If you thought that New Yorkers were a tough bunch to sell to, Seoul Korea is going to surprise you. Seoul “is the largest city proper in the developed world” according to wikipedia. The city itself has 10 million people in it. And the greater metropolitan area has over 25,000,000.

The competition in seoul is the harshest in the world. 

Recently the minister of education banned late night studying for school age children as it was common for kids to get 3-5 hours of sleep per night.

So you can imagine how hard it would be to sell to this stressed out, frenetic, jaded, and harsh crowd. The Social Media Expert in Seoul, Bob Wan Kim Reveals Twitter Facebook and Naver Secrets in the Above Video. You may find them intriguing. 

]]> http://sparkah.com/2011/11/15/social-media-expert-agency-seoul-reveals-how-to-sell-to-seoul-koreans/feed/ 0 http://sparkah.com/2011/01/22/the-marketing-mix-google-seo-vs-google-adsense-vs-twitter-vs-facebook-vs-blogging/ http://sparkah.com/2011/01/22/the-marketing-mix-google-seo-vs-google-adsense-vs-twitter-vs-facebook-vs-blogging/#comments Sat, 22 Jan 2011 14:36:00 +0000 admin http://sparkah.com/2011/01/22/the-marketing-mix-google-seo-vs-google-adsense-vs-twitter-vs-facebook-vs-blogging/

Back in the old country (not geographically–two decades ago in the 90′s), there was one brand of mobile phone, there were two brands of jeans, vaccines were definitely good for you, and you could do advertising or you could do marketing. Life was simple.

If you were going to do some advertising for you business, you’d consider magazines, tv, newspapers, or the yellow pages. On the outside chance you were big enough, you’d sprinkle in there some billboard ads.

If you were going to do some marketing, you hire a PR person to get you writeups in those same magazines and papers you are considering advertising in. You’d go to some entrepreneurs’ round table, you’d go to trade shows, and you’d mingle. This was marketing.

Today, prospective clients ask my team for marketing help. And frankly, I’m not really sure what that means.

If you ask us for marketing help and then tell us that you want to market via Twitter and Facebook, which are social environments but then tell us that you have nobody on staff who can write and be a full time web customer service rep, that’s like saying, I want to go to a big industry trade show for networking and I have nobody to send (yes, can can hire out but it’s much more cost effective to do it inhouse).

So here are the pros and cons; strengths and weaknesses of each medium of communication and each of their requirements for successful implementation. Special thanks to Orange County’s Top Solar Panel Installer for inspiring this post!

The Pros and Cons: Google SEO vs Google Adsense vs Twitter vs Facebook vs Blogging vs Forums vs Banner Ads

Google Adsense
Pros: Instant Traffic, Precise Measurement

Cons: $1-$5 per click, conservatively 800 clicks per sale (Do the math)

Requirements: Just sign up with a credit card

Google Organic Search
Pros: High credibility and conversion rates (lower every year due to SEO spammers);  generally 1200% higher conversion rates than Adwords Sponsored Results; long term residual traffic

Cons: None, if you’re already a leading reference site for your niche. If not, Cons: significant labor and strategy required to secure page one position; if done incorrectly, you could end up being sand-boxed or blacklisted

Requirements: A good honest writer; Finding and paying for a very experienced Google Strategy Team (avoid SEO people. many tend to be Sleezy. See SEO is a SCAM); picking keyword terms that people will actually click (trickier than you imagine See #2: Nine Dark Google SEO Trade Secrets)

Twitter
Pros: Immediate direct access to millions of users internationally; Bio search to precisely target location and demographic; Direct two way communication; Unlimited messaging; Strong mobile penetration; Direct penetration to SMS text for many users; Real Time Search: Eaves dropping on live conversations by key word (How useful would it be to know what people are saying about you, your competitor, your products, theirs, etc in real time?); High impression to CRT ratio

Cons: Direct two way communications; People can arbitrarily report you as spam; You can only message a practical maximum of 5 people per message; ZERO Google Page Rank Value (links don’t help your Google rank–practically SEE LINK); Easy to acquire hundreds of demographically precise followers daily (labor intensive)

Requirements: Highly senior customer service person; Skilled terse writer; 10 minute response time; Availability 12 hours a day for non international companies; Consulting from an experienced Twitter culture consultant or every book ever written about Twitter; A Tweet lasts about 60 minutes before it disappears downstream; Impression rate is very low at about 4% of total follower base. More: http://journik.posterous.com/tag/twitter

