People frequently tell me they plan on taking on an intern to manage their social media. An inner part of me cringes every time I hear this because I know I have failed to explain the importance and power of social media to them in a way they can understand.

Yes, I am a biased opinion. I am convinced though that social media is one of the most effective ways of reaching a large audience. Additionally, social media represents a new twist in Marketing… everything said on social media is permanently archived forever in an easy to search manner. Talk about what a PR nightmare it could turn into! Every piece of content said is permanently attached to your brand image.

When I hear people say they are excited that they found an unpaid intern or low-paid intern to manage their social media and help them get into the 21^st century, I know it is already too late to educate them on the dangers this provides their business. The primary question I wish I had the opportunity to ask them point-blank one month prior:

When you think about your company brand that you’ve worked so hard to establish, how do you want to continue it? In a concentrated professional manner, or in a haphazard way that might occur with a low paid (or free) intern who might leave you in a few weeks. Most companies say they want consistency of message and of delivery.  They want to be confident that the words that go out about their company are well-thought out.  Because social media is quite new to a lot of companies, many don’t know that there is no “undo button” in social media?

How much do YOU want to risk?  With SMCPros you can be confident every move is planned and focused on making you look good to your customers and prospects.  Our methods are tried and proven successful. We are way past guessing what works.  So I ask again: How much do you want to risk?

Having said this, please, be careful.

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Many of our clients have yet to explore LinkedIn and understand it to its fullest potential. Many of you ask yourself the same questions, without finding accurate answers for them. I have put together some FAQs that will help answer some of your questions.

Q: Is there a limit to the number of InMails I can send out?
A: In order to send InMails, you need to upgrade your account. There are 3 different packages which have different features that you can upgrade for. Of course, it’s directly proportional to the amount you want to spend. InMails start from 3 per month and go up to 50.

Another alternative would be to purchase InMails without upgrading. InMails are for $10.00 each and you may purchase up to 10 at a given time.

Q: Is there a certain number of Open Introductions I can have at a time?
A:  You may have up to 5 introductions open at any one time. If your introductions run out,  you can either wait for the recipient to take action or upgrade your account.

Q: How many connection requests can I have opened?
A: There is not a limit to how many people you are connected to, however, rumor does have it that you are allowed up to 3,000 invites to connect with others. Each time you are prompted to invite someone from your own personal e-mail and they do not join, you have, in essence, wasted a contact.

Q: When I want to add someone to my network and click on I don’t know this person, what happens?
A: LinkedIn will not allow you to send out the invitation. A warning pop up appears telling you that you are not allowed.

Recipients can indicate that they don’t know you. If they do, you’ll be asked to enter an email address with each future invitation.

Q: Can I search a group for a specific member without going through entire list?
A: Yes, there is a search bar available within the group under the ‘more’ tab.

Q: Can I see the groups my connections are on?
A: Yes, if you go into their profile, it is displayed towards the bottom of the page. It does not however show common groups you share.

Do you have more questions? Or have answers? Share!

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Numerous marketing approaches are being used nowadays, how do you know which one is the most appropriate for your organization?

We usually start by breaking down each approach before analyzing and making a decision as to which route to proceed with.

Ask yourself not only what your target market is, but also WHERE they are at. Are they on social media platforms? Are they listening to the radio, watching tv or perhaps just reading the newspaper? Any campaign you decide to run with needs to be carefully thought through. Brainstorm your objectives and set your direction.

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I watched a TED video this morning. Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of Wine Library TV, reminded me once again that everything we do today is digitally recorded. Our children and grand-children are going to have access to so much about our lives. When I think about what I know about my great grand-parents, I know their names and I know the few stories I have time to hear from my grandparents. But my children are going to have access to what I said on twitter even today, March 15th, 2010. They will be able to see that I missed the last 3 episodes of 24 because hulu broadcasts that.

