LinkedIn is like any other social network; you have to put time and effort into your LinkedIn presence if you hope to make connections, generate business leads or accomplish other business-related goals. Creating a profile is a crucial first step, but after that, you’ve got to spend time optimizing your profile, as well as maintaining an active presence on the site in order to stay visible—and relevant—in a fast-moving stream of content and activity.

The good news? There are a number of changes you can make to your LinkedIn profile now that will make your experience on the site more fruitful and productive. Ready to dive in?

6 Changes To Make To Your LinkedIn Profile Today

• Update your profile. When’s the last time you updated your LinkedIn profile? Even if it was yesterday, it’s always a good idea to keep your LinkedIn profile updated. After all, every time you perform any activity on LinkedIn, that information is shared with people in your network and you appear in the stream. And with each appearance, it’s like a little tap on the shoulder to all of your connections that says, “Hey! I’m here! Check me out, won’t you?”

• Explain your positions and experiences. I do a lot of LinkedIn training for clients, and one of the most common mistakes I see is that people treat their profiles as resumes. Stop it! This is the place to show what you’ve done and what you can do. If you’re looking for a job, this is the perfect space in which to demonstrate your skills to a prospective employer and help that person get a better idea of what you bring to the table. Even if you’re not currently looking for a job, it pays off to give your connections a complete and comprehensive view of your professional skill set.

• Write a recommendation. Take a few minutes to write a recommendation for a friend or colleague. Not only is it a great way to pay it forward, but you’ll also likely get a recommendation in return. These testimonials are effective additions to your LinkedIn profile because they give your connections a glimpse into the experience that others have had while working with you, and regardless of the social networking platform, word of mouth testimonials are undeniably powerful.

• Add an application. LinkedIn offers a number of apps to help you add depth to your profile. Share what you’re reading, embed your SlideShare presentations, showcase your WordPress blog or add a poll. Other applications are available for specific industries, including Legal Updates, Real Estate Pro and Lawyer Ratings. I usually recommend placing these apps toward the bottom of your profile so that they don’t distract from your work experience and history.

• Expand your connections. When’s the last time you sent requests for new connections? Let LinkedIn do the work for you by entering your email address and password, and the site will automatically scan your address book for contacts. You can also click on the “People You May Know” section at the top right of your homepage. A piece of advice? Don’t send someone the generic request to connect. Take just a few seconds to write a personalized message—that little effort will go a long, long way.

• Join a group. LinkedIn Groups not only offer networking opportunities, but also a place in which to demonstrate your skills and expertise. Find a group based on your education, your industry, your interests or other criteria. And once you’ve joined, stay active! Post content that you think group members will enjoy. Participate in conversations. Make additional connections. Again, anything you can do to stay active and visible on LinkedIn will make your experience that much more worthwhile, regardless of your goals in using the site.

Now that you’ve got your work cut out for you, head on over to LinkedIn and spend some time on your profile. I can’t emphasize enough how powerful a tool LinkedIn can be when it comes to making and maintaining professional connections, as well as generating business leads and new business development, but it’s all about what you put into LinkedIn that determines what you’ll get out of the site.

Image courtesy of smi23le via Creative Commons

6 Changes You Need To Make To Your LinkedIn Profile Now is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

The invitation-only site encourages users to post photos, videos and other content. Not surprisingly, the content is male-oriented; a recent look at the Gentlemint home page reveals photos of sports, character tees, quotes and an infographic entitled “How Would You Like Your Graphic Design?”

“Nothing against Pinterest, but it’s definitely not a site built for men,” Glen said in an interview with the Daily Dot. “We wanted to build something that was almost the opposite, focusing on fun stuff that gents would like.”

Fueled by passion and the beginnings of what they were sure was a good idea, after a mere 12 hours of work, Gentlemint was born—and has been adding a heaping helping of rugged manliness to the Internet ever since.

As Pinterest’s popularity continues to explode, it’s no surprise that Gentlemint is quickly catching on, too. Judging by the traffic on both sites, there’s an inherent appeal in these digital mood board/scrapbook hybrids—and brands are jumping on the bandwagon, too.

Since Gentlemint is in its early days, the site boasts far more personal users than businesses. But we suspect it won’t be long until brands incorporate Gentlemint as part of their digital marketing strategy as a way to forge a connection with a larger audience and leverage a new method of content marketing. Sites like Pinterest and Gentlemint demonstrate that many of us have an urge to collect and share, and what better way to showcase the lighter side of your business than by joining in? Plus, Pinterest has also proven itself as an unstoppable referral engine, and we suspect it won’t be long until Gentlemint becomes a significant driver of online traffic, too.

