This post serves as an update of all I’ve been working on over the past couple of months — I ended up taking an unintentional hiatus from publishing my own blog posts since August. Phew! Not for lack of activity, that’s for sure. I’ve been keeping all my social channels engaged and current, including activating the Subscribe feature on my Facebook personal profile (now at over 22,000 subscribers – by far the fastest growing social channel I’ve seen), and am keeping my fan page active as well. And, I continue to love Google+ too!

I’m delighted to share that my blogging will get back on track — I have a huge collection of posts to share with you, covering all the latest Facebook changes, Facebook marketing, Google+ how to’s and for business, social media, relationship marketing and more!

And now, the mega updates…

The New Relationship Marketing – New Book!

First, I’m super excited about the launch of my latest book – one I’ve been working on since last December. But, in fact, one that I’ve been contemplating for probably the past ten years. See, long before Facebook even existed or social media was such a buzzword (and now an integral part of business today), I called myself a relationship marketing specialist. To me, it’s all about relationships. It’s P2P – People to People. Regardless of which online or offline medium through which you market your business, it’s the degree of authentic engagement and genuine caring that will help you win more sales.

Effective marketing today contains the right mix of “hard skills” and “soft skills.” Hard skills include the plethora of technology, knowing what buttons to push, and how all the platforms function. Soft skills are the people skills which include empathy, compassion, listening, caring, and giving with no agenda. By finding the magic blend that works for you, you can really accelerate all your marketing initiatives.

In my new book, I lay out the basics of relationship marketing in Part I, then walk you through a proven nine-step system for building a large, loyal, and profitable network using the social web. My wonderful friend Guy Kawasaki wrote the foreword!

Mari Smith and Guy Kawasaki

The OFFICIAL launch date is Tuesday, October 25th – I will be hosting an all day “virtual book launch party!” Most likely via my Livestream channel. Stay tuned and watch any of my social channels for the location as I’ll be promoting the virtual party heavily. Start time is slated for 9:30am Pacific / 12:30pm Eastern. The celebration will include prizes, autographed books, turquoise and bling giveaways, tips, readings from the book, surprise guests and more!

Find out more about my brand new book on the book minisite here where you can:

• Download a free chapter.
• Read testimonials and connect with each person’s social profiles — including Harvey Mackay, Keith Ferrazzi, Brian Tracy, Beth Kanter, Ali Brown, Larry Benet, Brian Solis and a whole host of others! Check out the cool display of peeps, just click each avatar for details.
• Watch the book trailer where I share my very personal journey to becoming a relationship marketing specialist.
• Order the book from Amazon.com and BN.com (also available in Kindle and Nook versions).
• Leave a Facebook comment.
• Share with your friends on Twitter.
• Share with your friends and fans on Facebook.

Four New Social Media Magazines

As if writing and publishing a book wasn’t enough for the summer, I’m part of a leadership team that just launched four brand new social media magazines in a variety of formats including print, online multimedia, and a number of mobile apps! The starting monthly distribution is 13.8 million due to partnerships with Office Depot and EFactor.

NEW Social Media Magazines

Check out the magazines at these links:

Facebook – fb & Business: http://fbandbusiness.com – I’m delighted to be the executive editor for the Facebook magazine! 
Google – The Big G & Business: http://thebiggandbusiness.com
LinkedIn – LI & Business: http://liandbusiness.com
Twitter – Tweeting & Business: http://tweetingandbusiness.com

The content in each magazine is original and informative. Be sure to sign up for your free subscriptions to each of the magazines. Plus, if you like to write and have great expertise to share, there’s an opportunity to be a guest writer for any of the magazines; see the Contribute button on each site.

This is just the beginning!

Social Media Inner Circle

Due to popular demand, I recently re-opened my monthly social media support program - I’ve been leading this program for over three years now, and had it closed to new members for a while so I could switch webinar platforms. We meet on the first Wednesday of each month at 11am PT / 2pm ET for a dynamic and information-packed social media training + Q&A LIVE webinar. Sessions are always recorded and archived. This program is one of the most affordable ways to stay current with your social media marketing integration and mastery!

