It is essential to take an active part in your company’s social landscape. Create a social roadmap to success—align social with prioritized business objectives and strategy before all else. It’s marketing, not merely social media marketing, therefore, it is important to always integrate social into company values and culture.

So how can you make sure your social media is working for you? You want to connect your brand to consumers through conversation, advocacy and community.

1. Social Reach
It’s all about the friends, the followers and the connections. Social media is a community—get involved, don’t just sit on the sidelines. Share valuable content, and take advantage of automatic sharing tools. These make lives easier, and ultimately save time.

Right now you probably have an existing network, leverage that to build your reach. Do you have a company newsletter? This is the perfect place to rally new fans to like you on Facebook, follow you Twitter, connect on Linkedin and so forth.

2. Maximize Your Content
Create a content calendar as part of your social strategy. Know what’s trending, what your audience wants to hear. This will help keep them engaged, and sharing your content. You want to have a balance of social media links that you are sharing. This should include not only links to company landing pages and your blog, but also valuable third party links.

Leverage the use of slide share. Share slides in which you imbed your company’s URL, this will drive traffic back to your site.

3. Connect Conversations
Sharing links and getting involved in conversations is great. But social is ultimately a marketing tool, and it is crucial to your efforts and your company that you place call-to-actions everywhere. You want to drive your audience to take some sort of action—whether it’s polls, links or advertising.

These call-to-actions will also help you see what’s effective and ineffective. If you’re not seeing very much traction on a particular effort, this is the time to focus those efforts elsewhere.

At the end of the day, investing efforts in social media is not merely about buying leads. It’s a way to buy customers.

Quick jump: Article directories / Blog directories / Video optimization

Article directories. Re-publishing content on article sites, such a ezinearticles.com and ArticlesBase.com, can increase traffic referrals and Google Page Rank. In-bound links to a site indicates its value according to Google and figures the number and quality of links when determining a web pages Page Rank.  When re-publishing, try to create a different article so search engines will pick up the article on your site and the article directory. That means adjusting the title tag with different keywords (within the same keyword family), shifting content and rewording sentences. Also, shorten the article to around 400-500 words in length. If that means cutting several paragraphs, that’s fine — it will only further differentiate from the original article.

Once you have adjusted the verbage and article structure, it’s time to insert links. Typically, article databases will allow 2-3 links. Try to incorporate a link to the original article in the first paragraph and insert a link to your services or About page in the signature (where you say something about the company). Nearly all article directories have different link-building rules. For instance, Ezinearticles.com does not allow links “above the fold,” meaning in the first several paragraphs. So ensure you’re following their guidelines to get published.

Here are the top three article databases based on Google Page Rank and Alexis Rank:

• Suite101 (PR 7/10)
• Ezinearticles (PR 6/10)
• ArticlesBase (PR 6/10)

For a complete list of article databases, go here.

Blog directories. Unlike article repositories, blog directories house entire sites, not specific articles (necessarily). Therefore, a blog will submit its site once, unlike article repositories where you must submit individual articles. Although directories can drive traffic to your website, its primary benefit is to build link juice. The more directories you can post your blog to, the more in-bound links you have to your site — increasing the importance of your site to search engine crawlers. To monitor the number of in-bound links to your site, log into Google Webmasters.

Here are the top three blog directories to get you started:

• Technorati (owned by Google, PR 8/10)
• Blog Catalog (PR 4/10)
• Blog Universe (PR 3/10)

For a comprehensive list, go here.

Video optimization. Optimizing video is similar to optimizing blog content: it should be 1) engaging and 2) optimized with keywords. As YouTube (with 81.9 percent of total video embeds on the web) factors views, likes and dislikes, shares, comments and other indicators of engagement, the video must be interesting. We typically recommend 90 seconds in length but no more than 2 minutes. Try to increase the video’s visibility by embedding within several blog posts, in a static part of the site, such as the sidebar and push it to your social circles on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Secondly, the video title, description, tags and in-bound links should be optimized with keywords.

