Recently the trend with successful internet companies is to start offering shares to the public. Noteworthy names like LinkedIn and Pandora have already done it. Groupon and Zynga (the creators of the game “FarmVille”) plan to follow suit. However the most anticipated IPO has got to be the Facebook offering.

Source: Wired.com

Facebook, the dominant internet social networking company, is making plans to go public early next year at a vertigo-inducing valuation of over $100 billion, CNBC reported Monday. The Palo Alto-based web phenom could file registration papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission as early as October.

Wall Street titan Goldman Sachs, which managed a $1.5 billion dollar private placement in Facebook shares for non-U.S. investors earlier this year, is “leading the chase” to manage the offering.

Goldman Sachs, the premier investment bank on Wall Street, is accustomed to taking the lead slot on such pricey offerings, which usually involve as many as half-a-dozen banks or more. As underwriters, Goldman and the other banks are allocated chunks of pre-IPO shares for their hedge fund and institutional clients, many of which sell their shares at the open for a tidy gain.

In January, Facebook said it expected to cross the critical 500-shareholder mark this year, and if it finishes 2011 over the line, it must file quarterly and annual reports with the SEC within 120 days after the end of the year. At the time, Goldman, which had invested $450 million in Facebook, said the company was worth $50 billion.

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In today’s increasingly social world, if your company isn’t using social media than you are falling drastically behind your competitors. There are conversations taking place about your company with or without you; with that in mind, being successful requires listening and responding to them. Traditional marketing tactics are no longer enough, your marketing strategy needs to evolve along with the technology/mediums you use to integrate it.

Source: Hausman Marketing Letter

Social media is an increasingly widespread tactic to achieve marketing goals. But, like a hammer, its only good at some things and to be effective social media needs to be part of a larger marketing strategy that uses other tactics, as well. Integrating across these marketing tactics is termed Integrated Marketing Communications. But, marketing strategy goes beyond simple communication strategies, such as social media marketing, advertising, and promotion. Marketing strategy combines these communication strategies with other marketing tools to reach organizational goals.

Today, we’ll focus on integrating social media marketing with other communication tactics and in later posts, we’ll focus on building overall marketing strategy combining various elements of the marketing mix.

Elements of Communication Strategy

Classically, we talk about:

• Advertising – which consists of media including social networks, broadcast media, internet marketing, and print media.
• Promotion – consists of contests, coupons, discounts, promotional items, sponsorships, etc.
• Public Relations – which is unpaid advertising through media. Social media marketing might fit into this category, as well.
• Personal Selling – which involves using trained sales agents to promote the firms products and services.

Because the preferred goal is to coordinate across these efforts, most communication strategies consist of combinations rather than individual elements. This gives us our first important aspect of social media marketing:

Social media marketing is most effective when combined with other communications strategies, rather than being used in isolation.

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These days it seems like you can’t do anything whether business or pleasure without mention or use of social media. It keeps us connected, it can help our business and it can even entertain. However, it can also be harmful or useless to the aforementioned uses if you aren’t careful about what you post. In a world where everything is out in the open, content is key. So if you want to succeed in social media be sure you have a well thought out internet marketing strategy before posting random or uninteresting content.

Source: Bundle Post

Within the social graph, content is everything. Text, posts, videos, blogs, pictures, etc are the currency we use to start conversations, provide value to others and maintain relationships. Everything in social media starts from content and much of the time it also ends there as well.

The most successful people I know in any industry have one thing in common. They are consistent…  Social Media is really no different. You must be consistent with everything you do. Providing relevant, interesting and valuable content on a consistent basis is the foundation of an effective social campaign.

Posting and sharing or retweeting content is at the core of what we do in social media and social media marketing. Whether it is something you wrote, photographed or video you shot, -or- similar content you post for your friends, followers and fans it matters. Posting consistent content on focused subjects can also positively effect your Klout topics and ultimately your score.

An example of this fact is the recent incident with the lovely Rep. Anthony Weiner. He shared some content that really created a buzz.

Social Media content is key to online success

Or what about this gem I shared on Facebook from Russel Williams. How many comments and connections do you think were made through this incredible content.  You just can’t make this stuff up!  The comments, RT’s and discussions this photo created on my Twitter account was amazing as well.

But seriously, social media content is extremely important and needs you consistent attention. Here are some suggestions to consider in your daily social media efforts:

1) Be consistent – both in the quality and quantity of the articles and content you post.

