Category blogs

Content Marketing: The Value of Reruns

0 comments By Chad Thiele Filed in blogging, blogs, Inbound marketing, podcast, podcasts, social media Tagged with Blogging, Blogs, Inbound marketing, podcast, podcasts, social media November 15th, 2012 @ 8:00 am

The holiday season is fast approaching. With it brings holiday parades, Christmas shopping and gatherings with family and friends.

However, even though there are many additional things that demand your attention, the work still needs to get done.

In fact, chances are that your business has year-end goals that need to be met. This could very well mean many long days (and nights) at the office.

When you combine the daily work responsibilities with the increased activity in your employees’ personal lives, something will have to give.

It is very possible that your business’s content marketing efforts might be the first thing to get pushed aside because it does take time and the return on investment is not always immediately noticeable.

However, while the impact on your business’s bottom line might not be immediately noticeable or even trackable, most experts agree, content marketing often works.

And, now is definitely not the time to let up, particularly if your business can benefit from consumers’ holiday gift-giving traditions. Furthermore, if your business is a B-to-B, now might be the time of year that your customers are making plans for the next fiscal year, particularly if it coincides with the calendar year.

It Pays to Plan Ahead

If your business had the foresight to plan ahead, you might have created a few extra blog posts, white papers or informational videos when your employees had a little extra time on their hands. If so, now would be a great time to add them to your editorial calendar.

However, even if you didn’t think ahead, it doesn’t mean that all is lost.

There is still time to pull in a guest blogger to create some non-branded content that your customers might find useful this time of year. You might even be able to ask employees who aren’t normally involved in your content marketing efforts to submit a blog post. You never know, you might find out that some of your employees have hidden talents that you were unaware of.

Content Marketing Reruns

Another thing to remember is that most people don’t have the time to consume everything that you produce throughout the year.

Therefore, just as television shows air reruns from time-to-time, posting old blog posts or other content on social networking sites might be a great way to keep your customers engaged and informed, with little or no extra effort required. (This is particularly useful if the content isn’t time-sensitive and therefore has a longer shelf life.)

Also keep in mind, people love lists. Therefore, now might be a great time to write a few best-of blog posts that highlight some of your best posts from the past.

Final Thoughts

There are some things that your business can do to keep your customers engaged and informed online, while still accomplishing all the other things that need to get done this time of year.

With the right planning, you won’t have to play role of Ebenezer Scrooge and require employees to work so much that they don’t have time to enjoy the holidays.

This can include posting content that was created ahead of time or pulling in a guest blogger to create non-branded content that your customers might find useful.

Also, keep in mind, just because you posted something a few months ago, doesn’t mean that the information isn’t still valuable to your customers. In fact, your customers probably didn’t see all the content that you created throughout the year.

Therefore, now might be a great time to repost some of your old blog posts on social networking sites or create a few best-of blog posts.

As television shows have demonstrated for years, content that is created might be just as valuable to consumers the second time around.

Photo credit: J.Elliott on Flickr.

Chad Thiele

Marketing analyst and strategist, freelance writer, content curator, applied sociologist, and a proud UW-Madison alumnus. My goal is to help businesses achieve their marketing objectives and business goals while gaining additional experience in the exciting world of digital marketing. I'm currently looking for my next career challenge. Please feel free to contact me anytime at: chadjthiele@gmail.com.

Have You IWalked?

0 comments By Chad Thiele Filed in app, apps, blogs, In the Spotlight, social media Tagged with app, apps, Blogs, In the Spotlight, social media August 15th, 2012 @ 8:00 am

Have you ever walked through a historic part of a city and saw a building and wondered if anyone famous ever lived or worked there?

Well, if you live in or plan to travel to Boston, New York City, or Washington D.C. in the near future, IWalked Audio Tours has you covered.

IWalked Audio Tours is a Boston-based audio tour production company that was founded in 2010 by Scott Woznicki.

In a June 11, 2012 press release, Woznicki explains that the company was born out of a passion to learn more about his new home in Boston, Massachusetts.

“I was inspired from living in London. I found a fantastic series of live audio walking tours that really opened my eyes to the city. I wanted to recreate that experience here,” states Woznicki.

