If you have any doubts about whether or not social media is simply just a flash in the pan or the future of internet marketing then continue reading. Now, if you’ve already made your mind up about social media don’t abandon ship. You might discover that there’s more than meets the eye.

Meets Human Needs

People crave interaction and connection with other people. This is a main reason why social media has become so popular over the last decade. Via social media, brands can create opportunities to share and recognize loyal followers with special rewards and incentives. These actions make customers feel special and it shows them that they’re appreciated by the brand.

So how does this translate into showing that social media is effective? Well, unique recognition and preferred treatment was observed by Hitwise in 2009 during Black Friday holiday shopping festivities. This study revealed that 4.3% of Facebook users and 2.3% of Twitter users made an online visit to a major retailer after they visited their social media site.

Cost-Effective Marketing

Social media isn’t free, but it is significantly cheaper than traditional advertising methods, which doesn’t include feedback from people regarding their personal experiences. Maybe this is why print media has been suffering over the past few years. Newspaper revenue has fallen 26% during the past year bringing the totoal loss since 2006 to 41%. Then there’s the magazine industry which saw 367 U.S. periodicals close up shop and cease all printing. Not nearly as bad as the more than 500 publications that called it day in 2008.

The mistrust of traditional advertising has turned consumers into skeptics. Fortunately, the Internet makes it easy to read-up and review just about anything and everything before making a commitment to purchase, subscribe or otherwise. Online advertising is certainly more affordable and it allows for more targeted reach. Couple that with a brand’s social media  presence and people can research what others are saying about a brand very quickly, plus they can ask them directly for additional information.

Builds Brand Loyalty

Based on 2009 data reported from comScore and GroupM search, social media plays an important role in paid and organic search. Click Through Rates (CTR) increased by 50% when consumers are exposed to a brand’s social media profile. Additionally, when a consumer has been presented with a brand’s social media campaign the study discovered that they’re 2.4 times more likely to click on organic links to the brand’s site.

Using this research you can see how social media directly contributes to building brand recognition and loyalty. Knowing that social media can have a positive effect on the bottom line is one more reason for businesses to integrate a social media campaign into their marketing efforts.

It’s Live

The thing about social media is that it’s happening in real time. If you have a customer service complaint or a problem with a product you can jump on any brand’s social media site and request some help. This makes it easy for businesses to deliver prompt customer care and immediately address the needs of its audience.

On the other hand, if someone chooses to broadcast their negative experience with a particular product or company it can become a nightmare, or an overnight viral video like Comcast couch guy. In 2006, a blogger needed to replace a modem at his residence. He got in touch with Comcast who sent out a technician and who the had to phone the home office for additional assistance. After being on hold for more than an hour the tech fell asleep. The blogger captured everything on video and kindly uploaded it to YouTube where it has received more than 1,542,000 views.

Social media can be used effectively to build brand awareness, as well as by people to share brand positives and negatives. The point is that no matter how you slice it social media isn’t a passing fad. It is becoming a standard communication platform that has dramatically changed the way that brands and consumers interact with one another.

Not surprisingly, many businesses have a tough time understanding exactly how social media fits into their overall marketing plan. Social media marketing seems like more of a catchy phrase that consists of nothing more than tweets and posts. In actuality, marketing with social media is much more than that. No, it won’t transform your business into an overnight success, but it can be used as an extremely effective tool when you incorporate a solid plan and strategy behind it.

At a minimum, your social media marketing plan should include a blend of public relations and marketing tactics, as well as evoke flexibility, patience and commitment for the individual or team who will be executing it. Previously, we’ve shared what social media can and can’t do for businesses and it’s important to make sure that you have realistic expectations and a well-developed understanding of what social media is and what it requires before you begin planning.

