The researchers found 85% of social media users thought companies should interact with their consumers through social media…

For those of you following this series on business use of social media and implementing the tips on using social media for your business, this article and research firmly supports your efforts.

We have heard from some of you with success stories already realized from the series- business networking connections made on Merchant Circle, reconnects with people on LinkedIn from previous jobs that provided a referral, dramatic increases in website traffic from StumbleUpon submissions and an overall improved website presence and ranking from having so many new links on the web.

So, keep it up! It works.  Social media, with genuine communication and interactions from businesses, improves the marketplace, increases consumer knowledge, and is here to stay.

clipped from emarketer.com Consumers Await on Social Networks OCTOBER 10, 2008 Befriended and poked by companies Nearly six out of 10 Americans who use social media interact with companies on social media Websites, according to a September 2008 study by conducted by Opinion Research Corporation for Cone. The researchers found 85% of social media users thought companies should interact with their consumers through social media, at least when needed. “Americans are eager to deepen their brand relationships through social media,” said Mike Hollywood, director of new media at Cone, in a statement.   “It isn’t an intrusion into their lives, but rather a welcome channel for discussion.” Nearly four out of 10 online merchants surveyed used social networks. Of those, nearly one-third said they had a page on Facebook, and more than one-quarter said they used each of MySpace and YouTube.

Getting started.   Sign up for a free Mixx account and complete the profile page with an About you section, website URL and image or logo.  Join groups, invite friends, select topics of interest and integrate your Twitter account.  Stop by the Cook’s Corner for “random bits of Mixx goodness” such as Mixx for iPhone or head over to the Mixx Lounge to check out profiles of Mixx movers and shakers.

Mixx Communities are public or private areas for individuals, companies or organizations to create a social community around a social media niche.  Users can join existing communities and/or create their own.

Mixx Local provides users quick access to local and area news with the ability to search local news and read what others in the area are voicing and voting about current topics.

Learn more at the Mixx blog, the Mixx FAQs, or Mixx Video Tour and then, perhaps soon you’ll be the next Mixx Superhero.  The Mixx badges await…

Would you like to create an online community for your customers, discuss industry topics with peers, or facilitate an educational environment for a specific subject?  Then check out Ning, where you can create your own, free social network in matter of minutes.

To begin, sign up for an account with Ning and create your profile.  Next, search existing Ning networks for ideas for setting up your community.    Stop by the Network Creators Network, the Ning blog and Ning Help for additional information to help in setting up your community.

Get your social networking community started by:

♦ Naming your social network

♦ Selecting a web address, which will be yourname.ning.com, or can be upgraded by purchasing a domain name from a registrar such as GoDaddy and then selecting the Ning Domain upgrade option for $4.95 per month.

♦ Customizing your site.   Choose a template and select site features such as events, member profiles, text, widgets, discussion forums, video players, photo albums and slideshows.  Customize the look and feel with Theme Setttings or use the Advanced Tab which allows CSS customization, enabling full control of the appearance of your Ning social network.

Want to see an example? We created and customized the DFW Redsox Fans social networking site in about an hour and with no CSS changes.

Managing your social network

Once your network is launched, Ning provides numerous tools to build your community including:

♦ Communication:  Invite others, broadcast message to all members, control the display of recent activities, and customize badges and widgets for members to promote the community on other sites

♦ Site management: Control features, appearance, tabs (including adding tabs for redirects to related websites), languages, analytics, and Flickr importing

♦ Members:  Create member profile questions, view the member roster, and control privacy and feature settings

Upgrading your social network

♦ Removal of ads:  Ning runs ads on your social network but for $19.95 per month, the ads can be removed (and replaced with your own ads if desired).

♦ Domain name: As stated above, add your own domain name for $4.95 per month

♦ Remove Ning promotion links: $7.95 per month

♦ More bandwidth and storage:  Free networks come with 10GB of storage and 100GB of bandwidth.   If your network becomes large or image intense, additional units of 100GB bandwidth and 10GB storage is available for $9.95 per month per unit.

Blogging meets social networking at LiveJournal. Users can select a theme for their journal, add a profile page, upload photos, post via the web, text messaging, by phone or by instant messaging and then socialize with other users.

LiveJournal, or LJ, has two options for free accounts:

♦ Basic:  Fewer ads, 6 picture uploads, and 25 subscriptions for notification of new posts, friends, comments, or events

♦ Plus: Provides access to some of Live Journal’s additional features for free, ads appear on system pages and the account holder’s journal

In addition to the free accounts, LiveJournal offers a Paid account option for $19.95 per year which offers additional features.

