Social Media Marketing Specialist - The Hottest Service Niche for 2009

One of my personal passions at the end of each year is to read the many posts from Internet Marketing Experts setting their predictions for a coming year! I must have read a dozen or so posts and guess what topped each of their lists as the fastest growth area for 2009.....

Social Media Marketing of course!

Kind of a no brainer, I guess!

Many businesses took all sorts of Social Media Training in 2008, but the reality is that the majority of them are simply too busy to apply what they learned to their marketing game plan. Others are still overwhelmed with the magnitude of Social Media and are not sure where to begin!

As a result, it is not surprising that Social Media Marketing Specialists and Consultants will be in serious demand in 2009 as businesses seek to leverage this powerful new channel.

We actually just finished our first Social Media Marketing Training Program a while back and are impressed at how some of the graduates have already secured new projects and clients as a result of learning such skills as:

- Online Video Marketing

- Social Media Strategy & Action Planning

- Twitter and Facebook Marketing

- Online Reputation Management

- Social Media Content Distribution

- Social Network Profile Management

- Blog Marketing

These seven "in-demand" services actually make up the curriculum for our new Self-directed Social Media Marketing Training Program.

The future is bright for Social Media Marketing Specialists and Consultants in 2009!

Explaining Social Media To Your Family and Friends

For many of you that work on the Internet virtually from home, you probably get the question from family members: "What exactly do you do?" I remember when I first started working in the Internet industry just about 6 years ago, I received a lot of interesting comments and looks to say the least:)

I was recently at a family function and someone asked me about the types of training courses we teach at VAClassroom. I started sharing about our Social Marketing Training Program and quickly realized that what I was speaking "Greek" to this person. Twitter? Huh?

Anyways, since you are involved in Social Media to some extent or have an interest in adding it as a service in your business, I thought I should send you this video that will save you some grief with family and friends when they ask "What exactly do you do?"

This video is called "Social Media in Plain English" and it is one of the best and most practical explanations I have seen on this topic!

Enjoy the video!

Our Social Marketing Training Course started last week and we just completed our 2nd session on Social Media Strategy and Social Networking Set-up and Management. I will keep you posted on the next enrolment in January!

Adopting a Social Media Marketing Mindset

One of the key first steps to becoming a successful Social Marketing Specialist or Consultant is to understand and adopt a "Social Marketing Mindset". As many of you know, Social media is really all about building relationships, adding value to the community and being real and authentic. I had an opportunity to dialogue this week with three team members from one of the fastest rising Web 2.0 companies on the Net, Freshbooks.com. Some of you may use their Invoicing and Time Tracking system, which is ultra cool. But, they are SUPER innovative when it comes to social media and have fully adopted this Social Marketing Mindset. They were recently listed #2 for the Top Web 2.0 companies in Canada (Backbone Magazine). Check out this out the very insightful 22 minute informal discussion between myself and Saul, Rayanne and Gregg from Freshbooks by signing up at our Social Marketing Page. You will see that they are very passionate as I am about Social Media and share some great prespectives on this fast growing industry. For our upcoming Social Marketing Specialist Coaching Series, I am fully hoping to recruit Saul Colt and/or Rayanne Langdon (Social Media Gurus at Freshbooks) to join our Expert Panel. More on that later...