Michael Arrington at Techcrunch posted “The Age of Facebook” today and, among other things noted “The fact is that Facebook is permeating the Web.”

More vital to marketers is how Facebook can help connect businesses to potential customers and clients.  Facebook has more demographic information available to advertisers than, for example, Google’s AdWords.

Facebook provides rich demographic data about their users, which is a goldmine for marketers, such as:

• Likes and Interests
• Geography
• Age
• Gender
• Single or Married
• Education Level

Furthermore, you can pay-per-click, to get your message out, or you can pay-per-impression to place your products and services in front of the prospects most likely to be interested in your offerings.

Of course there is the whole social media marketing aspect available, as well, which Facebook is much more widely known for.  (See Social Media Chocolate Strategy for integrating Facebook with other social media platforms.)

The point for marketers is simple: If you haven’t tested the Facebook advertising platform yet, the earlier you do so, the less it will cost, because we can be sure that advertising costs for Facebook will go the same route as Adwords, which has resulted in rocketing ad rates, compared to the Adwords rates of several years ago.  And it’s worth emphasizing that I’m referring to “Facebook Ads” and not Facebook as a marketing channel via their social media platform, which, although is effective for some businesses, is not universally as effective and as measurable as direct advertising.

Whether you utilize Facebook as a personal social media platform, or not, it is certainly an advertising platform that is worthy of your testing.

From a business perspective, one of the most compelling arguments against investing resources into social media marketing is the lack of quantifiable performance metrics. Especially, since for most small and medium-sized businesses, they just don’t have the time, money and personnel to take advantage of some of the more advanced ways to track social media performance.

Furthermore, social media, as a marketing channel, is quite different than running advertisements, sending out direct mail, or producing radio or TV spots, or for that matter, any traditional type of marketing media.

By it’s very nature, social media is about engaging audiences in communication, not just sending out one-way promotional messages.

Regardless, the most fundamental ways to measure the results of social media efforts are the same for any type marketing.

Marketing Metrics

♦ How much does it cost? Just like with any business investment, the concept of how much it costs is fundamental to its benefits. And just because a significant amount of social media activity can be generated for no cost, or low cost, does not make it cost-effective. There’s labor involved in writing blog posts; creating/uploading videos to YouTube; keeping Facebook and Linkedin pages updated (in addition to making them engaging); and using Twitter. In this regard, a simple approach to controlling the labor cost of social media marketing is to simply limit the time investment to whatever is workable for your business.

♦ Feedback. The first responses you are likely to receive from your social media efforts will not be sales. It will be comments (good and bad) about your products, services and even the value and quality of your social media communications. This needs to be monitored and quantified in terms of how much overall feedback is generated, as well as how much is positive and negative, and even how engaged your audience is. For example, if your audience is communicating very thoughtfully and/or passionately about what you are saying, that’s an indication that your social media efforts are connecting with your audience.

♦ Prospects and customers. This is where the rubber meets the road: but at best, it’s wet and slippery. Does your social media activity actually generate more leads and customers? Unfortunately, this isn’t always clear. Sure, if you put up a special discount on a Facebook page, the resulting business can be attributed to social media. But other than such very specific examples, what about customers who are introduced to your website or business by way of Facebook or Twitter who then become prospects or customers? Although there are some advanced ways to measure this, they are typically beyond the scope of what a small or medium-sized business wants to be concerned about. For the purposes of this article, it’s useful to at least be able to determine if ANY prospects or customers are being generated via social media. Having said that, generating more traffic by way of social media is a contributing factor to more sales, even if such sales do not result with a first visit.

♦ Revenues. Of course the most important point of any marketing is measured at the bottom line of business finances: Have sales gone up? And if so, how much? And even though all the revenues from social media may not be attributed as such, can ANY revenue at all be quantified as resulting from social media?

Social Media Marketing Conclusion

This article is not intended as an argument against utilizing social media to expand business. But it is intended to lay bare that there are costs to using social media – even if only in labor – and that the results are not as readily quantifiable as other marketing media, such as paid advertising.

It’s also important to be aware that social media efforts may not yield immediate results in the same way as paid advertising. In fact, social media efforts should be contemplated and measured over a longer period of time. If your business is going to test the waters of social media by attempting to engage an audience for, let’s say, 30 days, “to see what happens,” the reality is that not much will likely occur and your activity will be apparently for naught.

To utilize social media effectively for marketing purposes, a longer time commitment is necessary to yield workable results.

And if you really want to use social media effectively, thinking in terms of an overall strategic implementation of a variety of social media channels to support your business goals would be an ideal. And in that regard, getting some professional help would be the best way to customize such an approach to maximize the benefits for your specific business.

