Friends with Benefits

Book description

The rules of marketing have changed. Savvy marketing professionals know that they must engage with individuals directly on the Web, and smart businesses know that customers can become friends—with benefits. Friends With Benefits shows you how to get into the online marketing game. A guide filled with tips, tricks, and real-world case studies, Friends With Benefits shows how you can increase your company's online visibility and Web traffic and win over online influencers.

Friends With Benefits explains how to:

  • Connect with potential customers and join their conversations

  • Tweak your website to support your social media marketing campaigns

  • Promote your products or brand and manage the toughest negative online feedback

  • Track marketing campaigns, monitor discussions, and measure success

With viral videos racking up millions of views and Twitter mavens influencing thousands of their friends, social media marketing is an essential new tool for every marketer's toolbox. The expert authors of Friend With Benefits guide you through the social media landscape, where authenticity and connections are more important than the size of your marketing budget, and real results can be just a few clicks away.

Table of contents

  1. Friends with Benefits
    1. FOREWORD
    2. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    3. INTRODUCTION: A WINDOW INTO THE WORLD OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
      1. How to Learn the Lingo
      2. Who Is This Book For?
      3. This Book Isn't for You If...
      4. Getting Around: What You'll Learn
    4. 1. WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA?
      1. The Rise of the Social Network
      2. Five Fundamentals of Social Media
        1. It's About Democracy: A Communication Revolution
        2. It's About Community: We Are Family
        3. It's About Collaboration: Two Heads (or Millions) Really Are Better Than One
          1. Crowdsourcing History
          2. The Group Giving Explosion
          3. Collaboration on Steroids
        4. It's About Scope: The Infinite Internet
        5. It's About Authenticity: A Cult of Honesty
      3. Social Media Channels: What Are They and How Can You Use Them?
      4. What Is Social Media Marketing?
        1. Why Should You Embrace Social Media Marketing?
        2. How Does Social Media Fit with Your Marketing Goals?
      5. Now for Some Sober Second Thoughts
      6. Hitting the Trail: What You'll Need to Get Started
        1. Time, Time, and More Time
        2. Boss Buy-In
        3. The Buddy System
        4. The Best Books and Blogs
      7. Surfing the Wave of Change
    5. 2. GET SOCIAL MEDIA READY
      1. RSS 101
        1. RSS Feeds and Readers
        2. Mainlining Data
      2. Entering the Blogosphere: The Basics of Launching a Corporate Blog
        1. How Do You Start?
        2. Should You Build Your Own Blogging Software?
        3. Who Should Blog?
        4. Why Should You Write a Blog?
        5. What Should You Write About?
        6. How Often Should You Blog?
        7. How Will You Manage All the Feedback?
        8. Where Should the Blog Live?
        9. A Few Blogging Don'ts
          1. Don't Fake It with a Character Blog
          2. Don't Give In to Flame Wars
          3. Don't Obsess over Perfection
      3. Prepping Your Website for Social Media Outreach
        1. Link Me Up
        2. The Social Media Resource Page
          1. Everything Old Is New Again
          2. Get a Multimedia Hook
          3. RSS-Enable Your News
          4. Show You're in the Loop with a Blogroll
          5. Share the Wealth with a Linkroll
          6. What Does It Look Like When It All Comes Together?
      4. The Social Media News Release
    6. 3. FLAGGING A RIDE: FINDING THE RIGHT BLOGGERS AND COMMUNITIES
      1. Three Buckets of Blogs
      2. Size Matters, and Yes, It Is a Popularity Contest
      3. Learn to Read the Road Signs
        1. Finding Blogs with Google
        2. Metrics: Making a List, Checking It Twice
        3. Google PageRank and Trends
          1. PageRank = Popularity
          2. Compare Websites with Google Trends
        4. Technorati, BlogPulse, IceRocket . . . the List Goes On
        5. Alexa, Compete, and Quantcast
        6. Count RSS Subscribers
        7. Be a Bit Skeptical
      4. Don't Overlook Anecdotal Evidence
        1. Blogrolls: Who Is Your BFF?
        2. A Little Help from Your Friends
      5. Trust Your Instincts
    7. 4. NETIQUETTE: MISS MANNERS FOR THE WEB
      1. Lesson #1: Listen First
      2. Lesson #2: Take Baby Steps
      3. Lesson #3: Make Friends
      4. Lesson #4: Lay Your Cards on the Table
      5. Lesson #5: Bloggers Aren't Journalists
      6. Lesson #6: Your Reputation Precedes You
      7. Lesson #7: Don't Be a Social Media Spammer
      8. Lesson #8: Don't Fib
      9. Who Are These New Influencers, Anyway?
        1. Margaret Mason, Shopping Diva at Mighty Goods
        2. Muhammad Saleem on Getting Dugg
        3. For Marshall Kirkpatrick, It's Just the Facts, Ma'am
      10. Etiquette Cheat Sheet
    8. 5. STICK OUT YOUR THUMB: DEVISING YOUR PITCH
      1. Drums or Smoke Signals: Which Channel to Choose?
      2. Pitch Tactics We've Tried
        1. An "Illuminating" Email Pitch
        2. Other Ways to Woo
          1. Video Killed the Email Star
          2. Bam! Kapow! Here's My Pitch!
          3. Alternate Reality Marketing
      3. Other Blogger Outreach Campaigns We Like
