Social media and digital communications have really grown as a marketing medium. The new strategies that the web have afforded can be extremely powerful. With that in mind, it’s important to learn as much as you can.

Getting started can be the hardest thing. To help people better understand social media marketing, I’ve outlined some important reading for individual topics in social media…

Facebook Basics

For many Facebook is a really important aspect of their social media strategies. Making sure you create a Facebook fan page that maximizes your return is important.

How To Create the Perfect Facebook Fan Page
Tamar from Techipedia wrote an awesome article outlining a few steps to creating a great Facebook fan page. She goes over the idea of creating a landing page, Facebook SEO, and FBML.

Who’s Blogging What: 2010 Facebook Page Marketing Guide
Recently, I took part in a really in-depth Facebook Marketing Guide that’s being published by HubSpot. The guide goes over everything from creating a fan page to building a loyal following.

Use Vanity URLs to Save You From a Branding Fail
Once you have your Facebook fan page ready, definitely check out the article I wrote on branding. Don’t make the mistakes many large brands do on a day to day basis.

Starting with Twitter

Many businesses have found value in the reach afforded to them through Twitter. The following articles should help you get started with Twitter and using it to market your business…

Twitter 101 for Business
For the very basics go to Twitter itself. The Twitter staff put together a great guide for Businesses getting started with Twitter. It includes case studies and best practices.

Using Twitter Search for Business
Even though a very short post by Chris Brogan, it is full of information. Being able to use search properly is a great way to find new leads and consumers.

The Ultimate Guide for Everything
A great guide that outlines how to get started with Twitter and what some successful brands have done. It gives you good ideas on what to do once you have your Twitter account.

Twitter Marketing: A Small Business Guide
I previously put together a Twitter marketing guide for small businesses. It’s relatively short, but reviews how to get started, how to use Tweetdeck, and what to do with your Twitter account.

Using Online Blogs

A blog or social media hub is an extremely important aspect of a social media strategy. Most marketers overlook the idea of owned media and determine that hosting a blog is too expensive and resource intensive. The truth is that a blog can be the greatest social media investment a brand makes…

Do You Have A Social Media Hub?
Really one of the most important things for your social media strategy is creating a social media hub. The hub acts as the anchor for the strategy and ties together all the social media profiles.

Study Shows Small Businesses That Blog Get 55% More Website Visitors
For many businesses, their social media hub will be their blog. Hubspot put together a great study showing the impact of a blog on a businesses’ digital footprint. Definitely check out this article if you’re curious about creating a social media hub.

New To WordPress – Where to Start
Almost always, I recommend WordPress for small business blogs and sites. Their “getting started” guide is a good way to learn more about the software and how you can use it.

Analytics and Metrics

Once your campaign has launched, you have to be able to measure and optimize the campaign. Knowing which metrics to track and how is important. The following articles explore the topic of analytics and metrics…

This is How You Measure Social Media ROI
This article reviews how you can possibly measure social media ROI. It reviews the pitfalls and obstacles to adding social media to the marketing mix.

HOW TO: Track Social Media Analytics
A short article that reviews the basics of pulling together some social media metrics. Shows you how to track social media shares and other important metrics.

Social Media Analytics: Twitter: Quantitative & Qualitative Metrics
As usual, Avinash puts together a great article that outlines his thoughts on Twitter metrics. He reviews both how to measure and draw analysis from the data.

Understanding Social Media Metrics: Basic Modeling
This more advanced post looks at econometric modeling and how it relates to social media marketing. Using the model, we can begin to determine what impact individual decisions have on our social media success.

Social Media Metrics: What We Need to Track Sales
Everyone wants to know what they need to do to track sales through social media. This post explores why it’s important to measure social media sales, what to track, and what tools to use.

Online Culture

The web has evolved our culture and changed our social norms. What is acceptable offline might not be tolerated online. How you say something online, might not be acceptable offline. Understanding the web culture is a necessary step for being successful online…

Culture, the Great Influencer on Corporate Social Media Adoption
Although the slideshare is gone, this article definitely gives some great insights into the idea of culture as a driving force for social media understanding through a company.