According to the press release, “Each audio tour produced is recorded in real-time and provides step-by-step guidance for its listeners. You can actually hear the traffic passing by, adding to the ambience and experience. In addition, listeners are treated to a comprehensive portrait of sites along their traveled path. This isn’t your ordinary museum audio tour that leaves you hanging between destinations, as listeners are engaged throughout the full-length 1.5 to 3 hour tour.”

For those of you who don’t plan to be in the Boston, New York, or Washington D.C. areas, you can still benefit from Woznicki’s expertise, as he is very active on most social networking sites. If you have a question about the history of a historic building or landmark anywhere in the United States, he’d be a good guy to ask.

For full disclosure, I’ve been friends with Woznicki for about twenty years now, as we both attended the University of Wisconsin-Marathon County (UWMC) our first two years in college.

In the future, I plan to interview him about how effective each of the social networking sites has been in driving people to his business.

In this post, I want to encourage readers to connect with IWalked Audio Tours on Facebook, Foursquare, Google+, Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter, or YouTube. IWalked Audio Tours also has a very interesting history/travel blog.

And, of course, if you are going to be in Boston, New York, or Washington D.C., be sure to take an IWalked Audio Tour.

If you are a history buff, you won’t regret it. Trust me.

Chad Thiele

Social Networking Sites Should Not Replace Your Website or Blog

0 comments By Chad Thiele Filed in app, blogs, Facebook, Inbound marketing, mobile, social media, technology, Tumblr, Twitter, word of mouth advertising Tagged with app, Blogs, Facebook, Inbound marketing, mobile, social media, technology, Tumblr, Twitter, word-of-mouth advertising June 2nd, 2012 @ 7:00 pm

On Friday, picplz announced that on July 3, 2012, it will shut down permanently.

This is not surprising, given the fact that Instagram recently released an Android version of the Instagram app. Prior to the release of Instagram’s Android app, picplz was one of the best alternatives available to people with Android phones.

What is more noteworthy is that all the photos picplz users have posted on the service will be deleted.

This is a good reminder that many of the services that we use could do the same thing, and all the time and effort that we spent posting photos and other content and building human connections could be for naught.

Home Bases, Passports, and Outposts

Chris Brogan, Darren Rowse, and others have been blogging about the concept of home bases, passports, and outposts for years.

One of the key points from their posts that I want to focus on is the fact that while social networking sites (passports and outposts) are great for connecting to your customers and prospects, they should not replace your blog or website (home base).

To build on that further, if your blog or website is being used for your business, you should spend the money and find a web hosting service for your blog or website. After all, while Tumblr or even WordPress.com might be around for a long time, they could choose to shut down at any time. If that happened, all the posts and relationships that you spent time and effort creating would be gone… forever.

Futhermore, while social networking sites should be a part of your online marketing strategy, you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket. If you only post on one social networking site, you are completely at the mercy of that site. For a business, that is not really a good position to be in.

Final Thoughts

Even with all the free social networking sites that are available, you should still invest in a self-hosted blog or website. This will give you complete control over the design, layout and content that you make available to your customers and prospects. And, the site will never go away, unless you want it to.

Don’t get me wrong, you definitely should be using social networking sites to connect to your customers and prospects. The point is, social networking sites (yep, that even includes Facebook) should not replace you website or blog. They should be used in addition to your blog or website. And, whenever possible, you should be using these social networking sites to drive customers and prospects to your blog or website.

Finally, if you have the resources, you should be connecting to customers and prospects on more than one social networking site for two reasons. First, people are fickle (i.e., they might choose to start using another social networking site more frequently.) And second, because social networking sites are run by third parties, there is always the possibility that they could decide to shut the site down.

When a social networking site does choose to shut down, all the content and connections that you spent precious time and effort creating will be lost, unless you find a way to bring your customers and prospects to your website or blog, where you are in control of what they see and how they connect to your business.

With that said, I have to go download a few photos…

Photo credit: odysseygate on Flickr.

Chad Thiele

An Excellent Resource for Information: Podcasts

By Chad Thiele Filed in blogs, podcast, podcasts, social media Tagged with Blogs, podcast, podcasts, social media March 6th, 2012 @ 8:00 pm

When people talk about social media, they are usually referring to blogs or social networking sites like Facebook, Foursquare, Google+, Twitter, Tumblr, and more recently Pinterest. This is not surprising, given the fact that these are the platforms that most consumers are familiar with, and thus, this is where businesses and traditional media tend to focus.

