Since I began advising businesses on social media marketing in 2009, things have continued to change much more quickly than I can keep up with. But I do my best to continue to learn strategies, techniques, and tools all for measuring continued success for businesses using this new extremely cost effective communication medium.

Before advising business on social media, hundreds of companies in Southern California trusted myself and my team with keeping them up and running with various Information Technology needs.

It was much easier to sell solving computer problems than trying to sell social media services, but we deal with much larger marketing budgets now which has it’s rewards. Besides- our efforts have resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue on some projects.

When people’s computers are down, they can be fanatic! I had one customer that was loosing hundreds of thousands of dollars per day when they were down. So we worked the weekend to get them up by Monday morning. Weekend emergency rate applied of course

When selling social media services, we sell an improved business, cost savings, long term sustainability, competitive advantage, and many other benefits. In fact, we do a lot less selling and more educating. This is now the 21st century sales approach in case you haven’t noticed.

Social media consultants have a tough job. They must prove ROI, demonstrate results in a short amount of time, and show an increase in revenue otherwise they may be going back to the drawing board; or worse out of a client or a job.

From inside the social media trenches and business school, here are some things I learned that apply everyday to life in a social business setting. I have the privilege to lead companies into these murky waters where sometimes the outcomes can be serendipitous among saving companies thousands of dollars while acquiring new customers and driving bottom line revenue.

Here are those applied theories in action for social business:

1. Red ocean vs. Blue ocean strategy using social media

2. Swot analysis (google it)
3. Quantitative vs. Qualitative data (link to mashable article)
4. Self awareness ENTJ and how to listen more (especially with Social Media)
5. Work on projects with great people. In business school, When you do projects you either choose your own team or the professor assigns them. Just like in the real world, when you work on a project be sure you are aligning with the right people. (this is a critical success factor)

Hope the above principles are helpful for you. Feel free to connect with me on twitter or Google+ plus.justinrfrench.com
I’m continuing to decrease my Facebook usage

Do you have anything to add? I would love to hear about some of your experiences in the social business trenches.

Justin Results French - Chief Social Business Technologist

P.s. If you found this post valuable feel free to share it with other business owners, entrepreneurs, startups, small businesses, business professionals, or other social media consultants. Sharing is caring

The number one reason why most businesses used to fail in social media was education. I’ve taught online marketing and social media best practices at Mira Costa College now for 2 years to help solve this problem and give back to the business community. This has empowered and helped hundreds of local businesses which I am extremely passionate about. I think its safe to say that this education thing can no longer be an excuse. There are a ton of educational resources out there. The real problem I now see is people expecting immediate results. Social media does not happen overnight and could be a challenge especially for small businesses mostly due to the time involved, knowledge needed, and even a limited resources factor. But the benefits out weigh the downsides.

What being in the social media trenches for 2 years now shows us is a lot of people out there get started in social media and they expect immediate results or instant gratification. I’m here to tell you that this is a myth. There’s no such thing as instant gratification with social media. If your business decides to get in this social media space or get into this game, you need to play to win and you need to finish the race. Have some fun too. I see plenty of companies and business professionals getting into this space and expecting immediate results and they don’t finish the race. They create a few blog posts, they send out a few twitter messages and that’s it. It doesn’t work like that.

I would like to reveal the secret to social media success. If you want to be successful in social media when it relates to your business or your career the key takeaway here is daily actionable steps over a long period of time will lead to sustainable growth. It takes quite a long time to build momentum in social media but with a little bit of planning, execution, and time, you can start to see results fairly quickly compared to other online marketing tactics which are becoming less effective. Whether its traffic, leads, sales, or just awareness for your cause, social media can be some of the most powerful word of mouth and cost effective results for lead generation, revenue, product sales, etc. It’s also important to note that social media is now integrated with SEO or search engine optimization. We are seeing this because of the dynamic of user generated content combined with off-site social media tactics that seem to go hand in hand together as a successful integrated online business strategy. Think of it as a snowball marketing effect on your business. You get that analogy right? As the snowball starts at the top of the mountain, it gains momentum and gets larger as is makes it’s way down the mountain. We help businesses do exactly this and the results have been incredible!

I hope this post helped clear up some myths, so feel free to comment and share. Thanks

Justin ‘Results’ French

P.S. Wrote this entire post using dragon naturally speaking on my iPad pretty smooth

Hello Friends, Colleagues, Clients, & Partners,

This month is very exciting because it marks the 4th semester of our CEO Justin “Results” French teaching a class at one of his alumni Mira Costa College. As you can probably already tell, Justin is EXTREMELY passionate about teaching social media to local businesses. Why? Because social media levels the competitive landscape for small businesses wanting to build their brand, generate local awareness about their products, services, or retail location, & even makes business development fun again!

If you are like most small businesses, you probably dread marketing, hate cold calling, and have worked with firms who have produced unsuccessful results. We at Social Networking San Diego are focused on results. Our minimum campaign for monthly engagements starts around $1000 per month.

