It was in 2004 that Facebook was first launched. As of this week, the social networking site has 350 million registered users (to put that in context, this week there are about 308 million people living in the United States). The average Facebook user spends 55 minutes a day on the site, and the time spent on sites like Facebook has increased 90% in the past six years.

How does this relate to your business? Well, studies suggest that more and more people are using social networking sites rather than email for their personal communication. By turning to social email marketing, you can integrate social networking communication into your current email system, thus potentially reaching a much broader, self-selected audience while also showing your current customer base how much you value them.

How to make social email marketing work for you
Setting up social email marketing is fairly simple. There are several downloadable snap-in tools, including Xobni, TwinBox, or FeedMailer, that will allow email recipients to follow your company’s social site and post links to their own. But after providing the software that makes sure your customers can post your email to their social site, you need to provide the content to ensure they will. One of the best ways to do this is to make sure the content of your email fits into what’s already happening on social networking sites. Here are a few tips to make your content fit in.

Your customer is...
One way to get your customers to click that “post to social” tab is to connect your brand to their identity. From running shoes to class rings to new software systems, what we buy says something about who we are. And if one of your customers likes your product (and what it says about him or her), odds are that customer’s friends will like it, too.

Post a status upgrade.
When designing promotions, try to consider incentive programs that will allow your customers to build status and share that status with their friends. Preferred customers, who hear first about new products or sales, or even get updates on product development, are likely to feel valued. As an added bonus, they can share this information with online friends, publicizing both their own status and your product.

Give a gift.
Customer rewards are nothing new. Providing loyal customers with discounts, or offering free products or services in exchange for referrals, has long been a way of rewarding loyal customers. By encouraging recipients to post these rewards to their social sites, you’ll allow them to let their friends reap the benefits of these programs, too. And, of course, you’ll gain exposure and customers.

Support a cause.
What to you get for the customer who has everything? Recently, many companies have rewarded loyal customers by donating to worthy causes for each purchase or referral they make. From carbon offsets to money for schools, supporting causes can encourage customers to return and make them feel good about their purchases. And you’ll feel good, too: appealing to altruism shows your customers that you value not only their business, but also their world.

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The site’s user-friendly interface lets professionals set up an account and build a network of friends, colleagues, and clients, then connect with professionals in their networks. The site is free and easy to join, but can seem at times a little overwhelming. Luckily, whether you’re networking online or face-to-face, the same rules apply. Here are a few familiar tips to help you make the most of LinkedIn:

Make Your First Impression a Good One
Your profile will be the first thing that other LinkedIn users see when they arrive at your page. It will also be available, in limited form, to anyone who searches for you online. The more frequently people visit your LinkedIn site, the more quickly your public profile raises in Google search results. At a minimum, your profile should be accurate and up-to-date. You’ll also want to be sure to include a profile picture: not only will it put new contacts at ease, but it will also allow for easier recognition when you do meet face-to-face.

Keep Your Pitch Short and Clear
Your profile page is divided into sections. The most important of these is the summary. Your marketing company can help you develop a clear summary of your business idea or project plan, one that will quickly capture the attention of potential contacts and let them know why they want to connect with you.

Your profile should also include an experience & education section, which will look a lot like a traditional resume, and an additional information section, where you can list awards and memberships in professional associations and provide links to your company’s website or professional blogs.

Don’t Wait for Others to Come to You
Your first step will be to connect with current and former colleagues and clients. The simplest way to reach out is to search for contacts by name. But you can also perform an “advanced people search” (under the “More” tab) that lets you find a specific person based on a combination of factors, including industry, company, title, school, or location, even if you’re not sure of their full names.

To get others to contact you, you may want to join one of the site’s Groups, which can put you in touch with others who share your interests or professional or educational background. Joining a group connects you with colleagues and potential clients, letting you learn best practices while also reaching out to those interested in your services.

If you don’t find a group on the site that meets your interests, work with your marketing company to develop a short description and a logo -- LinkedIn allows users to add groups to the site.

