In my class offered at the Small Business Development Center: http://support.mdsbdc.umd.edu/rc/cal/default.asp?date=8-11-2011#event1, one of the participants asked me to identify a simple list of things you need to get started with your social media strategy. Please stay tuned!

I attached an awesome Social Media Revolution video also to this post. The soundtrack is from Civilization by Cid Meyer. It was pretty awesome. The most watched Social Media series online:

Click the post to view the video.

There are some dos and donts for polite and professional use of the network.

1. DO connect to your “real-world” friends:

   I’m amazed by how many LinkedIn users join up, create a profile, and immediately set to work inviting all sorts of online strangers to join their networks. The first thing to do as a new LinkedIn user – after creating a rockin’ profile for yourself – is to invite your true-blue friends and former workmates to join your network. There are three steps in this process:

   a) Download your Outlook address book

   b) Use the Find Colleagues and Find Classmates functions to link up with people you know from school and past jobs; and

   c) Invite “real” friends who aren’t already LinkedIn users, to join the network – you’ll be helping them get connected at the same time you grow your own network.

2. DON’T become an Invitation Spammer:

   It’s tempting to start sending “connect to me” invitation to everyone you find on LinkedIn, but it’s bad manners. If you want to reach out to someone you’ve spotted who has an enticing profile, send the person a Contact request rather than an invitation to join your network. A Contact request, to use an offline networking analogy, is like an invitation for a coffee date. An invitation to Connect is like asking someone to go steady. Unless you know a person already, don’t spam him or her with a “want to start recommending me to people, and vice versa?” invitation .

3. DO unto others:

   It’s astounding that a person would send out connect-to-me invitations while proclaiming on his or her profile that no new connection invitations will be accepted. There are other LinkedIn users who set up a profile and make connections, and then specify on their profiles that they won’t act on requests to forward (a key piece of LinkedIn’s value).

4. DON’T make assumptions:

   Connection invitations should state clearly why you expect your invitee to link up with you – for instance, because you serve on the same chamber committee or because your daughters are best friends in the fifth grade. With so many activities crowding a typical businessperson’s schedule and so many people in the mix, it’s easy for people to forget how they know you. Likewise, even Contact requests should state your case as plainly as possible. A message that says “May I call you? We could collaborate” is not the world’s strongest pitch. People are incredibly busy – if you’re job-seeking, or trolling for new clients, you may lose sight of the fact that a person needs a compelling reason to even spend ten minutes on the phone with you.

5. DO keep your profile current:

   If you can’t be bothered to keep your profile current, why should another person engage with you?
   Bonus: when you update your profile, you can send a one-click blast message to let your entire first-degree network know about your news. Note: please don’t abuse this feature! Reserve profile-update blasts for news on the order new business location or conference date to remember….as opposed to news items like “I have started my PMP certification class.”

6. DON’T confuse quantity for quality:

   It’s easy to get the notions “a big network” and “a strong network” confused. The question to ask yourself is “could I recommend this person, and could he recommend me?” Quality is considered referrals, which are good on Linked-In. If a resource cannot offer a referral, it can be considered quantity, which is not too bad either.

7. DON’T pass along questionable requests:
   When a friend sends a spammy invitation for his business conference, you can reply “I’m sorry, but I don’t feel comfortable passing this on.” Don’t hesitate to stand up for yourself and for your friends when sketchy requests appear.
8. DON’T abuse the Find Colleagues feature:

   LinkedIn’s Find Colleagues feature allows you to find old workmates and send unmediated connection requests to them.

9. DO join the PowerForum:

   Newbie LinkedIn users have lots of questions, and a great place to get answers is the user group called MyLinkedInPowerForum. Send a blank email message to mylinkedinpowerforum-subscribe@yahoogroups.com to join the group and get LinkedIn (and general) networking advice.

10. DO disconnect from bad apples when you need to:

    Finally, it’s worth noting that LinkedIn gives you the ability to disconnect from other users if you find that the connection no longer works for you. If you’re plagued by inappropriate requests or other annoyances from one of your connections, you can disconnect.

Literature above referenced from importanttoday.com

Description: Companies of all sizes are rushing to understand and leverage social media in their business marketing goals. However, most companies do not know where to start or how to establish a social media marketing campaign. This course focuses on creating your customized social media strategy to help your business expand its reach and communicate effectively with communities you intend to target. This course is taught by Latasa Anderson founder and owner of HiConcept Media, Inc. One two hour session.

Date & Time: Tuesday, 3/1/2011 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM

Location: Capital Region Training Center, 7100 Baltimore Avenue, 4th floor, College Park, Maryland, 20740

Cost: $25

The key factor when measuring social media goals is “Are we getting what we want out of the communication?” However, you have to remember that you don’t get money out of conversation.

So when you ask businesses or ask yourself why you are participating in social media, if its said “To Make Money”or “To Grow Our Business”, then they will fail because currency in social media is found in both relationships and content.

And if you are trying to determine how much a social media marketing strategy should cost, there’s no size fits all approach. Social media marketing simply doesn’t have a fixed price. My advice is to look for a fair mix of social sites and communication opportunities.

HINT

If your goal is to participate in the conversation, to enhance your relationship with your audiences and become a trusted member of the community that surrounds your brand, then your measures should prove you’ve done those things.

