As powerful as social media is perceived to be there's still quite a bit of mystery that surrounds it. Brands recognize that they need to be involved, but they're struggling with assigning a dollar-value on social media exposure and how it equates to revenue. Because there aren't any tools or systems in place that can spit out data on a company's return on investment (ROI) for increasing its Twitter followers many businesses find themselves wondering if they're just spinning their profit wheels in a social media mudslide.

It should come as no surprise that brands small and large share common concerns regarding social media. Even though concerns may be similar brands should be aware that they'll need to exercise different strategies depending upon whether they're B2C or B2B. Aside from defining goals and strategies, here are some of the social media obstacles that may confront brands.

1. Choosing the right social media channels.

Brands that know who their target market is and what communities they belong to can integrate those niche social sites into their strategies. Using a blend of social media dominators like Facebook and Twitter with other focused social sites might be a good launch point for some brands. The truth is that the right social channels are the ones where your audience engages itself and that are also right for your brand.

2. Converting fans and followers into customers.

You might be surprised to find out that most of your brand's supporters are already customers. These people have interacted with your brand on some level and they're proudly supporting it by liking, following or subscribing to the news that you share. Make it worthwhile for your brand loyalists to enjoy special perks, discounts and sneak previews that others might not be privvy to. Preferential treatment isn't a bad thing in the land of social media. When word leaks out that your brand awards BOGO offers to Facebook fans each month you can bet that it will be taken advantage of.

3. Creating impactful social media campaigns.

Often brands will find themselves in a creative rut and unable to pull together a meaningful social media campaign. No matter who you are take comfort in knowing that we've all been there and this is a challenge that will probably surface from time to time. When you plan a campaign try to build it with your audience in mind, not for yourself. Remember that a campaign isn't a press release or a widget - it's an actual strategy. Position, objectives, strategy, tactics and key messages are the core campaign components. Layer in video, blogs, newsletters, PPC and other elements to make your campaign memorable, and sustainable.

4. Managing social media productivity.

One of the most commonly quoted challenges from brands is not being able to budget time and productiveness for social media. Without a plan in place, social media activity can be a major time suck. Execute each social media action with an objective in mind and keep your focus on the task at hand. If you're responding to customer inquiries on Twitter, only respond to customer inquiries. Avoid jumping over to LinkedIn to see what your groups are buzzing about.

5. Increasing subscribers and fans.

Hands down this is one of the biggest challenges for all brands. Unless you're a brand that's been arounds for decades or who has a national presence like Starbucks or McDonald's, you're not going to have millions upon millions of fans. Keep scalability in mind and don't get caught up in what other international brands are doing. Next, remember to share information that your audience would like to know and would appreciate having. This doesn't mean an endless barrage of details about your brand. It means pulling good, credible data from other sources and funneling it down to your loyalists.

There are plenty of other challenges that brands are facing and will continue to face. This is just a handful to get your wheels turning and to think constructively about how to overcome them.

Let us know what some of your brand challenges are and share with us below.

From Denmark to Detroit, social media is a worldwide phenomenon that seems to be part addiction and part necessity. With Facebook's recent announcement that it's hit 500 million users and Twitter's move toward advertising with @earlybird it's becoming more apparent that if you want to get the word out about your business you need to step into the social media arena. However, all the excitement about social media doesn't mean much if you can't decipher what it means and what it's doing. Analytics to social media are like a compass to a navigator - if you don't understand where you're at you won't know where to go.

If the thought of analytics and numbers makes you shudder you're not alone. There are more people than not who feel intimidated by numerical data. The two toughest aspects of social media analytics are interpreting information and deciding what analytic tools best meet your needs. Fortunately, basic analytics doesn't require a PhD in statistics and the internet is filled with outstanding free tools and resources to help make metric crunching easy. So, if you can't afford enterprise-level services like Scout Labs, Radian6 or Sysomos, you'll want to check out some of the freebies below to help you get a grip on your analytics.

