Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook.com, pronounced earlier this year at Nielsen’s Consumer 360 conference that in large part thanks to social media, email will soon have gone the way of the Dodo bird.
Her argument stems from the fact that in order to see what the trends of tomorrow are, we only need to look at what today’s teenagers are doing and the statistics she quoted say that only 11% of teenagers use email. She goes on to say that instead of email they use SMS and social networking tools.
Now, I can certainly see her logic about watching what the youth of today are doing, but I don’t know that I completely buy into the idea that email will be going away anytime soon.
First off, today’s teenagers aren’t in an environment that requires professional communication and exchanging of electronic data. It will certainly be interesting to see what happens once these ‘trend setters’ hit the workplace, but I imagine their communication habits will change accordingly.
Of course there’s always the possibility that something will come along, replace the functionality email provides and completely throw things onto their head, but from where I sit today I just don’t see that happening.
For most working adults, email is the lifeline of professional communications. Sure the Facebook message system is pretty cool, but would I really use it to send last months webstats or the presentation for an upcoming meeting? And even if I did, isn’t that sort of an email thing anyways?
At any rate, while I can see Ms. Sandberg’s reasoning ( and reasons for doing it…she is the COO of the largest social networking site after all!), I’m afraid I just don’t buy into it just yet.
What do you think? How do you see the relationship between social media and email evolving?
Go ahead and leave your comments below.
Also, check out what the folks over at Aweber had to say about this evolving relationship. It’s certainly an interesting and well-founded take from the folks that helped write the book an effective email marketing.
If you’re a local business and are looking for ways to get more people through your doors, get the word out about your business, and ultimately drive new sales, the Internet offers lots of opportunities to do just that. Now even though I talk quite frequently of the overall power the Internet has to help local businesses, what I’m talking about here is using specific tools to drive people to your business.
One such tool is a service/website/social game called Foursquare.
If you’ve never heard of it, it’s basically a location based application that works on smartphones like the iPhone, the Android, or Blackberry. Any time a user arrives at your location, they ‘check-in’, which is the same as telling everyone in their social network that they’ve arrived at your location.
Now, while many might view Foursquare as a gigantic waste of time (let’s face it, there are some people that think ANYTHING social media related is a giant waste of time!), it has a lot of potential to be a very powerful marketing tool for your local business as you look to grow using the Internet.
First, it has a game component so it’s fun for people to do. I mean really, what’s the benefit of checking in to a particular location and why would hundreds of thousands of users be doing this on a daily basis if it wasn’t fun? When someone check-in to a location, they’re essentially letting other know they’ve arrived at a place that’s worthy of talking about.
Second, anytime someone checks in to a location, they notify their network of friends, which in many cases includes their Facebook and Twitter universe of friends! This is essentially word-of-mouth marketing on steroids because again, they’ve deemed your business worthy of the shout-out and they’re telling what could be a whooooole lot of people about it.
Third, you have the ability to make some kind of offer via Foresquare to people that visit your business. When you sign up for a Foresquare account you can offer users something to come into your place of business, which again, is another fantastic opportunity to introduce yourself to your target market.
Now, I will say that Foursquare isn’t for every business and most of the participants are restaurants or retail locations. That’s not to say it can’t work if you’re a lawn care guy, attorney, or some other service provider, but you will definitely need to be creative.
Overall though, Foursquare is a perfect example of some of the increasing number of tools available to the local business owner looking to grow his business using the Internet. And just like every other tool out there, it can be extremely powerful when used correctly, but it can also be a HUGE distraction if you allow it to be.
As long as you have a clear understanding of what you’re trying to achieve online, you’ll be better able to analyze the tools like Foursquare and determine if it’s going to help you grow your business or just become a giant distraction.
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When it comes to successfully marketing your business online (and in this case, size DEFINITELY doesn’t matter!), one of the critical components is content.
In fact, there’s a saying the says, “Content is King” and online, this is definitely the case.
You see, because the search engines are all about providing THE BEST information relative to what a searcher is looking for, the one that can best provide the most relevant, most useful, and quite frankly, just the most information is the one that will have the most success.
However, creating lots of good quality content is never an easy task. In fact, it can be a pretty daunting challenge to keep up with.
Fortunately, by following a few basic principles that have been used with great success for many, many years in the publishing business, any size business can become a content creation machine, thus positioning themselves as the ‘fount of knowledge’ or more plainly, the one people turn to for answers!
5 Tips for Content Creation Success:
- Find out what your audience wants to hear. First off, you don’t want to be wasting your time creating content that no one cares about but you. To be truly effective at creating content (and marketing your business for that matter!) you need to first understand what moves your target market.Are there hot buttons issues you can talk about? Do they have recurring frustrations you have the solutions to? What are the most common questions you get asked?
Each of these make great starting points around which some quality content can be created.