PLUS, when you join the Inner Circle, you’ll be invited into our fabulous new Secret Facebook Group - members actively network, share, collaborate and support one another. It’s incredible value. All this for just $27 per month. Register in the month of October and your rate is grandfathered in at just $27 even when the fees increase! Just go to InnerCircleWithMari.com to secure your place.

Mentor With Mari

Since June, I’ve been leading my six-month social media professionals training program with a regular and VIP level. The groups are just fantastic, and I am blessed to be on this journey with such fellow heart-centered entrepreneurs. We meet several times a month by webinar and cover a vast range of social media topics, as well as sessions on running a successful speaking and training businesses, and personal growth topics. It’s a holistic approach to business.

Mentor With Mari - VIP Retreat San Diego

In August, I hosted a 2.5-day special retreat at my home in San Diego for my VIPs and we had an amazing time, including dinner at a local winery; guest experts Mike Stelzner (founder Social Media Examiner), Esperanza Universal (founder the S.O.U.L. Institute), and Ashley Mahaffey (Fitness Strategist); a stretch limo ride to dinner at The Beach House, and a professional photoshoot for everyone!  This blog post by Lani Voivod and this post by Lauren McMullen really sum up the life-changing experience for attendees.

Our current members can be found on this Twitter list. There are also over 60 graduates of this social media training program over the past couple of years. Stay tuned for details of the 2012 program, along with an exciting new development with alums to be revealed shortly!

Other events…

Other projects I’ve been focused on lately include writing version 2 of Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day with my coauthor, Chris Treadaway – scheduled for release in spring 2012! (Phew, could someone please ask Mark Zuckerberg to slow down with all the changes so Chris and I can finish the manuscript?! J/k.)

Plus, the Facebook Success Summit 2011 has been running the month of October where I lead a couple of sessions and helped to promote with my good friend, Mike Stelzner. You can still catch all the replays… and/or tune in to the #FBSS11 tweets! See also the latest Social Media Examiner TV episodes with yours truly as the host here.

Another exciting event included getting to hang out with one of my favorite spiritual leaders, Don Miguel Ruiz last month – he was a guest speaker at the Association of Transformational Leaders Southern California chapter, of which I’m a founding member. Don Miguel’s most widely known book is The Four Agreements. Highly recommended!

Don Miguel Ruiz Sr and Mari Smith

And, I’m just back from ten days on the road speaking at my friend Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula event in Scottsdale, AZ followed by a week’s working vacation in Hawaii! I was honored to speak at the Hawaii Social Media Summit and also for the Hawaii Social Media Club. (Believe it or not, I actually took the entire summer off from traveling and speaking so I could focus on completing my relationship marketing book and leading my mentorship program! Many folks think I travel non-stop. I like to pace myself!)

Next up – Blog World Expo Los Angeles on November 3rd to 5th!! I hope to see you there, it’s going to be amazing as always. I’m leading a session with my signature talk on The New Relationship Marketing. I’m also speaking at my friend Maria Simone’s Enlightened Entrepreneur Summit in Irvine that same weekend.

In the past couple months, I also had a new photoshoot done, had my website redesigned, and switched to a new dedicated server as my hosting plan was bursting at the seams!

That’s it for now… that’s all I’ve been up to over the past couple months! Lol.

NOW, it’s time to get my blogging back up to speed and publish the follow up posts I promised on using Google+, along with a bunch of new ones on Facebook and all the myriad changes! But first — let’s celebrate book launch time!!!

Please do leave your questions and comments below – I’d love to hear from you!!

Are you satisfied with the results you’re currently getting from all your social media efforts? Would you say there is room for improvement?

Though we’re clearly reaching critical mass point with social media market penetration, there’s still a morass of confusing information as to what works, and what doesn’t.

There are social media policies, and which sites to use, and the right content and engagement strategies. And whether to automate, delegate, ghostwrite. or not. It can all be very overwhelming and many people are stuck in a place of sheer inertia for lack of proper knowledge, training and experience.

When it comes to social media marketing, most businesses begin with no clear objectives or strategy. They jump in with the technology piece first: they set up a Twitter account, usually due to peer and media pressure. But they don’t really know how to listen or engage effectively.

Then they throw together a Facebook fan page and it sits there gathering virtual dust. Next comes the blog, YouTube channel, LinkedIn account, Ning site, live video with Ustream, and whatever new-fangled tool comes along.

