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How can you get the most out of your CMS plus stay on top of the opportunities to engage prospects on social networks? Well one tool I really recommend — Hootsuite — is busily combining all the major social networks on one dashboard, plus blogging on WordPress.com.  This collision creates a mashup that points to where we’re headed in the next five years, I think.  If you’re still asking, “is social media a business tool,” you’re missing the train. And our CMS of choice, WordPress, has added even more great Content Management features in version 3.0, due out in a couple of wees, so we’ll take a look at those.

Social Media Tip: Now, use Google to find out what people are chatting about in your city. Go there and type in “location *portland” (substitute your city). On the left choose “Discussions”, then “past week.” Note that you can also choose “blogs.” You can also choose further search refinements at left. Click here to see what I found.

A Social Suite to the Max

Hootsuite is taking the word “suite” seriously.  In the last few months they’ve added up and coming social network FourSquare, the ability to reach Fan Pages on Facebook (standard Facebook was already built in), LinkedIN, plus greatly extended the networks you can reach by adding Ping.FM, itself a network aggregator that reaches another 30 or so second tier media sites.  They’ve created an iPhone application.  They’ve beefed up team collaboration features — great for corporate MarCom departments.  Kudos to Hootsuite.

From one dashboard, I can now handle all the essental social media tasks — and automate a number of them.  In order to stay on top of all of this for our clients, I am attending “Hootsuite University” — several hours of training and testing on using Hootsuite, and best practices at the major social networks.  I’ll report on that in upcoming posts.  Contact us for Social Media training and campaign options.

Above, you see the tool to add a Social Network in HootSuite, with Ping.fm showing.  TIP:  Ping.fm is a stealth tool that extends your reach greatly via 30 networks, mobile messaging, chat, and a growing number of 3rd party applications. It seems like a lot to come up on, but with our help you can set it all up once, automate 80% of the work, and greatly increase visibility for your strategic Marketing Communication.

WordPress 3.0 adds Great CMS Features

Here are some top new features to be thinking about using in the forthcoming update of WordPress to version 3.0:

• Control of Menus: Called “Menu Management” in WP 3.0, this new feature gives you a simple drag and drop interface to add links to categories, posts, external sites… plus package “custom menus” as sidebar widgets where your theme allows.  Wow — Kudos to the WordPress core team.  Note that WebFadds builds custom themes for CMS solutions with 13 widget-ready areas, and these menus could be available in any of them.
  Above – the new Menu Manager in WordPress 3.0 is powerful, but easy to use.
• Custom Post Types:  Right now you may only choose between a post and a page, but in WordPress 3.0, you can define your own post types and select attributes.  Think Directory.  For example, you could set-up a business directory, a set of photo galleries or portfolio pages, a set for case studies, etc.  Then you can assign special tags and categories just for this post type.  Then, modify your theme design so the user interface helps your visitors navigate through your new sections.
• Multiple Customized Blogs: We have been using customized categories to set up more than one blog for larger clients.  This works ok because each category has its own RSS feed in WordPress, and its index page may be styled uniquely.  But now, the WordPress team has combined “WordPress MU” (Multi-user), formerly a separate project and download, into the core WordPress program.  So, you may now host a collection of separate blogs, each with their own custom theme, from one hosting plan and WordPress administration area.  This should be great for universities, companies with satellite offices, news organizations — any group with the need for “departments” with their own identity.

Your themes will require modifications to accommodate these new features — contact us for details.

In tighter times, where will your marketing budget find the best return? Online advertising is growing and becoming much more effective, according to three new studies.  And at least one new platform to automate and streamline online media buying is in the works.

CHART:  Sources of Leads that have become more effective:

When it comes to leads, online advertising is shown to me much more effective than offline advertising, according to recently released research data from Hubspot. “Outbound” is old-school media you send to your prospects, versus new-school “inbound” marketing tactics.

• Hubspot has published “50 Charts & Graphs” pulled from a variety of sources including surveys, and their own analysis of over 2500 customers which shows the distinct trend to focus online for “inbound” marketing efforts (chart above).  Download the free PDF.
• According to a recent study by the research group BIA/Kelsey, 36% of media buyers budgets will be spent online in the next four years. As reported in that study, “…local online media is gaining not so much because it can tap smaller marketers that have tended to be overlooked by major media, it’s because traditional outlets are losing ground in general.”
• eMarketer reports a “WorldWide” increase in ad spending on Facebook up 39% between 2009 and 2010

And a strategic look at the effect of media management behavior itself on the media buying trends, from the Nieman Journalism Lab, has uncovered a new media buying player that could shake things up further. Noting that online media buying is more costly because it is more complex, the article on “The Newsonomics of online ad spending, and its costs“, profiled a new service in beta called “Transis”.