Social Media Requires a Cultural Investment
An article that explores how culture can affect the profitability of a company and explains why the evolution of culture is a necessity for social media success.

Alexis Ohanian: How to make a splash in social media
A TED video that highlights the idea of social media culture and gives a great case study that shows how the reddit community works.

Christopher “moot” Poole: The case for anonymity online
Another important cultural phenomenon online, the idea of anonymity. “Moot” the creator of 4chan talks about privacy and anonymity in this great TED video.

Final Thoughts

Just learning the basics of social media marketing, how you should act, what you need to do to begin, and how to measure your success, is extremely difficult. Reading as much as you can and testing out new ideas is the best way to gain the knowledge you need to be successful.

I’ve outlined some articles I recommend, but now it’s your turn. Leave a comment and share articles you believe helped you get started with social media. Don’t feel like you have to share only articles, give your advice or thoughts for those trying to get started.

Help! I Need Social Media Advice… is a post by: Samir Balwani

Social media marketing is a difficult field to master. To truly master it, marketers must understand multiple fields of study.

People feel that social media marketing is simple to understand because everyone already uses social media. Sure, the concept is simple – be a good person, interact online, and monitor your brand.

The truth is that building a community is one thing, but getting them to do something is entirely a different story.

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So what do smart marketers know that everyone else doesn’t? They know that understanding “marketing” by itself, means nothing. It’s when you bring together learnings and understanding from other fields do you fully master marketing.

Let’s explore a few important fields of study and just what they mean to a marketer…

Psychology: Why People Share

The idea that people share content online is a fundamental staple of social media. If people didn’t share things online, social media wouldn’t exist.

Understanding how and why people spread content means that social media marketers must learn the psychology of sharing. We have to know why things are shared and explore how to recreate results.

Psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and social behavior, while also exploring underlying physiologicaland neurological processes. credit

Questions to Consider

• What drives people to share something?
• What kind of content will people share?
• How do consumers feel when they share content?
• How can a marketer generate a sharing atmosphere?

Anthropology – Understanding Culture Evolution

Social media didn’t appear out of the blue. It’s an cultural evolution and one that continues to change. Anthropologist explore how cultures and communities change. They want to know why cultures behave the way they do.

Anthropology’s basic concerns are “What defines Homo sapiens?”, “Who are the ancestors of modern Homo sapiens?”, “What are humans’ physical traits?”, “How do humans behave?”, “Why are there variations and differences among different groups of humans?”, “How has the evolutionary past of Homo sapiens influenced its social organization and culture?” and so forth. credit Bolds added by Samir

Questions to Consider

• What caused the growth of social media?
• How has the online culture evolved humanity?
• What can we expect from the future based on the current culture?
• What are the cultural norms when interacting online?

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Sociology – Building Communities

Online networking and communities, definitely falls within the idea of sociology. It’s one of the most important understandings a social media marketer can have.

Learning how networks are created, how people interact within the network, and why they join in the first place defines the difference between a real marketer and one that’s just pretending.

Sociologist and good marketers are adept at collecting data, identifying trends, and analyzing outcomes.

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social activity, often with the goal of applying such knowledge to the pursuit of social welfare. Subject matter ranges from the micro level of agency and interaction to themacro level of systems and social structures. credit

Questions to Consider

• Why do people create communities?
• How is influence gained within a community?
• Why does a node interact with a separate node?
• How do nodes connect within a society?

Neuroscience – The Drive to Buy

Marketers don’t need to be adept at neuroscience but instead need to understand the basics, especially when it relates to persuasion and buying.

The idea of neuromarketing isn’t a new one. Knowing what makes a person want to buy something or what kind of marketing works from a biological standpoint can be an important idea to understand.

