7 Ways to Build Your Personal Brand Without Releasing a Sex Tape | Rosetta Thurman

7 Ways to Build Your Personal Brand Without Releasing a Sex Tape  

(as published on http://www.rosettathurman.com) and written by Rosetta Thurman

August 5, 2010 | Career Advice, Personal Branding

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Unless you’ve found some way to completely avoid stupid celebrity gossip, you’ve probably heard about how world-renowned actor Laurence Fishburne’s daughter is breaking into Hollywood…via sex tape. 19-year-old Montana Fishburne is going to star in a porn film and it’s interesting to hear her reason why.

“I’ve watched how successful Kim Kardashian became and I think a lot of it was due to the release of her sex tape.”

While it’s true that Montana’s idol – reality TV star, model and now business mogul Kim Kardashian – has skyrocketed to celebrity, I wouldn’t count on Montana’s personal brand achieving the same effect. Sure, she’ll get her 15 minutes of fame (and the clock is ticking), but a good personal brand requires much more than one bootleg movie. Here are 7 better ways that you can build your personal brand…without releasing a sex tape.

Start a Blog

Yup, you knew this one was coming. There are a lot of reasons why every young professional should have a blog (hell, every professional!) but one of the biggest benefits to having a blog is that even if you’re not a bigshot CEO of your company, blogging can allow you to become well-known in your field. Need help getting started? I got you. Last week, I announced my new project, Blogging for Branding, a resource to help you with all the aspects of blogging in order to build your personal brand.

Get Your Own Business Cards

This is one of the most important things you can do for your personal brand (especially for jobseekers). Ever since I was 18, I’ve had my own business cards. And even when I was working a full-time job, I kept a stack of business cards in my purse to let people know about my blog and where to contact me outside of my 9 to 5. My favorite place for business cards is Vistaprint. I’ve used them for the past 10 years because of their low cost, easy-to-use website and quick delivery. And when I say low cost, I mean low cost. New customers get 250 premium quality, color business cards free! (You just pay for shipping.) Click here to order yours. They also have a ton of professional business card templates, but I always keep mine very simple. (If you can’t see the images below, click here.)

And don’t be afraid to tell people how you want them to interact with you. For instance, the backside of my business cards say “hire me” pretty prominently. People always comment on how bold it is. But you have to remember that marketing yourself is a lot like marketing a product. You have to tell people what action you want them to take after they see what you have to offer.

Attract Fans and Followers

If you want to build your personal brand and you’re not on Twitter by now, I don’t know what is wrong with you. You can get started using my Twitter 101 guide if that helps. Once you’re on Twitter, you should be following other people in your career field or niche as well as tweeting insights about those specific topics. If you have a blog, you should also set up a Facebook fan page for yourself in the “writer” category and link to it from your blog so people can keep up with your updates. Don’t forget to put your Twitter and Facebook names on your business cards!

Get on YouTube

People like TV. People like movies. People really like to connect with other human beings by face, so it makes sense that millions of people watch YouTube videos everyday. Yeah, you could wait until you get interviewed on TV, but in the meantime, the best way to let people get to know you by your face and voice is by posting video updates on YouTube. It’s easy and free! Pick a topic that you can share your expertise and opinion on and post a brief video about it every week or every month. It’s up to you. Just be sure to spread your videos far and wide once you take the plunge into YouTubeland. Need inspiration? Look no further than Kim Love. For the past year and a half, the natural hair enthusiast has used her YouTube channel, KimmayTube, to share her expertise with the world and recently leveraged it to launch a successful retail business.

Think Local

Chances are, your personal brand is never gonna be world-famous or even nationally-known, and it probably doesn’t have to be. If you want to become well-known in a particular career field, for instance, it’s probably more useful for you to connect with those in your immediate community instead of trying to be too broad, too soon. Blog about how local issues tie into your niche and introduce yourself to influential people in your city and state that can help you build your professional reputation. Samuel Richard does this very well and has built up a great reputation for himself as a young nonprofit leader in Phoenix.