Pick Your Marketing Objectives

Here’s the broken record part of this post – you have to begin with the end in mind. You’ll hear this from just about anyone who’s ever had a hand in developing marketing plan. Decide what your objectives are and why you’re putting a social media plan together. What are the things that you want to achieve? Are your objectives sustainable and realistic? Put your thoughts together and dedicate some time to creating this cornerstone of your strategy.

Know Your People

You need to know who you’re trying to connect with and where they’re at. It’s also helpful to understand what level of social media interaction they currently have. For example, if you’re selling vitamins to seniors then tweeting about them all day isn’t your best bet. Find out what your audience likes and dislikes and get involved with them.

Get Engaged

Social media is anything but passive. It’s about a two-way conversation and that means you need to plan on being involved and contributing to the dialogue. Your social media plan should include how time will be allocated to develop relationships and communicate with your audience.

Stretch Your Creative Muscle

Once you’ve nailed down some of the basics for your social media plan you’ll want to customize your strategy. Brand it and make it your own, after all social media isn’t based on tweets alone. Get inspired by taking a look at how other businesses have leveraged their social media presence.

Measure and Evaluate

You need to figure out what success means to you and how your social media plan will measure it. Choose which key metrics are most important to you in measuring your ROI and set-up methods to gather data on a regular basis.

At the end of the day, a social media marketing plan can be effectively used to build brand awareness, brand loyalty, build word of mouth marketing and convert customers into brand ambassadors. Put some thought and creativity into you plan that goes beyond tweeting and posting and you’ll be on your way to enhancing a relationship between you and your audience.

Were these suggestions helpful? What are some other key points to consider when beginning a social media marketing plan? Share with us.

A retweet on Twitter is a simple, but powerful ways to take your content that you’re sharing with current followers and potentially making it viral. When someone retweets (RT) what you’ve posted the message goes beyond your personal follower pool. It’s instantly sent to other new tweeters, which exponentially increases awareness about your brand through your tweet. Similar to other social media phenomenon, a RT is more coveted than achieved, but by following some of the suggestions below you can finesse your tweets to make them retweet-worthy in no time.

1. Retweet Others

Famous Beatle and singer/song-writer John Lennon once said, “the love you take is equal to the love you make,” and that same philosophy can be applied to Twitter. You need to retweet other tweeps if you want them to retweet you. This doesn’t mean that you need to go on a RT rampage. Pick and choose good tweet content that is worth sharing and make it happen through a retweet. Include @reply so that they’re looped in on your generous efforts.

2. Embrace Hashtags

Overuse of hashtags can appear spammy so employ them sparingly. Because hashtags organize tweets so that people can follow them based on category you have a good chance getting your retweet pushed out to many like-minded tweeps at the same time. In other words, a hashtag is like a group. For instance, if you sent a tweet about your award winning chocolate chip cookie recipe and add #cookies to your tweet it will show up in the #cookies hashtag feed and everyone reading that feed will see your tweet. If you want to know how hashtags are trending or being used visit Hashtags.org.

3. Short And Sweet

Twitter has a 140 character limitation on all tweets. The character cap seems even tighter when you factor in a shortened URL, @reply, hashtag and retweet. So, when you craft your tweets think about the other elements that can encroach on the 140 characters. Your tweet should be short, succinct and simple so that your tweeps know what it’s about and when it comes through as retweet it won’t be partially dissected by Twitter.

4. The Best Time

A-list blogger and social media expert Dan Zarella spent some time analyzing and evaluating retweet data to determine if there were certain days or times that favored retweets in comparison to others. Zarella observed that beginning in the morning business hours on Eastern Standard Time (EST) the quantity of retweets steadily increases. Additionally, content that begins as a tweet during this same timeframe will gain a significant number of retweets than original content posted in during other times.

There has been additional debate about specific hours throughout the day that tend to yield more retweets versus others. Some people believe that the hours after lunch and at the end of the work day are when the largest percentage of retweets occurs, however, because concrete data is unavailable we’ve refrained from exploring this area in our blog post.

