Hi welcome back, glad you found the Blog interesting enough to come back, if you subscribed to my RSS that way you will get told when I post straight away. Andrew Peel

According to Mashable Rupert Murdoch plans to start charging people who read all his publications online. They have charged up to now for access to The Wall Street Journal.

Most readers agree with Mashable that it’s not a workable proposition as does The Guardian. They report that Murdoch’s master plans start in November when on a trial basis he will start the test on the Sunday Times website.

The Sunday Times has a printed readership of 1 million copies each week-end. The aim is to have all his news websites up by the middle of next year.

This is going to be an interesting one to watch from a social media point of view as it’s either going to be a big success other publisher’s will follow or a big failure. Watch this Blog for updates on how the experiment goes.

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I came across this story yesterday and at first I was struck by two things – how the heck is the network the military set up such that they can use Twitter, Facebook etc? Then I realised of course must be mobile phone technology – I mean an iPhone can do what a lot of people use a laptop for. You can surf the web, send and receive emails and of course text update most social networks.

After initially feeling sympathy for the Marines I could see the sense the management of the military had taken. I mean it’s vital that morale amongst men and women remains cohesive. This post is about morale and it’s importance in the military as opposed to whether we should be in any particular conflict.

It does bring up for me an important point for all organisations that have employees – do you have a Social Media Management Policy? Do organisations need one? For example let’s imagine you are an advertising agency – you think you have all the ICT security bases covered. You don’t allow USB sticks in or out and you monitor the data and use of laptops. Think Skype. The organisation may think Skype is a good way of employees in the field keeping in touch at zero cost. However Skype allows the transfer of files Skype to Skype. I’m sure it’s unnecessary to explain further how a disaffected employee could transfer a whole load of information to another organisation and then go join them. Said disaffected employee clears their Skype history, how would the average Manager know about the transfer of data?

Next, an employee goes on Twitter and bad mouths their employer – can you take action against them under your current Code of Conduct or would you have to resort to lengthy legal measures. If they use a user name as opposed to their real name with no profile how would you know who it was? How about they Tweet highly confidential destructive information? What then?

So I moved from ‘that’s not fair on the troops’ to ‘how many organisations have even given the impact of web 2.0 a thought in terms of confidentiality and morale?’

This video takes you through the basic functionality of Hummingbird Click here to view more details an excellent tool for managing your Twitter Account(s) which I use and find it enables me to find niche market related traffic easily. I do a Follow on a Monday and an Unfollow on a Friday I reckon a week is long enough for someone to decide if they want to Follow me. Of course the content of you Tweets is key and I will cover that in another post.

The offer of free video training is only via the video makers site not mine – I do not have a series of training videos on Hummingbird this post is just intended as a quick introduction to a tool I have found very useful.

I joined the social network blip.fm purely because I liked the idea of playing out my fantasy of being a DJ and listening to a radio station where I knew I would like every track – because I picked them!

As usual I tied blip.fm in with my other social networks in this case with ping.fm . What I had not appreciated at the time but now consciously try and do is adopt a matrix method to my social networking. There are sites such as Friendfeed, ping.fm, Plurk that can essentially update the statuses of your Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin and other social networks from one place.

I was busily adding tunes to my playlist in blip when the odd email would drop into Gmail saying I had been given a ‘prop’ by another DJ. This is like a nod of appreciation for the tune and the comment you microblog (similar to Twitter) as you add the tune. These comments and the link to the tune suitably shortened were appearing in Twitter and Facebook and it was only later I realised I was picking up Followers and Friends based on a mutual appreciation of my music taste.

This is a clear example of the viral nature of social media marketing and the attraction marketing principle. These people were not getting to know me because I was tweeting aimlessly about some product or service, it was simply that they liked my music choice at that time.

As with any discovery it’s crucial you do not manipulate this falsely – because you will be spotted. I add to my playlist either from my own searches or going to my favorite DJ’s in blip and adding tunes I like of theirs. But I don’t do it everyday I do it when I genuinely want to add to my playlist.

However as music is a universal language do not underestimate this simple tool for increasing you social media profile – it’s a good way for people to get to Know you and the ‘holy trinity’ of social media marketing is that people buy from people they:

Know

Like and

Trust

You can now add blip.fm to Twitter as ways of getting people to Know you. My radio station? Why it’s http://blip.fm/profile/apeel09/playlist

I have been thinking about writing a post on how to decide whether you are right for social media marketing or your product/service is the correct one for social media marketing. I run a Social Media Marketing Workshop on Facebook and it’s becoming apparent from working with that group some people ‘get’ social media marketing and some people do not. I was surfing around for ideas and came across this post from Palmer Web Marketing Blog. Rather than re-invent the wheel I present the post for you to decide whether social media marketing is right for you?