Network With a Purpose

Networking is such a misunderstood term that we took some time to define it on our recent Twitter chat for young nonprofit professionals. @ShannonRenee put it this way:
Networking is meeting people to develop a mutually beneficial professional relationship.
Sounds good to me. The only problem I see is when people go to happy hours and conferences without a purpose in mind. They go, they drink, they go to workshops and then they go home without ever exchanging a single business card. Why go to an event in your industry and not connect with the very people who can help you further your career and vice versa? Remember: you don’t really need to work the whole room, just the parts of the room that apply to what you want to be known for in your niche or career field.

Dust Off Your Email List

Chances are, you don’t email people outside of your workplace as much as you could. Yes, it’s nice to post updates on Facebook and Twitter, but alas, everyone is not on those social networks, and even if they are, you can best believe that they don’t read every single update you post. So, take a couple hours every few months to use email to update your network on what you’ve been doing with your career and what your future goals are. Give them a reason to sing your praises or connect you with people in their network who may be doing similar work. I guarantee that there’s someone on your email list that will be interested in your progress or willing to help you get to where you want to go.
What are some other ways that young professionals can build their personal brands…the respectable way?


7 Ways to Build Your Personal Brand Without Releasing a Sex Tape | Rosetta Thurman

Facebook Groups Gets a Face-lift, Better Controls

Popular social network Facebook has introduced an overhauled version of its Groups feature. This new feature will let you share information, status updates, photos, videos and links amongst selected set of individuals in an easy way. Along with that, Facebook has also tightened privacy settings by launching a new dashboard that will let you see what applications are using your information. Not only that, Facebook will soon allow users to download all data they've fed in the social network through their profile.

Facebook already had Groups but didn't have much functions and settings for it. But now, Facebook has revamped the Groups feature which will help users stay updated with the group members who could be friends, family, distant relatives, school mates or any other set of individuals. To get started, users have to create a group, add friends and then start sharing the information.


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Foursquare + Your Business

Foursquare aims to encourage people to explore their neighborhoods and then reward people for doing so. We do this by combining our friend-finder and social city guide elements with game mechanics — our users earn points, win Mayorships and unlock badges for trying new places and revisiting old favorites.
As a business owner, you can use foursquare to engage your increasingly mobile customers with foursquare "Specials," which are discounts and prizes you can offer your loyal customers when they check in on foursquare at your venue. Don't forget to show extra love to your venue's Mayor! Additionally, if you offer foursquare Specials to your customers, you will be able to track how your venue is performing over time thanks to our robust set of venue analytics — for free!
If you want to dive right in, get started by claiming your venue right from its foursquare venue page:

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Yes, CEOs Should Facebook And Twitter

(Courtesy of: Forbes.com )

Social networking has clearly reached a tipping point. Sites like MySpace and Facebook boast hundreds of millions of members. Barack Obama's presidential victory demonstrated that platforms like YouTube and Twitter could transform electoral politics. Yet in corporations where such tools have been expected to bring profound transformations, there has been strong resistance to change.

Many corporate executives either dismiss social networking as a time-wasting distraction or regard it as a risk management problem. Much of their fear has focused on potential risks like security breaches and data privacy.

Web 2.0 evangelists, on the other hand, argue that social software can be used to boost productivity. They say it can facilitate an open-ended corporate culture that values transparency, collaboration and innovation. Most important, it can be an effective way to build a customer-centric organization that not only communicates authentically but also listens to customers and learns from that interaction.

In the current stormy economy, as companies look for new ways to market their products and engage their customers, chief executive officers are finally looking more and more at how social networking tools can extend their brands, create corporate cultures based on listening and learning, and establish their own leadership profiles.

