I love it when my smart friends agree to write guests posts for the V3 blog. This one is from Jamie Turner, Chief Content Officer at the 60 Second Marketer.

The Internet is packed with tips on how to use Twitter, how to supercharge LinkedIn, and how to get the most from Facebook. They’re all good articles. (In fact, I’ve written more than my fair share of them.) But sometimes before you get too deeply involved in tips and tactics, it helps to take a step back and look at the landscape.

That’s what I did recently when I was in the process of writing “How to Make Money with Social Media.” I found that I was getting too entrenched in the tactical side of the equation, so I decided to do an overview of the ways the Fortune 500 use social media to drive sales and revenue.

What follows are the 5 different ways businesses are currently using social media.

Branding. Some companies use social media strictly as a branding tool. Typically, this means running a YouTube campaign that (hopefully) gets a lot of buzz around the water cooler. In our opinion, using social media simply as a branding tool is a twentieth century mindset. If you really want to supercharge your social media campaigns, you’ll incorporate one or all of the next four highly measurable approaches.

eCommerce. If you can sell your product or service online, then you’ll want to drive people to a landing page on your website where they can buy your goods. How can you accomplish this? Just do what Dell does—they Tweet about special promotions available only to the people who follow them on Twitter. The promotional links are easily tracked so they can see how many people went to the landing page and how many converted from a prospect to a customer. They generate millions of dollars in revenue each quarter by using this method.

Research. Many companies are using social media as a tool to do research. Sometimes, this involves building a website to track the results. Starbucks has done this famously with their MyStarbucksIdea website. Other times, using social media as a research tool can be as simple as doing a poll on LinkedIn, SurveyMonkey, or via email.

Customer Retention. A good rule of thumb is that it costs three to five times as much to acquire a new customer than it does to keep an existing one. Given that, wouldn’t it be smart to use social media as a tool to keep customers loyal and engaged? That’s what Comcast and Southwest Airlines do—they communicate via Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms to help solve customer service issues.

Lead Generation. What do you do if you can’t sell your product or service online? Then you’ll want to do what many B2B companies do—that is, to use social media to drive prospects to a website where they can download a whitepaper, listen to a Podcast, or watch a video. Once you’ve captured the prospect’s contact information, you can re-market to them via email, direct mail, or any number of other methods.

Are there any I missed? Are there new ones on the horizon? Leave a comment if you’d like to add to the list — there are new ideas coming online all the time!

Jamie’s Bio:
Jamie Turner is an author, speaker and consultant. He is also the Chief Content Officer at the 60 Second Marketer, the online magazine for BKV Digital and Direct Response. If you’re smart, you’ll stalk him on Twitter. He not only generates a ton of great content, he’s genuinely a really awesome guy. If you’d like to download a chapter from his book, visit his website and click “How to Make Money with Social Media.”

Cover image: Courtesy of Chris Ware, rejected by Fortune editors because of its ironic nature. Which makes me love it even more.

I read a BizReport article this morning reporting that 33% of some 5,000 UK businesses surveyed by Virgin Media prefer Twitter over Facebook for communicating with their customers. In that regard, the UK is far ahead of businesses on this side of the pond, and really leading the world when it comes to capitalizing on the real-time benefits provided by a channel like Twitter.

Don’t get me wrong, Facebook is great. But creating a presence and a legitimate “community” on Facebook is difficult, to say the least. Here’s an example. We have a client that is a fantastic rehab facility, located in beautiful South Florida. They are awesome, and they specialize in addiction relapse prevention, which is the number one issue affecting those battling addiction problems. Cool, right?

Well, not so much. There’s nothing “glam” about being a rehab services provider and do you think it’s even remotely easy to get people interested in “liking” them on Facebook? If you HAVE addiction problems, you probably aren’t interested in publicly showing that you do, and if you DON’T have addiction problems, it’s easy to ignore a business like this. Oh, and what about getting people excited to ask all their friends to “like” a business that focuses on drug and addiction problems. Tricky, at best.

But, utilizing Twitter, this very same client can be present, monitor the space, engage and make friends in an organic and genuine manner and also be available to answer questions or function as a resource when people have addiction or recovery related issues. They can also use Twitter as a content distribution channel for their blog posts and share other interesting information and resources, and potentially reach a much greater audience than they’re currently limited to based on their relatively small Facebook fan base.

