A first look at Friends With Benefits: A Social Media Marketing Handbook

Just before Christmas, I was delighted to receive a copy of this book, produced by No Starch Press, as part of a drawing on Facebook run by Boxcar Marketing.

I’ve already delved into what looks like will be a fantastic resource for social media marketing, and although I typically read books the old-fashioned way, by starting with chapter one, this time I couldn’t resist flipping through and just stopping to read whatever caught my eye. 

The table of contents is rich with promising tips and guides.  For the beginner social media marketer, this book should prove to be fantastically helpful.  And although I’m no newbie into the forays of social media, I know it will also be very beneficial for me, as I work to help my clients—mainly small businesses and organizations—begin & maintain social media campaigns and also continue marketing my web design business. 

One thing I noticed right off the bat, was the way the authors intorduce the reader to social media  and how it kind of all started.  For someone who’s been online since 1998, I know that things have come a long way since the old chat rooms and usenet boards of the pre-dot.com boom.  For those who haven’t been online as long as I have (dinosaur alert!), this will be a very interesting part to read.

As a fairly active participant in social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and a formerly more active MySpace user, I’ve seen and done a lot.  I have used LinkedIn to help people find jobs and connect small business owners with prospective leads and other networkers.  I had successfully created and managed a Facebook Group and Fan Page for a prominent member of an organization as part of a political campaign, and have used Twitter to meet some really fun people with common interests and tons of resources.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with all the social media I have my fingers dipped into over the past few years, and have the urge to want to “start over” with a fresh, clean slate—and by starting over, doing things the right way—or at least with some measurable goals in mind.  This book will most likely help me to grasp some of the important fundamentals of what social media marketing is really about, what it’s supposed to do, what to expect, and how to measure results/data.

I am still reading this, and every time I finish a page or two, I’m inspired to want to “start over” in many ways.

When I finish this book, I will provide a complete review, and perhaps some of things I started doing as a result.  I’m very excited to read it!

(and more)

Stompernet’s web spy tool has been promoted left and right on the web since earlier this summer. In case you haven’t checked it out yet, it allows you to access a report not only on your own website, but the websites of your competitors.

I checked into it recently. There doesn’t seem to be too much that’s unique about the reports they generate for your site, in comparing to other tools, but it may prove useful tool for those who need help walking through how search engines see your site and how your competition fares, SEO-wise.

I found a video on YouTube which was put up by a man who used the Stompernet Site Seer tool and reported his experience.

I have use similar tools in the past, successfully.  They are:

Web CEO
http://www.webceo.com

Silktide Sitescore
http://www.silktide.com

Silktide’s sitescore product is based out of the UK, so more…

I’ve been researching lately, how I can  amp up my Facebook business presence.  So a few months ago, I set up a Facebook Page (or Fan page, as they are often called).  Very different from a Facebook profile.

First, a little background on Facebook Pages. more…

Maybe even more refreshing than soda.

Case in point:

At an online business networking group I belong to, someone posted a comment about Jones Soda Co. doing a promotion where you can send them your photos to be placed on their soda bottles and even on the case packaging.

This fellow member also commented on the fact that he recently discovered the soda on product shelves at his local store and never heard of them before.  This surprised me.  But I digress… more…

So you have a web site.  And it’s great.  It’s getting you some exposure, and perhaps even good traffic leading to sales.  But just having a web site is not enough!  In beefing your marketing efforts arsenal, you must also consider web site statistics (stats) and what they mean.

Some folks think that a site counter/hit counter is all they need, to tell them what they want to know about their web site’s traffic.  They couldn’t be more wrong!  A counter not only gives inaccurate data, (usually counts each page visit–regardless of whether it’s the same person visiting more than once) but a simple web site counter does not tell you the real info you need to know.

You invariably need to know the following, to really understand your website traffic and stats: more…

So you have a business.  First things first!  Do you know your target audience? OK.  Now, do you know who your IDEAL client or customer is?  You most likely have a pretty good idea.  You probably think about it all the time, “Oh, I just wish THIS KIND of customer would call me up and by my product/hire me/book me!”

Have you come up with your company slogan yet?  This is different than a logo or long mission statement.  This is a quick, pity, easy-to-remember or understand line about your company and what it does best, wrapped up in a few words.

As for my own business, I haven’t really had many successful taglines/mantras to speak of.

But when I started out with my first website in 2000, more…