Participating in discussions across forums, twitter and facebook helps you stay connected with customers and address any concerns or queries they have.

While this might seem like quite a daunting task, thankfully Google Alerts which is one tool which makes this job quite easy. Google Alerts is a service which provides email updates of new content that Google has found across the web.

Setting up a Google Alert for your brand is easy:

1. Visit www.google.com/alerts
2. Enter your business name or brand into the search terms box
3. Select your update frequency (live/daily/weekly)
4. Enter the email address to receive the alerts

Done! Google will now send you summaries of all online activity related to your brand. This can include forum posts, twitter updates, new sites linking to you and any other new content that mentions your brand name.

Bonus Tip: Don’t stop at your brand name, expand your Google Alerts to include some other search terms. Some examples include,

• Your name
• Your products
• Your URL
• Your competitors

Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars by Mitch Meyerson is a new book that shows you how you can be successful in social media.

“The stats document a revolution. Facebook added 100 million users in less than nine months, one in six higher education students enrolled in an on the internet course, YouTube became the second largest search engine within the world and about 80 percent of businesses use LinkedIn to discover employees,” states Mitch Meyerson, author of Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars. “Businesses can’t afford to ignore the rise of social media marketing.”

Meyerson shows company owners these ideas for maximizing their social media achievement:

1. Begin Strategically With Your End Result In Mind

The use of social media is certainly on the rise and it’s no surprise that much more and much more companies are jumping on board to become “social” companies. To use social media and make a profit, though, you have to know precisely why you’re utilizing it. What are you hoping to accomplish with social media?

Do you want to connect with prospects, develop conversations, build your brand, construct your mailing list, or generate revenue? Perhaps you need to do all of these things. Which may be the most important for your organization and how will you manage your efforts?

2. Construct a Human Connection

At the other end of each and every social media conversation is really a individual just like you. They have particular concerns, hopes and dreams that affect their daily lives.

Listen to what they are saying, be empathetic and build bonds. Examples of this consist of acknowledging personal details for example birthdays or providing warm introductions to likeminded friends and colleagues.

3. Track and Measure Your Social Media Advertising Efforts

To reach your goals it’s essential that you monitor the progress of your social media advertising efforts. You are able to most quickly enhance what you measure. If your goal is to measure visitors, sales or Search engine optimization ranking, here are some other free of charge tools that may help:

– Google Analytics and Feedburner.com are essential, free of charge tools to assist analyze your company’s internet website or blog visitors, subscriber count,keyword optimization too as additional trends.

— Bit.ly enables you to shorten your links and track the click-throughs.
— Statsaholic.com compares rankings along with other info on up to three web sites at a time.
– Xinureturns.com is excellent for adding a URL and receiving a load of helpful statistics ranging from search engine optimization (Search engine optimization) to social bookmarking and much more.

There are lots of much more to be discovered with a Google search.

Success Secrets of the Social Media Advertising Superstars by Mitch Meyerson presents the priceless secrets, strategies, tactics and insights of much more than 20 of today’s social media elite. Handpicked by Meyerson, the book presents the following authors and topics:

Success Secrets of The Social Media Marketing Superstars by Mitch Meyerson presents the priceless secrets, strategies, tactics and insights of more than 20 of today’s social media elite. Handpicked by Meyerson, the book presents the following authors and topics:

Mari Smith: Facebook
Deborah Cole Micek: Twitter

Barbara Rozgonyi: LinkedIn
Julie Perry: YouTube
Brian Clark: Psychology of Social Media
Gary Vaynerchuk: Building Mega-Followings
Joel Comm: Success Qualities
Chris Brogan: Building Communities

Keith Ferrazi & Tahl Raz: Relationship Strategy
Starr Hall: Building Profits
Dan Janal: PR Strategies
Michael Stelzner: Go Viral
Ann Handley: Creating Content

Andy Willbes: Personality
Craig Valentine: Communicate with Impact
Denise Wakeman: Business Blogs
Paul Colligan: Podcasting
Chris Garrett: Social Bookmarking
Kim Dushinski: Mobile Marketing

Shama Kabani: Online Video
Dave Evans: One Hour a Day
Mitch Meyerson: Online Marketing

Success Secrets of The Social Media Marketing Superstars

Entrepreneur Press * $21.95

ISBN 13: 9781599183770 * ISBN 10: 1599183773

Want to read more about the book? Take a look at what my friend Brian Clark has to say about it.