Blogs

Use PostRank to help rank your blog content and news and and to determine what your fans are reading, sharing and organizing. It also identifies what your most popular posts are in your RSS feed.

Think of BlogPulse as a search engine for blogs and their posts. It's similar to Technorati, but it provides additional views such as trending and conversations so that you can see search competitive topics and how other blogs are ranking.

Comments

Beyond standard search for keywords and brand names you’ll want to penetrate what’s being discussed in blog commenting systems too. That’s where YackTrack comes in. Simply enter your keywords or terms to see a nicely organized list that you can drilldown to get specific mentions from.

Branding

One of the more substantial branding tools available is Social Mention. It aggregates user generated content from across multiple social media platforms and streamlines outcomes into a very simple and easy to interpret web page. The one thing Social Mention doesn't do is show a report over time. A work around this missing feature is to create an Excel spreadsheet and manually enter daily data that you gather. Otherwise, it's a great (and free) tool.

Perhaps more of an entertainment tool rather than a true metric evaluator, How Sociable measures your brand's keywords throughout 32 different social media sites. There's some confusion around the 'visibility score' that How Sociable has developed and not all data appears to be accurate. For example, if you run a search on iPhone it yields a visibility score of 9,453 and a Google PageRank score of zero. Odd to say the least. Looks like brand visibility metrics might have a few glitches, but it’ still worth exploring.

Trends & Topics

Head over to Addict-o-Matic and enter a unique search term, brand or product name or just about anything and it will perform a search that delivers the buzz (or results) broken down by social media platform. It's a very convenient snapshot that let's you look at your social reach and the social sites where you have more presence in comparison to others.

Twitter

There are so many Twitter tools available that deciding which one to use can be a daunting task. For the purpose of benchmarking your brand against your competition, Twitalyzer is ideal. It shows you what social media strategies are working and what’s not, which makes it easy to adjust social media campaigns to maximize better results.

The power of influence is a core component in any social media campaign. Knowing who has better reach and strength and engaging with them can help persuade your audience to promote your brand. Klout measures influence as it relates to your brand through Twitter. You can identify which customers and communities are more likely to become brand evangelists and work with them to drive conversations.

Another hand Twitter tool is TweetStats. You can graph how many tweets per hour, day and month, as well as look at your tweet timeline and reply statistics. TweetStats is a fantastic way to track your level of interaction and look at areas that need improvement.

Google

Google Analytics (GA) may leave you feeling unnerved, but it actually does a tremendous job on tracking numbers and data. We'll save GA how-tos for a future post. In the meantime, use PageRank Checker to see what Google thinks of your site. Using a scale from zero to 10, with 10 holding the most authority, you can run a quick search to find out how you rank.

In order for GA to actually work on your website you need to install tracking code on each page that you want the Google bot spiders to crawl. To make sure that you've set-up your code use SiteScan to confirm that you've performed a correct installation. Although SiteScan and PageRank Checker aren't direct analytic tools they are helpful in gauging Google-related tasks and standards.

Competitive

Quarkbase has been touted as the ‘imdb.com for websites’. By entering a website’s URL you are presented with names of people associated with the site, traffic data, social popularity, site description and sites that are similar. This is one of the best free competitive research tools available. Data can be used to help you better position your brand and establish goals and objectives.

There you have it. Granted, there are so many tools, free and paid, that accessible on the web, we hope that this short list gets you moving in the right direction.

What are some of the other free tools that you're using? How do you make them work for your brand and what do you like best about them? Share with us.

If you’re looking for a Twitter solution that combines both marketing and management then you absolutely must check out Market Me Tweet. Before you roll your eyes at the thought of yet another Twitter tool you’ll be happy to know that Market Me Tweet is a true stand-out from the pack of Twitter apps that have permeated the social media realm. What sets Market Me Tweet apart from the competition is its branding capabilities and that’s good news for businesses small and large.

