Sort of.

Social media promotions are a good idea some of the time, but there are five main things you need to consider before launching a giveaway (or sweepstakes, or contest) of your own:

1. Know what you’re trying to accomplish

This should sound pretty obvious, but don’t have a contest or giveaway just to have one. You need to have a goal. Are you trying to develop brand loyalty among your fans and followers, or are you trying to catch the attention of people outside your current audience? What would you like to happen after the promotion is over? If you can’t answer these basic questions, you need to sit down and really think about it before you go any further. Be concrete and realistic, and set numerical goals where possible.

2. Know the meaning of sweepstakes vs. contest

These words technically, and legally, have different definitions. A sweepstakes traditionally involves the entrant filling out a form to enter, and the winner(s) are picked at random. Contests require more effort and are usually judged based on skill or voted on by the public. Examples include essay, photo, and video contests. It’s pretty safe to assume that fewer people will enter a contest than a sweepstakes since it is slightly more difficult and requires more effort on the part of the participant to enter. However, those who do enter will be more highly engaged with your brand.

3. Know the rules

Did you know that the rules governing your contest or giveaway depend entirely on which U.S. state you or your entrants are in? Did you even know there were laws for that? Surprise! There are. Social media platforms have their guidelines, too. Our CEO Shama wrote a more detailed post on Facebook’s rules when they were altered back in 2009, but Twitter and Google+ have their own sets of completely different regulations for contests.

4. Know your audience

Most people like free stuff, but it’s good to offer your audience something they actually want and will use. Another important factor to consider, if you’re holding a contest rather than a sweepstakes (if you already forget the difference, refer back to #2), is the difficulty of entry for your participants. Are the majority of your social media fans tech gods and goddesses? Yes? Then a video contest is an excellent idea and a great way to engage this group by letting them show off their skills. However, if you doubt the video-editing prowess of your target audience, something slightly less labor-intensive may be the way to go.

5. Know to be prepared for the unknown

What if your contest goes viral and you start getting thousands of entries? Are you prepared to handle that? That’s a really unlikely and extreme example, although it could still happen, but let’s take something that could realistically happen: cheating. If you rely on public voting, you’re opening your contest up for potential cheating. What are you going to do about that? In a very recent example of contests gone horribly wrong, Australian airline Qantas held a Twitter contest with the hashtag #qantasluxury and received a vast majority of negative and joke responses ridiculing their service (and the fact that the prize was a pair of pajamas). There’s no way you can plan for everything, but at least take it into consideration: What are the aspects of this contest or sweepstakes that could potentially backfire?

Have you held a social media sweepstakes or contest before? How did it go? Would you do it again? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Photo credit: source

Klout measures your online influence on a scale from 1 to 100. The average Klout score hovers somewhere around 20. Justin Bieber has a perfect Klout score of 100. Klout itself has a Klout score in the 80s, meaning the site is apparently less influential than a 17-year-old pop star (but then again, I guess we’re all at least slightly less influential than The Bieber).

What do you mean by online influence?

Well. You can link various social sites to Klout, but it only measures your activity and friends/followers on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Foursquare. Additionally, Klout measures:

1. True reach: The number of people you influence, which is different from your number of followers. Klout claims to filter out spam and only focus on those people who interact with and respond to your posts.

2. Amplification: How many people are sharing your content and how often they’re doing it.

3. Network Impact: A measure of people in your True Reach with a high Amplification (i.e. how important your friends are).

So how exactly do I use Klout, then?

One potentially useful aspect of Klout is the list of topics that you appear to be influential about. For example, Marketing Zen employees are overwhelmingly influential about social media, Facebook, marketing, and other related areas.

Sometimes the influential topics have slightly more mysterious origins.

The good news is that Klout makes it easier to find the most influential people on a given topic or in your industry, and other Klout users can give +Ks to people who influence them on topics – hopefully making the system more accurate at some point in the future. The bad news is that the most influential person for “snorkeling” might not actually tweet about the topic on a regular basis.

Sounds good! I don’t understand the problem.