Nonetheless, big brands, generally speaking, haven't successfully tapped the potential of social media; they tend to regard Web 2.0 platforms as just another way to push out short-term marketing campaigns. They fail to grasp that the new media require new ways of doing business. Old ways need to be tossed out.
One highly successful example of Web 2.0 branding is Blendtec's YouTube video campaign "Will It Blend?" The video series features Blendtec's CEO, Tom Dickson, comically attempting to blend all manner of objects in one of his company's appliances. Thanks to the series' viral effects, the company's blender sales have quintupled.
The Blendtec videos cost virtually nothing to produce and distribute, but it is doubtful that TV commercials costing many times more would have produced the same results. That may explain why publicity-conscious CEOs are finally breaking away from the old mass-media approach of a Donald Trump or a Richard Branson to increasingly use videos and podcasts to extend their personal brands.

Most CEOs, let's face it, are cut off from their most important constituencies, including employees and customers. Their press conferences are carefully stage managed, their annual meetings over-rehearsed, and in both cases the goal is usually to reveal as little as possible. Web tools like blogs can help corporate leaders enhance their credibility by communicating directly and having authentic conversations with key stakeholders.

READ ON: Yes, CEOs Should Facebook And Twitter - Forbes.com

Gen Y Marketing Trends Point to Twitter, Not Facebook

Does your business serve Gen Y? If so, your #1 network should be Twitter, not Facebook.

Historically, moms, teens, and college students have been the most sought after (and most difficult to understand) marketing demographics. Get these groups on your side and your product will be a success, especially when you are a small business looking for brand awareness and lead generation.

The good news is that all three of these groups now fit under one larger group – Generation Y. According to The Parents Network, 68% of all births are to millennial moms (not Gen X). College students round out the middle of this generation, while teens are at the tail end.

It’s a no-brainer: most companies need to pay more attention to Gen Y marketing because this is the ultimate target demographic right now.

Gen Y is headed to Twitter

While Facebook’s average age has risen from 26 to 33 in the last year, Twitter’s average age is steady at 31 – and it’s dropping. Twitter is now the second youngest network of the big 4 (MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn). Furthermore, Gen Y now accounts for around 50% of Twitter’s network (if you assume Gen Y starts with people born in 1978 or later, making the demographic 31 years or younger).

young-people-twitter

This is good news for companies, especially those frustrated with low traction on Facebook fan pages. Compared to Facebook, Twitter is a more open platform that people use to get information from an extended network, rather than a tight knit network of friends. Twitter also works well for providing the information Gen Y values from companies and plays into the way Gen Y discovers products naturally.

From a company’s perspective, Twitter is far better for connecting with Gen Y than Facebook. Here’s some more evidence:


Gen Y wants honesty and optimism


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Article posted from & courtesy of Gen Y Marketing Trends Point to Twitter, Not Facebook — Social Pollination

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Five ways to make money from Twitter

(as seen in | Los Angeles Times)

Hundreds of people line up at the Kogi BBQ Korean Taco Truck in Los Angeles after they get its whereabouts on Twitter. Credit: Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times

Despite the tempest in the teapot brewing over what Twitter itself may or may not be making according to stolen internal documents that were leaked to various blogs last week, there are a handful of companies that have already found ways to make a buck from using the micro-blogging service.
As with two of our previous posts on Twitter, this one leans on the experience of our social media producer, Andrew Nystrom (@latimesnystrom). (You can read the earlier post about how to get followers on Twitter here, and one on finding engaging people to follow here.)
Without further delay, here are five quick examples of businesses that have made money using Twitter, beyond the usual driving traffic and building brand, whatever that means:
1. The Kogi Korean BBQ taco truck: Hundreds of people line up to get food from this L.A.-based truck, sometimes even before the truck shows up. How do they know where to go? Twitter. The family-owned company Tweets its schedule on a daily basis to more than 36,770 followers of @KogiBBQ. Of course, just because you Tweet your whereabouts doesn't mean people will show up. You also have to have the goods -- and Kogi's tacos seem to do the trick.
2. Threadless Twitter T-shirts: Threadless, an online T-Shirt store operated by skinnyCorp, has contests in which people can submit a T-shirt slogan (140 characters or less, please). The submissions are voted on by the site's visitors. Winners get to have a shirt designed around their slogan, along with a spot of cash ($500). A few of our favorite slogans: "You autocomplete me." and "Sadly, my day requires pants."