The techniques used by neuroscientists have also expanded enormously, from biophysical and molecular studies of individual nerve cells to imaging of perceptual and motor tasks in the brain. Recent theoretical advances in neuroscience have also been aided by the study of neural networks. credit

Questions to Consider

• How does a brain react to good marketing?
• What does a person experience during the buying process?
• Which words or content will result in the best response?
• How can you maximize the sharing potential of your content?

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Web Development – Building Hubs

If you’re an online marketer, you need to know the basics for coding HTML. You should also know your way around a cPanel, DNS, domain registration, and probably WordPress too. You don’t need a degree in computer science, but knowing how to setup a social media hub on your own domain is definitely an important skill to have.

Maximizing your branding potential means using your domain, hosting your own sites, and building blogs for brands. Learning the basics of web development means doing it yourself instead of having to outsource these simple tasks.

Web development is a broad term for the work involved in developing a web site for the Internet (World Wide Web) or an intranet (a private network) . This can include web design, web content development, client liaison, client-side/server-side scripting, web server and network security configuration, and e-commerce development. credit

Questions to Consider

• How do I build and deploy a blog?
• How can I create a social media hub?
• What’s the process to installing WordPress?
• How do I register a domain and create a site?

English / Grammar – It’s All About Content

Content creation means writing and writing well. Even if you create video or audio content, proper grammar goes a long way. Social media success can depend on getting your point across in a way that is illustrative and compelling.

Marketers should at least know how to write in a distinct voice and without any major grammatical errors.

English grammar is the body of rules describing the properties of the English language. A language is such that its elements must be combined according to certain patterns. This article is concerned with (and restricted to) morphology, the building blocks of language; andsyntax, the construction of meaningful phrases, clauses and sentences with the use of morphemes and words. credit

Questions to Consider

• Does this article flow?
• Is our content voice exciting and humorous?
• Does this piece of content have any grammatical errors?

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Final Thoughts

Social media marketing isn’t easy, it is not a simple medium to understand. Then again, marketing, as a field, isn’t simple to master. Each of the points outlined above are applicable to all marketers.

The barrier to entry is relatively low; anyone can become a social media marketer. The difficult part is mastering the marketing medium, recreating results, and evolving the strategy.

What do you think? Am I expecting too much from others? Did I miss a field of study that you think marketers should really understand? How do you keep up with learning everything? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

What a Social Media Marketer Should Know… is a post by: Samir Balwani

One of the best things about creating a social media campaign is its effectiveness in branding. But for how great it can be, many marketers miss a number of great opportunities and never take full advantage of the branding potential.

The issue arises from the fact that social media sites require a minimum of co-branding. When your content and consumers are interacting with you on Facebook or Twitter, you lose some level of branding to the respective social media site.

For larger brands, this can be a major issue – especially when social media is being sold as a powerful branding tool.

The problem can be exasperated when larger brands begin bridging the gap between social media and offline advertising. It becomes a major problem when brands start advertising their Facebook fan pages or Twitter accounts.

Don’t understand why it’s a problem? Take a look at the Vitamin Water example.

The ad was created to push users to their Facebook fan page. In the there’s a call to action, sending usings to Facebook.com/vitaminwater – their fan page.

What Vitamin Water did makes sense on the surface. But why not take it one step further and make it better? Why not advertise the Vitamin Water website and forward users to the Facebook fan page?

The trick is pretty simple actually. All you have to do is create a URL that redirects to the Facebook fan page. So on our brand site, we create our own URL, vitaminwater.com/fb that redirects to our Facebook page.

Now we can promote the vitaminwater.com URL and have our website gain all the branding value from the offline advertising.

Creating a Vanity URL

Building vanity URLs is really simple for WordPress users. Start by first installing the Redirection plugin. It allows you to quickly create 301 redirects and vanity URLs.

Once you’ve installed the plugin, log into WordPress and go to the Tools tab. Then look for the Redirection options page. Within the Redirections page, create a vanity URL by filling out the form and clicking save.

There’s no reason a large business should lose any branding value from multi-million dollar offline advertising campaigns. It’s extremely simple to create a vanity URL for when other marketing disciplines are being used to promote social media campaigns.