Facebook (Organic)
Pros: Impression rate is high at about 70% of friend base; Instant response is generally less necessary than Twitter; Low maintenance;

Cons: High resistance to acquiring new friends and “Likes”; More challenging than Twitter to precisely target by demographics

Requirements: None if you’re happy with low volume reach. If not, you’ll need an experienced marketing team to build your Facebook friend count (See: Facebook Marketing Trade Secrets)

Facebook (Ads)
Pros: Near instant release and traffic; Absolutely the most precise demographic targeting system on the web; Pay per click; Generally less expensive than Google Adwords

Cons: Low click through rates compared to Google Adwords and much lower than Organic Google. Generally even lower CTR than Twitter; Second most costly PPC medium next to Google Adwords

Requirements: Experienced marketeer to pinpoint target demographics or web savvy business owner; Understanding of value of a “Like” vs direct click through to destination site; credit card

Advertising on Discussion Forums and Blogs

Banner Ads PPC (Pay Per Click)
Pros: You can precisely target which readership you want by making a direct deal with a blog or forum owner; Relatively inexpensive per impression; You can create deep branding impact and messaging inexpensively if you pay per click and design the banners to prevent click throughs (Why you would do it is the subject of another post)

Cons: Low conversion rate; Moderate cost

Requirements: A very senior and experienced direct response copy writer; very experienced designer; blog and forum stats/media kit; Relationship with Blog and Forum Owner

Banner Ads PPI (Pay Per Impression)
Pros: If you design a banner with a touchdown call to action, you can double or triple your click thrus while paying a flat rate per impression. Each click through is calculated to cost you about a dollar and occur at about every 700 impressions. So if you design your ad correctly, you can get a click every 200 impressions and still be paying the same amount. This math also applies to Facebook Ads.

Cons: No matter how high your CRT (Click Through Rate) is, your conversion to sale will be low. After all, this is still just a cold ad with no rapport of credibility.

Requirements:
A very senior and experienced direct response copy writer; very experienced designer; blog and forum stats/media kit; Relationship with Blog and Forum Owner

Youtube Marketing
Youtube always get preferential Google positioning. This is because Google owns Youtube. This is also because Google wants to start selling Google TVs. So if you have a Youtube video with exactly the same content as a blog post, your Youtube video will be on Broadway while your blog post is off-off-off-Broadway.

But Youtube and is a huge topic. So we’ve focused and expanded on it exclusively here: Youtube Forcast and Trend Watch: How to Double Your Sales With Youtube

Build Your Own Blog and Discussion Forum Empire

Building Your Own Discussion Forum
Pros: You don’t have to pay a forum owner to advertise on his website; You have full control over conversational direction; You wield adminstrator / moderator influence

Cons: You’ve got to build the forum

Requirements: Forum builder; Forum moderator; Forum admin; Marketing to drive traffic to forum

Building Your Own Blog
Pros: You don’t have to pay any other bloggers to advertise on their blog; You have full control of content (See http://journik.posterous.com/tag/blogging )

Cons: You’ve got to blog twice daily;

Requirements: A+ Level Blogger; Designer

So now that you’re totally confused, let’s take you back to the old country. Back then, there was advertising, marketing and sales. That was it and everyone knew what was what. Now, not so much.

So to give you an industry veteran perspective of all your choices today, just think of Advertising as a shotgun blast. If you shoot often enough, you’ll hit somebody when they’re in the market to buy. But advertising doesn’t do a good job of building rapport and credibility. There’s no good-will associated with advertising.

People buy on rapport (relationship depth) and credibility (demonstrated expertise). That’s why people buy from friends and celebrities.

So here’s where marketing comes in. Marketing is designed to bring you to your market in an intimate way. Marketing builds relationships. Your marketing is what generates referral business. I don’t know the last time anybody email forwarded a buddy an ad. Finally, Marketing is what gets that phone to ring on your salesman’s desk.

So by this historic definition, Google Search Engine Marketing isn’t marketing at all. It’s just advertising. All it does is make you available should a prospect be looking for what you sell. Marketing develops relationships. And this difference is critical when you’re goal is to develop the least expensive immediate lowest hanging fruit sales and create long term relationships that deliver long term recurring business. One pays your bills. The other builds your empire.