Ready to join the fun? Simply head over to the homepage and enter your email address to sign up. Ladies, don’t be shy—Gentlemint won’t bar you from entry. There are a whole lotta women out there who aren’t all pink and girly, and this site just might contain some pretty cool info. We know we’re having some fun over there – that’s for sure.

And if you’re already using Gentlemint, we’d love to hear what you think. Grab a beer, a glass of Scotch, a couple of cigars and we’ll meet you in the comments for a virtual discussion.

Gentlemint Offers A Manly Alternative To Pinterest is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

With the recent designation of the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) Bloch School as No. 1 in the world in innovation management research, this is yet another step in city leaders’ focus on economic development, job creation and spurring innovation and tech development.

The “Will It Be You?” PSA highlights entrepreneurs’ contributions to the economy, job creation and innovation, an especially poignant message given the economic challenges of recent years. It’s also a timely message, given the selection by Google of Kansas City for its much sought-after Google Fiber Initiative.

The road to the designation as America’s most entrepreneurial city was the result a collaboration between the Kauffman Foundation and the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, among other organizations, as part of the Chamber’s 5 Big Ideas Initiative.

The Kauffman Foundation plays a large role in the Kansas City community. Founded in the mid-1960s by the late Ewing Marion Kauffman, the Kauffman Foundation focuses its grant making and operations on advancing entrepreneurship and improving the education of youth.

If you’ve seen the Kauffman Foundation’s “City of Entrepreneurs” sketchbook video, you’ll recognize the style in which the upcoming PSA was created. During the spot, aspiring entrepreneurs will be directed to visit Will It Be You, a Kauffman-created website that provides a number of resources to help entrepreneurs get their businesses off the ground. The PSA is scheduled to run in several major markets, including Kansas City, New York City, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. You can get a sneak preview below.

As both an entrepreneur and a long time Kansas City resident, this is pretty exciting. Starting and running a business may be one of the hardest things you will ever do, but it’s also one of the most rewarding. And Kansas City wouldn’t be where we are today without our entrepreneurs, including Kauffman himself, founder of Marion Labs; Henry W. Bloch and Richard Bloch, founders of H&R Block; Joyce C. Hall, founder of Hallmark; Cleyson Brown, founder of Brown Telephone, which would eventually become Sprint; Neal Patterson, Cliff Illig and Paul Gorup, founders of Cerner, and Gary Burrell and Min Kao, founders of Garmin, to name just a few.

So as you’re watching the Super Bowl (or, if you’re like me and are more interested in the commercials), keep your eyes peeled for the Kauffman Foundation PSA. And if you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, consider this an official kick in the rear to start pursuing your dreams. That sort of victory will be a lot more meaningful than a football score. Oh, and if you’re really smart, you’ll come to Kansas City to do it.

Go Giants!

Kansas City’s Kauffman Foundation To Air Super Bowl PSA Honoring Entrepreneurs is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

A friend sent me a link to this video yesterday entitled Stuff Social Media People Never Say. It made my day and I’m pretty sure it’s going to make yours, too.

For those of us who are immersed in the digital space, it’s easy to forget that a large percentage of our family and friends, not to mention our clients, often have no flipping idea what we’re talking about – on any given day. The world we live in has a language all its own, filled with things like @messages and DMs and Hangouts and Scoops and Pins. Nodding, aren’t you? Well, it’s confirmed, you’re a geek. As if there was really ever any doubt.

Without further ado, here you go. Note that after the jump I’ve jotted down some of my favorites, just so you won’t have any trouble remembering them.

“So, I would say that Friendster is one of the most effective marketing tools.”

“No, I don’t think we need WiFi in here” (Seriously. Who would ever say that?)

“Ohhhhh, I love CAPTCHAs”

“Who’s Mark Zuckerberg?”

“Do you know how to get my client on FourSquare?”

“Where’s this plug in?”

“The Mommy Blogger! An uptapped audience!”

“Do you know if a laptop comes with Google?”

“Does anyone know how to install Internet Explorer? I really need it.”

“I just hit 50,000 unread emails in my inbox!”

“I miss MySpace!”