“Is Social Media Marketing Right for You?
by Justin Palmer – May 17th, 2009

Social Media Marketing

Social media can no longer be ignored, even by traditional marketing agencies and old-school business. But before you make the plunge into this powerful, but often misunderstood marketing tactic, ask yourself these 7 important questions.

1. Can you have a conversation?

I recently saw a wall comment posted to a major clothing retail chain’s Facebook page, questioning whether the company was going out of business. As of today, the comment still has not been responded to. Obviously, they are not interested in having a conversation, or managing their brand reputation for that matter. If you want to do social media, make sure you have the time to listen and respond, not just push out content.
2. Do you have the time?

Managing a Twitter or Facebook account can easily suck hours of productivity from an aimless employee charged with the task of managing it. Are you willing to invest the necessary time, but able to limit fruitless, unproductive chatter? Are you able to commit to the long-haul? Social media is more of a commitment than a campaign, if you start, expect to finish and stick with it for the long run.
3. Are you saying anything worth listening to?

If you’re thinking of using Facebook updates as another channel for press releases or pure advertising, think again. Your friends and followers will quickly see through this sham. The key is to strive for interactions. If your updates contain only push content (e.g. “Come buy our new widgets!”) your followers will quickly tire. Much can be accomplished by transforming push into pull content (e.g. “please comment with your opinion on our new widget!”)
4. Can you stomach the negative?

A certain openness is required for social media marketing to work. If the thought of an irate customer posting a negative comment on your Facebook wall scares you to tears, SMM might not be for you. In my experience though, nearly every time I’ve witnessed negative comments on a company profile page, the true fans jump in and defend the organization, sometimes before even the company does.

5. What role will customer service play?

Once customers know they can reach you through social media, you will undoubtedly need to get customer service involved. How will you handle the inevitable customer service issues that surface? In my experience, giving at least a few senior customer service representatives the ability to interact instills a sense of ownership, ensuring that customer service will view social media with the same importance as they view a phone call or email.
6. Are you joining the right conversations?

You don’t have to be everywhere. Consider first polling your customers and finding out what social media sites they use. Only join those that have a critical mass, there’s no point in talking to no one.
7. Can you accept a fuzzy ROI?

Social media ROI can’t and shouldn’t be tracked in the same way as other online marketing venues. Say goodbye to the CPMs and CPCs from typical online marketing channels. Tangible revenue can be tracked in some ways, but much like traditional offline advertising, you’ll never really see the full picture of brand awareness benefits. Make sure your company management sees some of the more subjective ROI indicators, such as positive comments and the extent of conversations.

Social media is surely worth the time and effort, as long as you understand the cost. SMM isn’t free, it takes a serious investment. Before you get into social media, make sure you truly get it.”

So there you have it the hard questions you need to ask. I personally think soon businesses with have no option to have a SMM presence because it’s so easy for customers to avoid the traditional channels; TV, Radio, Print and Google/Yahoo PPC. The future of marketing is about engaging with and attracting customers not pushing your message or product.

So you are a network marketer and you transact your business either

• Face to face
• Over the phone – cold calling a lot
• Online – probably dipping your toe into Social Media Marketing

What’s the biggest problem you are going to face? The ‘tire kickers’ – the people who think they want to start a home business but have not done their home work, and will happily waste you time finding out about something they never really wanted to start.

One of my opportunities has a method for ‘weeding’ out ‘tire kickers’ and if you choose to visit it you will see it explained. Question? How do you spot the ‘tire kickers’ before they get that far, especially if you like me use social media marketing?

Well that’s where this free to all ‘lie detection’ training comes in. The best bit is there is no sign up, nor give your email address or sell your soul. Its a TV show called, Lie To Me on Fox in the USA and Sky TV in the UK.

Here’s a synopsis of the show which is based on real science and a real scientist:

“DR. CAL LIGHTMAN (Tim Roth, “The Incredible Hulk,” “Reservoir Dogs”) can detect the truth by analyzing a person’s face, body, voice and speech. When someone shrugs his shoulder, rotates his hand or raises his lower lip, Lightman knows he’s lying. By analyzing facial expressions, he can read feelings – from hidden resentment to sexual attraction to jealousy.”

I watched the first series back to back because I have a DVR and that’s how I watch all my TV series virtually now – get rid of all those annoying adverts – now you see why social media marketing is the next big thing – in fact the only sensible way to market.

