In social media I have learned you have to have an attitude of continual learning. In the age of social media, things change so fast that what we knew about a subject yesterday may not apply to today. What matters is less about what we knew in the past, and much more about how open we are to learning today. You have to have an open mind to education each and every day if you want to stay ahead of the game.

Social media marketing is one of the fastest changing forms of marketing online. Every time a new site, service, or community is launched, there comes both new opportunity for marketing and the possibility that the site you just spent months participating in will become obsolete.

Photo by tm_lv

Some sites I visit frequently to stay “in the know” are…

1)      Mashable: http://mashable.com/

Founded in July 2005, Mashable! is the world’s largest blog focused exclusively on Web 2.0 and Social Media news. With more than 7 million monthly pageviews, Mashable! is the most prolific blog reviewing new Web sites and services, publishing breaking news on what’s new on the web and offering social media resources and guides.

2)      Chris Brogan: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/

Chris Brogan is a ten year veteran of using social media and both web and mobile technologies to build digital relationships for businesses, organizations, and individuals. His blog explores the use of social media and social networking tools, as well as helping individuals work smarter.

3)      Brian Solias: http://www.briansolis.com/

Brian Solis is Principal of FutureWorks, an award-winning PR and New Media agency in Silicon Valley. Solis blogs here at PR2.0 and regularly contributes marketing & tech insight to industry publications.

4)      Conversation Agent: http://www.conversationagent.com/

Valeria Maltoni helps businesses understand how customers and communities have changed marketing, public relations, and communications – and how to build value in this new environment. This blog tells her story.

5)      TwiTip: http://www.twitip.com/

From the guy who brings you ProBlogger comes TwiTip, a site about capturing some of the lessons that Darren Rowse and others have been learning about Twitter and how to use it more effectively. It covers Twitter Tips of all varieties including: Writing for Twitter, Branding, Growing a Following, Corporate Tweeting and a lot more.

I also just recently signed up for an 8 week social media course here:

Training Social: http://trainingsocial.com/

Learn how to create viral content, build a social media community, and understand public relations online. Get the resources you need to create a successful social media campaign.

How do you keep up to date with what’s going on in social media?

This week we started using Basecamp for the first time with a new client to help them accomplish their social media goals, and so far we love it.

Image:  Basecamp Sample Overview Page – 1 and 2 show Late and Upcoming Milestones for the project and 3 is a complete overview everything going on with the project

Those who work on numerous projects with several clients and team members know how difficult it can be to keep communication streamlined and stay on track throughout the duration of the project. By using this collaboration tool we hope to facilitate smooth transitions between several projects at one time and between the team members involved in each project.

Staying on Track with the To-Do List Feature

We will be using the To-Do list feature frequently to help our clients stay on track with tackling social media goals month to month. Placing such items in Basecamp instead of simply sending a memo or email to team members is a better way to ensure work is monitored daily by all involved in the project.

Sharing Files with File Management

Key benefits to Basecamp are file management, features and flexibility. Files can be easily uploaded to the specific project in which they belong with notices being sent to those who need to receive the file. Basecamp keeps it simple and doesn’t overwhelm you with features you don’t need.

Communication Options

We were able to create a customized Basecamp profile which was pretty cool! Using the message boards, communication between team members is facilitated and encouraged through ease of use. These benefits combine to give project management of our social media clients a whole new direction.

In addition to having the ability to send messages and create easy to follow threads in the message board, Basecamp also provides a chat feature. We may not use the chat feature in favor of Oovoo (the video conferencing service), which we’ve been using for a while now, but we will surely use the Message board which contains threads of all pertinent information and allows communication to remain consistent throughout the duration of our project.

Controlling the Project from Start to Finish

Using Basecamp’s Dashboard, we can get an overview of each project we’re working on. We can track milestones and deadlines as well as see new messages and files.

Basecamp will help us improve the communication between Diamond Hazelton and our clients working together on their social media strategy. We have given Basecamp the greatest compliment we can give a product – we are actually using it and hope to make it an integral part of our work flow.

What tools do you use to communicate and collaborate?   We’d like to hear what you think.

For companies 2010 will be about more clearly connecting social media to business objectives and better understanding how to measure the direct and indirect return on investment of social media. Integrating social media into the sales funnel to support lead generation and transactions will be a top priority.

Here is what to watch out for in 2010 for social media:

1. Social Media Publishing Focus on Multi-Media – More posting of video content. Video both recorded and live streamed will see an increase in use, but it is likely that companies will start using more images as well, to help better tell their story. While text and audio have been the staples of B2B social media content up to this point, that will change in 2010.

2. Better to Give-Don’t make the mistake of always asking for something in return. Show some good faith and give some of your content away for free. This will in turn create more trust as well as more customers as of course, every person loves to get stuff for free!

