MindValley Labs Internet Marketing Blog

WARNING: This post is not for the “good enough” minded. Why stop at good enough when you can push for great, leveraged, or better yet, integrated?

I started toying around with social media early back in 2005. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was just having fun throwing aimless punches blindly in the dark, in misguided hopes of hitting the jackpot.

Stupid me, it never happened. I lacked direction and had no system in place.

But I persisted, and learned from my many mistakes. Eventually, one thing led to another and I ended up working with MindValley. Not to mention, along the way, I also got invited to new media related conferences, including ones co-organized by Harvard University.

Long story short, I gained a good amount of experience and insights into the world of social media. And now, yours truly, the Social Media DJ, is about to reveal to you a few of his key learnings, so please... pay close attention.

What I’ve Learned from 4 YEARS of Stupid Painful Screw Ups

1. Base Your Efforts on the Triple B Formula

Social media marketing is mainly a long term affair. It won’t bring you sales overnight like PPC-driven affiliate marketing for example (although there are some exceptions). It takes time and persistence. Hence, the need for passion.

Burn, baby burn.

Passion is your fuel, your sense of direction, and ultimately your vision. Plus, it will help you determine how you’re going to use social media, better shape your marketing message, and pick the relevant allies to network with who share similar passions.

More importantly, when you’re passionate and genuine, it shows in your communication with others. You’re likeable. You’re fun, and that my friend helps your message spread further and makes it more well-received.

That’s precisely one of the critical reasons why deeply passionate guys like Gary Vayner Chuck do well with social media.

Keep it real. Keep it human.

Now, if you don’t know what your passion is yet and need to know, that’s ok. My friend, Chris Attwood explains how you can discover it and start living it in his NY Times best-seller, The Passion Test. Check it out if you want to.

Alrighty then, next.

2. Don’t Sprawl the Mall

Social media is a broad game. You’ve got Twitter, Blogs, YouTube, Facebook Profiles, Facebook Groups, Facebook Fan Pages, StumbleUpon, MySpace, Ning, Digg, LinkedIn and the list goes on.

All have their weaknesses and strengths. Which will you pick?

See, you won't know accurately until you clearly specify your intended business goals. Otherwise, it’s going to be difficult to select the appropriate social media channels for your unique needs and measure the ROI of your efforts.

Here’s what you can you use social media in business for:

1. branding
2. community building
3. attracting new prospects
4. networking with potential JV partners
5. generating buzz and unleashing the viral monster
6. involving your customers in the product creation process
7. listening in on current conversations about your offerings to gain valuable feedback
8. boosting relationships with your customers to increase retention and life-time value

Selecting from the above what you desire in a prioritized fashion will determine which social media channels you should pick, focus on more, and integrate together.

Moving on.

3. Prove. Improve.

Try not to reinvent the wheel. Go for proven strategies, and once you’ve implemented them successfully, improve upon them.

Hence, prove, and then improve.

The following are three simple examples of proven social media marketing strategies.

STRATEGY #1 - Use Blogs to Increase Interaction

Old news. Nothing revolutionary here. Blogs are lovely flexible publishing platforms that create interaction. For more on using them effectively, read this:

• Positioning, “Social Polarity” and Vibrant Blog Communities
• 7 Ways to Increase Your Blog Comments
• Blog Marketing: Monetize The Comments On Your Blog

STRATEGY #2 - Use YouTube to Attract Traffic

Being one of the top 5 most visited websites on the planet, YouTube is a serious source of traffic, so if you're not marketing yourself there, you're missing out on significant eyeballs. To use YouTube in cool profitable ways, read this:

• How I Made A Dollar From Everyone Who Watched My YouTube Video

STRATEGY #3 - Use Facebook to Build a Community

There are countless ways Facebook can be used for effective marketing, if you do it right. Here's one that's bound to spark some creative ideas in your head:

• Facebook Marketing: How Smart Restaurants and Bars are Using “Birthday Marketing” on Facebook

Okay, so now that I've quickly demonstrated three strategies, let's go to the fourth step.

4. Integration - The “Popeye Spinach” Effect

Aha, now here comes the fun part. This is where many experts have short-comings, because they're too focused on a few social media websites and miss the big picture.

Thing is, the three aforementioned strategies are good. In fact, for many experts or so-called experts, they're "good enough."

Not for me.

Yours truly, the Social Media DJ, doesn't want to stop there and doesn't want you to either. Throw in some "Popeye Spinach" and watch the magic unraveling before your eyes.

Integrate the three individual tactics strategically. There are obviously a number of ways to do that. Here's a simple one you can use if you're an internet marketer with an email list.

1. publish a blog post that includes:

• some useful text-based content
• your own optimized YouTube video
• your Facebook profile badge

2. blast the blog post to your list
3. sit back and enjoy!

Your blog post should look something like this. The example below is from a MindValley-owned website with Burt Goldman aka The American Monk. It leverages a lot of integrated social media marketing.

Here are the benefits of integration and the "Popeye Spinach" Effect.

1. You interact with your email list via the comments in your blog post.

2. You instantly create thousands of views and momentum for your optimized YouTube video. This pushes the video higher in rankings, meaning it will continue to attract many more views for months, if not, years to come, which nicely translates into more targeted visitors to your website via your YouTube links.

3. Converting more of your list subscribers into Facebook friends, so you can better interact with them and have a closer relationship.

It all works. Here's proof. Have a look at the number of blog comments (42), YouTube video views (22,575), and Facebook friends (1,294) in the screenshots below:

Are you beginning to see the power of integrated social media marketing? The "Popeye Spinach" Effect is yours for exploitation. Use it, my friend. Use it!

5. ROI. Tweak, Tweak. ROI.

Your ROI is a critical important number. It doesn't really matter if you have 5,000 "friends" on your Facebook profile, unless you can measure the ROI of your social media marketing efforts. How do those true friends or so-called friends impact your business?

Come up with your suitable standards. Measure. Tweak to improve, and then measure again. That way, you won't be aimless.

Now go, and have some fun.

Aim for maximum impact through the strategic integration of your social media marketing efforts. Are we clear, my dear friends? If not, drop your questions, and the Social Media DJ will answer them.

If you enjoyed dancing to my beats, I urge you to stick around. You’ve only just seen the tip of the iceberg. And for those of you on Twitter, the Social Media DJ has just joined the party there. Add me @passionomics for more profitable meat.

See you at the Land of Tweets.

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About the Author

Having been invited for conferences co-organized by Harvard University and attended international ones, Amir is a blogaholic and a passionate observer of the blogosphere who's built a number of successful blogs. On top of that, he's obviously a full-time web junkie at MindValley where he focuses on blogging, SEO and social media marketing trends.

Check out other posts by Amir Ahmad

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