The document provides guidance on using social media effectively for business purposes. It outlines 21 rules for social media success, including participating where your target audience spends time, serving the community with valuable content, following influential leaders, monitoring your online reputation, having fun but also focusing on goals and sales, and working hard through continuous effort. The key message is that businesses must embrace social media but also do so strategically for their specific goals and industry.

1. Nine Rules +1
Social Media

2. Are You Doing What’s
Right for Yours?
The BIG 3: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Everybody who’s anybody has a profile in
each. And it seems everybody is preaching
The same thing:
• You HAVE to have a Facebook Fan Page
• You HAVE to be on Twitter
• You HAVE to join LinkedIn and participate in
groups
But, do you really HAVE to do any of his? Will
Your business fall in the water if you don’t?

3. Are You Doing What’s
Right for Yours?
The answer depends on your target audience.
Remember, your target audience determines
where you should be and how you spend your
time. If your target audience spends their day on
Twitter, then that’s where you should be
engaging with them. While it may be a little
challenging to have a full-fledged conversation,
you can still interact and find out what their
challenges are, participate in the conversation
when they are looking for solutions and become
a trusted adviser.

4. Are You Doing What’s
Right for Yours?
The same could be true if your target audience
hangs out on Facebook. Maybe they prefer to
interact there because there’s no character limit
(like the 140 characters on Twitter.) They may like
the back and forth conversation of posting
comments on each others wall and seeing their
updates throughout the day.

5. Are You Doing What’s
Right for Yours?
The same could be true if your target
audience hangs out on Facebook. Maybe
they prefer to interact there because
there’s no character limit (like the 140
characters on Twitter.) They may like the
back and forth conversation of posting
comments on each others wall and seeing
their updates throughout the day.

6. Now That You Know What
Network is Right For
Your Business

7. Social Media Rules
Social media has changed everything about the Web. It
has changed the way people communicate and even the
very fabric of our society, both online and off. And, social
media has changed the way we do business. Recent
valuations of Face book's worth have reached $50 billion
— proof not only of social media's worth in its entirety
but also the potential for businesses of every kind to
profit from Facebook and the rest of the social Web. Be it
a recommendation from a friend, a viral ad campaign or
simply a way for a consumer to communicate with a
brand, “social” has become a mission-critical business
objective. And it should be embraced.

8. Participation is
Mandatory
The Web is a social place and it will
remain that way. It is not a question of
whether your consumers and prospects
are socializing on the Web, rather a
question of where.
The first rule of social media is that
“participation is required”.
For the rest, we get a little help and
inspiration from some people who know
quite a bit about achieving success.

9. “If you want to gather honey,
Be Cool don’t kick over the beehive.”
— Dale Carnegie, Author
It can be tempting for any business to dive
head-first into a social community, make as
much noise as possible and assume that they
will be heard, that their message will go viral
and sales will skyrocket. But that can be a big
mistake.
Instead, take the role of the worker bee and help
build and maintain the community. Success on
the social Web requires that your business
becomes an added value, a partner or a
resource for those with whom you are trying to
connect and influence.

10. Serve the Community
As a business, you are attempting to enter a
network of social circles. You are a guest. And
like a good guest brings
an appetizer or a bottle of wine to a party, you
too must bring something to the table. The best
way to ingrain your business with a community
is to offer value. That might be breaking news
stories, informative articles, entertaining videos,
discounts and special promotions or anything
else that particular community
finds interesting or useful. The trick is in finding
exactly what that is.

11. Serve the Community,
continued
On Facebook, look for posts with plenty of
comments or “likes.” On Twitter, look for
trending topics (both globally and locally) and
updates that have been re-tweeted frequently,
or simply search for key terms and find out
what’s being shared. Set up Google Alerts for
keywords important to your industry and check
Google Trends for peak seasonal activity for
those keywords.

12. Serve the Community,
continued
AllTop.com is a social media aggregator, of
sorts, that keeps track of top stories on various
social websites in different
categories. AllTop can be used to find out what’s
hot in your industry, then that information can be
used to craft informative updates, tweets, blog
posts, etc. PopUrls is a similar site.
•Reddit.com and Digg.com let users vote on the
most interesting stories, and can be sorted by
category and regency.

13. Follow the Leader
“A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness
Depends upon the character of the user.”
— Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of
the United States
Of course, Teddy Roosevelt wasn’t talking
about social media when he uttered these
words. But they are particularly useful for
our purposes.