But, in order to be effective in attracting and engaging quality customers using social media, you must have the following components:

1. Clarity on your exact target market and which social networks they prefer to use most often
2. Knowledge of what online and mobile tools are available to you (apps, widgets, plugins, clients, etc.)
3. Knowledge of the cultures, best practices and etiquette of the various social networks (there are vast schools of thought on the right and wrong way to use social media)
4. Clear objectives (such as: drive traffic to your blog, enhance customer service, grow your email list, sell more widgets, gain targeted media attention, crowdsource new products, etc.)
5. A strategy to achieve those objectives
6. A social media implementation plan
7. Resources to pay for training and ongoing social media management, whether third party or in-house
8. A company social media policy
9. An ongoing engagement plan
10. Systems to track and measure results
11. Strategies for reputation management, and
12. A scalability plan.

Whew, is it any wonder business people feel overwhelmed and stuck. I hope this list is of value to you. However, if you’d like some help – if you’re ready to ramp up your social media marketing and gain tremendous measurable results – I have good news for you: it’s almost time for my favorite online event of the year.

The Social Media Success Summit 2010 is the brains of my dear friend, Mike Stelzner.

Mike gathered together twenty-four of the world’s leading social media experts, practitioners and leading brand representatives to be Summit instructors.

Each session is a LIVE webinar with visuals; no fluff, just deep useful content that you’ll be able to apply to your business right away and see results.

Some of the Social Media Success Summit 2010 sessions include:

• Effective ways to market your company with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, social bookmarking sites, mobile marketing and more
• How to track and measure the return on investment for social media programs
• A step-by-step method for creating a smart social media marketing plan 
• How to build a loyal social media following 
• How to bring more customers into your local business with social media techniques
  See all the sessions here.

Just check out this incredible lineup, each of whom will share their proven social media tactics, strategies, techniques and tools. (Names hyperlinked to each presenter’s Twitter page so you can go follow them! Links open in a new window.)

Guy Kawasaki	Chris Brogan	Steve Rubel	John Bernier (Best Buy)
Marla Erwin (Whole Foods)	Sarah Molinari (Home Depot)	Andrew Mason (Groupon)	Tristan Walker (Foursquare)
Darren Rowse	Rick Calvert	Ann Handley	Brian Clark
Jason Falls	Rob Birgfield	Ramon DeLeon	Mike Stelzner
Jay Baer	Kim Dushinski	Denise Wakeman	Muhammad Saleem
Greg Jarboe	Chris Garrett	Lewis Howes	Mari Smith

This entirely VIRTUAL event starts May 5 and sessions run during the month of May. SAVE 34% on your ticket through April 20th!

Last year, nearly 1000 marketers and small business owners from around the world attended the Social Media Success Summit.  It was a huge hit.  Businesses were transformed.  In fact, 97% of attendees said they’d attend again!

This year’s focus is to empower attendees to build social media marketing plans, track your social media results and learn from other successful businesses. This is more than just an event. It’s also a way for people just like you to come together, share their experiences, meet the experts and network.

Remember, the Social Media Success Summit is a live ONLINE conference that you can attend from your home or office. PLUS, *all* sessions are recorded and you get access to every single replay, just in case you can’t attend a session live or wish to go back and review!

(By the way, whether you get a ticket or not, you can access a free online training session called "How to Grow and Engage an Audience).

Will you be attending this exciting virtual event? If you already have your ticket, congrats!! Come on over to the Facebook Event page and begin your pre-networking. Feel free to add photos of you with any of the 24 speakers to the Event page – you’re welcome to create valuable visibility for yourself and, in turn, let others know about the Summit! I look forward to “seeing” you on the sessions and my hope for you is this too will fast become your favorite event of the year too!

Guy Kawasaki, one of my favorite peeps in the socialmediasphere, will be giving the opening keynote.

Any questions, just let me know in the Comments below:

I wanted to give you a glimpse behind the curtains of my business. First, I have to say I feel extremely blessed to be so supported in my community. I’m deeply grateful for all the amazing connections I’ve made over the past two years through Facebook and Twitter.

