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Don’t advertise on social media sites. Lets be honest, advertising is about persuasion while social media is about empowerment - service as opposed to solicitation. The difference boils down to consumer confidence - advertising and marketing messages are inherently persuasive and rightly perceived as biased whereas word of mouth messages naturally build (or diminish) confidence without perceived bias. Granted, the value of good advertising in social media or any other environment is in its ability to spark inspiration and need, emotion and thought; from those things that make up everyday life.

So why does traditional online advertising not work in social media? First, most consumers’ decisions on social media sites take place through the referral of friends. Case in point, 78% of respondents to the 2007 Nielsen Global Survey on Word of Mouth indicate consumer recommendations are the most credible form of advertising. Second, the push marketing approach does not apply to niche, fast-moving audiences found in social media sites. Three, the mindset of social media users is driven by self promotion and community (social engagement) - in order to connect there has to be an exchange that is of value to the user. If you chose to advertise on social media sites be conscious of the need to give that audience something of value as opposed to a advertising message.

Twiter, Facebook, Flyertalk and thousands of community boards, blogs and social media platforms empower consumers to communicate, network, contribute and make decisions about their everyday life. The gold dust of social media is consumer generated content and the sentiment it reflects about brands - dynamic word of mouth and conversation. The question is how to identify, harness, measure and act upon the conversational gold dust. In simple terms the challenge is to define and tie key performance indicators to the content and sentiment being measured.

The first thing to understand is that social media and consumer generated content serves as a repository and public record of conversations and consumer sentiment about a brand. A number of companies (Nielsen Buzzmetrics, Brand Watch, Market Sentinel) have popped up offering technology to capture those conversations for analysis but much of the application of that technology is still quite tactical or focused on brand reputation management. In fact, the consumer generated insight research opportunity is to use that insight on a regular basis and with quality marketing-based analysis to derive valuable insights that can improve marketing communications.

In our experience, the single most important measurement metric for social media is a variation of Net Promoter Score ®. Creator, Fred Reichheld of Bain & Co., measured the number of consumer “Promoters” (those who would recommend a product or services) and “Detractors” (those who actively discourage the use of a product or service) of hundreds of companies across many categories finding that on average the NPS leader grows at 2.5x. While the Net Promoter Score ® metric can provide a foundation metric, it is important to define additional metrics aimed at benchmarking the contribution of social media against other channels of consumer interaction.

Our work with Avis and OpenSkies on the social media space has allowed us to define a measurement approach to consumer generated content; based on five measurement modules.

1. Involvement
This set of metrics is aimed at understanding the propensity of involvement for either your own social media environment (community board, blog) or third party social media sites that drive users to your site. Assigning a unique referring ID to your social media property or third party social sites within your site analytics tool (Web Trends and Google Analytics) should facilitate this data.
- Site visits
- Time spent
- Pages viewed
- New vs. returning users
- Navigational path

2. Engagement
These metrics are aimed at understanding the specific actions and behaviors of users. Every engagement such as a comment should be equated to a call centre engagement or store visit. This approach allows for social media engagement to be viewed as part of the overall customer journey, providing a degree of benchmarking.
- Commentary volume
- Frequency of comments
- Sources of commentary
- Commentary creator segments
- Topics/Subjects

3. Sentiment
This set of metrics is aimed at identifying changes in positive and negative feedback across time and against competitors. This information can be used by Customer Service teams to proactively address specific issues being openly discussed by consumers. - Net Promoter Index variation

4. Propagation
This set of metrics is aimed at indentifying the distribution of social media content and its impact on how other consumers find and participate on the discussions about your brand. A key metric is search engine indexing which is related to the incremental impact of natural search traffic and visibility derived from social media.
- Citations
- Trackbacks
- Search Engine indexing

5. Transaction
While not applicable to all brands, transactions from social media can be measured by leveraging third party ad-serving and site analytics data. Establishing a control test against your average transactional site data can be an effective way of identifying variations on behavior and value.
- Registrations
- Shopping cart instances
- Conversion rate
- Revenue per transaction
- Revenue by user

If you haven’t started using twitter but have wondered what use it could be; consider that twitter offers one of the simplest social networks formats with the least amount of time required to get started and maintain. Like any social media it takes a bit of time to learn how to use and interact with others, build your own branded twitter page, and build a Following, but compared to Facebook and MySpace the set-up takes only a fraction of the time and its ongoing use is low maintenance.

