company can then use to send information about their new product or service.

And if you’re looking for capital for one of your new startups, one of the hottest trends is called CrowdFunding – where people pledge money to startups of all types and sizes on the Internet. Got a new film, a new app or a new product? Check out sites like NewJelly, Quirky or Rockethub. You’ll be surprised at what you’ll find!

Finally, marketing folks are looking closely at websites like Quora – one of the Q&A websites that are populating the Internet. What’s so interesting about this?  These sites offer a place for users to engage in a dialogue about almost any question. Businesses can send questions, put comments into a discussion chain, respond to competitor questions and so much more. TED and Facebook are now participating, so watch it take off!

More trends are coming – and we’ll keep you tuned in!

Originally, Google launched AdWords as a way to give small business advertisers an opportunity to create a highly targeted pay-per-click search engine campaign. Since Pay-per-click as a model is very effective for many businesses, Google figured they’d give small business a way of getting more control of their ad budget. For example with pay-per-click you can set a monthly “ceiling” on how much you’re willing to spend.

Since it became hugely popular, it also became extremely competitive. That could explain why it’s a bust for some businesses, and a boon for others. They key, of course, it to use AdWords as effectively as possible.

There are some basic tactics to use that will help make your AdWords campaign more effective. First, start with very specific and highly relevant keywords. This is the foundation of your campaign, as the keywords will determine the targets you’re going after. Make sure you ads are compelling; forget using fancy creative or clever play on words – you have a very limited amount of space to work with (just 25 characters for your headline and 70 characters for your text).

Here’s another key: make sure you have a very effective landing page! If you want to increase conversion rates, an effective landing page is the key to success. Remember, the landing page is the link to your Google AdWords ad. An effective landing page will help to keep prospective customers on your website longer, helping to turn browsers into buyers.

Finally, take some steps to avoid wasting money. If you’re unsure of having effective keywords, use keyword search tools. You can find a variety of them online. Make sure you’re targeting the right audience – keep your AdWords local if you’re a local business and don’t think a national campaign is in your best interest. It’ll save you money! Track your ROI – use Google analytics to see your click through rates and use their special tools to see your conversion rates.

To make your ad more effective, use attention-grabbing words. Drop every word that is not absolutely necessary – like “of, it, on, an,” – you’ll be making sure that every word you’re paying for counts. Finally, make sure you put the price of your product or service in your ad. It may lower your click through rates, but you’ll be bringing in potential customers that aren’t looking for something for nothing. AdWords are working for many people – make sure they work for you!

Sure, you need a Facebook page. You need to have a Twitter following. You need multiple connections on LinkedIn. You need to have a good working knowledge of social media if you really want to be successful in today’s complex marketing arena. But at the very core of everything you do – is a website. Your website.

There are many reasons why a web presence is still a critical necessity, but it all comes down to this: you must have a place where people can go to find you, learn about you and if it makes sense, purchase your products or services. A website fulfills all of those requirements.

Of course, the old “if you build it will they come” still applies. Just because you put together a multi-page website with beautiful animation and video doesn’t mean that people will visit it, let alone find it. That’s where SEO, SEM and a variety of other ABC’s of Internet jargon will come into play. (That’s search engine optimization and Search Engine Marketing, by the way).

In fact, SEO and SEM are probably equally as important in terms of effort as building that website, because if you can’t give the major search engines a clue about what and where and who you are, nobody will be clicking on your web address any time soon. You’ll need to do keyword searches, learn how to optimize your page, do what’s called “below the line coding” and so much more if you expect to show up in the search engine rankings. And if you’re not familiar with all of this, I urge you to hire someone who is!  That’s how important this is for you ultimate success.

The confusion in the business world about whether or not a website is still a viable tool has more to do with how people will access your website than whether or not you actually need one.