Ask Good Questions and Make Yourself A Resource
Make use of the site’s Answers forum. Posting a question here invites feedback from colleagues and industry experts. You can also offer answers to questions posted by others. LinkedIn even provides members with “expertise points” for each question they answer, and maintains a list of “experts.”

While the same rules apply whether you’re networking online or in person, there are some undeniable advantages to online business networking. While we’ve provided a brief outline of the site here, you’ll find even more resources provided by LinkedIn if you sign up. In the past six months alone, more than ten million users have joined. And none of them are looking at your shoes.

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Viral Marketing                                                     
With more ways to view advertising, marketers are working to create ads that people not only pay attention to and remember, but also pass on to friends and family.  Like a highly contagious virus, a good advertisement affects viewers so strongly they carry to their contacts who then transmit it to their contacts and so on, continuously passing the ad along until it has reached thousands or millions of additional viewers.

Looking to take advantage of this new method of distribution, marketers are developing advertising that is shocking, innovative, clever, funny or in some other way noteworthy so viewers will feel compelled to forward the ad to people in their network.  These advertisements can be in any format— video, still photography, audio only. 

Statistics show millions watch videos online daily, passing along links to favorite videos in emails, texts and posted on social networking sites.  YouTube and other online video sites are providing many companies with free advertising and brand building as company advertising catches the eye of visitors and spreads across the internet.

Work with you marketing agent to develop advertising designed to catch people’s attention in innovative ways, so they are compelled to pass on your ad to their contacts.  Viral marketing may sound hazardous, but it can be provide thousands of dollars worth of free publicity if handled with care.

Social Networking                                                                    
By now, everyone has heard of Facebook and Twitter.  Giants in the social networking world, these sites offer not only people but also businesses the opportunity to meet each other and make new contacts.  Businesses should use these sites to put a human face on their business, posting facts, blogs and photos of employees, physical locations and popular products.  By establishing a presence on social networking sites, businesses open themselves up to free brand building and marketing exposure. 

Once your business profile is established on these sites, use your online customer mailing list to invite existing customers to become friends of your business.  Soon, your business profile will seen by all the contacts in your customers’ networks, as well as random browsers looking for profiles of particular interest to them.  As more people add your business as a friend, you are introduced to all their friends and you network of customers expands.

Using social networking sites effectively takes regular maintenance.  Static profiles are quickly forgotten, replaced by new and engaging friends.  Once on a social networking site, make the most of it.  Catch and keep as many new friends as possible, adding new posts, photographs and video to your profile.  You may also want to consider special offers only available to online friends— anything to reward loyalty and increase your popularity.

Customerization                                                              
Customers have always been at the heart of good marketing, but in today’s market customers have more power than ever.  Overwhelmed with advertising, people now actively tune out marketers, making the science of marketing that much more important.  Fortunately, today’s market also has new resources— everything from online mouse click tracking to software analytics that measure every aspect of production and sales.

Smart businesses know good marketing is well targeted and recognizes its own effectiveness.  Work with your marketing agent to develop a database and software that tracks customer activity and allows your business to contact groups of customers by category.  Make sure your software can track response rates, production stages, and inventory.  Then, create advertising, products and services that speak directly to targeted groups of customers, providing exactly what they want when they want it, quickly and conveniently.

With the right software, your business can recognize market trends and respond with new advertising, products and services.  Take advantage of the new power customers have, providing incentives for customers to bring in friends or promotional products with your brand clearly visible.  Monitor websites where feedback on your business is posted and respond graciously to negative comments, and also have a place on your website where customers may post their own testimonials.  Catch their interest and their loyalty and you are likely to catch their friends as well.

Society is moving faster than ever.  To catch up, business must change the places it markets, the way it markets and the focus of its marketing.  In 2009, the best marketing is catchy— catching eyes, hearts and catching on as it spreads across the World Wide Web.

