Welcome to the era of Socialism in Communication. While social media is liberating brands and opening up new grass-roots level channels for connecting with the consumers, it is also posing new challenges for companies in terms of managing and controlling all that free flowing external communication. While wide social media participation offers innumerous advantages to companies and brands it also requires constant monitoring and the need to provide clear guidelines to all participants to protect both the employees and the company. Companies are struggling to achieve the balance between liberating the employees and avoiding all the risks and pitfalls of unmonitored conversations.

While I was researching for this blog post I came across four different attitudes that different companies seem to have toward social media participation by their employees or members. Here is how I categorize their approaches:

4 Corporate Approaches toward Social Media Participation

1. Companies that encourage/embrace employee and member participation and provide broad guidelines primarily to keep the employees and the company safe.
2. Companies that provide basic guidelines for liability control by clearly delineating the responsibilities of the organization and the individual.
3. Companies that discourage and forbid employees and members from using company resources or references in any kind of social media/external communication.
4. And then there are companies that don’t care (yet) and handle social media on case by case basis.

12 Tips for Corporate Social Media Policy Guidelines

1. Corporations should include social media policies in their general business conduct policy and guidelines.
2. Encourage employee/member participation that is transparent and prohibit covert solicitation.
3. Companies should set forth clear limits and a list of “don’ts”.
4. Companies should set forth a process for dealing with deviant behavior and mistakes.
5. Social Media Policies should be vetted by legal experts to control liability and risk.
6. Guidelines regarding Copyright, IP and Confidentiality, Privacy and Conflict of Interests should be included.
7. Companies should include a disclaimer about individual’s view points and that it does not represent the company.
8. Explain the rights of individuals and policy of the company to delete posts, preview content and moderate comments.
9. Set forth policy on disclosure by employees that they work for the company.
10. Be clear on the company values about racism, respect and offensive language.
11. Stated guidelines should include a requirement to seek permission before publishing internal communication.
12. Set forth guidelines on employee conduct/behavior during crisis situations.

Corporations are navigating the new marketing channels and getting acquainted with a new set of ground rules, culture and expectations. Some social media debutants quickly find their voice and style by understanding the paradigm shift from total control to open engagement, while others are still struggling on basic decisions.

Whatever the approach to social media,  companies need to deliberate and articulate their policies to avoid potential legal and public relations disasters.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… I: wait… Top: wait… C: wait…

It’s not likely that you are going to lose your online data anytime soon, though it is always a present possibility. Your real threats to your online social media accounts are hackers, viruses, user error, disgruntled employees and legal issues. You risk your access being shut off—without warning—if a service suspects you of violating its terms of service. At this very moment, many hackers are targeting online accounts simply because they are easier to access than your computer. On top of that, roughly one third of all data loss is due to user error. Backing up your social media accounts can minimize this risk.

Below are some useful apps and services, mostly free or with low subscription fees, for backing up your social media accounts and more.

TweetBackup

TweetBackup is a free Twitter internet-based backup service. Backups your Twitter profile, all of your posts and a lists of your friends and or followers. Due to Twitter restrictions, TweetBackup (and other Twitter backup services) can only backup your last 3200 tweets so you’ll want to start backing up today.

What’s nice about this service is that it provides daily backup, automatically with a variety of formats including CSV, RSS, HTML and Text.

Has a restore setting not working

Also has links to a sister application, BlogBackupr

Tweetake.com

The brainchild of Alfred Armstrong and Nikki Pilkington, Tweetake allows users to back-up your followers, people you are following and Tweets—all with just one click. Select what you’d like to backup (followers, favorites, DMs, friends, tweets, or everything). Tweetake is a comprehensive manual Twitter backup application that allows you to, at one time, backup.

• Up to 10,000 followers’ tweets
• Up to 1,000 favorites (currently limited to 200 by Twitter)
• Up to 10,000 friends’ tweets
• Up to 3,200 tweets
• Up to 1,000 direct messages

Mark your calendar to back up every week / month / your choice of frequency. It’s free and simple to do. I like the options of backing up only what’s important to you.