My point is simple: creating a “community” and building a presence on Facebook, for many businesses, is a struggle. Add to that the fact that you can’t really rely on Facebook to monitor your customer service issues, because Facebook is a closed community. Twitter, however, is open and accessible. If you’re looking for information, feedback and commentary on a particular topic, it’s super simple to find using Twitter search. And, when you’re monitoring your brand and other keywords for mentions, whether you use free tools like Google Alerts and TweetDeck or one of the other Twitter clients or using a more sophisticated paid monitoring service like that offered by Spiral16 (disclosure: client), it also allows you the opportunity for real-time engagement, as well as customer service management.

I’m not advocating NOT using Facebook as part of your marketing strategy. I am, however, saying that not all businesses are inherently suited to do well on Facebook. And understanding what suits your business and your marketing needs is what’s critical when it comes to integrating social media into your overall marketing plan. For many, Twitter makes better sense.

The folks in the UK get that. Facebook is great. But sometimes, Twitter is better. Remember that when you’re developing your social media marketing strategy.

I met Misty Montano when we were both speakers at a Chicks Who Click event in Denver. I’ve admired her ever since and stalk her regularly. You should, too, as she’s the epitome of a pioneer in the social media space, especially when it comes to the world of news organizations.

Misty is an assignment editor and social media journalist at CBS4 News in Denver. Her story, which includes how a rogue experiment with a Twitter account led her to a position of prominence as a thought leader in the social media realm, is nothing less than inspiring.

In a world where news and media folks are scrambling to figure out best practices when it comes to integrating social media into their coverage of news and television news casts, Misty has been on the front lines. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched local and national anchors, reporters and stations use their Twitter, YouTube and Facebook accounts as nothing more than broadcast channels and shake my head at their lack of understanding of the two-way channel that social media allows them to create and engage in. As my 4 year old would say “Doiiiiiii. That’s silly.”

I watch reporters – especially the ones in my own city – amass followers like rock stars and celebrities, and only deign to follow a couple of hundred or so in return. Or only follow news stations and reporters in other markets – rather than just following um, well, people. I wonder where they think the NEWS comes from? If not from all of us, the citizen journalists who are everywhere, with our smartphones in hand, documenting–and uploading–life as it happens.

When I speak at conferences and it comes to the topic of Twitter and why it matters, one of the examples I use is the story of the US Airways plane that went down in the Hudson River. That story wasn’t broken by a reporter – it was broken by an individual. Someone who happened to be out there, see it happen and began tweeting about it. Flickr users did the same and there was already a substantial “story” out there before the news media managed to get their crews on the scene. Hmmm.

Back to Misty. She’s getting ready to go on maternity leave and as a way of organizing her thoughts, wrote a terrific blog post about social media and journalists. It’s a basic primer for anyone in the news field and superbly done. She’s broken it out into sections for the interactive journalist and the interactive producer and has really laid the foundation for best practices for the multimedia journalist.

If you’re in the news business, do yourself a favor and read it. Then practice what she preaches. This woman knows her stuff.

Gini Dietrich is a good friend, a smart gal and someone I’d hire in a minute if I needed a whole bunch of marketing know how. And, of course, if I didn’t do that shiz myself.

Her niece was hanging out in Chicago and spending time with her hip and trendy Aunt Gini recently and had a blast. In fact, she had so much fun that she created a special drawing for Gini as a keepsake. Which, of course I found because I stalk Gini on Facebook, too. Heck, I stalk that girl everywhere. Enough about me.

The drawing rocks! I love kid art – especially this kid art. It gives you a glimpse into how this little girl sees life, Chicago, the fun things she did on her visit and most importantly, her “Ant Geny.” I liked it so much I decided to make it into a new avatar for my friend. Then I decided, what the heck, why not go the whole hog and just write a doggone blog post about it. w00t w00t. I do so love it when inspiration strikes.

Feast your eyes on this, the original, uncut version, won’t you?

Then, cast your gaze up yonder, at my artful cropping job, showcasing Ms. Dietrich and her lovely mouth (open, as usual) (oopsie, did I say that out loud?)

Hmmmmm. I wonder what that open mouth is supposed to mean? Is it:

“I can’t WAIT to get on my bike and ride, ride, ride. And then Facebook, Facebook, Facebook about it!”

or is it:

“I love this social media stuff so much I can barely STAND it. Let me tell you why it makes sense for you and YOUR business.”