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Building your company identity and data resource library while building personal relationships with customers conveniently, email marketing gives your business tools to quickly recognize and respond to customer needs, market trends and company particulars.

Your marketing agency or web designer can easily add email marketing to your online presence, creating a custom database for company use and simple methods of contacting customers.

Begin by adding simple features to your website such as an online mailing list or comment card to collect in your database the contact information of interested customers. Your database should be easy to use for both you and your administrators as well as employees, and should allow you to sort, track and contact individuals and groups.

You and your marketing agent will create an email format following the design and tone of your business, as well as a series of standard emails to be sent automatically from your business welcoming new customers and responding to customer activity. Regular company newsletters or special offers and announcements using the same email format are great for further developing customer relationships.

Including a single, well worded request for response in each communication can provide new helpful information on your company and customers. Start with basics like contact preferences (preferred form of personal address, desired frequency of contact, HTML or plain text). Stored in your database, you can now contact these highly interested people personally in ways convenient to them.

Once your business has acquired basic information on a person, you can begin to gather more specific data useful in tailoring service to the individual, monitoring customer service and identifying future trends. Decide what would be useful to know from customers, then work with your marketing agent to develop easy, engaging questions that generate the most response.

Take further advantage of email’s personal format by letting customers get to know you. Offer simple interesting or helpful information about your company within communications and a direct link your site, as well as an unsubscribe option. This respects the mutual interest element of the relationship, and keeps your mailing list full of people happy to hear from you.

Dedicate staff to maintaining your database so data stays current. Always offer customers the option of contacting you directly with each email communication, and collect all customer responses in a single email inbox. Monitor this inbox regularly and respond to each customer email directly, in a timely manner. This type of personal service is easy for businesses to provide and creates genuine company loyalty among customers.

A bonus feature of email marketing is the big picture it helps a business develop. Using analytics software with your database, you can identify high-value markets, customers and advertising campaigns. Customized reports, charts and graphs generated by your analytics software clearly present data on your customer demographics, business performance and status compared to competition, allowing you to adapt quickly for increasing success.

Inexpensive, easy to create and use, email marketing makes the world small again, so your business talks with a customer directly, informed of his or her specific interests and preferences. The one-on-one personal nature of email coupled with the customer control inherent in email marketing campaigns combine to cultivate the interactive relationships central to market success today.

Go build your database—start sending invitations. Interesting, interested people will come, and you will come to know each other. Word will get around— so it helps the world stays round.

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Arias, who left for an Illinois Navy base on June 23, said that the mentoring program he was in, during his middle-school years, made lasting, positive change in his life.

The experience, he said, “inspired me a little bit. It motivated me to actually do something with my life,” said Arias, 18, who graduated this year from East Ascension High School.

McMillan thought Jambalaya Park would be a good place for to meet up with Arias in mid-June.

In his role as mentor, McMillan had often taken Arias and his siblings — Arias is the oldest of five children — to play at the park.

“They became part of my family, and I became part of theirs,” McMillan said.

McMillan and Arias had met through a program of the non-profit organization Volunteer Ascension, called “Mentoring Ascension.”

The program — which is no longer in operation due to lack of funds — served children ages 8 to 13. Families, teachers and guidance counselors  recommended children to the program, which provided a carefully screened mentor.

The  mentors were matched with a child for a year, to provide eight hours a month of quality time with the child.

McMillan had actually been assigned as official mentor to Arias’ younger brother, Steven.

But, when McMillan brought Steven on outings like crawfish boils and hamburger cookouts or just to play video games, he’d bring along all of Steven’s three brothers, too.

“Steven and I would be about to do our official mentoring thing, and everybody would pile into my car,” McMillan said.

These days, Steven, 17, is working and planning on getting his general equivalency diploma, said his mother, Rose Helg.

Helg said she had heard about the mentoring program and thought it would be good for her two oldest sons, Steven and Robert.

She said it’s good for children to have another responsible adult in their lives to talk to.

