What’s the answer? In a word? YES. Yes, you do need to learn how to speak social media. Your clients and prospects and business partners expect you to be there. It’s a simple as that.

So consider this your Foder’s Guide for social media.

Learn The Culture

Just like you might become acquainted with some of the customs of a foreign country you might be visiting, you should learn the customs of the social media channels in which you will be moving.

To do this, spend some time hanging around to get the lay of the land. How are other businesses using Facebook? What are your competitors doing with Twitter? How about LinkedIn groups? YouTube channels?

Like, Follow, Connect and see what’s happening.

Learn The Language

There are some terms that are common across channels and some colloquialisms that are unique to each. You might post on Facebook and LinkedIn but you’ll Tweet in Twitter.

If you want to “speak” like a native than go ahead and immerse yourself. “Tag” friends and associates in Facebook to share the love. Create a hashtag in Twitter to follow a conversation topic.

Try some of these sources to learn more:

• Check out Facebook’s own glossary.
• Here’s a good listing of Twitter lingo.
• For YouTube I found a nice list at Yahoo! Answers

A quick Google search will yield tons of results.

Make Your Travel Plans

Don’t wait until you know it all; by then it will have changed. Go ahead and make your plans and GO! You will do more harm to your business by not engaging in social media than you will by trying something new.

Expect those “lost in translation moments.” It’s OK! If something doesn’t go as planned, acknowledge and adjust. Think of the Red Cross Twitter fail. Social media is exactly the place where it’s OK to be human.

Become A Frequent Flyer

Don’t visit just one time. Your social media channels should become your home-away-from-home. The more you use it, the more you’ll become familiar and comfortable there.

Learning Social Media as a second – or third or fourth – language is an important aspect of marketing your business. It shouldn’t be your only tool, but it should certainly be one of them! Happy Travels!!

Yorktown Heights,NY, (January 24, 2012) ­ Marketing Café recently launched the new website for the “Worst Of Westchester” contest winner Yonkers Partners In Education (YPIE). The site, YPIE.org, went live on January 23.

The quirky contest was designed to celebrate Marketing Café’s own rebranding by paying it forward and helping aWestchesterbusiness with their website. The winner received consultation on effective web marketing, a website redesign, including a new blog and implementation all at no cost to the organization.

“The process [of rebranding and redesigning our own website] was challenging but ultimately such a valuable exercise. We wanted to share that with others,” says Marketing Café’s Jann Mirchandani.

YPIE’s winning entry emphasized the important work they do for the Yonker’s Community as well as a vision of what they wanted to achieve. That was a winning combination, says Mirchandani. “It demonstrated an understanding of how they could leverage their website to help them achieve their goals; they just needed help putting together the tools to make it happen. We’re delighted that we could do this for them.”

“We are so thrilled with the gift that we received from Jann Mirchandani from Marketing Café! Our new website is sophisticated, beautiful and easy to navigate. We are incredibly grateful to Jann for her brilliance, skill, patience and generosity. Who would have thought that being the Worst of Westchester would result in making us among the best! YPIE’s goal is to increase the number ofYonkersstudents who complete a post-secondary program and this new website is a wonderful tool for us to reach the public.”

For more information about Marketing Café contact Jann Mirchandani at 914 806-7720 or visit www.westchestermarketingcafe.com.

Read the case study and see the site: YPIE Case Study.

8 Easy Ways to Boost Your Website on a Budget

Visit YPIE.org

Whatever the case, Wikipedia and many other websites have “gone black” in protest over the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP ACT (PIPA). Google’s doodle was hidden in support of the protest.

“SOPA, the House of Representative’s version, and PIPA, its Senate counterpart, target foreign websites that intentionally steal copyrighted material and intellectual property for their own profits. The bills are strongly backed by the U.S. film and recording industries.

Legislation already enacted — the Digital Millenium Copyright Act — protects intellectual property and provides for that content to be removed from sites when its use is unauthorized. SOPA and PIPA are different in that they would allow the government to punish sites that publish the unauthorized content.”

Read the whole article from FoxBusiness.com

What does this mean for us?

Well, as a web marketer, I advise all my clients to create content and share it widely and generously for there is no profit in being a well kept secret.

But what happens if, in your honest and earnest attempt to educate your readers, you inadvertently link to a site with any links to any material that infringes on copyrights? Your site could be shut down if this legislation goes through.

Small business owners’ edge is their size and nimbleness. But if they need a team of lawyers to make sure they are not held liable for the actions of a foreign website not only do they lose their ability to act quickly but the very act of running a business online becomes cost-prohibitive.

Internet piracy is a very real threat, and I recognize the need for music and entertainment companies (the primary backers of this legislation) to protect their material from illegal downloads. However, many feel the language of the bills is far too broad and threatens legitimate business conduct as well as acts of piracy.

Here’s a great primer from The Guardian.

As this debate rages on can anyone really believe that the politicians and corporate backers of this bill are concerned with the concerns of the small business owner? Only if we make them.