It suddenly struck me after the first episode this is a ‘gold mine’ of information – it’s will help you spot liars, time wasters, people who resent what you do but say they support you. The beauty is the episodes cover facial deception – great for face to face networking, vocal deception – I have done work on this in the past for a crisis charity and it is true it is far easier to pick up someones true intent over the phone if you really tune in. How many time have you said to a friend on the phone, ‘Are you ok? You don’t sound yourself today?’. Finally they cover the way people write, the types of words they use and what constant repetition of certain words reveals about them. I have posted previously about avoiding at all costs the use of the word ‘not’, – the series backed me up. The famous Presidential quote, ” I did not have sex with….”, actually put the idea he had in the Press heads. Before that there had been no mention of actual sexual indiscretion.

So do yourself a favor – find out if your Prospects can – Lie To Me.

Giedrius Ivanauskas of Social Media Today provided such a fascinating list making up a social media toolkit that I am reposting his post here for the benefit of my readers in case you do not subscribe to Social Media Today which I highly reccomend you do:

“Before starting the new cycle of posts discussing the startups’ which may affect the lives of Social Media Citizens, I decided to share this “Must-have” list of social media tools which have already found their place in our daily routines.

Blogging tools – Desktop publishers for quicker and easier Blogging

Word2007.com/blogging

Windows Live Writer

Zoundry Raven

Blog It! – a Facebook application

Scribefire – Firefox add-on

Promo tools – Help to promote your content on social webs and submit your stories to multiple bookmarking sites for consumers’ evaluation

Onlywire.com

Pressitt.com

But don’t forget to use the old ones – Digg.com , Technorati.com , Del.icio.us, Buzz.yahoo.com , Propeller.com , Reddit.com , Stumbleupon.com

Tracking tools – Help to keep the track of conversations about your brand or your personal brand on Social Media Sites

http://www.google.com/alerts

http://www.facebook.com/lexicon/

http://www.jodange.com/

http://www.cocomment.com/tools/extension

http://backtweets.com/

Social desktop aggregator – Help to mange your social networks in one single place

http://www.sobees.com/

http://tweetdeck.com

http://seesmic.com/

https://destroytwitter.com/

Synchronized status updating tools – Help to change your status at one or more social networking websites at once

Ping.fm – To most of the Social Networking sites.

TweetSync – Twitter – to – Facebook – Facebook Application

Twitterfeed.com – Facebook – to – Twitter –  (Post-your-facebook-status-to-twitter)

Hootsuite.com

Video distribution tools – Help publishers to upload and deliver online videos to multiple video-sharing sites

http://www.tubemogul.com/
http://heyspread.com/
http://www.vidmetrix.com/

Content Aggregators – Help to mange your RSS feeds and saves a lot of time dedicated for reading the news or researching

http://www.netvibes.com – Personal favorite!

http://www.pageflakes.com

http://www.google.com/reader/ ”

Now believe me that is a gold nugget of information for anyone starting out in Social Media Marketing.

In this video Gabe Strom explains the importance of using the inbuilt analytics in YouTube to make sure you are targeting the correct niche markets as opposed to assuming you are.

Perry Belcher explains why people who set privacy settings in their social networks are basically practicing solo marketing or basically locking the door on their online store.

As you probably know by now Facebook has fallen in line with the rest of the big social networks and allowed users to have profile names – just so you know I am apeel09 on all the big three, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube.

The interesting thing is what will be the impact on social media advertising – well I think it will be huge. Any serious entrepreneur that does not have a professional presence on Facebook is in my opinion missing the whole point of social media marketing. Facebook has the highest index of average earnings and the highest index of college graduates – both of which equals disposable income.

The average user is also older which usually means they are more discerning and especially attracted to products and services that add value to their lives.

Now instead of having 3 links to the main social networks in my signature I have 2:

Follow me @ Twitter http://twitter.com/Andrew_Peel

About Me on Facebook http://facebook.com/apeel09

That tells my clients two simple but key messages; if you want to see what I am interested in and get the latest information on my products follow me on Twitter, if you want to know more about me and my company go to my Facebook profile. Then when they become friends I greet them with a simple ‘hi’ message saying how they can connect elsewhere. Well now it’s just got a whole lot easier – they just need to remember apeel09. That way they can find copies of my Blogs on MySpace plus my videos. They find what is essentially my video Blog on YouTube and I can select what I think is related value added content by subscribing to it and so help guide my clients good quality related channels.

Putting it simply Facebook is now your breach head into the plethora of social media points, with your Blog still in  the middle. Never forget your Blog is still your persona in cyberspace because it does not have to be tied to one company, if you have multiple streams of income, and you can showcase you other non business interests. It makes you human and people would far rather deal with humans.

Please feel free to become a friend on Facebook here.