Social Business Consulting continues to evolve and 2017 is no exception.  I have been helping companies with social media marketing since 2009 so makes me feel like a grandfather in the space.  That’s eight years! but a lot has changed in the social business and social media consulting landscape since then.

Here is a quick video post I did on the The Top 10 Must Read Social Media Books for business professionals.  Enjoy!- 

Justin Results French.

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

I had the opportunity to attend the 3rd Annual Gravity Summit at the campus of UCLA yesterday with fellow members of Social Networking San Diego. In a nutshell, Gravity Summit is a day long event that brings together some of the best minds in social media from various industries. Speakers talk about social media trends, how to use social media tools, and present case studies on some unique social media applications.

Here is a brief recap and a couple of key points I took away:

The Summit started with opening remarks from Beverly Macy, CEO of Gravity Summit, and Teri Thompson, Creative Director of Gravity Summit, who spoke on the topic of “A Social Global Perspective”. One notable statistic I took from Teri’s presentation was that in the past year, there was a 90% increase in conversation on Twitter about companies and corporations. It makes you wonder, what are people saying about your company?

Gravity Summit Attendees

Simon Mainwaring from Fast Company took the stage for the opening keynote. He mentioned that two of consumers’ top concerns are honest and transparent business practices and dealing with companies they can trust. A way to address those concerns is to engage with your customers via social media.

Simon explained how social media is connecting us and accelerating change on multiple levels. He stated that companies need to build social capital as well as financial capital. Companies and brands cannot excel in a society that fails, therefore, it is critical for companies to contribute to social good.

“The best hope for business is the business of hope”

How is your company contributing to social good?

Brian Dresher from Mashable talked about sharing the personality behind your brand, show casing your company’s personality and why you should provide behind-the-scenes access to how your company operates. Sharing your brand’s “personality” is key to building trust with your customers, a point mentioned previously by Simon Mainwaring.

Panel Discussion (from left to right) Beverly Macy, Dr. Natalie Petouhoff, Patrick Srail (MySpace), Andrew Orci (ORCI Agency), Daphne Hart (American Red Cross)

There were speakers representing companies such as Access Hollywood,  American Red Cross, Domino’s Pizza, and Toyota, who talked about how they use social media or how the use of social media has been beneficial to their companies in a multitude of ways, from gaining competitive advantages, better customer engagement, building brand awareness and following, etc.

A memorable presentation was by Ramon De Leon, owner of six Domino’s Pizza restaurants in Chicago who shared how he uses social media to engage with his customers and deliver above and beyond customer satisfaction.

One of the highlights of the show was MC Hammer accepting an award from Gravity Summit for Social Media Marketer of the Year.

Social Networking San Diego CEO Justin French with MC Hammer

My experience at Gravity Summit overall was great. Check below for a full list of the speakers and a link to their Twitter page.

Wesley Quach

Complete list of 3rd Annual Gravity Summit Speakers:

Beverly Macy @beverlymacy
Rodney Rumford @rumford
Teri Thompson @terithompson1
Simon Mainwaring @simonmainwaring
Brian Dresher @bdresher
Ted Nguyen @tednguyen
Daphne Hart @daphnehart
Stewart Neff @stewartneff
Jeremy Blacklow @blacklow1
MC Hammer @mchammer
Ramon De Leon @ramon_deleon
Vishal Sapra @vishalsapra
Justin Goldsborough @jgoldsborough
Shira Lazar @shiralazar
Dr. Natalie Petouhoff @drnatalie
Patrick Srail @patricksrail
Denise Morrissey @denisemorrissey
Charles Miller @chasmiller
Nic Adler @nicadler
Kyra Reed @kyrareed

The number one reason why most businesses used to fail in social media was education. I’ve taught online marketing and social media marketing best practices at Mira Costa College now for 2 years to help solve this problem and give back. 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 factor.

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. Whether its traffic, leads, sales, or just awareness for your cause. 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.