If you’re a business using social media marketing, take Klout’s metrics with a grain of salt. As tech blogger Aliza Sherman put it in a recent post, “Klout isn’t any more measuring your success using social media or your influence over others any more than Foursquare is making you the actual mayor of anything.” Are people clicking on the links you’re posting? Klout has no idea. Your social media marketing strategy should be to push traffic back to your website first, and then to build relationships with people. Getting the most influential people on the internet to follow your social media accounts isn’t really that high on the list of priorities, and might not do that much for you in the long run.

What’s the verdict on Klout?

Paying attention to the rise and fall of your Klout score probably won’t do you any harm, but we don’t feel that there’s any real proof that it’ll help you. Our suggestion? If you choose to pay attention to Klout, pay more attention to influential topics and don’t put too much stock in your numerical Klout score.

What do you think? Does the rise and fall of your Klout score determine your every move? Are you just hearing about Klout for the first time? If you don’t use Klout, how are you measuring the impact of your social media program? Let us know, we love hearing from you!

Have a contest or giveaway

Photo contests are easy for participants and allow for more interaction with your brand than simply liking your Facebook page or filling out a form for entry. A fun, creative example of a holiday photo contest is last year’s 12 Days of LUV Twitter campaign launched by Southwest Airlines. Each of the 12 days had a different photo challenge, and the best photo of the day won the entrant a $1000 gift card. Other ideas: ugliest holiday sweater, best gingerbread house, pet with the most holiday spirit, or best/worst gift received.

Sponsor a charity drive

If you’re a business with a storefront, set up a canned food or Toys for Tots drop-off site and promote it on your social media accounts. You can also pledge to donate a certain amount of money for every new Facebook fan you get during a certain time period: the 12 days leading up to Christmas, or even the whole month of December. It’ll help get you on the radar of new customers/fans, and you’ll be helping those who really need the most holiday cheer.

Update your branding and logos

This one is probably the easiest tip, not counting the graphic design work involved. Think of holiday imagery and incorporate it into your existing Twitter background, Facebook photo, blog header, etc. Some suggestions include: a Santa hat or antlers on your logo, snowflakes, candy canes, snowmen, gingerbread men, strings of lights – the list really goes on and on.

Offer tips and advice

What kind of tips? That depends on your target audience. If you’re targeting mostly males over 30, you could offer tips on how to shop for tweens and teenagers. If your target audience is made up of college students, you could compile tips on the theme of “Gift-Giving on a Budget.” Other types of tips include: traveling, entertaining, sticking to a diet, and pet safety. Whatever your industry, there’s a list of holiday tips just waiting to be unleashed.

Don’t forget to have fun

Have you seen the Target commercials with the intense lady in the red jumpsuit? That’s the Christmas Champ, and she’s on Twitter this year. The Christmas Champ is a prime example of having fun with a holiday social media campaign. Twitter users constantly mention the account and that they “love” her (and she consistently tweets that she loves them back, or in one case, “I love you so much I’m afraid I’ll never be able to love again”). Fun is contagious: if you’re having fun, the people around you can’t help but have fun too. Unless the only two people around you are Scrooge and the Grinch, then disregard all previous advice.

Does your company have a social media marketing strategy for the holidays? Leave us a comment with your tips and tricks!

The very FIRST PRIORITY and MOST IMPORTANT TOOL in your toolbox when marketing online is your website. Just “having” a website is not good enough. You must have a well-engaging, well-converting website. You have to remember that when it all boils down to it, one of the main reasons we market on various online networks is to DRIVE TRAFFIC TO OUR WEBSITE. So it is imperative that when people get there, that the site engages them to convert in some form or fashion. We don’t want all of our efforts in driving people to our website to result in them just hitting the back button. What good does that do?