      4. It's Not Always About the Pitch: Finding Other Creative Ways to Get Noticed
      5. What Not to Do
      6. Don't Bribe the Border Guard
      7. Rules for Following Up
    9. 6. MEASURING SUCCESS: HOW TO MONITOR THE WEB
      1. What Does Success Look Like?
      2. Be Realistic. Be Humble.
      3. Tricks of the Trade: Tools for Measuring Success
        1. Web Analytics: Your Foreign Language Phrase Book
        2. Google Alerts: An Oldie but a Goodie
        3. Web Monitoring 2.0
        4. The One-Stop Web Monitoring Shop
      4. Talking Back: How to Respond to Posts
      5. If You Don't Measure, You Can't Manage
    10. 7. IS SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING RISKY BUSINESS?
      1. Risk #1: Your Campaign Doesn't Get off the Ground
        1. Secrets to Building Long-Term Relationships
        2. You're Just an Average Joe
      2. Risk #2: Blogger Backlash
      3. Risk #3: The Crowd Talks Back
      4. Risk #4: You Get Rejected
      5. Risk #5: Your Initiative Dies on the Vine
      6. Risk #6: Ignoring Other Marketing Channels
      7. Risk #7: Too Much Success, Too Soon
      8. Risk #8: Not Being Proactive
      9. Risk #9: You Will Be Measured
      10. Risk #10: Someone Gets Cold Feet
      11. Proceed with Caution, Not Cowardice
    11. 8. DAMAGE CONTROL IN THE DIGITAL AGE
      1. A Crisis Management Primer
      2. Can Social Media Make Your Crisis Worse?
        1. The Internet Insta-Crisis
        2. The Predictable Pile-On
        3. The Internet Never Forgets, Remember?
      3. Do You Really Have a Crisis on Your Hands?
      4. What Is Social Media's Role in Crisis Communications?
      5. Rules for Making Social Media Work for You in a Crisis
        1. Rule #1: Don't Hide
        2. Rule #2: Use Your Blog as a Crisis Management Tool
        3. Rule #3: Monitor the Web Closely
        4. Rule #4: Clean Up Your Mess with the Right Channels
        5. Rule #5: Consider "Search" in Your Crisis Strategy
        6. Rule #6: Outfit Your Website for a Crisis
      6. Social Media Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
        1. Get Yourself a Lightweight Blogging Policy
        2. What Does a Blogging Policy Look Like?
        3. Test-Run Your Campaign
        4. Own Your Social Media Campaign Assets
    12. 9. DOES MYSPACE STILL MATTER?
      1. MySpace 101
        1. Demographics: Who Goes There?
        2. How Does MySpace Work?
        3. From Social Platform to Social Phenomenon
      2. Marketing with MySpace
      3. MySpace Marketing Success Stories
        1. Roller Warehouse
        2. Weird Al Yankovic: "White and Nerdy" on MySpace
        3. Obama Takes the White House with the Help of Social Networks
        4. Catering to the MySpace Crowd
        5. Banging the Drums with MySpace
        6. Tatango and MySpace's Network Effect
      4. Tips and Tricks for MySpace Marketers
      5. What's Next for MySpace?
    13. 10. UNDERSTANDING FACEBOOK
      1. Profiles and the Network Effect
      2. Anatomy of a Facebook Profile
      3. The Basics
        1. Events
        2. Groups and Pages: Which to Use?
        3. Market Passively
        4. Case Study: Chicken, Biscuits, and Facebook
      4. An Appetite for Fun
        1. Don't Be Apprehensive
        2. Working with Facebook App Developers
        3. Advertising on Facebook
        4. Case Study: Sharpening Perception with Mystery and Social Networks
        5. Case Study: Self-Propelled Video on Facebook
      5. The Future of Facebook and the Facebook of the Future
    14. 11. VIDEO MARKETING WITH YOUTUBE AND OTHER VIDEO SHARING SITES
      1. Why Make YouTube a Marketing Channel?
      2. Setting Your Expectations and Measuring Results
      3. What Makes a Popular YouTube Video?
      4. Funny Beats Pretty
      5. The Wisdom of Stealth Videos
      6. Your Latest Picture
      7. Marketing with YouTube Videos
        1. Set the Stage
        2. Pick the Right Title
        3. Describe and Lead with a Link
        4. Categorize and Tag Responsibly
        5. Play Nice with Others
        6. Join Groups
        7. Curate with Playlists
        8. Include Videos in Pitches
        9. Feature Videos in Other Communication Channels
        10. Annotate Your Videos
      8. Case Study: Elastic Path Makes E-commerce Platforms Fun—No, Really
      9. YouTube Killed the Video Star
    15. 12. THE TWITTER REVOLUTION
      1. From Broadcast to Conversation
      2. Getting Started with Twitter
        1. Know Your DMs from Your Hash Tags
        2. Tweeting Beyond the Browser
      3. Tweeting for Fun and Profit
      4. Case Study: Insta-Fundraising with Twitter
      5. Ten Ways to Be a Jerk on Twitter
      6. Beyond the Twitterdome
    16. 13. THE POWER OF CROWDS: UNDERSTANDING AND PARTICIPATING IN ONLINE COMMUNITIES
      1. Social News and the Wisdom of Crowds
        1. Why Marketers Should Care About Social News
        2. Using Social News to Build Buzz
      2. Social Bookmarking and Crowdsourced Curation
        1. A Social Bookmarking Primer
        2. How Marketers Can Benefit from Social Bookmarking
      3. Should You Build Your Own Social Network?
      4. What About Wikipedia?
      5. Photo Sharing with Flickr
      6. Stand Out in Your Crowd
    17. AFTERWORD
    18. RECOMMENDED READING
      1. Books
      2. Blogs and Websites

Product information

  • Title: Friends with Benefits
  • Author(s): Darren Barefoot, Julie Szabo
  • Release date: November 2009
  • Publisher(s): No Starch Press
  • ISBN: 9781593271992