Comments on: Answers to Social Media Questions You Should Know

By: Nicholas Ye

Nicholas Ye — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:08:38 +0000

At this point in time, I feel as if we do not need to recruit any interns to perform these social media platform activities. It has come to that era that we can have our children or teenager monitor these sites and “properly” fit into that network, of course with a little parental guidance involved. It just takes a little time and practice for any individual to get a good grasp on any of these social media platform.

By: Juan

Juan — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:39:11 +0000

Good stuff! The customer actually can help the company with product developments…Take the critics to help you develop your service and products!

By: Krystal of Solsisters

Krystal of Solsisters — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:36:21 +0000

another way to measure ROI on social media for companies that do sell something is to try a tweet-away of a fairly inexpensive item. My sister’s website http://www.overallbeauty.com sells an up and coming brand of nail polish at $9 a bottle. She has a dedicated twitter following of 700+ that I helped her build. We have her twitter auto-post to her facebook page. Last weekend we did a series of three tweets…

“win a bottle of Diamond Dust nail polish (URL)”
“answer (trivia question pulled from blog post) answer here (blog URL”
“first correct DM reply wins a bottle of (item URL)”

We kept re-tweeting them until we got a correct answer which took about about 10 minutes. Kim was watching the site traffic live. Within 10 seconds of the first tweet she had 50 people on the diamond dust page. During that 10 minutes, she had over 100+ visitors to her site and blog.

I think that exposure is worth the hard cost to her of $8 for the item and shipping.

By: Brittany

Brittany — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:06:22 +0000

Great insight! Thanks!

By: Nick Stamoulis

Nick Stamoulis — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:36:18 +0000

Companies can’t be scared to take criticism online. Any company that grows will eventually have to deal with this at some point in time. The important thing is how companies guard against it.

By: edwin joseph

edwin joseph — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 09:51:20 +0000

There is nothing wrong on participating on social media sites. In fact, they get popularity simply because people like to visit them.

But ofcourse, it will not be advisable to use them all. We just need to put our focus on which social sites we could effectively grab customers

By: Affiliate Ahole

Affiliate Ahole — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:59:02 +0000

I have noticed that cocky individuals or companies will get targeted by trolls a lot. But I also think that whoever is on top will attract a lot of attention from competitors. Especially in really profitable niches. When there is a lot of money on the line, the more aggressive the competition gets.

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:01:32 +0000

Affiliate Ahole aka Wayden, would you say a certain type of individual or company persona attracts negative comments more than others? The way some represent themselves, they’re troll magnets.

By: Affiliate Ahole

Affiliate Ahole — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 03:10:56 +0000

One thing that I have learned about negative comments is that you have to let them get out. If you run a forum and you start deleting posts that have negative comments the posts will start screaming that they are getting censored. Which starts creating a poison in your forums. Then they talk about your censorship in other forums and the poison spreads. I think you have to be as transparent as possible. Bad news spreads fast on the internet, the best thing you can do is address it.

By: Selene Beadbowl

Selene Beadbowl — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 23:50:12 +0000

Great article! Social networking is such an invalueable tool for the small business. Re-tweeted to friends. Thank you!

By: Vernon

Vernon — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 20:15:02 +0000

Hi Lee,
The answer to your question “are you accomplishing your organization’s goals using social media” is yes. However, we can do much better as we build experience. One of our goals is to meet the needs of volunteers. I am a volunteer and leaning about social media is helping me meet my volunteer needs because I like learning about new things.

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 17:13:39 +0000

Lauren, companies are like some people. Do you know people who really can't stand feedback let alone critical feedback? Some companies are either arrogant or insecure that way. A lot of the social web is new territory so its incumbent upon those that have worked in the social media space for a long time to help companies gain perspective and get a grasp of what role social media can play in reaching business goals. Two organizations working on that are Social Media Club and in the direct marketing industry, there's a new DMA Social Media Council.

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 17:08:19 +0000

Vernon, I suppose if you have no cost, anything you do is “ROI”. The question is, are you accomplishing your organization’s goals using social media? It doesn’t need to be a financial goal.

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 17:07:09 +0000

Eric, I think that’s right on. One of the amazing things about the ease of online publishing and social networking is a leveling of the marketing playing field. In the past, big budgets won because money scales advertising easily. The difference now is that many consumers ignore advertising and gravitate towards what gives them value without the same kinds of commitment.

Small companies that are nimble and able to participate socially can build community and direct customer relationships before large company marketing departments can begin to get approval from legal.

In a sense it may be “as much marketing power as large corporations” but I think it’s more a matter of big companies needing to catch on and catch up. Once they do, the playing field won’t be so level.

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 17:02:23 +0000

Donna, there are many ways to realize link and search ranking benefits from social media participation. The thing to consider is whether what you’re doing adds value to the community, does it carry any risk of penalty and is it sustainable? Will it hold under scruitiny? If so, link wheel yourself happy.

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 17:00:17 +0000

I agree Alex, companies need to be open to feedback and many would be surprised at how many brand champions they have. The time to cultivate such customer relationships through opening up a dialog is now, not when dissenters poke their heads. It’s a matter of being proactive vs reactive on the social web.

By: Alex Lim

Alex Lim — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 14:09:32 +0000

Nicely done, lee

Just wanna add with the commenting stuff.
Company should be willing to see the fruits of their service through comments. They shouldn’t be overprotective of their reputation, since they’ve established it in the first place. Clients do acknowledge if company responds to their concerns. By that, they can feel that their valued somehow. I agree that you might encounter detractors but you can also discover people who will defend the company as well.ss

By: Donna Liens

Donna Liens — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 11:57:58 +0000

Dear Lee,
I heard about this kind of “Linkwheels System” of web 2.0 properties which interlinks to itself in a wheel structure, and aims to raise the search engine rank of a central hub or money site. Its great and the best thing about linkwheels, is that I find myself dominating all sorts of other related keywords that I’d never even thought of before. Its also the best thing of Web 2.0. Isn’t it?

By: Eric

Eric — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 10:08:07 +0000

One of the things I like about marketing with twitter is that it has the potential to give a small business owner nearly as much marketing power as the large corporations.

Regards, Eric

By: Vernon

Vernon — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 05:45:34 +0000

I am not sure one can always measure exact return on investment or set a realistic goal. However, it is good to recognize it when it happens. Since we have no staff, only dedicated volunteers, ROI should be in the positive side.