Or, is it:

“I’m gonna feed Pete the Tapeworm NOW and you can’t stop me. Oh no, you can’t. Just try it. If you do, I’m gonna run you over with that bike of mine!”

No matter, the rendition of Ant Geny is adorable and, being the good friend that I am, I couldn’t resist poking a little fun at Gini Gin Gin. As I like to call her.

Oh, and do yourself a favor, read her damn blog, willya? She knows her stuff and you’ll be glad you did. And you’ll soon see why I like her. And why I can’t resist exploiting every opportunity that comes my way to tease her. Oh, and follow her sassy self on Twitter. She knows her schizzzzz. For reals.

Two hours ago, I discovered Cee Lo Green’s new single, F**K YOU, on YouTube. Imagine that. Actually, I first discovered it on Facebook, and swiped it from my friend Redheadwriting’s wall, posted it on my own and ultimately ended up on YouTube, where it had a little more than 750,000 views.

It’s a brilliant example of how effective the combination of a little strategy and a whole bunch of good luck can be when it comes to viral marketing. Cee Lo, with a paltry 8,000+ followers on Twitter and only 3,000 some fans on Facebook, used a combination of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook marketing to drive some almost 750,000 views in the space of a three day period, since its posting on Thursday, August 19th. Do you know how many brands would kill for that kind of exposure and viral buzz?

Not to take anything away from my man, Cee Lo, but this doesn’t appear, at least to me, as a slick marketing campaign carefully orchestrated by an agency and a slew of “social media gurus.” Rather, it seems to be someone who created a great “product” … put it out there, combined it with some timely PR – and then let the public do the rest. I could be wrong. I’m just guessing here, but after spending a fair amount of time looking through Cee Lo’s Facebook feed and Twitter stream, it really appears to be a bit of historic dumb luck. But part of the beauty of this, at least for this consumer, is the inherent lack of slickness in the whole thing. – it appears to have just happened. And that is often a critical ingredient when it comes to the magic of something going viral. Oh, and let’s not forget the power of social media marketing.

The geek in me is compelled to point out some stats here. YouTube has some 2 BILLION views a day and is in an enviable spot as the second most popular search engine in the world. Add to that Facebook’s 45 million daily status updates and 700,000 new members joining on a daily basis, and it’s no surprise that this strategy was effective for Cee Lo. Combine that with a song that’s sure to make even the most curmudgeonly among us laugh – even for just a minute or two – and you’ve got yourself a viral phenomenon.

Cee Lo. Dude, what can I say? A few hours ago, I’d never even heard of you. Now, you can count me among your biggest fans. Hat tip for a job well done. Oh, and your song – well, it rocks! Gawker calls it the song that should have been the song of the summer. I say that no matter when it’s “officially” released, it’ll be at the top of the charts.

Oh, and in the FWIW category, in the time it took me to write this blog post, the YouTube video has had an additional 80,000 views, bringing it to 830,741. In two hours. That’s 80,000 – in two hours.

Susan Weinschenck, Ph.D., wrote an interesting piece on influence, and how a common theme that researchers encounter is that we think that OTHERS are influenced by certain things, but that WE are not. We are wrong.

Regardless of what we think, we are very much influenced by the thoughts, actions, opinions and purchases of others. That’s why online reviews are so important. Face it, we’re a bunch of sheep. When we see what others think, what their experiences have been, what their thoughts on quality, price, functionality are, all of that factors into our ultimate buying decisions.

The same is true when it comes to Facebook, and that’s one of the reasons Facebook is growing in popularity – and in power. When we see that our friends “Like” a product, service, event or even a person, we are more inclined to explore and, in most cases, “Like” them or it, too. Familiarity, recommendations, either explicit or implied, lead to a comfort level that consumers seek.

Here’s an example. Susan (whom I would really like to stalk follow on Twitter and anywhere else she hangs, but she did not give me that opportunity by putting connectivity buttons on her blog, grrrr) roped me in with a simple blog post. I discovered Susan’s nifty post when her content was retweeted by Beth Harte, someone in the industry that I respect and admire. I not only enjoyed the blog post, which was implicitly “recommended” by Beth, I also retweeted it which, for the non-Twitterai, means sharing it with my pals on Twitter. Then, I posted it on my Facebook wall because I can’t resist sharing great stuff with MY friends, and now I’m off to Amazon to buy Susan’s book, Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click. All of this because my friend, Beth, recommended it. And without ever really realizing that she was doing so.