2) Value is key – be sure the majority of the content you are posting will be valuable and helpful to your audience.

3) Funny – The most shared and commented on content within the social graph is clearly humorous. When you laugh with people, you create connections and relationships that transcend the average. Don’t be afraid to have fun and be silly. This makes you human and people can relate to you.

4) Create your own content – in addition to sharing other people’s content, create your own. Blog posts, photo’s, videos and simple text posts. Make sure it follows the previous 3 suggestions above to be the most effective.

So remember that though engaging, connecting and building relationships are crucial components, it all starts with social media content!

Source: Bundle Post

This Internet marketing company understands the importance of incorporating social media marketing and search engine optimization.  By creating social media sites and incorporating keywords on social sites, it can help a company’s ranking with SEO. Learn more on how to properly use social media and SEO with the article below.

Source: Sitepronews

Social Media and SEO

There are numerous benefits to engaging in social media marketing. Some are tangible (number of Likes, Fans and followers) and some are not (enhanced customer service, brand recognition and developing lasting relationships). You may not fully “get” social media, but you can’t deny that it is important and should be included in your overall marketing campaign. Social media is here to stay, and it is up to you to make sure your company uses it to their best advantage.

SEO is another field of online marketing that has earned itself a permanent spot in the marketing campaigns of many companies. With millions of searches being conducted every day, a company that can’t be found in the search engines is practically invisible. SEO isn’t just about ranking well; it’s about building your online brand. There are many factors that affect how a site ranks in the search engines and SEO is about optimizing your site as best as possible to help it succeed.

However, SEO and social media marketing shouldn’t exist in separate silos. In truth, there should be an element of SEO in all of your online activities, as well as finding a way to leverage your offline marketing methods online. As social media marketing matures, it is becoming clearer and clearer that it has an impact on a site’s SEO.

Here are a few ways you can use your social media marketing activities to aid your SEO:

Create Social Networking Profiles

Aside from the big three of social media (Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter) there are literally hundreds of smaller social networking sites for every kind of audience. Each of these profiles has the potential to rank in the search engines, increasing your brand presence online. Keep in mind that you should only create profiles on sites that you actually intend to be involved with. While creating a profile to just get the link is okay, an active profile is going to be worth much more in the long run. Social networking sites are a great place to establish relationships with consumers and build a strong community.

Incorporate Keywords into Tweets and Posts

Twitter only gives you 140 characters, so space is limited. It is a great way to share a link to your blog, an article, video or any other form of content. Incorporating keywords into the Tweet (perhaps as a hash tag, stylized as #keyword) helps that Tweet get pulled into a results page by the search engines. On Facebook, you have more room to target keywords in your posts. The title of your post is a great place to incorporate keywords. You can also write a short description about the content of each post, another good spot to target keywords.

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This Internet Marketing Company values the importance of social media and the impact it has for sales.  Posting content that is valuable for readers is just the first step with social media.  It can then result into potential sales leads for the company and generate more business.  This article by Sbpost, discusses the importance of social networking as a part of Internet Marketing and sales.

Source: Sbpost

The explosion of social media cannot be ignored by companies seeking sales success, according to Frank Hattann of LinkedIn.

‘‘As a company, if your strategy is to stay away from social media, you are missing the boat because in the end you can’t do that,” the company’s EMEA regional sales manager told the National Sales Forum 2011 in Croke Park last week.

‘‘People will comment on your products, people will comment on your sales packets and people will send Twitter messages about who just came to their office and tried to sell them something.

‘‘Do get on a plane, do go out and talk to your customers but in the end you can’t escape the new Web 2.0, or what we call social media. It knows whatever is happening in our world now. It’s somewhere noted, commented on, clicked on, photos [taken] of it.”

Hattann said that networking used to be about walking into your local pub and talking to two or three people. Now, social media means ‘‘your message is heard potentially by people in a pub in Australia, in South Africa, in Brazil’’.

While this ‘network effect’ projects a message further afield than ever, Hattann said that this brought its own dangers as people could create content about a company and its product. ‘‘To manage that content in a social media world, that is the challenge.

How do you manage people saying something about you that you have no connection with? You have no control of that message,” he said. Hattann said that social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn each had its own role to play in sales.

‘‘If you want to just broadcast information and get people to hear a message about you, Twitter may actually be the appropriate forum to use.

If the product you’re selling, and if the public you’re selling the product to, is social and people want to communicate about a fun thing to do, then maybe Facebook is the right tool,” he said.

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