For the most part, Market Me Tweet is similar in scope to the Hootsuite dashboard and its functionality. Users can integrate multiple Twitter accounts to track and tweet too. It can monitor keywords, schedule tweets in advance, track conversation threads, follow and unfollow users, autotweet RSS feeds and much more. As previously mentioned, the big difference is that it allows users to ‘brand’ their tweets.

For instance, if you’ve ever sent a tweet using a tweet client like TweetDeck, Tweetie or Hootsuite, you’ve probably noticed each tweet is labeled with a backlink to the application used to generate the tweet.

With Market Me Tweet you have the ability to customize your own branded backlink that not only features your business, site or blog name, but let’s you choose the URL to link back to. In essence, you can optimize your brand and drive traffic back to your site.

The benefits of being able to brand, optimize and create backlinks to each of your tweets is a home run for your online social presence. For every single tweet that you send and that someone else retweets you're creating additional exposure via a customized backlink. Incredible!

Of course all amazing tools come at a price, but the nice thing is that Market Me Tweet is reasonably affordable. There are several monthly price plans available to suit your individual or professional needs. The investment that you make will pay back in spades, especially when you consider how many backlinks your tweets will be generating throughout the Twitter-sphere.

Are you already using this revolutionary tool? What type of success are you seeing? Drop a line and keep us posted.

Back in the day, press releases were the primary means of communication between business enterprises and the media. However, the advancement of the internet has made the traditional format of a press release less effective as journalists, press members and readers crave small chunks of succinct details that incorporate social media, linking and multimedia to make it more digestible and relevant. Compare this to the multi-page press releases that dominated newsroom fax machines in the past and it’s pretty clear that the way information is assembled and received has changed.

If you're used to traditional press release formats its evolution to social media press release (SMPR) won't be too much of a challenge. Knowing what to include and how to format your SMPR will be a big help in securing media and blogger coverage for your brand's news and happenings.

The basic SMPR parts are:

1. headline
2. secondary headline
3. overview
4. body
5. facts
6. about
7. multimedia links
8. relevant links
9. tags

Each part has been labeled and is featured in a sample SMPR outline to make it easy to follow along.

1. For your headline, state exactly what's the SMPR is about. This isn't the place to use jargon or slang. A keyword or two and you're good to go.

2.The secondary headline isn't always necessary, but if you want to add a bit more insight and push readers to read the next line then include it. Follow the same guidelines you used in the headline.

Once you've built your SMPR you'll want to distribute it to your media and blog contacts. There are multiple distribution methods for your SMPR. You can email, fax broadcast, post and link on your website or use distribution services. Distribution services typically come in two flavors - paid and free.Services with payment are very costly ranging in prices from $350 to $3500 depending on length, images and circumference, local, regional, national or international. The advantage of a paid service is that media and blog contacts are kept current and you will often receive specific instructions that pertain to how each individual likes to be approached and contacted. Additionally, you receive access to syndicated newswires like the Associated Press, Reuters and others which aren't typically available through free services. Newswires are the official method of communication used by most to receive news content. If you're interested in paying for distribution visit PR Newswire or Marketwire to learn more.

Free distribution of your SMPR can take place via a multitude of sites. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Ultimately, it will be up to you to determine which one is the best outlet for you and your brand. Some of the more popular free distribution sites are PRLog, i-Newswire and Press Release Point. You'll want to research what's included in the free distribution service and find out what types of flexibility you have with customizing your distribution list. This will help you get your SMPR into the hands of the right people. For instance, if a site informs you that they distribute to all the major national newspapers you should ask if they have distribution points to journalists that focus on specific content like health, technology or finance.

Also, keep in mind that the SMPR above is a sample only. Feel free to tailor your SMPR to fit your brand's needs. You many need to go bigger or smaller. It's entirely up to you.

Have you developed a SMPR lately? What have you included? How are you sending it out? Please share with us.