That’s an especially important question if your social media efforts are not generating any quantifiable revenue. Particularly when there are many other strategies that will, and already are, producing traffic and sales for you.

Hence, the simple answer to the question above would be to focus MORE on income producing activities than social media.

Of course, revenue aside, one important advantage that social media has is that if your customers are talking about you via Twitter, Facebook and other such channels, then your business is missing out on the party by NOT being involved in such conversations.

In other words, minimally, social media is a way to listen to your customers. By listening to customer feedback (even if it’s complaints), they are helping you to succeed, by telling you what they want. Which means your job is simply to give your customers what they are asking for.

What should you be doing instead of social media?

You should be doing the usual marketing actions: Generating leads, converting leads to customers, as well as cross-selling and upselling more products and services to existing customers.

Further, any marketing efforts that can be focused on bolstering those activities, including new product development, would be more worthy of your time than social media.

Although social media engagement can be quite impressive, and even seductive, very few businesses would be able to survive without ensuring that the majority of their time is spent on critical revenue generating functions.

The solution? Balance.

After you click on the following link and scroll down to the guide itself, you’ll see two large tabs to explore: “Top 25 Social Media Sites” and a list of “101 Social Media Sites.”

Social Media Marketing Guide

Additionally, to better appreciate all the rankings referenced for marketers, you’ll want to check out this page for a description of some of the ranking criteria:

Linkscape’s Metrics

Here is a simple list of social media metrics, outlined by Liana Evans at Search Engine Watch, which, although intuitive to any social media marketer, merits review, since it does encompass the primary social media metrics that are common currency in today’s social media ecosystem.

Facebook/MySpace (social networking sites in general):

• Number of fans/friends
• Number of comments per day/week/month
• Number of discussions started by fans

Twitter:

• Number of qualified followers (qualified meaning actually people, not bots)
• Number of retweets

Blogging:

• Number of comments
• Number of subscribers
• Number of links posts get
• Number of retweets

Forums/Message Boards:

• Number of new members
• Number of posts per day
• Number of topics started per week
• Number of active members per month

Videos/Photos:

• Number of views
• Number of comments
• Ratings
• Number of subscribers/friends

Brand Lift/Sentiment:

• More mentions of brands/products/services
• Increase positive sentiment
• Decrease negative sentiment

Click here to read the full article by Liana Evans, What Is Your ‘R’ for ROI in Social Media?

“In almost all cases, new media’s operating revenues, when discounted for inflation, will never equal those that used to be generated by traditional media companies.”

Crosbie writes about the scarcity of old media, meaning the limited places to publish ads in newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, etc., as compared to the seemingly infinite opportunities to publish advertising in the realm of new media – particularly as associated with the Internet. Contemplating a supply and demand equation, more supply equals lower costs.

He further notes:

“In traditional media the media companies were the middlemen between consumers and content or between consumers and advertisers. The Internet tends, more often than not, to eliminate middlemen. Advertisers can now reach consumers directly.”

“The affiliate structure of America’s radio and television industries is about to implode due to broadband new media.”

“We’ll see bloodbaths and major restructuring in the U.S. television industry in the coming decade now that broadband Internet access is making the traditional affiliate business model obsolete.”

Click here to read the full article: New Media Predictions, Part 1.

However, from a marketing perspective, there is another purpose that needs to be considered.

Used strategically, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are media channels to drive connections to a more meaningful place of content: your blog and/or your website to read an article, to find out more about a topic, to sign up for a newsletter, or to download some relevant content.

In other words, from a strategic marketing perspective, social media represents additional ways to engage potential customers and clients for the purpose of leveraging your promotional reach, nurturing relationships and providing value.

For a more in depth look at a social media strategy, click Social Media Chocolate Strategy

“Your blog is where you show who you are and that you are a real person. People want to know about the people they do business with, and in a digital world your blog is the best place to show them.”

Although Lyndon and I are certainly in accord re making blogs central to a social media strategy (as I outline in my Social Media Chocolate Strategy), I defer to his step #17 as the most apt: “Be persistent.”

Amidst the changes, opportunities (and failures) are percolating.

The first 10 minutes of the following video, “A conversation with The Publisher and Editors of Politico,” outlines some of these media changes. Keep in mind that although the theme of the video is centered on politics (politico.com), in the first 10 minutes, the interview reflects how online media power can be established relatively quickly outside of the realm of institutional media. Jim VandeHei notes “We think that the future is very much in having these niche sites.” He goes on to say “We’ve seen more change in journalism in the last two or three years than we saw in the thirty years before and I think in the next three years we’ll see even more than we have in these three years. I think it’s an amazing period of transformation.”

