Lately we have been receiving a lot of requests for in-house social media marketing trainings.  Clients are requesting that we come on site to assist them in developing a social media marketing campaign strategy.

The downturn in the economy has really hit small businesses and they are looking for new ways to find and retain customers.  Social Media and Social Networks are a great avenue for finding new customers and maintaining the relationship with your existing customer base.

We are always working to provide new white papers, case studies and operations manuals for social media marketing campaigns in many different industries and conversations.  These materials assist small business owners who may not be able to afford a full-blown social media marketing campaign.

Social Media Squad has been assisting businesses and organizations on-site with the following:

• On-Site social media marketing strategy needs assessment and development
• Social media marketing campaign setup, oversight process, and reporting / metrics
• In-House social media marketing campaign training and monitoring
• Custom social media marketing materials development

This new in-house social media program is really helping businesses cut cost and realize a social media marketing campaign for their business.   They are able to utilize existing staff and resources as well as outside professional social media marketing resources to achieve their online goals.

Stay tuned for more blog posts, white papers, and programs on in-house social media marketing campaigns.

While some have argued that the internet isolates us, internet users know it has a remarkable ability to bring us together. Through forums, blogs, and other social sites, it’s possible to connect with thousands of people all around the world who share your particular interest. However, when that many people are brought together it’s inevitable some tensions will develop.

In a group that large, there will no doubt be a great mix of characters and personalities, including those who are highly sensitive and those who are highly insensitive. The laws of the internet dictate that these two types of people will find each other, even be drawn to one another, and tensions will erupt.

After spending time on social sites, I realized that the rudeness, angry volleys (sometimes called “flames”) and general jumpiness was far too widespread to be coming from simple misunderstandings between people on different ends of the sensitivity spectrum.
We’re all pretty well aware of road rage by now, and it got me to thinking if the web-rudeness I was experiencing was linked to this kind of anonymity-driven hostility on the road.

I quickly found that web rage is a documented phenomenon which stems from something called “online disinhibition effect.”  The online disinhibition effect means that posts turn to nasty flames because the writer is unable to gauge the target’s response, or in many cases decipher the true motive in the first place. In real life, we “read” someone according to their body language, tone, pitch, all the things that are impossible to decipher online. In fact, in real life words account for only 7% of our communication.

It took millions of years for humans to develop our complex communication techniques, so it makes sense that when you take away 93% of what we use to get our message across, the messages often get lost or misinterpreted. Whether behind the wheel or behind the screen, we need to find ways to adapt to help our desired messages get through without causing more harm than good.

Some tips to combat web rage:

• To cut down on misunderstandings, use smileys or emoticons to give emotional cues to your message.
• Don’t waste time on “trolls” (people who scan through social sites looking for arguments) or flamers. If you feel the need to clarify an original post, simply do it and excuse yourself from the discussion.
• Before taking offense and firing off a nasty remark, take a moment to imagine the person behind the post. In all reality, it could be someone you know. Imagine if a friend or family member came to you with the same statements. How would you respond to them?
• If it is someone you know, pick up the phone or ask to meet in person. The extra cues from hearing their voice on the phone or meeting face to face will help you deal with the situation much more effectively.
• Last but not least: learn proper web etiquitte and teach your children.

In our never ending quest of the metric and measuring return on investment (ROI) we have breen wrestling with the elusive and tough to define area branding metrics.

I was just reading this from the Google CPG Blog called, “The Branding Value of Search“.

Google Brand Search

The question they are asking is, “What impact does a search result have on branding for cpg?”

Google commissioned a study with Media Screen and came up with several key findings:

• When a test brand appears in paid search positions, unaided awareness and purchase intent increase for that brand.
• When the test brand appears in paid search positions, unaided and aided awareness decrease for other brands.

It really helps us understand how people view our brands when they are using search engines, and how they view brands in organic vs. paid search.

Wonder how this can be applied to ads, widgets and other brand / product placement?

Barack Obama is getting ready to announce his running mate.  Instead of going through normail mainstream media, he will be announcing it with a viral campaign.  By signing up at his website you can receive an email when he announces it or you can text VP to 62262 (OBAMA) to receive a text message.

This is the first time that a presidential candidate has bypassed mainstream media for such an important announcement.  By utilizing this social style announcement it really appeals to younger voters as it lets them feel that they’re getting the news first and it allows them to easily spread it around to their friends instantly creating a conversation around the announcement.  It also shows that Barack is not dependant on mainstream media and realizes that his target audience isn’t dependant on it either.  It’s also very convenient for people that don’t read the newspaper or watch the daily news (me!).

On a side note, does anyone else find it interesting, and not so awesome, that the presidential candidates don’t announce their running mate until this late in the race?  I think it should be announced during the primaries… but I guess thats a whole different post!