“Huffington Post …… Okay great. I will have my client give you a call right away (what’s that?)”

“Bill Gates wasn’t THAT influential.”

“No, no, no no! Make sure ALL that traffic goes straight to our LiveJournal.”

“Steve Ballmer is a true visionary!”

“Okay. Thanks for cc’ing me on all those emails!”

“Do you know who Robert Scoble is? I can’t figure it out.”

“Go SOPA!”

“Can I get Facebook updates on my pager?”

“Oh no! I have too many Twitter followers!”

“Do you know I’m the mayor of this bathroom on FourSquare?”

“Oh yeah. I found that error message really helpful!”

“Who is Mark Zuckerberg?” (worthy of a double mention)

And the number one thing that social media people say all the time:

Please DO NOT share this!

Seriously. You know you laughed at this just as much as I did. Thanks to my goofy PR buddy Robb Yagmin from PS Public Relations for always being on the lookout for things that will make me laugh. And kudos to GregoryFCAfor creating the video — it was awesome!

Oh, and because I’m really nerdy, when I published this post at 9:40 am this morning, the video had 418 views. Let’s see how we can rock that baby!

Stuff Social Media People Never Say is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

A quick note? Before we dive in to how you can generate leads from LinkedIn, keep in mind that, as with other social networking platforms, one of the keys to LinkedIn success is to use the site often. I’ll talk about this more later, especially when it comes to your profile, but you’ll want to get yourself in the mindset to check in on and engage with LinkedIn on a daily basis, if not more often. Sure, it may be tough to find the time, but in my experience, diligent use of the site can pay off in a big way, an incentive that likely makes up for the investment of your time and resources.

Without further ado, let’s dive in to the 12 most effective ways to generate leads on LinkedIn.

1. Your profile

Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Yet the profile is the core of your LinkedIn presence, and if it’s not up to par, you need to make time ASAP to refine and complete your profile. A common mistake is to treat it like a resume—don’t do it! Don’t be afraid to give an in-depth look at your current experience and career history. After all, you want to give other LinkedIn users a complete look at all you have to offer when it comes to a certain industry or skill-set. Think of your LinkedIn profile as a valuable piece of real estate—maximize the space you’ve got to get the best results. A couple of other tips? Use a professional-looking head shot as your profile image, crop it closely so someone looking at your profile can almost look you in the eyes and don’t speak about yourself in the third person.

2. Connections

Aside from your profile, your LinkedIn connections are one of the most important tools you can use. After all, the more connections you have, the wider your reach, and the more likely you are to be exposed to potential leads and business opportunities. Enter your email address if you want to let LinkedIn find users with whom you’ve already connected. Or look in categories such as current and previous employers, the college you attended or your geographic location to find connections. When you find someone with whom you want to connect, don’t just click send on LinkedIn’s default invitation – that’s the epitome of impersonal (not to mention lazy). Take a few minutes to write a brief message. Maybe you met this person at a conference or event, or know him or her through a past project. Remind this person of your connection and express your enthusiasm at the opportunity to stay in touch. Those little details can translate into a big first impression, and set the stage for future communication.

3. Share content

I mentioned earlier that one of the keys to LinkedIn is remaining visible and active. Think of LinkedIn as a fast-moving information stream. Every time you make a connection, edit your profile, post content or participate in a group, you (and your profile) show up in LinkedIn’s stream. This is a mini-marketing message to your connections and the fact that you’re visible and active on the platform lets them know you’re serious about LinkedIn and it’s power. An easy way to maximize visibility is to share content on a daily basis (or even more frequently, if you can.) You probably consume a lot of content throughout the day, so why not share what you’re reading with your connections? If you want to highlight your expertise or skills, stick to sharing information that aligns with a particular industry or subject matter, and take time to write a couple of sentences that detail your thoughts on the piece when you post.

4. Answers

One of the more overlooked features of LinkedIn is Answers. Just as you can post content to your profile to highlight your expertise, you can answer questions posed by other LinkedIn users. This is a great way to demonstrate your knowledge. You’ll also be communicating with people who are outside your immediate circle of connections, giving you the chance to expand your reach. How to do it? That’s simple. Just browse the current questions, whether you look at those posed by your network or narrow them down from one of LinkedIn’s recommended categories. When you find one that you can answer, go for it! You’ll help yourself emerge as a knowledgeable source in that field, which opens the door for others to contact you regarding prospective opportunities. Aim to allocate time to do this a few times a week and you’ll be amazed at the benefits you can reap.