“Often, they open up to them more than they can their parents,” Helg said.

“We used to act up when we were little,” Robert said of himself and Steven.

“He did not smile a lot” remembers McMillan of Robert, when they first met.

It looked like “there was always something on that boy’s mind, (he seemed) very serious, pensive,” McMillan said.

McMillan also noticed Robert’s intelligence.

McMillan said he wanted to help Robert use his skills and intelligence in a positive way.

Over his earlier school years, Robert had other mentors, but said that McMillan is one of the ones who stood out.

McMillan was one of the mentors who “actually cared,” Robert said.

Others made it seem that mentoring was just another job, he said.

McMillan “actually paid attention to you,” Robert said.

McMillan said that when his official year of mentoring was up, he continued to be active with the children and stayed in touch with the family regularly for another two years.

McMillan, who lives in Baton Rouge, had begun his Baton Rouge company, dezinsinteractive, a Web site design and marketing company, not long before he began mentoring.

The business was another kind of learning place for Robert, who’s interested in electronics and computers and also likes to draw and write.

Robert said that after two years in the Navy, he’ll be able to use his scholarship money to begin taking college classes, while he’s still in the service, then will be able to use it to finish his degree, when he leaves the Navy.

McMillan said that when Robert was a youngster, he’d wonder if he’d ever be taller than McMillan.

The two got their answer when they met up last month: he is.

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For business, this has meant mastering new methods of accessing customers.  Contemporary marketing has become personal, relying on customer interest for success.  Email marketing is smart advertising that uses customer interest to gain secure, focused contact regularly.

Effective and cost-efficient, email marketing offers the opportunity to be yourself with customers in a format they find comfortable.  Following a simple code of conduct, business can win long term, quality access to customers and their contacts.

To start, respect the system and the person.  Only send emails to individuals who request contact.  Online newsletters, announcements and special offers, email marketing is sent to mailing list members who subscribed.  Provide a double opt-in method of subscription, and confirm with HTML or by email reply.  Make it easy to unsubscribe also, and update your mailing list frequently to remove and re-categorize members. 

Be available.  Access to subscription should be easy and inviting.  Place a mailing list subscription link on each page of your website, and offer incentives for being a member.  Have auto responders in place to send Welcome Messages in a timely fashion, and follow-up them up with special offers.  Allow people to choose the frequency of your contact and customize their communications— offer monthly and quarterly editions of newsletters as well as interest-specific mailings.

Be up front.  Put your business name as the sender, include your signature in the email, and allow for reply.  State your business immediately, keeping your subject line to six very relevant words (50 characters max), and placing all essential information in easily readable headings with only relevant images included.

Be accommodating.  Many people use image blockers, so limit the number of images in your emails.  Use HTML, and include identifying text outside any image in the email so missing the image doesn’t mean missing the point.

Respect the intimacy of the inbox.  Remain the business they recognize by always including your logo and maintaining consistent design and language throughout all communications.  Show you know your customer personally by only providing information the individual will find interesting and useful.

Mind your language.  Employ time sensitive information that encourages prompt customer attention, and avoid Spam words like SAVE and FREE.  Make the text of your emails brief and well-worded so the point is clear and compelling.

Timing is everything.  Send newsletters out promptly and consistently and send follow-up emails within 24 hours of customer activity.  Send mass communications on Tuesdays and Wednesdays as customers are then more likely to have a moment to open your email and respond.

Encourage interaction.  Email has the benefit of becoming two-way communication.  Invite people to participate in your relationship.  Include a call-to-action in your emails and offer incentives to customers for responding.  Provide the option to forward your communication to a friend or print it for the world.

Check yourself.  Proofread everything and test all your communications.  Send test emails through all popular routes (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Opera), and view your emails on all popular devices (PC, Mac, Blackberry, IPhone, etc.) to insure proper reception prior to public distribution.