InfoGraphic To Clarify All This Coming Up… To be alerted when our infographic is up and ready, just subscribe to our RSS feed http://journik.posterous.com/rss and follow us at http://twitter.com/journik

Now, the issue becomes which medium of outreach is the best fit for you? To discuss marketing with the author of this post, “Google SEO vs Google Adwords vs Twitter vs Facebook vs Blogging…” see http://sparkah.com/marketing.php

Also: Why A Powerful Marketing Strategy Incorporates Them All To Some Extent: The Tao of Making Tough Decisions (Business Philosophy)

Posted via email from Social Media Marketing Strategies for the Closet Revolutionary

Reason #37: Why Bloggers Are More Powerful Than Big Magazines.

Big Magazines Don’t Post You To Their Personal Facebook Account. Bloggers Do:

Posted via email from Social Media Marketing Strategies for the Closet Revolutionary

It’s a Long, Long, Way from Their Toilet-Side Magazine Rack to Your “Buy-Now” Button

Ironically,  Heavy drinking doesn’t happen when your efforts fail. You drink to excess when you run out of hope. If your ideas fail but you still have a bucket of ideas left to test, you keep going with a smile. Here’s a fresh bucket for Internet Marketing Strategies that Work.

The following list is a collection of the most effective and ingenious marketing pr ideas used by the most successful companies on earth. It’s all in one place. And the following is what we do for our clients.

The Prep Work: Branding
No. Branding has nothing to do with marketing but without it, your marketing is worthless. So let’s get the basics checked off. And never under estimate the value of branding. Major Fortune 500s get this wrong.

Answer this, Quick: What do you do?

If you can’t instantly express what you do, how is anyone else going to remember you for what you do? Let’s say you do know what you do. What is it? Go on, say it out loud or in your mind. Makes no difference. Now, when someone else thinks of that word, do they think of you?

What do you think of when you hear “luxury car?”

Now, think of all the other luxury cars that didn’t come to mind. That is a branding problem–not a marketing problem. This time, think of a body wash. I personally think of Dove. I never buy Dove. But that’s what I think of. So if my (imaginary) wife (my cell: 310 598 1606) tells me to get body wash, guess which one I’ll pick up. Nope. In spite of the extraordinary success of another brand, you will not pick up the Red bottle. This is why: How Weiden+Kennedy Screwed Up Marketing and Branding

So, these are the most underused and overlooked opportunities for branding you in the minds of your market:

1. Business Card
Does your card say what you do? Specifically? Are you Dr. Williams or are you Dr. Williams, Pediatrician? Are you Acme Windows or are you Acme Winterproof Windows? Are you Stella’s Bakery or are you Stella’s Cupcakes?

Brand yourself in a niche that’s narrow enough for you to dominate. Then, broaden your branding.

2. Signage
Nobody is going to give you business because of your pretty logo. People are going to give you business because of what it says you do underneath.

3. Packaging
Say the exact same thing from #1 and #2 on all your packaging. Judging by my bachelor friends’ homes, you’ll be branding their kitchen counter tops, night stand, and living room floor with your packaging for days at a time. You can’t ask for better product placement.

4. Collateral 

Again, say the same thing you did in all your letterhead, envelopes, brochures, and any other hand outs. For the rest of the top 10 Branding Opportunities You’d Never Think Of… http://journik.posterous.com/branding-hidden-opportunities-to-brand-yourse

One Quick Note On PR aka Public Relations

PR: Pull media stunts like selling abused super models in “women to go.”

PR is like more like Judo than Boxing. You can’t attack from the front. You’ve got to create a unique angle. You’ve got to give journalist, TV news programming directors, and editors, something newsworthy. I’m constantly surprised at how often smart CEO’s think their products and services are news worthy. Sorry. Unless your product is the iPhone 7, it’s not newsworthy. Incremental improvements in technology don’t make the news. You’ve got to do something truly revolutionary to be of interest to the general public.

If your product or service is not intrinsically revolutionary, like the Organization Against Sex Trafficing, then instead of try to make your company news worthy, make something your company DOES newsworthy. Create a ruckus. We do that pretty well.

Finally, Aggressive Marketing

OK, let’s get to the main course. All your prep work from above is done. If you, like most companies are only marketing yourself through two or three mediums, you’ve leaving a lot of money on the table. No. That’s just not the right analogy. What you’re really doing is leaving a drop dead gorgeous human being naked in bed with just a hand shake.

If you’re paying for advertising, stop. It’s the most expensive way to market. Here are all of the ways the most successful internet entrepreneurs do it:

1. Adwords: DO NOT USE
Adwords build little no brand awareness or value on impression. Most of the clicks you get will be accidental. When was the last time you clicked on a Google adwords ad intentionally?