3. Influencer Marketing Gets Even More Important –As industry influencers use social media to build influence, companies will follow to engage with them and realize the importance of building credibility online.

4. Get Smart About Social Data –Social media is here to stay. Most already know that. The major revelation is going to be that the user generated content created every second on the social web can help them make better and more informed business decisions. Leadership will begin looking for ways to collect and analyze this data and then use it to improve product development, customer service, marketing and other aspects of business.

5. Companies, large and small, need to create a social media strategy.   What’s your plan?  Oh . . . you don’t have one? Big mistake in 2010.  You need to start working on one now.  Don’t know where to start?  Do a little research.  There are some really good experts out there who can help you in this area.   Contact Diamond Hazelton to help you create a strong, cutting-edge social media strategy that will keep your business cutting edge.

I recently made a reservation at one of the largest hotel chains in the world.  Since I contemplated staying there again, I joined their Rewards Program . . . so far, so good.

Along with their Welcome message, they sent me an offer, as a Rewards Program member, to save my room preferences for future check-ins.  All I had to do was select my preferences from 6 small pull-down menus.

Trying to Complete the Rewards Program Form

Number 1.  The title was “ACCESSIBLE”, and the pull-down choices were a) select  b)  yes  c) no preference.  At first I thought “select” was an instruction to select a choice, but no, it was one of the three actual choices.  First problem, what did they mean by “accessible”?  Did I want to be able to get into the room?  Did I want to maintain my right to “select” the room? Am I disabled?  What happened if I chose “yes”?  Since I couldn’t answer any of these questions, my only secure choice was “no preference”.

A chore that promised to take a couple of minutes and make me feel good about them was threatening to take a lot longer, frustrate me and make me sorry I ever met them.

Number 2.  SMOKING.  No problem.  My choices were a) select  b) smoking  c) non-smoking  d) no preference.  Got it . . . no smoking.

Number 3.  BED TYPE.  Again, no problem.  a)  select  b) king  c)  2 beds  d) no preference.  Fine . . . king.

Number 4.  ROOM LOCATION.  a) select  b) high floor  c) low floor  d) no preference.  I still don’t know what they mean by “select”.  Is this maintaining my option to “select” in the future?  Beats me.  I don’t really care if I am on a high floor or a low floor, but I do care that I don’t want to be on the ground floor.  That, however, wasn’t offered to me as a choice.  Two no preferences out of four choices.  Not good.  Carl is frustrated.  But, what the heck, I’ve saved two preferences and I still have two to go.

Number 5.  ELEVATOR PROXIMITY.  a) select (say it isn’t so)  b) away   c) near  d) no preference.  All I really want in the elevator department is to be far enough away from it, so that at 2:30 in the morning I don’t have to be awakened by the party animals that closed the bar.  If I choose “away” I can picture myself a football field-length away from the elevator with luggage, a bad back and late for my plane.  The winner:  no preference.  Three out of five, so far.

Number 6.  MOST IMPORTANT TO ME.  a) select  b) accessible  c) smoking  d) bed type.  Don’t know what they mean by “select”.  Don’t know what they mean by accessible.  Can’t choose “smoking” because I might be choosing a smoking room.  What’s left?  Bed Type, which I don’t really care about.  There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, two choices out of six and an irritated new customer.

And the Winner is… The Competition

I’ve gone from being a definite return customer to one that will be willing give a competitor a shot at my business.  Repeat customers are the ultimate goal of any website conversion optimization program.  Why go to all the effort and expense to convert a visitor into a client – only to lose their repeat business over a frustrating form after the sale.

Social Media is another aspect of web site promotion which must be considered and utilized to optimize a website for conversion.

Participate in Online Communities

Identifying and interacting within the online communities populated by your potential customers is imperative to increase conversions. If you select the wrong target audience or join Online Communities which are not relevant to your product or services the effect Social Media has on your conversion rates will be zero. If powerful and targeted enough, social media campaigns will help increase your website’s conversion rate.

Establish Credibility

Trust and reputation are an important factor web site visitors consider when deciding to proceed with a purchase or even supplying an email address. Understand that social media marketing is not a quick fix and quite the contrary, should be viewed as a concerted effort over the long term. Just as it takes time to establish your credibility in the business world through excellent customer relations and customer service, over delivery and quality product, so it takes time to establish credibility through interaction within the social media environment.

Increase Brand Awareness

Participation in Social Networks enables the business to increase brand awareness and interact in the community both having a positive effect on consumers perception of trust and reputation of the brand. Achieving this trust and reputation within the Social Networks will assist you conversions due to the visitor having decided to visit your web site because of prior knowledge of your business brand and reputation.