3. woot.com's Deal of the Day: The Dallas company -- whose motto is "One day. One deal" -- sends out its daily specials via Twitter. Who cares? More than 995,000 people apparently do, subscribing to @woot for notices of a pastiche of products that go on sale, including $12 kitchen choppers, $300 queen-sized memory foam mattresses and $15 power adapters. Much of the merchandise, however, consists of gizmos that fit well with Twitter's techie audience.
4. United Airlines Twitter-only deals: United, along with JetBlue and Virgin America, get rid of empty seats on their planes by offering last-minute deals that are available only via @UnitedAirlines. "These fares fly off the shelves," Nystrom said. (You think he intended that pun?) United calls these Twitter-only airfares "Twares," but it also uses Twitter to broadcast other messages as a way to polish its brand and build connections to its customers.
5. Dell's Outlet on Twitter: Dell raised eyebrows in June when the Texas computer maker said it tallied $3 million in sales of its desktops, laptops and monitors from Twitter since starting its @DellOutlet account in June 2007. Of course, that's a drop in the bucket for Dell, which took in more than $61 billion in sales last fiscal year alone. Still, it's proven to be a good way to move refurbished items or excess inventory, which appears to be the theme of our last three examples.
"Twitter is a good environment for promoting these impulsive, last-minute purchases," Nystrom said.
-- Alex Pham
Follow my random thoughts on games, gear and technology on Twitter @AlexPham.

Five ways to make money from Twitter | Technology | Los Angeles Times

5 Advanced Social Media Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses

5 Advanced Social Media Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses

(courtesy of Mashable.com. Written by: Samir Balwani is an emerging technology strategist at Morpheus Media, a firm specializing in Social Marketing, SEM, and SEO. You can follow him on Twitter @samirbalwani and get his newsletter.)

Strategy 1: Multimedia Usage

---

The term “A picture is worth a thousand words” has never been truer. Consumers are now using the web to look for product pictures and videos; they want more information and want to see what they’re considering buying. The good news is that it’s easy for a company to create and publish videos and pictures.
In addition to taking photos of products, you can also take pictures at office events as a way to highlight company culture. This not only helps convince others to work with you or to buy from you (consumers see that you are down to earth and one of them, instead of a stuffy company), it also helps your HR department recruit new employees. Who doesn’t want to work for a company that celebrates birthdays and has a good time?
Videos are useful for explaining complex how-tos or concepts. Showing step by step directions can have a greater impact than even the most well written article. Businesses don’t have to invest huge sums of money to create good videos, either. I highly recommend the relatively cheap Flip camcorder, which takes great videos and is easy for even a non-technical marketer to use.
Multimedia can break down the faceless business-to-consumer sales flow and make your company appear friendlier. Use videos and images to show that your business is fun, you care about your employees, and most importantly, that you care about your customers.
Example: WorldMusicSupply.com
WorldMusicSupply.com, an online retailer of musical instruments and accessories, has used YouTube () to build a strong online community. Their channel has built over 7,000 subscribers and has over 260,000 views.


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PR Log (Press Release) – Feb 13, 2010 – PR Smart is a Full Scale Marketing and Branding Firm. We enlist traditional marketing strategies as well as online and new media campaigns to win solid results for our clients.


PR Smart excels in the following Categories:

* Beauty
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Leveraging Social Media to Grow Your Beauty Brand

Leveraging Social Media to Grow Your Beauty Brand
By: Donna C. Barson
Posted: October 5, 2009, from the October 2009 issue of GCI Magazine.

* PR launched through social media has the potential for going viral.
* It is important to know who is following you in social media outlets, and this can be a very valuable tool to determine if you are reaching your target and which products your consumers want.
* Maintaining numerous online networks can be a challenge, but also offers rewards.
* Even when valuable content is offered through social media, a solid image should remain a priority.

It’s no secret that companies left and right are going the social media route. Whether it’s creating a business page on Facebook or sending out promos in 140 characters or less on Twitter, beauty marketers are turning to the Web to both drive sales and build consumer interaction for long-term success.