Let’s first address what a conversion is. A conversion is when a visitor takes a call to action. They essentially take a step to consume your information. Conversions could be:

• Subscribing to your blog RSS.
• Downloading free report/signing up for your newsletter.
• Following you on Twitter
• “Liking” you on Facebook
• Connecting with you on LinkedIn
• Emailing you
• Calling you
• Purchasing something online

When we drive people to our websites, we want people to CONVERT. All of the above conversions are valuable…not just the “purchase something online”. 65% of people do not “buy” the first time they visit a website. Generally they are just consuming information first, or researching. That’s why it’s so important to give people options on how to receive this information. Many times we have to build trust and credibility with our visitors before they “buy”.

So, what makes a WELL ENGAGING, WELL CONVERTING website? There are five things I always look for in a website.

• Does it look professional, or does it look like my 14-year old nephew made it? Many times, our website is our first impression online. So it’s extremely important that if you’re doing business online that you have a professional appearance (meaning a professional-looking website). You wouldn’t show up to visit a new prospect in a T-shirt and shorts, right? Same idea goes for your website.

• Does it have a blog? A blog is ESSENTIAL to a good online campaign for several reasons:

• A blog is your education component. Again, the goal is to establish trust and credibility…that YOU are the industry expert. Show you are up with the latest-and-greatest, and you care enough to share these resources and tips with your visitors. Obviously don’t give away any proprietary information.

• A blog feeds into your social media outlets and syndicates out to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn…again getting your great information out to the masses, building trust and credibility.

• A blog is essential for a good Search Engine Optimization campaign. Content is key to the search engines. Google LOVES new content…relevant content. By providing new content consistently on your site that is relevant to your keywords, you are going a long way to increase your search engine rankings. Keep in mind, this is not the ONLY thing you have to do…there are over 200 items that go into optimizing a website for search rankings, but fresh, relevant content is essential.

• Does it have a free giveaway to entice them to sign up for our newsletter? People get so many emails in their inboxes these days…no one in their right mind is going to sign up for another newsletter. HOWEVER, by providing a great free report in exchange for their name and email address, we can capture leads. Generally a “Top 10 List of…”, “7 Secrets to…” or a “How to….” are great giveaways that people will want to download. If they download the report, obviously they are a hot lead that you can now continue to market to through your email marketing campaign.

• Is it integrated with your social media outlets? Can people easily follow you on Twitter, “Like” you on Facebook, see your YouTube videos or connect with you on LinkedIn? Can people easily share or “Like” content on your site? This is essential to help spread the word and great content you are producing with the masses.

So, all of the above is to say, BEFORE you jump on the social media bandwagon, take minute to make sure your website is a true MARKETING TOOL that is working to engage and convert the visitors that come to your site. If your website does not do this, NO AMOUNT OF TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE WILL GET YOU BUSINESS if your site doesn’t convert!

Feels good to be home! I just got back from a long speaking tour. First, I was in Nashville doing a keynote on social media for women Accountants and CPAs. Then, I was in Las Vegas for a keynote at the Direct Employers Conference. I spoke about social media for recruiters. After which, I spoke at the Conquer and Grow conference. It was the shortest presentation of my life – 10 minutes! Very TED like. But, I had a blast, and was forced to really sum up my points.

Above is my presentation. Below are the main points.

3 Things to Keep in Mind When Measuring Social Media Marketing Success -

1.) Measure Quantitatively and Qualitatively: The quantitative is the numbers part of the game. Website visitors, Twitter Followers, Facebook fans, etc. This makes for very pretty charts, and cool case studies. The qualitative is what can’t be measured by numbers. It is essentially what is being said about you and your brand. Reputation management, anyone?

2.) Keep in Mind the Non-Linear Benefits of Social Media Marketing: Small and medium sized businesses alike have the same power afforded to bigger businesses. How? R&D.  Research and Development was never this quick or streamlined. The feedback you can get from an online community when done correctly can be comparable to millions of dollars worth of “focus groups.”

3.) Build it Before Your Need it: Social media marketing is akin to storing a box of band-aids in your medicine cabinet. You don’t think about it all the time, but when you have a cut, they sure come in handy! Let’s say you run a restaurant, and one customer has a bad experience and blogs about it. That can really hurt! Unless, you have 10 other customers who also blogged about their great experience. Build the networks and invest in social media marketing BEFORE you need it.