If you go online, you’ll find a zillion articles claiming that the laptop is dead, thanks to the iPad. You’ll also find multiple articles claiming that more and more people are accessing websites on smart phones. It’s all true, by the way. And it’s not a bad thing; it’s just a different way that people are going online and checking out web pages. But they’re still going online, and they’re still visiting websites and they’re still using websites to purchase items at a record pace. It shouldn’t matter to you what type of technology they’re using to get to your website – only that they’re still coming, spending time and using your website for whatever it was designed to do.

So, do you really still need a website? You bet you do!

The biggest buzz is “pay-per-click” – and that started several years ago. It means you place banner ads on various websites, and only pay for placing them there when people “click” on your ad. Often, pay-per-click is used with search engine marketing, allowing you to actually advertise on various search engines like Google. The good news is that the Internet provides a remarkable way of tracking just about everything, including your banner ad and who is clicking and how many times it’s clicked on. The “click” takes people to your website or a microsite, which is a great way to capture prospective customers and deliver your message.

If you place enough PPC ads out there, you’re bound to get a lot of new traffic to your sites. But you’ll need to know the CPC, or cost-per-click, so you can measure whether or not it’s an effective use of your money. You’ll also need to know the CTR, or click through rate, and measure who stays on your site, who leaves, how long they’ve spent time there and— well, the list goes on and on. That information is known as “analytics” – and it’s the “bible” of social media buying and planning.

So, how can you maximize your PPC efforts, making sure that you’re increasing your site’s traffic and qualified leads while reducing your overall costs? Well, a good starting point is having the right websites on which to place your banner ads. You can get to the right sites by doing some advanced keyword research. This is critical – because your basing your entire pay-per-click marketing program on those keywords. Get the wrong words, and you’ll be missing out on key sites and a ton of qualified traffic.

The good news is that you don’t have to be a keyword genius, because help is available. There’s software, like WordStream, which uses different analytics to generate a list of relevant keywords. In addition, the software also tracks where your visitors are coming from – and uses this data to find additional variations of your keywords and expand the potential websites available to you. Most importantly, it keeps your keyword list fluid, always expanding and enhancing your original list.

By honing your keyword search and utilizing tools and sites that enable you to leverage your exclusive keyword data, you’ll be reaching new customers at relatively low costs.

The fact is, the two are not mutually exclusive. Social media and “traditional advertising” can still work hand-in-hand. And they actually work quite well together, thank you very much! You simply have to know what role each one plays and how to use them most effectively. That way you won’t be duplicating your efforts, and you’ll use each to its maximum effect.

With “traditional media” – which includes broadcast advertising, print and direct mail, you have an opportunity to do all types of marketing. You can build name awareness; create image advertising, present positioning to potential prospects and so much more. It’s jut like using advertising media the way they’ve always been used. You can also do promotional and price advertising to build immediate sales.

So what about social media, since you’re using broadcast and print to communicate with your customers? You use social media to connect with your customers! Here’s the difference; you don’t necessarily sell with social media. You provide content and information that helps your customers make informed buying decisions. You engage your customers and prospective customers in a dialogue that works both ways  -back and forth. They can tweet about you and your products. They can post messages about you on Facebook. They can tell their LinkedIn audience about an experience they had with your company or products. You can’t do that with “traditional media.”

But remember, social media and traditional media are designed to work synergistically. Don’t think of them as mutually exclusive. So go ahead and use personalized direct mail, but support it with email blasts and Tweets. Go ahead and use broadcast advertising, but load your videos on YouTube and Tweet about them to your customer base. By all means do print advertising in newspapers, and if you have a highly vertical market in magazines as well, but at the same time post on Facebook, build a Facebook page.

Link you media to other media as well. If you’re paying to place banner ads on websites, make sure they link to your website. On your website’s landing page, make sure your customers can link over to other places where they can learn more about your products and services. The point is, the possibilities are endless when it comes to making social media and traditional media work together. These are just a few examples, but there are many, many more to consider!

