Woah. That’s a lot.

My boyfriend isn’t falling for it though. He steadfastly believes that it just isn’t for him, despite my repeated attempts to get him to join.  But still, he is not fully without social media. His one and only golden jewel of social media is his Instagram account, a social media app for iPhone and iPad that allows you to take and share pictures with friends.

Regardless of the Kyle’s (aka: non-Facebookers) of the world, it’s hard to deny the power of social media for business and for pleasure.

Sarah Evans of AdAge.com collected an impressive array of social media stats that I found thoroughly impressive. I thought I’d share some of my favorites with you to start off your weekend of social media posting (You can see the article here for source info).

• Business to Consumer Facebook results are 30% higher than average on Sundays.
• 23% of overall internet usage is devoted to time spent on a social networks or blogs.
• What people are retweeting: 92% retweet interesting content, 84% retweet humor, 66% retweet personal connection, 21% retweet celebrity status, 32% of retweets offered incentive and 26% of retweets were because some asked them to “Please RT”.
• Auto-posting things to Facebook decreases likes and comments by 70%
• There are over 100 million active Twitter users. 40% of which aren’t actually Tweeting but simply reading what is going on in their feed.
• 95% of Facebook Wall posts by fans are not answered by the brands walls they post on (!!)
• Consumers who use social media apps (Twitter, Foursquare, Urban Spoon etc) dine out more often and are more likely to be return customers.
• 20% of Google searches made every day have been NEVER been searched for before.

As you can see people are really using their social media! And it helps to be aware of some of these statistics to better utilize social media for your business. The above statistic that states that 95% of wall posts by fans are not answered by brands (Source allfacebook.com) boggles my mind! I understand that some brands are huge and inundated with wall posts, but social media (and marketing) is all about relationships and sending someone a thanks or answering a question can be a great way to connect with a new or existing customer!

Paying attention to how and why people are using social media is the first step to creating and leveraging social media that works for your business or organization.

So keep reading!

To check out more interesting social media statistics visit the AdAge.com article Stats of the Day: 50 New Social-Media Stats to Kick-start Your Slide Deck.

For additional social media  fun you can follow me on Twitter @jenniejacobs or  Web Marketing Therapy @WebMarketing_RX

Facebook
Outside of your Website, Facebook is the most  important resource for a non-profit; and worth your energy and time. It can be used as a tool to organize your supporters to further your cause, communicate your events and news, conduct research, launch fundraising campaigns and more.  Think of Facebook as an extension of your Website. The advantage of Facebook page is the ability to interact directly with supporters.

If you don’t have a Facebook page for your non-profit, setting one up is free and easy.  Facebook will walk you through the process in the step by step set up guide.

Once you have your page set up, follow these tips to give your page a boost:

1.Tell the entire world that you have a page.  Place a link to your Facebook page on your Website.  Give your page a custom url by going to facebook.com/username so you can easily direct supporters to your page by including the url on all printed materials, business cards, email signatures, signage, etc.

2. Design a large profile picture that shows who you are (logo, website)- it makes a great first impression. Profile pictures can be 200pix wide x 600pix high

3.  Include a sentence or two that clearly says who you are and what your non profit organization does in the “About” section. Keep it simple and to the point.

4. Make  your page relevant and current by making 2-3 updates a week:
-If you have a blog, all posts should be a part of your FB updates.
-Post photos and video
-Good to ask questions, encourages people to respond
-Communicate event information and fundraising initiatives

5. Interact with other organizations by tagging them in your posts. To do this, you must “Like” their business page, then place an @ symbol in front of their name in an update and it will create a live link to their Facebook page.  This is a great way to develop relationships with other businesses.  You can’t do this with personal profiles however.

6. Designate 2-3 people responsible to managing your Facebook content.

7. Use Facebook Insights! There is a lot of valuable information here, it helps you gage your audience, and the effectiveness of your posts!  Watch this video tutorial to learn how to use this free tool.

Twitter
Twitter can also be a useful way to gain support and spread awareness for your cause. Socialbrite has a great article with some valuable tips: 24 best practices for nonprofits using Twitter.