The only reason you’d use adwords is to create a CTR and sales conversion benchmark. If you organic and pr work can’t outperform your adwords conversion rates, your marketing director should be put out of their misery.

2. Print ads: DO NOT USE
Don’t. The only exception to this rule is if you can lower the bar of conversion from sale to a Facebook “Like” or an IPhone browse. Nobody will tear out your ad, take it home, unfold it from their pocket, turn on the computer, and type in WWW.BLANKer.com. What they might do is, given enough incentive, use their android or iphone to surf to your site. Once there, you’ve got to make it so easy to connect that you’ll sit there a week later wondering why nobody has connected.

You’d also be amazed how broke poor bloggers and reporters are

3. PR: USE DIFFERENTLY
This, I like. But once you’re in the news, you’ve got to stay in the news. Keep pulling media stunts like selling abused super models in “women to go.” Rawk the boat.

This is how to launch PR stunts. … After all, we are in page one of Google under “top publicist” and “top pr firms nyc.”

4. Blog
People read insightful posts that either entertain, educate, save time, ummm… here’s how to build a blog that will drive you business

5. Close each blog post with a call to action
Strike while the iron is hot. The moment you’ve got a reader impressed with you, the moment their blood pressure jumps and their imagination soars, use that momentum and get them to take action that will build your relationship. To chat with me about your own marketing push, answer these probing diagnostic questions at http://sparkah.com/marketing.php before moving to #6.

6. See #5

7. Send out promotional crap: SWAG
Make it useful–like a stress ball that doesn’t bounce or a lanyard (perfect for the executive’s latch-key kid). This part, I’m going to flesh out. It’s big. I’ve produced swag that’s produced $273 per $1 spent. And it’s fun. If you want a sneak peak into the swag category, just “Like” my facebook page: Marketing and Branding Secrets Facebook Page

There are thousands of emails and names. That’s a lot

8. Twitter bio
Does your Twitter bio have a call to action? People routinely go to the super market and forget why they got there. Remind them to click the follow button. If you are on twitter, follow me at http://twitter.com/sparkah before moving to #9.

9. See #5 then #8

10. Take a blogger or reporter out to lunch
You’d be amazed how much press and Google love you can get for just $8 (hamburger) and another $27 bucks in margaritas. You’d also be amazed how broke poor bloggers and reporters are. You’ll get big street cred for under $35.

11. Start a competing blog
No, but seriously, rather then promote blogger obesity and substance addiction, pay college kids $20 a blog post that captures the attention of readers in your market demographic. @Problogger pays $25 for pros to, well, blog.

This is a little tricky. If you’re a caterer, don’t blog about catering. Nobody cares. If you blog about recipes. You’ll empower your competition–the house wife/husband/partner (not necessarily in that order). Instead, blog about a topic that will intersect like a giant inverse venn diagram and blog about hipster parties. DJs will read it and refer you. Party planners will read it and hire you. Jealous socialites will throw parties and hire you just to be featured in your blog.

If you’re not a caterer, let’s talk about how to create that intersection point. You’ll need to build a huge database of your potential customers much more aggressively that you would by just talking about yourself.

12. Support charities
Find a charity that can help you help them. Support them and let the relationships you build support you to support them even more.

13. Become an activist
Pick a cause. You’ll make friends and customers you wouldn’t have access to in any other way. You’ll build unusual rapport. You’ll get the allegiance of the most passionate people on earth. When it’s time, ask them for a favor. See #6 in our Viral Marketing Strategies.

Team Up With Your Competitors — But in San Diego, San Francisco, NYC, Boston, Chicago, Miami. Share the marketing work. Create an Alliance. Hire a Devious Marketing Firm.

14. Whisper in Forums
Post in relevant discussion forums asking for help. Don’t spam. Don’t astro turf. It’s actually FTC illegal. Just humbly ask for suggestions and options about your product and leave a link. Rapidly, your Google traffic will spike. And you’ll walk away with valuable public sentiment.

This is probably the most difficult and yet, most important thing we do. If you want to know why, lets talk. 310 598 1606.

15. Build a forum
A forum saves your sales, support, and executive team gobs of time. Most people will google before looking for your customer service number at 9pm at night. An extra bonus is that you can use your own forum for google link building and advertising your own products. Win-win. If you need a forum built, talk to us at http://sparkah.com/websites.php

16. Vertical (regional) partnerships
If you own a maternity boutique in LA, why market to the billions around world when you only have access to about 100,000 prospects. Keep marketing to the world. Instead, get partner maternity boutique owners in San Diego, San Francisco, NYC, Boston, Chicago, Miami, etc to share the marketing work and stop leaving money on the table (or that gorgeous being in bed).

