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I recommend a kind of social media strategy that we call "Content-oriented" social media. This strategy revolves around creating content and sharing it with your social networks. If it gets shared around, you generate more qualified prospects to your site to convert. Clicks are measureable, which we like at Conversion Sciences. Here are nine errors we make that limits the amount of sharing that goes on around our content. NOTE: In #8, the writer defines six sharing personas. Note that 7 of the 8 prefer email as a tool of their sharing. This is an article on social media. The insinuation is that email is a social media tool. You may know that I call email the largest social network on the planet. Just saying...

When considering how much to invest in social networks, the important question is not "Are my customers using social media?" They are.

A better question to ask is "Are my customers using social media to make decisions about my product?" Odds are, they aren't.

This paradox is most evident in the "fastest growing" segment of social media: those over 55 years of age. This segment is large, but it does not generally make buying decisions using social media. That's an important distinction.

It might help to look at email as a social network. It is, only it is VERY large. My 91-year-old grandmother "friended" me years ago on email. We share video, pictures, posts … everything via email. So, if you have a social media strategy that ignores the biggest social network on the planet, is it a complete strategy? Not even close.

In my new book, I talk about the importance of having Marketing Batteries that store visitors attention for you to use over and over. The "Subscriber Battery" is your email list. The "Social Battery" will include your Twitter followers.

The problem with the Social Battery is that it discharges unreliably compared to the Subscriber Battery. As a result I recommend converting your social networks to email contacts. This charges your Subscriber Battery from your Social Battery.

Here is a great set of tactics to get more email subscribers from Twitter.

 @trackur takes a bold position to take for a social media tool. Spoiler alert: the one metric they suggest you obsess over if Conversion.
You see, conversions is why your business is, well, in business. We couldn't agree more.

I often rail against the gratuitous use of social media icons on Ecommerce sites. It takes people away from your site for little real benefit. The folks at Monetate do a great job of summarizing the best way to use social for the good of your business and of your visitors.

 @smexaminer While images are important for social media to help break through the noise, they are also very important on our landing pages, home pages and other web pages.

Unfortunately, we often resort to what I call "business porn" in my book. Business porn includes stock photos of multi-racial smiling people, of graphs going up and to the right, and of cheerful women with headsets.

So if you are struggling with what to use for visuals on your site or in your emails, here are 26 excellent ideas. 

If you're a frequent reader of our blogs, you won't be surprised by this report from Custora stating that email is a more effective marketing channel than social networks.

In fact, I say in my book that email is the biggest social network on the planet. Business people plan their days by their inbox. They program audible notifications when new items come into their inbox. It's not smart, but it's true.

Of course, this doesn't mean that you should send self-promotional crap. That won't work in email, mail or social media. But certainly don't eliminate email from your marketing mix.

While we never do tests to achieve social virality, I think we can learn something from how people interact with images on social networks.

Don't take the results of this report as meaning that you should make the images on your website animated or vertical or eliminated. You may find the exact opposite for more engaged audiences.

Instead, add this bit of information to your knowledge base when testing social campaigns. You may want to test image orientation, brightness or animation.

But always test to the bottom line.

I've put forth in my new book that adding social media icons to a landing page is a bad idea. I get a lot of pushback on this. Here's some support for my position. Simplicity sells. "Engagement" doesn't. This article highlights three components that consumers need to make it easier to buy. They need to trust the information they receive.They need to learn effectively without distraction.They need to be able to weigh options confidently. Help your visitors choose and choose confidently. Worry about your social media strategy after the sale.

Walking into a store qualifies as a conversion. Apparently promotional email still rocks social media.

This is a nice summary of my @PubCon Masters Group Training. You can watch the free 14 minute video of my PubCon "Social Moonshine" presentation at http://conversci.com/vuh8 

Dave Evans mentions me (among others) in an excellent overview of measurable Social Media strategy.

A new tool for our online conversion lab! Facebook is apparently going to give us more insight into the behavior of individuals on our Facebook pages. The more we know about the success of these pages, the better decisions we can make about spending our marketing time and dollars on social media.

Despite all the hype, social networks are not a panacea for businesses, and many are putting too many resources into them without knowing the payoff.

The question to ask on a landing page is, "Will WOW increase my conversions?" Some of these "WOW" features have proven to reduce conversion rates.  Rotating banners of any sort attract the eye away, and can pull readers out of the "meat" of the page where they are more likely to convert. Accordian menus and tabbed content may prevent scanners from quickly consuming the page. It's a bit of a Catch 22: they may not have the patience to click on each item until they've scanned the content... which is hidden. Social widgets can deliver social proof and increase conversion rates. However, social media chicklets that let the visitor go off to Facebook or Twitter work against the purpose of a landing page: to keep visitors on the page until they make a decision. Why send traffic that you've paid for off to Mark Zuckerberg? Lightbox popovers are universally derided if you ask people. However, they almost always increase conversion rates. 

Every audience is different, so test these WOW features with your own crowd.

Some great tools for your blog

As you know, I believe email is more effective than social media marketing at this juncture. This article drives the point home. "Email is, unsurprisingly,  still the most important mobile app. According to Forrester, 87 percent of smartphone workers use email on their devices (which leaves me wondering what other 13 percent use their smartphones for), and collectively, they do 32 percent of their email on a smartphone."

Leads, customers and conversion rate round out this list. Now that's conversion.

Thanks @chiefmartec for an incredibly helpful and detailed tutorial on measuring social like buttons in Google Analytics.

Conversion Science is becoming a category!