Here are some of the tips from the article that I found to be very helpful
-Don’t over think your Twitter entries. Use your own voice, not a detached, institutional one.
-Use the “60-30-10 rule” 60% retweets and pointers to promote items from other users or sites, 30% conversation and responses, 10% announcements and events.
-Use Twitter to conduct research, to solicit ideas, to identify experts, to thank donors
-Link to newsworthy events that people are already talking about and how they relate to your cause
-Be current/in the moment- “Live Tweet” from events
-Reach out to other influencersIf you have a blog, always tweet about an updated post

Want more info?  Here are some additional resources
How Non-Profits Use Social Media
How Non-Profits Can Use Social Media
Non-Profit Social Media Success

Video: Use social media to connect with donors

The Woman's Advantage 2012 Shared Wisdom Calendar

This has been quite a year for Web Marketing Therapy and our fearless leader, Lorrie Thomas Ross! From writing a guide to Online Marketing that one can master in 36-hours, to welcoming a new addition to her family (daughter Edyn Ashley Ross), releasing a video on lynda.com on Online Marketing Fundamentals, and finally being featured as an influential and quotable woman in the 2012 Woman’s Advantage Shared Wisdom Calendar.

The Woman’s Advantage is a line of informational products, books, audio CDs, and calendars designed by nationally recognized expert, Mary Cantando for successful women business owners. Lorrie was introduced to Mary Cantando’s savvy business advice through her weekly eNewsletter. Cantando was featured on our Wild Web Women® radio program and offered her expertise to our listeners – click HERE to listen to Mary talk with Lorrie about Online Etiquette with “Mind your Web P’s and Q’s”.

Here’s the healthy business advice that was included in the calendar: “BE NICE! It’s amazing what a little class will do for your brand and business!”

I really love Lorrie’s quote and have tacked it to my bulletin board for a great reminder throughout the day. As a team we work strategically with our clients. We also know how being nice counts and how it can bring much needed inspiration to business owners.

At Web Marketing Therapy, our mantra is “we do not plan to fail, we fail to plan.” (also said as “strategy first, execution second”). Defining clear goals of what you and your business are, how you are perceived and what you expect from your online efforts are necessary to do before they go live on the page.  However, such planning takes time and effort and for busy entrepreneurs, a reasonable place to begin. So I produced my favorite marketing tool, the 36 Hour Course on Online Marketing by Web Marketing Therapy CEO Lorrie Thomas that is chock full of helpful directions and began to carve out a marketing plan of attack.

First, we took baby steps and answered the online marketing questionnaire to gather some notes. Second, we used those notes to devise a rough marketing strategy that married the offline efforts with the new online ones for consistency. By taking the time to consider these questions, certain facts revealed themselves quickly. Lacking from her marketing materials was her knowledge, expertise and product offerings so there was work to be done to establish a unique virtual identity.  Here were the main three key points we focused on:

1. Is What You Have To Say Different?

Are you saying the same things the same way your competition is?  It is important to distinguish yourself so create a marketing message that establishes a leadership role in this industry and highlight your unique brand. Explain in that message why clients need your services. Customers make decisions with their emotions so doing a little web marketing therapy on messaging (as well as channeling Maslow’s hierarchy of needs into it) can work wonders on your results.

2. Who is Your Target Audience?

You can’t be all things to all people, but by deciding who your clientele is and what motivates them will help to laser focus the message directly to them. This purposed, focused concise message means a better chance of capturing other non-targeted audiences as well. With this in mind, the spa client is targeting a larger professional client base that she knows is currently underserved in the community.

3. Can You Take The Heat? This question was of particular interest to the spa owner as she was also redefining and shaping her new and improved offline image. The following questions helped to focus online goals and priorities.

• Do you have what it takes to tell your story in a way that people remember?
• Are you ready to focus on a new audience who is motivated to say yes?
• Are you able to ignore complaints to the new cutting edge approach?
• Are you ready to start marketing with visual images such as video?

The difficulty with creating a strategy was just making the time to just sit down and do it. Once the effort was made and information analyzed, the plan came together easily and a thoughtful marketing plan was created. With her new business image in tow, the spa owner reports an uptick in web traffic and bookings from fresh new faces. Way to go!

In this increasingly online world, your website is often your first interaction with a potential client. And, yours is probably not the only site that this potential client is going to check out. If your website looks neglected, is confusing, hurts the eyes, or just doesn’t exist, it’s very, VERY likely that you just lost a new client to one of your competitors.

Remember: We let our fingers do the shopping online, and it’s incredibly easy to click a back button and move on down the list without ever even calling or stepping foot in your store/office/restaurant. So even if you’re just a small, local company, or have been in business for thirty years, a strong website is always a valuable thing!

On our other blog (appropriately titled Wild Web Women), we recently talked about some basic Do’s and Don’ts for your website. These basics are great for a brand spanking new website and a website that’s already been created. Some of the basic Do’s include having a great “About Us” page that focuses on who you are and keeping your site simple and easy to navigate. Some of the Don’ts include abandoning your site once it’s created and annoying your website viewers with something like an auto-play movie or music.

Enjoy a spoonful of web marketing therapy and check out the Do’s and Don’ts of Websites and get your site on the right track!