Social media guru Perry Belcher has a great new video out on how to organize your thoughts coming out of your brain. Check out the video below. It’s really neat how Perry is using YouTube to share his messages with his fans and build his social media chops. I’d like to hear your comments on it. Post them below as well. Thanks!

Image credit: greek-islands.us

So Twitter really does have power, it really works. This month I got a shock in the mail. My Comcast bill arrived with a surprise. Apparently my promotional period had ended, sending my TV (not HDTV yet) from $39.99 to $95.65. I was horrified and immediately began to complain on Twitter. I shot a quick note to Frank Eliason at his Twitter handle @comcastcares about the situation.Within minutes he said he’d look into it for me. I then gave customer service a call. I have to admit I was less than impressed with the billing department’s response to my quandry. The first lady said there was nothing that they could do (which I knew was a load of bull) and when I talked to the supervisor she passed me off again to the retention department. After a day of being bounced around the corporate phone system, I managed to get some kind of promotion, but I was still not impressed with the outcome. I decided to wait a few more days and see if Frank could do anything.

Like many areas, Verizon Fios is being installed. The thought of switching, I admit, began to enter my mind. Though the product loyalty that was developed by Frank’s hard work on Twitter made it really hard to bare leaving Comcast. Yes I admit it, the old saying is true: “You buy from people you like.” And well I really like how Frank and his team are always just a few minutes away from solving my problems on their network and it was this safety net that made me contact Frank and his team in the first place.

Image credit: Shel Israel

As promised he said he would look into it for me and sure enough within a day an angel from Comcast (I’ll leave his name out because I don’t think we wants to be bombarded with emails or inquiries) wrote me an email and set me up with a deal that I couldn’t refuse. Let’s just say I originally though what he was writing was a joke. It was that good of an offer and didn’t involve signing over my soul.

This situation proves that not only is Comcast rehabbing it’s customer service through mediums like Twitter and the other social networks, but they are doing their best to please those customers who might have left if they decided to not give a hoot (sorry for the bad bird pun). Though they still have lots of work to do on their phone customer service. Their presence online has definitely helped them greatly.

The moral of this story is simple. Don’t judge a social networking/media service based on its naysayers and criticism, judge it based on your experience with the service yourself. If you’re not interested in it fine. But don’t put down those who do use it until you’ve tried it for yourself.

It is all about community building and growing your “social” network. Twitter and these other networking platforms are like traditional networking, it’s how you work it that makes it valuable.

I’d like to hear your feedback and comments. Please post them below!

Found this via Twitter and @prsarahevans and Mashable. It’s a good slide to illustrate the validity and usefulness of Twitter. I’d like to hear your comments on this slide. Please comment below.

Image: Flickr/ogilvyprworldwide

Enjoy! Post your comments below!

Social Media’s uses for Business and Personal Gain from Seth Goldstein on Vimeo.

Common Craft has put out another great video, this time it’s on Social Media. With Social Media growing in popularity, more and more people are trying to learn what exactly it is. This video does a great job of doing just that. Enjoy.

Image: Flickr/kpmarek

With revenue down and marketing budgets tight, there’s never been a better time to generate some free publicity for your business. So, put your Public Relations hat on and get started promoting your products and services. Here are some tips and PR “best practices” to help get you started.

Share the news
The key to gaining exposure in the media is to share information about your company, products and services.  Don’t wait for the news release on your website to be discovered. You need to proactively reach out to media contacts with news and information about your business. This can be accomplished through the distribution of formal news releases, or with a simple phone call, email or “What I’m working on” post on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.

Be relevant
Relevancy will help you obtain media coverage. The more you can tie your activities to a major news story or emerging issue, the greater your opportunity for coverage. For example, in the Fall of 2007, I was able to generate incredible coverage for one client by tapping in to the media buzz surrounding the lead paint tainted toy crisis. My client was a gourmet grocery store, which may initially seem like an unlikely match given the nature of the crisis. But, by helping them host an event to provide free lead testing as a community service for concerned parents, I got them several pre-event interviews, as well as event coverage by three television stations, two newspapers and a local radio station, as well.  Not only did the event create a huge amount of media coverage, both pre and post-event, it also drove consumer traffic to their store and website.

Communicate and repeat
In any marketing activity, repetition is critical for success. Your submission may not get picked-up the first time, but don’t let that dissuade you. Keep trying. If they didn’t think your submission was interesting one day, they may on another. Circumstances change and so do attitudes in newsrooms. Keep sharing your updates. Eventually, your story will gain coverage.

Think big
Your story may or may not merit national television coverage, or a guest appearance on Oprah, but you need to allow the networks and producers to make that call. One thing is certain, you will never receive major media coverage if they don’t know about you. Spread your message far and wide.

Adhere to these PR “best practices” and you will generate substantial coverage for your business. I’m looking forward to reading about you in the news!

Tanya C. Bamford is the President of TCB Marketing LLC–a Marketing Services firm based in suburban Philadelphia, PA. Follow Tanya’s posts on Twitter @TCBMarketing.

TwiTip.com has a great post on what the differences and what the similarities are between Facebook and Twitter. The article highlights the pros and cons of both services and what type of person each service appeals to.

A very interesting article. Below are the pros and cons of each service. Take a look.

Twitter Pros

* Easy to navigate and update, link to and promote anything

* Reach far beyond your inner circle of friends

* One feed pools all users; anyone can follow anyone else unless blocked

* Pure communication tool, rapid responsiveness

* You don’t have to be logged in to get updates; you can just use an RSS reader

* Very interactive, extensible messaging platform with open APIs

* Many other applications being developed (Twitterific, Summize, Twhirl, etc.)

