When Suzy Q makes an appointment for a haircut, it’s easy to jump online and see what she’s been doing on Twitter. Has she been following your business online? Has she contacted you on Twitter, created conversations about your business, or talked about hairstyles online? These are things that you can talk about when she comes in. Perhaps she tweeted on Monday that she was thinking about changing her hairstyle, and on Wednesday when she came in she didn’t mention it right away. What a great opportunity to bring up some new styling ideas!

Maybe you happened to be on Twitter when Suzy Q was talking about her hairstyle preferences, so you were able to jump in on her conversation and provide some ideas and pictures before she even came in! I guarantee you that Suzy Q will tell her friends about your salon, as well as become an incredibly loyal customer because of your online suggestions and proactive approach.

“But it’s too time consuming” – True, it can be a bit time consuming, but there are tricks to the trade. As with every trade, there are secrets and programs that you can use to be more productive in less time.

“I don’t understand. Who sits online all day” – While this may seem like what people are doing, in reality so many people don’t even go to Twitter.com, or Facebook.com. Mobile applications are making it easier than ever for people to be on these networks all day, every day, without even going to the websites. And, as mentioned above, there are programs that are available that monitor Facebook and Twitter for you, so that you never even have to go to the actual sites.

When a complete stranger updates their status with; “Just got the best haircut ever! Luv this place!”  Every single friend of theirs is going to see that and wonder where Suzy Q just got her haircut. If you offer an incentive for her to say something on Twitter, she’ll do your advertising for you at NO COST!! How can you lose when customers do your advertising?!

“I don’t want customers and clients to have control over the message. What if they say something bad” – It’s going to happen. When you put the message out there, open your business to the masses, you are going to lose certain controls. There are those that won’t take any steps forward for fear that a step forward could mean two steps backwards. And yes, it could mean that, but it won’t. Small business owners need to be in control of their products, the way their message is portrayed so that they can stay in business. As a small business owner myself, I completely understand that. However, you have got to let it go a bit in order to grow.

When a former customer or client decides to say something about your business, you have to respond. In reality, the only person that is getting hurt when bad things are said is the person who is saying them. No one likes negativity, even on the social networks. Respond with a “how can I fix this” or “what can we do to repair this relationship.” In the end, your business is not the one who looks bad. You take the criticism, soak it in, and offer solutions. If your nemesis does not take to your responses, you are the one who looks like the bigger person for stepping up and trying to alleviate the problem and everyone will see that.

Don’t be afraid of criticism; use it to your advantage. In the end, it gets your business name out there even more. What’s the old saying? No press is bad press.  In many cases, negative opinions or status updates regarding your business can turn into positive exposure and profits.

So the question appears to be not why use social media, but how to get your current customers to talk about you them? How do you get Suzy Q to do your free advertising? You have got to think outside of the box and ‘get with it,’ so-to-speak. Perhaps you want to offer a free haircut for every Social Media referral they send your way. Perhaps you want to do a punch card and for every tweet they post about your business, or every potential referral they give you , could be a punch and ten punches is a free haircut.

Giving your customers incentive to talk about you on the social networks can be as easy as offering Twitter Only or Facebook Only specials. Perhaps you offer a Twitter special that requires a retweet to get a 10% discount. Or perhaps you offer a Facebook special that requires you bring in 10 Facebook friends for that 10% discount.

The possibilities are truly endless, and that’s what’s so amazing about social media. With the millions upon millions of people on Twitter, and with Facebook beating out Google for the most visited website, your local following could be massive. Use your imagination, experiment, and don’t be afraid of the outcome. As long as you always take the high road, you will be seen as the bigger person and a better company for it.

Businesses of all sizes should get involved with Facebook and Twitter for the simple purpose of customer service. While MySpace has sold out and is falling swiftly off a cliff, Facebook and Twitter are still growing by leaps and bounds, which means your customers are probably on at least one of these networks. If your customers are on them, then you should be too.