However, there is a type of social media that I find very useful, almost indispensible, that doesn’t receive the attention that it deserves. From the title of this post, you know the amazing resource that I’m writing about is podcasting.

Merriam-Webster defines a podcast as, “A program (as of music or talk) made available in digital format for automatic download over the Internet.”

The type of podcasts that I am particularly interested in are those that focus on providing information on a specific topic that might be of interest to a particular subset of the population. Often, the best podcasts give users access to insights from experts that were previously only available via lectures in a classroom or a conference, or via summaries in books, blog posts or articles in magazines and newspapers. The great thing about podcasts is that this information is often available for free and on a regular basis. Even better, it is often delivered in the expert’s own voice.

Furthermore, as Todd Schnick points out in a recent blog post, titled “10 Benefits to Podcasting [New Audio!],” there are several ways that businesses can benefit when they add podcasting to their marketing mix.

Podcasts That I’d Recommend

Given that fact that I’m interested in digital marketing, most of the podcasts that I listen to tend to focus on marketing, social media or technology. Here are a few of the podcasts that I recommend:

ADVERVE – Hosted by Angela Natividad and Bill Green, ADVERVE covers design, ad goodness, brand stuff, pop culture and almost anything else that they can think of. Both hosts are extremely knowledgeable and fun to listen to. I’d definitely add this podcast to your RSS feed.

Be a Beacon Show with David Cohen – This podcast is hosted by David Cohen, brand consultant and artist. The podcast focuses on personal branding and small business entrepreneurship in the age of social information. I met David at the “Shine a Light on Others to Build Your Brand” event at Social Media Atlanta (now Digital Atlanta) back in 2010. David is a very smart guy with some interesting insights to share. If you get a chance, you might also want to check out his doodles.

CNN’s Tech Check Podcast – As they say, “The weekly podcast offers a roundup of the week’s technology news, with members of CNN.com’s tech team working to make sense of, and sometimes make light of, the top stories from the digital world.” This podcast regularly features Doug Gross, Stephanie Goldberg, Brandon Griggs and John Sutter.

Duct Tape Marketing – Moderated by John Jantch, this marketing podcast is definitely worth your time. If the podcast only featured his thoughts on marketing, it would still be a very valuable resource. However, the fact that his podcast features some of the most respected names in Internet marketing today makes it a podcast that you definitely should be listening to.

Intrepid Radio – This podcast is hosted by Todd Schnick, owner of Intrepid Group, LLC. Todd was also a panelist at the Social Media Atlanta “Shine a Light on Others to Build Your Brand” event. He’s a very good guy and his podcast has featured some heavyweight guests, including Guy Kawasaki, David Meerman Scott, Julien Smith, Christopher S. Penn, Jay Baer, and C.C. Chapman.

Marketing Over Coffee – This is, by far, is one of my favorite podcasts. Christopher S. Penn and John J. Wall really know their stuff. If your business is doing anything online, you should give them a listen.

NPR’s On the Media – This podcast is a great way to listen to past episodes that you didn’t have a chance to listen to when the show aired locally on NPR. Hosted by Bob Garfield and Brooke Gladstone, On the Media is a very entertaining podcast that covers journalism, technology and First Amendment issues.

Office Hours – Each week, Vanessa Fox, former Google employee and founder of Nine By Blue, covers questions regarding search engine marketing. If you have a question about SEO, search metrics, social media strategies or just about anything else that you can think of when you think about online marketing, Vanessa Fox can probably give you an answer. (Note: There hasn’t been an episode in a while, but I still wanted to include it on the list).

Social Pros Podcast – This is a relatively new podcast that is being moderated by Jay Baer, author of “The NOW Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter and More Social” (affiliate link). After listening to the first few episodes, I think this podcast should be on your list, too.

The BeanCast – Each week, host Bob Knorpp and his guests discuss the latest news from the marketing and advertising world. This podcast is always insightful and entertaining. It’s another one of my favorite podcasts.

This Week in Law – I recently added this podcast to my RSS feed. In each episode, Denise Howell and the TWiL panel talk about breaking issues regarding technology law.

There are many other great marketing and technology podcasts out there—all a person has to do is do a Google search to get additional suggestions.

