Philip R. Odegard

If you are considering social media marketing for your business, remember to emphasize the “social” more so than the “marketing.”

Why? Because social media users seek genuine communication, not marketing spin. Nowhere is that more apparent than on social networking sites like Facebook. To make the most out of your efforts to market with social media, you’d do well to get some advice from a marketing firm or, at the very least, read a few tips on how to use these sites.

Using Facebook and Other Social Networking Sites for Marketing

According to O’Reilly Media, Facebook demographics have shifted. Once thought of as an online hangout for high school kids and university students, it is now increasingly the networking site of choice for older groups.

In January, 2009, O’Reilly released its 2009 Facebook Demographics and Statistics report. The fastest growing demographic on Facebook is users aged 35 to 54. The growth in this demographic is off the charts – 276% in the last 6 months of 2008.

Users aged 55 and over are also discovering Facebook. This demographic jumped by 194% in the same time period. The younger crowd is still there though. The number of 25 to 34-year-olds using Facebook doubles about every six months.

Clearly, there are abundant marketing opportunities here. But you need to know how to approach your audience right.

Social Media Marketing is All About the Soft Sell

To start marketing on Facebook, create page for your business. Once you have established this page, you can build a list of fans. Fans can follow your business and receive updates whenever you add something to your page. The key is to add information of value so people don’t feel they’re being given a hard sell.

Use notes to tell people about upcoming trade shows or conferences you will be attending. Use the mini-feed to keep people connected to your blog. You can talk about new and exciting things in your company, without sounding like you’re selling.

Keep it interesting with photos and video clips. Not only will you promote your company, you will give your business real personality, and allow visitors to see the people behind the company name.

Create a group if you really want to personalize your contact with users. People join groups with specific interests, and moderating a group can help you reach a specific audience. Keep in mind that the group is an entity unto itself, and not a page about your business so it needs to be handled accordingly. Messages sent to the group are delivered directly to member’s Inboxes, so ensure that what you are sharing is of real value to people.

Keeping Up with Social Media Marketing

Herein lies the real challenge with social media marketing – upkeep. You cannot let your page get stale. But between writing blog posts, moderating a group, managing RSS feeds and just keeping up with the communication you generate, social media marketing can be very labour-intensive.

If you need help planning or managing your social media marketing strategy, a training course or online marketing consultant can help.

And remember, you only have one chance to make a good first impression. If you don’t handle your social media marketing right from the beginning, you could end up doing more harm than good. Take the time to learn how to do it right, so you can reap the benefits for a long time to come.

If you are considering social media marketing for your business, remember to emphasize the “social” more so than the “marketing.”

Why? Because social media users seek genuine communication, not marketing spin. Nowhere is that more apparent than on social networking sites like Facebook. To make the most out of your efforts to market with social media, you’d do well to get some advice from a marketing firm or, at the very least, read a few tips on how to use these sites.

Using Facebook and Other Social Networking Sites for Marketing

According to O’Reilly Media, Facebook demographics have shifted. Once thought of as an online hangout for high school kids and university students, it is now increasingly the networking site of choice for older groups.

In January, 2009, O’Reilly released its 2009 Facebook Demographics and Statistics report. The fastest growing demographic on Facebook is users aged 35 to 54. The growth in this demographic is off the charts – 276% in the last 6 months of 2008.

Users aged 55 and over are also discovering Facebook. This demographic jumped by 194% in the same time period. The younger crowd is still there though. The number of 25 to 34-year-olds using Facebook doubles about every six months.

Clearly, there are abundant marketing opportunities here. But you need to know how to approach your audience right.

Social Media Marketing is All About the Soft Sell

To start marketing on Facebook, create page for your business. Once you have established this page, you can build a list of fans. Fans can follow your business and receive updates whenever you add something to your page. The key is to add information of value so people don’t feel they’re being given a hard sell.

Use notes to tell people about upcoming trade shows or conferences you will be attending. Use the mini-feed to keep people connected to your blog. You can talk about new and exciting things in your company, without sounding like you’re selling.

Keep it interesting with photos and video clips. Not only will you promote your company, you will give your business real personality, and allow visitors to see the people behind the company name.