Top 10 Ways to Measure Social Media Marketing (in 10 Minutes!)

1.) Sales – Your bottom line is one of your biggest indicators. In an era of multi-touch marketing (I heard about you from a friend, then saw your trade show booth, then stumbled upon your company on Twitter, and here I am), your sales shouldn’t be forgotten. But, remember, social media ROI isn’t visible instantly. It takes time. One of my favorite quotes comes from Jeff Bezos of Amazon. He said: “I always tell people, if we have a good quarter it’s because of the work we did three, four and five years ago. It’s not because we did a good job this quarter.” This is the KEY to social media marketing success.

2.) Higher Closing Ratios – If people trust your company; the chances are that they will move forward with you much more often than not. They will choose you over your competitors. Your closing ratio can tell you a lot about your marketing – not just your sales.

3.) Shorter Sales Cycle – The bigger the purchase, the longer the sales cycle. This is often true in the B2B world. A big part of the sales cycle is educating the prospect. And, as prospects get smarter, they do their own research. Social media should educate your prospects, making their decision easier. Measure your sales cycle. (Run a B2B business? I just did a video on b2b web marketing).

4.) Leads – This is perhaps the most obvious one. Are you getting more leads? Be sure to have a phone number and contact form easily accessible on your website.

5.) New Visitors – Are you attracting new people to your website? I talk about this as a key strategy in my book on social media. Not only should be strengthening relationships using social media marketing, ideally, you should be attracting an audience you couldn’t otherwise engage with as much ease.

6.) Brand Perception – What are people saying about you, your brand, your industry? Check it out http://www.SocialMention.com. How you are perceived can truly dictate the above.

7.) Lower Bounce Rate – This is what I call the sticky factor (much to our SEO department’s chagrin). They like to  call it your bounce rate, and it can be found using Google Analytics. This tells you how many initial visitors hit the back button to go to a different website versus delving deeper into yours. When visitors feel like your website is trusted and already have an introduction to you, the chances are they will stick around. It also signifies a higher quality of visitor.

8.) Site Specific Metrics – This is what most people measure, and there is a lot of controversy here. Is it quantity or quality? It is both actually. A quantity of quality Twitter Followers, Facebook Fans, and LinkedIn Connections are all viable metrics.

9.) Newsletter and Blog Subscribers – There are two types of conversions that happen online. The first is what people are familiar with – direct conversion to customers and clients. The second type of conversion is less well-known, but perhaps even more crucial. It is when someone turns into a consumer. They choose to consume your information. It is the first step towards becoming a customer or a client. I talk about this extensively in my book on social media as well. Measuring your consumers (e-zine and blog subscribers for example) is an excellent strategy.

10.) Good PR– Reporters like companies and individuals who are smart, authentic, and can strike a chord with the public. Social media makes it easy for reporters to find you. It makes it easier for you to showcase your company culture and personal brand. It allows you to build relationships with bloggers. Ignore this metric at your own peril.

What do you think? Do you have questions about how to measure the effectiveness of social media?

10 Reasons NOT to do Social Media Marketing – For all the wonderful reasons there are to do social media marketing, there are also reasons not to partake. This post lists the top 10 reasons to not participate just yet.

So, you want to be a Social Media Marketing expert? – Let’s face it, it is a hot industry. While some may scoff at the many newcomers to the field, I wanted to point out that for those genuinely interested, there are resources out there.

3 Reasons you shouldn’t use Social Media Marketing - Partaking in social media marketing without a strategy or plan in place can cause more harm than good.

10 Steps to creating a Social Media Policy for your Company – If your company is partaking in social media marketing, you should have a policy that provides some guidelines on usage.

Using Social Media Outlets for Marketing - How social media can be utilized for different purposes.

101 Ways to Rock and Be Rocked by Twitter - One of our most popular articles on Twitter. It provides 101 ideas on how to use Twitter.

How to Navigate the Facebook Design - Facebook just changed their design. Where did that go? Find out. = )

Top 7 Facebook Hacks for Business – Fun applications that help you leverage Facebook for business.