Robert Stephens, founder of Geek Squad, spoke at an EO event this past week at the James J Hill library on the topic of Social Media. He also stressed the importance and power of the web. As technology evolution continues to accelerate, more and more of what we do is going to be digitally recorded and archived. In the near future, life will be video-recorded and broadcasted everywhere we go (as it already can be). What does this mean in the privacy debates, speed of life issues, the ADD surge in young people? I don’t know. But technology is quickly and gracefully macro-evolving the way life works.

I am very interested to know your thoughts on whether these things concern you, excite you, and what you plan on doing with this.

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If you have specific questions and are looking for various answers, why not use LinkedIn Answers? With this feature, you can ask questions within different industries and be sure to find an answer that will satisfy you! Thought-provoking questions that relate to others sharing knowledge they have is always great. This also gives SME’s (Subject Matter Experts) a chance to share their knowledge and will improve the quality of others’ answers.

How do I earn expertise when answering questions on LinkedIn?

This is what LinkedIn has to say:

When you see a green box with a white star on a Profile, you know that person has proven their expertise by answering questions posed in the Answers forum. They have had answers selected as the ‘Best’ answer and are given expert status. Answer experts can be found at the bottom of the Answer home page. To earn expertise:

1. Find questions in the areas you know.
2. Browse questions to find categories familiar to you and answer those questions.
3. Every time the questioner picks your answer as the ‘Best’ answer, you gain a point of expertise in the category of the question. The more points of expertise, the higher you appear on lists of experts. Private answers don’t count toward expertise.

Once the question is closed the member can rate the answers that came in. Answers is a good way to share and exchange information.

What do I benefit if I am listed as an expert?

It is a great way to add value to your Profile by displaying your writing style, personality, organizational abilities and subject matter expertise to those viewing your Profile. If your answer is voted ‘Best’ it is hoped that it was because you provided the best information in a way that helped the member to resolve their query.

This will help you stand out amongst the crowd and will also draw attention to your business. People will keep you in their mind and will know who to not only go to for answers but for services!

Still not sure?

Start by trying to ask a question, yes, you are entitled to ask up to 10 questions per month and see what/how people respond back. And note the amount of time it takes! You will be surprised by the amount of people who are offering their knowledge.

Depending on how specific your question is, you will receive responses. One question I asked received 5 different answers within an hour time span while another received 10 within half an hour!

Keep in mind that questions you ask can also be flagged, reported and removed if they are inappropriate which might lead you to become blocked by LinkedIn from asking any more questions.

Best Practice- Make sure to thank the person who’s answer you ranked as best.

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Are you utilizing your LinkedIn to its fullest potential and using Groups?

To start off with, there are three different types of Groups within LinkedIn that you can create. The traditional Group, a Subgroup within the Group and Custom Groups.

LinkedIn defines a Group as your destination to find and join communities of professionals based on common interest, experience, affiliation, and goals.  It is an excellent way to stay in touch with organizations, schools, and companies that you are and were a part of, network with professionals with similar interests and goals, and collaborate in a professional community online. LinkedIn does restrict your ownership to 10 Groups at any one time.

A subgroup is a group within an existing LinkedIn main group. The subgroup, or child group, provides you with more tightly focused arenas for professional discussion and interaction among members within the existing main group, also known as the ‘Parent’ Group. Subgroups are smaller than the parent group and have a focus that is more defined. For example you may find a parent group named Social Media Group’ and then subgroups named ‘Email Marketing, ‘Stumble upon your Facebook ‘and ‘Forever Twitter’. These subgroups are more exclusive in their membership and have news and discussions that are of specific interest to them. Parent groups can contain up to 20 subgroups.  Keep in mind that members must sign up to participate within the child groups discussion forums.

Custom Groups is a new feature on the website that allows users to build subsidized collectives. This type of Group is now available for a monthly fee and enables companies to turn their discussions into elaborate marketing sites.

It has been said that businesses that create this type of Group can import content such as RSS feeds and videos within the group. This is also a great new feature since it allows you to better target your audience.

The growth rate of Groups has been increasing tremendously and not only does it allow you to take your online networking to a professional level but it also allows you to further promote your products and services!