“As the world of technology changes, businesses must adjust with the times,” says Rachel Johnson, director of communications, Alchimie Forever. “I have found online media to be a fascinating and effective tool for building a brand.” She’s made sure the Swiss skin care line is on Twitter and Facebook, in addition to other online avenues such as Linkedin.

Rodan + Fields Dermatologists, the company that developed Proactiv before selling it to Guthy-Renker, has used the power of viral marketing—and everyone’s love of celebrities—to push its brands online. For its new product launches, the brand uses webisodes that debut exclusively on Facebook and cover beauty-related topics. This has helped the company boost sales and offer unique content to users.

Using Twitter was instrumental for Miriam Kleinman, president and chief scientific officer of Teava, to launch her tea-based skin care line. “I found that Twitter was an excellent source for garnering PR exposure,” she says. And PR launched through social media has the potential for going viral.

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Word-of-Mouth Marketing 101, à la Zappos.com

By Pete Blackshaw, ClickZ, Apr 1, 2008

Sponsored by PointRoll

Help! I've been zapped!
Yes, I've been zapped by the zervice (I mean "service") of Zappos.com. Trust me, I'm not doing a poor imitation of Dr. Seuss.


It started rather innocently. To round out a spirited "Advertising Age" conference panel I recently moderated entitled "Listenomics," I invited Tony Hsieh, Zappos founder and CEO, to participate. While I knew enough about Zappos to give it a few paragraphs in my upcoming book, it quickly became obvious I was barely scratching the surface.
Joining Hsieh on my panel were Rick Clancy, Sony VP of corporate communications, and Linnea Johnson, head of consumer relations for Unilever. We talked about the importance and challenge of listening, the fine and sometimes precarious art of conversation, and the growing importance of customer service in the new marketing. Clancy offered insightful commentary about his ambitious corporate blog, and Johnson offered punchy, spot-on insights about the value her groups bring to the table and why it deserves even more respect and attention -- even from media planners. (Her group is like air-traffic control for consumer conversation!)
But Hsieh took the prize for -- how shall I put it? -- zapping the crowd. Before I explain, let me first zing you with a little backdrop.
About Zappos
Zappos, with over $1 billion in sales, is one of the Web's fastest growing shopping sites. It offers over 1,000 brands in over 150,000 styles, with over 850,000 UPCs. Every single pair of shoes sits in inventory. The company has 7.4 million customers, nearly half of whom have purchased in the last 12 months.
Now it gets really interesting. On any given day, 75 percent of sales come from repeat customers, and those repeat customers spend much more the second and third times around. The average order size for returning customers is about $140, compared to about $110 for first-time customers.
This is a brand with extraordinarily high levels of customer loyalty. If you put a dipstick into the online CGM (define) currents, you'll find a brand with off-the-charts customer advocacy.
Service Begets Delight, Which Begets Word of Mouth
This customer advocacy stems from a unique combination of company culture and an unapologetic focus on customer service. In fact, Zappos's tagline is "Powered by Service." This means providing the best service and online shopping experience possible: free shipping both ways, a 365-day return policy, fast fulfillment, and expedited delivery.
For example, unlike the vast majority of big brands, Zappos promotes (rather than hides) its toll-free number visibly on the home page. You can talk to someone 24/7.

The table outlines more ways Zappos's customer service excels:

Key Variable	Typical Brand	Zappos.com
Service as marketing	Low	High
Traditional media spend	High	Low
Toll-free number	Hidden	Written on forehead
Invitation to interact	Hard to find	Everywhere
Openness to talk	The clock is ticking; get lost	Stick around; let's chat
Toll-free number hours	9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.	24/7
Outsourcing	Common	Unthinkable
Employees as advocates	Medium	Off the charts

"Zappos is touching a real nerve in the consumer affairs industry. The service is putting hard data behind what we all intuitively know and feel: great service and so-called 'feedback moments' are inseparable from marketing and brand building," explained Beth Thomas-Kim, head of consumer relations for Nestlé and chair of the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals (SOCAP).

