The team behind the start-up Secret London. Founder Tiffany is in the front row.

This isn’t an uncommon story anymore: a 21-year-old has a successful start-up.

What’s unusual, however, is the start-up was originally a Facebook group.

Tiffany Philippou started a group called Secret London in response to a competition for a summer internship with Saatchi & Saatchi. The Facebook group started as a page where Londoners could share secrets and their favorite things about the city, things only locals know about. There are also forums on the site where people can ask where to find something like live music, African drumming classes or a quirky wedding venue, and locals can respond with their opinions.

Just two weeks after starting the group, it had 182,010 fans. While the competition eventually had 800 different groups competing for the internship, Philippou now has a start-up. Internship? Old news.

With the URL bought (www.secretcities.com) and a Twitter account with 5,300 followers and blog that have both been live since early February, Secret London is blossoming. The most amazing thing about this start-up – besides the fact that it spawned from a Facebook group – was it only 2,963 pounds.

“What’s amazing is how much you can do cheaply if you are working on a project that inspires people.,” Philippou wrote in a guest blog post on TechCrunch.com. “As well as the incredible talent we got on board, we also got a printer from Freecycle.org, brought some equipment from home, and borrowed the rest. The folks at the Finsbury Centre in particular were really generous with their time and help.”

So how about that? A business can start from just about anything…including a Facebook group.

Start-up or not, every company has issues to overcome…does yours? Take our Business Health Check to find out.

Marla Erwin helped Whole Foods master social media.

Think you’re busy trying to constantly update your own Twitter page? Imagine handling more than a million Twitter followers.

Marla Erwin, Interactive Art Director for Whole Foods, is credited with Whole Foods’ social media success. In its first year on Twitter, Whole Foods gained a million followers. Since starting with Twitter, Whole Foods now has several separate accounts for users who have more specific questions about the store’s products — a Twitter account for cheese, one for Whole Foods recipes, etc.

How did Marla garner so many followers? She incorporated user-generated content onto Whole Foods’ Twitter and Facebook accounts. Recipes, product ratings and reviews and comments on the Whole Foods’ blog all went onto their Twitter feed.

Marla then went on to use Facebook and Twitter for different uses: Facebook she uses for more editorial content and to start discussions among fans and friends (since users can see others’ comments on Facebook, it’s easier to have a discussion), and Twitter she uses for Whole Foods promotions, information for customers, to answer customers’ questions and tweet out links to Whole Foods’ blog.

Read the whole article here,  and see if any of what Marla did for Whole Foods’ Twitter and Facebook can be used for your business.

As with traditional marketing, it’s all about opportunities. When you find opportunities to sell your products and services, you don’t shy away, do you? You take advantage! The same with online marketing – find opportunities to get the word out about what you’re promoting. However, with online marketing, it can be trickier. Where do you find these opportunities? And with social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, sure, you might have 500+ followers/friends, but do they really care about what you’re promoting?

If you’re lost in terms of online marketing, you need to be able to first find opportunities which you can expand upon in terms of marketing. Don’t know how to start? The following tools will at least give you a good idea of what’s being said about your company or industry online, and where users spend their time:

• Google Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts) emails you whenever a chosen
keyword (e.g., company or product name, CEO name, campaign tagline,
industry term, etc.) is mentioned in any form of online content.
• Google Blog Search (http://blogsearch.google.com/) scans the blogosphere
for any keyword or phrase you type in.
• Twitter Search (http://search.twitter.com/) scans all Twitter posts for your
selected keyword or phrase.
• SiteVolume (http://www.sitevolume.com/) reports how often keywords or
phrases appear on Twitter, Digg, MySpace, YouTube and Flickr.
• SocialMention (http://www.socialmention.com/) enables you to search
keywords and phrases by specific channel category (blogs, images, news,
video, etc.), or as a whole, and to receive email alerts when a new mention
is posted.
• Socialcast (http://www.socialcast.com/) offers real-time analytics on microblogging
and other social activities and identifies individual users’ level of
activity. Unlike most tools, it also can quantify the value of “lurkers” who
aren’t visibly posting comments, but by how often they frequent a site.