How are you making the most of your online branding? What tricks have you identified for putting your brand front and center?

Use Vanity URLs to Save You From a Branding Fail is a post by: Samir Balwani

One of the interesting questions I’m asked often is, “how do I get a job in social media?“. It’s an interesting question because social media and online marketing are still fairly new industries. Not many colleges offer a degree or major specifically for digital marketing and most business owners are still unsure exactly what the position requires.

So with all this uncertainty, how can you find a job and make sure the potential employer realizes you’re the person for the job?

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Available Jobs in Digital Marketing

First, let’s start by looking at what jobs are available. As the industry grows, there are more and more jobs being introduced – obviously. Regardless, they tend to fall within three categories: the in-house manager, agency consultant, and self-employed consultant.

In-house Manager
The in-house manager works for a specific company, Johnson and Johnson or Best Buy for example, and covers aspects of the digital marketing for the company. Being in-house means you integrate with parts of the company, identify optimizations on the site, and create social media strategies.

In-house social media managers tend to take care of the day to day planning and execution of strategies. You’re the one in charge of a Facebook fan page, or working towards creating a good Twitter account.

Be passionate about the company you’re applying to, and be prepared to do a lot of reporting. As an in-house social media manager, you’ll be tasked with continually proving the worth of a social media department.

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Agency Consultant
Consultants that work for agencies, advise a number of clients. The nice thing about being a consultant is that you get to work on a number of clients and experience different challenges.

Most consultants are called in to answer specific questions or solve problems. Social media consultants generally help brands get started with social media or create long-term strategies.

It can be frustrating to work with companies that are unwilling to execute ideas or go against best practices. It can also be tough putting together a great idea and not being able to follow through with it. However, the ability to work with so many different industries and companies can keep things from getting stale.

Self Employed Consultant
It’s harder to success as a self-employed consultant versus being an in-house manager or agency consultant. Self-employed consultants work with small and medium sized business to create and employ online marketing strategies.

Generally, self-employed consultants need to be well versed in all aspects of online marketing including; SEO, content creation, a little bit of web dev, and ppc. Since most smaller businesses don’t have a huge marketing budget, they tend to look for someone that can do it all.

If you’re looking to get started as a self-employed consultant, learn everything about online marketing. Start with a small client in your area and don’t forget to take some to build your portfolio. It will be slow, but for many, it can be the best way to work.

Finding the Best Job

For those of us that aren’t ready to be self-employed, yet, it can be difficult to find a good job. The best way to start is to look at job boards and ask around.

Make sure you look at Mashable, SEOmoz, ProBlogger, and Marketing Pilgrim job boards – these are great places to start.

I highly recommend starting a blog and just sharing your thoughts about anything. The topic doesn’t need to be about online marketing or marketing related. Being a part of the community can be the best way to get a great social media job.

Think about it from an employers point of view. If I’m an agency that has a number of tech clients, a tech blogger would be a great addition to our social media team. Same with in-house – many companies hire social media community managers from the very bloggers they outreach to.

Proving You’re the Right Person

Once you’ve found the job, you’ll have to prove you’re the right person for it. The best first step is to make sure you’re passionate about the brand. Do your homework and research what the company has done and be prepared to talk about it and be prepared to share what you would like to do.

Know what’s going on in social media and be active. It’s so easy to get social media experience, but don’t only use it, analyze it. Question why something works and share your theories. Potential employers want a social media strategist that not only uses social media, but also is looking to maximize it and forecast what’s next.

General Career Advice

The best advice I can give anyone, when it comes to getting a job, network as much as you can. It’s so simply to meet new people and make connections with things like Facebook and Twitter. Don’t forget email and be open to just emailing someone and build a relationship.

A good social media strategist is good at building relationships – you should be able to build a network and influence someone into hiring you. Don’t be afraid, go out there and start doing what you do best… being social.

A special shout out to Chris from 10e20 who helped me find the job I have now.