However, if your favorite marketing or technology podcast is not on this list, please let me know about it in the comments section below, as I’m always looking for additional sources of information.

Final Thoughts

Podcasts are a great resource for information.

No matter what you are interested in, I’m sure there is someone out there podcasting about that topic. And, if not, this might be something that you might want to consider doing.

Keep in mind, podcast listeners aren’t the only ones who benefit from podcasts. As Todd Schnick points out in his blog post, podcasting can also be very beneficial to your business.

Photo credit: Colleen AF Venable on Flickr.

Chad Thiele

Some Thoughts on the 2012 Super Bowl Commercials

0 comments By Chad Thiele Filed in blogs, brand, social media, technology, television, word of mouth advertising Tagged with Blogs, brand, social media, technology, television, word-of-mouth advertising February 8th, 2012 @ 6:00 pm

Super Bowl XLVI set the record for the most-watched telecast in U.S. history.

The Nielsen Company said on Monday that an estimated 111.3 million people in the U.S. watched the game on television on Sunday night.

People who tuned in to watch the game itself were treated to one of the most exciting endings in recent years.

However, for those viewers who tuned in to watch the commercials…

Releasing the Commercials Early

Last year, Volkswagen released the Darth Vader-themed Super Bowl spot ahead of time and it received a lot of buzz on the Internet. That was a great move for Volkswagen because, at the time, it was a fairly unique idea. (It also didn’t hurt that they had a really great commercial.)

This year, many brands tried to replicate Volkswagen’s success by releasing their commercials on the Internet prior to the game.

For some brands, it was a good move because many people were talking about their commercials online. That’s a good thing, as it helps brands get more out of their investment.

However, as many people tweeted and still others blogged about, the 2012 commercials didn’t seem as distinctive as they have in the past. In other words, in the past, the commercials were an event in and of themselves. In contrast, to many people who watched the commercials ahead of time, some of the 2012 commercials seemed like average, everyday commercials, not Super Bowl-caliber commercials.

In a blog post, Tom Siebert predicts that, “Next year, I’m guessing you’ll see less of it, because releasing an ad early is no longer anything special. Most of the buzz for the early ads for VW, Acura, CR-V, all burned off by game time, and the best ads were the ones that came out of nowhere and surprised.”

Whether or not he is correct will depend on how much brands value the pregame buzz online versus their desire to surprise and delight viewers by premiering their commercials during the game. The decision will also need to be based on how many people are still talking about their commercials a few months from now, or even next year.

Final Thoughts

Several people have pointed out that they don’t feel that any of the 2012 Super Bowl commercials were as memorable as last year’s Chrysler “Made in Detroit” ad that featured Eminem or Volkswagen’s “The Force” commercial.

The early release of the commercials online might have had an impact on the way that some people perceived the 2012 Super Bowl commercials.

It will be interesting to see what brands do in the future… their decision is not going to be as easy as one might think.

On the one hand, they could choose to release their commercials early to get the online buzz. On the other hand, they could choose to wait until the day of the game to unveil their commercials in order to make them something that viewers look forward to.

In the end, it might be a year-to-year decision with the contrarian brand (i.e., the brand that does the opposite of what most of the other brands are doing) getting the best results.

However, for either strategy to work, brands still need to create a really great commercial to air on Super Bowl Sunday.

Photo credit: The Daring Librarian on Flickr.

Chad Thiele

Market Research Is Marketing

0 comments By Chad Thiele Filed in blogging, blogs, Inbound marketing, market research, SEO, social media Tagged with Blogging, Blogs, Inbound marketing, market research, SEO, social media January 10th, 2012 @ 7:00 pm

Market research is marketing.

This statement might sound completely ludicrous to some people. To them, market research is all about collecting information about their customers, the products that they are selling, the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns, economic conditions or anything else that can influence their bottom line. It’s a huge part of developing their marketing strategy. But, it isn’t marketing.

If you are one of those people, you either haven’t embraced inbound marketing as a viable way of generating leads and increasing sales or you don’t understand what market researchers do.

Inbound Marketing

If you look up inbound marketing in Wikipedia, it lists two definitions.

The old definition of inbound marketing is market research.

However, the other definition is more in line with what people often refer to when they currently mention inbound marketing. This definition states that inbound marketing is a marketing strategy that focuses on getting found by customers.