5. Groups

If you haven’t already joined LinkedIn Groups, consider this your wake-up call. You can find groups for certain industries, schools, cities, interests and other criteria. Join the groups that look interesting to you and start participating – just like in real life. Imagine that. Weigh in on existing discussions or start your own. When you post content to your LinkedIn profile, you can also specify that the link be shared to certain groups, which is a great way to cross-post to several different areas at once.  Think of groups as a smaller, more niche networking opportunity, but equally valuable in helping you maintain your LinkedIn visibility and demonstrate your expertise.

6. Events

Here’s a novel idea—take some of your online interactions offline! Scan upcoming events in your area that are posted on LinkedIn to find potentially valuable networking opportunities. After all, as tempting as it is to conduct all of your interaction online, there’s an intrinsic value in meeting up with people face-to-face. Once you’ve established that initial bond, you can continue to build the relationship on sites like LinkedIn and will be top-of-mind if a new job, prospective client or other growth opportunity becomes available.

7. Research

If you’re heading to a sales or other business meeting, it’s not a bad idea to spend a little bit of time doing some preliminary research. Look up the meeting attendees on LinkedIn to familiarize yourself with their backgrounds and work experience. You’ll also be able to see if you have any connections in common and, if so, can mention a mutual friend’s name as a conversation starter. Any time you can demonstrate that you’ve done your homework and have taken the time to get to know the people and the businesses with which you’re working, you make a far more effective impression.

8. Company page

Do you have a LinkedIn Company Page for your business? If not, set one up! This allows interested parties to get a snapshot of your business as well as your employees. And just as you post content links on your personal profile, you can post them on your business page, too — yet another way to establish yourself and your company as an expert in a particular industry. LinkedIn recently rolled out the ability for a company to post status updates and in our experience, this is a drastically under-used tool. Set up your page, make regular status updates – you’ll be amazed at how your brand presence on the platform might grow.

9. Applications

Applications are what I like to consider the “pimp my profile” part of LinkedIn. You can choose from a number of different apps to add features and personality to your profile. One of my favorites? SlideShare, which displays your presentations in your LinkedIn profile. I’ve landed several business leads from presentations alone, so the ability to publish your presentations so that they’re visible to your LinkedIn audience is a key tool when it comes to lead generation. We’re also big fans of feeding your corporate blog into your LinkedIn profile, which is another app and very easy to do. As you add apps, choose them with a discerning eye. You don’t want your profile to become too cluttered and hard to read. You may also want to consider installing the apps toward the bottom of your page so that your work experience, skills, recommendations and other pertinent information have a more premium placement on the page.

10. Recommendations

Speaking of recommendations, these are nifty tools that add a richer level of engagement to your LinkedIn profile. Don’t be afraid to approach current and previous colleagues and superiors and ask them to write a brief LinkedIn recommendation. You’ll want to be sure to return the favor, and you can also volunteer to write a recommendation for someone else, which will likely result in a reciprocal write-up. Recommendations are built-in testimonials, so the more you have, the more information someone can get about you, your work habits and your strengths, increasing the chance that a business prospect will approach you for an upcoming project or similar work. And you can’t get a recommendation unless you ask for one – so get going.

11. Mobile

If your schedule is anything like mine, you’re constantly on the go—and you probably always have your phone in hand, right? There’s no reason why you shouldn’t maximize the LinkedIn mobile app to stay up-to-date with your profile and connections. LinkedIn has done quite a bit of work on the app over the last year, and I think this latest version is downright snazzy. What’s more? It’s convenient. You don’t necessarily have to be at your computer to update your profile, do a bit of research or find out what’s happening with your other connections. It all goes back to maintaining your visibility on the site, and the mobile app is a key tool when it comes to facilitating a steady stream of LinkedIn activity.

12. Promote

Now that you’ve put all of this hard work into creating your LinkedIn profile, building your connections and establishing a more robust presence on the site, it’s time to promote your efforts! Make it easy for people to find you on LinkedIn. Publish a link on your other social networking profiles, your website, your blog, your business cards, your email signature—wherever applicable. And if you write a blog that contains business-related content, make sure you’ve installed a LinkedIn sharing button so that others can more easily publish your information on their own profiles.