Today, business must gain the interest of the individual.  With the world as our market, people have personal access to immense, dynamic opportunity while filters keep most of our encounters to opportunities of individual interest.

Email marketing takes advantage with the customer personally requesting contact, instantly breaking down the barriers of formality and establishing friendly terms for long term communication.

These days, smart businesses consult with their marketing agents and study the code of good email campaign practice.  Inexpensive and remarkably effective, email marketing allows a business insider access that gets you in good with all the right people by recognizing a simple code of conduct.  Be yourself and respect the code— your true market will open for you instantly.

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Email Marketing is the most successful way of taking advantage of this opportunity to develop personal relationships with customers.  Direct electronic communications from a business to its customer, email marketing includes newsletters, promotional announcements, event invitations, coupons and special offers.  The saving grace of email marketing is the mutual interest of you and the customer.

Email marketing is not Spam.  Customers must choose to receive communications from your business, and businesses are required to provide a double opt-in method of subscription so only those folks who want to hear from you, do.  Well mannered businesses also offer an unsubscribe option with every communication, never wanting to overstay their welcome.

The friendly shopkeeper knows the art of timing— your customers should feel taken care of but never hassled.  Good email marketing is part of a long range campaign with deliberately scheduled communications to customers at respectable intervals.  Newsletters should be prompt and can be monthly, but allow people the option of a quarterly distribution.  Sale or important business announcements should be occasional and relevant not just to the event but to the customer.  (Dog owners do not want coupons for cat food.)

Statistics show 86% of customers choose to receive emails from businesses they use.  With an average return on investment of around $45.00 on the dollar for businesses, email marketing is proving a highly effective, low cost profit generator.

Easy to establish, create and distribute to a range of customers regularly, and simple to maintain over a long period of time, email campaigns are essential to quality personal service today.  Easy to track so businesses can adjust quickly to suit customer tastes and trends, email marketing allows you to develop a personal understanding of you customers’ interests and speak to them directly.  With the added benefit of allowing the customer to participate at their leisure.

The 21st century market is revealing certain truths about the business-customer relationship.  People want to feel attended to when spending money.  Even Wal-Mart learned the art of neighborhood groceries with warm lighting and wooden shelves.  We humans like a friendly familiarity to our lives, even the consumer side.

Email marketing lets you do 21st century business the old fashioned way:

• Communicating directly with your customers about what interests them
• Presenting your business identity as a reliable, charming storefront always there  just when needed
• Bringing the customer into the business regularly by letting them actively participate in their relationship with you
• And most importantly, tracking your customers’ habits and interests, so you are always offering better service.

Take a moment to develop the personal service your business provides in the future.  Email marketing is the best way to maintain quality relationships with customers and establish new ones.  Your marketing agent can show you simple ways to start communicating with your customers through email and bring your business charm to the inbox.

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Imagine, you are driving along in your car and you need to call the golf course and you don't know the number.  You hit the speed dial key. The voice at the other end says, "City & State."  You say, “Garland , Texas ."  He says, "Business, Name or Type of Service."  You say, Firewheel Golf Course."  He says, "Connecting" and Firewheel answers the phone.    

How great is that? And that's not all of the features. You can also get a text message with information about the business. If your phone has internet, you can also get a map sent to you. This is nationwide and it is absolutely free!

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Already developing strategy for political campaigns and identity packages for multi-million dollar companies doing international business, dezinsINTERACTIVE is off to a successful running start.

Creative Director, Orhan McMillan states: “With each client partnership we discover new ways of using innovative design, whether long-range strategizing or first developing identity. Once we get to know clients and their businesses, we are able to create the look, language and marketing to propel our clients exactly where they want to be.”

With a Creative Team that includes experienced designers, gifted strategists and writers, and professional photographers, dezinsINTERACTIVE is an excellent source for businesses at all levels of growth. Specializing in collaborative design, the Creative Team is able to partner with any company, anywhere around the globe to develop custom marketing design tailored to each client’s unique identity and objectives.

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