We deploy the most cost effective marketing tactics that get you results in the least amount of time, so we can EARN that extended budget for additional campaigns. Each social media marketing campaign is carefully backwards engineered & crafted with achieving your business goals. We focus on building long term business relationships. Don’t take our word for it- let’s hear from actual student/ small business owner

Video Testimonial Here

If you are a local small or mid-sized business owner or professional ready to explore the trenches of social media then I highly suggest you partake in this semesters Introduction To Marketing You Business Online class at Mira Costa College. Registrations are filling up quickly so reserve your spot today!

Click this link to reserve your seat http://bit.ly/c0lNsy

Are you looking for a social media manager? Is your small business actively using social media? Are you getting return on your time invested in this sometimes complicated marketing channel? I have been asked lately by many clients, students, colleagues, partners, small businesses, etc. exactly what makes a good social media manager Justin? So I wanted to share with you the Top 10 Qualities Of A Result Driven Social Media Manager that I have come to find while being active in the social media for business community over the past 2+ years. This is a job title that has been trending in the most recent months, BUT many people are still trying to wrap their heads around what specific characteristics do social media managers need to have? These are the same EXACT qualities & etiquette I teach people when participating, engaging, and conducting business development in the virtual world of social media:

1. You listen to the conversations first- then provide additional value add to it
2. You care about people
3. You are trustworthy, helpful, friendly, courteous, and kind to others
4. You have decent understanding of business, strategy, technology, and most importantly web 2.0 technologies
5. You understand marketing and know how to measure results
6. You practice what you preach
7. You add your insight when appropriate
8. You develop relationships first and sell second
9. You actively stay on the cutting edge of “whats new on the web” and have a burning obsession to stay on the pulse of social media
10. You have somewhat of an influence in the social media for business community

Any you would like to add?

Enjoy your week, hope these help shed some light- Justin

Okay for today’s blog post I’m actually recording this live on my iPad and the program I’m using is dragon naturally speaking. If I have a few issues with the grammar I’ll go through and fix it myself manually but I want to talk about today’s topic and discuss the difference between SEO and Social Media and you should know by now the two go hand-in-hand unless your living on Mars.

Let me explain why SEO is more beneficial for a product driven business model. When it comes to other business models that are more service-based businesses compared with events, it’s very difficult to do SEO for non-product driven websites based on my experience in the social media trenches. Being in this field for almost 3 years now, if you’re looking for quick rankings or a way to get quick traffic, quick visibility, quick brand recognition, then social media is that the best route to go. You will see over time you will start to rank for certain keywords based on social media tactics and relevant postings that you are doing. I had stumbled upon this in my early years just running some tests and putting out great content while doing basic keyword research. I was actually being ranked for some very competitive keywords which was cool! What’s even more interesting is that 1.5 years ago before Google and twitter signed an agreement, I started to notice my twitter messages ranking in Google search results on page 1 real time. This occurred from my twitter account because as we know twitter is a micro-blog so that was even more interesting.

So I guess the take away for today’s topic is when it comes to social media versus SEO, social media is actually going to be beating SEO for product & service driven businesses that’s my prediction in the not so distant future. Id like to hear your feedback in the comments section if you somewhat agree or disagree we can debate all day and Id be more than happy to. So thank you again for coming to the social networking San Diego blog. Please sign up for a newsletter on the right-hand side or download our free e-book if you have not already. Also there’s an ebook that I wrote for $9.95 for the best 10 you will ever spend as far as an informational social media guide for small business. This is Justin “Results” French signing off. Will see you guys tomorrow. Thank you

Are you a social media consultant? Are you involved in a social media mastermind group? Well if you are not, I wanted to share with you a question I get asked a lot lately. I wanted to explain why I feel social media for business is BOTH an art AND a science.

1. Social media is an art because you have to be both strategic, creative, and somewhat tech savvy. I’m not saying you have to be a programmer, BUT you have to know how to be human in a digital world and utilize the online tools. This can be very difficult for some, and require some teaching, which is why I passionately teach at Mira Costa College a Social Media and Internet marketing course that has been rising in popularity. It’s called Introduction to Marketing Your Business Online and you can find out more info by clicking here: social media workshop

2. Social media is a science because it ties very closely in with sociology (which was one of my favorite subjects in my lower division) and studies the human behavior in groups. Hence the rise of social networking, social media, and other human behavioral technologies that continues to advance. Social media requires people to be REAL and if you are not, others will know. The 5 realest people I know in social media are GaryVee, Chris Brogan, Scott Stratten, Brian Solis, and Tony Hsieh of Zappos.

So what do you think? Is social media an art OR a science? I would be interested in hearing your thoughts. Enjoy the world Cup!

Justin “Results” French

1. He is living proof that if you CARE enough, engage, and work your face off you can become mainstream

Watch CBS News Videos Online

2. He is down to earth, completely honest & transparent

3. He is one of the most energetic hard working hustlers I know (besides myself)

4. He knows how to balance fun, work, and of course family life

5. I had the honor & privilege to meet Gary twice (Boston Gravity Summit and a Wine Meet-up in San Diego)

In summary- Gary Vee has been a great inspiration in my continued jounrey of internet entrepreneurship, social media consulting, and most of all following my passion.  Feel free to leave a comment if Gary Vee has had an impact on your life- I would love to hear your story.  Please leave a comment below.  Cheers

Justin “Results” French