Here’s the video:

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10498

Regardless of how much, or how little, you may care about how fast traditional media is changing, the real story is how much the world of online media is a exploding. We are amidst an unusual period of history where so much is concurrently being developed so fast, in terms of new media, that the rules of play are in a state of flux. How much you are participating in the game today could have a significant impact on your business tomorrow.

Let’s also factor in the obvious – you have a business to run, too!

Facebook is currently the biggest social network and warrants attention.

If you are a business owner, or a marketer helping other businesses, you should be taking advantage of Facebook’s free “Pages,” which are different than user “Profiles.”

On Facebook, “Profiles” are where individuals post their personal information for friends, family and associates. Profiles are “private,” in the sense that each individual controls who can see their profile information.

“Pages” are meant for businesses and are completely public on the Internet, in the same way that any other website is.

Stated another way, Pages are similar to business websites and Profiles are like your home and the only visitors are those that you allow.

InsideFacebook.com published “8 Tips for Effectively Updating Your Facebook Page,” which covers some fundamentals of Facebook Page creation and maintenance:

1. Know how to use the Publisher.

2. Don’t lead with a URL.

3. Balance between stories that drive fans back to your site vs. build community on Facebook.

4. Use your Wall to cross-promote other Facebook campaigns (e.g., applications, virtual gifts).

5. Reward your fans by letting them in on special promotions.

6. Know who your fans are and make an effort to engage in conversation with all of them.

7. If you import content to your Facebook Wall, make sure to do so in a seamless fashion.

8. Don’t just watch: actively participate in Wall activity.

Click the following link to review the details: 8 Tips for Effectively Updating Your Facebook Page.

Legitimate business goals may include accumulating fans, friends, or followers, but the impact of those followers is the true goal, making the followers a means to an end — not the end itself. Social media seems to have descended into a personal popularity contest with thousands of self-proclaimed social media gurus all vying for our attention to their every thought and insight. Does it seem a little desperate to anyone else?

I would also add that this phenomena seems to be a social media translation from traditional media where “more is always better” in terms of readers, listeners, viewers, etc. And yet one of the compelling things about social media is the opportunity to engage specific users on a relationship level and/or in a specialized area of interest.

Neifield goes on to say:

In what other digital arena do we measure ourselves by our ability or proclivity to attract attention rather than produce solid results? Does anyone ever really use those measures except for ego gratification? Would you choose your business or media consultant or search or e-mail or creative partners because they had the most followers or pushed out messaging of questionable or irregular quality on a regular basis?

For that matter, would you choose your doctor, accountant, lawyer, or banker because they proved capable of accumulating the attention of strangers? It seems like a misguided and immature game some play with the end game being the scorecard, not the contribution. So how do you tell the difference between a passionate practitioner and an ego-driven pretender?

Neifield’s article further draws comparisons between 6 pairs of social media “Pretenders” and “Passionate Practitioners” with a focus on providing real value in the game of online social media marketing, which of course, has long been the way to establish and maintain solid business (and social) relationships.

From a marketer’s perspective that real value would be a reflection of generating more business for your clients, whether that be in terms of more leads, more sales, and/or more profit. Additionally, it could include better understanding what the more specific needs are for your clients and delivering such in a reliable and efficient manner. In fact, I would argue that real value would extend beyond the basics of what would be expected by providing extra value, which in this way, would allow one to truly stand out as a creative service professional.

Click the following link to read Neifield’s post published on ClickZ, entitled Desperately Seeking Personal Brand.

Click the following link to see the details of the following 10 Powerful Ways to Target Facebook Ads Every Performance Advertiser Should Know:

1. Location Targeting

2. Keyword Targeting

3. Connection Targeting

4. Relationship Targeting

5. Age Targeting

6. Birthday Targeting

7. Education Targeting

8. Sex Targeting

9. Workplace Targeting

10. Language Targeting

In addition to testing the workability of Facebook ads for your products/service, also bear in mind Facebook Click Fraud 101 as well as Facebook Demographics.

Dec 18, 09 Update: The Anatomy of The Twitter Attack: Part II

Here in the summer of 2009, InsideFacebook.com has reported a shift in the demographics of Facebook users, reflecting a slight decrease in student use and a continued increase in usage by their parents.

Here is an excerpt from the report:

While users 18-25 are still the largest age group on Facebook by far, college-age students and recent college grads are easing up on Facebook over the summer. Why? Now that most students are out of school and busy working, they may just have less time to keep up with friends than they do during the school year.