Here are the top three video sharing sites:

• YouTube
• Vimeo
• Daily Motion

To learn more about optimizing video content, browse this presentation:

The key to publishing economics is securing a critical mass of size, quality, and engagement of an audience that is built and served affordably. The bottom line: it’s easy to start an Internet publishing business, but difficult to scale. Ultimately, those publishers that can surpass a million monthly unqiues have a good opportunity to scale a profitable entity. Below the million audience threshold, you’ll need to decide how much capital to commit to growing your blog.

Internet Publishing Economics – Audience

• Large traditional publishers are finally reaching large audiences including the New York Times (32.5 million uniques), The Tribune (24.7 million uniques), USA Today (16.7 million uniques), and The Washington Post (16.7 million uniques) in May 2010 according to ComScore.
• On the smaller side, 1 million unique is typically seen as a critical milestone for aspiring publishers. Even smaller than that, it’s difficult to garner any advertiser attention at less than 200,000 to 400,000 monthly unique users.

Internet Publishing Economics – Revenue

• Internet publishers have traditionally received the bulk of their revenue (often 80% of total revenue) from advertising.
• For established Internet publishers, I have generally seen annual revenue per user of $2 to $5. Occasionally, for strong brands and special audiences, that has stretched towards $10. For less established Internet publishers, it might be difficult to get to $2 initially, especially if you rely on ad networks while you ramp up your user base and sales efforts.
• Typical CPMs (price per thousand ad impressions) are in the $8 to $10 range, skewing upwards to $20 for premium, targeted advertising opportunities, and all the way down to $1 to $2 for run-of-site ad network impressions that are un-targeted. There are always outliers, but this should serve as a good reference for typical publishers.

Bootstrapping a Startup

• Let’s say that you are leading an Internet publishing startup and your first milestone is to get to 200,000 monthly unique users. At this point, your annual revenue run-rate could be $400,000 if you are able to attract $2 in annual revenue per unique user. As a check, let’s assume that you are only able to secure an average CPM of $5 since you are in growth mode. Assuming 2 ads per page, that means that you’d need 40 million page views at 100% sell-out over the course of the full year. That’s 3.3 million page views per month or the equivalent of 16.7 page views per unique user. This compares to Gawker, Mashable, and MacRumors which are all closer to 8 – 10 page views per unique user per month.

Internet Publishing Economics – Expenses for an Early Stage Startup

• In the above scenario of achieving 200,000 monthly unique users, $400,000 in annual revenue is likely best-case (and don’t be surprised if you are closer to $100,000!). That doesn’t leave a lot of room for expenses. You will face the following tough choices …
• Content: You’ll want a high quantity of indexed pages to get spidered by search engines. But you’ll also need high quality and unique content to keep users coming back. Today, there are a surplus of great writers available, so choose your talent wisely and make the most of your limited budget. To make your content more scalable, build or license content databases and be sure to enable user generated content.
• Marketing: SEO and PR are the two most common marketing expenses for startup publishers. These are generally worthwhile and can be had for between $500 and $7,500 per month each. You get what you pay for and monthly expenses will likely set you back $3,000 per month range for each. Beyond this, you should secure resources to build your community profile and make sure your team is as active as possible in building relationships and partnerships. Have a side budget to market on high affinity sites. Depending on how aggressively you want to grow, you can also put aside a traffic marketing budget. Traffic referrals can be had as cheaply at $0.10 to $0.20 per referral if you search hard.
• Technology: Great content back-ends and web launch projects can range from thousands of dollars by plugging into WordPress or other similar tools, to hundreds of thousands of dollars. We know of several properties that were launched in the $10k to $50k range and would suggest this approach for bootstrapping.
• Staff: Startups are running lean this day. An entrepreneur recently told me that the goal in Internet world is to scale to over $1 million revenue per employee. You’ll need enough competencies in content development, marketing, business development, and site management to operate the site. Initially, we would suggest an employee count in the single digits until you start to scale the business. If you look at Gawker’s sites, they list their primary contributors. Even with audiences in the millions, they still keep a lean staff and leverage interns. If you have minimal funds, try to get your team to accept reduced salaries in exchange for equity upside.

Image by Andrew Beierle from Stock.Xchng

Blogging and microblogging are powerful digital marketing strategies to build consumer trust. Blogs build brand credibility with in-depth content while microblogging extends customer outreach through sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Through blogging and microblogging strategies, corporations can develop personalities, engage fans and lead communities in an effort to build trust with consumers.

