Social Media Strategist Bardi Toto said it right when she was quoted as saying “If you’re not using social media, you’re putting your business behind the eight ball” In this article, she helps a financial planner and an eye doctor to use social media and that are beginning to see the effects.

We see that clients are starting to “wake up” and know they need social media but are still unsure of how to use it. We show them how to use it efficiently and effectively.

If your business is selling products and/or services, social media marketing is an important marketing channel that will increase your visibility in the social community. Studies have shown that people are now going to the web and learning and studying more and more about these products or services BEFORE they actually buy. Part of their research is also reading other comments and looking for companies that are transparent , contribute and participate in social settings.

We help incorporate social media into clients or company’s existing content strategy. This allows us to do three things; shifting conversations to a different medium; allowing for easier updating of content; and reaching a wider audience. We show them how they can be communicating more efficiently with people and how it ties into their existing content and how social media can drive static web content to new destinations.

One World Social Media is excited to announce the addition of Diva Diaz to our team.

One World Social Media was founded in 2009 by Linda and David Zielski. Their mission was to help companies properly brand and market their products and services. With the addition of Diva Diaz, One World Social Media has transitioned into a global marketing agency running both small and large social media programs, branding and re-branding efforts and internet marketing campaigns. One World Social Media is headquartered in Los Angeles, California and has a presence in Santa Barbara, Australia and England.

Diva Diaz - One World Social Media

Diva Diaz – Media Director of One World Social Media

For the last 6 years Diva has been traveling for 11months out of the year working with countries helping them re-work their global image through media.

Diva Diaz comes to One World Social Media and brings with her a dynamic range of experience to broaden our global communications and internet marketing expertise. Recently, she has led a team of producers to design country-specific promotional programs that are broadcast on all British Airways Long Haul flights globally to over 80 destinations and reaching an average of 1.1million passengers. Diva is responsible for script content and strategy for each project. Presenting these concepts to Heads of State, Ministers, Investment Agencies as well as the top 100 companies in each country, her skill for high-level negotiating and networking is unmatched. Besides PR and the development and maintaining of strategic business relationships, she also is responsible for sales and sponsorship of the programs often mounting to over 0.5 Million Euro.

Diva also specializes in directing global social media campaigns: Viral Marketing, PR & Web Design. In her role she is responsible for SEO link building techniques and tactics, online PR, Social Media, Content Distribution, Internet Monitoring for anything relevant to the client, content book marking, management and distribution and content creation. She has quite a flair for web site design, layout and content, combining research, business acumen and branding know-how to establish dynamic and inviting web sites for clients. She also enjoys developing strategies and business plans that easily incorporate the global aspect of the Internet and other offline Media into the growth of these businesses.

Having produced reports and country-specific projects for media such as Forbes, The Washington Post, The Times (of London) reaching millions of readers per month and some of the companies she has worked with are Shell, BP, Odebrecht, Barrick, LukOil, PromPerú, GNIA, and Telefonica to name a few. Diva was offered $1million investment for her first start up company last year and the business plan that she developed for this has been valued by Deutsche Bank at $2 million.

Ms. Diaz continues to expand her expertise in the global media panorama and travel with work whenever she gets the chance.

Word of mouth advertising has always been the best (and cheapest) form or advertising and now with social media tools such as twitter and Facebook, it is even easier to help people spread the word for just about anything, even your brand.

In a survey last year by Nielsen online, they showed that 34% or respondents completely trusted something when it came from a recommendation from someone that they knew. Think about it, if your friend come in talking very positive about a service or product and you have the slightest bit of interest in it, you will probably ask who makes it or where do I get one. I know I am like that.

So if your company or business has a product or service and people talk about it off line, then I would be to your advantage to get them to talk about it online as well. Say you own a restaurant and you meet the guests and they have a wonderful meal. Let them know your restaurant is on Facebook and share the page with everyone that comes in. Now, your customers can share their experience with you and other customers online. Now their friends will see it and be like, “hmmmm, maybe we should go to that restaurant Jim was talking about last week…”.

And here are some amazing statistics on Facebook. With numbers like these, you should make sure you take advantage of Facebook and other social media platforms for your company or business.

