Matthew O'Brien - Social Media Marketing

[Steven Groves]

“Social Media Marketing for Businesses” – how Social media can be used by business

As businesses increasingly embrace social media technology, there is a sobering realization that they are later to the party that anticipated. 50% of all Internet traffic residing in social network sites and over 60% of search results in Google are blogs. Yet the question still remains, how does a business accurately implement and monetize social media. More importantly, what are the best applications to start with today and to include in their strategic plan down the road?

About Matt O'Brien - Matthew has over 12 years of experience running Internet technology companies from start up to exit strategy. His company, Mint Social, helps businesses implement the most cost effective social media applications to grow their business.

He will share strategies that have helped large and small businesses make social media marketing a pivotal part of their online marketing strategy.

[Matthew O'Brien]

Due to the overwhelmingly postitive responses we have gotten from our inaugural social media marketing seminar for the world webinar network (WWN) last night at SkySong, we will be adding a second seminar date in the next week. With 87 people in attendance and a big part of the huge turnout was due our use of social media marketing, we know this is a top of mind topic for all businesses today. Join in, participate and learn from the community on how social media and using social networks can grow your business. Hear the success stories and learn from the experts and have fun in the process. After all, if you are not having fun, then it truely is work.

[Jim Clark]

Is the material being covered the same as the 7/16 session or is it new material?

[Steven Groves]

Jim, we had a long discussion about that at the debrief and I think I can say unequivocally 'No' - it will not be the same content.

We feel that right now we have identified content for at least six or more live events and we also are looking at beginning the effort to produce high-quality online content that we think WWN members will enjoy and be able to consume at their leisure - stay tuned!

[Michael D Goodman]

You know, at the end of the day, all this stuff is about improving personal and business relationships. The business relationships imply generating revenue in some form or fashion. For the same reason I use Microsoft Word today instead of Wordstar (for old timers) or WordPerfect we must start with Linkedin. It has overwhelmed the marketplace with its weighted value in business.

I think we get so wrapped up in the latest and greatest we often forget older tools that exist. Twitter has value if you have a following but Yahoo Groups and Google Groups help you develop a following.

A note on blogging, before companies can embrace it they have to understand it and make some choices. Who blogs? The CEO? Marketing? Are they really open about their strengths AND weaknesses? Dave Barnhart makes a great point about blogging being a conversation with customers, is the CEO willing to engage with the "great unwashed hordes?" If not, does blogging really help the company or is it just following the latest fad?

Respectfully,
Michael Goodman
Executive Director
AzSalesPros
www.azsalespros.com

[Matthew O'Brien]

Michael,

You bring up a good point on the exposure a CEO may or may not want to have along with their overall accessibility to the online user. CEOs on down must learn how to engage with social media and social networks because this is the future of online business. You can no longer sit on the sidelines and wait. It is very reminiscent of 12 years ago when CEOs were first faced with making decisions about the Internet; was it a fad and were websites worth the investment. The difference today is that social media is growing far more rapidly than anything we have experienced before and the control has shifted to the end user. There is a huge learning curve as you know and you can have fun in this stage (while getting a jump on your competition). The other option is to wait and be forced to enter the social media game as a means of survival.