Hsieh and his team clearly get it. There's nothing touchy-feely about how well this works. Over 80 percent of his customers hear about Zappos through either word of mouth or online advertising. Print advertising amounts to a mere 15 percent of media spend.
The Role of Culture
There's a key piece of Zappos's strategy that you just can't crank out with a cookie-cutter marketing whitepaper: culture. Hsieh borders on fanatical about culture. Shortly after the panel, I received the Zappos "Culture Book," which opened up yet another fascinating window into the "service company that happens to sell shoes," as the CEO puts it.
The entire 300-page book is written by employees and partners. It's fat, visually appealing, and reads like a group hug. It also nicely complements the company's five-week Las Vegas training course for all employees in core values, customer service, and the warehouse.
"I have felt so proud to be part of a company," notes Laura T., an employee since May 22, 2005. "Zappos culture is electric!," writes Jon J., an employee since 2004. "Our goals are set, values clearly defined, and we all buy into it," notes Kris O., an employee since 2000.
The Final Word
But is it scalable? It's hard to tell. To fully answer that question, we may need to keep an eye on Howard Schultz's relentless pursuit of Starbuck's founding values, including its sense of authenticity, in his company's repositioning. Coincidentally, the centerpiece of his reinvention strategy -- My Starbucks Idea -- is grounded on the very principle of customer participation that's given Zappos such undeniable traction.
In the end, Zappos is powered not merely by service but by the internalization of a core truth as well. Loyal customers, even your own employees, are the heart of effective word of mouth. You don't need ROI analysis from my firm or any other one to connect those dots.

oringinal article posted on::
Word-of-Mouth Marketing 101, à la Zappos.com - ClickZ

What is Public Relations?

courtesy of :
HowStuffWorks "What is Public Relations?"

 

A basic definition of public relations is to shape and maintain the image of a company, organization or individual in the eyes of the client's various "publics." What is a "public" exactly? A public, in PR terms, is anyone who ever has or ever will form an opinion about the client.

© Spencer Platt / Getty Images Public relations professionals manage image for companies or individuals, such as scheduling publicity tours.

Depending on the nature of the client's work, these publics could include clients, potential clients, voters, members of the local community, members of the media, students, parents of students, online fans groups, foreign citizens -- the list is endless.
Public relations success requires a deep understanding of the interests and concerns of each the client's many publics. The public relations professional must know how to effectively address those concerns using the most powerful tool of the PR trade: publicity [source: Bureau of Labor Statistics].

Entrepreneur.com defines public relations purely in terms of publicity work, describing PR as "Using the news or business press to carry positive stories about your company or your products; cultivating a good relationship with local press representatives" [source: Entrepreneur.com].
In many cases, the chief duty of the public relations professional is to draft press releases, which are sent to targeted members of the media. But to limit the scope of the public relations definition to publicity alone would be to underestimate the growing influence and reach of PR.
For example, Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes is scheduled to speak at the Public Relations Society of America's annual conference about "public diplomacy," a branch of government public relations. Public diplomacy is shaping the image of a nation (in this case, the United States) in the eyes of both traditional allies and enemy states.
Today's public relations professional does much more than sit behind a desk faxing out press releases. More than ever, he's the public face of the client. It's the PR professional who organizes community outreach and volunteer programs. It's the PR representative who cultivates relationships with potential investors. And it's the PR executive who goes on the cable TV news program to answer the tough questions.
Read on to learn more about what PR professionals do.

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Smart Answers August 7, 2009, 8:43AM EST text size: TT

How to Use Social Media to Promote Your Business

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn—all these can help you build a community of customers as well as introduce you to vendors and sales prospects

By Karen E. Klein

I have turned an old doughnut shop into a coffee shop/bakery and frozen yogurt store. I'd like to start promoting it with Twitter and other social media, but I'm not sure exactly what I would write about to get customers to try our new shop. Can you help? —W.W., Cypress, Calif.
Your aim should be turning customers, who may stop by any convenient spot for a morning coffee, into fans who will drive past other bakeries to wait in line for your offerings, says Chris Warner, vice-president of marketing for JackBe, a small software firm based in Chevy Chase, Md. that specializes in social media marketing.
To get that kind of loyalty, of course, you'll have to deliver a superior product with terrific customer service. Social networking can't make bad coffee palatable or make your yogurt creamier, but it can spread the word quickly as you build a reputation for excellence. "Web 2.0 technologies can help you make a virtual community that keeps your business top of mind for your fans and lets your fans help you engage new prospective customers," Warner says.