However, as you can see, the number of US Facebook users over 35 grew significantly in the last 30 days, up by nearly 1.5 million in each of the 35-44, 45-54, and 55-65 categories. In fact, the number of US Facebook users 45-54 has more than tripled in the last 6 months, to a record 7.7 million active users today.

Check out the following graph for a more detailed look at the current Facebook demographics.

♦ 18-25 year-olds still represent the largest slice of the pie at 30%
♦ 26-34 year-olds represent the next biggest chunk at 24%

What is also telling is that users over 26 years old now represent 60% of the total US Facebook population: That’s hardly the age of college students.  Which also means that the majority of Facebook users fit in some favorable demographic for the majority of marketers.

My feedback was simple: Eat more chocolate and spend less time on the computer. Well, not really. Arguably, too much of either one can be bad for your health, but if you eat very dark organic chocolate, while simultaneously spending only productive time on the computer, I personally think the health factors turn positive. (Note: I’m not a Doctor and not authorized to give dietary advice, so if you doubt the veracity of such wisdom, please send your chocolate to me).

Health food aside, when assuming the perspective of someone who is “not” availing themselves of a variety of Internet communication channels, I’m sure you can appreciate that such folks could very well be put off by all that can be explored and learned.

So…my real advice is twofold:

1) The Un-Social Media Strategy

This would be somewhat akin to opening a box of chocolates and randomly selecting one, and when ready, randomly picking another to taste.

Stated another way, simply start anywhere with any social media channel that catches your fancy and not concern yourself with any strategy at all – other than to learn and have fun.

You can do one or any of the following:

♦ Establish a profile on Facebook and connect with friends.

♦ Set yourself up on LinkedIn and engage in some business networking.

♦ Find some blogs on topics of interest and post some comments.

♦ Create an account at Flickr and upload some photos.

Or, take advantage of any of the thousands of other social media opportunities in the world that you encounter.

2) Strategic Social Media Marketing

This would be comparable to opening a box of chocolates and planning a campaign to maximize enjoyment of all those delectable treats as efficiently as possible.

From a strategic perspective, all those chocolates are NOT equal. And the worst thing to do would be to eat them all at once in an orgy of online gluttony.

So, where to start?

If you are not averse to writing regularly about a topic of interest, then the first online social media chocolate is easy to select:

A) BLOGGING: Start with a blog. No matter how you evolve into the realm of social media, if you really want to strategically leverage your online interactions, then it will all revolve around your blog(s). Hence, establishing a blog is the most important element of all that will follow. Your blog will be the very foundation of every single social channel that you engage. You see, your blog is all yours: you control it and own it (particularly if you have a self-hosted blog). All other social media channels are controlled by the company that is providing the service. It’s like you are a visitor in their home. However, a blog is like your very own home. Again, this needs to be considered from the perspective of a strategic use of online marketing, as opposed to simply enjoying the box of chocolates.

B) LINKEDIN: Presuming your strategic interest is in marketing some product, or especially service (even if it’s simply your services related to personal employment), then you will want to establish a profile on LinkedIn. The purpose of this site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust in business. If you have your own business, you can create a company page as well. LinkedIn should be connected to your blog and your regular blog writings (posts) can, and should be, auto-imported into your LinkedIn profile to further leverage your blog activities. LinkedIn is a worthy chocolate to consume for professional networking.

C) FACEBOOK: You’ll definitely want to establish a profile on Facebook no matter what you’re doing. Of all the social media channels on our little interconnected ball of rock, water, people and computers, Facebook is the big daddy. It’s the largest social networking service in the world. Similar to LinkedIn, Facebook also offers Business Pages, and also has viewership metrics (via the Insights data available to Business Page administrators). Facebook is a rich network, and includes the ability to email and instant message friends, as well as upload photos and keep apprised of what’s going on with your friends and family who also use the service. Further, you can conduct your Internet searches directly from within the service. Facebook is like its own self-contained Internet, or its very own large box of chocolates. But you are a guest. You should definitely promote your blog on Facebook and auto-import your blog posts into your Facebook profile and/or Facebook business Page. Facebook is one of the best tasting chocolates in the box and for the non-strategic participant could be the one and only chocolate to partake.

Strategic Social Media Extra Credit

D) YOUTUBE: If you like movies (or at least have an interest in making simple ones with a video camera), then YouTube is an especially tasty truffle. You already know YouTube is a video sharing website and if you already have videos uploaded there, they should also be embedded within your blog and leveraged via your other social media channels. Video is a Google darling (Google purchased YouTube in November of 2006), and is an important component of any online marketing mix. The only reason it’s listed as “extra credit” instead of within the first list of chocolates is because although the technical skills to publish videos are nominal, it is arguably a bit more than the others.

