john {WEB}ster

Many people see social networking as a fun way to keep up with friends, family & coworkers, some savvy non-profits have created systems to leverage social media to accomplish so very lofty goals. These networks are increasing their visibility, helping their constituents improve their situation and quickly raising awareness of time-sensitive issues. To get the most from social networking, non-profits should start by focusing their attention on the “Friend Of A Friend” networks such as FaceBook, LinkedIn and MySpace that are suited to connect individuals and organizations with others who share similar interests and goals.

5 Popular Social Networking Tools

FaceBook: Currently the fastest growing social network of the group. FaceBook has jumped to the front of the line by being the clean and well organized “sibling” of MySpace. Techradar predicts that FaceBook will achieve 100 million active users by the first quarter of 2009. FaceBook has its greatest strength in its system of connecting members to each other.

When I walked into my local mobile phone store the other day, asking about the new Blackberry phone I was excited about, I found a coupon for a FREE latte at the coffee shop down the street. Being the coffee junkie that I am, I went down the street for my latte. You wouldn’t believe what I found on the counter at the coffee shop, a coupon for $50.00 off a new mobile phone at the store I had come from. These two shops were sending traffic to each other; they had created a strategic business alliance. In the wonderful world of marketing, this is known as Fusion Marketing.

The entrepreneur has been taught “if it’s going to be - it’s up to me”, but you’d be amazed about the synergy available by collaborating or aligning with others. Fusion marketing can propel your business to levels you never thought possible.

Those that are likely to benefit from fusion marketing alliances are called power partners. A “power partner” is a business that is targeting a similar market as yours but doesn’t compete with you. Examples of this are a funeral pre-planning and a life insurance salesperson; a dog groomer and a dry cleaner; a real estate agent and a mortgage company; a bridal company, a caterer and a disc jockey. It’s easy to see when you look at these examples where we are going with this. The number of power partners or fusion marketing alliances is only limited by your creativity.

Social media can be an incredible tool for your business, providing you with more customer insight, direct communication channels and the ability to measure the effectiveness of these conversations very closely.

However, to many business owners and marketing professionals, the social media industry is a big question mark. Some are not sure if this media constitutes a new, largely underutilized advertising medium, or if it’s simply a variation of traditional online advertising. Others question how a serious brand could succeed in the sometimes unpredictable environments of popularized consumer-oriented online communities. And some are uncertain about creating campaigns for social media, perhaps mistakenly believing that it requires a radical change from their current marketing approach.

The result — most are not capitalizing on social media and the opportunities it provides for making high-quality connections with consumers. According to a recent report by market research firm Compete, Inc., more than 71 percent of consumers who use social media are more influenced by user-generated content when making purchasing decisions than by information from brand advertisers and marketers.

But as the impact of social media grows, participating could easily turn into a giant time suck without some sort of structure behind it. With that in mind, I’ve put together 5 key steps for getting your company’s social media marketing program off to a successful start.