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With direct marketing you are asking your prospects and customers to take a specific action. Brand marketing is simply promoting your brand.

Pepsi commercials during the Superbowl are great examples of brand marketing. A credit card offer mailed to you through the post office is a great example of direct marketing. I’ve outlined several specific ways to apply direct marketing to your social media business strategy.

Here are five social media strategies recorded last week during my daily audio updates on Utterli. (Utterli is a free voice recording service that allows you to record a message using your cell phone and then post that message to the web). .

Monday: Direct Marketing For Social Media

Tuesday: Direct Marketing: Get Attention

Wednesday: Direct Marketing: Get Permission

Thursday: Direct Marketing: Build A Relationship

Friday: Direct Marketing: Make Your Offer

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Joel Mark Witt is a producer, speaker, and new media leader who writes about social media and its impact in the business world. He is also the Founding Director of Folk Media. Send him an eMail: joelmarkwitt (at) folkmedia.org or follow him on Twitter.

Subscribe to the Folk Media Insider eNewsletter. It’s a free monthly newsletter packed with tips, tools, strategies and resources to take your business to the next level online.

*Photo by zen

There are many news-worthy aspects of your business or non-profit that don’t fit into the “press-release-driven mainstream media.” There are many times when your organization has what we call casual news. In the recent past there was no place for this type of news to find an audience. But the Internet has changed everything. News that would once fly under the radar can find a home on your blog, YouTube, Twitter, or a number of other sites.

Here are five social media strategies recorded last week during my daily audio updates on Utterli. (Utterli is a free voice recording service that allows you to record a message using your cell phone and then post that message to the web). .

Monday: Casual News Explained

Tuesday: Casual News: Find And Tell Stories

Wednesday: Casual News: Story, Drama, Conflict

Thursday: Casual News: Add Value – Be Helpful

Friday: Casual News: Think Like A Media Organization

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Joel Mark Witt is a producer, speaker, and new media leader who writes about social media and its impact in the business world. He is also the Founding Director of Folk Media. Send him an eMail: joelmarkwitt (at) folkmedia.org or follow him on Twitter.

Subscribe to the Folk Media Insider eNewsletter. It’s a free monthly newsletter packed with tips, tools, strategies and resources to take your business to the next level online.

*Photo by Matt Callow

What separates someone who claims to be a social media expert and one who actually is a social media expert? Social media marketing metrics.

Metrics are the lifeblood of marketing in our fractured and currently unstable economy. Without a target and measurement system in place – you are dumping your social media dollars into pots of dimly viewable sewage water.

As a business owner or professional – please be wary of those “social media experts” who tell you that the value of social media can’t be measured.

Bull crap.

I am under the conviction – that if it can’t be measured – it doesn’t exist. This year (2009) you are going to see a lot of companies wake up and realize that they have to justify the dollars they are spending in social media. Yes social media seems low cost and “free” at times. But to do it right takes investment – both time and money.

With business investment comes ROI tracking and measurement. Simple business and marketing principles still apply and no amount of social media hype will be able to persuade smart marketing folks in the future to abandon these.

Your business can and should be tracking how your social media efforts are playing out. There are tools available now and more coming in the future that will enable you to track results from your campaigns and online communication strategies.

There are some really smart companies who get this whole measurement thing. Tubemogul in the video space, Google in the  site analytics space, Hootsuite in the Twitter realm, and Facebook does a great job in monitoring activity on business fan pages.

For those of you wanting to start right now – here are some ideas for tracking your social media strategies.

• Set up a monitoring systemSocial media starts with listening. Listen to the current conversation before you begin talking. This is the first step in measuring. Measure what is already there. Using tools like Twitter Search and Google Analytics is a great start. Hootsuite will allow you to shorten your Twitter URLs and then track the number of clicks they get. Facebook allows you to see fan page hits and demographics for your users.

• Decide on messaging & monitor responseWhat is your core business message? Starbucks -  for example – puts out the message that no matter your income level – you can have an exotic $4 latte that will make you feel good. Starbucks sells a little luxury during the normal workday. Your company has a core message also – what is it? Be sure to have your employees know and understand this for when they respond on the social web.

• Tag team the responsesBy having your employees understand your messaging platform – you empower them to help monitor the chatter that is happening online. Responding is key to conversation. If your company doesn’t respond in a timely fashion -  you are missing out on the power of social media. Delegate to other staff members and have them help with blog posts – Twitter posts – and Facebook comments.

