They are also REALLY REALLY annoyed when they do not lead to a call to action.

But I recently came across this article here about how Content marketing is becoming Key and KING in social media. You can see the full article here MIKAL E. BELICOVE Is the creator of this article and does a good job of laying out the key facts. I do want to pull out a few of those to highlight them.

“HiveFire’s B2B Marketing Trends Survey Report, twice as many B2B marketers now employ content marketing as they do print, TV and radio advertising, according to the survey.”

This is a great statement. I agree with it 100%.  Now that Google is dumping 100 million dollars into YouTube to make it more of a destination site similar to cable TV with quality shows its even more important to look at each PR, Marketing , and Event or Show you do and see how you can capture that on video to maximize your exposure and spread your costs out over each marketing channel. You control the content here and putting that content out to all those channels through video is very very cost effective.

“Part of the popularity of content marketing is its ability to generate qualified leads while engaging prospects in a branded environment without busting the budget.”

And in today’s world this is very necessary to do.  Not only do you want to maximize your exposure through content marketing but give the customers a direct call to action once you have convinced them of their need for you or your product. Don’t make them go to another site or go to another department in charge of leads get them now!

“Nearly 70 percent of content curators say lack of time hinders their efforts, with 66 percent saying a lack of original and quality content is a major drawback. Another 38 percent say difficulty in measuring results is the stumbling block and 37 percent say lack of staff to do the work is the hindrance.”

True good content takes time but in your weekly or monthly meetings see what your staff or departments are creating and see if other departments can take that same creation and re utilize it . Lack of time usually means lack of time management but if it truly is a small staff then focus on quality content not tons of content.

Content marketing can also come through your customers and fans. Look to them also to see if you can save time and energy by employing a small group of them as evangelists for you. Content marketing will only be growing more and more so the time to start is now.

But its not the same as having your own branded  smart phone app. In this economy not many want to shellout $10,000 or even $5000.00 for these apps.

NOW you don’t have to. For under $1000.00  Appinklingallows you to have a branded image for both the I phone and Android phones. This now allows your customers and potential customers to see who you are and what you do without having to find a computer and looking you up. Self help guru’s you needs this… Service oriented business’s should find this as a must have to proclaim themselves to the world… Artists, Authors, Publishers and especially Musicians should all have one of these. There is alot of flexibility in the template offered by Applink. Also to get placed in front of other customers just mention to them you heard about this from Seth Crofton at Smmeenow and you will get placed in front of the line.

Your Size Works in Your Favor

As a small business, your size is your friend in social media channels. Use your small size as an advantage and respond to each and every person that mentions you. Since you’re working with a smaller customer base, you can also build customer Twitter Lists to separate different categories of customers into groups, which should help you offer more personalized customer service — something the big businesses don’t have the time or resources to support.

Here’s an easy example: Who are your most frequent customers? Make a Twitter List called “Regulars,” and add your regulars on Twitter to it.

In doing so, you’re associating patronage with prestige. Your efforts could even inspire semi-regular customers to frequent your business more often just so they too can get added to the list. This tactic might also serve as a catalyst for one regular to connect with another, though you could also facilitate customer-to-customer connections with introductory tweets. So if a customer tweets for a recommendation, you could respond with something simple as, “@customer1 good question, I like the cheesecake but @customer2 really loves the custard.”

These types of personal exchanges highlight the advantages afforded to small businesses using social media

Social media marketing and social networking are superb marketing tools…. if they’re used right. Use them wrong and they’re a major waste of time.

If you’re one of those people who say “Tried it. Social media doesn’t work for my business.”, here are sixteen reasons why you might not be seeing success:

1. You don’t have a plan.

Social media is marketing, and successful marketing requires a plan. Scattershot tweeting or posting is a waste of time and effort.

2.  You don’t have a goal (you would if you had a plan).

What do you want to accomplish with your posts and tweets? Visibility for your business? Roll out of a new product? Drive traffic to your website? Establish yourself as an expert? Get people to your workshops? You need to know what you want to achieve before you start. How else do you know what to talk about?

3. You don’t have a target audience that you want to engage (yep, you would if you had a plan!). Pretty tough to know what to post if you don’t know what your followers are interested in.

4. You’re all about self-promotion.

This is about as effective as thinking networking is all about telling everyone why they should buy from you. If the bulk of your posts include “I” or “me”, fix them. Fast!