Backupmy.net

Backup your Tweets for free with BackupMyTweets (a menu item on BackupMy.net)! This free service creates a daily backup of your tweets with flexible download options including HTML and more.

BackupMy.net also provides comprehensive backup services for

• email (Gmail, Hotmail and Windows Live)
• Blog (Wordpress, Blogger, or Typepad) Get the security of daily backups including pictures, blog comments and blog design
• Online Pictures

each for $19.95/month.

Backupify

Backupify gives you 1000mb of free storage for:

• Twitter
• Google Docs
• Wordpress
• GMail
• Facebook
• Zoho
• Delicious
• Flickr
• Basecamp
• Photobucket

Setup takes just minutes, and is as simple as entering your login credentials for the sites you want to backup. Set it up once and Backupify conducts daily backups of your connected accounts. Choose the option of  receiving an email digest of backup activity either daily or weekly.

SocialSafe

Back up your Facebook Friends, Photos , Profile and wall status updates to your computer in seconds & travel back in time with this wonderfully simple application.

It allows you to connect to Facebook and download your photos, friends, status updates and profile, both for safekeeping and so you can view them offline. Socialsafe now also has a Time Capsule feature that enables you to see your friends, photos and profile from previous backups – no more will you delete photos from Facebook and not have a backup! Unfortunately, SocialSafe does not currently provide backup for Facebook fan pages though they say it’s in development…no time frame given.  They are also working on working on backing up status updates, scheduled back ups, and re-introducing tagged photos. At only $2.99, this is a great value.

Tour Video

SocialSafe Explanation .. Introducing Wall Backups from Pascal Wheeler on Vimeo.

Whether you are a business with brick and mortar stores or a company without borders, you should be tapping into the growing number of local audiences seeking products and services in their own locality. You can increase business exposure and your web and store traffic simply by including geographical information to your digital content. Geotagging and local search optimization are two technology-based solutions that savvy marketers are using to attract the crucial local market segment.

4 Tips To Extend Market Reach Through Local Search Optimization & Geotagging

1. Geotagging: Allows businesses to embed geographical location information within websites, images, videos and other digital media. Coordinates on the page boost your visibility and enhance usefulness as people are able to copy them directly into their GPS devices and get them on mobile phones via Apps. Below are a few platforms that support geolocation tagging (geotagging) that you may want to consider utilizing:
   • Twitter geolocation for tweets coupled with local trends from Twitter can give you insights and exposure to your local audience.
   • BrightKite Gowalla and Loopt allow users to check in at locations, and the ability to share that activity among a network of friends.
   • Foursquare allows for check-ins.
   • Google has added geotagging to Blogger.
   • Google Buzz nearby mobile feature serves up a list about places, and users can read Buzz info about those places from others who are both in and outside their networks.
   • Flickr and Panoramio geotag and display these images in a mapping context.
   • Yelp now enables the ability to check-in to venues. Considering there are some 1.25 million users of the Yelp iPhone app, this is huge for businesses.
2. Semantic markup in the form of hCard microformats  (optimized format for web publishing) as a component of local search optimization allows contact information such as addresses and phone numbers to be disclosed precisely to devices that are able to read them.
3. Meta Data on websites with geotargeted keywords to attract search engine traffic based on local search queries
4. Submitting to local business directories with Geo-optimized content:

• Top Local Search Engines, such as Google Maps, Yahoo! Local, and MSN’s Live Local.
• Top online Yellow Pages, such as Superpages.com, YellowPages.com, and Switchboard.com.

Your local audience is looking for relevant local information using various devices (GPS, computers, mobile phones); you need to optimize your web properties for local searchers and leverage from people looking for deals and events in their neighborhoods .  Not only should your web site rank well in searches for your local area or for different locations that you serve, but your social media should also include geotags to show your  business as part of a community.

Your customers are out and about searching for your products and services…the question is,  are you ready to be found?