Incorporating video into your website and social media sites is an excellent way to grab the attention of your audience. Just like most of us enjoy reading books with pictures, we also want to see and hear through a movie. With the average person watching 182 online videos each month and YouTube serving more than 1 billion videos each day it's easy to see that video is a marketing strategy that shouldn't be overlooked.

Video Topic & Content

The subject that you choose for your video really depends on your brand, audience and industry. You might decide to showcase a news-themed video about a new product launch or maybe create a how-to or information-based video for your audience. Spend some time researching what your audience would like to watch. Let their preference help to guide you as you develop your script and content. Knowing what appeals to your consumers and following suit can help you convert them into brand evangelists.

Script & Filming

Hands down, the best thing about video marketing in 2010 is that you don't need to hire an expensive agency with copywriters and art directors to put your video together. That's not to say having Don Draper and his team of Mad Men available at your beck and call is a bad thing. If you have the budget and the time it's worth exploring. For the rest of us, using a simple handheld or computer cam is more than ample in terms of equipment. Before you launch your video put together a rough script to help focus on what you want to cover. If necessary, use a tripod to keep the camera steady while recording.

Packaging Your Video

Some popular forms of video include testimonials from satisfied customers, highlight products being used in real-life situations, training videos or walk-throughs to simplify complex processes or extend existing content-like presentations. There are many possibilities when it comes to video. What's important is that you drive traffic to your video. Try to cross-promote or develop a video series that will get your audience involved and keep them coming back for more.

Video Optimization

Here's the part where we talk about search engine optimization. You can - and should - optimize your videos. Include keywords in your script, the title of your video and tagging. Word on the street is that YouTube will be launching a feature that makes the audio portion of all videos searchable. By optimizing your video scripts now you'll stand a better chance of having your audio appear in keyword searches. Don't forget to include keywords in your video title. Just be conscious of keyword overload. You still want people to know what your video is about. Use keywords in moderation.

Upload & Share

Take full advantage of all the video outlets that you have available. Host your videos on your website and include homepage teasers to let people know that you've created fresh video content. Upload your videos to all the major sites like YouTube, Vimeo and Viddler. Make your video available in multiple locations and you'll give yourself a greater opportunity to appear in user-generated searches.

Monitor, Track & Analyze

Once you've gotten past creating and uploading your video you'll want to involve yourself in its metrics. This will help you determine if it's a success or a failure. Pay attention to the number of views, comments left about your video, revenue spikes and whether the perception of your brand has benefited.

If you need a little video inspiration, check out Erik Qualmann's Socialnomics video that he put together to launch his new book. This video went viral and helped put Qualmann and his book on the map overnight.

 

Get creative, have fun and test out video with your marketing strategy.

When done correctly, a social media marketing campaign can yield tremendous results. With that being said, social media is more than just creating a social profile and calling it good. It's about interaction and engagement.

According to 2010 Twitter statistics, the micro-blogging site has more than 106 million registered users and it's adding an average of 300,000 new users each day. A total of 55 million daily tweets along with 3 billion unique searches show that people are extremely interested in sharing information with one another and want to learn more. Clearly, Twitter is a powerful social media force that has the potential to connect brands with their target audiences.

An important part of social media is knowing that different marketing strategies need to be used on different social media sites. A cookie cutter approach doesn't cut it in the word of online marketing. Here are a few simple steps can be used to develop a solid base that will help you build your brand presence and following on Twitter.

1. Attract the Right Followers

Sometimes the excitement of launching a Twitter marketing strategy can dilute the purpose behind it. Stay focused on who you want to attract as a follower. This means that you'll need to look toward other relevant tweeters and join-in on their conversations. People naturally gravitate toward others who have similar interests. If your brand is all about insurance then you'll want to look for some of the successful a-listers on Twitter and start tweeting with them. Others will take notice and follow you as well.