Take note of what’s being said about your company or whatever keywords you search, whether it’s positive, negative or neutral; what people
are passing along to friends; and if there are any particular needs or customer
segments that aren’t served. These are all opportunities for marketing…

Hopefully you get it by now: social media is the way to go, and it’s here to stay…for a while, at least, as a marketing tool for businesses.

Are you caught up on social media sites? Do you utilize each site you joined to its fullest potential, so you can get the most marketing usage out of that site?

Look at our checklist and hopefully, you’re already doing the following to benefit marketing your business on social media sites:

Networking: What good are your 789 friends if you don’t talk to them? Just like in real life, networking is key. The more people you know, the better; everyone you network with starts off as a lead or someone who can refer you to a client. Get to know people at BNIs and networking events, and add them as friends on Facebook, connect with them on LinkedIn and follow them on Twitter.

Don’t Be a Spammer: Just like you’re turned off at a live networking event when someone pushes his product or service on you right away, on social media sites, you’ve got to build a rapport. Your first conversation with anyone on social media sites should be anything but “Do business with me.” On Facebook or LinkedIn, a good icebreaker is to join several groups and become a fan of pages and connect with members of the same group/page. Start up a discussion about an issue pertinent to the group or post in their forums. On Twitter, engage in conversations and reply to other users’ tweets.

Post Interesting Info: If you post useful, relevant and interesting info, people will be more likely to pay attention to you. Check out what your friends or followers are posting, and try to post news and info that are in a similar vein to connect over those topics.

Link to your Blog: Again, no one likes someone who only talks about their services, but you are on these sites to promote your business. Do it the smart way by linking to blog posts you’ve written, which will send traffic to your blog, or articles you find about the benefits of business coaching or articles about companies that have done better after getting a business coach. Avoid anything that is a blatant advertisement of yourself. Don’t have a blog yet? Start one, or link to blogs you like and read a lot. Like this one (okay, that was a shameless plug…but still, not a bad idea).

If you’ve been utilizing social media marketing strategies, comment below and let us know your success stories! To find out if you need to improve your marketing strategies, or other business issues, click here.

With the recession, charities' donations have decreased.

With the recent disaster in Haiti, many people and charities are reaching out via social media networks to raise funds.

But before the Haiti disaster, charities were increasing their social media efforts to attain potential donors…and it seems to have been working.

The Detroit News recently published an article about how charities are joining Twitter and Facebook in an effort to spread the word about charity events and recruit volunteers and donors, something that’s been a more urgent need in the down economy. An example they cite with Forgotten Harvest, a charity that supports impoverished areas that need food, is they had 100 volunteers for an event to help package 11,000 meals. And about a fifth of those volunteers were recruited online.

Even though charitable donations took a hit with the recession – in 2008, donations slid 2 percent from 2007, the first decline in donations since 1987 – E-philanthropy, giving donations online and recruiting volunteers, increased 4 percent that same year.

Charities are getting so savvy with social media marketing, that some have added their own apps for iPhones and Facebook. For example, the Salvation Army’s Red Kettle campaign has a facebook widget with a game that collects real donations.

ActionCOACH is making waves by marketing its own charitable campaign, Coaching for a Cause, on Twitter and Facebook. The end goal for the pro-bono business coaching campaign is raising $2.5 million and so far, with successful business coaching, $859,294 has been raised.

If it’s working for non-profits, social media marketing can work for small businesses and big businesses, too. Fine-tune your social media marketing skills and figure out what you can do to leverage your business this way.

On the other side of things, if you’re a social media whiz, you might consider how you can help charities with your expertise. Coaching charities — and businesses — does wonders in this economy.