Top 10 Ways to Use Facebook for Business - The most popular article ever on Facebook marketing. This one may have more comments than any other on the blog!

10 Things to do after a Networking Event – This combines social media and offline marketing. How can you use social media tools to stay in touch with people after an offline event? Read and find out. = )

What: A book launch party for The Zen of Social Media Marketing by Shama Kabani. Featuring food, fun, and networking! (An unoffcial SXSW event!)

Who: Press, bloggers, & the coolest SXSW attendees. Club scene not for you? Join the best, and most exclusive, party at SXSW.

When: March 13th, Saturday, 6 pm – ???

Where: A house in Austin, Texas. Exact location to be disclosed upon RSVP.

How: Please RSVP via emailing info at marketingzen.com. Attendance will be limited – so if you RSVP that you will attend, and something comes up, please let us know so we can allow someone else to join us.

1) You don’t have the basics right. Your business model is non-existent. (Call Joe). You don’t have a tested product. You don’t have a goal. Your website hasn’t been updated since 2002. Social media marketing comes last.

2) Your boss isn’t on board. I’ve seen this happen, and it never ends well.  No matter how much you LOVE social media and think it could turn your business around, it doesn’t matter unless your boss is on board. Even if you are able to get some traction, your boss will pull the plug if he or she wasn’t sold on the idea from the beginning.

3) Your employees aren’t on board. I sat through a wonderful lunch the other day where a boss was ready to make things happen with social media. His manager on the other hand was not. The manager was clearly too busy handling operations, and didn’t think he could handle one more of his boss’  ideas. If you think social media is for your company, make sure your employees see the value first.

4) You want a short term solution. I am sorry guys but no one is going to say “ooh look! a business consultant on twitter. I want to hire you!” Social media is NOT a short term solution. It is, more or less, a lifetime (at least business-wise) commitment.

5) You want to see a direct impact on ROI. Will it impact your ROI? Yes. Will it directly impact your ROI? No. The bigger the sale, the more touch points a business needs. This is how must people buy from us: Someone refers them to our website or they find us on (gasp!) a social media site. They sign up for our newsletter. Six months later, they hear me speak somewhere. They continue to follow me on Twitter. Another month goes by. They decide they need their website optimized or their facebook fan page customized or to entirely outsource marketing. They call. They are ready to buy. Did social media impact our ROI? Not directly. But, did it create a channel for us to keep in touch until they were ready? Absolutely.

6) You don’t want to build content. Somewhere out there, Newt and Joe are vigorously nodding their heads. Social media is a channel. It is a medium. It is two tin cups with a wire in the middle. It is NOT a substitute for the message. When you mistake the medium for the message, you get inane status updates like “just had a PB&J.” Seriously? Just because you now have a megaphone does NOT mean you no longer have to have something valid to say while using the megaphone.

7) You have a zero budget. Social media marketing is not free. The tools are free, but the tools are no good without a strategy. Just ask B.L. Ochman. If I handed you a hammer, nails, and a few boards – could you build a shelter? Yes? Okay. How long would the shelter last? If it collapses on you, it can cause more harm than good.

You don’t have time. Social media takes time. It doesn’t have to be your personal time, but it does take SOMEBODY’S time. And, it takes quality time.

9) You don’t want to work within a changing landscape. Social media yesterday was blogging. Today it is video. Tomorrow may be location based social networking. If you are truly interested, you have to keep up. Or, you have to assign someone to keep up for you.

10) You don’t believe in giving it away. True story. A couple of months ago, I am sitting in the boardroom of a leading accounting firm. I am explaining the concept of blogging, and the head partner asks me: “Why would I give away what I know?” I explained I wasn’t talking about trade secrets or anything of that sort. But, instead, I was talking about content that would build their expertise as a firm. He scrunched up his brow and said “for FREE?!”  This isn’t a social media problem. This is a mindset challenge.

Photo Credit: @Vlauria on Flickr

Key points from the study -

- The most popular online categories, in order of popularity, are: Social networks, blogs, online games, instant messaging.

