A few weeks ago, I was asked to share some of my favorite social media tools with iMedia Connection.  Here is a re-post of that article and a few of my favorite applications - some free and some paid - that are worth their weight in marketing gold.

Article Highlights:

• Social Mention gives a great snapshot of blog, forum, and microblog buzz, sentiment, and keywords
• Radian6 and Alterian’s SM2 offer solid analytical tools, easy-to-use interfaces, powerful data retrieval, and more
• Quantcast and Compete are both free resources for basic metrics such as site/blog traffic, user demographics, page views, and unique visitors

In many ways, 2009 was the year of the “a-ha!” moment for social media marketing. While many people long-involved with social media and word-of-mouth marketing knew it was only a matter of time for the masses to embrace this type of marketing, others were just starting to get their arms around the importance of establishing and leveraging their social footprint to build engagement, dialogue, and awareness.

As more companies, brands, and individuals are building their social media presences, the universe of online tools — which used to be somewhat more limited — continues to expand on a daily basis. Not only do we have more choices in how we place content and measure social media, but the tools available to us also change and improve just as frequently.

To provide a little background on me: I run a social media marketing agency (KARMA Media Labs) that helps organizations and individuals connect with their target audiences and build word of mouth in the communities where they live. In order to find these audiences and strike a chord, it’s important to be armed with the right tools to listen to what is being said, find the right influencers, communicate with your audience in a way that is relevant, and provide content that is likely to be shared.

The following is a list of some my favorite tools and sites — some free, some paid — that have been worth their weight in gold in not only finding that desired audience and key influencers, but also putting the right content in front of them to build conversation and word of mouth.

Read the rest of this entry at iMedia Connection

You’re a company, or a brand, an artist, or a marketer who wants to promote your cause and you want a presence on Facebook.  You’ve seen it done before, but you just don’t know what your options are.

Should you create a Facebook Group?

Or is a Fan Page your best bet?

In the past, Fan Pages and Groups both had a similar problem: they tended to get initial fan interest, but couldn’t keep fans coming back for more.  There was a lack of social functionality and value for both the fan and the cause.  In essence, the Fan Page and Group used to act like the Facebook version of the brochureware web site back in the day. That now seems to have changed.

While the new redesign of Facebook has infuriated many of its users, it has also created more benefits for marketers and those who want to engage with their audiences and fans.

Facebook has thoroughly revamped Fan Pages in the past few weeks to offer much more viral potential with their built-in news stream integration and dissemination features: any action is seen by each users’ friends and actions are more easily shared.

While the Facebook Groups page still looks and feels the same, the Fan pages have been improved to look and feel more like user profiles.  These new features have driven a lot of users to them while making Facebook Groups a much less influential and used communication tool than before.

Some things to keep in mind if you’re considering a Fan Page:

• When updating your wall, your updates will be included in all your fans news streams
• Fan page editors can update their fans about new content, promotions, upcoming events, and more.
• Fan page editors can send messages to either their entire fan list or segment their update to targeted fans
• Messages from fan page editors appear in their inbox “Updates” tab
• Fan page editors can click on a tab called “insights” which gives information on fan page views

We suggest before starting a Group or Fan Page, you should thoroughly read through Facebook’s FAQs:

Facebook Pages: http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=175

Facebook Groups: http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=414

With Facebook’s recent redesign of user home pages and updates to the Fan Page template (and very few updates to Groups), we at KML couldn’t help but wonder if the Fan Page is future home for any and all who want a Facebook presence to interact with their fans and audience.

And if so… how long will we enjoy that feature for free?

To follow up on my earlier article about my obsession with The Snuggie, I couldn’t help but notice a new crop of Snuggie Wannabes making their way into the social media universe.

While The Snuggie wasn’t the first blanket with sleeves (check out SkyMall’s Slanket), it was the first blanket with sleeves to embrace social media and make its presence known to millions of people.  There have been several parodies of the Snuggie commercial (see The WTF Blanket), but now we’re seeing more copies of the Snuggie itself.

