If something happened that caused issues with your social media efforts, do you have a recovery plan? Checkout this article that gives you 5 tips to prevent social media disaster.

Preventing A Social Media Disaster: 5 Tips

If there’s one thing that keeps social media marketers up at night, it’s the ever-present threat of a PR disaster. By now, every marketer is well-aware of how quickly dissatisfied consumers can turn to the social airwaves to vent about a brand. Nestle, BP, Domino’s, Southwest Airlines, and many other brands have witnessed the unbridled power of social media as a platform for disgruntled consumers to rally around an anti-brand cause.

You can never fully “control” what your customers say about your brand on social platforms like Facebook , Twitter, YouTube, blogs, and forums — nor would you want to. After all, the biggest benefit of social media is to allow your customers to express their opinions and talk about your products and services among themselves, creating a loyal fan base that spreads the word about your brand to their friends and family. However, there are several actionable strategies you can take to avoid — or circumvent — a negative PR storm about your brand online.

Here are five tips to give your brand the best possible chance at avoiding a social media PR debacle, and strategies for quickly handling problems if they arise.

Read more at www.marketingtimes.com

Ning has released the pricing plans for this community software.

Interesting article that discusses key point that Forrester has defined to help social media user learn how to market the right way using social media.

Forrester: If You Think Social Media Marketing is Worthless, You’re Doing it Wrong Written by Mike Melanson / July 19, 2010 10:39 AM / 4 Comments « Prior Post Next Post »

Has your company spent seemingly countless hours tweeting on Twitter, networking on Facebook and writing the company blog? Have you found yourself wondering if it’s all a waste of time? Maybe that last Facebook fan page contest saw fewer entries than you’d hoped for, or that last Twitter-only coupon had fewer redemptions than you’d expected, but perhaps that’s not all that matters.

According to the the latest report by analyst firm Forrester, many people are looking at the face value dollars and cents of social media marketing and, put simply, they’re doing it wrong. Beyond clicks and coupon redemptions, there lies a case for social media marketing that shows its value is well beyond what we see on the surface.

Analyst and report author Augie Ray writes in a blog post this morning that traditional measurements of success for return on investment in social media marketing lead to an incomplete picture.

Many marketers can draw a straight line between investments in social media marketing and financial results, but many more cannot.  This doesn’t mean social media marketing is ineffective; it just means that marketers have to recognize benefits beyond dollars and cents.  Facebook fans, retweets, site visits, video views, positive ratings and vibrant communities are not financial assets–they aren’t reflected on the balance sheet and can’t be counted on an income statement–but that doesn’t mean they are valueless.  Instead, these are leading indicators that the brand is doing something to create value that can lead to financial results in the future.

Read more at www.readwriteweb.com

Good article that shares information about dealing with taxes as an entrepreneur and selling on eBay.

How to Tax E-Commerce without Killing Entrepreneurship (and eBay)

A new study says that eBay (EBAY) sellers are consistently neglecting to collect sales tax. Seeing potential for billions in tax revenue, highly leveraged states are increasingly interested in a new law that would enforce tax collection for online sales. The idea has reignited a debate over whether e-commerce should be treated the same as brick-and-mortar sales: how do we tax Web business without discouraging online entrepreneurship?

The eBay study, which appears in the National Tax Journal, found that only 18% of eBay sellers got around to charging sales tax, and that even sellers recording tens of thousands of transactions weren’t religious about it. (Professional sellers do not fall under the sales tax caveat that makes exception for yard sales and classifieds.)

Read more at industry.bnet.com