Social media marketing is how many companies market campaigns today.

Regardless of whether you read BusinessCoaching.com regularly or not, unless you’ve been under a rock this last year, you should know that social media marketing efforts have increased — and have reaped great rewards. Track how many sales or clients you get from Twitter, APP, drive traffic to your website and ultimately, market yourself via the Internet and social media sites. Social media marketing is a great business coaching resource.

But if you’re still overwhelmed by how to market your company with all the sites and strategies out there, hopefully these five tips will help make it a bit clearer. You don’t have to use all the sites out there to market yourself.

1) Thoroughly explore your options: You don’t have to join the big sites like Facebook and Twitter to have an effective social media marketing campaign. There are several smaller, lesser-known sites that cater to specific niche audiences. For a list of these sites, click here.

2) Tailor your efforts to each site: It’s important to remember, especially if you’re marketing via niche sites, to interact with users in a manner they’ll relate to. Customize your message to every different audience you’re contacting so you’re “speaking their language.”

3) Track your efforts: It’s easier to do than it sounds. Incorporate shortened URLs when you campaign on each site. TinyURL, bit.ly and owl.ly are great free services that allow you to shorten a normal URL (key for Twitter, where you can only post 140 characters at a time), making it easier to share links, encourage others to spread the word, and make it easy to track your efforts, providing in-depth stats like where users who clicked the link are located and how many times each link was clicked. Then all that’s left to do is see what’s working, what’s not, and alter your campaign as needed.

4) Keep it real: No one likes spammers, shameless self-promotion or trained parrots. Don’t keep repeating the same things over and over again, or you won’t sound genuine at all…more like a repetitive ad. Also take into consideration that usually if you’re a big brand, you’ll be targeted more harshly. So be careful, but also be honest, be real, be interesting, and don’t insult people’s intelligence. The easiest way to do this is to touch on hot topics in the news, or newsworthy stories and issues that relate to your business and industry. These will attract attention, start conversations and will eventually relate to your message and draw even more attention to your campaign.

Last year was a huge year for social media. All sorts of sites gained massive popularity – Twitter and Digg, for example – and

Now that it’s 2010, let’s look back and see how social media sites changed the way some things were done:

Sales: Dell has tracked over $6.5 million in revenue to Twitter. Yes, it’s possible to track sales from Twitter…but Twitter is still in its infancy; Dell earned $61 billion last year, so its Twitter sales aren’t that much in the scheme of things…however, it does prove that social media is having an effect on sales — so much so, that companies can now track sales that stem from Twitter.

Local marketing: How did you find out about that restaurant? Did a friend share it as their Facebook status? Were you walking down the street with your iPhone out and saw it on Yelp’s Monocle or Urbanspoon’s Scope? Did someone Twitter about it, and their Twitter feed is linked to their Facebook and LinkedIn statuses, so all those networks saw it? Social media greatly helped people find out where people were, and it also helped people find local hot spots. The fusion of mobile, social and local started to create real opportunities to change consumer behavior. What was true for early adopters in 2009 will apply in the years ahead…and new applications and ways to market various products and services will probably pop up, too.

Death: We now mourn in public. Michael Jackson inspired millions — billions? — to grieve openly. Friends and strangers opened about Brittany Murphy, Billy Mays and DJ AM.

News-sourcing: As early as 2004, journalists were embracing blogs as a legitimate news source, and not surprisingly, they were among the first to embrace Twitter. Will they similarly lead the charge with every latest and greatest social media platform? Using these platforms as sources and to find and get news opened the door to ways for the media to interact with their audience.

Celebrity Access: In January, Ashton Kutcher joined Twitter. He was followed by Ellen DeGeneres,Oprah, wife Demi Moore,. We got to see what they saw, from Chris Brown’s view of 90,000 fans in Manila to Chad Ochocinco’s view of his opponents’ football field. Vin Diesel posts a couple of times a month on his Facebook page, where he has over 7 million fans. And after Kanye West grabbed the microphone from Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards, he apologized on his blog. John Mayer moved on from constant MySpace updates to constant tweeting. Yes, there are ghost tweeters and plenty of opacity, but now that fans have this direct, personal, and even unfiltered access, it’s not going away.