Tag. Your turn to act.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… I: wait… Top: wait… C: wait…

Being prolific in social media, I am always on the prowl for useful tools, resources and social media platforms to expedite the time involved in producing and sharing relevant content across the social universe. I’ve recently discovered Amplify.com. Amplify is, in my opinion, one of the most useful, powerful yet simple to use free resources available.

A hybrid between Twitter and a blog, Amplify allows you to easily highlight or clip content (up to 1000 characters of text and images &  video) you find relevant, add in your own opinion if you wish, then amplify it to your friends and followers across the internet! Amplify is especially convenient for those who wish to further their cause or share their passion, yet have little time to consistently produce original content.

To Clip or Not to Clip:
Viewers always have the option of clicking through to the original post to read the entire article.  And if you simply cannot choose highlights from the post and want to share the entire article, Amplify gives you the option to “amplify” an entire URL.

A Unique Social Community
Amplify is also a social media platform.  Just sign in with Twitter or Facebook and begin to share content.  Like most social media platforms, you can create a profile, follow sources, view your newsfeed from those sources, recommend clips, comment and share.

“The aspect of Amplify that I think most distinguishes it from Twitter, Facebook, Buzz is that Amplify focuses on content that people find thought provoking. This…helps define that user experience in a way that differs significantly… I believe that life-streaming services provide great value to people; I just think there is also an important place for a social environment that is more focused on thought provoking conversation…that is the space I hope Amplify provides.”

~ Eric Goldstein,  Amplify co-founder

Amplify users site their favorite features as:

• the ability to quickly and cleanly share information with a very broad audience by clipping or URL sharing,
• the time-saving ability to quickly clip existing content, highlight it, and add in unique commentary
• the quality of conversations and members
• the diversity of topic clips
• the newsfeed scroll at the top
• the cross-pollination and sharing features
• the ability to unify social interaction with context
• the ability to connect the comments with external sites like Twitter
• the Amplify community

Read more responses to What’s your favorite Amplify’s feature.

Features include:

Clipping: With the useful bookmarklet tool, Amplify allows you to either, Amplify content in whole via a link to the URL or your choice of selections from any page on the internet. You can include text, video and photos in your selection. And it only takes minutes or less to do!

Simply scroll over the area you wish to highlight (or clip) and click. An orange box appears around your selection. When you are finished, click the button at the top “Amplify my Selection”. It’s that easy!

Sharing: Amplify syncs with Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Posterous, Diigo, Bit.ly, Friendfeed, Delicious and Clipmarks.com. To enable syncing with any of these sites, click the Settings link in the header, then choose “Connect Your Amplog” and select any of the services you want to enable.

Stats: View activity on your posts and your activity. Amplify can also connect with your bit.ly account.

Direct Messaging: Send direct messages to users who are following you on Amplify from their profile or any of their clips.

Publishing: Use Amplify to create and publish & share original content too.

Branding: You can easily set up your own profile on Amplify, which includes your avatar, profile bio, a description of your Amplog (an Amplog is your collection of posts and articles that you’ve chosen to Amplify), contributors to the Amplog, and more. Amplify even allows for customization and branding of your Amplog! Here is a screen shot from my Amplog:

My recommendation? Use Amplify for your personal or business’s blog and start reaping the benefits today.  See you there!

Tools for an Engaged Social Presence

I am always interested in finding the best and latest tools to enhance and expedite the  social media experiences, maintenance and growth for Harp and for our clients.

Following is an abbreviated list of useful tools, resources and/or apps with links and short descriptions that you may want to incorporate into your daily social media practice. Though we obviously don’t use all of these, I have used a good many of them for different reasons.

Misc. Twitter Tools:

tagwalk

Provides a snapshot of your Twitter account including your latest tweets, who you talk to, your links, mentioned by, interests, stats and more.

taweet

Taweet (beta) is a social calendar and event promotion application for Twitter. Taweet adds a whole new dimension to your Twitter experience: the future. The casual format of Taweet allows users to answer one simple question, “What’s happening in the future?”…and search the future to see what others are doing.

Addic-to-mattic

Provides a snapshot of your social media presence.

Tweetake

Lets you back up your tweets, followers,  favorites and more into a handy excel document.