Create a group if you really want to personalize your contact with users. People join groups with specific interests, and moderating a group can help you reach a specific audience. Keep in mind that the group is an entity unto itself, and not a page about your business so it needs to be handled accordingly. Messages sent to the group are delivered directly to member’s Inboxes, so ensure that what you are sharing is of real value to people.

Keeping Up with Social Media Marketing

Herein lies the real challenge with social media marketing – upkeep. You cannot let your page get stale. But between writing blog posts, moderating a group, managing RSS feeds and just keeping up with the communication you generate, social media marketing can be very labour-intensive.

If you need help planning or managing your social media marketing strategy, a training course or online marketing consultant can help.

And remember, you only have one chance to make a good first impression. If you don’t handle your social media marketing right from the beginning, you could end up doing more harm than good. Take the time to learn how to do it right, so you can reap the benefits for a long time to come.

The common thread of social media marketers is that they connect with the world, the people, and their surroundings. These people are connecting, communicating and reach out to others. Always sharing and giving news and ideas. The main interest is other people, always sharing and being active in the interest of others. To be successful in Social Media one must be active in it. Social Media marketers are communicators.

A good Social Media marketer knows the area. Look at it like a map. You must know the layout and the terrain. Understand the products, the people you are reaching out to, understand the industry you are promoting. An expert Social Media marketer must understand the Internet as if they are a member of the community and they know, understand and gain the trust of that community. You will fail if you do not have the working knowledge of customers, markets, and the complete picture of the company’s product. Knowing the Internet, using it most effectively and being able to distribute the information is very important.

Proficiency in the various social web community is the main goal of  a good Social Media marketer. One that connects, an information resource at the same time being very trustful and an active participant, a conversationalist in the social media community.

Ideally, a Social Media marketer, not really “marketer”, is a person with many qualities, Web Marketer, Customer Service and PR combined with genuine enthusiasm, trustfulness (listening, speaking, a conversationalists).

Do not let all of the tools, peer pressures, and work get in the way of the big picture, our morals and knowledge that develop significant and gratifying associations. As an expert in Social Media, we must have the ability to conclude which networks are pertinent to the product/service we represent. And why, how and when to fit into place.

The conclusion, those who find the most success in the social media marketing territory are those who are seriously networked and make certain that continue constant associations is part of their everyday routine.

Business management refers to one’s ability to manage a business effectively and efficiently while retaining profitability. But what does that mean? Anyone can ‘manage’ a business, right?

But do we really know how to manage a business? And if we do, what does that entail? Do you just run around your company telling people what to do or run to the bank and make deposits at the end of the each week? Is that business management?

If that is all it takes to run a business, why isn’t everyone a business owner? If managing a business is so easy, why are there consultants? Simple answer: business management is more daunting a task than we may think.

I have always said that no matter how large or small a company is, it is an overwhelming task to manage the everyday issues. We could all use a little bit of help.

Traditional business management, which is what I have studied and is the methodology I use when discussing business issues with clients, takes into account all aspects of running a business, large or small.

Whether it is a million-dollar company or a billion-dollar company, all companies run the same.

Traditional business management is pretty much self-explanatory; it is managing business through traditional methods that have been used for many years.

Those traditional methods incorporate three aspects: sales and marketing strategies, efficient operation and productions methods, and finance and accounting (SG&A). I believe all business owners should have some understanding of these areas of business and try to manage them as best they can. Most large companies focus on these areas in that they have the resources to pay employees who specialize in these particular areas.

For example, consider some of the largest companies in the United States like Home Depot, Starbucks and Dell. These companies require precise and expert management of their business operations at all times while maintaining a positive financial position for investors. These businesses pay full-time employees to function in the company in particular capacities.

When we look at small businesses in the United States, we have to ask, “Do small businesses have the financial resources to pay for similar resources such as a chief financial officer, or a qualified VP of Sales”? Quick answer: no! Actually, no is the only answer.

When we look at larger companies and how they manage their sales and marketing efforts, we find that larger companies have the financial resources to hire employees on a full-time basis who are experts in sales and marketing.

We can say the same for the third aspect of traditional business management, operations and productions. Once again, large businesses have the revenue available to have full-time positions for a general manager, a production manager, and sometimes, a Vice-President of Operations.

Again, small businesses rarely have the opportunity to pay experts full-time salaries, which could cost a business thousands of dollars annually.