Facebook User Growth

People on Facebook

* More than 400 million active users
* 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
* Average user has 130 friends
* People spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook

Activity on Facebook

* There are over 160 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups and events)
* Average user is connected to 60 pages, groups and events
* Average user creates 70 pieces of content each month
* More than 25 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each month.

Source: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

Well, you finally got your book published after years of work. Today is the day. You get your blog going, a twitter account up and running and a Facebook fan page going and wallah!!!! – nothing happens (Click for audio of crickets in the background…)

Below is a clip of Chris Brogan, a very great social marketing expert, talking about how authors can use social media to promote their books.

You need to wait for the right opportunity to introduce your book to people in social media just like in real life. You cannot just come out and say “I am the author of this great book!” Its like walking into a Starbucks and walking up to a table of three people you don’t know and without saying hi or anything else, you say “I am the author of this great book!” ummmmm – Security!

Take time to be in conversations, build relationships and trust. Then when your new contacts are interested in you, they will then ask, “Hey, what do you do?” – “Well, I am the author of this great book!” – “Oh yeah, tell me more….” – now doesn’t that seem like it will work a little better.

Power of Word Of Mouth Marketing

Do you think social media is a waste of time when it comes to marketing your product? Most large companies are jumping on the social media bandwagon as they are seeing the benefits for their products or brands. A recent Burson-Marsteller study found that 79 percent of the largest 100 companies in the Fortune Global 500 index are using at least one of the most popular social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or corporate blogs. But, interestingly enough, only 20 percent of the major international companies are utilizing all four platforms to engage with stakeholders.

Here are some statistics that got my attention on the power of word of mouth marketing and social media marketing:

• In a study conducted by social networking site myYearbook, 81 percent of respondents said they’d received advice from friends and followers relating to a product purchase through a social site; 74 percent of those who received such advice found it to be influential in their decision. (Click Z, January 2010)
• 90% of consumers online trust recommendations from people they know; 70% trust opinions of unknown users. (Econsultancy, July 2009)
• Consumers say that word of mouth is still the number one influence in their electronics (43.7%) and apparel (33.6%) purchases. (Retail Advertising and Marketing Association/BIGresearch Study, December 2009)
• Recommendations from family and friends trump all other consumer touch points when it comes to influencing purchases, according to ZenithOptimedia. (AdAge, April, 2008)
• 61% of people rely on user reviews for product information or research before a buying decision is made. (Razorfish, 2008)
• “Person like me” still most trusted source for information about a company and, therefore, products. (Edelman Trust Barometer, November 2007)
• Consumers trust friends above experts when it comes to product recommendations (65% trust friends, 27% trust experts, 8% trust celebrities). (Yankelovich)
• According to a global Nielsen survey of 26,486 Internet users in 47 markets, consumer recommendations are the most credible form of advertising among 78% of the study’s respondents. (Nielsen, “Word-of-Mouth the Most Powerful Selling Tool”, October 2007)
• Online social network users were three times more likely to trust their peers’ opinions over advertising when making purchase decisions. (”Social Networking Sites: Defining Advertising Opportunities in a Competitive Landscape,” JupiterResearch, March 2007)

Imagine if you had a really robust social media platform, fully search engine optimized, ready to have customers and clients read all about your products or services and communicate with each other and market your brand for you… Now that’s powerful – and that’s when we do here at One World Social Media – contact us today!

Google today released a version of online search aimed at the short lived content of social media. While websites and web 1.0 content was mostly static and changed very slowly if at all, web 2.0 and the social media communities such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs can change by the minute.

This gives Google a leg up on the big competition, Bing by Microsoft, even with the 2007 1.5 billion dollar investment in Facebook by Microsoft.

To view the official release, click here

or watch the Google video on its “real time search engine”:

Add another notch in Social Medias belt!

There has been lots of talk lately about not being able to measure Return On Investment (ROI) from social media efforts. While it can be difficult to measure exacting details of ROI from these efforts put into Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Blogging, there are several things you can look at.

This is really worth checking out if you are puzzled by Social Media and ROI. It is fun and witty, well done and gets the point across.