There are three key steps in developing and implementing corporate blogging and social media microblogging campaigns:

1. Craft the Message
Effective bloggers have a distinct voice. Consider how the Gawker Media’s audacious, irreverent voice helped grow the company into a $300 million digital network. But how can you go about creating a distinct voice? A distinct brand voice and image is born from the brand’s culture and implemented through writing and images on blogs and / or microblogging sites. For instance, Mercedes is tapping into its cutting edge, innovative spirit by dialing-up sexy looks on Facebook. Part of Mercedes’ transition from a dusty, affluent traditional brand to cutting edge futuristic brand is through posting sexy images of its latest cars on Facebook.

2. Generating Content
Blogs are a go-to source for brand news and information. Ford, for instance, features the latest news about the company to keep fans updated. That news is then pushed to its social streams, such as Facebook and Twitter. Such a news stream enables Ford to address any concerns or issues immediately to quell rumors. For instance, Ford’s blog notes about a new board member, James Hence.

Corporations can also benefit by nominating several content producers within the company. Urban Outfitters, for instance, features blogs from nearly 30 cities in which the fashion retailer is located. Content producers from Antwerp to Mexico to Stockholm publish the latest, cutting edge culture trends, including humorous beer buckle belts from Austin and feather head dresses from Australia.

3. Monitor and Customer Outreach
Unlike “push” marketing of the TV / print / radio era, social media enables customers to pull. That means consumers can “pull” back to learn more about and engage with brands through social streams, such as blogging via WordPress, Facebook and Twitter. Social streams enable brands and customers to have a conversation, troubleshoot issues and entertain. That doesn’t mean writing a blog post, blasting to social streams and leaving it — further re-enforcing the faceless, uncaring corporate archetype. Building trust requires engaging consumers in a conversation. When a consumer praises you, a quick “thanks” takes only a second or if a customer has a complaint, address it — customer outreach can curb a potential “viral fallout.”

Dell troubleshoots consumers issues quite frequently and it’s not only strengthened existing customer relationships, the computer company’s Twitter accounts also generate referrals. Brand Republic reported, the Delloutlet account (@Delloutlet) has recently grown from 640,000 followers to 1,468,249. Over $1 million has been made from @Delloutlet referrals for their “certified refurbs, scratch and dent and previously ordered new Dell products.” Dell exemplifies how a corporation should behave in a Web 2.0 era, by reaching out to customers and caring about what they have to say. And as Dell illustrates, dialing-up customer outreach to humanize a brand can impact the bottom line.

Image by Walter Groesel from Stock.Xchng

We recently had a chance to speak with AnnaMaria Turano, a senior marketer and partner at MCAworks, more about how time and effort factors into consumers purchasing decisions. AnnaMaria is the co-author of Stopwatch Marketing. She is also an adjunct professor of marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business. Visit AnnaMaria at her blog.

What’s the book about?

Stopwatch Marketing focuses on the amount of time and effort that consumers go through to purchase products. Each shopping decision factors in the amount of time consumers want to spend shopping, whom they are shopping for, and the risk involved in the purchase.

Should marketers focus more on the time or effort factor?

The generic view of consumers states that everyone is cheap and demands a quick and convenient purchasing process. This is not necessarily true. The situation and consumer behavior are key factors in determining timing and effort. Consumers change demands based on what they’re buying, who they’re buying for, and when they need to start and stop shopping. The balance of time and energy and the trouble they want to put in is just as important as how much they want to spend.

One way to visualize the nature of consumption is through the Stopwatch Matrix:

The matrix is plotted on the axes of how much time/energy a consumer is inclined to spend on a purchase, and the net margin of that purchase. The four quadrants are divided by different types of consumer:

• Impatient – These consumers have fast ticking stopwatches – they require a quick decision. While their needs are urgent, they are by no means looking forward to the shopping process.
• Painstaking – These consumers have a slower ticking stopwatch – they rarely make purchases and have high anxiety about making a wrong decision. This is the toughest set of consumers to crack. So how did Tempur-Pedic, a retailer of high-end mattresses, pull it off? They built up to a purchasing decision through education, testimonials, and a 90 day satisfaction guarantee. They even sold sleeping aids, because they didn’t just sell a mattress – they sold a good night of sleep.
• Reluctant – These consumers don’t want to start shopping, since their personal needs haven’t materialized. Marketers must challenge that viewpoint. TD Bank recognized that most consumers stick to their bank, regardless of quality, since it’s simply too much of a hassle to shift their account around. TD ran advertisements on commuting routes displaying themselves as a conveniently located bank opened 7 days a week and at times when other banks were closed. When consumers experienced a new trigger in their lives (e.g. moving in to a new area, making them vulnerable to change), they couldn’t help but following through on making the switch to TD.
• Recreational – These consumers actually enjoy act of shopping, almost as much as the use of the product. By looking for reviews, talking to others about the product, and spending long periods of time shopping, they truly take their time. This is perhaps the most easily approachable group of consumers.

How have these ideas been applied to other companies?

When impatient shoppers show up at a tire dealer, they usually have no idea where to start. The only obvious differences lie in the prices and the shoppers are aware the dealer isn’t likely to recommend the set of tires with the best value. That’s where Goodyear Tires came in. AnnaMaria worked with the new products team to create the TripleTred set of tires. With clearly labeled treads capable of handling dry, wet, and snow-covered roads, Goodyear instantly conveyed their benefits versus the competition. The tires essentially “sold themselves” to customers in need of a replacement tire.

What are 3 points from the book that people can take and say “I could do something with it today”?

1. Identify the buying behavior of your consumers – not just their perceptions and behaviors in product usage.
2. Map out the touchpoints which are of greatest benefit to your consumers in terms of helping them shop according to how much time and energy they want to “spend.”
3. Reallocate your budget to align with those touchpoints which provide maximum value to your customers – and yourself!

Images from stopwatchmarketing.com

1. Acquire – http://www.acquiremag.com/
Men’s Style, Cars, Technology, and Gear.

2. Blavish - http://www.blavish.com/
Showcasing luxury items with family needs in mind.

3. Born Rich – http://www.bornrich.org/
“Bornrich’s sole aim is to help you spend all your hard-earned money on the snootiest thingamajig around.” Enough said.

4. BusinessWeek Luxury Lifestyle – http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/living_well/
Luxury goods from the financial world’s perspective.

5. CNN Money Lifestyle – http://money.cnn.com/lifestyle/
Luxury with CNN flair – big graphics, videos, and top 10 lists.

6. David Report – http://davidreport.com/blog/
Thoughts on the intersection of design, culture and business ideas.

7. Inside Lux – http://www.insidelux.com/
A luxury newswire spanning London, New York and Hong Kong.

8. JamesList – http://blog.jameslist.com/
Are you a fan of Top Gear? Visit this blog.

9. Janus Thinking – http://www.janusthinking.com/
Insights into the psychology and marketing of luxury.

10. Just Luxe – http://www.justluxe.com/
Content and objective analysis on 40 categories of luxury.

11. Let It Flow – http://www.letitflow.com/
Fashion, cars, entertainment and casinos.

12. LS:N Global – https://www.lsnglobal.com/
A consumer insight portal operated by Europe’s Future Laboratory.

13. Luxist – http://www.luxist.com/
Nominate your favorite items for the yearly Luxist Awards.

14. Luxuo – http://www.luxuo.com/
Luxury news, events, press releases and product announcements.

15. Luxury Culture – http://www.luxuryculture.com/
“It’s a philosophy. It’s a discipline. It’s a culture.”

16. Luxury Insider – http://www.luxury-insider.com/
A luxury magazine reporting from Asia.

17. Luxury Lifestyle – http://www.luxurylifestyle.com/
Calendars, articles, and a database of luxury business listings.

18. Luxury Link – http://www.luxurylink.com/
Luxury vacation packages for auction.

19. Luxury Portfolio – http://www.luxuryportfolio.com/blog/
Luxury property reports from across the US.

20. Luxury Real Estate – http://blog.luxuryrealestate.com/
Blog contributions from luxury real estate professionals.

21. Luxury Reviewer – http://www.luxuryreviewer.com/
The luxury division of Trendhunter.

22. Robb Report – http://www.robbreport.com/
The authority on global luxury. Cited by Kanye West and Jay-Z.

23. Vagablond – http://www.vagablond.com/
Fashionable travel, food and wine.

24. Worth – http://www.worth.com/
Wealth management advice and filtered news articles.

25. WSJ Wealth Report – http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/
The Wall Street journal blogs on the lives of the wealthy.