When it comes to generating business leads, it’s all about staying visible and increasing your reach, two fundamental components that can be achieved with LinkedIn. The site undoubtedly requires a time commitment – but so do any networking or new business development efforts. There’s no easy button when it comes to building credibility and a network. And, for us, LinkedIn is one of our number one sources of new business leads.  I can assure you that your investment in the site is one of the better things you can do for your company or personal brand.

How else do you use LinkedIn to generate leads? Do you have trouble making it a part of your daily online routine, or as the site become a regular part of your digital marketing strategy? And if we’re not yet connected on LinkedIn, feel free to stalk me.

Featured image by Nan Palmero licensed via Creative Commons

Republished with permission, courtesy of 12 Most

12 Most Effective Ways To Generate Leads On LinkedIn is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Feel free to let down your guard—a post in Facebook’s help center confirms that the messages are part of a recent Call Tracking Study outreach to better understand how many phone calls local businesses receive as a result of their Facebook page.

Obviously, Facebook is serious about wanting participation. They are offering a $500 credit for Facebook advertising if you sign up for the month-long study—not too shabby of an incentive, right? Once you’ve confirmed your participation, you’ll receive a special phone number from Facebook that you’ll need to put on your business page for one month. That way, Facebook will be able to count calls that occur as a result of the page, while also ensuring that the calls reach their recipients.

Here’s a copy of the message, courtesy of All Facebook:

With Facebook spam and hacking so prevalent, it’s no wonder that even a legitimate message like the one above was tagged as possibly suspicious. Yet it’s a smart move on Facebook’s part to stay up-to-date on these issues and let users know of legitimate correspondence—especially when it comes to a potentially valuable offer for small business owners. After all, free advertising is a pretty powerful perk.

In the meantime, we hope that Facebook will publish results of the study. Tying Facebook exposure to phone calls received can provide yet another valuable metric of what Facebook marketing can do for a business or brand. It’s our bet that businesses might not actually receive many calls as a direct result of their Facebook pages, but the proof of that will, of course, be in the pudding.

There’s a lot to be said for a well-designed business brand page on Facebook, and offering relevant information, shopping, great, entertaining, informational or otherwise valuable content on Facebook. Obviously, if you’re a small business that has a brand page but isn’t doing that, you’re probably not getting many calls. And signing up for the promotion will be a great test of that and can perhaps set you on a path to making some modifications that might make a difference.

Bottom line – it’s all about the data. The more data you can collect about the effectiveness of various platforms, the more you validate your digital marketing strategy—and can help sell skeptical parties on your efforts, too.  If you’re a small business with a brand page on Facebook and decide to participate in the promotion, we’d love to know about your results after the test period is over.

Image via Stock.Xchng/otjep

Recent Facebook Emails To Small Businesses Are Research, Not A Scam is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Facebook users will have access to more than 60 apps that will bring a new level of transparency to what their friends are doing. Did you just eat an unforgettable meal at a local restaurant? Share the experience through Foodspotting. Purchased event tickets through Ticketmaster? Broadcast the details to your News Feed. Discovered the next must-have piece of furniture for your dream home on Pinterest? Pin your find straight to your Timeline.

And that’s not all. After the initial apps offering, Facebook is expected to add even more apps for a growing number of niche interests—think hobbies, sports and other categories.

Facebook’s New Apps: An Overview

Unlike other Facebook features that have been teased for weeks before they’re available, you can start adding new apps to your Timeline now (as pictured above). Since I’m a big news buff, one of my first choices was the Wall Street Journal’s WSJ Social app.

Once you enable the app’s access to your Facebook profile, you can dive right in and, in the case of WSJ Social, share what you’re reading with your Facebook friends. Katy jumped on the WSJ Social bandwagon, too, and snapped a couple of screenshots to demonstrate how the app interacts with your profile.

If you’re sensitive about privacy, each app gives you an option to adjust the sharing settings so you’re not broadcasting each individual action to your network. From what we’ve seen, access to these settings is prominently labeled on most apps, so you shouldn’t have to spend much time on this task.

And while these apps are certainly more personal, that’s exactly what they’re meant to be. As Hayley Tsukayama writes for The Washington Post, “The apps are all set up to use the ‘frictionless sharing’ function on the social network, meaning that users only have to give an app permission to share information once. After that, the app updates automatically to a user’s profile, letting their friends know instantly what they may be eating, studying or listening to at any given moment.” For the record, I hate that.