How did you get your job? Did someone help you? Share your thoughts

Getting a Social Media Job is a post by: Samir Balwani

When I was in school, I had a really bad habit of getting bored. If I wasn’t challenged or things became stale, I stopped caring about the class. Obviously, I didn’t do so well in high school and it wasn’t until I reached college, where I could explore different things, that my grades started to get better.

The habit hasn’t died, I still get “bored” easily. Instead nowadays, when I feel myself getting bored, I try to figure out why I’m bored. I look at what I’m doing and figure out if it’s become stale or is there more? Maybe I’ve only been scratching the surface, and it’s time to look deeper or out. Focus is good, but extreme focus means you miss out on a lot.

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This is what’s happening with social media. It’s not that social media itself is boring. Marketing that is personal, community based, and ever-changing can hardly be considered boring. What is boring, however, is the idea that social media is game changing, the future, or some kind of holy grail. The idea that social media, alone, will solve your every marketing problem.

To marketers that feel this way, I say “grow up”. Social media is one tool of many. Focusing on one aspect of marketing is like building a house with just a nail.

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People Want More

Tamar, a good friend of mine, wrote a post titled “Is Social Media Becoming Boring?“. It’s interesting what she says about social media and people’s want for “more”. She uses a a chart to show that people want social media.

The problem is, that the chart is a little misleading. Look at the terms she compares against each other. “Social Media” versus “Search Engine Optimization”. Let’s clarify the chart a little more. Most people aren’t going to write or search for “Search Engine Optimization”, they’ll look for “SEO”. Let’s recreate the chart and see what happens.

Well that’s drastically different than what we thought. Suddenly, social media doesn’t seem to be as earth shattering as we thought.

The Problems with Social Media

This post may seem like I don’t like social media, but that can’t be further from the truth. Instead, I’ve just identified major concerns with social media and am working hard to solve them. Social media is seductive, it promises to answer problems without huge costs and it’s being marketed by people that are both good at building excitement and convincing evangelist.

The one thing I’ve learned from this whole thing of social media marketing, is that most marketers are great at marketing social media. When you ask 99%, “What now?” – “How does this help my bottom line?” there’s hardly an answer.

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So here are my concerns with social media:

• No way to effectively track social media success…
• The echo chamber: If I hear “build a community” one more time…
• Singular focus, it’s as if nothing other than social media exists…
• The arrogance – social media is not a cure all for marketing…
• Inconsistent results – when people are involved, optimization can only go so far…
• Little growth in standards and regulations…
• Lack of academic research and theory…

Why I’m Not Worried…

I’m not worried because social media is still young. It has time to grow. As long as it doesn’t crush itself from the expectations people have create for the marketing discipline, it will exists for a long time.

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Now What?

The reason I titled this article “Good Marketers Don’t Stand Still” is because I wanted to make sure people understand that growth and innovation means always moving and looking for new things. It’s almost ironic that most social media marketers will tell you to be innovative and try new things, but when you decide that it’s time to try something other than social media (maybe mobile marketing?) they get flustered.

I wrote a few weeks ago that this blog will be changing and that I’ll be focusing on more broader marketing ideas and theories – social media is going to be only a single part of the marketing toolset.

Tamar quotes David Armano (another person I respect) in her blog post:

So, not unlike what we’ve seen in the past, there is bound to be a shakeout, a quest for better metrics and ROI models (digital still deals with this today) but there is one thing I am certain of. The true believers who stuck with the Web even when the bubble burst became the people you wanted to work with. If there is a shakeout in the social space, the same will happen. The true believers will remain, while others flock to the next hot field.(Bolded by Samir for emphasis)

I usually agree with almost everything David says, but this time I’m torn to disagree. The true believers remaining is reminiscent of print magazines and newspapers unwilling to adapt and change. Resisting change and disregarding new shifts in thinking would be counter-productive.

Change doesn’t need to be huge, it doesn’t need to be a whole new marketing platform. It can be simple, it can be a change in how we look at social media. It can be a rethinking of social media as a standalone marketing platform, to one that requires other disciplines to work. The true power of social media marketing comes alive when it’s integrated with display advertising and search engine optimization.