Mari Smith, Social Media Marketing Specialist Extraordinaire

Then meet Mari Smith.

Mari Smith is living proof that social media strategies work – she has only been active on Facebook and Twitter since 2007, but already has well over 8,000 friends and fans and Facebook, and an astounding 40,000+ following on Twitter.

She is a Relationship Marketing Specialist and Social Media Keynote Speaker, Trainer and Consultant. Dubbed the “Pied Piper of the Online World” by FastCompany.com, Smith helps independent professionals, entrepreneurs and business owners accelerate their business profits using an integrated social marketing strategy, with particular focus on Twitter and Facebook.

Her mission is to engage and educate CEOs and executives about social media to increase their skills, knowledge and integrity about social media, how to develop powerful profitable relationships using social media, and how these can help them. Business development coaching via social media is just what Smith specializes in.

She is an in-demand speaker for good reason – and she’s featured on Brad Sugars’ “Master Mentors” this week. If you’re still skeptical about whether social media marketing can really improve your business, listen to her audio interview here.

Every year, the New Oxford Dictionary chooses a “word of the year.” The word is usually representative of the times, and is a new addition to the dictionary.

How fitting that this year’s word of the year is…unfriend. Social media has taken over! Whether you’re using it for personal use or business use, just about everyone has joined LinkedIn, Facebook and/or Twitter to promote themselves.

According to the New Oxford dictionary: “Unfriend – verb – To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook. As in, ‘I decided to unfriend my roommate on Facebook after we had a fight.’”

The finalists for word of the year are also telling of the times, as many of them have to do with the more rampant use of technology, social media terms, and the economy:

sexting – the sending of sexually explicit texts and pictures by cellphone

hashtag – a # [hash] sign added to a word or phrase that enables Twitter users to search for tweets (postings on the Twitter site) that contain similarly tagged items and view thematic sets

intexticated – distracted because texting on a cellphone while driving a vehicle

netbook – a small, very portable laptop computer with limited memory

paywall – a way of blocking access to a part of a website which is only available to paying subscribers

freemium – a business model in which some basic services are provided for free, with the aim of enticing users to pay for additional, premium features or content

funemployed – taking advantage of one’s newly unemployed status to have fun or pursue other interests

zombie bank – a financial institution whose liabilities are greater than its assets, but which continues to operate because of government support

Funny that “business coaching” wasn’t in the running…it is the second-fastest growing industry in the world, after all…and is especially relevant in today’s economy.

Are you familiar with these new words? Better get familiar…especially if you plan on promoting yourself with social media sites and being social media savvy.

The New York Times published an interesting article today. It highlighted Brad Sugars and how he helped Cancer Schmancer raise money solely through a Facebook application.

The article focused on other charities using social media to increase their donations, such as Twitter, blogs and YouTube.

Earlier this year, Facebook Causes recognized Sugars as an All-Star Contributor for raising about $8,000 for Cancer Schmancer. On Thursday, November 12, the New York Times recognized him as well, and applauded his use of social media to give to a good cause.

The age of social media has given people everywhere power to raise awareness and market just about anything; journalists, presidential candidate campaigners and corporate marketers have taken to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to promote what they’re working on. Now nonprofit groups are using those same sites to recruit volunteers, spread awareness and solicit donations.

On his 38th birthday this year, Sugars installed a Causes application, and as a birthday gift to him, asked each of his $3,000 friends to make a donation of at least $38, which he would match. By matching each donation, Sugars managed to raise $7,690 for Cancer Schmancer.

It’s an interesting article. Check it out here, or at www.nytimes.com.