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But forget parenting: it’s actually in business where we all need to put positive language to work. I find myself rewriting emails all the time–especially difficult emails–to improve the overall vibe of the message I’m trying to convey.

• “We can’t move forward without a work agreement” becomes “We can start as soon as we receive your work agreement!”
• “That’s impossible without scrapping everything we’ve done so far” becomes “That can be done, but we’ll need to take a few steps back and re-scope the project and timeline…will that work for you?”
• “Once you approve the storyboards it becomes a lot more expensive to make changes to the programming” becomes “Let’s make sure you’re OK with the storyboards now, because it’s a lot easier (read: cheaper) to make changes to storyboards than complex database programming.”
• “We can’t launch your web site without final payment” becomes “Once we receive the final payment we can launch your site, blog about it, and start making you money!”

To some people this may not seem like a big deal, but in my experience (and sadly, I’m getting more experience every day) it changes the entire tenor of a conversation.

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Here are some ideas for you. When I checked out at the local CVS store recently, I noticed that they were collecting customer email addresses on their cash register receipt. The timing is a smart idea. You’re already in a buying mode, so why not take one more action? Here’s an example.

They have all the important stuff on this receipt. An enticing offer ($4 coupon) to get you to part with your email address along with a disclaimer that they will guard it for you. The method is a bit clunky, but why not. I bet they’re very successful.

You could use this approach on your store receipts (or on your invoices if you mail them out). If you don’t have room on the receipt, create a flyer to hand out to customers. The point is — do it. These people are already your customers and collecting an email address, plus following up with subsequent offers can really pump up your cash flow.

Another thing I thought was really cool about their receipt is the invitation to follow them on twitter. This piece below was left intact after you removed the piece above. Using these two methods gives CVS plenty of opportunities to continue to engage you as a customer.

You could use this in your business too. If you’re not yet on twitter, you could be missing a chance to connect and engage with your customer where they hang out.

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Social media is useful for almost every type of business. Cafes, retail stores, and even professional services can build their online reputation and increase trust. By taking advantage of social media, businesses can make themselves more accessible, more personable, and maintain long term connections.

Facebook is the most popular social networking website on the internet, and often the first site that comes to mind when people mention social media. Establishing your business presence on facebook requires an ongoing effort, but can have some great rewards if done well.

Here’s our advice for getting started with Facebook.

1. Create a business page – Creating a page for your business is really quite simple and gives you an instant presence on facebook to share information about your company. To get started visit www.facebook.com/advertising/?pages and click Create a Page.

Here’s a checklist for populating your page with relevant business information:

• Overview of the business
• Website and contact information
• Your logo and pictures of the business
• Videos
• Press releases and blog posts
• Company news and updates

2. Interact with your fans – Once you’ve setup a page for your business, the most important step is to interact with your fans! Try and post updates to your page at least weekly which can include new blog posts, competitions and links to new products or special discounts.

It’s also important that you engage with any customers that leave a comment on your wall or wall posts. Remember that facebook is a public forum so take care with your replies and show potential customers that you provide excellent customer service.

3. Promote your facebook page – The tricky thing about facebook pages is that you can’t friend someone the same way you can from your personal profile. People can elect to become fans of your page, but only if they know about it.

Here’s a few ideas on different ways to promote your page:

• Identify contacts from your personal profile that are business contacts and invite them to become fans of your business
• Include links to your facebook pages in the footer of email communications with customers
• Include a facebook icon on your website or blog and give customers some incentive to become a fan (special discounts, coupons etc.)
• Promote your facebook page using other social networks that you participate in

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Furthermore, the traditional work hours of 9-5 are becoming more and more irrelevant.  One of the things that frustrated me the most when going into an office during a particular time was that just because someone told me that I needed to work from 9-5 doesn’t mean I that I could.  Like most people I have ideas and am more productive at various parts of the day; sometimes I get an idea at the gym, sometimes I get an idea in the shower, and sometimes I get an idea at 11pm at night – I don’t think 9-5 and neither do most people.  I also have a very interesting and dynamic workday.  Sometimes I like to go to the gym mid afternoon and sometimes I like to work late and sleep in during the morning.

