One thing I have found is that many people have a hard time grasping what Social Networking is and how it can drive business to you.  Here is a great video from Perry Blecher that breaks it dowan and explains the concept very clearly:

Perry also has a great FREE Report How to Monetize Social Media that you can grab by clicking on the link.

Are you listening to the conversation …..?????

That is a great question to ask yourself if you are involved in Social Networking and using Social Media to connect with others and possibly market your brand.

Social Networking with Social Media tools is not about advertising or blatantly blasting information about your product or service – it is about being social and participating in the conversation.

In order to participate in the conversation you must listen in on the conversation.

When you begin to listen in on the conversation there are really two conversations you should be listening to.  The first conversation or conversations that you need to listen to are what your friends and contacts are saying.   The second conversation or conversations you need to listen to are what is being said about you or your brand.

Listening to your friends and contacts

The goal of listening to your friends and contacts is to build a relationship with them.  Learn who they are and what they are interested in and what they need.  The goal is not to preach information about your product or service.  The goal is build a relationship with them.

Here are some pointers to keep in mind when you are listening to your friends and contacts;

Listen to what they are talking about and if you can offer any support, tips or compliments.  If you enjoy an article that they link to or post be sure to tell them.  Listen and then join the conversation.  If you see that they are looking for a resource or information and you have a suggestion for them be sure to share it.  The goal of these conversations is just that have a conversation, listen and share information, connect and learn more about these contacts.

Listening to what is being said about your or your brand

The goals are slightly different when you are listening to the conversation to hear what is being said about you or your brand.  When you have this listening hat on you are monitoring what is being said in terms of both positive and negative comments.

If you hear someone complain about you or your brand then you should be prepared to address the concerns and make the situation right.  In some cases you won’t be able to make the situation right and will have to implement damage control.  It is important to listen though, because if you are not then you would not hear the conversation or the problem or issue.

It is just as important to listen for positive comments about you or your brand.  You can capitalize on these by thanking the poster and reinforcing the positive comments.  Listening and hearing this conversation will help you reinforce you and your brand.

Tools to Listen with

There are several ways that you can listen in on the conversations you should be hearing.

One of the easiest ways to listen to the conversations of your friends and contacts is to just pay attention.  Be sure to browse the statuses of your friends on Facebook and make comments that fall in line with a complement, resource, etc or even just posting a note when it is their birthday.  This strategy works well on Twitter as well, read the Tweets of those you follow and comment when you can as well as if you see something that would benefit them be sure to share it.

When it comes to listening or monitoring for your brand it is a little more complex than just browsing the statuses of your friends, but it is something that you can easily manage.  Below are some tools that you can use to listen with:

www.Search.twitter.com – this is a tool that allows you to search for conversations on Twitter that contain certain key words or text.  It is a quick way to scan some of the latest conversations

www.google.com/alerts – Google Alerts is a great way to monitor what is being said.  You can set this tool up to send you an email every time a particular keyword is mentioned in content that Google picks up

http://technorati.com/ – This is a blog search engine and a great way to search blogs for any mentions of you or your brand

http://twendz.waggeneredstrom.com/ – Twendz is a Twitter monitoring tool.  It allows you to see posts in real time and offers to provide some user sentiment of the tweet

http://blogpulse.com/ — This is a good trend discovery system for blogs.  It analyzes and reports daily activity in the blogosphere.

http://blogsearch.google.com/ – Google blog search is Google’s tool for searching blogs directly

http://www.google.com/insights/search – Helps you get an idea of how everyone is searching for a term

http://howsociable.com/ – A tool to measure brand visibility metrics

http://www.samepoint.com/ – This is a conversation search engine that lets you see what other people are talking about.

There are several more tools that can be used to search and listen in on the conversations that are taking place on Social Networking sites and with the use of other Social Media tools.  Many more of these tools will be covered in future posts.

For now though the take away is that in order to participate in Social Networking and use Social Media tools you must listen – listen and learn what others are talking about and learn who they are and how you can help them.

If you are in business and have had your eyes and ears open over the last several months to a year I am sure that you have heard and seen that you need to move your business into the Social Media and Social Networking arena.  A lot of businesses have heard and seen this and have taken the plunge, but some haven’t yet.

When we investigate why a business hasn’t taken the plunge yet we often find it is because they don’t see or understand what impact or ROI that using Social Media and Social Networking will have on their business.  Here are some case studies that have been pointing to in order to show the positive effect and ROI to business.

Case Study 1: Naked Pizza

Naked Pizza has embraced the Social Media Tool Twitter and has been using it to build and drive business.  One day in April (April 23rd) Naked Pizza tested out the value of using Twitter and posted a special on Twitter.  This post or Tweet on Twitter brought in 15% of the business for that day.  This had a positive impact on the business and showed the power of a Social Media/Social Networking tool.

Case Study 2: Dell Computers

Dell Computers has jumped into Social Media and Social Networking full force and is one company that is able to give hard numbers of the increase in dollars that are directly related to using Twitter.  Dell has over 65 corporate Twitter accounts and one in particular is credited for bringing in over $3 million in sales – @delloutlet .  Dell has well over 400,000 followers currently on Twitter between all accounts.

Case Study 3: Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines has done a wonderful job embracing Social Media and Networking tools.  On Twitter they currently have over 574,000 followers.  In addition to being on Twitter Southwest is also on Facebook, flickr, Linkedin and YouTube as well as they have a company blog at www.blogsouthwest.com .

Southwest Airlines does a wonderful job of communicating with their current customers and followers and has also embraced user generated content.  Here is a YouTub Video showcasing the rapping flight attendant that created quite a viral following for Southwest Airlines.

Case Study 4: CoffeeGroundz a Coffee House in Houston Texas

J.R. Cohen the Operations Manager for CoffeeGroundz was intrigued by Twitter when he heard about it.  He jumped on board though and began to follow local Tweeters of Houston.  Shortly after getting on board he was able to amass a following of over 1,000.  J.R. Cohen did a great job of networking and building his following.

Over time @CoffeGroundz has continued to use Twitter to build a following and has even taken an order through Twitter as well as hosted a Tweetup that produced many new customers as well as brought in a lot of business.

As of today (September 2, 2009) @CoffeGroundz now has over 7,800 followes on Twitter.

Case Study 5: City of Arvada Colorado

The City of Arvada in Colorado has jumped into Social Media and Social Networking tools and have embraced them 100%.   They currently are blogging (Inside the Center ), Micoblogging with Twitter (Twitter account), are using video (YouTube account) as well as sharing photos (Flickr photostream) and have a fan page set up on Facebook (Facebook fan page) .

Imbracing Social Media and Social Networking has allowed the City of Arvada to increase the ways it communicates with current residents as well as future residents.  This also helps build the citie’s image and reputation.

As you can see from the case studies above Social Media and Social Networking is being embraced by both large and small businesses as well as cities and is having a postitive impact.