2. Original & Optimized Tweets

Getting caught up in your own brand happens to the best of us. Try not to broadcast a 'me-me-me' message when you're tweeting. You'll establish more credibility and appear more genuine if you tweet about information and resources that are helpful to your audience. This doesn't mean that you need to avoid anything about your brand, it just means you should be selective and sporadic when you share brand-related tweets. Followers are more inclined to list and reach out to you when they see that you've set your ego aside.

3. Share With Retweets

This is truly one of the most powerful ways to build long-lasting Twitter relationships. Retweets are an excellent way to augment your Twitter marketing strategy. Think of a retweet as social media currency - you give a tweet and someone pays you twofold with a retweet. They're like pats on the back that show other tweeters that what you've shared is worth spreading around to everyone. The Twitterverse is only so small and retweets give others outside of your following a chance to see the type of content that you tweet about.

4. Integrate Twitter With Other Social Media Outlets

All in all, the social media realm is a fairly friendly place. You really don't hear much about social media services trying to pillage each other's users. Thankfully, everyone plays well with one another and as a result many open APIs have given developers an opportunity to create applications and programs that integrate different social media services with one another. You can connect Twitter to Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress and, well, just about any social media outlet. This is an important component in your strategy because even though you're marketing hub is Twitter, social integration allows you to expand your reach to other audiences.

5. Use Twitter Tools

If Twitter is a social media vehicle (base model) then Twitter tools are all the bells and whistles that you can use to customize it and make it a lean, mean social media machine. There are thousands of different tools that can help you monitor, follow, schedule tweets, analyze and much more. For additional tool suggestions, check out MindSprout's Delicious page and type Twitter in the tag search. Some tools that are worth checking out include:

• TweetPhoto - exchange and share photos on Twitter
• TweetStats - graph and track your Twitter usage and reply statistics
• TweetBeep - keep track of conversations that mention your brand
• Mr. Tweet - this tool seeks out follow-worthy tweeters just for you

By using the steps above you can craft a customized Twitter marketing strategy that will increase your brand awareness and leverage your brand's presence among the competition.

What are some of the other ways that your brand is using Twitter to market itself? Please share with us below.

To most people branding conjures up images of logos and corporate colors, but it's actually much more than that. By business definition, branding is simply the creation of an identifiable entity that makes a promise of value. Let's face it, today's marketplace is a crowded place and being able to distinguish and stand out is no easy feat. Understanding what the right and wrong way to carry out brand management will make a big difference in the success of your business and  its image.

1. Logo Misconceptions

Too often, businesses focus solely on the graphic design and creative elements of a logo instead of positioning, buyer psychology and alignment with company objectives. Start thinking about your logo analytically and establish a plan on how to connect customer insights with your brand promise.

2. Being Everything to Everyone

It is impossible to appeal to every individual. Instead, focus on a niche market that you can tailor your brand to. Gaining the trust of a targeted audience will help strengthen your brand appeal and reputation.

3. Trying to Be Different

Differentiating your brand just for the sake of being different isn't going to increase sales. Don't use gimmicks to make the brand stand out, promote actual benefits for your customers that the competition can't offer.

4. Lack of Commitment

Some companies place brand management in the hands of a marketing department so that they can concentrate on other operational aspects. Branding is an integral part of all departments within a company and preserving brand uniformity and integrity prevents it from becoming diluted.

5. Missing a Marketing Plan

Failure to plan is planning to fail. Traditional marketing isn't delivering results like it used to. The game has changed and if you want to promote your brand you need to do it online. Slapping a profile up on Facebook and calling it good isn't marketing. Consider hiring a professional who is adept at providing social media marketing services.

6. Customer Disconnect

Not knowing who your brand's customers are can lead to disaster. Engage in customer dialogue, learn their wants, uncover their needs and continually evolve to meet the changing demands of the market place and become a better company overall.

7. Unconscious Neglect

Ultimately, businesses want their brands to succeed, but they aren't necessarily doing much to strengthen or enhance them. Awareness of brand perception is critical to its longevity. Sometimes this requires coordinating with a third-party market research firm to investigate what consumers really think. Use the feedback to refocus your brand direction.