Contact Diamond Hazelton to help you develop a successful social media campaign and find online communities that are relevant to your product or services.

When you’re having a conversation with someone, if they don’t quite understand what you’re saying, they just ask you a question.  You answer the question and the conversation moves on.

On your website, if a visitor has a question about something you’ve written, what will they do?  How many of them will call you, or send you an e-mail, and ask: “Could you please explain what you meant by XYZ?”  Clarity in your website’s copywriting is critical to keeping the conversation with your visitors moving forward.  If they are confused then a call to action is less likely to happen.  Clear writing is authoritative and conveys credibility… a requirement if you expect visitors to contact you or follow through in any way.

An Example of Unclear Copywriting:

Here’s an example from a website we recently reviewed.   Let’s pretend you know nothing at all about the topic.  As you read about the Medical Power of Attorney, do you have any questions you’d like to ask the author?

A Medical Power of Attorney (also known as a Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care) is so critical, because it allows a trusted agent to make healthcare decisions on your behalf. Few hospitals wish to take on the responsibility of determining your healthcare decisions for you, especially in this litigious society.

The Medical Power of Attorney helps your doctors determine when life-supporting measures should be stopped. If your wish is to not use life-sustaining measures, you can convey this to the person you’ve named, and they will be able to fulfill your wishes on your behalf. A Medical Power of Attorney only has this responsibility to you for healthcare decisions, and cannot make financial or other decisions on your behalf (unless, of course, you’ve granted both Powers of Attorney to the same person)

What Questions Would You Have?

OK let’s take these two paragraphs apart and insert some questions or thoughts that might come into the minds of visitors as they are reading it:

• It’s critical  -  Does this mean that bad things will happen to me if I don’t have one?
• It allows a trusted agent to make healthcare decisions on my behalf  – Do you mean my insurance agent?….I’m not sure I want my insurance agent making healthcare decisions for me.
• Few hospitals wish to take on the responsibility of determining my healthcare decisions for me  – I didn’t know that hospitals could make healthcare decisions for me…does that mean that they can decide to pull the plug, so to speak?
• It helps my doctors determine when life-supporting measures should be stopped – Does this mean that there is a document that doctors use to decide when to stop life supporting measures on everyone?  That’s a scary thought.
• If my wish is not to use life-sustaining measures, I can convey this to the person I’ve named and they will be able to fulfill my wishes on my behalf.   – that’s a confusing sentence…sounds like all I have to do is just tell someone that I don’t want life-sustaining measures and that’s it – they can handle it for me.
• It is only responsible for healthcare decisions and it cannot make financial or other decisions on my behalf (unless I grant both powers of attorney to the same person) – OK confused again -  sounds like the Medical Power of Attorney can make healthcare decisions for me but that it can’t make financial decisions – and meanwhile I’m still not sure what a power of attorney actually is.

OK, maybe the questions were a bit over the top…but you get the idea.

Improved version of Clear Copywriting:

Same topic but much clearer and easier to understand, taken from the Mayo Clinic Website:

The medical POA is a legal document that designates an individual — referred to as your health care agent or proxy — to make medical decisions for you in the event that you’re unable to do so. A medical POA is sometimes called a durable power of attorney for health care. However, it is different from a power of attorney authorizing someone to make financial transactions for you.

Best version of clear copywriting:

The Mayo Clinic version is clear, but even it could be improved for reading on the web.  Most people on the web don’t read what is written, they scan it.  So, we could make the paragraph more scanable by breaking it up into bullet points as follows:

Medical Power of Attorney (POA)

• It is a legal document
• In it you designate an individual as your health care agent or proxy
• If you are unable to make medical decisions for yourself, The Medical Power of Attorney permits your health care agent to make medical decisions for you
• It is sometimes called a durable power of attorney for healthcare.
• It is only used for healthcare decisions and not for any other type of transaction for you (financial, or legal for example)

Conclusion:  Check Your Website

Read the copy on your website out loud and see what you think.

Take those long paragraphs and try to cut them in half and then see if you can make it even easier to scan by breaking them down into short sentences, bullets or lists.

Improving the clarity of your copywriting will have a positive impact on your website conversion rate.  Visitors will have more confidence in your products or services if your website’s copywriting answers their questions, instead of raising questions in their minds.

Building a relationship with customers is necessary for any small business. What’s the best way to do that? Social media is the answer! Here are the Top Five Ways to get started with social media today:

1. Blogging: Create Valuable Content for Customers

Providing content through a blog is one of the best ways to sell services or products. It provides an opportunity to give a voice to a business and helps build a relationship with customers. Most importantly, customers can offer comments and provide feedback. For businesses just starting out, owners can easily build a free blog through Wordpress.com or Blogger.com. It’s important to regularly update a blog and creating an editorial calendar can help. The key is to provide a perspective that is heartfelt, compelling, and has the potential to help you market yourself and your business.