For most marketers that spells doom. The idea that not only do you have to understand social media (a complex system of sociology, psychology, and anthropology) but also online advertising, search engine optimization, and analytics.

Are You Bored?

So am I bored of social media? Sure. Do I want to work with a social media strategist? No. I want to work with people that understand that online marketing takes integration. Singular focus can hurt and keep you from growing.

Good marketers don’t stand still, we continually look for what’s new. While others are still trying to figuring out how to build a Facebook page, we’ve already realized that our resources can be better spent elsewhere. We continually ask the question “Why” and drive to find an answer. We don’t resist change, instead we welcome it and make our marketing better.

So what do you think? Is social media falling apart? Is it fine the way it is? Will you be focusing specifically on social media or are you working to expand your interests?

Good Marketers Don’t Stand Still… is a post by: Samir Balwani

Investment is a word that rules business decisions. How much do I need to invest? It’s a question I hear on a near daily basis.

So why is it that when it comes to social media, many focus on money and ignore the cultural investment?

Everything you do has a cost, whether it is monetary, time, or some other abstract resource. Social media although not the most expensive, requires a cultural evolution.

For many of the largest companies, a cultural investment can be greater than a monetary one. To change a business culture requires a form of dedication and collaboration rarely achieved.

But what exactly is a cultural investment? It would behoove us to answer this short yet not-so-simple question.

As businesses begin to shift their focus to the online world, so too must they shift their culture. This means creating a company that is nimble, lean, and efficient. Where these adjectives were goals for a business, they now are requirements.

A company must be able and willing to take risks, optimize campaigns, and work together efficiently.

Although an overly used example, Zappos embodies the idea of a web culture. Marketing, customer service, and product delivery all overlap. Each department works with an understanding that the ultimate goal is customer happiness and satisfaction. That this satisfaction will equate into returning and new customers.

Most businesses don’t achieve the success that Zappos has and for many it’s not even a possibility. Companies, especially luxury companies, tend to be too far on the spectrum to embrace the openness that the web requires.

Identifying where your business lies is the first step in evolving your identity. Using the above indicators can help you plot a course. The graph will not perfectly define every company, but it can act as a guide for most.

With an idea of the current overall culture and a goal in mind, an employee must take lead. Sadly, although the change must come from within, no single person can have both the drive and power to bring it to fruition.

The change, to have the most effect, must come from a group of individuals of power. Department heads and C-level executives can lead the charge, yet the revolution must be company wide.

For this to occur, social media and web culture needs to be sold to the company. It cannot be a policy demanded, it must be ingrained and incentivized.

For many, the first step is to identify employees, company-wide, that embrace the web culture.

Look for those that want to work together, share knowledge, and are leaders. Another group to include are employees that blog, have a Twitter or Facebook, or are active on social sites and forums.

These employees can be a jump-start and example for others. Create a task force that is comprised of employees from each department to identify ways to shift the company culture.

This task force should answer questions such as:

• “How can we better share information between departments and consumers?”
• “Is the company making the most out of each customer interaction?”
• “Has the business defined and identified an online brand strategy?”
• “What can be done to spur culture shifts?”

Answering the above questions should help create a plan and goal for the culture change.

Similar to almost any other, a cultural investment hurts profitability in the short-term but begins to show returns in the long run. The loss of productivity from employees as the transition occurs can be recouped as the new culture inspired collaboration and togetherness.

As the world becomes more Internet savvy and consumers evolve, business culture becomes more important. Consumers are looking to buy from companies we enjoy, those that they are connected to, and the businesses that make them feel special. It may not be a conscious decision, but it’s one that influences the buying process.

How are you investing in a culture that aligns with your consumers? Do you talk about company culture? Are you prepared for the transition?

Social Media Requires a Cultural Investment is a post by: Samir Balwani

It’s January, the month where the gyms are packed, fitness rules, and ad campaigns take an odd turn towards diets. But as much as we’re trained to make weight loss resolutions, your business should be looking to lose excess baggage as well.

