Click to get a PDF of this chart.

Social media started out looking like a fad. Now it’s taking the marketing world by storm.

I and many other consultants contend that it’s not a replacement for traditional media, but it certainly deserves your attention.

The question is, how much attention? Which social media should you be using and what is the value it brings to your company?

CMO.com recently posted a chart showing 10 popular social networks and rated each for customer communication, brand exposure, traffic to site, and SEO.

Depending on the resources and goals of your organization, it may be wise to focus on just two or three social networks and do them really well, rather than try to do them all and do them poorly.

Related posts:

1. HootSuite: How to do a week of social media marketing in just 20 minutes!
2. 1 immutable law of social media marketing

First, let me say that I think social media marketing is great. I’m using it more and more for my own business. And it’s obviously producing results for many others.

But I can’t help but wonder … how do people find the time to tweet all day, every day? Because I sure can’t find time for that.

Well, until recently that is, when I discovered HootSuite. If you’re not familiar with HootSuite, you’re in for a pleasant surprise.

Here at last is a simple, free, online tool that brings together all your social media accounts, including Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and makes basic social media marketing a breeze. There are other tools like this out there, but I have tried and been disappointed by most of them.

I instantly fell in love with HootSuite.

Now instead of futzing with widgets or logging in and out of social media sites all day, you can open one simple tool that manages all your major accounts on one, tabbed screen. You can send, receive, and schedule messages on one or multiple social streams.

And it’s that scheduling part that is the point of this post. Because while I don’t have time to do social marketing all day every day, I do have time to schedule tweets and other updates once a week. Generally, I spend no more than 20 minutes.

Here’s how it works.

I use the Bloglines newsreader to follow 126 RSS feeds for a variety of blogs on copywriting, design, marketing, direct mail, freelancing, creativity, and other subjects.

Once a week, I open the reader and scan the various feeds. When I run across something interesting, or want to promote something on my own blogs, I use the HootSuite Firefox plugin to schedule a message on one of my social networks. The plugin is much faster than cutting and pasting into the full HootSuite application.

You just click the toolbar button and it automatically captures the title and creates a shortened link. Then you choose a day and time for the message to post and select the networks where you want it to appear. And you’re done. As the TV commercials would say, set it and forget it.

I’ve found that in about 20 minutes, I can fill up the week with a few dozen messages. For the rest of the week, all I have to do is keep the HootSuite application open in a browser tab and respond to direct messages or, in the rare spare moment, tweet a random thought or discovery.

Here’s a screenshot of the HootSuite screen. As you can see, I have 5 social media streams, each in a separate tab. The tab open here is for one of two Twitter accounts, showing various columns where you can see feeds, mentions, direct messages, and if you scroll to the right, pending and sent tweets. Tabs for other streams show their own unique set of columns.

None of this is innovative. Many others do roughly the same thing. Though with those I follow on Twitter, a disproportionately high percentage of people appear to do all their tweets personally, either from the Twitter site or from various mobile applications. How? Again, I don’t know how they find the time.

The one innovation I’ve made, and it’s not all that innovative, is that I created a form with a grid, with days across the top and hours down the side. You can create your own grid and download it as a pdf.

I don’t want to bludgeon people with an incessant series of messages like some others do (hint, hint), so I generally don’t do more than one per hour. And most are scheduled during peak business hours.

As I’m reading and scheduling, I put a check in the appropriate time slot. This helps me spread out the updates evenly throughout the week. It’s easier than scrolling through the pending updates column in the HootSuite application.

So in summary, I use the HootSuite Firefox plugin to rapidly capture or create social media messages and schedule them. Then I use the primary HootSuite application to monitor and manage activity throughout the week.

I’ve said little about all the other features HootSuite provides, such as tracking statistics, managing followers, integrating with WordPress, feeding RSS to your networks, and so on. But you can explore that on your own. HootSuite is so intuitive and easy to use, you really don’t need step-by-step instructions for most functions.

I don’t know how other people do it, but that’s how I do social marketing. And I invest no more than 20 minutes a week. Am I taking full advantage of social marketing? No. Not even close. But given my schedule, I’m getting what I can out of it.

Here’s a video tour of HootSuite to give you an overview of the features and how to get started.

Related posts:

1. 1 immutable law of social media marketing
2. How to set up a Facebook fan page that works

I’ve been talking to several people recently about setting up a Facebook fan page, how to get more fans, and how to use Facebook effectively.

Full disclosure: Yes, I have a Facebook page, but it’s private. I use Twitter and LinkedIn for business, but I haven’t set up a page for my copywriting business.

However, I DO run a Facebook page for the same nonprofit that I mentioned in a recent post on email marketing. It’s performing well, averaging 50 new fans a day.

The first thing people ask me is what type of account is best? A group or a fan page? For me, that’s simple. A fan page. Why? A post on Mashable about the difference between Facebook pages and groups lays out the differences nicely. Here’s a summary:

Groups are great for organizing on a personal level and for smaller scale interaction around a cause. Pages are better for brands, businesses, bands, movies, or celebrities who want to interact with their fans or customers without having them connected to a personal account, and have a need to exceed Facebook’s 5,000 friend cap.

A fan page lets you grow as big as you want, send updates to an unlimited number of people, and keep the focus on the organization without revealing the administrator (unless you want to).

Okay, so once you’ve set up your account as a fan page, then what? Here are some tips:

Upload a logo or photo with a web address at the bottom. It won’t be clickable, but fans can see where to go if they want to visit your website.