First, make sure you have access to key information about your email program. If you use a 3^rd party provider, insist on getting reports on which emails were opened, what links were clicked on and which of your subject headers produced the highest open rates.

Why is all this so important? First, you’ll learn your customer likes (and dislikes) regarding content – which campaigns they opened, how many times they opened it, or didn’t open at all. You’ll also find which campaigns may have triggered the dreaded “unsubscribe” response. But most importantly, you’ll be able to rank your most successful campaigns for – get this – reuse and recycling! That’s right – recycling, because if it worked before, with a bit of retooling it can work again. You simply don’t have to reinvent the wheel each and every time you do an email campaign.

There are really only two types of email campaigns: informational and promotional. You’ll either be delivering news about services, products or upcoming events, or you’ll be delivering offers and coupons to trigger an immediate sale or similar response. But if you’re planning on an informational campaign, you might want to consider sending third party reviews and information about your company or product. There’s nothing better than a third-party endorsement, even if it wasn’t meant to be one!

While email campaigns are critical to growing and retaining clients, be sure that you open up other marketing and communication channels as well. You can’t assume that every email you send will be read – it just doesn’t happen. So start using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media channels to get your message out and support the messages you’re delivering via email. Sharing different variations of your material at different times and on different channels simply raises the likelihood of your message getting read….and responded to!

Finally, here are a few tips that will keep your email program zipping along like you intended it to. First, always offer an online or mobile version of your email so your customers and prospects can read it online. Use images, and be sure that the important info is at the beginning of your email. Finally, make sure you set realistic goals for your campaign. Let’s say you want to increase your customer base with email; just set a goal of 10% – 15% and you’ll enjoy success. Otherwise you may walk away disappointed.

Pay-per-click is in fact a highly targeted way to reach key prospects. Compared to traditional advertising, they are a great way to get you some targeted traffic. The problem comes in when you fail to think through where you’re sending people who click on your ads.

Most people who click on an ad are actually looking for something specific – usually what you’re offering – IF you did your homework with the right keywords and some great ad copy.

If that’s all you do, you’re destined to fail.

The worst thing you can do is send people to your website. Forget that. Forget anything except a well-planned landing page. In fact, you may want to put together several different landing pages that can talk to the people who clicked on your ad.

What you don’t want are “lookey-loos” – curiosity seekers who have no intention of really buying anything. What you do want are those folks who are seriously looking for what you have to offer.

Here’s the most important key: don’t try to sell a product or service on your landing page! Offer something for free: a seminar, webinar, white paper, tutorials – anything you can think of to offer those people who have come to your landing page. Make sure it’s FREE. Why? You really want people to learn something about what you’re selling. If they’re educated, they’ll make an intelligent decision about buying what you have to offer. But because you provided the information, they’ll feel a loyalty to you.

The second important key is to make sure you deliver that free information in a manner that lets you stay in touch with your prospect. Get their email address – that’s the best way to deliver your freebie. Because then you can go on to do an auto responder campaign to keep your dialogue going, increasing your chance of selling something.

This isn’t revolutionary – the fact is many people have been doing this for a long time now. What’s crazy is that there are still many people who don’t use landing pages and don’t capture email addresses. Those folks are just wasting their money. Don’t be one of them – and pay-per-click will be an effective campaign for you!

But while social media was and is generating tons and tons of press and talk on every network newscast, companies of every size are still asking whether or not “social media” is worth the money that they’re spending on it. They’re still asking if it really helps build sales and really does their company any good. These are the same questions they were asking five years ago!

Truth is, of course it helps build sales. Of course it does their company good. That’s “IF” they’re using social media as a marketing channel to communicate with their customers – and not using it to try to directly sell a product. It’s a big “if” – but if a company really wants to be successful with social media, that’s the way it is. Period. Done. NO exceptions.

Other CEOs and CFOs are asking, “show me results.” “Show me where my social media budget is helping grow the bottom line.” Well, there is a bunch of software that helps measure audience size, audience engagement and how their audience (which by the way is their customers and potential customers) is interacting with the content they’re putting out on the social media channels. Are they commenting on the posts the company is putting out? Are they clicking on links? Are they re-tweeting company updates?