My business is absolutely exploding through the roof these days. I have a competent team of assistants and project managers. I’m in two powerful masterminds. I have mentors, advisors and role models. Plus, I recently hired a systems expert to help streamline all my processes this year.

And, some time ago, I had the idea to start an international association for social media specialists and to offer certification training programs for both coaches / consultants / marketers and for virtual assistants. I kept waiting for my ducks to be in a row, for everything to be perfect. But that day never comes. As a recovering perfectionist, I figured it was time to take imperfect action.

So, I recently quietly opened up MentorWithMari.com – my new protege program to certify social marketing specialists. The response has been astounding. Truly astounding.

I’m also about to embark on an intense two month speaking tour in the US and UK. I am so honored to speak on the stages of such accomplished leaders as Fabienne Fredrickson, Adam Urbanski, James Malinchak, Bernadette Doyle (in Belfast, Ireland!), Terry Wygal, Mike Lathigee, and more in the fall – Arielle Ford, Bill Glazer, Dan Kennedy and more. [See my public calendar of events here.]

(I should also mention part of my two months on the road includes a wonderful five-day cruise to Mexico with my Mastermind partners!)

[Update from Mari: due to my calendar of events and speaking schedule being uber squeezed, I made the bittersweet decision not to go on the mastermind cruise. I need this one week to laser focus on all the moving parts of my business, my team, and my new systems. I may take my whole team on a cruise in the fall, then!!]

Meantime, for many months, I had this week blocked off for a special retreat for myself, my team and my systems specialist to laser focus on tightening up all my company processes.

So, in order to truly focus, I’m also going to "go dark" on Twitter and Facebook. This will be a first for me in about two years.

[Update from Mari: Ha! Now I see where the misunderstanding came from - many people have been saying to me, "Mari, I thought you were retiring for two years?!" Um, what I mean was I've never once unplugged from Twitter or Facebook in the past two years!! And it was only ONE week that I was unplugging. I lasted a whole 72 hours, you know!]

I have to say, I have a sense of discomfort about unplugging! It’ll be an interesting experiment. But a very worthy and important one.

See, it really troubles me when an important email goes unanswered or direct messages are missed because I simply don’t have enough hours in the day to personally respond to all (even though one of my assistants spends four hours a day reading, managing and replying to much of my email for me).

It bothers me when I’m unable to reply to all @ messages that so many of my wonderful followers on Twitter send to me, or when I’m unable to reply to each friend who emails me on Facebook or writes on my wall… because there are just not enough hours in the day.

Such is the nature of social media. Suddenly, we open ourselves up to a multitude of touch points. There is a new expectation of availability. I love to engage and connect and I know you do too. Yet, where do you draw the line between being available and making sure you have enough focus time and personal time?

In any case, just know that if you’ve ever tried to contact me for any reason through any medium – whether Twitter, Facebook, regular email, Skype or phone – and I have not gotten back to you in a timely manner, it’s not personal. There’s a good chance I’ve read your message but it’s been very late at night or I’m rushing to a commitment so haven’t been able to reply.

Over the coming weeks and months, my systems will be so much more robust that I’ll be able to provide even better service to both my clients and community at large.

I’m happy to share with you what new systems I put in place over the coming weeks as a result of my retreat.

How about you? What do you find most overwhelming about managing a growing business? Are your follow-up systems solid? Where do you most need support? Though social media may have increased your business, have you still been able to maintain plenty time for your personal life? I’d love to know! Please share below:

Ali Brown is a dynamic, successful business woman and internet marketer that I’ve admired for many, many years.

You may be familiar with Ali’s former brand "The Ezine Queen." Her new brand of Ali has blossomed into an incredible venture, complete with the Ali Magazine and, launching in January, the Ali Boutique! See pic right – taken today at Ali Boutique pre-launch at her mega event. Ali’s line includes clothing, jewelry, fashion accessories, even branded flip cameras! Love it!

I’m writing this post from my hotel room at Ali’s last ever Online Success Blueprint Workshop in LA. I am truly honored to be a guest speaker at the event, teaching about marketing your business on Facebook. 500 attendees will be here – 90% women! I’m launching the next phase of my own brand and product line. Stay tuned!

