Some great ideas and examples for ’selling’ Social Media to your future champions

Chris Brogan posted some great content today about helping to win over the skeptics and get your Social Media agenda greenlighted.

Adoption, and willingness to invest in new social media-oriented programs, is ramping up slowly,  too slowly for me and the projects I’m trying to get off the ground.

I bet many of you are having the same issues.

In an effort to get the corporate sponsorship and commitment required to “green light” SM projects, you need additional resources … ideas, tools and examples of successful SM implementations.

How do you find your champions and equip your  mission to be successful?

In my book, proven success stories and shared best practices are some of the surest ways to communicate potential and win over the skeptics. There’s a boatload of both in Chris’s post, “Get on the right side of the Fence”.

Read it here

photo credit: ScottieT812

10 Ways to Build Your Blog Community with Twitter « ShoutEm

10 Ways to Build Your Blog Community with Twitter

Posted by: Ivan Brezak Brkan on: 25/03/2009

In: Help & Tips Comment

Every blogger, no matter how ambicious or dedicated to his or her blog – wants a community around it. Easier said than done of course. To build a community you have to get people engadged around the premise of your content and then make it as easy for them to interact as possible. Both with you and each other.

3 Reasons Why Twitter Rocks for Your Community

It’s less tedious than forums. As any other type of website, forums have a specific organization scheme that users need to learn. Put in there signatures, private messages, subforums – and it’s not really the simples solution. Also, a forum you create has to start from scratch. From zero users to a community. What if you have both article comments and a forum – what will the user choose to do? With too many choice, he may just end up staying quiet.

to read the rest of this post,
visit 10 Ways to Build Your Blog Community with Twitter « ShoutEm.

Using Outposts & RSS Feeds in Your Media Strategy | chrisbrogan.com

More common sense ideas and tools to get the word out, this time using syndication (pushing content to those who want it) and using outposts in your media strategy.

Using Outposts in Your Media Strategy | chrisbrogan.com.

Social networks are great places to meet new people, to build new business relationships, and to learn about information from non-traditional sources. But another great way to use social networking sites is as an outpost. What do I mean by this? It turns out that people getting to know you on social networks might also find your content for the first time, and/or something you post to those networks might bring you an opportunity that wouldn’t immediately come to you in other ways.

Check out the entire post and nifty video from Common Craft about RSS in Plain English by clicking on the above link.

Google Analytics Blog: Web Analytics Tips & Tricks: Using Google Analytics to Create an Optimization Plan

Web Analytics Tips & Tricks: Using Google Analytics to Create an Optimization Plan (posted Tuesday, March 24, 2009 on Google Analytics Blog. Click link for full article)

Let’s face it, your website is never really finished. Testing pages is an inexpensive way to manage a constantly shifting audience and market. It’s great for:

1. Increasing ROI on your advertising
2. Teaching you about the likes and dislikes of your customers
3. Trying out alternatives used by competitors
4. Breaking down preconceptions about what works
5. Convincing a stubborn boss to try something new

What and where to test?

So where do you start? First you need a goal. What do you want users on your site to do? Complete a form, buy something, sign up for a newsletter? Without a goal, it’s difficult to optimize, so you should be sure to define one if you haven’t already.

Once you have a goal, you can use Google Analytics to identify those pages that are having the biggest negative impact on the total number of people “converting,” or achieving that goal. These are the pages to test.

Top landing pages report

(Content > Top Landing Pages)

This report gives you instant insight in how well (or poorly) your landing pages are performing. You want to find pages that have both high “entrances” and a high “bounce rate.” These pages are costing you a lot of visitors.

Goal visualization report

(Goals > Funnel Visualization)

The funnel visualization in Google Analytics shows you where people leave during your buying process. For example, the below report shows that 40% of the 200 potential buyers left during “Step X” in the checkout process. Average order value is $100. This means the merchant is losing up to $8,000 in revenue every month due to “Step X.”

Chris Brogan on Social Consciousness as part of Social Media

SXSW Flash Panel: Corporations & Social Media on Vimeo on Vimeo

Chris Brogan is one of many who are actively committed to supporting social causes

Chris Brogan has a big voice. He’s a top blogger, marketer, and entreprenuer/innovator around social media.  But one thing Chris does, usually in the background, is to support the OTHER kind of social – helping the community and in particular those who need our help.

This partnership with the community represents the best of the web – using our influence, access and personal relationships to drive good. Here, Tyson Foods works to help end hunger, and Chris starts a fascinating panel with a nice, long discussion about Tyson and their great efforts.

As social computing is becoming more and more mainstream, people want to know how it fits into what they’re already doing. The short answer … it helps your audience understand you better and find reasons to like (or not like) you. When it comes time to make a purchase decision, who will be chosen?? The nameless, or those who have made a positive impression on you one way or another??

I’d love to start a list of philanthropic efforts that are supported by people and enterprises. Got some to share?? Post them (and their links here)! Tag them “philanthropy”!

And watch the video – it’s pretty great!!