Easy Ways to Fit Social Media Into Your Business

How do you incorporate the latest and greatest new social media platforms into your marketing strategy without increasing the workload?
We got advice from members of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only nonprofit organization of promising young entrepreneurs that has access to tools, mentoring and resources that support each stage of business development. The organization promotes entrepreneurship as a solution to unemployment and under-employment.
1. Determine the goal. "[Look at] how the new social media platform aligns with your overall social media goals by asking these questions: Will it create more sales? More engagement? Better customer service? Next, establish forecasts and measure the costs against the benefits. If it makes sense to add the new platform to the mix, try it out for a few weeks to see what happens."
— Logan Lenz, founder and president of Endagon
2. Outsource other things. "Unless you want your social media accounts to read like robots are writing, you're going to have to put in some time and effort. Outsource other things that you don't do well so you can focus on true engagement. Social media is a strong tool to nurture clients and leads. Of course it's going to take work, but it's well worth the returns."
— Kelly Azevedo, founder of She's Got Systems
3. Syndicate existing content. "Whenever a new social media platform appears on the scene, I start by syndicating what I'm already doing to [the new one]. It's rarely the best approach to get full benefits, but it allows me to start learning that platform without stressing about using it perfectly. That way, the new platform doesn't dramatically add to the workload. Then, as best practices emerge, I can evolve my strategies and rearrange priorities."
— Thursday Bram, consultant for Hyper Modern Consulting
4. Focus on quality. "It’s all about quality over quantity when it comes to social media. Post strategically and you will not have to overload yourself trying to keep up a constant presence on all new sites. Prioritize each social media platform by which one has provided you with the best ROI and focus the majority of your time there."
— John Hall, CEO of Digital Talent Agents
5. Prioritize your presence. "Prioritize where you want to focus your social marketing efforts. You don’t have to be present on every little social media platform. Find the ones that fit your needs and provide the most success and focus your time there."
— Brent Beshore, owner and CEO of AdVentures
6. Repurpose old content. "If you have posts that worked well on Twitter or Facebook, rewrite them in a different way and share them on new networks when they emerge (such as Pinterest). Content is king and if you have valuable stuff, don't spend time re-creating it. Instead, spend your time distributing it to the masses."
— Lucas Sommer, founder and CEO of Audimated
7. Adapt to a management platform. "Using tools like HootSuite or Buffer, you can add multiple social network accounts into one dashboard to view. Send all of your updates from there. Both tools allow you to schedule updates to go out on multiple platforms. Buffer especially will find the best times for you to tweet to receive the most return response and maximum exposure. HootSuite enables you to have side-by-side timelines for reading and sending."
— Lane Sutton, social media coach at Social Media From a Teen
8. Make it work with ifttt. "[The company]'s claim that it will 'put the Internet to work for you,' is a good one. Social media can take up a lot of time, so a tool [such as ifttt] that gives you one hub where you can update numerous platforms is a touchdown. Update one platform from ifttt while it updates the others without you having to manually do it."
— Ashley Bodi, co-founder of Business Beware
Put these resources to work for your business by trying these tips from upcoming entrepreneurs on effective social media strategies.
What helpful advice have you gotten about social media lately?

07:21 by Robert dawne · 0

Sexiest Social Network: Your E-Mail Inbox

Let me preface this discussion by saying that I've been involved in online social networks since the 1980s, when they were dial-up bulletin-board services. I've spent more informal time on them than most people, and I've made them part of my profession for well over a decade. Because of this, I get asked one question quite a lot: What's the best social network?
The truth is that the best social network is the one that benefits you the most.
What is beneficial may differ, depending on your business. If you're a home-improvement company, you might get more out of Pinterest. If you're a musician, you'll love Soundcloud. Google+ is loaded with photographers.
But none of those networks are the sexiest. Instead, your e-mail inbox is the most powerful and alluring network that exists.
Inbox Allure
When someone chooses to read your e-mail and responds or forwards that e-mail, it's a much deeper interaction than hitting a Plus icon or a Like button and moving on to the next consumable.
If I've earned a spot in your inbox, I've got your most intimate social network near at hand. You can introduce me to people who matter to you. You can forward my message or idea to someone else. The interaction stays with you.
Smaller Is Sexy
There's a reason that smaller is sexy. While Facebook is nearing its 1 billionth customer, another network called Path that imposes limits is getting some attention. Path limits you to 50 friends. It's a very small, very intimate social network. You can do a lot of the same things that you can on Facebook: Post location, photos, text, and so on. But only be 50 people can see what you post.
As a small-business owner, if I can focus my attention on a very small group of people (or maybe two small groups—my would-be buyers and my sources of new ideas), I won't be so overloaded with what could be. I can decide who matters and dedicate my efforts to them.
Huge social networks generate fantasies of huge potential: I could reach millions of prospective buyers. But check out some smaller networks and see if you can serve them more fully. You might find that you'll do better.
Small Is Not Local
When I praise small networks, I don't mean location-specific networks. Geographic diversity is very important if it's at all possible in your business. If your customer base is limited to your region and it's impacted by an economic or weather issue, you'll be low on buyers. If you can sell to more than one locale, you have a better chance of diversifying your streams of revenue.
More paths help sustain your business. If you can sell somewhere other than only local, give it a go.
What Works for You
Sometimes targeting a smaller network serves your business better than trying to reach infinite numbers of customers. Evaluate what you put your energy into to decide what will best serve your business. Don't be distracted by the potential of reaching the masses when your own closest network—your e-mail contacts—may be the one that will benefit you the most.
What are you doing with small or not-so-small networks? Which network matters most to you now?

06:13 by Robert dawne · 0

Top 10 Entrepreneurs Under 30

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the country's most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC promotes entrepreneurship as a solution to youth unemployment and underemployment and provides its members with access to tools, mentorship and resources that support each stage of a business's development and growth.
When recently asked to name the top entrepreneur under the age of 30 who deserved an award for the work they've done in the past year, YEC members had the following to say.
1. Dave Morin of Path
It's been inspiring to watch Dave and his talented team at Path take their app from something that no one was paying attention to to one of the top apps out there. Path revolutionized iOS design by releasing one of the most beautiful apps out there, and has been on a roll ever since. —Ben Lang, founder of EpicLaunch
2. Shane Snow of Contently
Shane Snow is absolutely the most impressive individual I know for his accomplishments in recent times. A TechStars NYC alum, Shane developed Contently with his team and recently raised $2 million in a Series A round. In addition to that, he's the top infographic artist, period. Shane is also the coolest journalist you'll ever meet, having written for Mashable, Fast Company and Wired.com. —Danny Wong, co-founder of Blank Label Group
3. Drew Houston of Dropbox
Drew Houston, CEO and co-founder of Dropbox, led the startup from a simple vision—making it easy to store and share files in the cloud—to a massive business success with millions of users and sales. I am so impressed with his focus on an exceptional user experience. Drew and his team created a product that betters productivity and data storage so much, it's hard to imagine the Web without it. —Doreen Bloch, CEO and founder of Poshly
4. Nick D'Aloisio of Summly
Nick D'Aloisio, he's creating a way to summarize the Web. Not only is he young, but he caught the world's attention through Om Malik's expose on his app. The app is a window into a much more powerful concept around how content has become digestible in tidbits—especially content lacking opinion. It could be quite fascinating to companies that manage tons and tons of content that needs to be indexed. —Brian Wong, CEO and founder of Kiip
5. Ben Silbermann of Pinterest
There is a reason why Pinterest is getting so much attention right now. It's a beautifully designed product that solves a problem that nobody knew the Web was facing. It's the co-founder's vision that made it the impressive application that it is today. —Logan Lenz, president and founder of Endagon
6. Ben Milne of Dwolla
Ben Milne is the CEO and co-founder of Des Moines-based Dwolla, a peer-to-peer payment platform disrupting the mobile payments industry. Milne and his team have quickly scaled the business and is now moving over $1 million per day. Dwolla recently raised a $5 million round of funding, led by New York-based Union Square Ventures and a solid supporting team. —Jeff Slobotski, founder of Silicon Prairie News
7. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest self-made billionaire in history and arguably the greatest entrepreneur of our time. Facebook wasn't created in the past year, but Zuckerberg has presided over its continued dominance of the social Web and the company's skyrocketing valuations. And he is only 27. —Emerson Spartz, CEO and founder of Spartz Media
8. Catherine Cook of myYearbook.com
While most people want to say Mark Zuckerberg, I'd give the award to his female counterpart, Catherine Cook. Not only was Catherine just 15 years old when she started myYearbook.com, but she managed to stay under the radar by operating outside of Silicon Valley—in Pennsylvania. The site was recently acquired for a reported $100 million...while Catherine was still attending college! —Matt Wilson, co-founder of Under30CEO.com
9. Brent Beshore of AdVentures
Being a great entrepreneur isn't just about profits. Brent Beshore leads AdVentures (which was no. 28 on last year's Inc. 500), so he's made his share of money, but what I respect is his entrepreneurship for his community. When his hometown—Joplin, Mo.—was destroyed by a tornado, Brent used his skills to raise over $1 million in four days to rebuild the city. We should all strive to use our success for good, as Brent does. —John Hall, CEO of Digital Talent Agents
10. Jeremy Johnson of 2tor
Jeremy Johnson is 27 and is already changing the face of higher education. His current project, 2tor, is a visionary startup that helps top-tier U.S. universities bring their degree programs online. Jeremy, along with co-founders John Katzman and Chip Paucek, is on a mission to transform education, and as the highest funded U.S. education tech startup, 2tor is bringing that vision alive. —Zach Cutler, CEO and founder of Cutler Group

10:52 by Robert dawne · 1

The Marketer’s Guide To Pinterest [Infographic]

Pinterest, the visual social network that lets users “pin” images they like from around the web to virtual pin boards, is stacking up to be one of the fastest growing social sites of all time.  With more and more people joining Pinterest every day, it’s becoming impossible for marketers to ignore the Pinterest phenomenon.  But how can marketers get in on this?  A new infographic from MDG Advertising takes a deeper look.

‘Pin It to Win It: A Marketer’s Guide to Pinterest’ breaks down the “who, why, and how of Pinterest.”  The infographic starts out by taking a look at the people who pin.  The breakdown is currently 87 percent female to 13 percent male, with most pinners being between the ages of 25 and 54.
So, as a marketer, why should you be on Pinterest?  The infographic explains, plainly, that you should be on the site because it’s making history.  “According to comScore, Pinterest hit 11.7 million unique monthly U.S. visitors in January, making it the fastest standalone site in history to cross the 10 million mark.”  They also provide convincing statistics on how Pinterest is driving traffic, and list some big brands that are already on Pinterest.
Once you’re convinced, the infographic sheds some light on how you can make Pinterest work for your brand with some helpful tips, including adding ‘Pin It’ buttons to your site content, pumping up the quality of pinable content on your site, and more.
Check out the infographic and let us know what you think in the comments below.  Is your company on Pinterest yet?  If not, do you plan to be?

09:40 by Robert dawne · 0

Pinterest – An In Depth Look at the Stats

There’s no big surprise to social media fans that Pinterest is blowing up.  It’s recently become a site that has traffic in the top 100 sites on the web, and rumors have it valued around $200m.  That’s a lot for a company that doesn’t have much revenue.  But just how engaged are the users that use the service?  The folks over at RJMetrics put together a rigorous report to find out.
RJMetrics simply did some scraping to analyze a series of users by looking at their “Pin” boards over time, and see how they’d engaged.  They found some pretty incredible statistics, including the following.

• Pinterest is retaining and engaging users as much as 2-3x as efficiently as Twitter was at a similar time in its history.
• Pins link to a tremendously large universe of sites.  Etsy is the most popular source of pin content, but it only represents about 3% of pins.
• Over 80% of pins are re-pins, demonstrating the tremendous virality at work in the Pinterest community.  To contrast, a study done at a similar time in Twitter’s history showed that only about 1.4% of tweets were retweets.
• The quality of the average new user (as defined by their level of engagement and likelihood to remain active) is high but declining.  Users who have joined in recent months are 2-3x less active during their first month than the users that came before them.

There’s a lot more in the report, including a breakdown of the various sources of pins and the breakdown of how many people actually use the pinmarklet versus just repin other’s content.  There’s also a detailed cohort analysis which looks at various groups of users that joined the site and their behavior over the first twelve months of use of the site.  They find that the earlier users are the power users, but that most cohorts have stayed engaged on the site.
Head over and take a look at the report and let us know what you think.
Image: pedrosek via Shutterstock

12:42 by Robert dawne · 0

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Joins Pinterest

Facebook’s co-founder and CEO has joined the hottest new social network on the block, Pinterest.
Mark Zuckerberg’s profile, located at www.pinterest.com/zuck, isn’t very lively. He is following more than 100 other users, but has posted very little content himself. The Pinterest profile is linked to his Facebook profile.
While it’s too early to say Pinterest poses a threat to Facebook in any way, the simple content sharing site can easily be called the hottest startup of 2012. The site reached 10 million unique visitors extremely fast; it has more than 2 million members (connected through Facebook), and it’s already used by more than 100 brands.
At the very least, Zuckerberg must be curious to see what this little site has been doing to become so successful. Facebook has never been too shy of adopting successful concepts seen on other services; for example, its Subscribe button, launched in September 2011, is an obvious nod to Twitter’s Follow.

15:35 by Robert dawne · 0

A History of the Business of Social Media

Social media has come a long way since it's humble beginnings over 30 years ago. This infographic gives us a short history of the many innovative companies that have helped shape the environment that we so heavily rely on to communicate and also takes a look at some of the business deals behind them. What's next? You decide.

14:07 by Robert dawne · 0