- Growth from Facebook (200%) and Twitter (368%)  trumped overall social networking growth.

- Time spent on social media sites by an average US consumer went up 143% in a year.

- US has the largest population of social media users (142.1 million), followed by Japan (46.6 million).

From years of executing SEO and SEM campaigns, I am now more than ever seeing the parallels of  social media and SEO/SEM as well as how they all work together. Ten years ago, business owners thought their only option to improve their SEO was stuffing their meta tags and submitting their site to 1,000 search engines. Similar to SEO and SEM, business owners now realize it’s not enough to just plug the social media hole because they read in some business magazine it was needed. A new phrase has joined the lexicon of business buzz words, and rightfully so, showing a more sophisticated marketer: Social Media Optimization. You should not have a social media campaign for your business just because everyone else is doing. CEOs, marketers, entrepreneurs are now seeking solutions to optimizing their social media marketing campaigns. What do I mean by Social Media Optimization?

I’m not Shama. I didn’t write the book on social media and I’m not a social media speaker. My name is Neil and although I have been blogging since 2001 and have been learning online marketing since 2005, my main area of expertise is SEM/SEO.  The reason I say this is I don’t claim to have all the answers in social media marketing. In the world of Internet Marketing, over the years I’ve seen techniques and tactics expand, evolve, diversify and sometimes disappear. I know social media is not going anywhere but up in usage, regardless the fortunate truth is, marketing techniques and tactics change, but their principles do not. Below are ten points on social media optimaiton, or getting the most out or your social media efforts.

• Create Compelling Content - Use proven headline formulas with ( lists, how tos, popular & timely names and news), uniqueness, controversial, resource aggregation. The less often you write, more compelling topics you need to cover. Do this on your blog, every tweet on Twitter, and every status update on Facebook.
• Target Relevant Connections – Your network, your friends’ trusted networks. Be friends with competitors and industry people, “linkerati” or “likearatti” on Facebook. Every person who likes your status update or comments are gold to you. Why? Social proof. You’re showing other people that other people like you and your content, this inturn creates more buzz. Success leads to more success.
• Syndicate Intelligently- It’s not always how large, but where. Instead of syndicating to 100s of social media sites, only a few matter and the audiences you’ve built on those networks. If you do spend loads of time syndicating to dozens of sites, make sure you use tools optimize your efficiency. In regards to SEO, focus on getting dofollow links from sites you can get control and quickly update. Only put your most powerful posts and call favors for links to those posts. Ask for juicy keyword anchor text using your targeted keywords linking to your blog and individual posts.
• Never Stop Growing Your Audience – Cold friending is OK. If you want to know more about someone add he/her and start a conversation. Comment on something specific in his/her profile  to get on their radar fast. Follow up again later.
• Funnel back to Your Hub – Calls to action back to the site, teasers, giveaways, opt-in free whitepaper reports. You can’t convert if you do not filter your audience back to your website.
• Update Content Consistency – Audiences prefer consistent short updates over long time elapses. Set a 30 minute window and make as many connections and follow ups managing current relationships by engaging others on their network and updating yours.
• Show Social proof – Success breeds success. Who’s friends with who? Do you have common friends? How many comments have you attracted?
• Influence the Influencers – Who are the most influential people in your network? How can you get on his/her radar. Use the Law of Reciprocity, promote others’ stuff, network offline provide value, etc.
• Engage Your Audience – Buzz on your page. Make the “News Feed” not just the “Live Feed” on Facebook. Shama covers social media engagement throughout this blog.

For almost five years, Neil Lemons has worked behind-the-scenes to help create exposure, traffic, leads, and sales through major search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. Calling upon his diverse background in copywriting, advertising, marketing, and sales, he has been learning traditional SEO and SEM tactics since 2004 and implementing since 2005.  He is the lead SEM Strategist at MarketingZen.com, a Dallas website design company. For more information on Internet Marketing, SEM & SEO contact The Marketing Zen Group for a free site evaluation.