Let’s recap: She liked, I saw, I paid more attention because she liked, based on her “rec” I shared, which means I endorsed, I went back and bought something and then I told you about it. Get it?

Influence drives sales. Need I say more?

Two important things: This is a perfect example of the power of social media and how opting NOT to use it as an integrated part of your overall marketing efforts is, well, stupid.

Secondly, it illustrates the importance of listening in the social media space using monitoring tools. If you’re a brand, you should care what the sheep are saying about your product or service, and the only way to find that out is to monitor and gather business intelligence. Here at V3, we use Spiral16 (client) and that helps us stay on top of what’s being said that could potentially influence and impact our clients.

What are you doing to influence the people you want to buy your stuff? And how do you know whether or not it’s working?

By now, if you’ve not heard of Steven Slater, the Jet Blue flight attendant who got fed up by a rude passenger and snapped, I’m thinking you might well live under a rock. The back story – as the plane was taxiing in, an anxious passenger unbuckled and stood up, reaching for the overhead bin and her luggage. Slater asked her to sit back down until the plane came to a stop, and she refused, continuing to open the overhead bin. As she began wrestling her bag out, it hit Slater in the head and he decided he’d had it. Grabbing the mic, he announced that after 28 years, he was officially done. He’d had enough of a crappy job and rude passengers. Then he did what we all have always wanted to do, he opened the emergency door and activated the slide. But before jumping his cute little fanny to freedom, he reached over on the beverage cart and – well, you guessed it, grabbed two frosty cold beers.

Never mind that he’s been arrested and could face up to seven years in prison, Slater is the latest unlikely suspect to become a bona fide American folk legend. You know you’re famous when someone like Jimmy Fallon sings a song about your badass self on national TV.

There’s a lesson here, folks. We need to quit being a bunch of pantywaists. As a society, it’s my observation that we have collectively become a bunch of scared-y cats (yes, I got that from my 4 year olds). Rare is the person who will make a fuss, take a risk, make waves, call attention to themselves or, God forbid, take a stand. As a result, we routinely settle for the status quo. That might be jobs we hate, relationships we want out of, crappy service, poorly made products or half-assed attention to detail.

Think about the last time you took a risk. Or maybe, think about how badly you’d like to. Or about the job that you feel stuck in or the relationship you’d love to get out of — or into. What about the last time you went to a restaurant and got cold French fries or a steak that wasn’t prepared the way you asked for it. Did you keep your mouth shut and eat it, or did you send it back, and ask for hot, fresh food and/or food the way you ordered it? Or think about the time you saw someone treating someone else poorly, acting the bully or some other such nonsense. Did you stop and speak up, or did you just put your head down, and move on? It’s infinitely easier to keep your mouth shut, but does it ever feel as good, or as right, as it does when you stick up for something or someone you believe in?

I could go on, but you get my point. Steven Slater might not have made the best career decision, but he made the decision that was right for him at that particular moment. He may fade into obscurity after his 15 minutes of fame are up and he’s paid whatever price the authorities decide he owes, but you know what – he took a stand. And that’s something to commend him for. When was the last time you took a stand? Or risked it all by betting on yourself and your abilities? When was the last time you spoke up and said something that would have been easier to just leave unsaid? Whether that was “I want out of this crappy relationship” or “I am madly in love with you.” When was the last time you made a decision, stuck to your guns and did the right thing – even though it cost you to do it?

No need to answer, just think about it. And the next time you have an opportunity to take a risk, try something new, say the thing that is hardest to say, stick your neck out, or take a stand, why don’t you think about trying it? I’m far from perfect, but I do routinely stick my big, fat neck out and say what I think, take stands where I think they’re called for and expose myself to all kinds of criticism as a result. And it’s not really so bad. And you know what – it’s infinitely better than being an ostrich. Any day of the week.

And as for Jet Blue, they’re enjoying their own notoriety, not only on national TV, but in the social media realm as well, as evidenced by Conan O’Brien’s recent tweet: “On JetBlue and the flight attendant just offered us “all the f***ing Terra Blue chips you a**holes can eat.” Love this airline!”

Photo credit: AP Photo

TwitterGrader is a benchmark created by the marketing software rockstars at Hubspot.   The Cambridge, MA based Hubspot was founded by two MIT grads Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah and the software is considered one of the most effective sales/marketing solutions in the industry.