If companies can see that all the time, energy and effort – not to mention money – that they’re putting into social media is helping to increase brand or product awareness, they’ll more readily accept the value of using social media.

For the company bean counters to ask whether or not social media is of any value, it’s really critical for them to remember that they need to have a single identity across each and every social media platform in order to be successful.

Here’s another point to make – a company can send out blog entries, tweets or Facebook updates about a product or sale, then put out a discount coupon code using Twitter. It’s the same message in every channel, and by pumping out discount codes on Twitter it ties the message together in a way that could have a direct impact on their bottom line. That ought to make those CEOs and CFOs smile.

Does social media really have any value? At this point in the evolution of social media marketing, do you really have to ask?

Ok, once and for all, here’s my reply: YES!

Currently there are over 24 million small businesses using social media in one way or another. There are probably millions more, but 24 million is the “counted” numbers at the moment – those businesses that in one way or another admit to using social media.

Let’s take a look at what they’re doing. First, they’re online. 70%+ have a website, and over 50% have a profile page. And for those who don’t currently have a website, almost 40% say they’re going to have one within the next 6 months. Why? Forget analog media like yellow pages and local newspapers. People are looking for you on the web. Period.

But don’t put all your eggs in the Internet basket. Why? There are 10 billion (yes, billion) smart phones predicted to be in use within the next 5 – 7 years. That’s 10 times the amount of PCs in use. That number is staggering – you will have the potential to connect with hundreds of millions of consumers through digitally driven phone calls. That is phenomenal!

And if you think it’s just numbers, think about this: 95% of people with smart phones admit to having looked up LOCAL information on their phon. Want some numbers?  Try this: 54% went to a website; 58% looked up a business on a map; 59% visited a business. And 61% called the business after looking them up. One look at those numbers can lead to just one conclusion: if you’re not using the social media tools available to you, may your business rest in peace.

What’s happening out there is a convergence of old and new: media, like yellow pages and newspaper are giving way to transactions, identified by clicks, calls and visits. Once a consumer has made contact with a business, there’s “engagement” – reviews, reminders, “likes” and on and on it goes.

Here’s what you need to do: you need to develop opportunities for consumers to rate and review your business. You need to have a system in place for customer reminders and updates, including email campaigns. You need to develop a social media retention strategy, just like you used to have an analog media retention strategy in place. You need to train your personnel to capture email addresses of customers. And you need to have a strong presence at the point of sale to offer customers a reason to provide their email address to you. Once you have that – you can implement all the strategies we’ve just discussed.

So, do you need a social media presence? The answer is unequivocally Y – E – S !

You want to use Facebook and LinkedIn connections? Want to tweet yourself to bigger profits? Ok, just forget about trying to get zillions of people following you or liking your Facebook page. What you really need is a core group of people who are loyal to your business – even if the numbers are small. Why? They’re the ones who will help spread the word about you – and won’t mysteriously go away after the first week.

We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: create valuable content or don’t create any at all. Add some value to what you say so your customers will pay attention. You’ll be surprised how it will snowball online because people start sharing the content you offer.

Forget about trying to offer everything to everyone! What you should be doing is to focus on the core values of what you have to offer. Claim a unique niche and own it as if you invented it. Position yourself as the expert in one key area. “If you say it, they will believe.”

Put your money where the market is. As in – dedicate more of your marketing money to social media and the Internet, and less to traditional media like television and print. More and more, people are spending ridiculous amounts of time online and away from their TV sets, so reach them where they’re paying attention. Create an online presence and keep telling customers to visit your website (and Facebook page, and follow you on Twitter, and see you on YouTube….and…)

I hate to say this, but you’ll need to use some localized marketing tactics like Groupon or Yelp to make it a lot easier for your customers to find current deals and reviews about your business. If they can’t find deals that you’re offering, they’ll look somewhere else.

Finally, be sure you include mobile marketing as part of your marketing plan. Everyone simply assumes you have a mobile presence, so don’t disappoint!

If all this makes you long for the days of a print ad and a radio commercial, maybe it’s time to hook up with a company that can bring you into the digital age and get you connected with your customers. Even more importantly, get you connected with your prospective customers!

What is content marketing? It goes by many other names – including private media, corporate media, corporate publishing and others. But it’s all about content – and in marketing, content is king.

Businesses are using content marketing to attract customers, retain customers and engage specific target audiences that may become customers over the long term. It’s a way of talking to your customers and prospective customers without “selling them.” It’s giving them relevant information and valuable information – that builds loyalty.

The truth is that companies are sending us info all the time. But too often it is neither relevant nor very valuable to the recipient. In other words, it’s useless.

If you’re marketing to business decision makers, for example, here’s an interesting statistic: 80% of business decision makers would rather get information about your company from a series of articles instead of an ad campaign. They’ll spend a lot of time with your information – a lot more time than they’ll spend reading an ad! And here’s the best part – those same business decision makers state they actually look forward to receiving information about a company when it comes in the form of content – as in articles, white papers and editorials, to name a few.

But don’t just think in terms of traditional channels for those articles and editorials. Content delivered via social media and via the Internet is equally, if not more important. More and more executives are walking around with their tablets, personal computers, smart phones and other devices, and that’s where they’re getting their content. Just look around a Starbucks and see what people are doing while drinking their double-shot Cappuccinos. They’re staring at screens of all sizes and downloading content. In fact, content downloading is almost as addicting as those $5 espresso drinks.

In the coming months, you have to make content king in your company’s marketing strategy, from what you deliver to customers and prospects to how you optimize your website. In fact, search engines are beginning to tap into social media signals more and more, so if your company isn’t generating online content on a variety of platforms, you may be out of luck.

Nobody is sure where content marketing is going, but there is one thing you can be sure of – it’s not going away.

Here’s why: the population in the U.S. is older than it was just 5 years ago. The demographics and preferences have shifted, and a lot of it is due to an older customer.  Most were born between 1946 and 1964. Here’s a number for you: every seven seconds another baby boomer turns 50! And over the next ten years, the boomers will grow by 25% – while every other age category remains stagnant. Wow!

The key of course is reaching these people. You have to reach this market in their geographic area. Online ads are a great way to reach these folks, and you can do some niche marketing and targeting to get to them. Another good tool is online video ads – they’re a lot less costly than network commercials, and the cost of producing these ads keeps dropping.

What are other marketers doing? Here’s some more numbers to consider: almost 90% of brands will be using text and multimedia messaging to reach their audience. And over a third of marketers will be spending 10% or more on advertising using smart phones!

But here’s something else you should consider: don’t’ target these baby boomers by their age; instead, target them by what they’re doing. This is a fluid audience, and as they age, they start to lead cyclical lives. For example, boomers in their 40’s and 50’s may go back to school. They could be divorced and remarried and starting a new family all over again. Focus on their lifestyles when you’re trying to reach them.

Another thing to remember is that the boomer audience is very loyal. They appreciate great service, and will gladly tell their friends when they’ve had a good buying experience (as well as a bad one!) This group has a lot of disposable income; and they like to refer their friends to businesses where they feel appreciated. They’re very receptive to direct mail, because they like to be told the whole story, and direct mail is one medium that can do just that.

Surprisingly, a lot of baby boomers have taken to Facebook and other social media venues. They spend a lot of time online connecting with people – and they also spend a lot of time online shopping! If you want to target these folks, you better have a good website and you’d better be using multiple ways to promote it so the boomers know where to go!

While there are as many different approaches to using Facebook as there are companies using it, there are some key points to consider when using Facebook to help promote your business.

