As more millennials start families, the amount of them using social media websites will likely grow. According to eMarketer, more than 24 percent of mothers will be using Facebook by 2013, which represents more than 87 percent of mothers who access the internet.

New mothers, in particular, often spend time researching new products and accessing reviews from other women. Social media marketing allows businesses with this market in mind to guide product discussions and respond to any negative feedback directly. This finding suggests that social marketing can help build loyalty between mom shoppers and the brand.

Facebook PAGES

Facebook Pages enable businesses, public figures, organizations and other entities to generate an authentic and public presence on Facebook. They are visible to everyone on the internet by default. You, and all others on Facebook, can connect with these Pages by liking the page and then receive their updates in your News Feed and interact with them.

At the core of Facebook is authenticity. Profiles should represent real people and real names…Pages should be reserved for entities. Only an official representatives of an entity… public figure, business or organization should create a Facebook Page.

As a Facebook user, connecting with the official Facebook Page for an organization you support enables you to keep up on the latest news and activities directly from the people involved.

Facebook has a team that is focused on verifying the authenticity of Pages. If an official representative or user identifies a fake, spammy or abusive Page, they will investigate and determine whether to remove these Pages. Remember that you can always unlike any Page by clicking “unlike” in the lower left corner of a page.

Facebook GROUPS

Pages are designed to be the official profiles for entities… Groups are the place for small group collaboration. A place for people to share their common interests and express their opinion. Groups allow people to come together around a common cause, issue or activity to organize, express objectives, discuss issues, post photos and share related content.

When generating a group, you can choose to make it public where anyone can join… require administrator approval for members to join… or keep it private and by invitation only. Posts in a ggroup are included in the News Feeds of its members who can then interact and share with one another from the group.

Examples of groups might be a church small group… athletic team organizing activities… political groups discussing platform topics… a non-profit promoting a fund raising event… or those with a common hobby.

Used together, Pages and Groups provide more ways for you to stay connected on Facebook.

Tip 1. Prepare a Bank of Post

You are going to be busy but you still want your name getting out there.  Think about the types of messages you want to send out during this busy time of the year, when you want to send them, and how you want to send them.  Don’t forget #hashtags for tweets and tagging for Facebook messages.

Tip 2. Add Social Sharing

Add social sharing buttons to product pages if you don’t already have them and on thank you pages so users can share what they just bought. Offer posting options onto a users Facebook page with discounts for their friends and family, or suggest users tweet the latest coupon for your site.

Tip 3. Start Writing Great Content to Share

Try posting great content on your site and share on social media to engage with users before, during and after the holidays.

Tip 4. Start Giving

Tis the time of year to help others. If you haven’t already throughout about a charity your company will donate to you should do it now.

From food drives and clothing drives to volunteering and donating money, there are many things your brand can do to get into the spirit of giving. Add a social spin to your actions and live tweet during volunteering events, match dollar for dollar donations on Facebook, create a contest, or get your fans/followers to vote on a charity.

Tip 5. Exclusive Content

Offering an exclusive deal for Facebook or Twitter fans or exclusive content only able to be viewed by fans is something that some brands have found to work well – no matter the time of year. Think about what types of exclusive content you can provide to your fans or followers that they’d be interested in. Is it a coupon only for them, or maybe an infographic or game only fans can see on Facebook?

What are you going to do to get the word out about your business this holiday season?

In the real estate world, there is a saying: “The three considerations that most impact value are location, location, and location.”  In the world of social media, they are purpose, purpose, and purpose.

Nothing impacts the success of a social media effort more than the choice of its purpose. Because purpose becomes the cause around which people will rally and be inspired to act, it is also the source of social media’s business value.

What is a good purpose for social media? Would you recognize one if you saw it? And if you could identify a good purpose, would you be able to mobilize a community around it and derive business value from it?

If you’re like most executives (and you’re being honest), probably not.

No wonder most organizations struggle with gaining tangible and significant business value from social media. This single most important criterion for success is also the biggest leadership skill deficiency.

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The initiative is called the Camry Effect, which provides a custom platform for owners to share memories related to their vehicles. While the conversation begins on the company’s website, Toyota encourages Camry owners to tweet their memories via a sharing button the Toyota website. Owners can also share the content they create on Facebook and track the attention it receives from friends and other contacts.