8. Too Much Change Too Often

Brands should evolve, not change. Businesses that are continually shifting their position may end up causing more harm than they realize. Spending the time to conduct solid research will help get things right the first time.

9. Not Tracking the Brand

If someone reaches out to your business for assistance, whether it's through email or phone call, finding out how they learned about the brand and why they've contacted you will help drive future brand marketing efforts.Perhaps you have a TV commercials that's driving customers your way. That's important to know so that you can expand and continue reproducing good results.

10. Forgetting to Research

This really ties in to a majority of the branding mistakes that have been listed above. Research the competition, your customer, your market place and your business model carefully. Knowing what your brand is up against and how to properly position it can save you from headache and frustration down the road. Knowledge is power and the more that you understand about your market, the easier it will be be to succeed when you enter it.

When it comes right down to it, logos are used to identify. They represent products, businesses, services and so much more, but ultimately they are used to create, describe and signify what something is all about. Logos are like poetry. Where poets use select words in a small sentence to convey large meaning, logos share volumes of information about what they represent. From quirky to conservative and edgy to punchy, developing a logo takes some consideration and planning. So here's a few tips to make your logo successful and few more to avoid using.

Logo Don'ts

1. Font only logos. Stay away from a font-only logo or one that uses to many fonts. Text just isn't going to leave a lasting impression. It's easily forgettable and it doesn't make a visual impact that people can connect with.

2. Clipart. Keep your artwork original. Have images designed to fulfill the scope of your branding project. Using a pre-made art doesn't look cohesive and comes across unfinished. Good design should connect to the purpose of your logo and its overall intent.

3. Scale. Logos should be built to with the ability to adjust in size without losing quality in the design. This also means don't use rasterized images for your logos. Rasterized images can provide inconsistencies in reproduction and appear pixelated.

4. Trendy. A logo should have longevity and be around for awhile. Using trends means you're not making your logo timeless. Without a unique approach to logo development it can appear like a copy-cat or outdated within a small amount of time.

5. Selfish Design. Build a logo for your customer, not for the designer's ego or your own. Your logo needs to reach and appeal to your target audience and anxious graphic artists that see your logo as an opportunity to stamp with their own personalities aren't going to produce what you need.

A good approach to logo design is working with a professional who takes the time to consult with you and learn about your needs, wants and goals. Getting a sense of who will be purchasing, subscribing or using the offer behind the logo will make a big difference in the logo's design and final outcome. A solid logo should follow a few basic principles.

Logo Do's

1. Clear. Too much detail can be overkill for a logo. Cramming in too many elements can cause it to appear cluttered and distracting. Simple design makes a logo recognizable and customers will remember it.

2. Versatility. Think about how the logo will be used and where it will be used. Your logo should look and work well in color and as a black in white image. It should also be flexible enough to use on the Internet or on an outdoor board. The color palette should be simple. Too many colors can potentially cost quite a bit down the road for promotional items and printed pieces.

3. Image. A good logo doesn't have to describe what a company does or is. Consider the star-emblem that Macy's uses - it doesn't sell stars, or the Mercedes Benz icon - they sell cars, but you don't see a miniature-auto for a logo.

4. Format. Using vector images will give your logo greater flexibility and preserve its basic structure. This is important when it comes to sizing for different media products, marketing outlets and any other situation that features your logo.

5. Feedback. Definitely keep communication transparent with your designer. It will help keep your logo project on the right path. Be cautious when sharing your logo designs with others. It's ok to get an opinion from someone, but involving parents, friends, colleagues and partners may hinder the design progress of the logo and derail the logo from meeting it's objectives.

Hopefully these basic tips will get your logo design moving in the right direction. There's a million great resources available online for additional logo design tips and tricks. Take a look around and you're bound to find some excellent information.