Twitter Directories

Use these to as directories to submit your Twitter Account and to find relevant people to follow .

Twellow

Known as the Twitter Yellow Pages, A search directory of people by area of expertise, profession or other attribute listed in personal profiles on Twitter.

Twibes

UTwitBook

TweepML

We Follow

Listorious

Find people on Twitter with Listorious People Search! Follow @listorious on Twitter to be notified of more follow-worthy lists!

Tools for Sharing Content:

Amplify

“Amplify is a service for engaging in conversation around web pages, paragraphs, images, videos or original ideas that make people think.”

Amplify integrates with Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Friendfeed and more so you can keep your friends and followers all over the web updated with you latest findings and invite them to discuss them with you.

HootSuite

Use HootSuite to publish content to multiple social media accounts and/or platforms including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Ping.fm (which pushes to many other platforms) and now they’ve just added WordPress functionality. Lets you set up columns which you can use to monitor twitter mentions of your brand. Columns are great to view pending tweets, sent tweets, create searches using keywords and even follow Twitter created lists & keyword searches. HootSuite features it’s own URL shortner ow.ly with stats.  HootSuite also has a tool called Hootlet which you can drag to your bookmark  bar and use to publish content to your selected platforms from anywhere on the web.

Tweetdeck

Like HootSuite, use it to create useful columns and connect with Twitter, Facebook & more.

Twhirl:

Twhirl, like HootSuite and Tweetdeck  is a social software desktop client and is useful for managing multiple twitter accounts.

Some of twhirl’s features:

• runs on both Windows (2000/XP/Vista/Win7) and Mac OSX
• connects to multiple Twitter, laconi.ca, Friendfeed and Seesmic Video accounts
• displays notifications for new messages
• shorten long URLs (using digg.com, bit.ly, snurl, twurl or is.gd)
• cross-post your updates to Jaiku and many other sites likeFacebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and more via Ping.fm
• post images to yfrog
• search tweets using Twitter Search and TweetScan, and follow topics in near-real time with saved searches
• automatically find tweets mentioning your @username

Seesmic

Seesmic desktop integrates with both Twitter and Facebook and makes it easy to reply to your friends/fans and share texts, links, video & more.

OpenBeak

OpenBeak is mobile client for posting updates to Twitter.   It works over the data network, so you don’t need to use SMS. OpenBeak is the evolution of TwitterBerry, and gives a name that allows the app to grow beyond both the Twitter platform and BlackBerry smartphones.

ping.fm

Ping.fm is a simple and FREE service that makes updating your social networks a snap! Options to post content to 50+ social media sites and more!

Friend Feed

Allows you to build a customized feed of made up of content your friends on other collaborative sites have shared, including news articles, photos and more. Read and share however you want — from your email, your phone or even from Facebook. Publish your FriendFeed to your website or blog, or to services you already use, like Twitter.

SocialToo

Features for Twitter include Auto Follow, Auto Unfollow. SocialToo also has Facebook featuers and anti-spam features.

Facebook to Twitter app

Facebook to Twitter is a Facebook application which will automatically create a tweet of your Facebook updates and post onto Twitter with a link back to your Facebook page.

Google Buzz

Fresh on the scene…Google Buzz is a stream reading and writing service. It will compete with Facebook and Twitter. The use of full email addresses in @ public replies demonstrated today seems to indicate that it will be a cross-platform messaging service. Facebook users can only message other Facebook users but Buzz users may be able to reply to people using email IDs from other networks. That’s hot stuff.

Google Alerts:

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. Use this free tool to monitor your name, brand, business, competition, industry leaders, keywords, etc.

Google Reader

Google Reader constantly checks your favorite news sites and blogs for new content. Whether a site updates daily or monthly, you can be sure that you won’t miss a thing.Google Reader shows you all of your favorite sites in one convenient place. New:  Today Google has rolled out a subtle change to Google Reader that lets you create custom feeds to track pages that don’t already have them. So you can subscribe to updates for any webpage simply by typing the URL into the “Add a subscription” text box.

