Have you ever felt like you were a failure at implementing your social media plan? Does it seem like your social media world is crashing down around you? Are all of your efforts starting to seem like you miss more than you hit the mark? Then I want to encourage you not to stop because success is right around the corner.

Image: SXC.hu

Do you remember how many times Thomas Edison failed at making the light bulb? Most likely not but I bet you can remember that it only took one time for him to get it right for it to be considered a success. If you feel like you have failed at developing your social media plan, don’t worry because you can continue trying until you figure out a combination of tasks that work for you.

Let’s continue to look at the example of Edison to see what we can learn from him that could help you go from failure to success in your social media efforts. I’ve used the acronym P.E.A.K. to help you remember these four easy step to go from failure to success with your social media efforts.

• Persistence. Don’t give up. Just keep trying until you find a formula or process that works for you and your business.
• Enjoy. Don’t let worry get you down. Enjoy your trip from failue to success as you determine what works for you.
• Appreciate. Look at what you have accomplished and appreciate how far you have come along and then press forward towards success.
• Knowledge. Determine that you will research and find ways that you can try which could lead to your success with social media.

As you strive for your P.E.A.K. in developing your social media strategy, keep in mind that being different in your approach or trying something new is OK. Watch the video below and allow it to encourage you as you go from failure to success with your social media efforts.

In my article about Ford Motor Company’s social media plan, I shared how they implement social media within their business model and industry. For this part of the series, I wanted to share how you could use the same type of social media plan to grow your business.

Image: Newscom.com

One of the things I want to point out is how Ford held an evangelist search for those who would be able to help get the word out about their “Fiesta” event. This event centers on social media heavy-hitters bloggers who have been given a Fiesta car to test drive for about a year.

The heavy-hitter bloggers get to spend the entire year driving the cars and giving feedback to the car’s engineers before the release of the car in America. You see, the Fiesta hasn’t been released in the US yet and this is Ford’s way of conducting a Beta test before release the car to the US public.

As business owners, when you have a new product or service, you can learn for Ford’s example. Conduct an Alpha or Beta test with a small group of people so that you can get the bugs out before an official release of your new product or service.

Learn more about how the Head of Ford’s Social Media campaign explains how social media is implemented within Ford and some of their long-term plans for social media.

Yes, another Fortune 500 company has been bitten by the social media bug called Twitter. Although it’s starting to become a norm for big businesses to get involved in social media, it’s good to see how they approach social media.

Image: Newscom.com

It seems their philosophy is that they should connect with consumers via social media and communicate with them. I experience interaction with Ford when I wrote an article last year that included a link to Ford’s Facebook fan page. I accidently had a link to an old page and I was sent the correction for the right link within a couple of hours.

Because of the fast response time regarding the wrong link to the Facebook fan page, it showed me that they monitor their brand reputation online. As part of any social media plan, brand reputation monitor should be an essential key component. And by the example of Ford, we can see that it is important to them to manage their brand via social media websites.

Additional ways Ford is incorporating social media into their company’s marketing plan:

• Fiesta “Agents” are Heavy Hitters in Social Media
• Can Ford’s New Social Media Strategy Help It Become the Leading Social Automotive Brand?
• Twitter Websites: Ford | Scott Monty (Head of Social Media for Ford)

The video below goes into more detail regarding Ford’s social media plan and I’m sure you can learn a number of things from this video that will help you develop or enhance your social media plan. Please feel free to leave your feedback or comments.

Have you noticed that social media is becoming less and less about being social or relating to others that you network with and more about seeing who you can get to buy your services or products? As someone who loves to use social media to network with others, I want to encourage social media users to put the “social” back into social media.

What I mean by putting the “social” back into social media is that I want to encourage you to incorporate “relationship building” into your social media outreach. Try to get to know those that you are connected with so that you can not only build your followers’ list but also build relationships with your followers.

By putting “social” back into your social media outreaches, you can connect with real people who may be your biggest Word Of Mouth (WOM) advocate. WOMs can help build a strong foundation for your social media outreachs and so building a relationship with your followers can help increase the number of WOMs that you have.

Ways that you can put “social” back into your social media outreach:

• If you use Twitter, retweet (re-send) messages from those you are connected to as a way of showing your support for them.
• Browse the websites of your followers and then share links to content on their website via your social media networks.
• Offer to interview some of your followers and then write a blog post about them and how you are connected via your social media outreaches.

To continue encouraging you to put “social” back into social media, the video below goes into more details about social media and relationship building. After you view the video, please feel free to share your feedback and input about putting “social” back into social media.