Your ROI is what you got out of the conversation, not what you got out of their checkbook. So, basically results cannot be measured immediately. A strategy cannot be measured overnight, but in the long term. Over the long term, if you see more positive sentiment being expressed about your company, that should be a win in itself.

If you are trying to leverage social media this can be a great way of increasing the number of hits to your website, increasing traffic to your website, increasing brand awareness, improved search engine rankings, reputation management, increased sales in your product or service, and establish yourself as an expert.

You could either start with social media platforms that you are familar with especially if you identify that your target audience is using those tools too. You pretty much can’t go wrong with start with Facebook. Set up a simple page for your business, product or service and tell your friends about it. Start trying to build a relationship with your potential customers, but also providing you an opportunity to demonstrate your target goal.

You can also share information via Facebook. There are already so many social media platforms that have been built around the idea of sharing information. So if you find something which you find amusing or relevant to your target audience, send it to them. They will appreciate the interaction, and this can be a great way of further developing relationships…as it demonstrates that you are thinking of them.

Some other social media platforms you can leverage besides Facebook are Social News (Digg, Reddit, and etc), Social Bookmarking (Delicious, StumbleUpon, and etc), Social Networking (Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace), and MicroMessaging (Twitter).
In summary, there is great power which can be leveraged by using social media platforms, and if you do not adopt these approaches you may be missing potential business. It is important to maintain a level of discipline, and establish a SMART goal as it is very easy to waste lots of time on these platforms. However, if you have a goal in mind, this can be a great way of accomplishing your marketing based goal.

Facebook has just released a new feature called “groups”!

So, the goal of using “groups” is that you can have more control over the way you socialize or communicate with different groups of people. These groups are customizable and you are able to create them yourself. Group members can now create small groups of friends.

This is a tidbit of information, (1) once a group is created, the members of the group can invite other people.; (2) these groups can chat together in a single chat window and share messages, photos and videos with only the group.

Group memberships could get massive, which could get frustrating for users of Facebook. Any of your friends can add you to a group. Facebook doesn’t prompt you for permission. However, you can manually remove yourself from a group and prevent your friend from adding you again.

There are reasons why Flash could or shouldn’t be the technology of choice for your website.

In the past several years, Flash has exploded…some Flash websites have been overloaded with it. I would suggest use Flash sparely unless you have a good reason not to….Flash banners, Flash music players, Flash galleries and Flash games are OK. However, not all websites should utilize a 100% Flash based website, and we can explore what questions to ask yourself…
Will my audience have the Flash plugin?
Some people do not have the Flash plugin downloaded in their browser or the Flash plugin is not up to date. Some smart phones do not completely support Flash yet either. However, this could change in the future. Older browsers (which may not be an issue for your target audience) do not support Flash, but most newer browsers do.
How long will it take the Flash to download?
Some people may have slower Internet connections, which could influence them not to wait on the Flash to download if it takes a while. Furthermore, most Flash based websites have a Flash introduction. It’s necessary to ensure that your website visitor has the ability to skip the presentation especially if it is long. Your visitor’s goal could be to merely find information, and not experience a Flash presentation. So, it’s important to understand how your target audience will use your website before considering an all Flash-based website. It may be a good idea to create a HTML based site if you have a 100% Flash based site.
How does Flash effect your Search Engine Optimization?
Flash is not search engine friendly. Thus it can sacrifice your search engine optimization. The search engines will have a hard time finding metadata and text to index the website. If SEO is important, be sure to consider this. There are some ways to get around this so the search engine can at least find webpage links .

A lot of companies are investing in search engine optimization, email marketing, social media, display advertising, and mobile marketing.* With search engine optimization capturing most of the marketing dollars, it appears that marketers are spending less money on traditional advertising like display advertisement. Of all the marketing mediums, social media and mobile marketing will be the fastest growing medium among most of them.

Right now, as of 2010, Facebook is growing the fastest among all of them. Google estimates that 1.6 billion people are online and 30% of the people on the Internet are on Facebook. If you do the math, approximately 480,000,000 are using social media. Social media is driving a massive amount of people to the Internet for about 30 minutes a day at the least. So, that’s where people are hanging out when they are on the Internet.

Recently I’ve consulted with many non-profit organizations and some profit-based organizations who do not possess a website. In today’s world it’s more important than ever to have a website for your business. Also, it is never too late to look into website design for your business.



Most people today search online for a business when they are in need for services, goods or products. For instance, my friend searched online last week for a new local daycare provider. She came across five daycare centers online via searching keywords “Day Care in Lithnoia, GA”. I’m sure there were other daycare centers in her area, but they did not have a website. I’m not insinuating that she wouldnt have considered day care services without websites, but she was not aware of them to consider them. This is the main reason why it is absolutely essential for businesses of all sizes to have a website.



Professional websites are not just for businesses that do business online. They are actually a great marketing tool for businesses of all kinds. A good website can help customers to locate your place of business and get information about the services, products, or goods that you offer.



Websites can also help customers to contact and locate your place of business. People are very familiar with getting directions to a location from the Internet. It would be unfortunate to miss out on getting new customers or new job applicants because they could not find your business on the Internet.



Today, it’s necessary that businesses must have a website. If you are considering a website, make sure its a good website. A good website is an outstanding marketing tool. It is important to take advantage of the Internet for marketing today.



If you are not technical savvy, contact a professional website design service based company. A website design company will help you create a presence online and also get your website listed in all major search engines.