According to an article from the Sunday Times in 2009, “Working nine to five, what an archaic way to make a living. Recent research by Microsoft shows that 78% of people believe that traditional office hours no longer exist — and some forward-thinking companies are even dispensing with the office itself.”

Current economic conditions are also propelling the virtual workforce initiative forward as it helps reduce overall operating costs.  An article on CNN also highlights the value of virtual meetings and discusses new initiatives by Second Life to service this new virtual workforce.  In my Enterprise 2.0 series on Intuit the organization mentioned that they are actively encouraging virtual work and are in fact now calling it “flexible work spaces.”

Tools such as Box.net, Yammer, Skype, and Gdocs (and probably hundreds of others) all allow you to do everything from host video conferences, to collaborate on documents, update the company on what you are working on, chat in real time (via text, voice, or video), share files – pretty much anything you can think of.  The challenge however is that while the tools are available, their successful use and adoption is ultimately what is going to drive and encourage a virtual or “flexible” workspace.  As Intuit puts it, the tools they have deployed allow employees to work from anywhere while still giving them the feeling that they are part of the team and collaborating – just as if they were sitting next to each other.

Most virtual technology solutions are also accessible via mobile devices, in fact many software solutions build specific apps so that employees can access all of their information via mobile phone.  Mobile phones are pretty much becoming small laptops and you can do almost anything on these devices. Here’s an interesting report by Pew which highlights some interesting internet, broadband, and mobile stats.

The reality is that today we have a very mobile and virtual workforce.

Working virtually is much easier for smaller organizations since there is just less to deal with in terms of adoption, employees, legal, and overall barriers.  Trust in a virtual workforce is also crucial.  If someone wants to work virtually from Maui then the expectations of that employee getting their work done, doesn’t change.  It only takes a few negative experiences to convince a large organization to disallow any type of virtual work.

I think there are a few things that are crucial for a successful virtual workforce.

Trust

As I mentioned above you have to feel confident that the guy in Maui is getting his job done and doing so just as if he were working at the office

Tools

The entire virtual workforce movement is supported by a host of technology platforms that all cater to a specific need.  For example Box.net is great at sharing files and information with employees.  Skype is perfect for 1-on-1 video or voice meetings.  Yammer is great at connecting an entire organization and updating employees on who is working on what.  The challenge around tools is making sure that they can be integrated with one another when relevant, that employees know which tools they have access to and how to use them.

Accountability/productivity

Employees have to remain accountable for the work that they need to do and productivity cannot suffer in the process.  Of course if an organization notices that accountability and productivity begins to decrease then you can kiss virtual work goodbye.

Governance

There need to be some rules and guidelines in place for this.  For example if a client proposal is due tomorrow is it still ok for the team to work from home?  Should employees be allowed to take conference calls from home?  Simple examples I know, but there need to be some sort of guidelines in place at least initially to make this work.

Security

This is a big one.  Making sure that information employees access from a remote location is secure and private is a huge concern for organizations.  Working from an office space, the organization has much more control over access so somehow this needs to be negotiated with IT.

Here’s a great post from Telecommuter on best practices for telecommuting for fortune 500 companies that I also recommend you read. For another interesting read check out Productivity 2.0: How the New Rules of Work Are Changing the Game.  The point is that we are moving towards a mobile and virtual work force and we now have the tools and technologies in place to support that, but as we learned tools and technology only get you so far without having a solid strategy in place for making everything work.

Here’s a great example of a large organization (Cognizant) manages and encourages virtual work, thanks to Prem Kumar for the tip!

Ask yourself if your organization can be just as productive if it allowed for a virtual workforce and let me know what you think in the comments.

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News Break: Small businesses are the economies core! In small businesses you find creativity, talent and hard working passionate and knowledgeable people that truly understand how to build great relationships. Yet, when it comes to marketing, without even bringing in terms like SEO, social media or PCC these small businesses are all hands on busy helping customers, maintaining their stores and balancing checkbooks to keep the doors open, marketing often becomes a chore job or even buried under a hundred other tasks. Most of you know, however these small businesses need to understand that Val-Pak isn’t their only or best option.

