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If you missed the Better Business Bureau of Minnesota and North Dakota’s FOCUS 2009 Luncheon Series, “How to use Twitter for Business,” you’re in luck. We’ve got the whole presentation (by our very own Executive VP, Christian Del Monte) and we’ll be posting it in easy to watch, 10 minute videos over the next two months.

The seminar focuses on how to use Twitter as a business and marketing tool to stay in touch with clients, increase brand awareness and get your company in front of new prospects.

If you’re interested in learning:

• Who’s using Twitter and how to communicate with them
• How to increase your Twitter following
• How to Tweet like a pro with popular software programs
• How to monitor what’s being said about you and your industry and
• How to track results and calculate an ROI,

be sure to stay tuned for the upcoming blog posts.

The first video, “How to use Twitter for Business Part 1: An Introduction to Social Media” serves as an introduction to social media, explaining the value it has for business professionals and companies. With a very loyal audience, who’s highly involved and a reach similar to that of television, no matter how much time you have to invest in social media, it can still be very beneficial to your business.

Twitter can help you:

• Network
• Build / extend your social community
• Gain market research knowledge
• Communicate with other professionals
• Communicate with your target market directly
• Create brand exposure
• Generate leads
• Increase sales

And the best part is? Yup, you guessed it. It’s FREE!

To learn how Twitter can help your business, watch Part 1 now and don’t forget to check back next week for Part 2.

In the good old days, buying advertising was as simple as calling a media buyer to find out how much inventory was available.  Advertising could be purchased by length and frequency where simple pricing rates could apply.

In the online realm, a creative executive soon finds that the model is not only dissimilar, but it’s nearly non-existent.  This especially becomes apparent when considering the world of search engine optimization and social media.  Do these questions sound familiar?

How much does it cost to get my site ranked #1 on the top of Google?
Can you get my company into facebook, twitter, etc.?

If you have been asked these questions in the past, you likely go into “repeat mode” where a 10,000 ft. education overview is required to explain your consulting rates.  And even if you are lucky to have a prospect that is willing to hear your entire pitch, the whole thought of having to wait for results is not the advertising norm and will typically spawn a negative reaction…even among seasoned executives.  For those that find themselves in this situation, I suggest you may want to view social media and search engine optimization like strength training.

1.    It may look like a big job- no one said that it was going to be easy.  In contrast to purchasing advertising, disciplines like search engine optimization and social marketing take time to grow and harvest.  Everyone would love to have instantaneous results, but this is not realistic

2.    It takes continual practice- to be successful with most online media, you’ll need to continually try new things and perfect others.  No one has a magic formula for success.  If it were an exact science, it wouldn’t be marketing.

3.    Frequency is key- just like building muscles, you need to continually develop your online presence, grow your social footprint, talk to industry professionals, and keep reading.

4.    Think holistically vs. too narrow- too much of anything is typically not a good thing.  Like strength training, focusing globally is better than just doing one thing.  In addition, taking time to rest certain areas will allow you to rejuvenate and worth those areas from a new perspective.

5.    If you let things sit, they lose strength- if you’re serious about managing a certain channel, you can’t “get it to a point” and decide to drop off without incurring some consequences.  This isn’t to say that you can’t pick it back up, but as a general rule of thumb, continual maintenance is needed to keep things at status quo.

The idea that marketing promotion takes time to build strength is not a totally new idea.  The fact of the matter is that most advertising channels do not translate into instant success by merely using them.  Every advertising medium needs time to work their magic, measure results, and tweak.  Social media and search engine optimization should be treated no differently other than it will typically take more initial invested man-hours to build momentum.  Everyone wants to see results overnight, but in many cases is not possible given the medium’s characteristics.  An experienced online consultant should be able to set realistic expectations and milestones that are required to achieve your business objective.  Advice your prospects to be patient and build strength, the results are just around the corner.