Though Ali and I had known one another peripherally for years, it wasn’t until (a) we connected further via Facebook and (b) we met face-to-face at a special event with David Neagle earlier this year. (Plus, we discovered that my hubby and I are actually in the same real estate investment club as Ali’s brother and sister-in-law! Neato, small world, eh!)

Pic left: taken at David Neagle’s "Just Believe" event in April.

Ali’s tagline is "Live your good fortune." What would you do if you knew you could truly live your dreams? If money and time were no object, what would you be doing with your life, your business, your brand? I’d love to know. And if there’s any way I can support you, do let me know!

Whether you’ve read Timothy Ferriss’ Four Hour Workweek or not, I’m sure you’re familiar with “vacation responders.” Essentially, whenever someone emails you, your email program automatically triggers a canned response to that person.

In his book, one of the many lifehacks Tim Ferriss describes is dramatically decreasing the amount of time you spend reading/responding to email. Tim suggests limiting email checking to two times per day and setting up an autoresponse message such as the following:

“In an effort to be more effective and productive, I’m now only checking email two times per day at 10:00am PT and 4:00pm PT. If you need a response outside of these times, please call my assistant at xxx-xxx-xxxx.”

I went through a period of time attempting to implement Tim’s email system. But it just didn’t work for me. It was too structured and I found I couldn’t just check twice a day.

However, meantime, my email inbox continued to bulge with incoming messages and I frequently found myself challenged to keep up with the volume.

Not to mention there is now Facebook email (and the more friends you have the more email you’ll receive!), emails on other sites like LinkedIn, Plaxo, YouTube, etc. Plus Twitter @ messages and DM’s (direct messages). Whew, time to declare email bankruptcy? Not so fast.

Though I certainly subscribe to Tim’s “low information diet” philosophy (I never read newspapers online or offline, nor on TV) – I also happen to be a raving fan of Gary Vaynerchuk‘s “respond to every single email for the rest of your freakin’ life” philosophy!!!

So, here’s what I came up with as my new and improved autoresonder. You’re more than welcome to emulate the style (please don’t copy it verbatim though!)

Greetings!

Thank you so much for your message.

If I could clone myself or give up sleep, I’d personally answer every single legit email. Ha!

Given neither is a viable option, just know that I’ve received and read your email and will be doing my level best to respond as quickly as I can.

If your matter is urgent and important (and especially if you’d like to chat with me about an interview, joint venture, or being a guest on your radio show, teleseminar or workshop), you’re welcome to reach me any of these alternative ways:

1. Skype: marismith_sandiego
2. Cell: 858-xxx-xxxx (leave a voicemail)
3. Twitter DM: http://twitter.com/marismith (if I’m not yet following you back, send me an @ message asking me to follow you!)
4. Contact my assistant, Christina: xxx@xxxx.com

If your matter is non-urgent, non-important, and non-private – how about writing on my Facebook wall instead? I read all my wall posts.

Go to: http://marismith.com/facebook – I’m almost at the 5,000 friend limit though. So, if we’re not yet friends, please go to my Facebook Page and become a fan, then write on my wall there. Thanks! http://marismith.com/fanpage

Also, follow me on Twitter and send me an @ message: http://twitter.com/marismith. I do my best to respond to all @ messages.

Please also check out my Facebook blog for how-to tips & strategies: http://www.marismith.com.

Thanks heaps for understanding!!

Cheers,
Mari

Mari Smith
Relationship Specialist | Internet Marketing Consultant
Facebook Business Coach
http://www.marismith.com | mari [at] marismith.com
858-xxx-xxxx (home/office) | 858-xxx-xxxx (cell)
Skype: marismith_sandiego
Facebook: http://marismith.com/facebook
Twitter: http://twitter.com/marismith

* Facebook for Professionals:

http://facebook4pros.com

* Facebook Coaching Services:

http://facebookcoach.com

* Blogs:

http://www.befreegomobile.com

I have this set up as a rule in Outlook – with a ton of exceptions as I don’t need this AR going out to every single person who emails me. (Note all contact numbers and email address are formatted properly in the AR; I tweaked for this blog post.)

Here’s a fun response I just received from one of my buds:

What do you think? Do you use an autoresponder system to manage your email relationships? Are you more of a Tim Ferriss low-information type, or are you a Gary Vaynerchuk nose-to-the-grindstone answer all type?