5. Ask For It

If you want to get something retweeted then ask for it in your tweet. Sounds simple enough, but surprisingly many people choose not to include a call-to-action on their tweets.

How are you using retweets to drive traffic to your blog? What results have you seen? Add a comment or two down below.

As powerful as social media is perceived to be there’s still quite a bit of mystery that surrounds it. Brands recognize that they need to be involved, but they’re struggling with assigning a dollar-value on social media exposure and how it equates to revenue. Because there aren’t any tools or systems in place that can spit out data on a company’s return on investment (ROI) for increasing its Twitter followers many businesses find themselves wondering if they’re just spinning their profit wheels in a social media mudslide.

It should come as no surprise that brands small and large share common concerns regarding social media. Even though concerns may be similar brands should be aware that they’ll need to exercise different strategies depending upon whether they’re B2C or B2B. Aside from defining goals and strategies, here are some of the social media obstacles that may confront brands.

1. Choosing the right social media channels.

Brands that know who their target market is and what communities they belong to can integrate those niche social sites into their strategies. Using a blend of social media dominators like Facebook and Twitter with other focused social sites might be a good launch point for some brands. The truth is that the right social channels are the ones where your audience engages itself and that are also right for your brand.

2. Converting fans and followers into customers.

You might be surprised to find out that most of your brand’s supporters are already customers. These people have interacted with your brand on some level and they’re proudly supporting it by liking, following or subscribing to the news that you share. Make it worthwhile for your brand loyalists to enjoy special perks, discounts and sneak previews that others might not be privvy to. Preferential treatment isn’t a bad thing in the land of social media. When word leaks out that your brand awards BOGO offers to Facebook fans each month you can bet that it will be taken advantage of.

3. Creating impactful social media campaigns.

Often brands will find themselves in a creative rut and unable to pull together a meaningful social media campaign. No matter who you are take comfort in knowing that we’ve all been there and this is a challenge that will probably surface from time to time. When you plan a campaign try to build it with your audience in mind, not for yourself. Remember that a campaign isn’t a press release or a widget – it’s an actual strategy. Position, objectives, strategy, tactics and key messages are the core campaign components. Layer in video, blogs, newsletters, PPC and other elements to make your campaign memorable, and sustainable.

4. Managing social media productivity.

One of the most commonly quoted challenges from brands is not being able to budget time and productiveness for social media. Without a plan in place, social media activity can be a major time suck. Execute each social media action with an objective in mind and keep your focus on the task at hand. If you’re responding to customer inquiries on Twitter, only respond to customer inquiries. Avoid jumping over to LinkedIn to see what your groups are buzzing about.

5. Increasing subscribers and fans.

Hands down this is one of the biggest challenges for all brands. Unless you’re a brand that’s been arounds for decades or who has a national presence like Starbucks or McDonald’s, you’re not going to have millions upon millions of fans. Keep scalability in mind and don’t get caught up in what other international brands are doing. Next, remember to share information that your audience would like to know and would appreciate having. This doesn’t mean an endless barrage of details about your brand. It means pulling good, credible data from other sources and funneling it down to your loyalists.

There are plenty of other challenges that brands are facing and will continue to face. This is just a handful to get your wheels turning and to think constructively about how to overcome them.

Let us know what some of your brand challenges are and share with us below.

From Denmark to Detroit, social media is a worldwide phenomenon that seems to be part addiction and part necessity. With Facebook’s recent announcement that it’s hit 500 million users and Twitter’s move toward advertising with @earlybird it’s becoming more apparent that if you want to get the word out about your business you need to step into the social media arena. However, all the excitement about social media doesn’t mean much if you can’t decipher what it means and what it’s doing. Analytics to social media are like a compass to a navigator – if you don’t understand where you’re at you won’t know where to go.

