My friends all know this of course. It’s not like it’s something you can hide really, especially when you help people to grow their social networks and to make better use of social media.



I received an e-mail this week from my friend Tim out in Phoenix. Wave “Hi” Tim, you’re about to be internet-famous. Tim and I went to B-school together, and he is in the process of closing down an e-commerce website. Knowing many of you have similar questions about social media, I asked Tim if he’d let me share my response back to him with you by blogging it. He said “yes” by the way. I always knew he wanted to be internet-famous.



Ken,



-Tim



Hey Tim,



You will no doubt be thrilled to hear that you do *not* have to relocate your family from sunny Phoenix to rural Montana. Most people have now heard the buzz about social media, and many have tried it for themselves, but are not (yet!) seeing the results they want.



Results are the right place to start. As a form of communications, the first question to ask — if you are using social media for anything other than entertainment — is “What do I want to achieve?” Take the time to identify what it is, specifically, that you want to achieve. Increase your revenues? Reduce your costs? Get new customers? Find a date for your sister’s wedding?



I read five questions (cries for help?) in your e-mail Tim. I will address each of them in order:



1. Why is social media important?

Social media is important — and I am defining “important” here as an effective strategy for individuals and organizations to achieve their objectives — because it makes it fast, easy, and [in most cases] FREE for you to create and share content.



For example, with traditional (”paid”) media, you purchase print, website, radio, TV, and/or billboard space, and then you pay someone else to articulate the value of your particular product/service in a compelling way to catch peoples’ attention — all in the hopes of persuading people to buy. With social (”earned”) media, you are no longer in direct sales (”BUY MY STUFF!”) mode. Instead, you are engaging your target audience by freely sharing the value of your expertise with people who are interested in it. And yes, along the way, you are letting it be known that your products and services are available for purchase. Earned media is not a magic cure-all, but an effective addition, and booster, to your existing marketing mix of paid and owned media.



2. What is the value of Twitter?

One of the values of Twitter is that it is a powerful lead generator. Each and every 140-character SEO-rich tweet is indexed by Google in almost real-time, getting you and your content on the first page of Google’s search results.



3. What is the value of Fousquare?

One of the values of Foursquare is that it enables you connect more frequently with your network live and in-person. When I worked for Realogy, our building had a central staircase between the first and second floors that everyone used. Arguably, more business was done on that staircase than in the rest of the building combined, because it facilitated people running into each other. Likewise, Foursquare exponentially increases the opportunities for you to “run into” the people you know.



4. What is the value of Facebook?

One of the values of Facebook is that it enables you to reconnect with people from your different schools, companies, and organizations. The personal and professional possibilities multiply when you are able to more easily stay in touch with the people you know.



5. What is the value of LinkedIn?

One of the values of LinkedIn is the ability to identify and connect with people you want to reach through “friends of friends”. Because of its near ubiquity among business professionals, it also enables real-time access to first-hand information about your customers, suppliers, employers, and employees.



You’re already following me on Twitter (http://twitter.com/socialgrow), connected with me on Foursquare (http://foursquare.com/user/kenherron), have friended me on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/kenherron.fb), and connected with me on LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/in/kenherron). So what is it that YOU want to achieve with social media?



-Ken



SocialGrow Blog Readers: Do *you* have social media advice that you would like to share with Tim? Please feel free to include your recommendations in the comments section below, both on the importance of social media, and how he should be using Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook, and LinkedIn.



At the March Web Innovators Group meeting here in Boston, it really hit me how our engaging people on social networks, by sharing what we know and what we are doing in social media, has had an incredibly positive impact for SocialGrow’s brand awareness and recognition in the real-world.



I felt like everyone at the event had seen Jennie White’s “5 Startups Who Are Killing it on Twitter” article she had published earlier that day, so immediately recognized SocialGrow on my nametag and knew who I was. I can’t say I’ve ever experienced that before at an event. Everyone wanted to know more about our software application, and how we’re using Twitter to reach out to potential users. We all know how much easier it is to talk about your company, your brand, and your products with someone when they have read something about you online. Especially with a product that does something which hasn’t been done before, social media gives you real-time feedback to help you explain the unique value of your product in a way that traditional advertising cannot.



Jennie’s article was not our first online recognition, however, we’ve also been named one of MassHighTech’s “5 Startups You Should Follow”, and Microsoft’s global BizSpark Startup of the Day. SocialGrow’s participation in Microsoft’s BizSpark Startup program, has further enabled us to connect and engage with our potential users online.