HubSpot, a leader in inbound marketing, teaches that in addition to getting found (i.e., creating, optimizing and promoting your content), you also need to find ways to maximize conversions and analyze the results of your efforts in order to be a successful inbound marketer.

In a blog post, titled “Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing,” Brian Halligan, CEO and Founder of HubSpot, writes, “Rather than doing outbound marketing to the masses of people who are trying to block you out, I advocate doing ”inbound marketing” where you help yourself “get found” by people already learning about and shopping in your industry. In order to do this, you need to set your website up like a “hub” for your industry that attracts visitors naturally through search engines, the blogosphere, and social media. I believe most marketers today spend 90% of their efforts on outbound marketing and 10% on inbound marketing, and I advocate that those ratios flip.”

Market Research

Now that we have a basic understanding about what inbound marketing is, let’s now look at what many market researchers do.

Part of the purpose of doing market research is to uncover information that will help identify what your potential customers need, how your products or services are fulfilling their needs, what your competitors are doing to fulfill their needs and what environmental factors will have an impact on what your potential customers will need in the future.

After collecting the information either through primary research (e.g., surveys, focus groups, observational studies, experiments, etc.) or secondary research, it is usually the job of those in market research to organize the data in an accurate and easily understandable format that can be delivered to the client. The data is often presented in written form (e.g., reports, white papers, blog posts, etc.) However, it could just as easily be delivered in person or via podcasts, webinars, online videos or any other way that people can communicate with each other.

Furthermore, after doing research on specific topics, the market researchers who conduct the research often gain so much knowledge about the topics that they are researching that they become thought leaders or subject matter experts in that particular area of business. This will often give them access to even more people who they can collaborate with.

In other words, market researchers are huge content creators.

In fact, I would argue that most of the content that your potential customers find valuable has some information that was influenced by market research in one form or another. (Note: I am focusing on information that was created to educate consumers about a product, service or industry, not content that was created for entertainment purposes.)

Inbound Marketing and Market Research

We have already established that market researchers are by definition content creators.

But, I would argue that the other areas of inbound marketing also involve a form of market research.

Market research adds value to the content and valuable content helps generate links to your website or blog. Therefore, market research helps with search engine optimization. (It also doesn’t hurt to conduct market research to find out what your potential customers find valuable in the first place.)

I’d even argue that search engine optimization, itself, is a form of market research. It definitely requires many of the same skill sets.

And, when promoting your content, it is always suggested that you measure and test the effectiveness of your efforts. Testing and measuring the effectiveness of your content promotion efforts are forms of market research.

Measuring and testing also play a part in maximizing the conversion process.

And, analyzing the final results of your inbound marketing efforts… yep, that’s market research.

From Market Researcher to Marketer

If you asked me 10 years ago what I did for a living, I would have told you that I was a market researcher.

At that time, even I didn’t really think of myself as a marketer even though I was involved in the marketing of the research products and services that I helped create. (Note: CUNA Research was using inbound marketing techniques to market their products and services before the term was even coined. Need proof? The Research Review articles that are listed in my publication list could very well be described as blog posts. Blog posts, that in my opinion, delivered value to the reader.)

It wasn’t until I started learning about inbound marketing and content marketing that I started to see myself as a marketer, rather than a market researcher.

Final Thoughts

As more marketing campaigns move online, businesses will gain additional access to analytics that will help them better understand the needs of their customers.

Furthermore, with the increased use of smartphones, savvy businesses will make it extremely easy for consumers to find them no matter where they look. Providing relevant and useful information to consumers when they search for their products, services or industry will give these businesses an edge over their competition.

This makes it even more important for businesses to have people on staff who have the knowledge and training to accurately interpret data and present it in a clear and concise way so that it can be effectively communicated to their potential customers.

With that said, the line between marketer and market researcher is being blurred, so much so that they are often one and the same.

Therefore, the next time you are looking to fill a marketing position, don’t overlook job applicants who have a background in market research. Their skill sets may be more valuable than you think.

Photo credit: jeckman on Flickr.