If the thought of analytics and numbers makes you shudder you’re not alone. There are more people than not who feel intimidated by numerical data. The two toughest aspects of social media analytics are interpreting information and deciding what analytic tools best meet your needs. Fortunately, basic analytics doesn’t require a PhD in statistics and the internet is filled with outstanding free tools and resources to help make metric crunching easy. So, if you can’t afford enterprise-level services like Scout Labs, Radian6 or Sysomos, you’ll want to check out some of the freebies below to help you get a grip on your analytics.

Blogs

Use PostRank to help rank your blog content and news and and to determine what your fans are reading, sharing and organizing. It also identifies what your most popular posts are in your RSS feed.

Think of BlogPulse as a search engine for blogs and their posts. It’s similar to Technorati, but it provides additional views such as trending and conversations so that you can see search competitive topics and how other blogs are ranking.

Comments

Beyond standard search for keywords and brand names you’ll want to penetrate what’s being discussed in blog commenting systems too. That’s where YackTrack comes in. Simply enter your keywords or terms to see a nicely organized list that you can drilldown to get specific mentions from.

Branding

One of the more substantial branding tools available is Social Mention. It aggregates user generated content from across multiple social media platforms and streamlines outcomes into a very simple and easy to interpret web page. The one thing Social Mention doesn’t do is show a report over time. A work around this missing feature is to create an Excel spreadsheet and manually enter daily data that you gather. Otherwise, it’s a great (and free) tool.

Perhaps more of an entertainment tool rather than a true metric evaluator, How Sociable measures your brand’s keywords throughout 32 different social media sites. There’s some confusion around the ‘visibility score’ that How Sociable has developed and not all data appears to be accurate. For example, if you run a search on iPhone it yields a visibility score of 9,453 and a Google PageRank score of zero. Odd to say the least. Looks like brand visibility metrics might have a few glitches, but it’ still worth exploring.

Trends & Topics

Head over to Addict-o-Matic and enter a unique search term, brand or product name or just about anything and it will perform a search that delivers the buzz (or results) broken down by social media platform. It’s a very convenient snapshot that let’s you look at your social reach and the social sites where you have more presence in comparison to others.

Twitter

There are so many Twitter tools available that deciding which one to use can be a daunting task. For the purpose of benchmarking your brand against your competition, Twitalyzer is ideal. It shows you what social media strategies are working and what’s not, which makes it easy to adjust social media campaigns to maximize better results.

The power of influence is a core component in any social media campaign. Knowing who has better reach and strength and engaging with them can help persuade your audience to promote your brand. Klout measures influence as it relates to your brand through Twitter. You can identify which customers and communities are more likely to become brand evangelists and work with them to drive conversations.

Another hand Twitter tool is TweetStats. You can graph how many tweets per hour, day and month, as well as look at your tweet timeline and reply statistics. TweetStats is a fantastic way to track your level of interaction and look at areas that need improvement.

Google

Google Analytics (GA) may leave you feeling unnerved, but it actually does a tremendous job on tracking numbers and data. We’ll save GA how-tos for a future post. In the meantime, use PageRank Checker to see what Google thinks of your site. Using a scale from zero to 10, with 10 holding the most authority, you can run a quick search to find out how you rank.

In order for GA to actually work on your website you need to install tracking code on each page that you want the Google bot spiders to crawl. To make sure that you’ve set-up your code use SiteScan to confirm that you’ve performed a correct installation. Although SiteScan and PageRank Checker aren’t direct analytic tools they are helpful in gauging Google-related tasks and standards.

Competitive

Quarkbase has been touted as the ‘imdb.com for websites’. By entering a website’s URL you are presented with names of people associated with the site, traffic data, social popularity, site description and sites that are similar. This is one of the best free competitive research tools available. Data can be used to help you better position your brand and establish goals and objectives.

There you have it. Granted, there are so many tools, free and paid, that accessible on the web, we hope that this short list gets you moving in the right direction.

What are some of the other free tools that you’re using? How do you make them work for your brand and what do you like best about them? Share with us.