So, now we know that traditional business requires the expertise of individuals in particular areas, such as finance, marketing, sales, production, operations, and management.

As a small business owner, can you pay the full-time wages of each of these employees? Do you have to hire all these employees in order for you to spend less time in the office worrying about business issues?

I have seen many million-dollar companies and I have seen a few billion-dollar companies; the only difference is that one pays for expert full-time employees and the other doesn’t. Obviously, the larger companies have the money to pay for expert employees, and small businesses don’t.

So how does the small business owner learn the basics of business management without paying for an MBA or spending thousands of dollars in annual salaries for experts?

Recently traditional business management had to make room for a new aspect of business: technology.

Through the years traditional business management has had to marry its strategies with the proliferation of technology where every business owner from Starbuck’s to Jim’s Auto has had to incorporate technology into its everyday operations.

The problem is that business believed that technology was going to be the solution for every problem, but it wasn’t until recently that business management thinkers realized that technology will fail if it is not implemented properly. That is, traditional business management must seamlessly marry itself with technology.

So, now you have this traditional business model to think of, and you also have to think that the model has incorporated technology. You see, managing a business is not as easy as it sounds. When you look at this business model I know for sure that you have never looked at your business in this way before. Believe it or not, graduate schools teach this stuff and larger companies obviously have the money to pay someone to think of this stuff, but what about the small business owner?

Small business owners do not have the financial resources to pay for this thinking and consulting companies for some reason; do not necessarily speak to the small business owner. Why not? Most consulting companies are always looking to fry the “big fish”, the 1% of businesses in the United States that can afford the phenomenal fees they charge.

Larger consulting companies do not have the time or the desire to speak to small businesses, nor will they change their fees which range over $400.00 per hour.

One of the comments I hear often in small businesses is, “Great idea, I wish I could get my people to do that, but I can’t expect them to change their ways.” I say, “You’d better get them to change their ways or you could be out of a job”!

Oddly enough, small business owners are reluctant if not skeptical in getting help for their business. To this day, I have yet to figure that one out. Why don’t small business owners look for help?

I firmly believe that business is business regardless of the size of the company, the annual revenues, or the number of employees. Keep in mind that the largest businesses in the world were once small businesses and today they are worth a great deal of money. All businesses “managed” their way to the top, regardless of the industry.

I have seen numerous multi-million dollar businesses in every industry, to include contractors, restaurants, service companies, and manufacturing companies. And I have also worked for companies that are worth billions and billions of dollars. They all have one thing in common: They all run the same some just have more revenue than the other.

I have always said that no matter what you produce to sell, HOW you produce it is what is of paramount importance to the growth of your business.

Your business is not too small or too large for a review of its current business processes. I have not met a business owner, a president or CEO of a company who can tell me that their business is running so smoothly that they don’t need to change. That is simply not true.

The natural stirring of the U.S. economy is what causes the need for change in all businesses of all sizes and I guarantee that if you are not constantly rethinking your business strategies, your competition is.

Can you say that your business is flexible enough to manage your competition and stay ahead of the curve, or that your business can handle the daily economic fluctuations in the U.S.?

Ask yourself some of the following questions.

1.Have your total revenues gone up or down from last year?

2.Has your profitability gone up or down from last year?

3.Where is the next dollar coming from?

4.Are you tired of going to work?

5.Do you have adequate inventory levels?

6.How many employees report to you on a daily basis?

7.Do your employees actually do what you ask and expect of them?

8.Do you have a management team in place?

9.Is there business expenses you wish you didn’t have?

10.Does every employee in your company have a specific job function that justifies their labor burden?

11.Do you remember when owning your business was fun for you and your family?

12.Do you believe your company operates as smoothly and efficiently as it could?

13.Do you have a long-range plan?

14.Do your employees share your vision of the business?

15.Who do your employees go to when there is a problem?

16.If you actually met me, would you be able to tell me that your business doesn’t need to change, or that it is truly profitable?

If you are ready to move your business forward, get some help. Believe it not, the success of your business is important to this great Nation.

SMM) and (SMO) are two new catch phrases that have appeared across web marketing sites over the last year. These seemingly interchangeable terms are used to define marketing through social media and social networking sites. However there appears to be much confusion over the precise meaning and as a result, the exact definition of these terms. The problem in making a distinction appears to be a result of confusion with viewing them as two different emerging marketing techniques.