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Many people have been  predicting what social media marketing will be like for 2010, we here at SMCpros have put together some thoughts of our own on what to expect for the New Year. Here are what the employees had to say about what they saw coming for the online world next year:

Mitchell Hislop:

• Businesses will learn that they need to leverage the internet with more than just a static website.
• Humans will experience a shift in how they naturally communicate.
• Companies will become more transparent.
• We will see several networks close their doors, get sold, or merge with other networks.
• We will see legislation passed regarding social media.
• There will be a greater connection between social media and IRL events.
• Twitter will be fully mainstream, not just a joke.
• Either LinkedIn will cement itself as a top network, or a new startup will round out the “Big 3″.
• There will be major discoveries in the way humans interact with data and the internet.
• We will discover even more than we already know about social media. I am of the opinion that there is no way we are using its full potential, and am constantly searching for what these full potential are.

Joel Feder:

• The term “Social Media” might transform into something else.
• SEO will become less important as search engines become more sophisticated.
• Google Analytics will be much more advanced.
• Twitter will evolve and add more features.
• Twitter will become highly profitable.
• Foursquare will either evolve or die out.
• Gowalla will burn out.
• Facebook will continue to make more changes and users will find fault.
• Traditional advertising will fall even lower on people’s priority lists.
• Twitter applications (Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, etc) will become more advanced.
• We will see more cross pollination between platforms/sites.
• Apple will release a new iPhone and also a new tablet. They both will sell like hotcakes.

Adam Maikkula:

• Businesses will begin to adopt social media as a complement to their existing business initiatives.
• Social media will begin to be seen as a necessity rather than a “what kind of ROI do I get?” conversation.
• The ROI discussion will fade as businesses realize that social media was built to be social…Why do you think individuals started using these sites in the first place; let alone the early adopters who happened to be (guess what) college students who like to socialize.
• Platforms evolved because of the millions of people who wanted to be social outside of their immediate environment – just like AOL Instant Messenger was big when I was in high school.

It wasn’t until businesses saw the potential energy lying dormant within all of these virtual places that they started trying to make social media adapt to business, but it should be business that adapts to social media.  No intelligent business would ever walk into a movie theater or a play and start shouting with a bullhorn all their great specials, promos, or how awesome they are.  That would not be appropriate…They would, however, figure out how to adapt to the environment (platform) by leveraging the resources available to them (think running a traditional ad on the screen before the movie, or product placement within the actual movie).

My primary point here is that it all comes down to the social aspects of social media.  Those who lack social skills will have a hard time fully leveraging these products.

My projection for 2010 is that business will learn to adapt to social media in order to avoid polarizing themselves from the users who are at the heart of the sites.

Tim Barsness:

• LinkedIn will become useful.
• Twitter will earn money.
• Interoperability between big players (FB/TW/LI) will increase.
• Tweetdeck will become web based.

Sarah Shehata:

• Facebook will continue to upgrade their platform and add more features.
• LinkedIn will be used on an even more professional level by businesses. The direction it is heading in is not necessarily advertising their services/products, but rather more along the lines of building brand awareness and showing their level of expertise within their industry.
• Twitter will be used as a live tool for instant questions, answers and quick research.
• A new platform will compete against the current ‘big 3′ social media platforms.

Tyler Olson:

• Twitter will start charging for upgraded accounts.
• Geo-location social media tools will begin going mainstream towards the end of the year.
• ROI track ability applications and integration will increase significantly.
• SMCpros starts rocking to a whole new level!

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Events posted on LinkedIn show up in your profile as Event recommendations based on your profile content.  LinkedIn shows events that you may be interested in and allows you to see all the members attending the event (especially your personal connections).  You have the ability to RSVP to upcoming events such as conferences and seminars in your area.   Once you choose to attend an event, your network will be notified of your confirmation.

From a business development perspective, leveraging LinkedIn is a great way to drive attendance to your events as well as find out who is attending events you are interested in.  Imagine being able to reach out to a sales prospect or potential business partner by attending relevant events (together)…

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