There’s only one thing I hate about white papers. Wikipedia defines them as:

“…an authoritative report or guide that often addresses issues and how to solve them. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions. They are often used in politics and business, and technical subjects. In commercial use, the term “white paper” has also come to refer to documents used by businesses as a marketing or sales tool.”

While we specialize in social media marketing, we often have a challenge in marketing our own products. That’s the only part I hate about White Papers: they’re geared towards being a marketing tool. Our preference is to educate and hope that people are willing to ask us for help with their social media needs when the time comes.

We are going to be offering a White Paper to Car Dealers to demonstrate how social media can have an impact on their business without spending a dime and in 30 minutes or less per day. Those interested, simply email me at jdrucker@hasai.com

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Learn more about Social Media Strategy on our blog.

Just about every social media marketing firm in the world includes Facebook as one of the primary tools that companies large and small should use in promoting their brand, websites, products, and services. With about a trillion users joining daily and more time spent on Facebook than with family, it only makes sense.

It’s the buzz.

It’s also very difficult to do well from a marketing perspective.

Rather than reinvent the “Facebook Tips” wheel, we have compiled dozens of articles that seem to offer the best advice out there for prospective Facebook marketers and promoters. Each article has been read and “vetted” by our staff. While we may not agree 100% with every article’s conclusions, there is definitely something that can be gained from them.

• Jacob Cass put together a detailed tutorial-style article on How to get more brand exposure, traffic and sales using Facebook.
• Becky McCray offers 6 big Facebook tips for small business.
• Paul Dunay asks With Facebook pages, who needs a website?
• Joel Turner goes into the fundamentals of optimizing in Facebook page marketing tips.
• Ron Jones takes a look at Facebook marketing 101.
• Amanda G. Watlington brings us 5 tips for promoting your business on Facebook.
• Macworld demonstrates the basics on Facebook usage itself with Top Facebook etiquette tips.
• John Jantsch touches on 5 tips for getting more from Facebook.
• Mari Smith discusses Top ten tips for creating buzz with Facebook events.
• Liz Baron offers Facebook marketing tactics.
• Steve Coulson put together 5 tips for optimizing your brand’s Facebook presence.
• Soft Sailor has Top 5 coolest Facebook tips, tricks and hacks.
• Greg Finn breaks down SMX East: Facebook marketing tactics.
• Justin Smith talks search in 10 key SEO strategies every Facebook page owner should know.
• Marty Weintraub had the same idea with some different strategies in 10 SEO tips for maximizing Facebook visibility.
• Christina Warren examines Facebook marketing: IKEA’s genius use of photo tagging.
• Even CNN takes a decent stab at it with 5 tips for fixing your Facebook page.
• Ian Paul lists Ten Facebook tips for power users.
• Ryan Dube gets more advanced with 6 Facebook hack codes & tips to show off your geeky skills.
• Richard MacManus shows us How to use Facebook: 5 tips for better social networking.
• Hongkiat challenges us with 20 Facebook tips/tricks you might not know.

As more stories, tutorials, and how-tos come out, we’ll add to this list.

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Read more about social media strategy at Hasai.

Let’s make something absolutely clear from the beginning. This is not a suggestion that businesses who are not involved with social networks should blindly rush in. As you will learn, the clock is ticking and it is important for businesses both local and global to get involved and make an impact through social networks.

With that said, it’s better to not get involved than to try social networks and do them incorrectly.  On to the story…

Social Networks Start Tightening Up Growth to Fight Spammers

The predictable cycle is starting to materialize. For this post, we’ll look at Twitter as the primary example.  Since its birth, Twitter has been the most “spammer friendly” social networking site (mostly because it’s not a true social network, but that’s not important).  They allowed multiple accounts, few limits or restrictions on what could be posted, and an ability to grow an account quickly. While these attributes contributed greatly to its growth, they also opened the doors wide open to spammers.

Once the site drew the attention of celebrities, politicians, and businesses around the world, it became necessary to slow down the growth of those accounts that started taking advantage of the “Twitter Wild West”. First, they limited the amount of people an account could follow in the beginning to 2000. Once that number was achieved, an account could only follow 110% of the number of followers it had.