Fill out your info page completely. Here you can have a clickable web address, company overview, mission, and products. You can give only what Facebook asks for or get creative and provide other information as well.

For example, in your company overview, you can list links to pages on your website, your newsletter signup form, other social media, or whatever you want.

Use FBML to create a landing page. FBML is Facebook’s version of HTML, which you can use with an application called Static FBML. This lets you render basic HTML in a box or tab on your page. You won’t find it in your default applications, but you can find it with a search in the application directory.

The idea is that instead of sending people to your wall, as most people do, you send them to a landing page with whatever message you want to provide. For example, you can give a short description of your organization and tell people to click the “become a fan” button.

This is one of those “duh” things you may not think about at first, but which can dramatically increase your Facebook growth. A landing page is just good direct marketing.

Use your tabs wisely. If you think of a Facebook page as a secondary website for your business, you’ll realize that the tabs at the top of the page are like site navigation. You can have a tab for your newsletter, a tab for donations, a tab for products, etc. How? With that nifty FBML application.

Don’t forget the sidebar. Anything you can put in your tabs, you can also put in your sidebar. A newsletter signup form fits here nicely. So does a poll (another application you can add), affiliate banner, or set of links.

Post often. The same rules apply to Facebook as any other social media. It’s all about content and interaction. Posting something every few weeks won’t cut it. Post every day or even several times a day to make sure you’re showing up in the news feeds of your fans. This can be links to your blog, product announcements, questions, news items, or anything your fans would be interested in.

Every time someone becomes a fan, comments, clicks the “like” link, or shares your post, it shows up in that fan’s news feed for all their friends to see. So “viral” is built in.

Link to your page from everywhere. If you want fans, you have to let people know you’re on Facebook. Put an icon or link in your newsletter, on your website or blog, in your email footer, everywhere.

Email and blog it. Don’t be shy. Do an email blast driving subscribers to your fan page. Post a blog about what’s happening on your fan page with an invitation to become a fan.

Send updates to your fans. This feature is a little like email. Don’t abuse it, because Facebook fans aren’t expecting (and don’t want) an avalanche of messages from you. But used wisely, this handy feature lets you update fans about your products, sales, and events.

Subscribe to similar fan pages and groups. You can buy ads on Facebook, but the consensus is that response is poor. A cheap way to reach beyond your fans and attract new fans is to subscribe to similar pages and groups and post short messages inviting people to visit your page. Don’t do it too often. And don’t be spammy.

There’s more you can do with Facebook, but this is plenty to get you started.

Is it worth it? Absolutely. I’ve found that Facebook can drive significant traffic to your website as your fan base grows. And it gives you a totally independent way to interact with potential customers or supporters.

***

UPDATE: Facebook has changed “Fan” to “Like.” So you don’t become a “Fan” of a page now, you “Like” the page.

Related posts:

1. 1 immutable law of social media marketing
2. Email Marketing Best Practices 101

I just read an interesting article at eM+C titled 9 Immutable Laws of Social Media Marketing. It’s about the expectations and responsibilities you have with social media marketing.

The 9 laws are interesting and instructive, but I have a list that’s much simpler. My list includes just 1 law:

1. Invest time to get people involved.

What’s nice about my list is that it’s the same as my list for any other type of marketing. Because social media marketing really isn’t too much different when you get right down to it.

Consider why a direct mail piece works. You want people to spend time with your product, think about it, get involved with it. The more involvement you get, the more sales you make.

The difference between traditional media and social media is that social media is, well, more social.

With traditional media, such as direct mail or print ads, your involvement is fleeting. It only happens when you spend money to get people involved. With social media, your involvement is ongoing. Whatever money you spend is an investment in a long-term relationship.

The real question is, does it work? I’m not a social media specialist, I just play one in my spare time. But I’ll share a little of my own experience with you.

I’m the volunteer marketing director for a political action committee and have been using various flavors of social media marketing to raise funds, stage events, influence elections, and change laws for a few years now.

On the spectrum of money and time, we have more time than money, so social media is a natural solution. Direct mail is too expensive and risky. But blogs, forums, and social site such as Facebook are next to zero expense. Yet, we are able to get thousands of people involved in our cause, solicit sizable donations, and urge people to take action.

Here’s just one small example. To raise funds, we invited a well-known speaker to address some of our supporters. We charged $99 a head for an all-day workshop. With one blog post (that also streamed out to Facebook and Twitter) and a few emails and newsletter blurbs, we drew 350 people. For a small organization, $34,650 in one day is pretty good.

So is that all it takes? A blog and email? No. It took years of getting people involved in our cause. Twitter, Facebook, forums, 8-10 blog posts a week, and a weekly email newsletter all played a part in creating a large group of involved people.

So when the time comes to ask for money or stage an event, they’re available and receptive. The same holds true for profit businesses. If you can create a loyal following with on-going involvement, those people will be there when you launch a product or have a sale.

Just as it takes time to create a network of friends and colleagues in your life, it takes time to create a network of fans, supporters, and product advocates in your business life.

And it’s all about involvement.

Just for the record, I’m not a believer in the naive notion that social media, or pull marketing, will replace traditional marketing, or push marketing.

In my opinion, social media marketing is good for small businesses or organizations without a big budget as a form of shoestring marketing. It’s also good as a means for large businesses to reach core customers and some additional prospects.

But to make the big bucks (AT&T, Microsoft, Coca Cola), you will always have to flex the brute force muscle of traditional media to move products and services.

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