“Transis automates the entire digital media buying process from planning through billing and centralizes all related communication. It aims to bring the diverse tasks of ad placement — from building media plans, handling RFPs and insertion orders, billing and reconciliation — into a single console for ad agencies. The intent: more ad volume for Centro and the 2,000 or so websites on which it places ads.”

So, several major studies continue to show a decided up-tick in online ad buying, but like all forward looking projections — they are guesstimates at best. What we do know is that technology is evolving quickly, and new media buying platforms have been shown to greatly affect buying behavior in the past — witness Google Adwords. And, we know that consumer “mobile behavior” is rapidly tilting toward the online realm with 800 million web browsing smart-phones sold in 2009. So, my bet is with BIA/Kelsy — 36% of media ad buying online by 2014.

What’s with the metaphor in the title? Well, besides the fact that I hail from the Pacific Northwest — home of raindrops and rivers — there’s been a surge (pun intended) recently in new services for the techie-socials among us, with related apps — the raindrops. Then, there’s the great mash-up of services, where drops and streams combine to make… rivers of conscious social connections.  And guess what?  At least one new river looks to carry a raft of customers to small businesses in your hometown.

Streams Collide: Google Buzz  has millions of instant users — plus its own app store online — BuzzAware, already, in just about a month. One new service combines Buzz, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube — allowing easy sending of videos and photos — see HomePuzz.

Hootsuite, my social aggregator of choice, allows me to simultaneously monitor tweets about my company, linkedin network activity, and Facebook updates — on one screen. Oh, and Hootsuite just added FourSquare as a new network it monitors. Now what’s FourSquare? It’s yet another new way to connect socially, but it specializes in pulling online people into real world places. And, Mashable reports that Foursquare has momentum — 100,000 new users in the last… 10 days. Wow. Of course all of these social flows are streaming (another water analogy?) on the latest “phones” with apps galore for iPhones, Google’s Android platform, and Blackberries. Whew.

Above, my customized Hootsuite view monitors personalized streams from Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.  I’ve also added Plaxo, and FourSquare.

Local Business Enters the Social Media Flow…

So, what does all this mean for business? Well, quite a bit if you’re 15th Ave. Coffee & Tea in Seattle, Coopersmiths’s Pub in Ft. Collins, or one of 15 ice-cream parlors listed in the Portland area, including Granny Gedunk in Stevenson, WA. A popular promotion is to award a freebie to a patron with the most recorded visits to your establishment as reported by Foursquare. “Just show me your phone” –  you can ask to see the official Foursquare tally for someone with most visits to your venue.  In Foursquare parlance, that person is known as the “Mayor” and people compete to become Mayor so they can get the award — a free coffee, complimentary cone, etc. Heck, there’s even a “Mayor” of a Plaid Pantry on Interstate in my hometown of Portland, Oregon. Not a lot of imagination on the part of that Mayor, but it must be paying off for that chain convenience store.  You can see a list of some popular Foursquare haunts here.

Above is a promotion advertising perks for the “Mayor” from Foursquare

Not long ago, I resisted the torrent of social media washing my way. Back about 18 months ago, I had not even joined Twitter. Now I have over 8000 followers there for WebFadds. Any business? Yes. One confirmed client by Twitter contact alone, plus Analytics shows a good flow of traffic to my business site from there.

Use Analytics to make Social Media prove itself for your business. Above, I can see direct traffic from Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIN to WebFadds.com.  TIP:  The next step is to review dollar value goals in Analytics so you can gauge the ROI from Social Media activities. LinkedIN shows a 7.7% conversion rate, with Twitter landing 2.3% in conversions for the past month.  Make it pay — contact me for more details.

So now it’s time to dive into FourSquare, and widen my Hootsuite monitoring window to add another Social Media flow to watch. Tweets, Facebook Friends, LinkedIN business, Foursquare hometown — scrolling on screen direct to stream of conscious connection.

Where does it all end? It doesn’t — the ocean is too big. The better question might be — where will it take you? My advice is to connect anew on Foursquare now — the tool automatically finds friends from Gmail, Twitter, and Facebook. It’s good to see social become local, once again.

We’ll be pleased to give you a quote on launching, and monitoring your Social Media Marketing campaign.