In an effort to a) follow my own advice and b) show how content creation doesn’t have to be torturous, I thought I’d share with you some thoughts on getting past the blank page.

Create A Calendar

Check out “Creating Content For A Small Business Website” for more information on creating editorial calendars. What questions do you find yourself answering all the time? They are all topics. They also begin a conversation with your readers so when they call you you’re further along the sales funnel.

It’s the start of a new year so why don’t you start the year on the right foot by taking a few minutes to jot down some article topics in your calendar.

Ad Hoc Topics

What business-related topics do you find yourself ranting about? That’s an article – though you may want to tone down the rant and turn it into something productive for your readers. I found I was spouting off about “social media experts” (OK, I was gently TOLD I was spouting off…) So I wrote an article; “If You Call Yourself a Social Media Expert…Have a Facebook Page!“.

Start to pay attention to these hot-button topics and make use of them. It takes some practice to move beyond the soap box and turn your rants into great content for your website. But once you get into the habit you can turn what might be a roadblock into an opportunity.

Guest Authors

Inviting guest authors is a fabulous way to create new content for your website; and it helps to build relationships with clients, strategic partners, vendors etc. Any of these folks could help you with content for your site. Make the invitation more enticing by offering to include a bio and link back to the author’s website.

Marketing Cafe has had the pleasure of including a couple of guest authors recently: Elevator Speeches that WORK written by Karen Graves of YourSalesFix and Marketing On A Shoe String Budget, written by Ann LaGoy of Sound Earth, LLC.

Recycle, Reuse

“Creating Content For A Small Business Website” also talks about repurposing content.

Taking a look at your ealier posts may seem a bit like re-reading your diary but it can be very useful. It can provide inspiration for new articles. It can provide fodder for you to update and talk about what’s new in your industry. A lot changes in a year, never mind two or three. But you don’t need to recreate the wheel all the time.

Consider doing a mashup between Creating An Editorial Calendar and Recycling. Go back through earlier posts and jot down some notes for future posts.

Notice how many of these techniques I used right here in this article? Once I got going, writing became easier. But as any writer will tell you staring at a blank page can be daunting.

So start off the new year with a new resolve (notice I didn’t say resolution?!) to create more content for your site. Begin with a plan.

1. Offer a percentage or dollar amount off each purchase.

This is a great suggestion. It rewards more spending with greater savings. It also discourages “customers” that come in and spend up to your coupon value and no more.

2. Offer online discounts

We have one client, Ross Daniel Adaptive Apparel, who offers free shipping for orders over $30. It’s right there in the sidebar! Another client, SoundEarth, includes coupons in their newsletter providing subscribers with a “thank you” for being loyal readers.

These are both easy to implement and again, reward spending with savings.

3. Tweet discounts and daily deals

Carolyn offers some great suggestions here: offer one-day-only or just-for-the-next-3-hours deals to your Twitter followers. I think my favorite, though, is offering a discount for every 10 retweets. So clever! This could work especially well for restaurants to drive foot traffic.

4. Use your Facebook page for discounts

This is sort of the same as offering discounts via email and on your website but allows users to “share” there good fortune with others. A favorite local cafe, The Freight House Cafe, offers discounts and keeps fans up-to-date with new menu items via their Facebook page.

5. Include mobile marketing

The popularity of Foursquare.com and other “check in” social media apps make this a great way to offer discounts – and encourage your customers to share their love of your establishment with their friends and followers. You can offer a loyalty-type program; after 3 checkins visitors get 10% off next purchase, for example.

Don’t get scared off by the horror stories of small businesses getting overwhelmed by the “success” of their Groupon campaign. A well thought out coupon campaign can help increase your visibility, increase your sales and promote good will with your customers.

So when we talk about investing in an marketing campaign we want to know “How do I know if my campaign is working?” Good question, right? Here’s what we say.

Expect fuzzy answers.

If you understand that when you ask a new client “how did you hear about us” and they respond “from your website” that’s just the beginning. What they might just as likely mean is “Well, I saw your ad in the Westchester Business Journal so when I got your postcard in the mail I recognized the name then went to your website before I called you.”

In this situation your website is getting credit for the customer’s action: calling you. But the postcard and the ad aren’t getting any of the glory, though they should.

Increase the clarity.

But what if the postcard had a special URL just for those recipients? These special URLs are called landing pages. The traffic patterns on your landing pages will provide you with a lot of useful information about which campaigns are working and which aren’t. By comparing the results you can prune what doesn’t work and do more of – and improve upon – what does work.

Content Is King, But Data is Queen

That’s the beauty of the internet; you can capture data to see if your campaign IS working in a way that was not possible even a few years ago. By capturing this data and analyzing it you have actionable information and can adjust quickly.

And small businesses are especially well adapted to leverage this advance precisely because they are small. They don’t have multiple levels of management and typically don’t manage by committee which is often the death knell for doing anything meaningful in a timely fashion.

Listen to the podcast.

For more information about starting and running an at-home business, visit WorkAtHomeSuccess.com