Dare to compare:

The Nuddle

A hipper, more stylish version of the Snuggie, the Nuddle (nap + cuddle = nuddle) is long enough to cover your body from your neck to your feet, and has open slats for your arms (not to be confused with sleeves), along with- get this- an outer hand pocket to keep hands warm.  What’s better than the hand pocket?  Well, a foot pocket of course!

The Snugglette

It’s the Mini Snuggie for Kids! Now you can keep the whole family warm with the Snugglette, a smaller size Snuggie with smaller arms so kids can stay warm.  And get this — while the Snuggie comes with a free reading light, the Snugglette offers free matching slipper socks.

The Couch Dress

Last, but certainly not least (and our favorite), Pantalaine introduces the all-handmade Couch Dress.  Benefits? Pantalaine will customize this item to fit you and any loveseat or sofa in your home. And bonus gift: Two flower Broaches included with each dress - choose from many popular designs.

So which lounge-wear, blanket with sleeves is your choice? At the end of the day, there may be copies of the Snuggie, but the more interesting story will be if they can compete with it online and generate the same level of interest.  Let the best blanket win!

In the world of social media, there are hundreds of thousands of communities, forums and destinations where people of similar interests congregate to share opinions and information with each other.  People who are passionate about a cause have a tendency to visit places where they can find others with a similar mindset.

But what happens when your interest of the moment is something you’re not passionate about? What if you are on a mission to find specific information– say, you’re buying a new home and need real estate advice, or you have an ailment and are seeking information on symptoms, or you have a paper due and need some random factoid?  Do you search for specific terms? Or do you go to knowledge sharing sites?

Everyone has knowledge about something, and yet there are a lot of things people don’t know anything about.  Enter Social Q&A. There is a growing batch of question and answer sites out there that help the goal oriented, subject matter seeking individual to ask a question… and hopefully find an answer.

Yahoo! Anwers, About.com, eHow — they all offer the capability for sharing content, questions and answers…  But how do you leverage this as a marketer?  By giving people the answers they seek.

By monitoring these sites, you can establish yourself as a subject matter expert by providing good, honest and transparent (speaking on behalf of the brand) answers to questions asked about topics related to your product, service, cause or persona. Additionally, you can be mining social Q&A sites for conversations, feedback and interest in your brand, giving you an outside (and usually much needed) perspective.

A cautious word of warning:  the reality is users who frequent Q&A sites often prefer the trusted voice of other consumers and the brand isn’t always a welcome guest at the party, however, if your response is helpful you’ll hopefully be perceived as being proactive in listening to your audience.

Earlier this week, I was getting on my blog soap box to talk about not one, but two unfortunate experiences I had with restaurants last week - both which overcharged by adding extra entrees to our bills.

As someone who is in the field of Word of Mouth Marketing, and even more importantly, a consumer who felt “wronged”, I did what many are now doing these days and chose to speak about my experiences online - on Facebook, Twitter, and even this blog.

I challenged both restaurants to keep in mind that consumers now have the ability to not only share their opinion, but amplify their negative experiences on review sites such as Yelp, CitySearch, TripAdvisor, etc.

According to a recent study by the Society for New Communications Research, 59% of consumers use social media to vent their frustrations about service experience, and research other consumers’ experience with service before dealing with them.  Furthermore, 81% say blogs, online rating systems and discussion forums can give consumers a greater voice regarding customer care, but less than 33% say they believe that businesses take customers’ opinions seriousl.

I had thought the same about the two restaurants last weekend. But I was wrong.  One of them- Taste on Melrose - listened and responded here on this blog.

I was impressed not only that they listened to what one of their customers said, but they turned it into a positive by making it right.

I couldn’t be happier- as this is one of my favorite restaurants, a place I’ve taken family, friends, co-workers and have recommended to others. I’ll keep doing so.

Thanks for paying attention Taste and righting a wrong through social media.