Accounts still grew rapidly and follower “churn” (the technique off following a lot of users, waiting for a certain period of time, and then removing those who didn’t follow back) became more of an issue, so Twitter implemented a 1000-follow-per-day rule. This slowed account growth tremendously, but it was still possible to grow fast.

Recently, they dropped the number down to 500. Mission accomplished. The days of churn as a valid growth method are pretty much over. At the current rate, a manually managed account can grow by 200 followers a day if it’s done right (and doing it right is very time consuming).  It takes 2 months to get 10,000 followers now (a feat that used to take a few days).

In short, businesses and individuals need to be creative when building accounts. So many accounts are simply spam now that gaining 200 a day might only yield a few dozen quality friends. Of those friends, half of them may be gone or uninvolved in a month.

There are ways to build strong accounts without spamming or relying on slow churn. This is where proper social media strategy comes into play. While there are companies that will charge thousands to build a relatively worthless batch of social media profiles, they don’t take it to the next level of helping to build the accounts, train those who will be managing them, or helping to promote them with innovative ideas.

What Does This Mean for Businesses

The immense popularity of sites like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace has generated a tremendous upspike in the number of companies who are offering social media marketing services.  You do not need a social media marketing service.

Let me repeat that.

You do not need a social media marketing service.

There are choices to be made and made soon. The clock is ticking. The longer that a company waits to start or improve their social media strategy, the harder it will become to truly get in the game.  Here is what companies need to do:

1. Decide whether to hire, outsource, or use DIY social media. Be careful of the cheap or free techniques such as using temporary interns.
2. Commit. Whatever you choose to do, stick to it and put the time, money, and/or effort into doing it right.
3. Read social news blogs, Twitter tip sites, and advice on how to use other social networks.

Once you’ve made your decision, hire a social media strategy firm (such as Hasai).  Promoting your company through social media is more than a marketing campaign. It’s more than having a presence. It’s about looking at what your company is doing, what your competitors are doing, and most importantly looking at what your customers are doing. Making your social media strategy fit with your market is the key to doing exceptional things in Web 2.0. Just look at Dell.

Regardless of the size of your company, chances are strong that you can make a difference with social media. It’s all about impact. Your company needs a heavy hitter on its side for the most impact.

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Read more about Social Media Strategy on this site.

]]> http://hasai.com/blog/featured-articles/social-networks-the-clock-is-ticking-for-businesses/feed/ 0 http://hasai.com/blog/featured-articles/social-media-strategy-at-its-finest/ http://hasai.com/blog/featured-articles/social-media-strategy-at-its-finest/#comments Thu, 03 Dec 2009 08:12:23 +0000 admin http://hasai.com/blog/?p=24 With the increased popularity of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Digg, it seems that “gurus” are popping up left and right. They are appearing at every level from Twitter spammers claiming to get your message in front of 2.5 million people for a few hundred dollars all the way to Corporate Master Marketers who sculpt pageviews out of thin social media air.

Over the last several months, we’ve worked with some, interviewed others, and came to the conclusion that there are some out there that are real. Some. The rest, probably 95 out of 100, know very little about how to truly design social media campaigns and manage a proper social media strategy.  This is a huge problem as several corporations and small businesses we have talked to lately are skeptical of anything relating to social media.

They tried it with this company or that company and they didn’t see the results.

Before we join the chorus of “we’re the best” that makes it seem like we’re just like everyone else, let me state something very clearly. Our results are predefined. Our methods are discussed openly and honestly. We do not collect a penny until AFTER the results are rendered.

Do I have your attention?

For the first year of existence, Hasai chose to stay hidden. Social media and its many components are sensitive topics. Companies do not necessarily want their customers or competitors knowing that they have hired a social media firm, so we decided to “not exist” except through referrals and word-of-mouth.  As the company expanded over the months, it became clear – there are ways to protect our clients without staying in the shadows.

Too many companies are popping up that offer the same thing that we offer. Then again, a Daewoo and a Bentley both drive down the street. They both have 4 wheels, doors, windows, and an engine.  The difference is that one does it right and one did it wrong.

Read through the site. We are carefully crafting what we can and cannot say in a way that will protect everyone involved while still offering the opportunity for companies to find us.

You’ve found us. You’re already ahead of your competition.

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Read more about Social Media Strategy.