* Potential SMS text messaging revenue from wireless networks (although Twitter states they are not currently getting any cut)

* Potential future advertising and/or enterprise subscription-based revenue streams\* With its “thin” overhead, Twitter is probably more scalable than Facebook, giving it a cost advantageTwitter Cons

* Limited functionality; find people, send brief messages, direct replies

* Limited to 140 characters per update

* Not all people find it immediately useful

* Over-emphasis on follower counts

* Easily abused for spam and increasing the noise level

* Relatively smaller installed user base

* As yet no readily apparent monetization strategy

Facebook Pros

* Application mashup; find people, make connections, email, instant messaging, image/video sharing, etc.

* Most people can quickly grasp the value of connecting with friends, family and established contacts; some people report they use Facebook instead of email and IM

* More emphasis on deep connections with others vs. who has the most connections

* “True Friends” feature increases your transparency to selected connections; almost like having private and public profiles

* Huge, rapidly growing installed user base

* Inherit stickiness, third party applications, “gift giving” and personal data collection make Facebook a powerful advertising platform

Facebook Cons

* More difficult to navigate and update

* Requires investment of time to realize sustained benefit

* Opt in model requires a user to allow others to connect

* Less immediate responses; unless you stay logged on continually

* Overhead of mashup and “thick” applications could limit scalability, bloat cost structure

via Facebook vs Twitter.

Twitter exploded in 2008, as did the whole concept of social media. If you own or operate a business, you are at least familiar with what I’m talking about. When I first joined twitter, I thought it was just like every other social networking or bookmarking site, but I soon found out it was so much more than that.

At first glance, you may think twitter is a gathering place for lonely, bored people to tell total strangers what they’re doing at any given moment. Or you may see a business post a tweet with their link and think the whole social media thing is a big waste of your time. But hang out a while and start engaging with some of the people you follow, and you’ll see how beneficial it can be for your business.

For example, I follow Seth and I started responding to some of his tweets and reading the links he was posting, and now I’m writing a post on his blog. This type of networking helps him because it provides content for his blog that has a different perspective, and it helps me because now all his readers will learn who I am and what I do. Not only did engaging in conversation with Seth get me this gig, he’s also given me advice and sent me helpful articles that pertain to my consulting work.

I’ve also gotten advice about how to get more traffic to my blog from people on twitter that have years more experience than me. These are highly successful bloggers and business people, and they’re giving me this help and advice for free! That’s the thing about social media; it’s social so you start to build relationships and friendships and who wouldn’t want to help a friend be as successful as possible? Then of course, there’s the fact that you’re building brand recognition.

There are millions of people on twitter and other social media sites now. When you join these sites, all these people see who you are, what your business is and what products or services you provide. Companies spend billions of dollars a year for this type of exposure and you’re getting it for free, just by engaging in friendly conversations.

There is no doubt social media is here to stay, and I believe that twitter will grow even bigger and become even more important in 2009. If you own or operate any type of business, you’d be foolish not to join the rest of us meeting and networking online. But let’s hear what you think. Do you agree that social media is here to stay? Is twitter the best one out there right now, or do you prefer other social sites? Let us know what you think by leaving a comment, question or suggestion and let’s keep the conversation going.

Jennifer Larson is the owner of JBerry Marketing Consultants, and has spent the last three years promoting her clients online. If you would like to learn more, you can visit her blog at www.jberrymarketing.wordpress.com.

A must watch:

Image Credit: Junta42.com

There is an interesting term circulating on the Web lately. The term is Social Media Marketing and it has become the newest hip thing to offer clients. Many marketers are touting the skill. Is this wrong? No. Is it wrong to boast a skill that you really don’t have? Yes. That’s exactly the problem. Many are saying they offer it but don’t have a clue how to leverage it for business purposes.

I know that when I decided to offer “Social Media Marketing” as a service to my clients, I decided I needed to know as much about the inner workings of these social media sites as possible so that I could explain them to my clients in simple terms that they could understand. I immediately went to Amazon and bought as many books on services like Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter as well as books on the philosophy behind social media and how use it to grow your business. After all this reading was I ready to offer the service to my clients? No. I still had to test it out on my own brand first to make sure I was able to do it. Have I found success? Yes and no. Social Media Marketing isn’t an overnight task. Like Search Engine Optimization, it takes time to grow a community around yourself and your brand and gain their trust.

A good example of how I’ve slowly built up my brand and myself in social media is on Twitter. I’ve been a member of the microblogging service since September 2007. When I first signed up, it was merely to see what it was all about. I didn’t quite understand the power of it. Honestly, most didn’t at that time. Slowly I began to gain friends on the service and build relationships. About a year and a few months later I have 550+ followers and I’m slowly seeing the effects of my hardwork.

I’ve started to do some social media work for my clients and before I start I always tell them that it takes time. They won’t see results overnight and they need to be patient and actively participate in the discussions and discourse on these services. Honestly, if any “social media marketing guru” tells a client that they can do it overnight, show them the door.

I think “Social Media Marketing” is becoming a buzz term that is popular because it has a good ring to it. What bugs me is those Twitter users or Facebook users that say they’re social media gurus but have no website with examples of how they’ve applied it to their own company. Why would you hire someone to grow your company if they haven’t even tried to do it for themselves first.

The best test-subject is yourself. Before you go to market with a product try it out on yourself first. Iron out the bugs and figure out how you can apply it to other people. Only then do you market it to others. Not before.

Even with the growth of this new industry, people are going to continue to claim skills that they don’t really have. It’s up to the customers to find the ones that really are the real deal.

I want to hear your views on this. Please post your comments below!