Getting Feedback

Creating such a community—whether it be on Twitter, Facebook, Ning or another social networking platform—can help drive foot traffic into your store, says Denise McVey, president of Boonton (N.J.)-based advertising and marketing firm S3. Post "daily updates on your specials of the day and information about special events, such as musical acts that might be playing," she suggests. With Twitter, you can announce when a fresh batch of danish is coming out of the oven, offer special discounts, and allow customers to twitter you their takeout orders.
On the feedback side, run polls through Facebook or SurveyMonkey asking customers to rate their favorite muffin flavors or yogurt toppings. "Give every poll taker a coupon for 20% off," Warner suggests. That brings them back into your store and gives you valuable information about which products to market in future.
Along with broadcasting news about your bakery and requesting reactions to it, social networking can also help introduce you to business practices, vendors, employees, and sales prospects. For instance, connecting with other independent coffee shop owners who aren't necessarily your direct competitors can give you advice on what works and what doesn't in your industry, says Patrick Crane, vice-president of marketing at LinkedIn, in Mountain View, Calif. "You might need information on how to get a new vendor, or you're looking for someone to renovate your space. Asking questions and getting recommendations from a network of other small business owners can help out," he says.
Consider using social networks to expand your customer base beyond your retail store. "You can do title searches at LinkedIn and then ask for introductions to local human resources people or facilities managers at large companies in your area. Once you've been introduced, ask them what kinds of products their employees prefer and offer to bring in a complimentary box of muffins for them to test at their next meeting," Crane suggests. Having a personal introduction from someone in your network is much easier—and likely to be more successful— than making a cold call to generate new business, he says.
Karen E. Klein is a Los Angeles-based writer who covers entrepreneurship and small-business issues.

 Courtesy of Relationship Economy
The Real Reasons Why To Use Social Media
There are dozens of reason why but we’ll keep it to the top ten.These are:

1. You will find whomever you want to do business with somewhere online
2. You will find whatever knowledge you need about any market or any person online
3. You can reach your market by simply engaging in the right conversations with the right people. This is more effective than advertising.
4. If your business can’t be found, isn’t engaging with the market or worse yet ignoring the market you are not likely to be creating transactional opportunities while your competition does.
5. Communications is a system to leverage your organizations ability to communicate with your market. Social media is the new communications system.
6. Social media saves time and money if you use it right for the right things
7. If you learn “how” to use social media correctly then you’ll understand “what” your market is looking for and “where” they are looking. You’d want them to look for you.
8. “When” your customers and prospects are engaging about you, your industry or your products and services you need to be there listening. Otherwise how will you gain the necessary market intelligence, be enabled to respond or even be aware of problems or needs. If you are not present when and where the conversations are occurring you are basically out of touch with your market.
9. Communications is about reach. Communicating is about relational dynamics between people. Social media provides the means to effectively communicate with your market. However communicating in human rather than institutional terms.
10. If you are not communicating (listening first, initiating second) then how in the world do you expect to create relationship with people and businesses that may want the value you offer?

When people need or want something in the old days they’d look up information in the yellow pages. Today people turn to search engines to find what they want or need. Each day on average Google gets used 235 million times.
When people are looking to purchase something they want and need more and more they are going on line to find out what other people think or say about a product, service or brand. The relevancy that influences people’s buying behavior  is other people’s conversation, including yours. That is if they can find your conversation and if it provides value people are looking for.
To sum up: For many, the Web isn’t a place to look for information, it’s the only place.


Learn How to Brand your Business Online Using Social Media applications

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