Invaluable Marketing Data? There’s An App For That

Of course, a deeper dive into Facebook’s apps shows their purpose isn’t merely altruistic. As Jessica Guynn writes for The Los Angeles Times, Facebook’s Chief Technology Officer, Bret Taylor, said “…expanding the Facebook platform would generate revenue in the ‘grand scheme’ but that the announcement was not ‘overtly’ about making money.’” Of course it isn’t!

The cool thing about the apps is that with this latest technology, Facebook’s developers are creating a site that is more intuitive. Based on what you’ve shared in the past, ergo what you’re most passionate about, Facebook’s algorithm will determine placement on your profile page – much like how the current news feed features posts and updates. These features are only available to people who have enabled the new Facebook Timeline and users are supposed to be able to manually override the placements determined by the algorithm. That, of course, will be a whole different set of blog posts. And, if past history is any indicator, not easy to find and do. Gotta love Facebook.

Yet the apps also have a benefit for the sites to which they connect. Spotify has reported a large spike in traffic from Facebook, and other increasingly popular sites like Pinterest will likely see the same effect, a result that could be a huge boon for an up-and-coming website. Plus, the new data that will result from this deeper level of sharing will be a veritable goldmine for businesses as they continually work to refine their marketing strategies.

“The more businesses large and small are able to understand the relationships between us consumers and the products we consume, the more targeted and effective they can make their marketing,” writes Jolie O’Dell for VentureBeat. “It’s only as insidious as capitalism itself, and this type of intelligence is the kind of thing that could quickly bring online advertising to its evolutionary apex—at least for now.”

Moving Beyond The ‘Like’

Those financial perks don’t overshadow the fact that the apps are meant to give Facebook users a deeper, more meaningful experience on the site, allowing an opportunity for further profile customization and the chance to use Facebook as a tool with which to truly represent—and capture—your daily life. And it makes sense. After all, what does a “Like” truly mean? Support? Intent to purchase? Passing interest? These new apps introduce a wealth of actions to the Facebook experience: buying, reading, eating, etc. It’s a fulfillment of Mark Zuckerberg’s promise during last year’s f8 keynote.

“ ‘We’re helping define a new language for how people connect,’” he said as quoted in VentureBeat. “ ‘When we started, the vocabulary was limited to simple, inexpressive ‘Likes.’”

What’s your take on these new apps? Are you like me and annoyed by apps that want to share every article you read with your friends once you authorize it once? Or do you see yourself benefitting from the coolness factor of some of these apps such that that little detail won’t matter? Our advice, get used to it. This is just the tip of the iceberg and the first 60 of what will likely be thousands of apps. As for us, we’ll be doing our share of experimenting, in spite of the fact that there are things about apps that annoy me.

Lead image via Facebook

Facebook Wants More Social Sharing, Rolls Out Apps is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

For marketers and senior management looking for a quick hit from social channels, there continues to be disappointment. I can’t tell you how many meetings I sit in where a senior executive says to me “Yeah, yeah, yeah – but I don’t have time to do that stupid tweetering stuff,” or “I don’t know about this blogging business – why would we want our competitors knowing what we’re doing,” or “I’d like to get new business from LinkedIn, but I’m too busy to spend any time fooling around there.”

But for marketers who understand how to set goals for the use of social channels, how to strategically integrate social media marketing into their traditional marketing efforts and how to use the channels in a meaningful way, there’s a return.

Marketing Sherpa’s webinar “Realizing a Return on Your Social Marketing Investment: Strategies Behind the Monetization of the Social Media Channel” reinforced this by breaking down social media marketing investment into maturity phases. Those maturity phases are Strategic, Transitional and Trial.

Strategic Use

Essentially, almost 50% of CMOs surveyed who are using social channels in a strategic fashion indicated that social media marketing efforts are producing a measurable ROI and are continuing to invest in social efforts. Not surprising – having a strategy and well-defined goals usually pays off, no matter what tactic you’re using. The other 50% of strategic users indicated that the results of social media marketing is promising, they expect it to produce ROI and will continue to invest conservatively in social media marketing efforts.

Transitional Use

For marketers using social channels in a transition phase – meaning they’re well beyond the early stages but not quite into the full on strategic use phase, almost 20% report that their efforts are producing measurable ROI and another 70% see promise and plan continued conservative investment.