14. Follow the Leader
When it comes to interacting with individuals in
Social media, what you really want is to recruit
Brand advocates. And the best advocates are
those with the most influence. Identify those
individuals who command the attention of the
community in your industry and work to
befriend them. You might be surprised by what
happens. When you get the attention of an
advocate, more will follow. Treat these people
as your most valuable constituents and return
the favor. Offer to help them with their goals, as well.

15. Watch Your Back
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation
and five minutes to ruin it. If you think
about that, you’ll do things differently.”
— Warren Buffett, Investor, Philanthropist
Monitor your online reputation in five
minutes per day — learn how by scanning
the bar code here, or visit
http://wsm.co/fPNSmH

16. Watch Your Back
Often a situation can be rectified quickly
and easily and your brand can even
benefit from solving a problem.
But if the problem festers it often goes
beyond repair for the individual user,
much less all of his friends who will likely
never see the resolution. For restaurant
and local business owners, check
Yelp.com reviews and Google reviews
(found in search results after searching
your business name) regularly, if not
daily.

17. Watch Your Back
A few other tips:

18. Have Fun
Social media is not all about business. In
fact, for most of the population it’s about
everything outside of business.
Remember that people are on these
websites, in large part, to be entertained.
Of course, as Mr. Buffett warns, be
cognizant of the business’ reputation. But
go ahead, have a little fun. It humanizes
your brand and helps users feel a genuine
connection with the people behind the
logo. This is a good reason to enlist
individual members of your team, even
the CEO, to participate.

19. Never Assume Anything
No tweet, status update or link
should be posted in any social
environment without first
considering the goal behind it and
then measuring its success. Social
analytics still leave a lot to be
desired but there are some basic
tools to help website owners see
exactly what’s working and what
needs improvement.

20. Never Assume Anything
• URL shorteners are key to understanding
how certain links posted to Twitter (or
anywhere else) perform. There are several
from which to choose, and full social
media management services like Hoot-
Suite and TweetDeck come pre-loaded
with shorteners and basic analytics.
• Facebook Insights offers page
administrators an excellent view into how
users are interacting with
the page and even each post.

21. Never Assume Anything
• Simply search. Find where your brand
is being mentioned and join in.
• There is no substitute for your own site’s
analytics. Use them and find out what
social networks are resulting in page
visits, time-on-site and conversions.
Then, build your presence on those sites
for even better results.

22. Seal the Deal
Make no mistake; social media is all about
sales. You are online to make money and
to look at social media as anything but a
means to meet that goal and improve your
ROI is a colossal mistake and a waste of
time and resources. Keep in mind that
every online social interaction has a goal
attached to it. That might be driving traffic
to your website, building a new audience
for a brand, educating people about your
industry or selling a product(s).

23. Work, Work, Work
Social media success doesn’t just
“happen”. Like any other business
initiative, the more effort put in, the
better the result.
Those who have experienced
success with the social Web will tell
you that they didn’t become social
sensations without a hefty amount
of hard work.

24. Work, Work, Work
What are the Top 50
Social Media Resources
for Web Professionals?
Scan this bar code, or visit
http://wsm.co/fx3Jdc

25. The Rest of the Rules
for Social Media
1. Communication is Communication
Both On and Offline
2. Know You Audience
3. You Don’t Need a Million Friends
4. There’s Always a Reason to
Communicate
5. Not Everyone Follows the Rules
6. Build a Great Profile
7. Not Everyone Needs a My Space Page
8. Have Username That Reflects Your
Business
9. Meet with Customers Virtually

26. The Rest of the Rules
for Social Media
10. Get a Real Email Address
11. Use Your Own Media (there are some exceptions)
12. Know Your Social Media Platform
13. Learn to Evolve with Technology
14. Your Social Media Page is not your Website
15. Real Customers are More than friends
16. Be Findable
17. Flaunt it With a Podcast
18. Link like there’s no tomorrow
19. Spoon Feed the Press
20. Blog Your Best Blog

27. The Rest of the Rules
for Social Media
21. Advertise with Social Media
22. Maximize your Online Directories
23. Make a Killer Virtual Portfolio

28. Contact us today for your free Social
Media Consultation.
ruby@marketingyourproductforprofit.com
Ruby Sprowls
Marketing Your Product for Profit
315.543.9189
www.marketingyourproductforprofit.com