When people hear “Social Media Marketing”, words that first come to mind are Facebook and Twitter. However, those are only two channels that can be used in a social media marketing (SSM) strategy. Social media marketing is about 1) Engagement and 2) Building Communities. By engaging with your audience you form a tighter relationship that pays off in different ways. You might be considering new product ideas, or new features - want to know what your target market thinks? Engage them in a discussion forum, survey, contest, quiz, poll, email, blog, or coordinate an offline event. Building communities cultivates brand affinity and brand loyalty among your users. How you do that depends on your industry, business, desired results, and corporate culture. Your employees must be empowered - and trusted - to interact directly with customers. Your corporate culture must be aligned with your SMM strategy. You must know what you want to achieve with your SMM strategy. You must not follow a B2C strategy if you are a B2B company. IBM’s conclusion from their SMM learnings is Business Model + Corporate Culture + Desired Values = Social Media Marketing Success. Part 2 will feature case studies of successful SMM strategies.

Today, the White House announced it was changing the platform on which the White House website is built. Why are they doing this and what does it mean? The intent is to make the site more interactive by allowing people to participate in discussions as a community. The site will be based on the open-source Drupal Content Management System (CMS). Drupal is widely regarded as the most well-developed CMS for launching community-driven websites and ranks near the top for the most popular and widely used CMS. Drupal, like other CMS’s, can be used for everything from a one-person blog to a mass media news organization like CNN. It is built under the open-source model where anyone can contribute to the project by writing modules, plugins, extensions, themes, and even the source code. The adoption of Drupal by the White House is the highest-profile endorsement of both Drupal and open-source programming and it comes as a surprise because most enterprise and government IT uses Microsoft Windows.

Starting in 2008, you can no longer deduct your cell phone bill as a business expense unless you already have a landline and the cell phone is used exclusively for business. This is new rule will be a rude awakening to many people. More and more people have been avoiding landlines in favor of cell phones to limit expenses. And as more people are using the iPhone which costs $1,000 or more per year, the loss of this deduction is certainly significant.  What is solution?   Get a subscription to a  VoIP (Voice over IP) provider like Skype.  For $3 per month, you can have a Skype subscription make and receive calls from your computer with great audio clarity and that will satisfy the requirement to have a dedicated landline. Skype also has international plans to make or receive calls when out of the country. You can get a “Skype to go” number if you are going abroad.

Web 2.0 Expo was surprisingly low-key and there was a mixed bag of exhibitors but a few new tools had some cool-factor. That said, a few categories had multiple representation. Cloud computing, customer communities, out-sourcing, and new site analytics tools.  Odesk.com helps you find freelancers and contractors - of any kind - to do specific project tasks. Clients pay the service providers directly and odesk takes 10%. Oneeko.com had a slick, concise demo of their product which allows screen sharing - no downloads require - runs in Flash and you can have up to 8 users at a time. You set the ‘window’ to limit what part of your screen is shareable and it can automatically conform to fit a specific application window. They’re Skype certified so, you can be on Skype and immediately add people to your screen share session.

Every organization wants to be on the first page of Google Search results. However, there are a few things to remember about how search engines work.

1. Search Engines (SE’s) serve users not websites. Their sole objective is to produce the most relevant results based on what the USER is seeking.

2. Search Engines do not create demand. If no one is searching for your desired keyword phrase, Google and Yahoo! and the many others (yes there are dozens of lesser known search engines) will have little to no reason to find and display your website. Remember site traffic comes from interested users, not from search engines - even though the search engine may be the means of getting there.

3. Search Engine nirvanna occurs when your site contains unique content that is in high demand.  If your site is the only one offering information that everyone is seeking, search engines will be your best friend.  If you are selling iPods, or are discussing American Idol on your website, SE’s will have little value.

4. Content is and will remain King. Take the focus and priority off the textual content on your site, and you diminish the value of your site to users and therefore, to search engines as well. Flash, Javascript, Images, Graphics, and other non-textual elements are not SE-Friendly. They should be used if they uniquely convey a message or have some functional value to the users on your site.

5. Search Engine’s are Not Static. The web changes every second. SE’s stay on top of these changes to ensure they are always serving the most relevant results. Therefore, your website’s ranking will rise and fall like the tide because the web is a fluid medium and you cannot control the content on other websites.