In the case of CJ’s Bakery they depend on wedding cake session. They have an amazing pink lemonade cake that with Bavarian cream in the middle amazes, inspires and makes me drool just thinking about it. Even if you lived a mile away how are you going to know about that great cake? How are you personally going to make the decision to choose CJ’s Bakery as your wedding cake maker over places like Safeway, QFC or one of the hundreds of cake makers that you will meet at a wedding show?

Shaking Hands & Kissing Babies.

There has to be time to invest in building relationships. Last time I checked a wedding cake isn’t a product that will be routinely ordered from the same customer. However, it is a great gateway product into their great coconut donuts and fresh breads. From setting up a sampling booth at the local city celebration days, and at the farmers market to offering open house evenings where people can sample and network.

Get Online

The investment of getting a website is often something that scares small businesses. Having a website built doesn’t require taking out a home equity line of credit it means, just like shoes you need to find a web designer/developer that understands the budget, needs and like a pair of shoes “fits, and wears well when you walk around” with the idea. In CJ’s case in less than a week a site could be up. Raising your eye brows? In a case like CJ’s I would recommend installing an easy CMS like WordPress that keeps costs low, creating just a couple of pages that has display photography of the cakes, store and owner and clearly post on the site the phone number, address and have a contact form. Keeping it simple keeps costs down, time to develop short and gets the message to potential customers to contact them.

Social Media?

The reason I haven’t thrown in some kind of curve ball about the importance of social media is that in this case CJ’s doesn’t have the time, talent or budget to maintain social media. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t consider social media, however I would recommend they start paying close attention to all of the online reviews about their bakery. Their online presence is being shaped by reviews on iKarma, Merchant Circle, Yelp, Wedding wire and many many other places.

Being a brick and mortar building it is important to reach out into the community, build relationships and make sure to create at least a basic web presence that clearly communicates to customers what services and or products you offer. Being online and paying attention to your business’s online reputation will only help shape your business to be competitive and stay stable even when the big brands move in.

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The top digital marketing tactic for OMB readers in 2011 is Search Engine Optimization

Our poll this year provided 44 different answers to choose from ranging from display advertising to no holds barred spam. Over 200 readers took the poll and made their choices. While there are many signs of marketing budgets making a recovery, the vast majority of marketers are still focused on planning the most efficient and effective online marketing mix they can for the new year.

Hopefully the responses from our poll will be helpful in making those choices as budgets and strategies are planned for 2011.

The top responses in this year’s survey reflect a more holistic perspective that includes search, social media, advertising, content and email.  While social media marketing continues to get a lot of media attention and companies are investing more ($1.2 billion 2011, Forrester), search marketing (PPC and SEO) gets the lion’s share of digital marketing budgets ($20.7 billion 2011, Forrester).

A new entrant to the top 10 this year is content marketing which is a reflection of the increasing importance on providing more than just product/service features and benefits to customers in order to get them to buy. Content is the glue for the intersection of SEO and Social Media. Content is often the outcome of social interactions online and content can be shared and linked to, increasing it’s visibility within all kinds of search. I wouldn’t be surprised if Content Marketing jumped a few more spaces next year. According to the Junta42 Content Marketing Spending Report, 59% of marketers surveyed planned to increase content marketing spending in 2010.

Advertising through Pay per click and social media rated well, but not concomitant with budgets. That is more likely an indication of the topical focus of Online Marketing Blog which pays less attention to advertising than Search Marketing, Social Media, Content Marketing and Online PR.

Keep in mind, the results of this single question poll are a reflection of our readers and with 232 responses, isn’t a significant sample size for making broad generalizations. It is however, useful insight for our readers to see what others are focusing on. Online Marketing Blog is rated well as a marketing blog and has a significant readership in the marketing community.

You can see the full set of responses and all 44 digital marketing tactics here.

Are Search Engine Optimization, Social Networking and Blogging your top digital marketing tactics for 2011? If not, what areas will you emphasize next year?