• End at the beginningBookend your strategy with a monitoring system. Continue to follow through on conversations. Tweak your messages based on click-throughs and comments.

In the early days of social media, measurement was difficult and viewed by some as unnecessary. Today the viewpoints are changing. If you are a business owner or director of marketing – you know that guesswork doesn’t work. You must have a systematic and measurable process for social media marketing.

In the coming weeks we will revisit this topic and post about specific techniques you can employ to market on the social web. Let us know what questions you have by commenting below or on Twitter.

Joel Mark Witt is a producer, speaker, and new media leader who writes about social media and its impact in the business world. He is also the Founding Director of Folk Media. Send him an eMail: joelmarkwitt (at) folkmedia.org or follow him on Twitter.

* Photo by Darren Hester

Subscribe to the Folk Media Insider eNewsletter. It’s a free monthly newsletter packed with tips, tools, strategies and resources to take your business to the next level online.

Facebook is a great marketing tool for your business. With the new fan page redesign, your business has been handed a gift – a powerful marketing tool. I’ve outlined 12 ways to use Facebook to promote your business or organization.

1. Make your brand known.
Facebook is a great place to spread the word to potential customers and clients.

2. Get “buy-in” by gathering fans.
Having people become fans of your page shows their higher level of interest in what you have to offer.

3. Get feedback.
Customers and clients can post comments and suggestions.

4. Collect data on your customers.
Facebook fan pages have built in stays that can help you see the type of people who are visiting your page.

5. You gain permission to market to people.
Fans of your business page are giving you permission to continue a relationship with them.

6. Broadcast events.
Facebook allows you to create events on your page and then invite people to attend. When the RSVP it shows up in their timeline for their friends to see.

7. Advertise directly.
You can purchase ads through Facebook and target specific demographics, geographic locations and age groups.

8. Host your own show inside Facebook.
Publish your own videos inside the Facebook video player.

9. Publish a blog inside Facebook.
Update short posts directly in the status updates. Plus you can use an RSS application to import your current blog.

10. Create an application and distribute.
This will take either know-how or money. But an application can spread virally if it is made well.

11. Hold a contest on your fan page.
Start by offering discounts or actual product. Try to tie the contest into your fans sharing it with their friends.

12. Get your fans to tag photos.
Upload pictures of your fans and ask them to tag themselves and their friends.

Do you have a tip on how to use Facebook to market your business? Let us know. We’d love to feature it here on Folk Media.

Joel Mark Witt is a producer, speaker, and new media leader who writes about social media and its impact in the business world. He is also the Founding Director of Folk Media. Send him an email: joelmarkwitt (at) folkmedia.org or follow him on Twitter.

* Photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

I’m sure you’ve heard of Facebook. With over 480,000 new users joining each day – it is the fastest growing social networking site on the web. There are many reasons why your business might want to consider creating a Facebook fan page. I’ve outlined three of them here.

1. Everybody is on Facebook.

Okay – not everybody. But there are over 175 million people using Facebook. If it were a country, it would be the sixth most populated country in the world. Your business has the potential to reach this audience – for free.  The best way to have a business presence online is to set up a Facebook fan page. You can do this for free here.

Someone at your company will need to create a personal profile in order to do this. Most likely someone at your businesses or organization already has a Facebook account for personal use. Don’t worry – the personal account is only used to set up the business page. None of your personal information will be shared on the business page.

2. Facebook is a great place to distribute your company information.

Facebook fan pages allow businesses and organizations a place to create event listings, post their business hours and contact information, and even display photos, text, and online articles. These tools are great to display information. Your business most likely has a website already – but do you have the potential to reach over 175 million people with that site?

3. Facebook allows a two-way conversation with your customers and clients.

It works as a great feedback loop. Because a discussion feature comes pre-built into the page you can carry on discussions with your customers, take surveys, and gather feedback. Plus – you create “buy-in” when a client or customer becomes a fan of your page. They are basically raising their hand to say “Yes I want to continue a relationship with your business.”

To sum it up – Facebook is a great place to start if you are new to all this social media stuff. Because changes are coming for how you will do business. These changes are at the very foundation of how people communicate and interact online and off. If you really want to stay in the loop subscribe for free to the Folk Media newsletter.

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Joel Mark Witt is a producer, speaker, and new media leader who writes about social media and its impact in the business world. He is also the Founding Director of Folk Media. Send him an email: joelmarkwitt (at) folkmedia.org or follow him on Twitter.