Did we leave out any well-deserving sites? Tell us the URL below!

Prior to Caffeine, Google’s search index was only updated every 30 days, with newer results stored in a cache for later use, instead of being fully indexed. News stories and blog updates, although updated and indexed much faster than normal searches, were still a bit delayed. For regular users relying on Google for the occasional personal search, this process didn’t have much of an impact on their results. But for heavy users demanding up-to-date results, the delay could be frustrating. Caffeine is bringing Google as close to real-time search as it can, with indexing done in seconds, rather than days or months. Users will literally see results that say “Updated seconds ago,” rather than hours ago. Because of this, results will not only be as recent as possible, but more relevant to the initial search as well.

Google has taken into account the rate at which Web content is produced, and responded efficiently with Caffeine. In a post announcing the new system on the Official Google Blog, Software Engineer Carrie Grimes wrote,

“Content on the web is blossoming. It’s growing not just in size and numbers but with the advent of video, images, news and real-time updates, the average webpage is richer and more complex. In addition, people’s expectations for search are higher than they used to be. Searchers want to find the latest relevant content and publishers expect to be found the instant they publish.”

What does this mean for Google users? Overall, content won’t get buried. Because Caffeine extends to every kind of Google search, breaking news stories, new blog posts, videos, and photos will stand an equal chance of being found by users, and Caffeine will make it easier for Google to find the content. Even better, users may have entirely new results with each search – a big plus if you’re following a hot news story, or an event happening across the country.

Users won’t see any physical changes on Google, but with Caffeine in full force, we should be seeing fresher and more relevant results right now, especially in services like News and Finance. A commenter on PCWorld wrote, “As a stock trader I have to have the news quick. I have found Google to be hours behind on a lot of news.” Now with Caffeine powering results, this delay is gone. With such a drastic change in results and delivery, Google may find an upswing in users of its most active news services thanks to Caffeine’s behind-the-scenes work.

Although Google has strengths in many areas of computing, there’s no doubt its true strength is in search. Combined with other search improvements like Stars, Personalized Search, and a commitment to continually improving a user’s search experience, Google ensures its place at the top.

Retailers like Tasti D-Lite are pairing their traditional loyalty card programs with a social media initiative that rewards visitors who Tweet about the brand. Also, when customers swipe their loyalty cards at the register, a branded Tweet goes out to their Twitterverse, creating a promotional win-win for the frozen yogurt company. Starbucks has a similar program that is being implemented with Foursquare. Each time a customer “checks in” at their local Starbucks, they earn points towards free drinks, food, and other rewards. Sounds cute, right? Or scary, for those of us who don’t really like to share.

There are plenty of other social media methods retailers are using to promote, sell, and engage their more traditional customers (read: privacy paranoids). The most interesting online retail sites these days provide a shopping experience that includes blogs, contest promotions, and links that immerse the shopper in the brand’s culture and introduce them to new products that may or may not be related to the primary brand. Although blogs aren’t technically a form of social media, they do elicit users to comment and share. And if they like what they’re reading, they’ll most likely visit the site again for updates.

Making shoppers feel special and creating online communities are both major aspects of social media marketing. As a lifestyle brand, a retailer like Urban Outfitters use their Facebook page and Tweets to not only keep their customers in the know about discounts and in-store events, but to promote community-oriented things like job opportunities, sharing behind-the-scenes secrets, and divulging music employees are currently listening to. Looking to be a indie-princess or a hipster that just walked out of Brooklyn? Fan the Urban Outfitters page and you’ll get all the insider info you need.