The 100 Most Powerful Women On Twitter is a benchmark of the most powerful women on Twitter, based on their Twitter Grade.  The benchmark was calculated on a number of different factors but because the rankings were calculated by Hubspot, you have to know the data and calculations are solid.

Go here to read the list of The Most Powerful Women on Twitter. To find out more about Hubspot, go to www.hubspot.com.

I’m a pushover for posts and headlines that just SAY IT.  Especially when the content is written by experts like Odden.  Dig if you will, a preview:

The current iteration of what we all call social media has been around for at least 3-4 years but apparently brands are still irrelevant on Twitter and companies continue to blunder on Facebook and show a lack of understanding of what makes social media conversations succeed at reaching business goals.

What can I say? He had me at SUCK.

Go read it over on TopRankBlog.com, Why Do So Many Companies  Suck at Social Media?

Comic via GeekandPoke.

I don’t know what came over me – I just saw this picture of the Hot Ninja Babe and wanted to BE her for a minute (but only a minute), so I thought she belonged here. This post, while NOT written by or about a Hot Ninja Babe, was written by my friend, Matt Bernier, who is not only very fun to hang out with, he’s really smart when it comes to WordPress. So, here he is, sharing his brain cells with you! Enjoy.

When I read and then re-read Shelly’s post about 5 Things to Make Your Business Blog Totally Kick A** I immediately thought that there might be quite a few WordPress site owners who might WANT to do these killer things, but who don’t know what to do to make these changes to their site. Lucky for you, there’s me! (Shelly is clearly rubbing off on me).

With WordPress, the first thing I do is try to find a plugin that will do what I want. Plugins are often free, which is cool. Free is good. And sometimes, you have to pay a little something for a really awesome plugin, but you usually get so much FREE functionality that it makes it worthwhile. Plus, you don’t have to pay a geek like me to build the feature for you! Here are some specifics mentioned in Shelly’s post … and quick and easy solutions. w00t w00t!! (that’s geek speak for “totally cool beans”).

1. Do you have a Contact Form?

You can get a quick and easy contact form that will allow people to get in touch with you easily and quickly by using the Contact Form 7 plugin. All you have to do is install it and add a simple tag to your contact page, the form shows up like magic and you are protected from spam comments by a CAPTCHA!

2. Do you feature “Connect With Us” buttons that are easy to spot?

There are a couple great plugins for this, but the one we really like is called Find Me On. You can customize it with the top social networks and locations where you are found and can create the community around your online presence.

3. Do you utilize social sharing buttons, prominently displayed on your blog?

Shelly is a big fan of AddThis and Apture. We love Apture too and have it on three different sites right now because it is so awesome. Another great plugin that I love is ShareThis which is almost exactly the same as addthis but it will add the icons to the bottom of every post.

4. Comments!

Comments are one of the very most important features of a site, but they have a tendency to attract those wonderful spam bots. One of the quickest and easiest ways to fight spam is with a plugin that comes with WordPress called Akismet. It is built and managed by the WordPress guys to fight spam and much like your email spam detector, it learns!

5. Do you invite your readers to subscribe to your blog by BOTH an RSS feed and by Email?

Most popular themes have links to RSS feeds, either in the theme, or your browser will let you see the RSS links in the address bar. But, since many people still don’t know what RSS is or how to use it and many don’t want to use an RSS reader because it is just one more thing to check, email is super important. An email notification plugin that we love is Post Notification. It gives you a widget for your sidebar and lets people sign up quickly and easily, enabling your brilliant posts to be quickly delivered to their inboxes.

There are literally thousands of WordPress plugins out there, all you have to do is look. Or you can read my blog and discover them there! The ones mentioned above are usually standard fare when we put together a WordPress site because they are so simple and add such great functionality for website visitors.

Matt Bernier is co-owner of Spotted Koi LLC in Denver, CO. He has been working with web software and technology for over 7 years. Recently, he has been helping people set up and maintain their WordPress websites through how-tos, tips and tricks on WP-Relief.com He’s good people and if you’re not yet following and engaging with him on Twitter, I suggest you do so, immediately. #thatisall

P.S. And if you’ve not yet subscribed to this blog’s bitchin’ RSS feed (for convenient delivery either in your reader OR in your emailbox) why the heck not???