Social Media Optimisation

Social media optimisation is the process of refining a website i.e. optimising it, so that brand/site awareness and content are spread with little effort through social media and online communities. Rather than a banner ad or search ranking, users and visitors of the website act as carriers. Optimising can thus include any on-page techniques used such as improvements to the design and usability of the website which would help it become more compelling to users. This makes it more likely for them spread it through social media sites. A simple example of SMO is represented by adding social bookmarking links like “digg this”, “add to delicious” or “stumble upon” that are all over the web today.

Social Media Marketing

SMM in contrast, is representative of a creative perspective on marketing over social networking websites. It refers to crating and then distributing content and similar messages through the social web network using some form of viral marketing. The “viral marketing” content specified here could be a funny blog post that gets bookmarked and possibly makes its way to digg’s homepage or spreading a viral video by placing it on YouTube and other social media websites. The main difference is that the work here is off-site and involves engaging your potential customer base on territory familiar to them.

To a certain extent, the two terms can be contrasted similar to push and pull marketing. With SMM, advertisers push their message out into the social media. However, once out there the message should not require any more pushing. A true viral marketing campaign must generate its own momentum so that it spreads on its own, creates a buzz and people actually want to spread it. Thus with SMM the campaign starts with creation and ends shortly with planting of this campaign. SMO, on the other hand, focuses on pulling people in with an “optimised” site. Visitors are then expected to spread content present with minimal effort on your part. SMO is at some levels a second stage of the SMM process.

These two new phenomena cannot be ignored in the web marketing world. SEO firms are now looking to social media with more intensity to provide the added exposure for their marketing campaigns.

The use of social media encompasses a broad range of online media types. While some might only think of a social network like MySpace there are actually several social media formats that contain significant marketing potential for online business.

While others may think you are simply enjoying the multiple aspects of social networking, the truth of your interest may likely be tinged with a business focus.

What that doesn’t mean is that you post simply to leave a traceable link back to your business website. Those who visit any social media site see through posts that are overtly geared toward marketing. In many cases social media consumers view this as spam even if the social network owners do not. In the end, you can lose credibility of you don’t work as a meaningful contributor in a social media environment.

Social media can be presented in many different forms. Let’s take a peak at a few of them.

YouTube and other similar video sites – These videos can be funny, serious, off the cuff and sometimes political in nature. You can show your business in a humorous light and allow individuals to be curious about you and your business.

MySpace and other social networks – This form of social media is popular because it draws together multiple elements of social marketing and makes them accessible to the masses of individuals that may view social networking as an online version of reality television.

Blogs – This is a form of social media if only because it does allow interactive exchanges between the blogger and the reader.

Forums – This can allow you to have an individual voice willing to discuss topics of interest to the majority. As with all social media you can provide a link to your site. If you are viewed as a trusted source you will likely find forum members following you to your site to learn more.

Podcasting – This is an audio stream that can allow a visitor to hear a personal message from you. This can have a pronounced impact in social marketing.

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it does provide something for you to consider as an addition to other marketing strategies you may have in place. Social media allows you to take your message to the people and have fun while you share your message.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to be real. The entire Internet community has a low tolerance for supposed spam so make sure you don’t use social media as simply another form of online advertising.

“With the continuing explosive growth of e-commerce, small- and medium-sized businesses that are able to reap actionable information from a rich online platform are uniquely positioned to compete in the online marketplace,” says Michael Emaus, President and CEO of eEnterprise (www.eEnterprise.com), a global integrator of NetSuite, the world’s leading on-demand, Web-based business management software. “Today, e-commerce demands sophistication, in terms of the online shopping experience, which products are presented to customers, and how sales are tracked.”

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, e-commerce sales rose to $25.2 billion during the first quarter of 2006, an increase of more than 25 percent over sales during the first quarter of 2005. Adjusted for seasonal variations, the first quarter 2006 growth of e-commerce over fourth quarter 2005 was more than double that of retail sales overall.

“Although online sales currently represent only about three percent of all retail sales, that number is sure to climb,” says Emaus. “It’s crucial that online retailers position themselves to take advantage of this trend. NetSuite business management software integrates a flexible e-commerce platform with the critical, real-time information e-tailers need to make sound decisions.”