- Create content sequentially. What this means is allow your content to build off itself. In other words, try not to jump around too much from one topic to the next.Start with an idea and follow it as far as you can go. Dig deep into it and then once you’ve reached a conclusion, use a related idea as your segue into your next topic.
- Use an editorial calendar. This is a tool from the publishing industry that works very well for any size business and in many cases, I would say it’s almost a requirement!When you have an editorial calendar you’re basically planning out the content you’re going to create, what the topic will be, and when it’s due. This essentially gives you a plan that you can follow to ensure you stay on topic and on time with your content creation.
- Engage others in your cause. Creating lots and lots of content (something that unfortunately needs to be done) can be a very lonely road to hoe at times.Fortunately, you don’t have to go it alone! There are plenty of resources out there that would be more than willing to help you out, you simply need to do a little investigative research to find them and determine how best to employ them in your content creation efforts.
- Remember to have fun! This is probably the most important. Again, creating lots and lots of content can be an extremely daunting task and if you don’t enjoy doing it chances are it’ll drive you crazy!Fortunately, if you really enjoy what you do than you probably enjoy sharing your knowledge and expertise with others. When you create content, that’s really all you’re doing, sharing your knowledge with others.
Simply find a way to reproduce that knowledge in a way that you enjoy and you’ll be well on your way to becoming a content creation king!
As you work to grow your local business online, keep these 5 tips in mind to help you consistently create profit producing traffic and leads for your business.
What other tips or suggestions do you have when it comes to creating lots of quality content? What’s your favorite method of creating content? What types of content have you found to be the most successful at generating interaction with your target market?
One of the most important components of marketing your business online is measuring the effectiveness of your efforts. After all, as the old adage goes, “What gets measured gets improved.”
If you’re not doing anything to measure the effectiveness of your online marketing efforts then it’s quite likely you’re simply spinning your wheels HOPING something sticks. And when it comes to social media marketing it’s easy to play ‘throw mud up against the wall marketing’.
There are lots of great tools to help you measure just how effective you’re online and social media marketing efforts are, but I just had to share a very cool one that I came across today. And not only is this tool a great way to measure your efforts, but it’s also a fun way to keep track.
It’s called Empire Avenue and it’s almost like playing the social media stock market. Basically, when you sign up for a profile you’re setting up your stock ticker. You’ll want to add your various social media profiles, specifically Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and any blogs you might have, and the site then analyzes your social media activity to calculate the value of your stock.
As you setup your profile and integrate your various social media accounts you earn social media currency which you can use to purchase the stock of other members. Then as you interact with your friends, fans, and followers, post to your blog, or add photos to your Flickr profile your stock gains value.
The same is true of those stocks you’ve purchased. As they interact with their friends, fans and followers, and post to their blogs, or add photos to their Flickr profiles, their profile gains value and your the value of your investment goes up.
The idea really is to simply improve the value of your own stock PLUS buy the stocks of those people or companies you think will improve in value so that the value of your investments improve.
So, if you’re looking for a fun way to keep tabs on how effective your social media efforts are, check out Empire Avenue. And be sure to purchase a few shares of CSALIS while they’re still a at bargain prices!
If you’re a local business and the idea of generating tons of new prospects and customers via the Internet seems like an exciting idea, you’re right on track.
However, before you jump in with both feet you want to make sure you’re starting off on the right foot.
As exciting as the Internet can be, it’s also filled with all sorts of pitfalls and stumbling blocks that can lead to headaches, frustrations, and empty promises. Because there are new tools being introduced every day, it’s important to make sure you have (at a minimum) an idea of what it is you want to accomplish online.
You see, without a plan of attack, you’ll quickly find yourself spinning your wheels trying to make tools like your website, a blog, PPC ads, and the many social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, or FourSquare work for you.
So, with so many tools and different methods for marketing your business online, where exactly does one start?
Well, as with anything related to marketing your business, the very first step in the process is to decide what it is you’re trying to accomplish. Without knowing where you want to end up, how will you know which direction to go? Or how to correct course when you get off track? Or even when you’ve arrived?
Chances are you already have a pretty good idea of what you want to accomplish. You know who you’re target market is, you know how your products or services satisfy their wants/needs, and you know what it takes to make sales.
The next is to decide which online tools are best able to help you accomplish those same goals online. To help kickstart the thought process, keep the following questions in mind:
- Which online tools best allow me to effectively reach my target market?
- What information is my target market looking for when they go online looking for the products and services I provide?
- How can I best communicate my unique selling proposition online?
- Can I re-purpose marketing collateral I already have for use online?
- Can I recreate my offline sales process using online tools? Which tools will help me do that?
Remember, marketing your local business online is no different than doing so offline. It’s all a matter of identifying your target market, figuring out where they ‘hang out’, and then presenting them with the information they need to make the decision that you offer the best choice for them.
The Internet provides PLENTY of opportunities and tools to do just that, but without a clear idea of what you’re trying to accomplish, it’s impossible to determine which tools can best help you achieve your objectives!
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