Excellent finding from the Small Business Success Index. Social media adoption by small business doubled between 2008 and 2009, up to 24%. Topping their struggles, however, is a misunderstanding of the time needed to devote to these efforts. But, even with the struggles in mind, investment in social media is still their third-most-important upgrade they are looking to make over the next two years, behind only increased functionality and usability of their main website.

With this explosive growth in mind, it is vital to remember the importance of an overall strategy, a true understanding of your audience, and solid company guidelines for how your employees should interact on your behalf. In fact, according to a recent study by Manpower Inc., 75% of employers DO NOT have these engagement guidelines. Now that is a scary thought.

• Tavis Coburn for the BAFTAs http://ow.ly/1b2Lo #
• #Wegmans Cherry Hill #fail -Really, throwing out all prep foods at end of the day? Didn’t learn from #UndercoverBoss that you should donate? #
• Our next guest used to do Late Night, was f-d by the chin, and now is starring on Twitter. Let’s welcome #ConanOBrien .. http://ow.ly/1b3nL #
• Square Inc to intro its $1 Swiper #iPhone dongle for facilitating credit card transactions, w/ a 2.9% transaction fee http://ow.ly/1bnMp #
• A study from the Small Business Success Index at #socialmedia adoption for finding & retaining customers http://ow.ly/1bAgZ #
• comScore #trends show push towards tax and travel content. Time to rejuvenate those campaigns, dormant travel companies! http://ow.ly/1bAqj #
• #trends from Manhattan Research showing the importance of search for #healthcare campaigns http://ow.ly/1bAso #
• Becoming Market Leader: Finding and Beating the Competition – great article http://ow.ly/1bnS8 #
• Top 10 automotive sites for January 2010, c/o Marketing Charts http://ow.ly/1cBY2 #

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Marketing Charts recently released the top 10 automotive sites for January 2010. What does this tell you as a dealer? Listing and research sites are important, and Ford is doing something right. In fact, they are the only manufacturer to even be listed in the top 10.

One thing Ford does a nice job with is social media, innovative advertising, and a strong PR presence. They are also turning out some nice product, which always helps.

A promising thing about this list is the ability to leverage these sites for advertising: whether you’re a dealer looking to sell cars, a finance company looking to sell auto loans, or a customizer looking to sell services.

While content remains to be king, when I write I like to imagine a person standing over my shoulder, reading what I’m writing, and constantly saying “Who cares?”

It’s a fun and sometimes (usually) humbling practice.

While I could easily tie this to several client projects we’ve encountered, and my own long-windedness, I distinctly hear someone behind me with some words of advice.

The conversation about your brand is happening right now. Are you a part of it?

If you’re not there listening, you will not see how your brand is evolving (or devolving) until it is too late.

The importance of social media can not be stressed enough. It truly may be the killer marketing tool we have all been waiting for, now the trick is to put it to work.

Collaborate with us, and we will build a path to social media success. Through planning, strategy, creation, and monitoring, we will put a plan together that is right for you.

True Reactions Away From The Focus Groups
Contact us today to create a custom program for you

Why This Matters To You

The Fastest Growing Web Segment: While the transition from traditional media continues in full effect, social media is booming.

Leveraging social media isn’t just maintaining a stagnant Facebook Page. Social media is quickly becoming the future of customer service and public relations. Your fans are there talking about you, as are your detractors. Are you part of the conversation?

Pulse of the Community

Your Brand Is No Longer Your Own: Track what your biggest supporters and most avid detractors are saying about you, and engage in proactive customer service. You will also be able to glean invaluable knowledge away from the fears always associated with controlled focus group testing.

What We Do For You

MetaMedia:Solutions will help you:

Assess the situation
Map out your audience
Develop a strategy
Create tactics
Promote your efforts
Track its effectiveness

Inspire Loyalty In Your Customer Base

The umbrella covering social media, user generated content (UGC) is basically boiled down to user testimonial. This is an excellent low- or no-cost solution to having a third-party discuss your products and services. But how do you initiate this discussion, and guide it in the needed direction?