With NetSuite, online retailers can easily increase sales by automating up-sell and cross-sell recommendations on the shopping cart page, as well as by allowing customers to purchase and use gift certificates and coupons online. “Because accounting is integrated into NetSuite’s e-commerce solution, a customer can shop with a gift certificate any number of times, until the balance is used,” says Emaus. “An e-tailer can even offer downloads for purchase, using NetSuite’s ability for password protection and license codes.”

Behind the scenes, NetSuite gives a business owner or marketing team real-time, actionable information that they can leverage to increase their exposure to potential customers. “Instead of simply seeing which paid keyword campaigns are driving traffic to the site, an online retailer can see which campaigns are generating the most sales revenue, and make adjustments as necessary,” says Emaus.

The same holds true for inventory management, since NetSuite allows just-in-time restocking by dynamically calculating reorders based on seasonal demand or historical sales data. “Successful e-tailers don’t have inventory sitting around, nor are they caught with an item out of stock,” says Emaus.

He continues, “NetSuite removes the limits imposed by a traditional Web architecture and provides the online retailer with a marketing powerhouse. Small- and medium-sized businesses simply don’t have the resources to support the in-house staff necessary to design and maintain the e-commerce solution that NetSuite provides. Best of all, NetSuite is a Web-based application that can ‘turn on’ fully supported global resources in about five minutes.”

With the growth of online sales clearly outpacing traditional retail sales, NetSuite helps small- and medium-sized businesses level the playing field.

Social media optimization is nothing but diverse ways that are adopted to make an online site easily accessible to internet visitors and internet users. In this fast paced age people want information at extraordinary speed and in this case the faster and the earlier visitors can get information by accessing your site, the more popular you and your online site becomes in the World Wide Web. Social media optimization also works somewhat like search engine optimization but the only differences between the two are the techniques and the methods that each one follows to optimize a site.

There are several ways that can be implemented to go in for social media optimization and if you want to optimize your online site, social media optimization is the best solution. The basic idea behind optimizing an online business site through social media optimization is to optimize it in such a manner so the site is linked to other sites that are more visible in the social media search category. While opting for social media optimization, you must keep in mind that each business has different needs and requirements. This demands you to know your business requirements. Your business can become a success story only if you are fully aware of your business requirements. Apart from increasing links of your websites, you can even go in for exchanging your link with other related websites. Exchanging links is another criteria that social media optimization abides to.

Social media optimization ideally means promoting about something on all the social media platforms. Becoming famous in today’s competitive world is not an easy task. There are many things that need to be done to get famous and this also implements to any online site that wants to become famous on the web. Social media optimization caters to the needs of any online business who wants to get known in the internet circle. One of the best possible ways of undergoing a successful social media optimization process is to let the content of the website flow freely to webmasters who can easily help you and your site gain recognition. If your website has a great content you must make sure that your content can be easily accessed by people. Living up to the criterion of social media optimization, webmasters make sure that any good content gets accessed by different people through different platforms in the web. This means that you will need to constantly write articles and blogs for your website and make sure that they are well distributed among various links and websites.

With the advent in technologies, people want to try out new things and in this scenario social media optimization has become a very in thing that has not only helped online sites gain popularity but has once again proved that the world is progressing towards a new and a better world.

The most recent phenomenon to hit the Internet Marketing scene in recent years is another form of Internet Marketing in its own right called Social Media Marketing. While Social Media Marketing has the capability to drive hordes of targeted traffic to your website there are still some pitfalls involved which you should try to avoid, at all costs, if you want to be successful with your Social Media Marketing campaign.

First of all one of the major targets of Social Media Marketers are the social media websites themselves, for example, MySpace and Facebook. In order to target and market to these sites you have to join and attract friends to your profile page. The first thing to avoid after joining is becoming involved with any of the software available which allows you to send mass invitations to certain groups you may have targeted inviting them to be your friends.

Everyone in the group receives a generic message inviting them to be your friend. If the site owner or webmaster discovers you are using this software you could be banned for life or, at the very least, have your membership suspended for a period of time. This can result in giving you a bad reputation within this community and make it very difficult to build any type of trusting relationship you need to establish for your future marketing activities on this site.