Have you wanted one phone number that you could be reached through when someone is trying to contact you? Wouldn’t it be nice having the ability to not worrying about mix-ups when you need to change your number. Well it seems that Google Voice (formerly Grand Central) has come up with a solution.

I’ve been using Google Voice since it was Grand Central and have found that it has been a big help to me as a business owner. I can share a phone number with others that will ring into whatever phone number I have setup within my account and I can choose where to answer it.

According to their website, Google Voice….

announced [that] Google Voice, a service that gives you one phone number to link all your phones and makes voicemail as easy as email. We are happy to share that Google Voice is beginning to open up beyond former GrandCentral users. If you requested an invitation on the Google Voice site or previously on GrandCentral, keep your eye out for an invite email.

To help you better understand google voice, I’ve included two different videos. After watching please share your ideas about how you would use Google Voice.

Image: GoogleVoice.com

For those who use twitter as a way of communicating with others, you might be interested in the web-based software program called Twubs. Twubs is based on the #hashtag system that is part Twitter. According to their website….

A great feature of Twubs is that its usefulness is not limited to Twubs that have been “created”. A Twub is created anytime someone uses a #hashtag in the global Twit-o-sphere. Just type the #hashtag in the box above or add it right into the URL and you will be taken to the Twub and all its content already aggregated from tweets. Don’t know what #hashtag to use? Use our search methods below to find Twubs that interest you!

Just to make sure that everyone understand what a #hashtag is, it is the process of a Twitter user creating a word combination that is proceeded by the “#” symbol. Many Twitter users use this technique to track the popularity of their topic. Examples of #hashtags are below:

• #SocialTalk
• #TwitInterviews
• #Women2Follow
• #FridayFollow

So when you are tweeting (the process of sending messages via Twitter) all you have to do is to include a tag in your tweet and other people searching for the same tag will be able to find it when they use Twubs or other Twitter 3rd-party applications.

Position2 has announced that they will hold a free webcast that introduce new Integrated Search & Social Media solutions. The webcast will take place on June 30th at 1:00PM PST and will be entitled “How to Achieve Continuous Growth in a Flat Market”.

Position2.com Screen Cap

Rajiv Parikh, the CEO of Position2, believes that search a social media are key to marketing in this current environment.

“Buyers research using search and social media,” said Parikh. “A recent study indicated that 80% of the time, decision makers found the vendor rather than the other way around. Information gained from search now is more influential than trade shows, trade publications, and even advice from paid consultants.”

According to the company, Position2’s Search & Social Media solutions will allow marketers to interact with consumers in each phase of the purchasing process. As a result, marketers will be able to deliver relevant messages to the consumers at each phase.

For more information on the free webcast by Position2, visit their official website at Position2.com.

What’s your business secret for successfully planning your business strategy? Do you have special things that you do that evolve around social media or your website? How have you been able to make yourself stand-out in the crowd? When you share some of your simple business secrets, it can help other business owners.

The purpose of this article is to get feedback from you, the reader, regarding business secrets that you have for success. So what I want to encourge you to do is watch the video below to hear two business secrets from two different business owners. Then, share how you use social media to grow your business successfully.

Image: SXC.hu

Optimizing your social media efforts can help your business grow organically. Organic business growth is the process of taking steps to ensure that search engines find your website naturally. When you incorporate and optimize your social media efforts as a component of your business growth strategy, you can see results quickly.

According to Rohit Bhargava, there are basically 5 key components to social media optimization. Although there are many more than what’s listed below, this is a starting point for optimizing your social media efforts.

• Increase your linkability
• Make tagging and bookmarking easy
• Reward inbound links
• Help your content travel
• Encourage the mashup

Including these key components when you are determining how to optimize your social media efforts is important. Also you can connect your optimization plan with your search engine optimization strategy too. I’ve included a video below to help you understand ways that you can do this.

Image: SXC.hu

According to a new survey by StrongMail, email marketing and social media are the two fastest growing segments of the marketing world. Although this comes as little surprise to those who are following the online marketing trends, putting stats to the trends is interesting.

StrongMail

Of marketers who plan to increase their marketing budget in the second half of 2009, 83% said they plan to increase how much they spend in email marketing. Second place belongs to social media, which is at 62%. For comparison, search is in third place at 55%.

The StrongMail survey also asked about the top challenges for beginning social media marketing campaigns. The top challenge was determining how to measure success, followed by establishing goals. The third most challenging aspect was knowing where to start.

Also of interest is that only 5% of organizations say that they have a dedicated social media depart. Most organizations have their direct marketing department handle the social media marketing.