2010 FebruaryMirna Bard | Mirna Bard

February, 2010

Top 50 Social Media Mistakes Made by Small Businesses
Posted Feb 28th, 2010 By Mirna Bard in Social Media With | 20 Comments
An increasingly number of small businesses (SMBs) are starting to use social media to attract new customers. A recent Small Business Success Index™ report sponsored by Network Solutions and the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business shows:

- Social media adoption by small businesses has doubled from 12 percent to 24 percent in the last year

- 75% surveyed have a company page on a social networking site

- 61% use social media for identifying and attracting new customers

- 57% have built a network through a site like LinkedIn

- 45% expect social media to be profitable in the next twelve months

Despite the increase in social media activity among small businesses and the increase of social media education, I still see many mistakes being made by SMBs. Here are the top 50 mistakes I observe on a daily basis (in no particular order):
1. Lack of planning (Huge one!)
2. Lack of clear and measurable objectives
3. Not learning about social media
4. Lack of knowledge about target audience
5. No commitment
6. Lack of consistency
7. Not realizing that there is a time dedication
8. Worrying too much about negative comments and brand haters
9. Focusing too much about the technology aspect
10. Passing the buck to assistants and interns
11. Spreading themselves too thin by creating profiles everywhere
12. Not completing profiles
13. Uploading pictures of pets or children for avatars
14. Fake friending just to pitch
15. Only talking about oneself, brand or products
16. Hard selling
17. Using the same tactics on every site
18. Responding to every negative comment
19. Not thinking before commenting
20. Not measuring (Another huge one!)
21. Giving up on social media too easily
22. Forgetting it’s about 2-way dialogue
23. Setting profiles and forgetting them
24. Thinking social media is a magic solution to their business problems
25. Jumping on without having a hub (web site or blog)
26. Neglecting to put links back to their web site or blog
27. Not taking a enough time to do research and listen/observe
28. No systems in place
29. Not focusing on core tasks
30. Not separating business and personal social media time
31. Putting eggs all in one basket
32. Continuing with tactics that are clearly not working for them
33. Not taking the time to put a social media schedule in place
34. Not setting time boundaries
35. Not paying attention to customer needs
36. Not providing value
37. Not knowing how to integrate with other marketing/advertising efforts
38. Not knowing how to use all the social media categories together
39. Focusing too much on number of fans/followers/friends
40. Not making enough effort to seek out the right sites for their target audience
41. Neglected (not updating) websites or blogs
42. Using generic or auto responses
43. Spamming people with private messages, DMs or e-mails
44. Using social media as a replacement strategy
45. Not willing to experiment
46. Being close-minded about adding strangers to network
47. Not learning from mistakes
48. Bribing bloggers and others to write about products and services
49. Not spending time finding evangelists and influencers
50. Forgetting that building relationships can be lots of fun
Some of the above mistakes, I already mentioned in a previous blog post: Are You Making These 10 Social Media Business Blunders?

Have you seen any other social media mistakes that I forgot to mention? Please list them in the comments below.
Chelsea King: A Whole New Use for Social Networking
Posted Feb 28th, 2010 By Mirna Bard in Facebook, Social Networking, Twitter With | 4 Comments

When 17 year old Chelsea King went missing on February 25^th, her family called the police as soon as it became obvious the teen hadn’t returned from her run. The search for the missing girl started that same night, turning up nothing but a locked car that Chelsea left outside the Rancho Bernardo Community Center. Then they did something that isn’t as standard . . . they set up a Facebook Group and a Twitter account for Chelsea.

The pages are the perfect way to keep friends and family updated on the worrying situation, but it has done much more than that. In a very short time, close to 6,000 people (and growing) have joined the group, spreading the word about the missing teen through the world of online media and putting Chelsea’s photo and description out on the internet. Hundreds of volunteers showed up to help search for the girl, some as a direct result of the page. Social networking is giving back!

Chelsea’s Facebook Group isn’t the first time social media has been used as a cry for help. In 2007, Tom McEwan set up a Facebook page to help find his 19 year old son Kyle. Today, his MySpace page continues to share songs and memories of Kyle.