While not necessarily ideal for discussing detailed products specs or regulatory matters, UGC does have a lot of use as testimonial.

Loss of Message Control

The credibility of UGC is a tough one to wrestle with. The very fact that the users are not paid by you to provide the content is a double-edged sword. While their opinion may be trusted since they are seen as outside the company, the user’s background and motivations are never truly known.

Create Brand Advocates, Reward Your Community

But, it is a wonderful thing having an independent third party extol the virtues of your company. It’s similar to the opinion of a technician holding more influence than the polished speech of the sales force. The review is seen by many as more honest, with less spin. Basically, the power of a well-crafted testimonial.

Contact us today, and let us put in place communications programs that can help these interactions flourish organically, while being able to extract this useful information and how best to work with it.

… Let Us Help You Look Beyond Your Traditional Marketing Programs

From market research and customer service to public relations and paid media, Facebook is a powerful tool that may just offer it all. Population-wise, Facebook would be the world’s third-largest country, with 400MM active profiles. In fact, last month Facebook surpassed Yahoo! as the second-most popular sit ein the US.

Think about that for a minute, in the US alone, near-50% of all web users are on Facebook. Are you?

We are continually amazed by how many organizations gather extensive customer data and then do nothing with it. While we are not a fan of one-size-fits-all marketing plans, there really does seem to be an e-mail marketing need in every field.

Direct marketing really is becoming the 800-pound gorilla here. The Direct Marketing Association has released several studies showing the power of e-mail ROI, yet there are stil many organizations that do not see it as worthwhile, or see it as difficult to implement and manage, or do not view it as cost-effective.

Valued reader, if you unfortunately fall into any of those camps, please feel free to call us for a 100% free consultation. A quick chat about e-mail marketing, and how it can make your customers like you more. We have yet to have a customer who was disappointed with e-mail marketing.

Yes, there is a great need for these services. Unfortunately, many companies are still in the mind-set that online marketing at all is a small line-item, not a major pillar of a sales and marketing program.

The largest growing segments on the Web are anything with “social” attached to it. Anyone with Web access can now be perceived as an expert on your product, whether or not they deserve those credentials. On the other hand, many companies just try to wing it as far as SNM is concerned, instead of piecing together their own coherent web of influence, encompassing user-submitted reviews and videos, company/public discussions, and footprints where their current & potential customers are.

The largest hurdle in this, especially for organizations that grew up in the print media & trade show mind-set, is the educational aspect. This explains why it’s important, and why the market (and most likely their competitors) are moving this way.

Web marketing is a blast, and vital across markets. We haven’t run into a business that couldn’t benefit from strong search engine marketing (SEM) – pay per click and search engine optimization – e-mail marketing, and social media. A fun part of this that still seems to leave some marketers dizzy is SEO.

Background – In the matter of 1 week, we ran into two unrelated instances where supposed “SEO Experts” tried to drive fear into one small/mid-sized business and one arm of a huge multinational. One was an outright scam artist, and the other was a reputable digital media shop making gross exaggerations in hopes of stealing a traditional print (obviously not us) shop’s client.

Both situations were resolved without incident, thank goodness. But, it did shine a light that across there board there can still be some confusion regarding SEO.

Interesting article in WIRED magazine. Have you Googled your own name? You’d be amazed at what you can find.

Maybe better know by the term egosurfing, it is a great idea to occasionally check in on your personal search results. This helps you to clean up old resumes and work samples and really points you in the right direction for “cleaning house.”

A search for my name on Google brings up my profile on LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, FaceBook, and my blogs with direct links to various posts.

There are a few at the very bottom which  aren’t mine. They aren’t negative, so it isn’t that big of an issue, especially since I have the top 3 (Google’s Golden Triangle) and down past the fold (only 50% of readers venture past the fold), and the remainder are nothing to defame my good (and relatively rare) name.

This practice will become even more important as everything imaginable that your name is attached to is online, indexed, and cached for easy permanent searching. Especially with the (needed) push to properly index video clips, these searches will prove invaluable.

Egosurfing on Wikipedia.