Social Media: It’s Importance on Business

1. Social media has become a mass-media in Asia that can’t be neglected due to it’s mere reach.

2. Blogs and communities offer insight about consumer opinions which have never been available before because they are real and true. I.e. businesses and brands can not only find out what consumers really think, but if done wisely they can use the willingness of people to create own content for product development (creative consumer).

3. The word-of-mouth (viral) potential of social media campaigns can create great buzz.

4. Brand management must adopt and create a culture within the company to profit from the social media development.

5. Opinions and reported experiences about companies, products and services are one of the most important influencing factors for decision building prior to the purchase of a product, no matter if the purchase happens online or offline.

The table below gives us a breakup of internet use around the globe, specifically focusing here on Asia:


Source: my-life-in-china.com

Combining the Strengths of Social and E-Mail

” “Even though people are spending more time using social media, they are not abandoning e-mail,” said Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, “Maximizing the E-Mail/Social Media Connection.” “The two channels can help each other, offering the opportunity for marketers to create deeper connections.” “

Read full article by clicking here.

SMO – The New SEO

(Brian Solis is principal of FutureWorks, an award-winning New Media agency in Silicon Valley, and has led interactive and social programs for Fortune 500 companies, notable celebrities, and Web 2.0 startups. BrianSolis.com is ranked among the top of world’s leading business and marketing online resources.)

SMO – Social Media Optimization should be part of an overall SEO strategy (SEO + SMO = Amplified Findability in the traditional and social Web). Below are five key ways to five major ways that social objects can be contextualized:

1. Keywords: When selecting keywords for your social objects, it’s important to remember that the keywords used by customers and influencers are not always what you think they’d be.

2. Titles: In Social Media, your headline must contain the keywords that explicitly match the search patterns of the people you hope to reach.

3. Descriptions: further refine the context of your social object to entice visitors to view and circulate your content amongst their social graph.

4. Tags: are keywords that further group and organize your Social Object within the social network.

5. Links: Sharing a link on Twitter and Facebook that points back to a video on YouTube extends the reach of the video to people in one or more forums, potentially connecting them to your content.

Source: Brian Solis

Social Media: Foundations of Listening and Engagement

Social media can be a difficult thing to understand. Here are some tips on what to listen out for and how to engage:

Listen out for the: Compliment, Complaint, Expressed Need, The Competition, The Crowd, The Influencer, The Crisis, The ROI, The Audit, The Thread.

Types of listening include: Passive listening, active listening, brand centered listening and conversation centered listening.

Source: Radian 6

Bloomberg: Cashmore Sees Mashable Becoming `Major Media Player’

One of the most recognizable names in social media, Pete Cashmore, is interviewed by Bloomberg’s Chris Valerio at this year’s SXSW about what’s hot in social media and the future of Mashable, the definitive social media blog which he started in 2005 and now boasts 7+ million pageviews.

Here are some other impressive stats (Dec 21, 2009):

• 1.8m followers on Twitter
• 90k fans on Facebook
• 330k RSS subscribers

Learn more about Pete Cashmore here.