Big businesses should integrate social media into their marketing to stay fresh and act like a small business by communicating with their customers. Small businesses should integrate social media to keep their customers happy and informed.

Big Businesses and Social Media

In my personal opinion, big businesses tend to get boring after a while. They shut-off connections with the real world, block the websites that keep their marketers informed of what’s trending online, and drain employees with small offices and bad lighting. If you’re a big business that has thick protections against any sort of social media while at work, you’re probably only doing yourself harm.

Twitter and Facebook allows for big businesses to be fresh and current with what their customers want. Sure, marketers take stats and polls and understand their customers in many ways, but understanding your customers on a social level adds another layer to your marketing plan. And what’s wrong with knowing your customers better.

Many big businesses, like Starbucks and Hewlett Packard, use Twitter efficiently to communicate with their customers. These are big businesses who know how to market to their customers. They offer specials, news, and interaction focused on customer satisfaction.

Small Businesses and Social Media

Small businesses tend to communicate with their customers better than big businesses, simply because they see them more on a face-to-face basis. That doesn’t mean social media isn’t for you. By having a Facebook and Twitter profile, you are only stretching your reach to your customers. Offer specials, discounts, promotions, and company updates to keep your customers involved and informed.

When you send out newsletters or update your blog, invite your customers to continue the conversation on Twitter or Facebook. The more that you can get people to talk, the more your company will grow. Conversation on social networks is the key to spreading your brand like wildfire, and all you have to do is get people talking.

There is not one good reason to not have a social media marketing plan. Whether you’re a big business trying to connect and understand your customers, or a small business looking to simply ‘keep in touch,’ Facebook and Twitter are the best ways to do this. You need to always be thinking of what will take a conversation to the next level, and what will spark your customers’ interests. Record what works and what doesn’t, rinse and repeat.

Remember, ROI is not always measured in initial traffic to your website, but the amount of influence you have throughout social media and the impressions that you make on your customers. If you can keep them happy by offering information and promotions to only your friends on Facebook and Twitter, you will make them feel like VIP’s and create wonderful relationships.

Social media can be a great resource to any job hunter in this rough market. With Facebook and Twitter, you are able to search out who’s hiring, post resumes on your profiles, talk to complete strangers about your work history, and make a wonderful first impression. This article will be especially important for the older generation of job hunters who did not grow up in this digital and internet age. Social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, is not as daunting as it might seem.

Sure, you could post your resume on CareerBuilder and Monster.com and hope that someone just happens to see it, and then just happens to make the first move, but it’s probably not going to happen. You could also spend hours diligently searching these two job giants, send a few resumes out to potential jobs, and hope that they take the time to look at yours as well as the thousands of others they received for the same job.

Gone are the days of simply posting your résumé on CareerBuilder, e-mailing former colleagues and trolling company websites for open slots. These days, if you’re serious about being hired, you really put your computer and PDA to work. That means getting word out on social sites like Facebook and MySpace, sending instant job-search updates via messaging feeds like Twitter, and meeting new people who might be able to lend a hand through Web-networking outfits like LinkedIn. – Time Magazine

Using LinkedIn to Find a New Boss

One of the greatest free tools that you can use as a job hunter is LinkedIn. It’s a social networking platform, much like Facebook, that allows you to update your job history and basically create a resume on a personal profile. LinkedIn will also hook you up with networking groups, people you might know, employees at jobs you’d like to work for, and employees of past jobs you’ve held.

How-To Get Started on LinkedIn

Getting started with LinkedIn requires nothing more than your name, an email address, and your password. It’s that easy. There is no reason to fret about not knowing what to do, because LinkedIn, as every other social site, walks you through set-up step by step. Once you log in, you will be directed to enter your personal and professional information. Have fun with it. Be professional, but also be light and approachable. It’s ok to gloat about your achievements, but it’s also advisable to be humble. If it’s easier, you can even import your resume directly to your profile.

Getting started on LinkedIn will probably take a good 30 minutes, depending on how much work history you want to include, and how personal you want to get. Choose a profile picture that is appropriate, but still fun.