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I’ve written fairly extensively on how most brands tend to shoot themselves in the foot when it comes to social media.

Almost always, the largest culprit to online marketing failure is bureaucracy. It’s the reason why small businesses can excel at social media, while adoption is slow for large brands.

Online marketing requires a company be nimble. Your ability to make changes, react to online trends, and keep up with technology will forecast your success. The Internet changes, technology grows. Moore’s Rule states that our technological advances will double every two years. Can your marketing keep up?

The larger a boat, the longer it takes to turn. Similarly, the more bloated your company, the harder it is to adapt.

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I titled this post “Welcome to 2010… Now Trim the Fat” because I wanted to make a point. Employee bloat is holding back your business. Processes that are long and drawn out, hurt your marketing. Being unsure is no longer an option.

A by-product of the paradigm shift towards online marketing is that decisions can be made with data. We can test what works and what doesn’t work – we can do it quickly. Avinash calls it failing fast.

Every decision doesn’t need to go through a committee. The Internet has made it easy to make educated decisions quickly.

Want to figure out which product you should promote? Ask your customers what they like.

Need to know whether something on your site is working? Run a eye tracking test.

When your business isn’t nimble, isn’t quick to adapt – you fall behind. You lose opportunities to better your product, your business, and to retain your consumers.

How is your department, business, or team streamlining for 2010?

Welcome to 2010… Now Trim the Fat is a post by: Samir Balwani

Recently I wrote a post about what I would tell a social media professor. After publishing the article, I’ve spoken to a number of professors about how they teach social media.

What I realized is that so many of these teachers are using social media, are interacting with students online, and sharing their thoughts. They might not have the most followers or be the easiest to find, but they share valuable information.

I’ve created a “Professors” Twitter list to help compile these instructors in one place.

So in true crowdsourcing fashion, I’m asking for your help! If you know a professor that is teaching a social media course or a marketing course that talks about social media, leave a comment. In your comment please leave the professor’s name, twitter name, and college!

Let’s see how comprehensive we can make this list!

Professors Teaching Social Media is a post by: Samir Balwani

Seriously, it’s probably you. Most campaigns fall apart because of the company itself. Don’t blame lack of interest, the medium, or your community. If you can’t convince your consumers to be interested enough in you to fan you on Facebook, how are you getting them into your stores to buy your product?

For those don’t want to keep digging their own grave look for the warning signs. Fix them and you’ll see how consumers clamor to be part of your community.

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PC Sucks – We Want Sensational

Being perfectly politically correct will kill your campaigns. It’s boring, bland, and hardly excites anyone. Sensationalism rules as people look to push the envelope and test the line of what’s taboo and what isn’t.

Common television is proof of this. Reality TV and shock TV rule the ratings. The question is “what can you get away with?”

Burger King is the perfect example. Their campaigns continually push the limit. Examples include their Facebook campaign that asked to you remove ten friends to now their UK campaign that has a showercam (semi-sfw).

They’ve embraced that idea that PC is boring and have tried to take each campaign to the next level. Do they have a backlash? Sure, people complain about their advertising and what they’re doing, but not enough.

You won’t make everyone happy, so might as well just appeal to your demographic and do something crazy. Get me excited and make me go “wow”. Then I’ll share your content.

Someone Should Kidnap Legal

If you’re ready to stop being PC about everything you do then the first step is to get rid of legal (not really, but god get them to lighten up).

It tends to be that legal is the scapegoat for any campaign that may be seen as unacceptable. Someone doesn’t like a strategy or is afraid of the backlash; more often then not they’ll send it to legal with strict approval guidelines.

Don’t let others use “legalities” (and I use quotes because it’s not that something is against the law, but more that the fear of being sued has spread to an uncontrollable paranoia) to keep you from launching a viral campaign.

Make sure your legal team understands social media culture and what works online. They’re there to keep you from being sued, but also to fight for the company when you are being sued. Give them some real work.

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Hire a Clown or a Funny Magician

Has your company ever tried to be funny? Has it ever worked?