17. Horizontal partnerships
(Get your mind out of the gutter). If you sell salt, and are pouring money into marketing salt, get yourself a partner who sells pepper. You’ll cut your marketing costs and labor in half while bumping your profits substantially. Here’s how to find and contact Twitter users by industry, job description and location

One of our clients sells $300 shower curtains: http://kontextur.com. We contacted 100′s of top avant-guard furniture designers for them. Now, they are working with http://uhuru.com and http://www.richbrilliantwilling.com on co-marketing and sharing their contact databases.

18. Youtube
Instead of just posting customer support answers in your forum, vault the stakes. Use Youtube. This is How to Build A Massive Youtube Subscriber Base. One of our Youtube accounts got 21,000 subscriptions in 3 months.

And here’s why you should even use Youtube for Customer Support.

19. Retail partners
This is probably the most frightening for you web types. But it’s a gold mine. Let’s say you are a travel agency. Let’s say you are a travel blogger. Or let’s just say you sell those 2oz travel size thingies. When’s the last time you thumbed through a guest book at a quaint B and B? There are hundreds if not thousands of emails and names. That’s a lot. Now, Imagine you got a B and B from every major city on earth to get you their guest book in exchange for sending them guests.

Let’s say you’re a Dentist. How many “Likes” do you think you’d get on your Dental Office Facebook Page? How many Facebook “Likes” would you get if you left a small netbook in every candy shop in town? And you set the home page to your “I Love JawBreakers” Facebook page? All the kids would check facebook while dripping purple everlasting gob stopper saliva into your keyboard.

20. Facebook Ads: DO NOT USE
If you’ve come this far, you’ve already gotten the sense that we are adamantly against the use of paid ads. Why pay to rent some else’s realestate when you can just create your own blog, forum, and social network (yes. we do that for our clients)?

But here’s the real why you should NOT use facebook ads.

20B. Facebook Pages: USE USE USE!
If you’re still using email or phone or even mail to stay in front of your customers, stop. How many minutes a month do you spend going through your mail? The average Facebook user spends 7 HOURS A MONTH going through Facebook. People in their teens to 30′s spend an average of 29 HOURS A MONTH IN FACEBOOK. They keep it on and online all day long during work.

Use Facebook to do you marketing. This is how: Advanced Facebook Marketing Strategies.

21. Google SEO
Actually, SEO and SEM are both dead. They worked fine when Altavista, Excite, and Infoseek were big. Now, Google makes sure SEO will get your site BLACKLISTED. So, here’s how to get to page one of Google straight from our Google SEO Expert.

BONUS: Organic Facebook Growth
Do you know the maximum number of Facebook friends you can add per day? Do you know how Facebook decides who to show your status update to? Do you know how many friends you have to add to get facebook to BLACKLIST you? Before you know these figures, you’re not ready to do any organic facebook marketing (this is what we do).

DOUBLE BONUS. The 37 Death Traps In Social Media Marketing
So you might be thinking that if you have a couple interns execute on this list, you’ll have a thriving online business. Before you sign a lease on that commercial space, this is the list of 37 Death Traps in Social Media Marketing that will cripple you. Don’t try this at home. While we’ve listed out 21 Points on WHAT to do, We’re going to have to produce another blog/whitepaper that explains HOW to do it. To get a link to that follow-up sequel… just click “LIKE” below.

So? What do you do?

While you do what you do best, bolt on a precision team of experts who will carry you out into your marketplace. That’s what we do best. Call us at 310 598 1606 or 347 767 6775 or just email us via our comprehensive marketing checklist: http://sparkah.com/marketing.php

Let’s get you into high orbit. We carry rocket fuel.

IPhone App Developer: “You Are Marketing to Stupid Idiots. Proceed Accordingly.”

The public is stupid. Beta was much better than VHS. It never took off. Solar power should be everywhere. We still pay for gas. You came up with the most brilliant iPhone and iPad or Android app and if only 10,000 people used it, you could change their lives. But you’ve got 8 downloads. Eight.

You are trying to market your app to these people. Remember that.

I remember being at a friends house – Marcus. He had 3 brothers – only boys. Whenever their mom baked a cake, there would be a fight. They would each complain that the other got a bigger piece. So Marcus’ dad thought up a brilliant solution. He had the eldest boy, Samuel, cut the pie in half. Then he had each boy by birth order cut the pie in half again.