So what makes retail and social media a perfect pair? A few things: Where traditional methods of “push” promotion were seen as invasive–here’s looking at you spam email, social media campaigns engage customers through their own voluntary participation. Whether it’s thousands of users becoming Facebook fans of their favorite brand, or following their favorite stores on Twitter to catch the latest deals, social media is what it is: social. Buyers are involved because they want to be a part of whatever the retailer has to offer. And in this age of TiVo, spam filters, and pop-up ad blockers, this type of voluntary participation is what makes social media marketing invaluable. Instead of being x-ed out and deleted, social media makes brands worthy of being sought-out and repeatedly viewed.

Read the 2010 social media report:

As it stands, the basic Twitter Web client doesn’t offer much help for businesses. A “Contributors” feature was introduced last year, allowing certain accounts to grant access to multiple users, but that feature is still very limited. In order to utilize Twitter for business purposes, brands had to seek out third-party applications such as HootSuite – taking them away from the Twitter site. With Business Center, both of these problems are resolved. Once the service is widely available, more brands will have the option to add multiple users to their account, and they’ll be able to do everything right on Twitter.com.

Another positive feature of Business Center involves Twitter’s Verified Account program, which has previously been limited to individuals (usually those with celebrity status). Brands using Business Center will automatically have their account upgraded to “Verified,” letting the Twitterverse know that the account is the real deal. This is a big step forward, as fake accounts can be created by anyone, and an unsuspecting customer may end up following the wrong one.

The most exciting feature Business Center offers is the ability for “Open DMs,” or direct messages. Direct messages are private tweets between users, but the users must be mutual followers to communicate through DM. For brands, this limits the kind of interaction they can have with a customer. With Business Center, brand accounts can accept direct messages from their followers, and reply back immediately – without the hassle of following them back first. Brands can keep service issues private, resolve them quickly, and focus their public tweets on more positive messages.

There is one big question that has yet to be confirmed – how much will this cost? Twitter has not released any details regarding the cost for companies to utilize Business Center, or even if it will cost anything at all. It would be smart for Twitter to charge a small fee, because as Geek.com’s Christian Zibreg pointed out, “the money will pour in and Twitter will thrive” if it does. With added features and greater security, brands that haven’t already embraced Twitter would most likely start right away. Twitter could also use the ideas from Business Center and apply them to new features for upgraded individual accounts, where it could also charge for use and bring in even more revenue. Twitter’s Business Center will not only benefit brands, but will also ensure that Twitter holds its place in the social media sphere for years to come.

Feature image by cobrasoft from Stock.Xchng.

SXSW is a best-in-class example of community immersion: 1) understand users passion and 2) inspire through communications and experience. The red thread that ties SXSW’s music, film, gaming and entrepreneurship festival is undiscovered gems. Although there are over 2,000 artists playing in more than 80 venues around Austin, it’d be tough for your typical music, film or tech joe schmoe to pick out even a handful of artists or companies they recognize.

Like SXSW, Gawker has built a loyal following by connecting with a user mindset. Gawker, the most valuable blog network (valued at $300 million), targets specific psychographics. Specifically, Gawker appeals to the Beta people who thrive on the latest trends from technology to fashion to pop culture. These tech and fashion aficionados live for the latest Alexander McQueen or Gucci fashions, and were the first to get Droid. The blog network leverages its distinct, edgy editorial voice to speak to this audience mindset through multiple channels — from celebrity gossip to a sarcastic look at sports.

Understanding your user’s passion is the easy part. Activating that passion with unique experiences and inspired communications is the way to really stand out. In the case of South by Southwest, they are appealing to urban artists who embrace and express the diversity of their lives in creative ways. The SXSW iPhone app parallels the Creative Geek’s right-brain personality; its clean, Indie design (think hand-drawn robots) is in-line with other Creative Geek platforms, such as Tumblr, Wired and Boing Boing; SXSW’s tag line, “Tomorrow happens here” speaks to the audience’s forward thinking, spirit in music, film and business; its Facebook page has over 50,000 fans and features the festival’s “playlist” in the My LP33 FBML tab — not to mention SXSW typically overloads Twitter.

Successful lifestyle brands, such as SXSW and Gawker, speak not to age, sex or location (the world isn’t like the first chat rooms!); they engage a mindset with authentic personality. Both brands identify a community of users and engage them with memorable experiences across multiple channels: festivals, conferences, blogs, twitter. Gawker is the place for voyeuristic readers and SXSW is the place for Creative Geek fans.