Image by Intersection Consulting via Flickr

For those of you not familiar with social media, here’s a brief description: “media that is social”. Funny, but true.

We see so many organizations that begin with social media, and they set up a Twitter or Facebook account and tell us their are doing social media.

When we look a little closer, we can see it’s nothing much at all, and its typically “one-sided”, meaning they only speak about themselves, and nobody is engaging with them.

Maybe the reason is that they didn’t build out a strategic plan with specific goals and targets, as well as not understanding that listening is the second word (after competitive & market research) to learn in social media.

Listening to social media chatter can be done for free. But,  there are (great) paid tools as well.

We always suggest (when a company is engaging with social media), to manually learn about their space, and listen/watch in specific channels (their marketplace).

For example, on Twitter – you can search (search.twitter.com) and find out what’s going on both locally and globally with ease. You could spend 20-40 minutes in the morning searching on Twitter to discover much information about your market.

You may then decide to start following a few key people. Perhaps you download Tweetdeck and set up lists of key people to monitor. That’s a good start.

Furthermore, you’ll search in Google and Facebook for competitors and brands that are in your marketplace.

You’ll do the same for the B2B LinkedIn marketplace. And, of course – let’s not forget YouTube. What is your market doing there? You’ll quickly find out if Twitter works better versus Facebook, for example.

You should go where the fish already swimming. It makes little sense to spend time and dollars on Facebook if your audience is highly B2B centric, for example. (Disclaimer: your research is only part of the equation. It’s ok and necessary to “test” markets. Facebook and Google has a powerful advertising platform, for example).

But, all this research and constant watching takes time. Just like driving a car – if you understand what’s under the hood, you’ll be much more agile and knowledgeable when things go wrong. That’s why we recommend a manual approach, so you can learn & see better.

When you are ready, here are some free & paid social media tools that can help you further:

1) SocialMention

2) NetVibes

3) Google Alerts

4) Radian6 (paid) * recently acquired by salesforce.com

5) Synthesio (paid)

6) Tweetdeck

7) Hootsuite

Now that you understand your market better, are able to listen and monitor, the engagement part comes next. We’ll cover that in our next post. How do you communicate and connect in a natural, non-threatening way?

And, make sure to connect with us on Twitter

Related articles social media tools

• The Ultimate Guide to Twitter Marketing (copyblogger.com)
• Does Social Media Performance Vary by Country? [Marketing Cast] (hubspot.com)
• Tools to Effectively Listen and Engage Social Media Fans and Followers: Guide for Local and Small Business Owners [Francene Mullings] (ecademy.com)

In 2011, with the social inter-webs, time have certainly changed. While the core concepts of SEO (content+links) are still true, you’ll have a hard time getting listed on the first page of Google without using different strategies.

What can you do?

Consider alternate media uses.

When you look at the Google results listings today, you’d notice the blended results for many searches: video, books, news, pictures – even real-time search (Twitter). With so many options to get listed, it would be un-wise to not consider optimization within these channels.

Go Video.

Create a 90-120 second “tips” video to begin. Upload it to YouTube. Since YouTube is owned by Google, and is the #2 search engine in the world, it’s a good place to be.

Optimize It.

Make sure to include keywords in the TITLE of the video. Add a description using keywords you are trying to target. (Tip: Add the company/business URL first, so it can be seen in the description).

Share, Contribute.

Subscribe to other channels in your niche, share into your network, and become a listener first. Watch what others are doing, and try to think of “how can I add value”, not “how can I advertise”. There is a new, different thinking here.

Depending on your keyword, and levels of competitiveness, you’ll see your video listed on the first page of Google pretty quickly. And, if you need some help, give the YouTube page some incoming links as well.

Have you tried it yet?

Related articles

• Get More Views on YouTube (chrisbrogan.com)
• Getting started with search engine optimization (pandia.com)
• YouTube Keyword Tool and Video Optimization Techniques (searchenginewatch.com)

YouTube LLC removed the videos last week in response to several take-down requests claiming violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. (DMCA) According to ComputerWorld.com, a letter sent to the company by the McCain campaign Monday called for a special review process to examine the legal merit of take-down requests specifically associated with presidential candidates and their campaigns.

“Overreaching copyright claims have resulted in the removal of non-infringing campaign videos from YouTube, thus silencing political speech,” says the McCain campaign in the YouTube letter,

…which goes on to say that the short clips of news broadcast segments contained within the campaign videos are under ten seconds and are noncommercial uses of the material, and therefore do not violate the DMCA.

YouTube LLC responded via a letter sent to the McCain campaign yesterday saying that it is not a “viable solution to perform a substantial legal review of every DMCA take-down notice.”

At what Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn). is calling his request, YouTube Inc. has updated its acceptable content guidelines to effectively ban videos with the potential to incite violence.

The video uploading and social media site had previously turned down a request from chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental affairs to remove videos produced and sponsored by terrorists which showed assassinations, deaths of US soldiers, and other violent acts.

The new guidelines, which state that “predatory behavior, stalking, threats, harassment, intimidation, invading privacy, revealing other people’s personal information, and inciting others to commit violent acts or to violate the terms of use are taken very seriously.”

Sen. Lieberman is also asking Google, Inc, the parent company of YouTube, to remove all videos that have been created by terrorist organizations, whether they violate the guidelines or not.

While some are in favor of the new guidelines, others believe that they infringe on the right to free speech, and that Internet-based sites should be free of governmental intervention.  Some people, like CEO of IT research firm Techdirt Inc, Mike Masnick, question the lasting effectiveness of banning terrorist produced videos from being posted to YouTube.

“Those videos will quickly pop back up on other sites that won’t take them down,” Masnick told ComputerWorld.com in an interview this week. “Second, most of those videos are preaching to the choir. It’s highly unlikely that very many people are being recruited by terrorists’ causes by a grainy video on YouTube.”

Failure to adhere to the new video submission guidelines could result in a permanent banning from YouTube.