As part of the launch of Constant Contact in the UK, Our Social Times is teaming up with the US-based social media marketing company to run a series of 6 free seminars. Between March and June 2012 we’ll be hosting Social Media Marketing for Small Business in London (x 2), Chelmsford, Manchester, Edinburgh and Birmingham. We plan to reach around 100,000 SMEs through our outreach and train around 1000 small businesses in the latest techniques.

Here are the dates and websites where tickets can be booked now:

• Essex – 22nd March
• London – 23rd March
• Manchester – 12th April
• London – 10th May
• Edinburgh – 29th May
• Birmingham – 14th June

All of the sessions at these events will be tailored specifically for small businesses, including:

Supercharging Your Facebook Marketing
Ron Cates – Constant Contact

It’s no secret that Facebook has become a huge part of how people interact, share ideas and recommendations, and interact with brands. But too many businesses aren’t seeing results from their Facebook marketing efforts because they are posting content without a plan for turning “fans” into customers and advocates. In this seminar, you’ll learn why Facebook is important to your business, the difference between posting and marketing, and ten tips to drive more “likes,” more “shares,” and more business.

The 7-Step Social Media Marketing Strategy
Luke Brynley-Jones – Our Social Times

I’ll be kicking of each seminar by setting out how to create a social media marketing strategy in 7 simple steps. I’ll highlight all the key questions you need to ask: Where are your customers? Which social media platforms should you focus on? Which 3rd party tools and applications do you need? Do you have the required skills? How should you manage your time? And how can you measure the results of your activities?

How to Generate New Leads on Twitter
Tammy Kahn Fennell – CEO, MarketMeSuite

Twitter is fast becoming a mainstream communication tool, so now is truly the time to integrate it into your marketing mix. In this session Tammy Kahn Fennell, CEO of social media dashboard MarketMeSuite, explains how to use Twitter to drive customer engagement and generate new leads. With guidance for novices and experienced Twitter marketers alike, this session will teach you how to run a successful Twitter marketing campaign and measure the results.

The Secret Marketeer: Tips & Tricks for Social Media Success
Panel Discussion

In this unique discussion our panel of SMEs and social media experts will confess their most secret tips and tricks to help you succeed in your marketing. Learn about Facebook’s “hidden” in-box, discover how to target local customers on Twitter, find out new ways of connecting with influencers on LinkedIn and much more. This session will give you the edge over your competitors – don’t miss it.

We’ll be posting up more details over the coming weeks.  If you’re interested in attending, please book your place now. If you’re interested in participating, either as a speaker, media partner, sponsor or exhibitor, we still have a few opportunities, so please contact us.

Here are a few examples of amplification in action:

Sponsored Stories

Facebook has created a million and one ways of of passively sharing and endorsing  products, but the Sponsored Story is it’s biggest attempt to capture and extend the lifetime of positive action. Companies can pay to re-post any positive actions you make relating to them into the right column of your friends’ Feeds. Sponsored stories have their critics – and with Facebook’s recent announcement that it’s starting to push them into actual newsfeeds, as if they were genuine recommendations, the chorus of disapproval is likely to intensify.

Embedded Tweets

Twitter recently launched embedded Tweets as a nifty means of extending the lifetime of Tweets from a nanosecond to, potentially, forever. Sadly I don’t have the feature yet, but when I do, I’ll get a little link under the Tweet that offers me an “embed” option, so I can post a real, live, working Tweet onto any web-page. Fleeting remarks from influential Twitterers can now be RT’d by visitors to your website for years to come – and it’s free.

#WhyCBS? Twitter Campaign

If you missed this, watch the video here. A couple of Columbia University students decided to ask other students why people should choose to study there. They posted this simple, hasthagged question to a few friends and watched as boat-loads of bite-sized endorsements flooded in. This was pre-embedded Tweets, so they took screen shots of the best ones and put the whole exercise into a video on YouTube. Smart cookies.

Social Adverts Using Trending Content

Like several players in the social advertising space, Infinigraph has developed a clever way of curating trending content – i.e. the content people share and engage with the most – and enabling publishers to re-purpose that content and use it to drive engagement in other places. The example here is of The Grio, a news site, which added an Infinigraph-generated advert featuring trending content from it’s Facebook page. This ad generated a click-thru rate of 0.2% – much higher than normal ads – and increased engagement.  On a different but related site it got a CTR of 0.5%, which is close to phenomenal.

Rather than post up my predictions for 2012, this year I thought I’d highlight 5 of the best “social media predictions for 2012″ posts and do a little critique of them. Sound fun? Read on MacDuff…

Marc Andressen on Cnet

This is my favourite social media “Prediction” post for 2012, Marc Andressen is clearly on a smart-phone high, but his comments about “category killers” i.e. e-commerce solutions that, due to the rise in numbers of potential customers (fuelled by smart phone uptake) have been able to carve huge gouges out of vertical industries that were previously out of bounds for disruptive start-ups, are genius.

Avi Savar in Forbes

This is a thoughtful piece from Avi Savar, CEO of marketing agency, BigFuel, who spoke at my recent social media marketing event in New York, that highlights the gamification trend that I see becoming omnipresent in social media in 2012/13. He also offers an honest (if slightly terrifying) perspective on the continued rise of Facebook and the drive for perfect personalisation. Avi has also stirred up criticism from a certain Mr Redpants, which has to be the hallmark of a good post!

Kevin Green on BostInno

I just happened upon this little gem of a post, and while I disagree about gamification overload (99% of businesses have yet to hear the word – and many of those that have are getting impressive returns from implementing it) – I completely agree that 2012 must be the year of “social business” delivery, rather than theory and discussion. I too foresee the end of the “social media guru”. It’s the day-to-day practitioners who have the knowledge today. After 3-4 years of dubious service, Guru’s need to truss up their loin-cloths and return to their caves.

David Armano in the Harvard Business Review

David Armano’s list is here for two reasons: firstly, we both wrongly predicted that Facebook Places would put Foursquare out of business in 2011 (well done Foursquare, we still love you) and, secondly, he includes Social TV in his list. We often forget that TV remains the most powerful medium in the world. Now just imagine how powerful it will be when we integrate it with the word-of-mouth and recommendation-engine that is social media. It’s the next gold rush. You heard it here first my friend! (Well, second).

Angela Hausman on Interact Marketing

I like this post because of two lines, firstly “customer service can no longer be relegated to a department” . To me the rise of social CRM and online customer engagement mean that customer service is marketing, it is also PR, product research, strategy research and more. For me the really big question for 2012 is: should you let your Marketing Team anywhere near social media? The second line I like is the 5th point made: “Increased blurring between customers and employees”. The lines between staff, customers, suppliers and even competitors have definitely blurred through social media. We’re all just people on Facebook and Twitter – and people talk. Businesses need to adapt to this change.

Well, those are my 5-of-the-best. I also made a presentation last week on the “Future of Social Media” to The Telegraph in London. I won’t go into the detail of that here, but I set out my views in this short interview I did with Mo Krochmal in New York in October (after the part about the differences between events in NYC, San Francisco and London). I think it’s the most succinct definition I’ve produced yet – so I’m pleased Mo was on hand with his camera! See what you think.

I’d welcome your feedback on any of the predictions here. What’s missing? Is there anything you think is absolute hogwash? Who should have their Social Media Expert status suspended?