If you are a frequent user of Twitter, chances are you’ve seen a few Amber Alerts retweeted there. The micro-blogging network is often used to share alerts when a child goes missing and to update information. Social networks like Twitter and Facebook get the word out faster than any other medium and can reach thousands or millions within seconds.

A more recent example of using Twitter to help find missing family members occurred just after the 8.8 earthquake in Chile. Sheryl Breuker hadn’t heard from her sister-in-law after the quake and used Twitter to post pertinent info and ask for people to help her find the woman. Just two hours later, a local man tracked the woman down, assuring Breuker via Twitter, that her brother’s wife was indeed safe (See Mashable post).

Social media has been used for many things, from dating to business promotion, but now it can help save lives as well. An organization called Help Find My Child has set up a system to help parents of missing children get the necessary information out fast on multiple networks, including Twitter, Facebook, Bebo and MySpace, among others. It’s just one way to make sure that social networking sites are giving back to families and helping them find their missing children.

Please help retweet and share this blog post on all your social networks so we can help find Chelsea King fast.
Ask Mirna: How Can Social Media Be Used in a Business?
Posted Feb 25th, 2010 By Mirna Bard in Ask Mirna, Social Media With | No Comments

QUESTION:

“Hi Mirna. I am hoping you can help me. Every networking event I go to people are telling me I have to do social media for my business. I realize that social media can be another marketing tool, but can it serve another purpose besides marketing and where do I start with all this? Any insights you have would be very helpful.” — Andrian Pital

ANSWER:

Social Media can be used for many things besides marketing and attracting new customers to your business. To just name a few:

- Public relations (brand recognition or to respond to a crisis like most recently, the Toyota recall)

- Creating relationships and building stronger bonds with existing customers

- Ongoing customer service

- Listening tool (observing what people are saying about you and your competitors online)

- Market research before developing a product or service

- Engaging with journalists/media

- Collaborating with employees (internal or external communication)

- Integration with offline networking efforts

- Finding joint venture partners

- Recruitment

As you can see from the above list, social media can play a role in every department of a company. There are a few steps you need to take before deciding if social media is right for your business:

1. Decide what you want to use social media for (see above list).

2. Know who your target audience is (age, gender, location, interests, values, etc.). Of course, if you are a B2B the parameters would be different.

3. Identify your objectives. These should be very specific and measurable.

4. Learn what social media means as a whole. Many people think it is about social networking only because this is all they are hearing about. I designed the 15 categories of social media diagram to help businesses understand the entire social media landscape. You will need to take the time to learn about each of the categories and the tools involved. The tools and categories you choose should be based on your target audience and objectives.

5. Use social media as a listening tool first and observe what types of conversations people are having online. Are they already talking about you, your company, your products or services? Are they talking about your competitors? Are they talking about your industry? Are the conversations positive, negative, or neutral?

I recommend spending as much time as possible on steps 4 and 5. It is really wise to learn as much as you can about social media before you jump on. If everyone is jumping on Twitter and Facebook, you do not need to follow the hype if it doesn’t make sense for your business.

If you would like to get your questions answered by Mirna, please visit the Ask Mirna page.
15 Categories of Social Media
Posted Feb 8th, 2010 By Mirna Bard in Social Media With | 45 Comments

The most popular social media question is: “Where do I start with social media if I want to use it for my business?” The very first step is to understand the entire social media landscape before jumping on the bandwagon. This is paramount if you want to succeed with using social media for your business!

The social web consists of many categories and is not just about social networking. I have created the below diagram to help you understand the types of social media categories. The categories you decide to use for your business will depend on your business goals and what you are trying to achieve with social media.

Of course, there is a cross between many of these categories. For example, I placed Twitter under micro-blogging, but it also belongs under social networking; I placed Facebook under social networking but it is also the largest photo-sharing site.

The key to success with social media is to not put your eggs in one basket. Once you have a clear understanding of the social web, the next step is know how to integrate some or all these categories together so you can leverage and maximize your efforts with social media.

Please note, in this diagram I am giving a comprehensive look at the categories of social media. The tools in each category are only an example. There are literally thousands of tools out there that would fall into each category and would not be possible to fit into a single diagram. Please feel free to add tools that you think belong under specific categories in the comment section below.

The logos and images shown are trademarks of each site. Let’s hope the sites don’t mind that I borrowed them!

Social Media Landscape Image

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