E) TWITTER: Twitter may be the hot online social media application right now, but that’s not enough of a marketing reason to use it. However, your customers may very well be using Twitter to talk about you today. So, hot or not, Twitter is worth listening to. You’ll be fairly amazed at what you find and at how easy it is to keep abreast of conversations that matter to you.

There are plenty more chocolates in that delectable box of social media channels.  Strategically speaking, the main point to recognize is that all you do in social marketing should evolve around a blog, if you are inclined to leverage your impact for marketing purposes.  But if the notion of a strategic approach to social media participation seems to lessen the appeal of trying all those chocolates, then “The Un-Social Media Strategy” is right for you.  Enjoy!

Successfully integrating social marketing into your business requires a certain amount of discipline.

No Facebook?

In the same way that some companies deny their employees access to Facebook as a non-productive drain of employee resources, it can in fact waste the time of a business professional who is consciously leveraging social networks as a marketing media.

This does not suggest that social media such as blogs, video sharing and photo sharing service do not have an important role in your company’s online marketing strategy; or that social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn should not be used to promote your company. The opposite is the case.

Each of these can leverage the communication reach of your company’s marketing endeavors.

But just as you wouldn’t want your employees spending their days updating their social profiles on company time, nor would you want to diminish important income generating actions in favor of focusing solely on your social marketing presence (unless, of course, that’s your job!).

Discipline Your Social Media Time

Again, it comes down to disciplining yourself to managing your time to optimize social media technology in a way that best serves your business, marketing and promotion goals.

Perhaps it’s as simple as budgeting 30min to an hour a day and sticking to that time limitation!

From a professional perspective, social media, after all, is supposed to help increase your income and profit, not diminish it.

To hammer home the obvious, I’m not suggesting that you avoid social media, just that you consciously integrate such activity in a disciplined and strategic way.

Is there a time of day that updating posts, followers and friends is the most workable for you?

♦ How about early in the AM, before your primary working hours?

♦ How about in the evening, after work?

♦ How about instead of watching TV?

How Valuable are Your Social Media Activities?

From a business perspective, an important gauge of how much time you should devote to social media activities is how much business it generates for you.

For example, if you are a service professional, and you find that social media interactions account for a larger percentage of new clients, then you would be well justified in investing a good portion of your marketing time towards this media.

On the other hand, if you find that social media and social networking really only accounts for a small percentage of your profitable marketing efforts, then, your resource management responsibilities would demand that you only participate in such activities for a limited time each week, instead of per day.

Search engine optimization has become more complex over the years. This is a natural result of the increasingly more complex calculations and rules that search engines use to deliver the best results to searchers.

It also means you need to be more savvy about what you require from an SEO agency.

For example, no longer can you expect to simply optimize your individual web pages to deliver those pages more visitors. Developing inbound links from external sites have been a vital component of an SEO strategy for many years – but not all SEO firms provide such services.

Social Media is Increasingly More Important as a Part of Search Marketing

Furthermore, social media is becoming more and more an additionally vital component in the search marketing mix.

Not only do the biggest services, such as YouTube and Facebook, deliver visitors directly to your site (presuming you are using them effectively), but search engines are using social media signals as part of determining the relevance of any given website as part of their own calculations.

Hence, each and all the various social media connections that point to your pages are increasingly becoming signals that differentiate your website’s relevance from many other similar websites.

In other words, the value of using LinkedIn, Digg, Delicious, blogs, and all other social media channels are more and more an important part of the search marketing mix in addition to the advantages of directly increasing your presence out in the Internet community of individuals interested in what you have to offer.

Not all SEO firms incorporate social media development for your business, as part of their services. And if you don’t ask about it, and/or they don’t tell you about it, you can be confident that social media is not being incorporated into your search marketing endeavors.

In fact, some SEO firms might represent social media development as an aspect of public relations and/or marketing, and not SEO. Heck, some SEO’s would even represent external link development as an aspect of public relations and/or marketing, as well.

Purpose of Search Engine Optimization

Although such arguments may have merit, the real point here goes back to the SEO purpose of seeking better natural search rankings, as noted in the first sentence above.

Regardless of whether that’s accomplished by the same team or not, and regardless of whether such services are administered internally, externally or a combination of both, the long-term viability of your natural search marketing activities are tied to social media development in conjunction with SEO.

Although, to a certain extent, a baby learning how to walk at least has a lot more examples of others who are doing so successfully!

Brian Carter, over at Search Engine People, has a post on The 4 Steps of Social Media Marketing that is a useful contribution to the medium.

The following is a graphic from his post that outlines the four steps, and you can click the image to get the details:

The 4 Steps Of Social Media Marketing