This past week I participated as a speaker in three social media events, and this question came up in all three audience settings, "How much time should I be spending on social media activities?" Everyone wants to know what to expect if they are going to start integrating social media into their marketing efforts. While we try to give an answer to this question when asked on the spot in front of an audience, the true answer is, of course, it depends! It depends on how much competition you have; it depends on how much your competition is using SEO and social media to market their business; it depends on who your audience is and where they interact on social media; it depends on how many resources you have to allocate towards marketing overall, etc.

That being said, here are a few social media tips we try to give as a guide for our Internet Marketing Training students:

Great post alert! Greg Finn published a fantastic summary, on search engine land, of a report done by Pew Internet & American Life Project that researched social media usage in the U.S. to understand how it is effecting the way we socialize and connect today. There are concerns that the increased popularity of social networking is decreasing personalized connections and it is actually making people less social. The report found real examples showcasing why this is in fact not the case, however I found the more interesting information to be the demographic breakdown of usage across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace. Here are some highlights of Greg's summary:

Three weeks ago, MatchedMarketing became the first Tampa Internet Marketing Agency to offer a complete Internet marketing training program for small business owners and marketing professionals in Tampa. This program will cover marketing techniques in search engine optimization (SEO), social media, pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine marketing, email marketing and copywriting. With one week remaining before the first event, the class is SOLD OUT. Clearly there is a need for this educational series in Tampa.

Last week I was invited to speak to the Brandon, FL eMarketing Group hosted by The Wealth Building Annex and the topic I chose was "10+ Tips for Marketing Your Event Online." Event marketing can be a fantastic way to bring in new customers to a business, retain customers you have, build strategic alliances, raise money for charity, launch a new business location and even announce a new product/service. This presentation shared some ideas for how to recruit attendees for events that are open to the public.  The Top 10 Tips for Marketing Your Event Online included:

This week I attended "Social Media/Social Giants" at the Centre Club in Tampa, and what an informative session it was! The panelists included Julie Wlodychak from Laser Spine Institute, Sylvia Pankiewicz from FreightCenter.com, Dan Holm from Outback Steakhouse, and my dear friend Kim Morales from Carrabbas.  Each had some amazing tips and examples to share regarding how they are using social media to grow their business. Here are some of the key takeaways from the panelists:

• Dan Holm told us to remember that social media is about having a discussion, it's a conversation between two people and your goal is to build relationships when engaging on these sites.
• There are hundreds of social media sites out there, remember, "Fewer, Bigger, Better," said Kim Morales. You will grow bigger if you have a strong presence on a few sites, and then work to add in more only after you have mastered the first few.