So how can a tech startup, and for that matter, ANY new company use social networks and online social media marketing “introduce” themselves to their target customers and help those customers to understand their brand’s unique value?



1. Hire a great CMO, who is both strategic and hands-on. You need someone who deeply understands not just marketing in general, but social media marketing in particular. SocialGrow’s CMO Ken Herron started engaging potential users online months before we launched our Alpha release, and has steadily worked his way up Kent Huffman’s Systemic Marketing’s “Top CMOs on Twitter” list.



2. Freely and generously share your expertise in your blog posts, Twitter streams, Facebook Fan pages, comments on others peoples’ blog posts, and MeetUp groups. Don’t forget to take advantage of any PR opportunities you see at Peter Shankman’s HARO.



3. Share your content so as to maximize its SEO and potential for virality, by being sure to include keywords which will help people to find what you’ve written. Required reading for all of us how to increase the effectiveness of our inbound marketing efforts are: HubSpot, David Meerman Scott, and Dan Zarrella.



4. Share “link love” with the people who you believe to be the best in your field (as I did in tip number 3 above), and they may share it back with you through their tweets and posts.



5. Continually create and share quality content. On Twitter, post at least 3 times a day, and on your blog, post at least once a week.



6. Actively participate in in-person networking events, proactively seeking out and introducing yourself to the other participants. At the last LaunchCamp Boston event, I made it a point to seek out Jeff Cutler, Joselin Mane, and Jason Evanish. Don’t be afraid to sit in the front row, as I did in Scott Kirsner and Wade Roush’s session on PR.



7. Hire a great designer to visualize your brand’s identity. SocialGrow’s logo was designed to communicate the concept of healthy, positive growth, and we use it everywhere so people will instantly know when it’s us talking.



8. Finally, pay it forward. All new companies need help. If you can help a fellow startup with introductions, feedback, or simply being a good beta tester to help them to improve their product, then do it. You will not only make new friends, but learn things which will help your business along the way. Then when you need help yourself, and you will, you’ll have these people in your network. We all want to be successful!



Learn more about SocialGrow, and our milestones to date on our Crunchbase profile.



How have YOU used online social networking to increase your company’s brand awareness? I look forward to your comments!



Azure will also have the ability to increase, on demand, the processing power during peak times. This will enable the SocialGrow web and mobile phone software application to be fast, *really* fast, no matter how many members are online.



Finally, Azure will offer us the ability to dynamically increase the storage space we need to scale the application to accommodate new users.



Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform will enable us to deliver a reliable, fast, and scalable application that SocialGrow’s members around the world can depend on to grow their online social networks.



- Charbel (CTO)

Boston’s Largest Network of Technology Investors, named after the city’s historic public meeting grounds, CommonAngels is a group of 75 leading private investors and several dozen limited partners in two co-investment funds. They have rich expertise in over 58 specific sectors and finance the region’s most innovative high-tech ventures with a focus on capital efficiency: Series A rounds of $500K-$5M with total capital less than $20M.



- Marsh (President)

Let us know which logos you love, which logos you hate, and which logos just make you scratch your head.



99designs is a disruptive startup which connects passionate designers from around the globe with savvy clients who need design projects completed in a timely fashion without the usual risk or cost associated with professional design.



Read what the media  has to say about about them.



- Ken (CMO)

In advance of the launch of our new company’s website, and, as you can see, in advance of our even having a logo, welcome to the SocialGrow™ company blog!



SocialGrow™ helps individuals and organizations around the world realize the benefits of social networks.



SocialGrow’s flagship product, the SocialGrow™ Web and Mobile Phone Software Application, enables people of all technical levels to quickly and easily grow their professional and/or personal online social networks. The SocialGrow™ Web and Mobile Phone Software Application also enables both small and large social networks around the world to rapidly grow their memberships.



SocialGrow’s Consulting division, SocialGrow™ Consulting, researches, analyzes, and makes recommendations on social networking strategies.



SocialGrow’s Professional Services division, SocialGrow™ Professional Services, manages social networks.



SocialGrow’s vision is to realize the human side of what our technology enables — new connections between people that might not have otherwise happened. Finding a new job after a year of unemployment. Finding the love of your life after a break-up that left you thinking you’d never meet anyone. Finding a huge customer when you didn’t know whether your business would survive. Each new connection truly has the potential to be life-changing. Our application enables growth, not just the number of people one has in their multiple online networks, but the value received from the richness of having a large, diverse network.



SocialGrow™ was founded in 2009 by industry veterans Marsh Sutherland, Ken Herron, and Charbel Elkhoury.