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

Justin ‘Results’ French

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

P.S.S. I’m excited to share 1 milestone for me- I just wrote my 7,00th tweet today!  What a journey it has been…

looking for a job? You had better be on social networking and social media sites like facebook, twitter and linked-in otherwise you are getting beat by other applicants. Listen to someone I know, respect, and even met at Gravity Summit last year which took place at Harvard in Boston Dan Schawbel explain

As a freelance independent business process consultant/trainer, it is very apparent to me that
social networking is becoming more and more important to any business enterprise. It is not
good enough to be the “Process Guy” (www.TheProcessGuy.com) to get that message out.
As an author of two books, the existing web page is the only point of contact to get that word
out — but that is not enough!

I teach “Business Process Optimization” at UCSD Extension as one outlet for my process
approach and methodology. This single outlet is very limited to students who actually hear my
approach. It is very obvious to me that this message needs to go to a much wider audience.

As a business consultant, my goal is to assist businesses in organizing their operational
business processes to shorten time-to-market, increase product quality, increase process
repeatability, and become more efficient in day-to-day operations. This is one area that is
overlooked by many executives. It is also the one area of business that could very well be
essence of survivability (or not) in this global economy. I target BioTech companies that
are regulated by the FDA, and DoD contracting companies that are required to be at a
higher level of CMMI and/or ISO 9001 certified.

I specialize in setting up a company’s process group, and process training. I am a big believer
that the process organization and layering has a huge beneficial impact on process following,
compliance, control, and quality. I preach about the separation of “what you do” from “how
you are to do it”. That separation is key because you want to mandate the “whats” and have
a lot of flexibility and extensibility at the “how” level. The selectable “how” level provides the
mechanism for process tailoring (scalability, site differences, piloting, etc.). I also believe in
using server-side scripting (php/mysql) to specifically address common high-level enterprise
steps for all company process tasks. These scripted assist can control developmental
configuration management, provide inter-task communication, provide task metric data
mechanisms, link to enterprise inspection procedures for work product quality, etc.

I have seen terrible examples of process elements. I have seen companies spend a ton of
money on their processes and are still struggling with regulatory compliance, good business
practices, day-to-day operational efficiencies, quality, etc. The waste can be enormous
and totally detrimental to a company existence.

Unfortunately putting in good processes tends to be a reactionary event versus a proactive
event. Many companies wait for a total crisis (death of people, lawsuits, etc.) before
addressing this part of their business! I can really help here.

F. Alan Goodman, Independent Process Consultant (“The Process Guy”)
www.TheProcessGuy.com

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

p.s. Looking for a result driven social media manager for your business ?

Call 760-576-4653 and mention this top 10 list for a FREE phone assessment!

Now that you have a strong sense of who a social media person really is, let’s fast forward to 2011.

You have 3 options for your social media marketing needs:

Do it yourself
Hire an agency
Hire an employee to do it for you

Now here are 3 reasons to work with us:
Results
Revenue
Relationships

Still need more info?  It is important to fully understand that Social Media is about people. And people care about WIIFM or “What’s in it for me?” or lately with the trend in real-time, “What’s in it for me Right Now?” Traditional forms of marketing and especially companies still struggle with this, which is why I have decided to start 2010 off with a very simple explanation and clarify what a social media person is.

1. Social media is about people. And people buy stuff right? That may be so, BUT, what’s also important about social media is it connects people to similar and common interests. The key take away here is still and always has been throughout societies, that engaging, interacting, and building relationships is key. That is why some people are just natural when it comes to social media because they like to help people (and help businesses understand social media)

2. Think of social media and your participation in these social settings as prospecting for the 21st century, which if you ask any sales person, does take a lot of work. But even in your personal lives, you must constantly be improving your relationships and communication right?

3. The last secret here is to think of the social media person as the director of an orchestra. You know, the guy in the orchestra who holds the baton. This composer sets the rhythm, the flow, and leads the team to a successful production of fine tuned music. The social media person does the same for a businesses online presence; guiding the targeted traffic into the various channels. It is an art combined with a science.

Would you agree or disagree? Any analogies you have in mind that you would like to add? Feel free to let us know any questions you might have about your social media campaigns. We’ve helped many companies in this area and are here for you.

Are you ready to start seeing RESULTS with your social media efforts? Call for a FREE 10 minute Assessment at 760-576-4653 and see if you qualify to partner with us on your next project- you won’t be disappointed.