Always allow LinkedIn to pull all of your contacts from you email. This is how your networking will begin.

Join Groups

LinkedIn is all about networking, and in the job search that is the golden ticket. It’s always about who you know, and seldom about what your resume looks like. Groups is what fuels LinkedIn, and it’s how you will connect with the right people to get you your next job.

After you allow LinkedIn to pull your email contacts, go through each one and see if there are any from your past that you’d like to reconnect with. Contact those people and just say hello, letting them know that you’ve just joined LinkedIn and might need a little advice navigating it. Just open the lines of communication.

If you have entered your previous jobs into your profile, LinkedIn will pull up other employees of those companies for you to connect with, which is a great opportunity to see what everyone else is up to and if anyone has a new gig that you might like to speak to them about.

In LinkedIn search, you can look for organizations, companies, or groups that you might want to get involved with. If you’re interested in working for Ford Motor Company, search for it. In the top right is the search box. Enter your search term and select whether you’re looking for a person, company, organization, or group. LinkedIn will pull up all results, and you’ll be able to connect with every employee of that company.

Be Proactive

No matter what social network you are using, you have got to be proactive. This is job hunting, and it’s work. You have to get the connections and meet the people who will get you your next job. Much like searching the newspaper or hitting the streets every day to find a job, social media involves jumping online every day and making it work. It’s no different than  any other job hunting method, it’s just done sitting at your desk.

Using Facebook To Land Your Next Job

Much like LinkedIn, Facebook is all about communication. It’s a networking site that, if you have the right tools, will let you advertise yourself better than any other social platform.

Getting Started with Facebook

To get started with Facebook, all you need is an email address and password. Every social media network is exactly the same in that respect. There’s nothing daunting about that. The great thing is that after you enter your email and password, Facebook, much like LinkedIn and Twitter, will guide you through the set-up process step by step. It’s that easy, and only involves a little typing and direction following.

Like with every social network, allow Facebook to make connections to your email contacts. This is crucial for networking and finding your next job on Facebook.

Find Friends and Groups

Facebook is all about sharing ideas, commenting on your friends profiles, and interacting in many different ways. To keep things simple, after you’ve created your profile you’ll want to search for possible connections. Just like LinkedIn, enter your search phrase (name, group, or company) into the search box. Facebook will do the rest.

Unlike LinkedIn, however, Facebook will not give you all employees of a specific company. You can also search for areas of interest, like car mechanics, in order to find people who have joined a group about cars. If you are looking for a specific company that you might like to work for, search for it in the search box and see what comes up. Many companies these days have Facebook Business and Fan pages, but not all members of those pages will be employees.

Posting Your Resume

Posting your resume on Facebook is a little different than any other network, because you have to do it through a third party. On the bottom left of your Facebook screen, you’ll see ‘Applications.’ Click on this, and scroll to ‘browse more applications.’ It’s here that Facebook stores all of it’s applications, which range from games to networking to business.

What you’ll want to look for is Resume applications. Search resume, or job search, and see what comes up. I personally recommend using Professional Profile, which allows you to sync to your LinkedIn profile and automatically uploads your resume from LinkedIn. It’s a great little application because Professional Profile actually posts a link to your resume directly onto the front of your Facebook page. This way, when you’re in conversation with an old colleague or a future employer all they have to do is click on the link and see your entire resume, as well as connect with you on LinkedIn.

Facebook Wall

A lot of Myspace an dTwitter users have trouble understanding Facebook at first because of the Wall. On Myspace or Twitter, everything is right in front of you. Well, Facebook is a little different.

First of all, you have your status updates, which is where most people enter their random thoughts or ideas at various times throughout the day. If you jump to a friend’s profile, you’ll see their Wall, which will include everything they have written, links they have added, and conversations they’ve had with other friends.

When you first log onto your page, you’ll see your home feed which shows either ‘news feeds’ or ‘status feeds’ from your friends. I know, it sounds daunting, but these are simple terms for updates your friends have made to their profiles. Anytime someone you are friends with adds a comment, adds a link, or changes anything to their profile, it will show up on your home feed.