Need some helpful SEO tips for your blog?  Check out these four basic tricks:

1. Categories — when you are adding a post to a category, pick one category. Putting a post in more than one category creates duplicate content and search engines will think you wrote the same thing multiple times.
2. Tags – use as many possible to describe the content. Always use names, places, events, etc. if they are relevant. When you publish it, it will cross reference with those names/etc.
3. Page Title– 60 characters or less. Be descriptive and tight, anything beyond that is dropped.
4. Description — 160 characters or less. Make sure your title words are repeated in your description. It ranks better and weighs heavier. Also make sure that the URL reads with words in the title and description.

Aside from these four basic guidelines, there are many more ways to get your voice heard by building awareness and word of mouth around your blog.  Stay tuned for more from KML…

E!'s Answer B!tch, Leslie Gornstein

The KARMA crew attended the book signing party for Leslie Gornstein, best known as the E! Answer B!tch on eonline.com. We helped her celebrate the launch of her new book, The A List Playbook, which got us super excited (as we tend to be obsessed with behind the scenes Hollywood gossip).

Over snacks, wine and great conversation with supporters of Leslie and her book, we asked ourselves: What is happening in the world of literary marketing? With all the hard work that goes into writing and publishing one’s work, how does an author connect with their target reading audience and promote their book? Is it supported by the publisher? Is it up to the author? What is the secret to book marketing?

The publishing market is more competitive than ever with 180,000 new titles released every year and over 2.5 million titles available on sites like Amazon.com and BN.com. It’s a little known fact that of all the books published each year, fewer than 1% sell more than 2,000 copies.

As we have had more conversations with authors on a quest to market a successful book, we began to realize that this is a real challenge, but even bigger opportunity to leverage social media to promote the book, showcase content, reach target fans and elevate the profile of the author. We think now is the time for word of mouth marketing - it’s engaging, it’s impactful, and it’s cost effective.

Leslie is well on her way to embracing social media and is a great example of not only showcasing the book and connecting with fans, but also extending the experience online through her blog www.alistplaybook.com.  So with that quick shoutout to the one and only Answer B!tch, we thank her for giving us the wisdom and insight (and especially thank her for the juicy gossip in her book). Thanks Leslie!

Social Media Marketing = Word of Mouth = Awareness

Social media is as simple as its component parts – social interaction meets media — the sites, events, communities and resources that enable people to share with each other, collaborate, communicate and reinvent.

Social media marketing is harnessing that media to drive conversation, build awareness and spark word of mouth around a brand, individual or particular subject matter.

Your audience is living in the new media space – on Social Networks (Myspace, Facebook, LastFM), Sharing and Bookmarking sites (Digg, Stumbleupon), opinion and voting sites, UGC and video sites (YouTube, DailyMotion), and a variety of communities and blogs targeting niche interests. For successful social media marketing, it is important to:

1. Find those consumers;
2. Listen to them;
3. Amplify their voice; and
4. Engage them with the information and content they’re asking for.

Why Social Marketing is More Effective.

Traditional Media = Monologue
Social Media = Dialogue

Now, more than ever, consumers have the opportunity to involve themselves in the marketing mix, and they will. As new, digital media became the preferred media of the Millennial Generation, information and content became easier to create, share and manipulate. This democratization has led to an unprecedented interconnectedness both to the world and one another. This real-time, interconnectivity creates a two-way communication channel for everything, always, which is one of its primary advantages over traditional media.

Traditional media is characterized as monologue, slow if ever to adapt and respond. Social media is defined by dialogue, evolving constantly and responding instantly. Consumers have gravitated to and adopted social media because it allows them the opportunity to interact with and engage the people, brands and ideas that matter most to them. And this two-way communication channel requires that brands interact and engage in return. After they are done speaking, they are now required to listen and respond. Those that don’t will be left behind.

Once people are engaged it becomes increasingly likely that they will share and this sharing is the ultimate value for brands practicing effective social media marketing. All of the actions we take online are now shared with our friends – we are clicks away from sharing the links we like, from seeing the clothes and music our friends just purchased, from reading the restaurant reviews posted by our neighbors. And we know this sharing is the most important factor when influencing consumers to adopt a specific brand identity or purchase a certain product.