Socializing

♦ Comments can be left on journals in the normal way they are left on most blogs.

♦ Friends: Basic and Plus users can have 1000 friends and Paid users are allowed 2000.

♦ Communities: A LiveJournal community is a journal where many users post entries about a similar topic.  Users can find or create communities.

♦ Explore LJ:  Browse blogs (sorry, journals) by subject matter – culture, entertainment, life, music, news and politics, and technology.

LiveJournal User Statistics

(Source: LJ Factsheet)

♦ LiveJournal represents a global community across 196 countries

♦ 16 million journals

♦ 800,000 communities

♦ 800 million+ page views from 20 million unique users every month

♦ 33.5% of users are male and 66.5% are female

♦ 73% of users are age 18-30

Frank the Goat

LiveJournal’s mascot is Frank the Goat, who hosts his own radio station which broadcasts all the public LJ voice posts.

AOL’s social bookmarking site, Propeller, is a moderated social media news portal. While similar to Digg, Propeller differs in that paid editors select the top stories and story popularity is shown with an average between 1 and 10.

Formerly the social media site for Netscape, Propeller.com was launched at the new domain in 2007 and the site received a facelift in July 2008.

Propeller has a “cleaner” feel than many other social media sites, which can be attributed to enforcing policies such as:

♦ Propeller’s editorial staff removes spam, objectionable content, and commercial solicitations

♦ Propeller’s Middleman Rule – submitted stories should link whenever possible to the original source of a story

♦ Propeller is not an absolute free-for-all. It is a moderated site, with Propeller editors overseeing the posts, conversations, and other activity.

Propeller accounts are free and once signed up, users can upload a photo, website link, bio, interests, and additional links to their profile page.

Users can submit, vote (“Prop”), share and comment on stories.  Users can also join or create groups. Many opportunities are available to create and build business topic users groups.

If you are already on LinkedIn, make sure your profile is current and perhaps invest in one of the numerous LinkedIn Books to help you optimize your LinkedIn image.

LinkedIn Features

♦ LinkedIn Connections: Members build a contact network of connections, which are business colleagues, former classmates, acquaintances, and friends.  LinkedIn recommends only accepting connection invitations from contacts you actually know and trust.

♦ LinkedIn Groups: Members can create Groups or select Groups to join from the hundreds listed in the Groups Directory

♦ LinkedIn Jobs:  A searchable job board for posting and finding jobs

♦ LinkedIn Upgrades: LinkedIn offers members the option to upgrade their accounts with more features and functions with several premium packages ranging from $19.95 to $200 per month.

LinkedIn recently announced a strategic alliance with CNBC to jointly develop and share content and products across their networks.   LinkedIn’s CEO, Dan Nye, appeared on CNBC’s Power Lunch, to talk about the partnership.

StumbleUpon is a social networking site where users share and rate websites, blogs, photos and videos they have “stumbled upon” across the internet.  As StumbleUpon learns a user’s preferences, the StumbleUpon recommendation engine suggests similar content that may be of interest.

The StumbleUpon Toolbar:  A key feature of StumbleUpon is the StumbleUpon toolbar.  As a part of the registration process, users download and install a toolbar for quickly rating and submitting content .  The toolbar also houses administrative functions, such as changing your password and accessing frequently used StumbleUpon pages.  Multiple accounts can be added to the toolbar with drop-down login access.

Setting up your Preferences:  Under Personal Information, if you do not want your age displayed, uncheck the box.   In Public Profile, be sure and post an introduction, add your website URL, upload a photo/logo and scroll to the bottom and add up to 3 more website URLs for your favorite sites.

Users are called Stumblers and can fan, favorite and message each other.  To search for other Stumblers, click Browse People and either enter search criteria or scroll to the bottom and use the Member Directory to key in a user name.  Our stumbler name is DallasMarketing - be sure and add us as a friend.

StumbleUpon post the current number of Stumblers on the login page, which as of this post, states there are 5.8 million registered users.   StumbleUpon was acquired by eBay in May of 2007 for $75 million.

Business use: Beyond the obvious ability to gain another piece of web real estate to promote your business with the profile page and website links, StumbleUpon provides the ability to join users communities that have interests relating to your business. Contributing quality, accurately tagged content that can be served to the users of these communities can be a source of very targeted traffic for your site.

Get started stumbling:  Register for a free account, view the product demo, or read through the getting started guide.