Don’t let the word feed confuse you, it’s just a fancy way of saying updates or new conversations.

Finally, the tabs that you see towards the top of  every Facebook page are the applications that each individual has on their site. Most of them will just be the Wall (which is where all conversations are stored), Photos, Information, and Notes.

Be Proactive

Once again, the key to finding a job on Facebook is to be proactive. You have got to be able to jump online first thing in the morning and make those connections. Drop and old friend a line and just say hello. With Facebook, you are able to add articles from your favorite blog or online newspaper, add videos from YouTube of Vimeo, and play games. Every time you add something new to your page, you are inviting everyone to connect with you to discuss it.

Using Twitter to Stir Up Conversations

My all-time favorite marketing and networking tool is definitely Twitter. Sure, it moves insanely fast, is only capable of 140 character sentences, and is riddled with spam, but it’s the perfect tool for finding new contacts. The key with Twitter is to have the right tools.

Getting Started

At Twitter.com, all you need is your email address and password. I’m sounding like a broken record here, but simply follow the instructions to set-up your account.

TweetDeck

TweetDeck is the only way to use Twitter. Many, many people have never used Twitter and never will. They will never understand the power the Twitter has and the amazing opportunities it presents for job hunters. It’s literally like sitting at a coffee shop where the entire world is sitting at, and you have the ability to drop in on every single conversation that is happening. Want to know who’s hiring in Salem, Mass? Drop in on a conversation about it. Interested in people’s opinions of Dan Brown’s new book? Drop in on a conversation about that as well.

TweetDeck can be downloaded absolutely free from TweetDeck.com. I know, many of you would rather not download something this big when you’re just doing some job hunting, but if you’re struggling to keep food on the table and a roof over your head, there is no excuse why you wouldn’t download this free Twitter tool.

The reason why many people will try Twitter for a few weeks and then drop it is because they don’t have the right tools to use it efficiently. Twitter was never meant to be used on one screen, simply for one purpose. It has multiple purposes, and in order to fully appreciate it’s grasp you have to have tools that allow you to peer into every piece of Twitter.

So, after downloading TweetDeck go ahead and open it up. In the upper left hand corner there are icons. These are what you will use to find your next job. In the upper right hand corner are tools to help you set-up your account and search for help.

Click on the icon that looks like a wrench, select accounts, and it’s here that you will enter your Twitter username and password. It’s that easy! Now you’re ready to get searching.

Click on the blue ‘T’ icon (Twitter Icon) in the upper left hand corner. Select the magnifying glass to search for conversations. This is where the magic happens. Want to know who’s hiring in Gilbert, Arizona. Search for ‘hiring’ and ‘Gilbert, Arizona.’ Search for anything you want, and you will have instant access to conversations happening around the world and in your own backyard!

TrendsMap

TrendsMap is another tool that I highly recommend for job hunting. This tool combines a Google-like map with Twitter conversations. It’s absolutely amazing, simply because you can zoom in on an area (let’s say Gilbert, Arizona) and see exactly what people are talking about.

If you zoom to Phoenix, Arizona, you’ll see the top trending topics of the moment. If you click on one of the grey topic boxes, a conversation will pop up on the right of your screen. To find all the trending topics happening in Phoenix, click ‘Phoenix’ in the conversation box and you will be redirected to a screen that simply shows what people are talking about in this city.

For example, one of the most popular topics this morning in Phoenix, Arizona is #shjobs, which is strictly a hiring service that advertises job opportunities in Phoenix. There is no better way to find out who’s hiring and who to connect with in your local city than with TrendsMap.

Simply Search Twitter

If all of the above seems a little too complicated and time consuming, then you can simply search Twitter. If you log into your Twitter account, you’ll notice that on the right side of the screen is a bunch of topics. These are the most talked about topics for the moment on Twitter. You’ll also notice a search box.