When this fascinating process was over, Samuel would get to pick the first piece, and Marcus would pick the second piece, etc… on down the line.

Everyone got an Even-Steven piece.

Their father was an idiot.

He was sending an implied message to his kids that there is a way to make events in life fair. He was teaching his kids to make their happiness relative to the acquisition of others. In this case, it’s not the Joneses – it’s their brothers.

What I would have done (easy to say for a Guy that doesn’t even have a girlfriend) is to simply take away the pie from any and all complainers.

There’s no entitlement. There’s no stipulating what someone else gets and making your happiness contingent on the wealth or unwealth of another.

This is the problem with app development. Entrepreneurs think differently.

Entrepreneurs think that if everyone chipped in a single dollar to buy their silly rubber bracelet that ends up smelling like wet dog on a hot day, they could stop cancer and we could use the billions saved to instead fund clean energy builds. Entrepreneurs think that if you built an app where everyone just volunteers their favorite flavor of ice cream, then they could buy just that one flavor in bulk and open a nationwide chain of Basket Robber’s One Flavors Flav Ice Cream that give everyone two scoops for the price of one based on their new economy of scale.

The public is a stupid idiot.

They will not chip in one review, one rating, one field of personal information even if it meant they could have full access to everyone’s chip-ins IF it means that:

A) They have to wait for their pay off

B) Somebody else will get rich in the process.

OK. So “A,” the public is all about instant gratification. They do not till, plant, water, and wait. If you disqualify 401ks, only about 2% of the America Public own stocks of any kind.

The public is a stupid idiot.

And “B,” I’m not Christian but Jesus still said it best. “There was a master of a field. The harvest being great, he hired workers at the eleventh hour. After the harvest, he paid them all alike, the worker who had been there for 12 hours and the worker who only worked for the last hour. The worker who worked from the first hour complained angrily to the master of the field. The master said, you evil wicked slave (personally, I think this is a mistranslation. I think he said, “Stupid Idiot”) of what business it is to you that I have made another agreement with another worker. You have received what you wanted. Now go your way before even that is lost to you!”

What I’m telling you is that even if your iphone app idea is brilliant and will reduce traffic by 50% making your users’ commute to work 40% faster, saving them $200 in gas and $300 in wear and tear every month, if it takes 6 months to see an ROI, they won’t use your app. If they can see that you’re making millions while they only save $6,000 a year, they won’t use your app.

So how do you get someone to use your app? You’ve got to offer them an immediate dangling carrot. Remember, your market is a stupid idiot. The whole concept of collaboration doesn’t work for them. That’s why you’re the boss and they just want a job. They can’t see the big picture so stop trying to open their eyes. I don’t know who’s the bigger idiot, the voluntarily blind guy or the guy trying to make them see. Instead, appeal to a sensory faculty they already have. They still have 4 other senses.

It’s Amazing How Much We Could Accomplish If Nobody Cared Who Got the Credit – Reagan

How to Strategize Your Web or Iphone / IPad / Android App Roll Out
I’m only going to say this one more time. Do not expect to have a single user based on the promise of a future dated pay off. It won’t work (insert cricket chirping noises).

Google didn’t launch until they had already spidered 10 times more websites than Yahoo (more or less). Yahoo tried to get people to submit their urls for inclusion in their directory. Nobody did. Google won.

Facebook started off as a private site that showcased the hottest chicks at Harvard – both of them. Everyone wanted in. Only AFTER everyone got in, their payoff to the stupid idiots changed. Now, Guys from other Ivys could connect and network with Harvard boys. Only AFTER all the Ivy got in, their payoff to the stupid idiots changed. All the kids who had a mere 4.0 GPA and 1,400 SAT score could network with the IVY boys. See: Facebook Marketing Strategies

Twitter started off as a site where you could contact all the top writers, editors, PR people, and news media directly without knowing their email address. Only AFTER all the CEOs and Entrepreneurs who could see the value in it joined Twitter, the less stupid and less idiotic masses could see that being able to directly message these powerful people would be valuable. Only after they joined, Oprah realized that Twitter would give her direct access to the public – right down to their text messages.

So as far as your Iphone, Ipad, and Android Phone App goes, what’s the first thing you can offer now? What’s the most compelling thing you can offer now? Right now? Sex. Yes. Sex.

