Here’s the second Tweetinar!  It’s more than 320social media insightful tweets!

On March 10th I launched my second Tweetinar, “Social Media – The BIG Picture” based on Part Three of my book.  This “Tweetinar” delivered social media insights three times a day, five days a week at 10:00 AM, 12:00 PM, and 2:00 PM, Monday through Friday, and runs all the way through SEPTEMBER!

If you missed any of my first Tweetinar I will share those social media insights with you in each of two, bloginars.  The first 60+ social media insights are below.  Be sure to RSS this blog or check back soon for the final 60 tweets to complete your Five Steps To Social Media Success bloginar.  Also remember to follow my tweets for more social media insights and the biggest Tweetinar yet!

If you want to see more than 120 insightful social media tweets, check out my very first ever Tweetinar, “Social Media – The BIG Picture” based on Part One of my book here in my blog!

• Social media isn’t just having a Facebook page and sending out a few tweets.

• Social media means adding these tools into an integrated & comprehensive overall strategy.

• I get often get asked “Should I be doing social media marketing?” Remove the words “social media” and ask that again.

• I also get asked ‘How much should I spend on social media marketing?” Again, remove “social media” and ask again.

• Social media is nothing more than technology that allows us to create a two-way conversation.

• It’s always been the dream of salespeople everywhere to engage their prospects in a two-way conversation.

• Social Media has brought about a “Fundamental Shift In Power”.

• The control of our corporate messages has been shifted from us, the corporation to our consumers.

• For the last 6,000 years since selling our goats in the desert, our message has been “push” marketing.

• For the very first time in history, our message has to become a two-way conversation.

• We now must shift from “pontificate” to “communicate”!

• Our prospects now turn to our customers through social networks to find out what they really think about our companies.

• It’s our customers that are controlling our corporate message.

• Your web site is extremely important and irrelevant!

• You need to have and SEO tuned web site to be found when your prospects are looking.

• Our prospects don’t believe our corporate rhetoric any longer.

• Our customers aren’t listening to us, they are listening to each other.

• Prospects turn to customers for personal recommendations through social networks.

• Would you rather believe a corporate web site or someone who’s done business with that company.

• We can not just “do” social media, we need to embrace it!

• All major news television networks, radio stations, and newspapers are feeling this shift from their message to the Internet.

• The “news” has once again become less biased and delivered by the cyber-citizen.

• The news now finds us, on our mobile phones, in our email, on our web pages.

• It’s less likely to have the “left slant of CNN or the “right” slant of Fox.

• On July 19th, Amazon reported selling more ebooks than hardcover books!

• On Jan 27th Amazon reported for every 100 paperback books sold, they sold 115 ebooks!

• In Dec ’09 the FTC pass regulations on blogger to make known when they are getting paid from a company to blog.

• The FTC has extended their “Truth In Advertising” to the bloggosphere.

• While the FTC’s blogger guidelines are good, Will Roger’s said “Thank God we don’t get all of the government we pay for!”

• Transparent, Authentic, and Sincere… The FTC is requiring it!

• Mommy bloggers have to announce when they get paid or receive products.

• The FTC makes us openly distingue between a blog and an advitorial.

• TIVO is a great example of our customers controlling our message.

• We are willing to layout hard earned post-tax dollars to buy technology to REMOVE your message.

• Peer perspective it much more important than your corporate perspective.

• The first step in developing a social media strategy is understanding this fundamental shift.

• Another realization is that these conversations are “Word Of Mouth At The Speed Of Light”!

• Pre-social media, a happy customer would tell 9 people, an unhappy customer would tell 20.

• Today, an unhappy customer could tell 200,000 people and do it at the speed of light!

• Here’s the actual Fives Steps to developing a successful social media marketing strategy.

• Step 1: Analyze Your Existing Media.

• Step 2: Understand The Trinity Of Social Media.

• Step 3: Integrate these two types of marketing strategies.

• Step 4: Identify Your Existing Resources.

• Step 5: Implement And Measure.

• Use a white board or yellow pad for Step 1.

• Step 1: For the last 12 months, Identify all of your existing media mediums, minus social media.

• Look at print ads, direct mail, TV, radio, trade shows, trade journals, billboards, telephone, everything.

• Determine all of your expenses for each; copy, postage, stuffing, labor, creative, etc.

• Be sure to add in ALL of your time, your rent, your cell phone, your Internet, ALL of your expenses.

• Now, carefully identify the numbers of new customers each campaign brought in.

• Simply divide the number of new customers for each by the total expense to determine your “Cost Of Customer Acquisition”.

• Most companies have no idea what their Cost of Customer Acquisition. It will scare and make you sad!

• COCA Examples are: Sprint PCS: $315, Nextel: $430, Barnes&Noble.com: $9.80, Amazon: $29, Magazines: $48.

• Others: XM Satellite Radio: $123, Cable: $150, Direct Satellite: $400, DirecTV: $550, Automobile: $230.

• More: TD Waterhouse: $175, Ameritrade: $202, E-Trade: $272, Platinum Credit Card: $150, RV’s: $900.

• We also call this number the ROI (Return On Investment) and Expense verses Conversion.

• The idea of this exercise is to determine what’s working and what’s not!

• If you are getting a good ROI or COCA, then keep doing it.  If not… Then STOP!

• If you never look at these numbers, you will never know where you are wasting your time and money!

• Define what your conversion actually means. It’s not just sales!

Be sure to RSS this blog so you don’t miss a single insight…  And follow me on Twitter @LonSafko!

Lon Safko