First of all, make sure you let everyone know that you’re on Facebook! How? Just send out emails, notes, and any other ways to communicate that you have a Facebook page. And be sure to put the Facebook symbol on all of your advertising.

Be sure to schedule updates to get your Facebook community involved with your page. It may take a lot of time that you don’t have – but there are ways to do it on an automated basis. Just look up sites like Hootsuite or Ping.fm. How do you get people involved with your business? Ask questions, add posts, and send out tweets to invite people to your page.

Here are some other things that most businesses fail to consider. First, you must have constant exposure. Putting up a Facebook page is fine, but without the constant exposure, you’re just another business with a Facebook page. Use social media! Tweet relevant notices as often as practical. Post relevant YouTube videos, always with a mention of your Facebook page. Send out emails to your customer lists. Keep content related to your business, but if you have some useful information to share, people are always interested in finding out new or unique things.

Now that people are coming to your page – grab their attention. You can do this put putting out content on different social networks. There are thousands of them – just Google “social networks” and watch the lists that come up. You’ll probably find several dozen that relate to your business. Use them!

Last but not least, get others to share the content that’s on your page. Have them tweet and post your content on their websites with links to your Facebook page. If you’d like to take a lesson from Facebook, check out their posts on their Marketing and Marketing for Small and Medium Business pages. There are many “how-to” and success stories, even tips on how to use the “Like Button” to your advantage. The more you learn, the more successful you’ll be using Facebook as the cornerstone of your social media marketing program.

The fact is, Twitter can be a huge boost to your business. It’s a powerful marketing tool that lets you connect with your customers. One study shows over 60% of Fortune 500 companies are using Twitter. But things can get tricky. So where are the problems?

You need to have a clearly defined Twitter campaign. First, know what to tweet. Don’t tweet about something that has nothing to do with your business!  Have a specific audience in mind when you tweet; otherwise you’re simply wasting your time.

Make sure you have a well-conceived Twitter profile page. This is where you must make your message clear and concise. Take the time to set up a detailed profile page – don’t use the Twitter egg as your profile picture! Pop your business logo in instead.  Add a custom background to help you stand apart from the competition. And take the time to put in some info in the “bio” field!

Another mistake is either tweeting too little, or too often. Don’t overload your followers with incessant, irrelevant tweets. And don’t hide from them either – if you start tweeting, make sure you continue. Just space your tweets out so you’re not constantly bombarding your followers.

One thing you really should avoid is trying not to spam your customers. Listen to them, and what type of content they’d like to receive. It will help prevent you from spamming their Twitter accounts with garbage.

And speaking of listening to your customers, make sure you engage your followers with tweets that have some meaningful content. Don’t make everything a sales pitch. And since Twitter is one of the more active social media tactics, you need to monitor you’re account. There are tools to help, like Brand Monitor and others. Analyze the conversations. You just might learn that Twitter is not where you should be building your brand.

If you’re using social media marketing, Twitter should definitely be at the top of your list. It could be one of the best things to come along to help your business. Just remember the pitfalls and what to avoid, and you’ll be tweeting your way to success.

If you’re an advertiser, it’s time to go mobile!

You can’t ignore the statistics. 50% is a huge number. But reaching those folks isn’t exactly easy, considering you have text messaging, mobile app display ads, search ads, video – the list goes on and on. So here are some tips and suggestions on how to stay connected to your customers and potential customers.

Recognize the importance of text messaging. It’s low cost, easy to use and it’s the most common ways to communicate. 98% of all phones have text messaging capabilities right out of the box – no downloads or installation to worry about. Thanks to unlimited messaging plans from the carriers, text messaging beats out email and phone conversations.  As for using text messaging, well, consider this: 63% of all mobile subs in the U.S. used text messaging last year, and it’s going up.

But here’s the best reason to use it as an advertiser: 99% of all text messages are read within 3 minutes of receiving them. 99%!