They have been buzzed about.  They have been criticized.  And to this point, marketing and advertising results have varied greatly.  But one thing is becoming obvious:  social networking sites like Facebook and are not going anywhere and learning to leverage them effectively now has the potential to pay off big time in the future.

From the beginning, skeptics have questioned the value of marketing on social media sites, saying the traffic was not targeted, the demographics too young, reporting and analytics limited.  However, that is all changing, and Facebook appears to be leading the way.  Below are some of the top reasons I believe every company should take advantage of this medium and include it (in some way, shape, or form) in their marketing plan for 2009.

Pure Volume
According to the most recent comScore stats, Facebook attracted 222 million unique visitors worldwide and 80 billion page views in December 2008.  In fact, 22 percent of the total Internet audience visited the site during the month.  (To put that in perspective, there were about 200 million unique TV viewers in February 2008.)  While MySpace currently receives more U.S. traffic than Facebook, it’s predicted that Facebook will overtake MySpace by January 2010.  Clearly, a successful marketing campaign involves more than just getting your message in front of a large audience.  You need to convey the right message.  But there is a reason that major advertisers spend millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads each year!

Not Just for Kids Anymore
One of the biggest misconceptions of social networking sites has traditionally been that they are only used by teens.  However, according to “Adults and Social Network Web Sites,” a study released by Pew Internet & American Life Project, the number of adults using sites like MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn grew from 8 percent in 2005 to 35 percent in 2008.  Twenty-two percent of adult social networkers use Facebook.   These users are predominantly college educated males with a median age of 26, a demographic known to be big spenders online.

Targeted Ads
Because Facebook allows and in fact encourages users to include a great deal of personal information in their profiles, the opportunities for targeting are endless.  Target by location, sex, age, keywords, education, etc. and your ads will only be displayed to users who fit your chosen criteria.  Want to target a certain keyword?  No problem.  Select words or phrases that relate to your product or company and your ads will only be shown to users who mention those words in their profile.

Your Fans Spread the Word for You
Word of mouth is one of the most valuable forms of advertising in history.  Why?  Because we trust our friends’ opinions more than ads that we know have been constructed solely to get us to buy a certain product.  The beauty of Facebook’s model is that when users visit your page, stories of that interaction are posted in their News Feeds.  Every time one of their friends log in, they see the post in their own feed with a link that goes directly to your page.

Ok.  You may be sitting there saying, “It all sounds great in theory.  But does it actually work?”  Let me give a personal account of my own experience with Facebook and the day the light bulb went on in my head telling me that they are on to something.

I Became A “Fan”
As my friends will attest, I enjoy eating out quite a bit.  In fact, I’ve been known to frequent my favorite restaurant for their happy hour sushi special several times a week.  Upon logging into my Facebook account one day, I noticed a “story” posted in my News Feed announcing that one of my friends had “Become a Fan of Chino Latino” (I’m hoping that plug will get me some kind of free food coupon. )

I clicked on the link because I wanted to see what I would get if I was a fan too.  When I got to their page I saw a simple profile with the restaurant’s logo, basic contact information, etc.  But upon further inspection, I saw fan pictures, a discussion board engaging users by asking questions like, “Who is your favorite bartender?,” and best of all a list of updates telling me the latest specials and upcoming events.  I became a fan myself and within about 15 minutes saw that 10 of my friends had done so as well. (I know this because it showed up in my News Feed.)  When I logged in the next day I had an event invite from Chino telling me about their weekend specials.  Where do you think I went for dinner that weekend?

In the past few weeks I have become a fan of several restaurants (one of which specifically linked to Facebook from their Website), clicked on an ad to download 3 free songs from one of the “favorite bands” listed in my profile, and entered a contest to win a trip by becoming a fan of a travel agency my friend works for and posted about in his status.

I’m not saying having a Facebook ad or page is the answer to all of your marketing needs or is going to result in a tidal wave of instant business.  But the new age of online marketing means finding ways to engage your customers, make them advocates, and let them promote for you.  If you ignore the social networking community (especially the rapidly growing Facebook community), they may just ignore you too.