Chad Thiele

An Excellent Resource for Internet Marketing Advice – HubSpot

0 comments By Chad Thiele Filed in blogging, blogs, email marketing, Facebook, SEO, social media, technology, Twitter Tagged with Blogging, Blogs, email marketing, Facebook, HubSpot, SEO, social media, technology, Twitter December 16th, 2011 @ 3:00 pm

If you are looking to leverage the power of the Internet to help grow your business, one of the first places I’d suggest that you look is HubSpot.

According to the “Company Fact Sheet” on hubspot.com, “HubSpot is an Internet marketing startup whose software helps businesses get found online, generate more inbound leads and convert a higher percentage of those leads into paying customers. HubSpot’s software platform includes tools that allow professional marketers and small business owners to manage search engine optimization, blogging and social media, as well as landing pages, lead intelligence and marketing analytics.”

However, you don’t need to be a paying customer to benefit from HubSpot’s expertise.

HubSpot provides many free resources that your business can use to keep up with the latest inbound marketing trends and best practices.

I have been a fan of HubSpot ever since I first tuned in to the Marketing Update (formerly HubSpot TV) back in the summer of 2009. This is a great resource if you want keep up with the latest inbound marketing news. (You can watch HubSpot’s Marketing Update live at 4 p.m. EST every Friday.)

Since then, I have learned a lot from HubSpot’s many white papers, webinars and blog posts.

HubSpot also speaks at, sponsors and participates in various industry conferences and events, including OMMA Global, PubCon, Business of Software, Online Market World, Search Engine Strategies, SMX, Venture Summit, Inbound Marketing Summit, etc.

In fact, earlier this year I attended an AMA Tampa Bay event that featured HubSpot’s Ellie Mirman. As you would expect, it was a very informative event.

Inbound Marketing University

Recently, I earned my Inbound Marketing Certification from the Inbound Marketing University after completing its comprehensive Internet marketing training program.

The training program currently includes 18 in-depth classes covering each facet of inbound marketing.

The courses are taught by some of the most respected names in Internet marketing today, including New York Times’ best-selling author Chris Brogan, Google Analytics Evangelist Avinash Kaushik, best-selling author and international speaker David Meerman Scott, best-selling author and co-founder of Alltop.com Guy Kawasaki, and more.

To earn the Inbound Marketing Certification, students must pass the comprehensive certification exam that includes 50 multiple choice and true & false questions.

As stated on the site, “The Inbound Marketing Certification acknowledges the recipient’s proficiency in Inbound Marketing principles and best practices. These principles include: blogging, social media, lead conversion, lead nurturing, and closed-loop analysis.”

In order to earn the Inbound Marketing Certification, the student must receive a score of 75% or higher on the comprehensive certification exam.

The Honors Distinction is awarded to the top 15% of exam takers. To receive this honor, test takers must earn a score of 90% or higher.

The Inbound Marketing University training program is administered by HubSpot.

And, the best part… both the training and certification are completely free.

For more information, visit inboundmarketing.com.

Final Thoughts

As I mentioned earlier, I have been a fan of HubSpot since the summer of 2009.

They are a very respected company that definitely delivers value to their customers.

According to co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah, “The average HubSpot customer grows their lead generation by 32% monthly, and over 80% of customers report increased web traffic and lead generation when using HubSpot software. 85% of HubSpot customers recommend the software to their friends.”

However, as I mentioned before, you don’t need to be a paying customer to gain from HubSpot’s expertise.

Chances are that your business could benefit from the wide range of free resources that are available from HubSpot, including their many webinars, white papers, and blog posts.

Futhermore, even if you don’t take the certification exam, HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing University is definitely worth the time and effort. And, it’s free.

So what are you waiting for? Head over to hubspot.com to find out more information.

Photo credit: jameskm03 on Flickr.

Chad Thiele

1911 Main Street’s Top 10 Social Networking Sites for Business 2011

0 comments By Chad Thiele Filed in blogs, Facebook, Foursquare, Location-based social networking sites, market research, SEO, social media, technology, Tumblr, Twitter Tagged with Blogs, Facebook, Foursquare, Location-based social networking sites, market research, SEO, social media, technology, Tumblr, Twitter December 13th, 2011 @ 11:00 pm

This is the time of the year for holiday parties, college football bowl games, Santa Claus, and looking back at the year that was.

It is also the time of year for “best of” lists… and lots of them.

So, in keeping with the tradition, I submit to you my list of the top 10 social networking sites for business 2011.