Trial

There are many folks just dipping their toes into the social media marketing waters. But even so, those in the early experimentation stages are seeing some concrete ROI – a reported 11% and an additional 60% see promise and plan on continued investment. So even for the companies who are at the very early stages of experimenting and integrating social media marketing into their overall marketing efforts, there’s evidence of overwhelming perception of potential benefit – and impact on the bottom line.

That speaks volumes, at least to this marketer, as to what’s on the horizon for businesses of all sizes. As you can see from the above graphic, a miniscule portion of the CMOs surveyed for this particular study reported that they see no ROI from social media marketing efforts and aren’t interested in further investment. Methinks it might be safe to say those marketers have their heads firmly in the sand and might be some of the same people who proudly proclaim they have no use whatsoever for a mobile device.

Bottom line, marketers are finding value – and return on investment – in social media marketing efforts. What are you seeing? Are your clients or businesses continuing to set more concrete goals, establish benchmarks and seeing a return on their investment in social media marketing? Or are you in the camp that’s still lobbying against old school thoughts that social media is for kids and that clients and prospects can’t possibly be served and/or discovered through these channels? I’d love some examples from you – of either type.

Social Media Marketing Investment Delivers ROI is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Sound familiar? Have I got the thing for you!

Unroll.Me is an email unsubscribe engine that allows you to unsubscribe from unwanted emails in bulk. Sweet! Unroll.me is in beta now, but you can request an invitation and my bet is that you’ll get one in no time.

As an aside, I loved the strategy behind their invitation to participate in their beta. I’m not sure if props for this are due to the folks at Unroll.me or Launchrock, their “powered by” platform … but in any case, I liked it as much as the platform itself, which guaranteed a blog post about it.

See how they invite you, when you sign up to participate in the beta, to invite at least three friends AND like their Facebook page. They incentivize you by letting you know that the more friends you invite, the sooner you’ll get access. And they make it easy for you to do just that. Note the Facebook Like Button, the invitation to tweet, the sharing link and the ability to easily import folks from your contact database and send them email invitations. The only thing they’re missing (and I think it’s a biggie) is the built-in LinkedIn sharing button (why leave out the biggest business professional network if you’re making it easy to share) … but it’s still an awesome call to action.

More than that – I think that’s pretty smart marketing. We’ve got something you want to play with. And you can play with it sooner if you help us tell people about it. For early adopters like me and my nutty friends, that’s a no-brainer.

I’ve already gotten my invitation and can’t wait to punt all the unwanted emails from my inbox. And if you feel the same way, request your invite here – then get busy telling your friends about it.

What do you think about the beta invite and call to action … am I the only one who thinks that’s pretty cool or do you agree?

Bulk Unsubscribe To Unwanted Email With Unroll.Me is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Borrell conducted an online survey from January through August of 2011 that resulted in some 4,200-plus responses. Main Street Goes Social reports that almost two-thirds (64.4%) of SMBs are presently using social sites for marketing purposes and social media marketing expenditures are expected to double in the coming year.

SMB marketing expenditures for social media marketing were at about $1.1 billion in 2011; they’re expected to hit $2 billion in 2012 and predicted to almost double again to about $3.9 billion in 2013.

However, as we know, there’s a big difference between embracing social media marketing and effectively integrating social media marketing into the rest of your marketing mix. Having a Twitter or a Facebook account or a corporate blog is one thing. Using them to effectively to generate more brand awareness, serve customers and to drive leads and sales – those are entirely different animals.

It’s kind of like all the businesses that rushed to embrace daily deals sites like Groupon and others, ran a promotion that wasn’t well-thought out with a sound strategy driving the marketing campaign and lost money (and probably customers) in the process. Or the businesses who want you to ‘Like’ them on Facebook, without knowing what, exactly, they’ll do with those likes once you deliver them up. Never mind considering how to entice you to care enough to like them in the first place.

Effective social media marketing is all about delivering value. It could be value in the form of customer service. It could be value in the form of entertainment. It could be value in the form of information. And so many other things. But having social media accounts and utilizing them as a bona fide part of your integrated marketing strategy – that’s what delivers results.

So, hopefully, if you’re a business owner serious about using social media marketing as a part of your marketing strategy, you’ll be focused on what your overall business goals are, think about how social media channels and social media networking might fit into the rest of your marketing initiatives, and then really focus on what kind of value you can deliver as a result of your efforts.

Those things — if you do them – they work. Whether your business is large or small.

SMBs Embracing Social Media At A Rapid Pace is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency