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Thanks for the response.

Just to add more food for thought, many companies are leverging rather simple social media tools such as Twitter to promote product offers (e.g. Dell having an offer for the latest laptop), create facebook applications that cater to and are marketed at your target audience to drive awareness of the company and bring people to you web site, iPhone applications that enable a simple, but highly functional, application that drives engagement for people in an "off-line" or "mobile" way. Other companies are leveraging social media marketing technologies to embed video/photo/stories/etc... in other social media properties such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and others to drive greater awareness. Lastly, many companies are leveraging services such as SMS (texting) to market to existing customers and prospective customers with specific offers which drives sales, but can also be forwarded to friends and family which is a fantastic way to enable Word Of Mouth (WOM) marketing.

Now...the tough ellement is the measuring of the ROI for these efforts. But, many companies are willing to at least start with Social Media Marketing, see what sales happen and then measure success after a period of time.

There are many many more ideas for Social Media Marketing. The key to this is working with many different ingredients to make up the best social media marketing play that works best for YOUR company.

But, I have to say the key all social media and social media marketing is to really understand who your customer/audience is, where they live online, what motivates them, what will bring them to your site and what will bring them back again. With out knowing this, the level of risk can go up dramatically. The good news is there are many tools available to the business to fully understand the audience.

I'd love to hear more ideas and success stories from other small business owners.

David

Someone in this thread has provided around 25 social networking sites. We have a list of almost 50. The problem with our list is that it does not contain 'typical' profiles of visitors.
That would be useful for marketeers.

http://www.vistasads.com

Here's the questions again. The previous post did not come out right.

What are the best social media tactics to use for my business?

Am I currently doing the right things based on my business objectives?

Where are the conversations happening?

Are the conversations good or bad?

What is the impact on sales, customer support, web traffic?

What impact will social media marketing have on my current marketing budget?

Is social media marketing more or lesseffectiveness vs traditional
marketing?

What resources (human, capital and tools) do I need to drive success?

How muchtime do I need to devote to my social media marketing before I start to see success?

Can I scale my efforts?

What are the impacts (positive or negative)on other areas of the
business?

Does it improve cusotmer support, should I change support
habits, should I change the way I communicate with my customers, do I
need a PR team, etc...?

Yes it works and it works well. In fact Googles new algorhytm has 10 new social media pieces to it. I rely on it, in fact I created a job just for marketing our sites, projects, posts, products etc,.

Ken

Hi vjoyhme56,

Are the people on linked-in your customers? If not, I'd go to the base of customers you have and begin there. Social Media marketing is about giving your customers and prospects a voice and this in turns generates more customers. I recently read an article posted on the CMO Council site called "
turing customer pain inot competitive gain". This a great article and
could give you much food for thought.
In this article, they talk to the "customer 2.0" as being very sensitive and trusting of recommenations from consumers as being the number one source of trust when making a purchasing decision.

About your business, I looked at your site and you can really build on this.

The value social media marketing provides you is in leveraging what your
customers tell your prospects about your product and service. This is
the root of your success. You can start small with this and get a few
customers talking about you on your site.

I'd think about encouraging your customers to get a conversation going as to what gives them the most comfort and enjoyment from your products or even similar products. The technology your want for this is a forum, or you may even be able to use your blog account. You'll have to check into how your blog is set-up and how it can be used. Here's the idea....you want the customers to tell stories, give thier opinions, give ideas and suggestions on how to use your products, etc.... You want to build the conversation and get customers to be your best advocates.

You'll have to work on this, but it can be easily accomplished by simply email and calling your customers and asking them for a bit of help. You can even offer them a steep discount on thier next purchase as an encentive.

Next, I'd be sure to contribute to the dicussions on the forums as the subject matter expert. Adding your own input and ideas. You'll need to provide a steady diet of thoughts, sugestions, stories and recommendations to keep the conversation going. This will take some work at first, but after a period of time, it will take on a life of its own.

As far as the other ellements go...

Your blog is only one component of your social media play. Is the blog linked to your website? Are you posting on the blog on a regular basis? Do you know who many people are reading it? Are you incouraging them to comment back? Do you have a forum where customer and prosepects can engage? I'd understand how you are using your blog first and the results you are seeing now.

The other elements are used to provide additional support. Social Media is like a cake, you'll have to try a few different ingredients to get the right taste. This is a trial and error process - just like traditional marketing.

The facebook page is a good idea and so is twitter. These are different ingredients that help support the overall play.

But, I'd also think about where your inteneded audience lives on line, where do they go, what are their habits, what are their interests, etc.... I can help you on the research side of this as well. I have great contacts with companies who do social media research.

Lastely, I'd try and get your customers and prospect to do a very simple registration when they become a member of your "comfort community" (catchy hu?). This is where you capture simple information like name, email and mobile number if you can. You'll need this data to be able to market to them as well.

There are social media marketing technologies as well. Once you have a base of customers built, there are a few great tools out there that can really help spread the word and drive engagement and bring people back to you site.

Sorry for the long post, but I hope this was helpful.

Any other thoughts from othere Bank Of American participants is much appreciated.

My very best regards,

David

Great.

Also, I'd consider posting an offer of some sort (10% XYZ or Buy 2 for 1, etc...) on your main page as well.

Remember to keep the customer in mind at all times. The more you make your site about "comfort community" and about them, the more they will come back and invite others.

Simple rule for you to remember:
1 - What will bring the customer to my site
2 - What will bring them back
3 - What will encourage them to invite others to come to it too

You'll be amazed what you can learn about what motivates them if you can get the conversation rolling on your site. And it's a blast too....