Advocate's Studio

With my crazy day-job and travel schedule these past few weeks, I haven’t been able to post my usual volume of quality content. Here is a quickie until I can get some more fully featured posts up. Nice simple infographic about what sites on the Web are designed for certain business- related tasks. Enjoy.

Every so often, these social media companies come out with a free resource to get you to pay attention to their expertise. That isn’t a bad thing – you can often get some great, free information or, at the least, jumping-off points for more study if so desired. Eloqua is one of those companies that sell revenue generation using new media and the Web and they are savvy enough to turn to some real experts in the social media realm for their very slick, graphically pleasing new tome: The Social Media ProBrook. You can download this eBook and perused at your pleasure. Whether you believe there is such a thing as a “social media expert” or not, there are definitely gems in this book. Check it out and get Social Media – smarter. And check out their blog post introducing the resource here.

Recent news reveals that Facebook interactions / shares may be more valuable than Twitter interactions / shares, at least for top news sites. Not surprising when you have a half a billion people playing around on your site. So a how-to guide to business strategy on Facebook is nothing if not timely. The publication, called Best Practice Guide: Marketing on Facebook, spans fourteen pages, and breaks the topic down by five guiding principles and seven objectives. Those familiar with the ideas that swirl around the question of how to best use social media will find the principles familiar. However, the depth of detail for fourteen pages is not bad at all. Saving the best for last, Facebook includes a list of links to helpful Facebook resources on the back page, which alone is worth a click or two.

If you have ever wanted to delve more into Facebook marketing, this guide is a great place to start – although you may not completely trust Facebook with your privacy, they might know a thing or two about how to use the site to make money.

Less than a year ago, I presented to a group of lawyers at the Boston Bar Association about the nuts and bolts of Social Media and why it makes good sense to get in on it. Part of my presentation was addressed to potential objections that might be raised by attorneys when considering whether to spend any of their most precious asset – time – engaged in networking online. One of those ostensibly reasonable objections was “gee, only the big guys, like Coca Cola, Disney and Best Buy, are hanging out online. My small business clients are still perusing traditional media outlets for their own promotion, information retrieval and vendor vetting efforts.”

Well, if American Express is to be believed, the facts behind this objection are rapidly shifting and making the objection most hollow: American Express Open reports in the Business Wire that results from its semi annual small business survey show that small business use of social media has increased four-fold in the last year. The release does not solely address social media use by small business – the survey generally examined how small business owners are viewing the economy and whether they are poised to take advantage of potential growth opportunities in teh coming year. With respect to social media, the survey results show that:

Business owners are also increasingly tapping into social media to reach customers and prospects. Four-in-ten now indicate they use at least one social media platform; Facebook is by far the most popular platform, with 27% of relevant businesses on board. By comparison, only one-in-ten business owners a year ago were using online social networking to market their businesses.

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The apparent exponential growth in the use of social media by business owners is rooted in the need to drive demand. When asked about the primary benefit of using social media for their businesses, nearly four-in-ten entrepreneurs (39%) said it increases the exposure of their business.

Social media is a lower cost marketing channel through which business owners can talk directly to consumers, who say they’re more than willing to listen when it comes to special promotions and deals. In fact, consumers said they were most interested in hearing about small business loyalty programs (59%), followed by free trials (49%), rewards or incentive programs (44%) and invitations to new product launches or special shopping days (39%).

“For business owners, social media ultimately should be a two way street. It’s about business owners connecting with customers and customers connecting with businesses,” Sobbott added. “More than 10% of consumers we surveyed reported posting a review of a small business through social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, and of these posts, two-thirds say the reviews have been positive.”

Now, it probably doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if small business owners understand the value of and are implementing social media programs in crazy growth numbers, small business owners also might recognize the value of turning to online resources for finding and connecting with their own vendors and service providers.

Will you, the lawyer or business professional, already be there to welcome such connection possibilities with open arms? Or are you waiting until you represent a one in ten business that hasn’t yet filled out your social media profile?

Maybe I should have said tabular, but still, this free report from Experian Simmons, entitled the 2010 Social Networking Report contains lots of data on recent increases in social media usage, confirming suspicions that social media networking is indeed on the steep rise. The entire report can be downloaded after filling out some basic information or you can view it online (link here). I thought it worthwhile to quote the follownig two paragraphs from the introduction to give a flavor for the findings:

The 2010 Social Networking Report provides the hard data behind this consumer revolution, including the fact that fully 66% of online Americans use social networking sites today, up from just 20% in 2007. Social networking is an increasingly addictive activity, with nearly half of those who access such sites (43%) reporting that they visit them multiple times per day. While users of social networking sites may have initially signed up to better keep in touch with friends, a growing number say they now use sites like Facebook to connect with family members. An astounding 70% of social networkers keep in touch with family via their various online networks, up from 61% a year ago.

Fully two-thirds of all online adults today have visited a social networking site in the last 30 days, up from 53% in 2008 and 20% in 2007. Social networks have most thoroughly penetrated the young adult market, as nearly 9-in-10 online 18-to 34-year-olds visit such sites today. But even older Americans are tapping into social networks, with 41% of online adults age 50 and older making monthly visits to sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.