Another option to consider is rich media. It offers more than text messaging, like video, sound and gaming, for example. Studies have shown that almost 33% of people pay attention to rich media ads, and 20%+ continuously viewing them. It takes more time and skill to create these ads, but it has a huge potential for attracting your customers.

You also better start planning a mobile website or app. If 50% of the people are going away from their computers, you’ll need a website that meets the needs of a mobile user. The jury is still out on whether to go web or app, but you’d better start planning on one or the other now.

Finally, there’s mobile video to put on your plate. While it doesn’t rank high up on the list of ways to target customers right now, it’s growing and many experts predict that it’s going to become a major force in the coming years. Stats show that currently just under 10% of mobile phone users are watching videos – and that is expected to double in the coming year! Now is the time to start thinking about new opportunities and options to use this growing tool to reach your customers with sound and visuals.

It’s an exciting time for advertisers. Just make sure you’re prepared to meet the challenges.

First of all, you have to understand your target audience. Once you know who your customers are, it’s a heck of a lot easier to market to them. I’m not talking demographics like age, gender and where they live. I’m talking about their persona. Like what do they do to earn a living? How many kids are in the house? And what’s keeping them up at night with worry? Know that, and you’ll begin to understand your customer.

Here’s one: find out who has influence over your target audience, and “influence the influencer!” You could host parties, seminars, and conferences – anything to forge a bond with the influencer. You’ll not only increase your credibility, you’ll also increase your likability. And that will lead to referrals.

Consider using fusion marketing. Find some top, non-competing businesses that are marketing to your target audience and form a partnership with them. You’ll be able to split some of the cost – and why pay 100% of the ad budget when you can get away with paying just 25%?

If you haven’t done so already, start giving back to the community. Donate your products or services to some key non-profit organizations, especially ones you personally like. It’s not only the right thing to do, it’ll end up paying you back 10 times over.

If you can find media who participates in barter, start using it. Many advertising outlets will trade for all or part of the ad costs if you have something of value to give them. And that even includes TV stations!

Finally, you can find out what your customer really wants and begin tailoring your marketing message. You can do this by doing some face-to-face surveying. But above all, don’t try to sell anything during this surveying. Just get the facts. This could be a great way to find out why your client really buys your product or service, and the reasons may not be what you think!

So, welcome to 2012! It’s a new year, the economy’s on the rebound, so don’t be the one who is left behind! Use the New Year as a new opportunity to increase your market share.

Without PR experience, how do you go about developing a PR plan? Here are some suggestions that should help get YOUR PR program off the ground.

As with all marketing, you start by defining who your target market is and focus on those people. Find out what your customers like to read, what type of music they listen to on the radio and what programs they like to watch. Once you have that information, find publications that your target audience will relate to. You can search the Internet to find pertinent publications in your business area.

Next, find out what reporters cover your particular business field or industry. Get their contact info from the publications and plan your strategy.

Now that you have the people to target with your PR, you need to determine what PR stories you can submit to those reporters. Using current trends or news stories, you need to develop story angles that that have a strong connection to your business.

Take a topical news story and spin it to relate to your business. If you’re a Relator, for example, and there’s a news story about an increase in foreclosures in your community, submit a story on how you have expertise in short sales and are willing to help people who are at risk of losing their homes.

Next, develop specific key points you want to share with each different reporter or media contact, points you’re ready to share in detail. Contact the reporters and “sell” your story, using the local angle and your willingness to help people in distress. This is just one example, but you can use it to determine how your specific area of expertise can be used to respond to a major news story.

Sending out releases and contacting reporters is just one area of PR. You have to put yourself out there in the community to get potential customers to know you and your business. Attend meetings, social events and presentations. Offer to be a speaker on various panels. Join the boards of community groups and non-profits. It’s all about exposure, and you need as much as you can get.

Finally, realize that public relations is a long-term proposition. It might take weeks or even months to start getting reporters to respond to your releases and your calls. But once they do, you’ll get the exposure you’re looking for.