Deciding which social networks to focus on

Posted on 15. Aug, 2010 by Dean Whitney in Inbound Marketing, Social Media   and has   0 Comments

Focus is important in social media. Without focus it can be like boiling the ocean. So when marketers new to social media begin they wonder which social networks they should focus on. Twitter? LinkedIn? Do they need a Facebook Fan Page? How about MySpace? A YouTube Channel? Flickr? The list goes on.

Wikipedia maintains a list of social networking websites with a column for registered users. It’s shocking how many social networks there are with over 10 million registered users that I haven’t heard of before. Habbo, a social network for teens has over 160 million registered users, over 8 million unique visitors per month, and 75,000+ new registrations per day!

Marketers should look at two things – Audience reach and search engine optimization (SEO). Many times the two are exclusive. For some clients work on getting lots of content on YouTube and a high volume of impressions when it’s not the best site for their audience. The fact is, the YouTube pages get highly ranked in search engines.

An April 2010 study, Social Media Marketing Industry Report by Michael Stelzner of 1900 marketing professionals showed that by far Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs were the top four social media tools used by marketers.

My advice is to target the top 4-5 sites and be sure to include social bookmarking sites separate. You should plan to bookmark new content on a few social bookmarking sites like digg, Stumble Upon, Yahoo! Buzz. Do your research; you may find 1 or 2 sites you haven’t heard of that service your audience. If your audience is teen then discovering Habbo could be a big opportunity.

The CMO’s Guide To The Social Media Landscape from CMO.com, prepared by 97th Floor, an SEO and social media firm, is an interesting take on the top 10 choices.

The CMO’s Guide To The Social Media Landscape

View more documents from Dean Whitney.

Hubspot internet marketing software

Posted on 01. Jun, 2010 by Dean Whitney in Inbound Marketing, Social Media, Start-ups   and has   0 Comments

HubSpot offers an Internet marketing application that helps businesses with their social marketing and SEO strategy and lead generation and conversion efforts. The company is behind tools like Website Grader, which essentially audits websites for their search engine friendliness, and boasts similar tools specifically for Twitter and Facebook. (more…)

Chat with Hubspot CEO Brian Halligan

Posted on 29. Apr, 2010 by Dean Whitney in Inbound Marketing   and has   0 Comments

I had the opportunity to visit Brian Halligan at the Hubspot office in Cambridge, MA on Tuesday (April 27th, 2010). This is my second visit to Hubspot and the first time they were about 100 people smaller at a different office. Now they have outgrown their new space in Kendal Square a stone’s throw from MIT and Microsoft’s NERD (New England Research and Development) Center. (more…)

Zero to Social – taking the social media marketing leap

Posted on 15. Apr, 2010 by Dean Whitney in Inbound Marketing, Marketing, Social Media   and has   0 Comments

Everyone sees that the role social media plays in marketing is growing quickly if not exponentially. There were 4 Billion Tweets on Twitter in 2009 – analysts predict 40 Billion in 2010. Marketers hear about the millions of dollars in revenue Dell has generated. Reports of major brands increasing social marketing budgets, moving spending from print and TV. It’s a gold rush. (more…)

MITX Event – Web Marketing on a Shoestring

Posted on 28. Jun, 2009 by Dean Whitney in Advertising, Inbound Marketing, Social Media   and has   0 Comments

Garfield Group Interactive President Dean Whitney was a panelist at last week’s MITX Marketing Technology Series Event: Web Marketing on a Shoestring - Being Scrappy with Free Tools and Techniques.

Moderator: Jeff Cram – Co-Founder, ISITE Design

Panelists: Cappy Popp – Principal and Co-Founder, Thought Labs; Greg Slama - Manager, Contextual Marketing, One to One Interactive; Mike Volpe – VP, Marketing, Hubspot; Dean Whitney – President, Garfield Group Interactive

Discussion points included:

  • Free or low-cost search, social media and analytics tools
  • Successful examples of marketing on a shoestring
  • What you can and can’t get with free/low cost tools – What are the pros and cons of free tools?
  • What factors do you need to look for when evaluating the various technology options?
  • Emerging technologies & the future:   Are we moving towards a complete free, scalable “service” model?
  • What do you need to know now to make your business ready for the future of technology?

See this event series on Twitter using hash-tag MITXMT

Find more great MITX Events in the boston area.

Social Marketing Funnel

Posted on 25. Jun, 2009 by Dean Whitney in Advertising, Inbound Marketing, Social Media   and has   0 Comments



Social Marketing Funnel, originally uploaded by ggiagency.

The Social Marketing Funnel illustrates the life cycle of customer acquisition that occurs when brands add value by educating consumers, providing quality content, engaging in conversation, promoting content, people and other brands through social media and networks.

The benefits normally achieved through marketing are supported throughout the entire custom experience, industry interactions and the business community.

10 Questions: Are You On Track to Building an Effective Social Media Marketing Program

Posted on 22. May, 2009 by Dean Whitney in Inbound Marketing, Social Media   and has   0 Comments

  1. Do you have a “Publishing Plan” to create meaningful content and reach your target audience?
  2. Are you actively listening to and having conversations with people in places they frequent such as blogs and online communities?
  3. Are your empowering employees and customers to act as “brand evangelists?”
  4. Do you have a systematic plan for your teams to promote your brand, your content and build reputations on a daily basis?
  5. Are you establishing a “Co-creation Experience” with your target buyers? An experience where their suggestions and insights shape the future of your offering? Can your customers become members?
  6. Are you planning “Research Initiatives” that will help your organization learn prior to making major investments in marketing initiatives?
  7. Is your strategy “Agile”, with regular checkpoints to analyze results and trending, to look at both qualitative and quantitative data, adjust your tactics and fine-tune your initiatives?
  8. Are you able to derive lead intelligence from your website? Can you analyze how specific events, content, activities affect traffic and lead conversion? When a website visitor converts to a lead can you tell what site they came from, which pages they read and see what they are interested in?
  9. Do you have a systematic program for keyword discovery and acquisitions? Are you sharing target keywords with your team so they can use them in when creating content (blogs, comments, twitter updates etc.)?
  10. Are you willing to “Lose Control” of the conversation?