2. Twitter: Keep Customers Updated

Essentially, Twitter is considered a micro-blog. This means that there are 140 characters that are available in order to provide a status update or give information. Twitter is a great way to let customers know what’s new, whether it’s products, services, expansion, a special event, links to what your reading, etc.

3. Facebook: Build a Community

Facebook offers the option of creating a page as an individual or a fan page for a business, Facebook is a great way to build a community for customers. It also provides a way to interact with customers and get feedback on products or services. Facebook is another site to provide updates, post images, announce product or service enhancements and much more.

4. LinkedIn: Network with Colleagues, Customers and Associates

LinkedIn is geared towards business people. The site can help connect with past colleagues, supervisors and employees. LinkedIn is a great networking site that can grow a small business. In addition, LinkedIn can also help locate future employees.

5. Delicious: Keep Track of your Bookmarks

Using this social bookmarking tool you can easily create reading lists of information for your entire team, customers in various industry segments or strategic partners should read to learn and grow.

All of these sites are very user friendly. No matter which site is used, building relationships with customers is the key to social media. Social media and social media strategies are only going to become more popular in 2010. It’s important to understand how they work and how they can benefit your small business. Getting involved is the first step, so get going! Contact Diamond Hazelton to get an in-depth social media strategy for your business.

Posted by Shelby Sanchez

82% of all companies will be using social media marketing by 2010.

A new study from the Marketing Executives Networking Group, MENG, reveals most businesses are still in the early or experimental phases of adopting and measuring social media.

Don’t Let Lack of Knowledge Impede Success

The biggest barrier to success is a lack of knowledge on how to implement these new media activities.

67% of respondents consider themselves beginners at using social media marketing. Additionally, more than 87% of respondents are not regularly measuring the ROI of their social media marketing efforts.

There have been some fairly spectacular missteps in this new field – and mostly because they jumped in without a social media strategy.

Develop a Social Media Strategy

Social Media is here to stay and needs to be considered part of a company’s infrastructure.

First, you need to develop a plan which explains your businesses objectives and strategies. Setting goals that will align with how your audience engages is very important. Once tools are selected, monitoring and measuring must be put in place or there is no way to track results and determine what is working and what isn’t.

The key to social media is good communication. It’s about engaging your audience and letting them know that your business, brand, service, product is the best possible answer to their need.

Posted by:  Shelby Sanchez

The saying “ A picture is worth a thousand words” is something I’ve always taken for granted and never thought much about … until now when I was surprised at my own reaction to an excellent landing page combined with an unfortunate picture.

The Search for a Gentle Leader Head Collar

Recently I decided to do some research on Gentle Leader Head collars. Truman, our 8 month old black Labrador retriever pup, has become a handful on our daily walks, so a friend suggested that I look into a Gentle Leader Head Collar for him.

Since we’re running some PPC advertising and we’ve been working with clients on matching their PPC advertising to their landing pages I thought I’d check out how well the companies advertising Gentle Leader Head Collars matched their ads to their landing pages.

I did a Google search and came up with these PPC Ads:

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Next is the Landing Page for SitStay.com PPC Ad:

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Landing Page for Amazon.com PPC advertisement:

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And Finally Landing Page for Petco.com PPC Ad:

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And the winner is….

After looking at the four PPC ads and their landing pages, I was surprised when the page that should logically have been the clear winner was knocked out because of a picture.

I thought the Petco Landing page was the best structured landing page.  It offered something for everyone – the person who wants to make a quick decision, the person who wants to know what others think about the collar and the person who needs more information and directions for fitting and using the collar…. But the picture of the unhappy dog just dominated the page for me.  All the thoughtful design features of the page were completely overshadowed by the picture.   Actually I was surprised, because I tend to be a pretty logical person… but I guess when it comes to my dog I’m pretty emotional and I just couldn’t get away from those sad eyes fast enough!

The SitStay.com landing page did the best job of drawing me in.  The picture of the happy Golden Retriever gave me a good feeling about the collar.  The environmentally friendly collars and leashes were a real positive match for me.

Even though logically, the Petco landing page should be the clear winner, the pictures were the deciding factor and the SitStay.com landing page was the winner for me.

Creating a Good Landing Page

Creating a good landing page for your PPC advertising is about several things.  It’s making sure that the product or service being advertised is prominently displayed on the landing page.  It’s about making the landing page inviting and easy to navigate.  And it’s about making sure that the visual images on the landing page reinforce and tie together the advertising message and the copy on the landing page.   If the ad has done its job by getting the visitor to click through to the landing page… then the landing page must do its job of making it easy for the visitor to say YES, that’s exactly what I was looking for.