Most marketers are accustomed to sending one-way messages to their prospects, talking at them and not with them. Social media, however, has fundamentally changed the way people communicate. So, to successfully integrate social media into the marketing mix, marketers need to join the conversation.

Lead generation through social networks is about pull marketing. By creating positive interactions and sharing valuable information, you cultivate an organic desire for more information. Because users voluntarily congregate and segment themselves within social networks based on interests and affiliations, it’s the perfect place for marketers to communicate with their target audiences...

This article was originally published by eMarketing and Commerce. To continue reading this article, please visit www.emarketingandcommerce.com.

With up to 266 million Facebook users (O’Reilly Research) and around 44.5 million unique monthly Twitter visitors each month (comScore), it has become undeniable that social media is here to stay and can greatly impact the success of your business.

Contributing to the undeniable success of social media (especially Twitter) is the plethora of third party applications and tools. Below are some third party applications and tools you can use to better leverage social media for your business.

Lexicon:
Facebook’s Lexicon tool, the Google Trends of Facebook, allows you to see patterns for keywords in public places like walls and status updates. They have two versions of this tool, the latter being more robust. See if anyone is talking about your company, or you!

  • Old Lexicon

  • New Lexicon

Twitterholic:
If you want to know the top 100 tweeters, this is the place to visit. Twitterholic scans twitter multiple times a day to keep us up to date on who has the most followers, tweets, their locations, number of updates and how long they’ve been a member. The list may surprise you.

  • Twitterholic

Virtual Business Card:
There are many applications you can use to send a virtual business card, I have chosen just two. Simply create an account, customize your own business card and send your link to others via your social network of choice. Think of it as a more personal Outlook V Card.

  • businesscard2.com 

  • card.ly

Twitter Voicemail:
This tool allows you to leave a virtual Twitter voicemail. Sign up for an account and enter the name of the user you wish to leave a private voicemail for. Pockets will then call you, prompting you to leave a message. It then sends the private message via @ reply.

  • Pocketsapp

Link Shrink and Track:
These URL tracking tools are great for marketing initiatives. They shrink your URLs down so you can fit them into your 140 characters, or elsewhere, and even give you a report for clicks, locations, etc.

  • bit.ly

  • retwt.me

Posterous:
A new way to blog for those on the go, Posterous allows you to post to your blog via email. This is especially great for those interested in live blogging from their smart phones. You can even attach pictures and mp3s and use your own domain name.

  • Posterous

Twellow:
Perhaps the most popular Twitter directory is Twellow, which was created by the folks at WebProNews. Twellow allows people to categorize themselves in the directory, add links, create an extended bio and follow others you find in Twellow.

  • Twellow

File Sharing:
FileTwt allows you to tweet files (up to 20 MB) using your Twitter login and password. However, if you want to send files via private tweets, you must create an account.

  • filetwt.com

Geographic Trends Map:
Twitter doesn’t yet (to see what’s in store, read here) allow for location targeting, so marketers trying to find followers locally can settle for something like the Trendsmap.
Seeing trending topics by geography can mean great implications for local businesses.

  • Trendsmap

What the trend?
Perhaps my favorite of all the tools listed, What the trend? is great for people who never understand why Twitter trending topics are trending topics. This site shows a real time feed of trending topics and next to each is an explanation. You can even click through and read the tweets on the topic to piece it all together.

  • whatthetrend.com

Event-based and behavioral (triggered) e-mail marketing is a great way to continually communicate with prospects and customers and to extend the life cycle of any campaign, whether it is traditional or interactive. As long as the messaging gets respondents to visit your Web site, and you are able to get them to opt in with a free offer or other premium, you’re in business.

To read the rest of this article, visit BtoB Magazine, where it was originally printed.

If you’ve been living under a rock, there’s a small chance that you haven’t heard that the economy is not doing so hot.  Uncertain economic times have led to significantly slashed budgets, and marketers struggle to adjust while still producing results.  So the question remains: What can you do to keep your marketing campaign moving forward while economizing fuel?

With a mix of public relations, synergistic partnerships and good, old fashioned strategy, you can stir up some amazing campaigns that will raise brand awareness, drive site traffic and increase sales.  There are actually many ways to gain exposure for your company that are free. Here are some ideas for marketing in tight financial times.  Ready, Set, Think Free!

First and foremost, the internet is an amazing resource.  There are hundreds of online directories in which you can apply to be listed and will provide a description of what you do and link to your website, which is not only good for your site traffic but also for your search engine ranking.

Next, creating synergistic partnerships with non-competing companies that share your target customer demographic is a cost-effective way to reach your target audience.  Create a list of companies in your industry that share the same target customer and contact their marketing managers. It takes some work, and cold calling is never fun, but a barter agreement can give you exposure to their clients and prospects.  Some ideas are exchanging banner ads for your websites or e-newsletters and trading blog posts.  Partnerships are a great way to network and open the door to a whole new prospect list.

What’s that? Your company doesn’t have a blog? Why not? They’re free, and fun, and can help you gain excellent exposure.  Creating a blog with real valuable content that caters to your customers and industry is the smartest way to draw in readers.  Today, especially in the marketing world, blogging is the status quo; a blog adds credibility and helps to personify a company.  If you want to be competitive in your industry, you should start a blog and link to it from your website.

If you feel confident in your writing skills, you should start writing articles on your topic of expertise to pitch to trade publications.  Trade publications will usually provide an author description for each article, which means exposure for both you and your company to thousands of people.  If your article is published online and you get a link to your website, this could mean site traffic and increased brand awareness. Also, it doesn’t hurt to add “published author” to your resume.

If you’re what some may consider an expert in your field, and you’ve been in the industry for a long time, leverage your years of hard work and exert your PR skills to secure a speaking position at an industry event!  Speaking at panel discussions or at conferences will secure not only yourself, but your company, access to hundreds or even thousands of people; you will be listed in the program for reference and usually listed on the event’s website as well. Hopefully (if you’re really good), conference attendees will review your speech in blogs or newsletters, thus gaining you even more exposure.

Lastly, venture into social media – don’t be scared.  In June 2009, ComScore reported that Twitter had 20.1 million visitors and Facebook had over 77 million. To take advantage of social networks, set your company up with a LinkedIn page and group; likewise for Facebook. However, if you are a b-to-b company, perhaps LinkedIn may be more appropriate due to the professional demographic while Facebook may be more beneficial to a b-to-c company.  Create a company Twitter account and connect with others in the industry through tweets; the more followers you can get, the farther your brand will reach. Social networking may be a big step to take, but it’s the direction marketing is going.

In conclusion, even though your marketing budgets may not be what they were, there’s still hope!  These strategies may take some time and effort but look on the bright side; they’re free and they work!