Another pitfall to be avoided is related somewhat to the first demonstrating how any type of news, good or bad, travels fast within these social media networks. When you approach your Social Media Marketing campaign and any of these social media websites you have to do so with the right attitude. By saying this I mean you have to be open and honest about your intentions. You have to be Transparent.

If you try to deceive any of your social networks it will usually come back to haunt you which can, again, result in a tarnished if not trashed reputation within these internet communities. A wise Internet Marketer once told me, when it comes to Internet Marketing the more you give, the more you receive. This brings us to a third pitfall which, if not avoided, can stall your Social Media Marketing campaign as if it were mired in quicksand. And this is, always be available and eager to offer help and advice.

But don’t offer advice if it’s not requested. If you are available to answer a Blog or forum question for someone who is stuck in a particular situation and needs help then by all means try to help. This will pay big dividends later on when needed because your reputation will precede you which, in this case, will be a good thing.

A fourth and final pitfall has to do with knowing who you are approaching. In other words you wouldn’t take a trip to Singapore without doing a little preparation and study about the culture and practices of these particular people. You should take the same approach when planning your social media campaign. If you’re approaching communities such as Facebook or MySpace, learn the proper etiquette and above all try not to offend anyone.

Especially try not to offend anyone who wields any kind of influence or power over the other members of the community. This too can result in a quick death for your Social Media Marketing campaign. If you approach your promotion with these four pitfalls in mind and put in the necessary planning and preparation as you would with any marketing campaign then you will be much more likely to encounter success with your social media strategy.

This article teach you how to benefit in the management of the business using your presentation skills.

Before the presentation:

Knowledge of the characteristics of the offeree the most important factors to the success of the presentation, they lead you to determine the style and language to be used, and will it be: Official or friendly. Professional, technical or slang. General information or specialized. Total or in detail

During the presentation:

• Be sure to follow listeners by your eyes fair and balanced.
• Noted the actions of the present and careful interpretation of physical expressions of the audience.
• Understanding of the situation and conditions of the audience: air, as food, stress after the working day, come from travel, and others.

Elements of the presentation:

• Introduction
• Content
• Conclusion

A-Introduction:

Designed to pave the audience and informing them about the elements of the subject.
A good Introduction made clear to the listeners the nature of the subject matter, showing them what to expect from the presentation, and the expectation of the speaker from them.

Elements of the introduction:

• Extended greetings to the audience
• Introduce yourself
• Substance of the presentation (the title)
• Time of the introduction

Content of the introduction:

• Reference to what should not be expected from the presentation
• Reference to training aids, material science, literature ,….. And other

characteristics of successful introduction:

successful Introduction must lead to:

• Attract the attention of listeners
• Break the barriers and melting the ice between the speaker and listeners
• Make listeners feel the importance of the presentation subject
• Make listeners feel of their need to information provided
• Reduction of excess expectations of listeners
• Suspense to engage listeners on presentation.

how to start an Introduction:

There are many models of good beginning, including:

• The issue of Introduction: will speak at the next hour….
• Communication with the audience: I know that the weather today is hot and you are exhausted from traveling.
• A short story related to the subject of the presentation.
• An interesting information
• an interesting question: : How much of you need a good solution for business management?
• Explain the problem and then begin to put alternatives to solutions.

B-Content:

Is the central part and most of the presentation, which aim to:

• Retain the attention of viewers.
• Help them to follow up the ideas raised.
• Directed towards findings the results.

characteristics of successful Content:

To achieve the goals:

• Is planning to build or structure of the subject the way in which to convince the audience.
• Divides the content to points (Headlines) primary and secondary clear and logical sequence.
• Be used to clarify the means of a simple and expressive.
• Use appropriate language structures to link the transition between the parts of the presentation.

Building structure of Content:

There are several methods for dividing the content of the presentation, including:

• The division of time: past, present and future.
• Factional division: finance, human resources, production.
• Comparative division: the old system, the proposed system.
• division of alternatives: the first alternative, the second alternative, the third alternative.
• Division of gradual (upward or downward:)one of the most important factor, followed by …
• Network division: individual, institution, society.

Wait for my next article Business Management and Presentation Skills part 2 about Management in Business.