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The problem is, while VAs are amazing—and I wouldn’t run a solo-business these days without them on my team—like almost anything involving human beings, it’s easy to have a bad experience with outsourcing if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Yet most people are so focused on finding a good VA they don’t even think about learning how to outsource and manage projects virtually. Then they find out the hard way there’s more to it than hiring someone and saying, “Here, do this.”

So today I’m sharing six key tips from my new Action Guide “The Overworked Entrepreneurs Guide to Outsourcing Success” to help you learn how to outsource effectively and happily.

12 Tips for Working Smoothly and Easily with Your New VA

(Excerpted from “The Overworked Entrepreneurs Guide to Outsourcing Success” by Stacy Karacostas)

1.    Create how-to process documents and/or checklists for all recurring tasks in your business. Ideally do this as you go along. Having these makes it much easier to outsource those tasks, or even hand them off to an employee or partner.

If you’ve ever read “The E-Myth” or “The E-Myth Revisited”, by Michael Gerber you already know what I’m talking about, and hopefully have created some for your business. If not, the time to start is
now!

You can also have your VA create them as they go along, especially for tasks you’ve never done. But it’s best if you can put them together for your VA to follow. I’ve included samples of a bunch of my own starting on page 78 as well as a variety of process docs and checklists in the Appendix and on the Worksheets & Handouts CD to get you started. So no need to reinvent the wheel.

2.    Always include a task title that is clear and descriptive. This makes it easy to keep your tasks organized at both ends. If you put “New Task” or something generic in the title or subject line the item can get lost. Plus you’ll waste time trying to find the right message again if you need to reference it later.

3.    Put your due date in the title or subject line, as well as in the main document, to make sure it doesn’t get overlooked. This is VERY important! Neglect this small detail and the chance of you getting your task completed on time goes way down.

4.    Start any task request with a short overview of what you’re trying to accomplish. If they understand the big picture it’s easier for them to do the tasks correctly, make decisions on their own, and offer suggestions. But keep it short. One or two sentences should do the trick.

5.    Use bullets or numbering to detail out each step or specific task you need done in order to complete your project. It can also be helpful to have them update you on progress by making a note under each bullet as they complete that task.

6.    Only submit one task/project per request. Never submit two completely different projects in one request (or email) or you risk confusion and projects falling through the cracks. Send each one in a different email or request.

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But, I’m not.

I’ve been in marketing or advertising (online or otherwise) for 20 years. I’ve been thinking lately about why I got involved in social media. What was the attraction? I’ve realized it’s THE TRUTH. That’s something sorely missing from a lot of traditional advertising, where veracity is neither required nor particularly encouraged.

But as I pondered this connection, I realized that there was a portion of the advertising world that shared a lot of elements with social media – infomercials.

Authenticity

You can’t lie in infomercials. If you’re pitching shamWow, it damn well better pick up water. The same is true in social media. You can stretch the truth a bit if you must, but ultimately there’s nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide.

The Voice of the People

Sure, infomercials include a lot of patter from the host (and his trusty sidekick, the otherwise-out-of-work-former-TV-hostess). But infomercials do a brilliant job of telling stories not just through the eyes and mouth of the pitchman, but also through the eyes and mouths of the customers. Testimonials are a huge part of the infomercial world, as they are for effective social media.

Sure, you can tell your company story ad infinitum in social media, but ultimately you’ll benefit so much more if you can make your customers part of your marketing team. Get them to tell your story, and you really have something viable.

The Power of the Unexpected

The genius of infomercials (and to a lesser degree, home shopping channels), is that they present to you products that you didn’t know you needed, because you didn’t know they existed. How many SpaceBags or food dehydrators were sold before they were infomercials? Not many. Infomercials create brand-new categories by tapping into unexpected desires.

Your social media strategy should do this too. Of course, you can talk about the run-of-the-mill features and benefits of your product, but that doesn’t create any real kinship. That’s just a brochure in 140 characters. Instead, let your customers in on the secret. Show them aspects of your company that they didn’t already know. That’s what builds loyalty and advocacy.

At the end of the video, you’ll see my question as to whether the king of the infomercial and the king of social media are really the same guy? I’m just working through this tie between infomercials and social media. Please help me think about it more. What do you say?

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