In the search box, enter exactly what you want to find. For example, ‘hiring’ and ‘Gilbert’ and ‘Arizona,’ or something like that. Twitter will pull up every conversation about who’s hiring in Gilbert, Arizona.

Don’t Be Scared

Jumping on board the social media bandwagon during your job search is less daunting than you might think. While this is just an overview of what you can do with the power of LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, it should get you on the right track to making those necessary connections. Remember, it’s not about how hard you work or your experience anymore, it’s about your connections and enthusiasm.

Good luck! And if you ever need any job hunting or social media advice, don’t hesitate to contact me! I’m also on Twitter @LinwrightDesign, and Facebook!

Getting accurate and conclusive statistics regarding Facebook pageviews, Twitter clickthroughs, or simple blog visits is tougher than you might think. Sure, you can enlist Google Analytics, try bit.ly or su.pr, attempt PostRank, or jump on TweetStats, but if you were to compare all of those numbers to each other, they will never add up.

If your Twitter shortener (the platform that you use to shorten your links for Twitter’s 140 characters) says that you received 115 clicks from a certain link, your Google Analytics will no-doubt show far less than that for the amount of people that actually viewed the page. Sounds confusing, right? Here’s the visual.

See what I mean. I used to use bit.ly for my Twitter shortener, until the numbers really went haywire and didn’t match in the slightest to what the other analytics stats were saying. So, I did some research and decided to give su.pr a try. Su.pr is owned and operated by StumbleUpon, which gives your blog post an added boost. When you shorten the link, su.pr will automatically post it to StumbleUpon. I also heard that su.pr is more accurate than bit.ly because it weeds out the bots. But, as you can see from the visual above, it’s still hard to tell exactly which numbers are correct.

So, in some more research for accurate social media statistics I heard about PostRank, a brand new analytics program that combines Google Analytics with social tools like Twitter. It takes the numbers from Google Analytics, and from my  understanding, compares those numbers with the amount of interaction that happened on Twitter concurrent to a specific blog post. Than it takes the blog visits, combined with the Twitter conversations, and creates a interaction score.

Pretty sweet sounding, right? Well, after getting truly excited about something that might actually be accurate, I decided to give it a few weeks. As you can see below, it’s still not entirely accurate. Not only are the followers numbers off, the numbers pulled over from Google Analytics don’t always match up, nor does the amount of Twitter conversations or the social bookmarking stats.

I give PostRank a lot of credit, however, for attempting such a feat. Being able to accurately track social media numbers is incredibly crucial in this field, and finding a system that works will probably make millions for the creator. I’m still waiting for that day.

Until then, I simply use a variety of analytics including Google and su.pr. I continue to switch it up every couple of months to try and find the most accurate program, every time wishing that the perfect social analytics tool is out there. If anyone has any suggestions I’d love to hear them!

Update: As I was going through my feeds this morning, I came across an article from Social Media Today regarding this exact subject. This is the section that I found most interesting:

Unlike traditional forms of gathering consumer insight, online tools are often cheaper, based on much larger sample sizes, and are quicker to deliver results.  For the past few years the value of search engine marketing (SEM) are measured largely by ad impressions, page views and click through rates.  However, as internet users are more willing to input additional data online, companies are now looking to measure key metrics of engagement on a person-level.

According to a recent comScore and Starcom USA’s study on how U.S. Internet users click on display ads, “Only 8% of internet users now account for 85% of all clicks… The results underscore the notion that, for most display ad campaigns, the click-through is not the most appropriate metric for evaluating campaign performance. Rather, advertisers should consider evaluating campaigns based on their view-through impact.”

That’s just one of the examples that web analytics can be misleading.  It will continue to be challenging for marketers to abstract reliable data as social media adds another pile of data to the media measurement mix.  The future trend to measure more accurately will be to combine technical web analytics (server logs) with a sampling of user surveys (opt-in by visitors) that visits the site.  Although there will be sampling errors, it certainly beats making assumptions that doesn’t reflect real user behaviors.