Whether you have an app that lets people carpool, lets people get group travel discounts, lets people trade Gucci dresses, or what ever, if you can subtly imply that they will get laid, they will download your app.

If you want help developing your IPhone App Roll Out Strategy (so that people actually use your app)… Call us at 310 598 1606. Ask for Bob Wan Kim.

Posted via email from Social Media Marketing Strategies for the Closet Revolutionary

OR, How to have as many Facebook friends as Lady Gaga:

“You’re Adding Friends Too Quickly. Your Account Will Be Blocked”

For many reasons including trust, rapport, history, and familiarity, my last post mentioned that 1 Facebook friend is worth about 22 Twitter followers. So now, if you set out to amass a large Facebook friend base, you’ll notice a little warning window threatening to block your facebook account for adding friends too quickly.

So what’s the rule of thumb?

Well, starting with a new account, I rapidly added 300 new friends before facebook threatened to ban my account. Since then, I’ve been adding about 20 friends every few hours. I don’t push my luck or go too far because there are warning signs. The suggested friends box normally has two suggestions as you can see to the left. Once you’ve friend requested about 20, it drops down to just one suggestion. That’s when I stop.

I’ve gone further before but after just one or two more friend requests, I get that infamous warnming message of impending doom. But still, 20 new friend requests times 3 sessions a day gets you 60 new friends a day. At the end of the month, you should be up to 1,800. That’s worth almost 40,000 twitter followers.

Regardless of all these technicalities, the real trick is to get people to become your Facebook friends without sending out a single Facebook friend request: http://sparkah.com/2009/12/07/how-to-get-1400-facebook-friends-without-a-sing…

If you have any questions, write on my facebook wall at http://www.facebook.com/bob.wan.kim or call 310 598 1606… Look forward to hearing about what you do…

Posted via email from Social Media Marketing Strategies for the Closet Revolutionary

After almost half a decade of Twitter and Facebook being around, nobody seems to clearly understand the pros and cons of either for use in marketing. In fact, I started Googling for a competitive matrix that compared all the key web marketing factors applied between Facebook and Twitter. I Fail.

So I just built one myself. Below is a table that compares these two social media marketing powerhouses across 15 key web marketing criteria. The terms used are industry terms so if you’re not sure what each one means, I’ve also included a video discussion of this matrix below.

In any case, while you can measure a googleplex worth of criteria, in the end, effective marketing simply comes down to how many hours did you have to spend to create a dollar? Will Twitter make me that same dollar faster than Facebook?

	Twitter	Facebook
Visibility	1 hour	12 hours
SEO	no. nofollow	no. nofollow and hidden links
CTR within 3 min	0.2% (1000 followers = 2 clicks)	0.05%
CTR within 1 hour	0.3%	1.2%
CTR within 12 hours	0.35%	5.3%
Conversion Rate	nil, null, ziltch	0.05% (2000 friends = 1 purchase)
Comment Visibility	only your followers	everyone in comment stream
Follower aquisition	almost impossible	easy but limited
Follower acquisition limits	1000 follows / day	20 / few hours
Loyalty	low	high
Spam Noise	medium	low
Privacy	none	medium
Mobility	high	medium-high
Learning curve	high	low
Content Richness	text only	text, thumbnail, video

So how do Twitter clicks look compared Facebook clicks over time? With Twitter, You’re going to see a jump in the beginning and a rapid tapering off. After about an hour, your Tweet gets buried. Facebook however doesn’t really have a CTR spurt. It stays constant over about a 12 hour period before your Facebook status post gets buried.

TWITTER:

FACEBOOK:

Now that you’re equipped with data that helps you project your marketing and advertising ROI, you’ll find that creating the above conversion rates and CTRs are not as easy as it seems. Especially since Facebook has a 5,000 friend limit, you’ll have to start using Facebook pages.

Then you’ll run into another can of worms. So if you’d like professional and experienced help marketing your company, call me at 310 598 1606 or just bring any questions you may have to http://www.facebook.com/bob.wan.kim

Look forward to meeting you.

Posted via email from Social Media Marketing Strategies for the Closet Revolutionary

When Google first bought the contextual advertising system that later became Adwords, it made them a billion dollars fast. And it was worth it. Google’s credibility was an eternity further ahead than Yahoo’s and All the ads were matched to your search.

But in reality, where they made most of their money is that the typical user spent about 2 years not ever noticing the difference between sponsored paid ads vs the organic ads that rose to the top above-the-fold ranks. It’s true. Advertisers were getting amazing CTRs simply because Google users thought the top ads were actually the most popular.