Note: There are many smartphone apps that could be considered social networking sites that I haven’t included on this list. I plan to write a post in the near future dedicated to smartphone apps, so if some of your favorite apps didn’t make this list, check back in the next few weeks.

The Top 10 List

1. Facebook

A “best of” social networking site list would not be credible if it didn’t start off with Facebook. The site was launched in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with the help of some of his roommates and fellow students, including Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. Facebook was initially limited to Harvard students. However, it eventually opened up to the general public and now boasts more than 800 million active users worldwide. With numbers like that, it isn’t hard to see why this site is number one on my “best of” social networking site list.

On its site, Facebook has several resources to help businesses connect with current and potential customers.

2. Twitter

Founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Evan Williams and Biz Stone, Twitter enables users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, also known as “tweets”, in real-time. Twitter’s “About” page mentions that, “Businesses use Twitter to quickly share information with people interested in their products and services, gather real-time market intelligence and feedback, and build relationships with customers, partners and influential people. From brand lift, to CRM, to direct sales, Twitter offers businesses a chance to reach an engaged audience.”

For more information about using Twitter for business, check out the “Twitter for Business” page.

3. LinkedIn

LinkedIn was founded in 2002 and launched the following year. It is one of the premier social networking sites for business professionals. According to its website, as of November of 2011, LinkedIn had more than 135 million members in over 200 countries. LinkedIn mentions that all of the 2011 Fortune 500 companies have executives who are members of LinkedIn. Futhermore, LinkedIn’s hiring solutions are used by 75 of the Fortune 100 companies.

Check out the LinkedIn “About Us” page for additional information.

4. Google+

Launched in June of this year, Google+ has grown rather quickly. (A recent Mashable article stated that it has an estimated 40 million users.) With the recent launch of Google+ Brand pages, Google+ should definitely be on your radar.

For more information about Pages for Google+, visit the Google.com website.

5. Myspace

Launched in 2003, this once dominant social networking site has experienced a massive exodus in recent years. However, according to comScore, Myspace still had over 28.4 million unique visitors in October of 2011. This is a sizable number. Furthermore, Myspace was recently purchased by Specific Media and Justin Timberlake. They plan to relaunch the site in 2012. Will this be enough to revive Myspace? I don’t know. However, it might be a good place to buy ads in the short-term, as people will most likely revisit the site to see what changes are made.

6. Tumblr

As I mentioned in a recent blog post, businesses, particularly those that are targeting consumers age 18 to 34, should keep an eye on Tumblr. According to a recent Nielsen study, titled “State of the Media: The Social Media Report Q3 2011,” Tumblr nearly tripled its audience in the last year. In fact, it has become the 8th largest site in the U.S. Social Networks and Blogs category.

For more information, check out my blog post about Tumblr.

7. Foursquare

Around 15 million people worldwide are using Foursquare. Therefore, it’s not surprising that over 500,000 businesses are using the Merchant Platform. While other sites have tried to compete, Foursquare is currently the most successful location-based social networking site. Will it ever gain widespread acceptance? Probably not. However, there are a lot of cool things that can be done with location-based social networking sites. Furthermore, as a recent Adweek article points out, the early adopters of location-based social networking sites tend to be influential and young. The article also mentions that these early adopters are more likely to share product information, promotional coupons or discount codes than average online U.S. adults. This is definitely something that businesses should think about.

8. YouTube

The YouTube website states that more than 3 billion videos are viewed per day on the site. It also states that 98 of AdAge’s Top 100 advertisers have run campaigns on YouTube and the Google Display Network. Furthermore, the number of advertisers using display ads on YouTube increased 10 fold in the last year. If your business is already creating engaging video content, you might want to consider sharing it on YouTube. You might also want to consider video podcasting as a way to get the word out about your business. But remember, don’t just talk about your business. Instead, focus on a topic that is related to your business and deliver content that your customers and potential customers will be interested in.

9. Yelp

According comScore, Yelp had 31.3 million unique visitors in October of 2011. This alone should give businesses a reason to make sure that they have a presence on the site. Good reviews will help drive Yelp users to your business. And, keep in mind, Yelp reviews can also show up in Google Search Engine Results Pages. Therefore, it pays to monitor what people are saying about your business on Yelp and other user-generated review sites and respond to your customers concerns.

