Whether you believe in karma or not, using social media successfully for your small business often has a lot to do with a series of seemingly disconnected events.  Every comment you post online, every person you contact and every piece of content you upload adds to the sum total of your efforts in the blogosphere.  Building relationships is important in any industry, but social media karma is the idea that what you do and how you behave will ultimately have an effect on you directly or indirectly. 

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Today the buzzwords in the social media space are community. Everyone is interested in creating community and for good reason. Community is at the heart of human social interaction whether it is online or in the place you live. People do not thrive alone in most cases. There is a need to be connected to someone or something that is more basic than most of us ever admit. It’s an emotional thing which also makes it an elusive thing.

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In 2010, Social Media will rapidly escalate from novelty or perceived necessity to an integrated and strategic business communications, service, and information community and ecosystem. Our experiences and education will foster growth and propel us through each stage of the Social Media Marketing evolution.

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eMarketer is one of the most cited resources for internet marketing trends, so when I received some tasty predictions for 2010, I thought they were too useful to keep to myself. These insights include future monetization models, the effect of transparency on advertising, social and search, mobile, social commerce, public relations, social advertising, Twitter, video and mom/pop internet usage. Enjoy!

Hybrid Plans that Combine Subscription Fees with Advertising
More marketers will increasingly embrace online video advertising, supported by the twin boom of video streams and video ad networks.

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There are literally thousands of SEO tools out there. Some paid, some free, some good and some not so good. There is one tool that is often overlooked when it comes to SEO, yes, search engine optimisation, and that’s AdWords. While most people see AdWords as simply a paid traffic generation tool, many fail to realize the organic SEO benefits a tool like AdWords can provide. I’ve touched on this subject briefly before but below, I have outlined a few more detailed ways that AdWords can (and should) be used for SEO. Please note that screenshots have been slightly modified to protect some sensitive data.

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Here is a recap of the top 10 ideas recommended by Morris Sim, CEO of Circos Brand Karma for brands in the travel industry (but really apply to any Business to Consumer enterprise) who want to venture into social media, 10 Ideas to Tame the Social Media Beast:

1.    Understand your true differentiators. Sometimes what you’ve identified as differentiators don’t mirror what customers think.  It’s important to monitor what is being said about you and reconcile your customers’ opinions with your story so that the brand message is consistent and credible.

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In one of my recent blog posts, I touched on the idea of social review tools and how much I believe in the idea of customer reviews. It sparked a fair amount of conversation about the power of reviews, especially negative reviews. I sort of touched on a similar topic when I wrote this blog post on how to deal with negative blog comments, however, negative reviews are a different kind of animal.

In order to illustrate a few best practices for negative reviews, I’ll use a personal example. My parents own a restaurant, which is, of course, subject to the reviews of customers online on sites like Yelp and Trip Advisor. Recently, my mother pointed out a post that had been left by a somewhat disgruntled customer who was upset about their policy of a mandatory 20% tip on meals paid for with a gift certificate. She wondered what the impact of this review might be, since potential customers were reading it.

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This is another subject I have been meaning to discuss that I haven’t seen debated a huge amount openly even though everyone in the industry is aware of it.

Simply checking the UK agencies ranking for ‘SEO’ (as an example) it’s very easy to spot that some of them are using their own clients as a link network to rank for that very term. I am not going to call anyone out or make examples of anyone, they know who they are.

Presumably by doing it they think its fine, so perhaps I can give examples.

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A good slide deck for a live presentation makes a lousy handout. Conversely, slides built to be referenced as a leave-behind are wrong for use as a presentation. If people can read your slides and get all the information they need, there is no need for you to waste their time talking for an hour.

But if you give a good webinar presentation that is useful and beneficial for the audience, they are naturally going to want a way to reference your information after the webinar. A good leave-behind can help you reach more people as it gets forwarded to colleagues by attendees or referenced by registrants who couldn’t make the live session.

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There are a lot of businesses that are staying away from social media, using the excuse that it’s not the right fit. That can be true, and I’ll often tell clients that they’re not ready for the space yet.

Yet there are also a lot that are saying it’s “opposite to our plans”. Meaning that they’re going to continue with their traditional marketing, PR, advertising or whatever. The one-way dialogue where they can exert the most control. Even though there are plenty of neon signs flashing that the message and medium has changed.

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