Social media marketing campaigns have become successful due to the brand accessibility they offer potential customers, and this a social marketing lesson companies across industries can learn from.

“We recognized the need to give Americans a smart, safe and worry-free vehicle they can rely on, and our marketing campaign communicates this message,” Bill Fay, group vice president of marketing for Toyota, said in a release.

Allowing owners to share their thoughts on the Camry will likely compel them to consider a Camry when they make their next car purchase – and perhaps it will drive their non-Camry-owner friends to do the same.

Story from Brafton.com

How effective do you think this campaign will be?

Tip 1. Organize Your Team

You need to decide who is managing which accounts.  That way, when someone ask a question on your networks, they don’t get multiple answers back.

Tip 2. Geo-Target

Never under-estimate the power of local.  Did you know that almost all tweets are now geo-tagged even if not sent from a phone?  Use this to your advantage by searching what’s being said about your industry in your location.  A restaurant monitoring all tweets about their cafe within 20 miles has a perfect chance to send someone a “thanks for eating at my restaurant, mention this tweet code and get 10% off your next meal!”

Tip 3. Stop ignoring LinkedIn

There is a big marketing opportunity with LinkedIn.  Start LinkedIn Groups and start building a following around your brand, and post to it regularly.

Tip 4. Give Credit

RSS posting is a great way to keep information going out to your followers and fans, but what if the information is not yours? Make sure to mark “RT @ ” the person, or “So and so wrote a great post.”  People like to be mentioned, and there’s a good chance if you’re posting someone’s feed, they will post yours in return, so let them know!

Tip 5. Be Regular

It’s important to have content going out to hit all the time zones you need to interact with.  Schedule some posts up for when you’re away to keep all corners of the world engaged.  Just be sure to be ready to respond as soon as you get your computer started the next day.

What tip has helped you succeed?

Mobile enterprise, social business, cloud computing, advanced analytics, and unified communications are converging. Armed with the art of the possible, innovators are seeking to apply disruptive consumer technologies to enterprise class uses — call it the consumerization of IT in the enterprise. The likely results include new methods of furthering relationships, crafting longer term engagement, and creating transformational business models. It’s part of a shift from transactional systems to engagement systems.

These transactional systems have been around since the 1950s. You know them as ERP, finance and accounting systems, or even payroll. These systems are designed for massive computational scale; users find them rigid and techie. Meanwhile, we’ve moved to new engagement systems such as Facebook and Twitter in the consumer world. The rich usability and intuitive design reflect how users want to work — and now users are coming to expect the same paradigms and designs in their enterprise world.

Engagement systems share nine common traits

A few thought leaders have helped drive the thinking on systems of engagement. Geoffrey Moore has discussed how systems of engagement will drive knowledge worker effectiveness and productivity. Dion Hinchcliffe of Dachis group details the transition from systems of record to systems of engagement in how the social web and open internet are changing business. As with the shift to the Internet, organizations that miss this shift from transactional systems to engagement systems will face dire consequences.

Our initial research identifies nine characteristics of engagement systems that differ from the transactional systems of yesteryear (see the table for a historical view):

1.  Design for sense and response. Engagement systems “listen” to assess status, sentiment, and context. For example, detection of negative sentiment could lead to a discount on your next purchase or a proactive phone call to address an issue. These systems go beyond transactional systems that focus on reliability, stability, and continuous improvement.

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The media is already dissecting yesterday’s Facebook event, where the company unveiled major new changes to their platform. Par for the course, really. Drama always accompanies any change to the Facebook site or platform.

But I see drama brewing in a place unaccustomed to it, and involving a different kind of media — the media buying agencies that wield most of the money spent on advertising on the Facebook platform and the companies they represent.

It would seem that the more time consumers spend on Facebook (over 53 billion minutes a month, according to Nielsen), the more the advertising economy would benefit, as more advertising inventory — what Facebook sells and media agencies buy — becomes more plentiful.

But alas, something appears to be broken, or breaking.

Be relevant, free and valuable

Be offered in multiple formats

Use stories and sequencing

Be consistent

Guide your visitors to make the best decisions

Build a trusted base of fans

Lead people to personally positive results

When you use these principles in your social media marketing, you’ll draw attention to your content.

And getting attention is the first step to making anything happen.