All that is over.

When’s the last time you clicked on a Google Adwords ad?

But I bet you’ve “liked” a Facebook page plugin recently. This is because most people still don’t realize that “liking” Facebook Pages auto subscribes you to the posts on that page wall. It’s just like opting in with your email only it comes into your friends and family Facebook stream.

This isn’t all bad. It can actually be a good thing if the page is like mine: http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Like-People-Who-Walk-Instead-of-Drive/1344360…

The above page is designed to bring up healthy and sustainable topics so that friends can come together, chat, discuss, and save the earth – if you will.

Technical Specs: Google Adwords vs Facebook Pages
As a business owner, the precision with which you can target your demographic is stunning. Google basically only lets you target people by keyword and geography. So if you sell toys on your ecommerce website and you advertise under the words, “dolls,” in adwords, you don’t know if a mom just cost you $5 by clicking through to your site or whether a left wing militant green peace activist cost you that same $5 to criticize you about how much plastics go into your toys. Seriously.

VS

Personally, even if you’ve got an unlimited budget, I recommend putting all your ad dollars into facebook. You’ll create long term relationships and for about 80% less cost. Contact me to get an experienced hand to help you do your web marketing at http://twitter.com/journik and 310 598 1606 OR if you have any questions, reach me on facebook: Social Media Marketing Strategies by Bob Wan Kim

Detailed Video:

Posted via email from Social Media Marketing Strategies for the Closet Revolutionary

I just found Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop on the same topic. But since the link he posted for a free ebook download seems like a email harvesting scam, I’ll just share with you my Facebook marketing secrets.

80% of my traffic comes from Facebook friends. 10% comes from Twitter. The rest come from Google.

Based on the above stats, you can tell that marketing with facebook is effective. But the sound of the other shoe dropping is that i have 4,200 Facebook friends, 22,000 Twitter followers, and rank page one in google for the relevant search terms. So when you look at the CTR vs reach, Facebook comes across as the clear winner – by far.

My estimate is that each of my Facebook friends are worth about 55 Twitter followers. So the only advantage to Twitter is that you can reach people you can’t via Facebook.

Having said all this, lets get down to the mechanics of how to reach people via Facebook:

1. Use pages.
Personal Facebook accounts have a 5,000 person cap. Pages have no “liker” cap.
You can create an unlimited number of pages.

2. Select a “company” page.
Community pages can get “adopted” or ghestapo commandeered by Facebook.
Being a company page vs community page offers zero added resistance

3. Name your page carefully.
If you name your page, “Tim Bur’s Lumber,” nobody is going to “like” it.
If you name your page, “Hard Wood,” lots of people will like it. But how many of them are your target market?
If you name your page, “sustainable lumber,” target demographic people who happen-chance by may like “like.”
If you name your page, “I just staple gunned my thumb to the rafters,” the emotional imagery will earn you 2000%-5000% more “likes.” And the above target demographic will be included as a subset.
You cannot change a page name after you’ve created it so craft a name that is emotional and targets your demographic. Advertising your lumber on a page named “lesbians for fiberglass homes,” (yep, it exists) will just get your unliked – undoing all your hard work.

Seriously. Think about all the reach this person has. But if they talk about anything NOT sleep related, they’ll get “unliked” (unsubscribed) faster than a narcoleptic can fall asleep.

My estimate is that each of my Facebook friends are worth about 55 Twitter followers

4. When you make an admin post, make sure it’s not ad-like.
People hate being sold to. Educate about the merits of your product. Don’t sell. Educate.

5. Promote your page everywhere.
Get a Facebook Like Pluggin at http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like
You’ll need to use another page for creating a like button for a Facebook Page. I will post that url as soon as I find it. Sorry.

Bonus: Offer prizes or give aways to anyone who “likes” your page
You’re basically giving away something cheap to build your opt-in page subscriber base

Why go to all this trouble?
If I click “Like” on one of your Facebook pages, every comment you make will show up in my Facebook account home wall. If I then click “like” on a recent post of yours, all my friends will see what you posted too. Viral at it’s best.

Follow me at http://twitter.com/journik for more ongoing tips. And if you have a corporation that sells nationwide or internationally, ask me about executing your corporate social media marketing via blogging, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I guarantee it’ll be much more effective than any other advertising you’re doing now. Or call 310 598 1606 – Bob Wan Kim.

Posted via email from Social Media Marketing Strategies for the Closet Revolutionary