The good news is there are spectacular quality articles that give great tutorials and helpful pointers. Either start Googling away searching on your twitter topics or seek out the top twitter users and tune in to how they are making the most their communications.

Following are 10 reasons why twitter might be the easiest social media for your organization to break into for creating brand interactivity and real time relationships with your customers.

1. Twitter Is Free - Like all highly used social networks, the good news today is there no charge to get started and continue building an unlimited “Following” (database) of contacts that want your news.

2. Getting Started Take Only Minutes - Unlike LinkedIn, MySpace, and Facebook which can be great for growing your contacts and public relations, Twitter is simple and reasonably straightforward.

3. It Takes Seconds To Get Your Point Across - There’s no need for lengthy projects or hours of strategic thinking when all you have is 140 characters (one and a half sentences) to make your point.

4. Building A Database Can Be Easy - If you already have a database of contacts and prospects you can search for them on twitter or send messages via other advertising, like your monthly newsletter.

5. Masses of Customers Can Get Updates - If your audience is highly tuned into what your company does, twitter allows you to get the word and links out to your information in seconds.

6. It’s Not A Time Consuming Monster - You’ll need to decide how frequently you want to twitter (comment). You may only use it a few times a week in which case it will only take minutes out of your schedule.

7. No Technical Experience Is Required - If your firm does not have a ‘whiz’ with software, there’s no coding or technical experience required. It’s a simple as writing and line and submitting.

8. Google Loves Tweets - As your following grows; you’ll find that a variety of software applications will capture your content on their platform. Google catches their updates and keeps it for searches.

9. Easily Share Updates And Links - If you’re in a business where your customers are in front of their computer, you can note when new products arrived, regular policy/news updates, etc.

10. Create Real Time Relationships - By sending out regular updates, your followers can feel like they’re interacting with you. Most companies buy on trust and value as much as they buy because they need the products/service. Twitter can be monumental for building trust.

The first question you need to ask yourself and honestly answer is “What is your true level of compassion? And how much of it are you willing to surrender fulfilling the needs a given community?” What exactly does compassion have to do with social media marketing? Compassion is having a Deep awareness of the suffering of another being coupled with the wish to relieve their suffering and fulfill their need. In Social Media Marketing you need to identify with your follower, customer, client etc., have a keen awareness of the situation that is causing them to be harassed or to feel helpless. Once you have clearly identified their need, you then must to do something about it. You need to get in touch with their pain, compassionately and not superficially. Then you need to actively take part in solving their problem. This is not rocket science, its common sense.

However trying to understand the many marketing options available in social media Internet marketing and mlm Internet marketing strategies relies on far more than common sense. This task is beyond mind boggling and ranks up there with the requirements of becoming a brain surgeon.

Unfortunately today there is so much pain and suffering, every where in the global village that we have become numb to it. On one segment of the news you view a teen aged gunman killing 15 classmates in yet another school and the next clip is how your local NBA,NFL etc team’s game went, all while eating dinner. NEXT…….. What have we become? Numb? Cold? Complacent? Disconnected? You fill in your interpretation.

Too many of us are too busy or burnt out buy our own tragedies too much to really be compassionate about fulfilling the next guy’s needs. Many of us are grasping for our own breath of fresh air… and with so much pollution in every sense, we have become caulis, apathetic and filled with hopeless despair.

If you hope to survive in the arena of social media marketing you need to live in harmony with the needs of the certain community you wish to serve. You have to view others through the unconditional eyes of love and we all need to become better listeners (tough one for me) to know what those needs are. If you don’t listen with razor sharp hearing you will not know how to deal with relieving others pain. In social media marketing with the MLM or network marketing industry, SEO20, we are positioned to provide purpose, promise and possibilities, not gloom and doom. If you can provide this through true compassion you can move others toward action. This is a humbling experience that will pay huge dividends providing your passion is genuine.

People are wandering aimlessly with no design or purpose but may not like to admit it. There is no need to be scattered or feel harassed by the events of the day, the harvest is plenty and the workers are few. Are you wired to be a worker? Can you deliver? Can you really be a leader? I ask myself these questions everyday.

As Ferny and Ray say in SEO Networker’s Master Mind, there is very little competition. I am beginning to believe them. After devoting months to Research, I now have a clue as to why there would be little competition. If you want to make it to the top in SEO20, you have to give it all your heart. For how long do you pour yourself into it before you experience the fruits of your labor? I’ll keep you posted.