5.  You don’t get the “social” part of social media/networking.

Being social requires some sort of interaction…..like sharing and connecting. Commenting on other people’s posts, retweeting, sharing posts that you find interesting, sharing posts that might help someone else, responding when a friend asks a question. If you’re not doing that, you’re doing “solo” media. Lots of luck with that!

 6.  You’re not following anyone.

I don’t go along with the “follow everyone who follows you” theory, but I do know that I learn a lot from following the right people (those who tweet about what I’m interested in or fun quirky things). So I’m always looking for interesting people to follow. And I periodically go through my new followers to see if I want to follow them in return.

7.  You’re boring people.

If your posts aren’t of interest to your followers, why should they follow you? Or recommend that others follow you? Your network will stagnate.

Make your posts and tweets Interesting, timely and relevant.

If your goal is to gain visibility as a real estate expert, talk about real estate issues and news. Trends you’re seeing (or reading about). Helpful tips for prospective buyers. Things that new homeowners need to know. Posts that will get real estate reporters to follow you.

And don’t be afraid to throw in the occasional quirky post just to make it fun. Posts that make people smile get shared.

8.  You’re inconsistent.

It’s not necessary to tweet daily….but it doesn’t hurt. I’ve read some tip sheets that say 4x /day is optimum but that’s assuming you have something of value to tweet about.

Watch the people who have lots of followers, and see what they tweet about and how often. Same goes for Facebook. Don’t post and then disappear for a month. Your followers will do the same.

And don’t forget that your ranking in Google is affected by Twitter and Facebook. The more you tweet and post, the more Google finds you and the higher you appear in search.

9.  You over post and tweet endlessly.

Ever opened your Twitter feed only to find eight tweets in a row from one person? Then you know what I mean. Try and space your tweets out during the day. Don’t inundate your followers. You’ll lose them.

10. You’ve turned social media over to an intern or an employee who doesn’t “get” marketing or understand what you do. Bad move.

11. You’re outsourcing social media to someone who doesn’t understand what your company does and what you want to achieve. Equally bad move, not to mention a waste of money.

12.  You forgot about keywords.                        

One of the coolest things about Facebook and Twitter is that your posts and tweets get picked up by Google. This not only gives you more visibility but moves your rankings up.

You should be using keywords since new followers will use them to find you. This means using them in your profiles as well as your posts.

13.  You’re using an auto responder to thank people for following you.

I don’t think I’m alone in saying that this is using Twitter to spam. If I’m following you, I’m doing so because I think you’ll tweet about things that interest me. Cluttering up my feeds with messages that say “thanks for following me” or “have a good day” are nice and all but hold no value. They’re automatically generated so it’s not like you’re sending them to connect with me. It’s just one more tweet to delete.

14. You’re pretending to connect but you’re really all about selling.

I had this happen to me the other day. After receiving a nice invite to connect (to which I responded and mentioned what a nice message it was), I got a generic sales pitch the next day. And my new follower got blocked.

15. You’re not being authentic.                                                         Authenticity and transparency are two of the key attributes for a solid social media/social networking connection. Try and portray yourself as someone you’re not, and you’ll get called on it. 

16. You’re not big on sharing.

Since that’s pretty much what social networking is all about, if you ‘re not into sharing, you shouldn’t be here.

By no means is this a complete list, but it’s a good starting point.

If you’re doing any of the above, you’re sabotaging your social media efforts. Start over and do it right. Or don’t do it at all. You’ll free up a ton of time.

They are wrong.

Content is still king but quality content is the EMPORER! yes its true people want to stay in the know and want to hear new and exciting things but if you really don’t have anything to say then don’t. September wasn’t that big of a month except for the rare user generated content that popped up on CNN and other news networks. For example the lady who went on youtube to rage against Bank of America and struck a chord with the American people. Or the young kid in New York who did a video blog on Apple products at their flagship store in New York that was quite cute and sincere.

Unfortunately though no great breakthroughs in integrating social media outlets into one big super page that we can call home. NO great new trinkets or widgets to add on and no real marketing blitz out there integrating traditional marketing into all the media outlets…in short nothing really to praise. I am optimistic though that this upcoming Christmas season, which looks to be a flat one for retailers, will have some unique marketing angles to dissect on this blog. Until then remember quality will always trump quantity.

That being said I came across a great article a friend forwarded to me called the five P’s and come interesting comments on it as well. Let me know what you think.