This summer, I wrote a blog post about how user-generated online reviews can influence sales. You might want to check it out.

10. Flickr

According to Wikipedia, Flickr was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. Flickr is a site that allows users to post photos and videos. The Yahoo! website states that Flickr has 20 million unique U.S. visitors (nearly 80 million worldwide) that spend an average of 2.7 minutes per visit on the site. Therefore, it might be a good idea for your business to upload visually appealing photographs and videos that highlight its products and services. As an added bonus, many people use Flickr to find great content to share on other social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Flickr is also a great source to find photos for blog posts.

Note: You might want to give the content that you post on Flickr a Creative Commons license to encourage sharing.

Final Thoughts

This is my list of the Top 10 social networking sites for 2011.

Are there any social networking sites that I should have included? And, if so, what sites would you take off the list?

Photo credit: Montage Communications on Flickr.

Chad Thiele

Some Thoughts About Blogging

0 comments By Chad Thiele Filed in blogging, blogs Tagged with Blogging, Blogs November 25th, 2011 @ 3:00 pm

I’ve been posting on this blog for about five months now.

However, I decided to start blogging a year earlier.

In the year leading up to the formal launch of 1911mainstreet.com, I spent some time reading other blogs and posts on social networking sites.

In that time, I came to a few conclusions about what I think makes a blog valuable and what I want to accomplish with this blog.

One of the things that I noticed is that I enjoy posts that are short and to the point. If you have read Seth Godin’s blog, you know exactly what I am talking about.

However, given my market research background, I like to support my analysis with research or insights from experts. Therefore, many of my posts tend to be a little longer than I’d like. (I am planning to write more short posts in the future.)

The other thing that I have noticed is that blogs that deliver interesting insights tend to get me to visit the site more often.

I also tend to enjoy the blog more if I have met the blogger, in person. This helps me understand where the person is coming from. (Therefore, I think it pays to go to events where bloggers hang out.)

I have also found that I enjoy getting insights from many people. In order to do that, I rely on links from social networking sites like Twitter to point me to new blogs and blog posts.

What’s in a Name?

When I first decided to launch this blog, I was going to call it justevent.net. In fact, if you type in that domain name into your browser, it will take you to this blog.

I had always planned on writing about marketing.

The concept behind justevent.net was to point out that some of the best marketing campaigns are those that deliver value to your customers. In fact, if your marketing campaigns are really well executed, your customers will actually look forward to receiving the messages from you, no matter how they received them.

Thus, the communication that they receive from you would be an “event” that they look forward to.

A blog is a way to let people know what you think about a topic, or in other words, a medium to vent. Since it is online, it would also be an eVent.

The “just” is in justevent.net is in the same vein as the Nike slogan “Just Do It,” meaning that it pays to get out there and try new things and find out what works.

However, because I wasn’t going to focus solely on the creative side of marketing, I decided to change the title.

For more information about the story behind 1911mainstreet.com, take a few minutes to read the “about” page.

On Blogging Frequency

In my blog post, titled “In the Spotlight: Blogging Frequency,” I cited some suggestions from other bloggers that I planned to follow when I first started blogging.

For example, Chris Brogan suggested creating a schedule and sticking to it.

For the first two months, I did just that.

However, for the last three months, I haven’t been blogging on schedule.

Therefore, I plan to make an adjustment and post just two posts a week.

Instead of Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I will publish on Tuesday and Friday at 3 p.m. CDT.

On Guest Blogging

Other bloggers suggest writing guest blog posts to get your name out there. So far, I’ve written two guest posts for the Strategy E-ssentials blog. And, I plan to write more in the future.

If you get a chance, you might want to check out my latest post that I cowrote with Karin Khuhro, titled “Why Holiday Shoppers Don’t Buy From You & What You Can Do About It.”

Final Thoughts

Having a blog is a great way to share ideas with other people.

For businesses, it is an important part of a good inbound marketing strategy.

However, it is important to keep in mind that your readers’ time is valuable.

If you are going to take the time to write something, it makes sense to deliver quality content. Otherwise, you are just wasting your time and your readers’ time as well.

On the other hand, you never know what will be valuable, so it pays to try different things and see what your readers respond to.

With that said, see you next week.

Photo credit: nasmac on Flickr.