Most businesses have a sense of humor, at the beginning of a campaign inception. Then more people weigh in and things start to morph. The campaign suddenly goes from hilarious to bland.

Be very clear that comedy is an integral part of online marketing.

When consumers are searching online, they have the ability to go to anything and see all kinds of information. We’re naturally drawn to media that makes us feel good. Why would someone take the time to watch or listen to what you have to say unless it makes us feel good?

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Online consumers are looking for specific things. Don’t forget you have to fight for attention and you need to compel people to share your story. Are you doing that right now? What’s stopping you?

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Have you overcome some of these obstacles? What did you do to take a bad strategy and make it successful?

I Know Why Your Social Media Strategies Keep Failing is a post by: Samir Balwani

When I first started writing my blog, everyone told me that leaving comments on other sites was a great step to building traffic. It’s true, commenting on blogs helps you become connected to the community, makes you stand out, and can drive traffic to your own blog.

For me, though, convincing myself to write a comment was difficult. I was considered a lurker – I’d read the article, have an idea, but never share it with the writer.

I worked hard to train myself out of that mentality. I now share my thoughts whenever possible. It not only helps build myself as a leader in the industry, but it also lets me help other bloggers explore new ideas.

So how did I do it? Here are some of the steps that I went through:

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1. Stop Being Afraid of Being Wrong

Seriously, the first step is to stop being afraid of being wrong. I used to be afraid of making a mistake, afraid that someone would jump on me for saying something wrong.

Whenever I felt like I could be wrong, I reminded myself that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. The worst that happens is that I’m corrected and I’d be better for it.

Share what you’re thinking. Someone might say that you’re wrong, but who cares? Learn from your mistakes and make yourself better.

Bloggers want to know what you think about their article. Don’t be afraid to share your ideas.

2. Start Small and Be Comfortable

I started small, by leaving short comments on my friends blogs. I knew that if it came to a point where I needed to change my comment, they would help me. This made me feel comfortable because I couldn’t make an egregious error.

The comments didn’t always add value, I just wanted to get into a routine of leaving comments. Sometimes it was simply “good post” or “I really agree with…*part of article*”.

It just takes this small step to get into a rhythm. Over time I noticed that instead of writing these short comments, I was writing in-depth analysis. I began treating my comments as mini blog posts. I realized, I just needed to start somewhere.

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3. Facebook and Twitter are your Friends

We’ve become used to leaving shorter comments. Look at your Facebook feed or Twitter replies. Most of these comments are no longer than 140 characters, it’s something we’ve gotten used to and it’s ok.

Translate what you do on Facebook and Twitter to blog comments. Publish what you feel, what you think, and don’t worry about length.

4. Keep a First Impressions Journal

When I read blogs, I tend to open up different tabs and read through the articles quickly. That’s great for getting through tons of content fast, but it’s not useful if you’re trying to leave useful comments.

Instead of jumping from one article to another, leave a comment right after you finish your article. You probably won’t come back to the post if you switch tabs. Be focused and don’t put it off.

I like to write notes in the comments field as I read the article. I keep notes on questions that arise as I read the post or how it made me feel. These notes turn into my comment once I’m done reading.

5. Use an RSS Reader

The best tool to make your content consumption more effective is a feed reader. I identified about 50 blogs that I like to read and setup a Google Reader account. In the reader, I can track when each of these sites published a new article.

I then setup a goal – before I can share or “star” an article, I have to leave a comment on it. I don’t always keep up with my goal, but it has definitely made me more efficient and more cognizant of leaving comments. (Oh, you can follow my shared items here.)

I think comments are an important part of the online community. It allows me to share my thoughts and grow as a person. It helps the writer explore his article from different angles and potentially make the publication more in-depth.

Get over your fear and take your first step – leave a comment here and tell me why you comment on other blogs. What drives you to share your thoughts? Do you set a routine for yourself? Has it been useful for you?

5 Ways to Go From Lurker to Leader is a post by: Samir Balwani