Google Blog Search

A searchable index of blogs. Use this to find industry specific content from which to learn or to share.

Technorati

Blog directory that can be used to search for interesting, popular or industry related blogs.

Alltop

Alltop is a blog aggregator which can be searched by subject matter. You also have the ability to create your own, customized page and choose which blogs to pull into that.Use this to easily find industry news to share and learn from.

TwitThis

TwitThis is a social button to put on your website that helps promote your articles on twitter. TwitThis lets you easily share links with your friends, and find new followers.

ShareThis

ShareThis makes it easy to share ideas and get to the good stuff online. See why over 125,000 sites use ShareThis to increase traffic and engagement.

TweetMeMe

Promote your website or blog by using the tweetmeme button, a simple and easy way you can integrate Twitter into your blog and websites. Also can be used to find relevant content to retweet or share.

What’s your favorite tool or resource? Share it with us here.

This is the second in a series of three posts highlighting bits  from my International Social Media Association (ISMA) teleseminar: Strategies to Ensure an Engaged Social Presence.

ISMA: You talked about ‘employing Best Practices’ techniques just now. Can you expand a little on what this may include – let’s start with Best Practices for Twitter?

Twitter Best Practices for Brands

• Make sure your bio is filled out and have a well-branded page. See how to optimize your Twitter bio for more tips.  I suggest using your business name in the real name because this is what’s indexed by Google.
• Use 120 characters…they say 120 is the new 140. Write your tweets with retweeting in mind. Ideally you’ll want to keep your character count to 120 leaving plenty of room for  retweeting without the original tweet being hacked.
• Use Keywords for SEO in tweets and load them in the front of the tweet. Not always easy to do but worth keeping in mind.
• Use the RT@ at the end of the tweet (helps with SEO)
• Be generous and thankful. Always thank those who re-tweet you, or give you a #ff or shout out.
• Provide useful, helpful information. This will help to establish your Twitter credibility and establish your brand as a leader in its field/industry.
• Try to include a link in 90% of your tweets. Use a URL shortener like bit.ly or ow.ly (from HootSuite). These provide tweet statistics which are useful in determining the most interesting content to your followers.
• Avoid text message abbreviations, pay attention to grammar and spelling.
• Try to be mindful of the 80/20 rule.  That is, 80% of your tweets should be helpful or conversational while only 20% should be promotional.
• Use someone’s first names when tweeting to them.
• Be genuine! Authenticity is the golden rule in social media (via Mashable). You and your brand both need to be believable. Give a human voice to your brand and don’t be afraid to let your enthusiasm and spirit show in your tweets.

ISMA: And how about on Facebook?  Do the same rules apply? Are there Best Practices for Facebook as well?

Best Practices for Facebook

• Facebook is about community around a brand – it’s about creating relationships with your customers or potential customers.
• Make sure your Fan page is branded. People should be able to have instant recognition with your page.
• Monitor your wall (make sure your notifications are on) (not a feature for fan pages not associated with a profile)
• Provide good unique content – start conversations, chat, ask questions, and always respond to any comment on your wall…positive or negative.
• Be conversational vs. corporate (again, speak with a human voice vs. a corporate voice)
• Create events
• Ultimately you want to make an enjoyable environment for fan page

And nuggets of Best Practices for Social Media.

• Understand, you do not control the message.  Old habits die hard and there’s a tendency to want to treat social media participation like advertising where the ability to control messaging is the norm.
• Commit resources & time to be successful or you may very well fail. It’s important to forecast labor hours, who, what, when, how and where with the intention of succeeding, not just experimenting.
• Be fun and visual: Visuals play a big part in the user experience you provide. They engage and help you capture consumers’ attention for a longer time.
• Relationships first. Business second: Remember that social media is relational, not transactional.
• Give to Get: A well-executed social media strategy requires reciprocity, relevancy, transparency, authenticity, but perhaps above all other things, commitment.

It was my extreme honor to be a guest in yesterday’s tele-seminar with the International Social Media Association (ISMA). My topic, in case you missed it, was “Propel your Social Media Marketing to New Heights: Strategies to Ensure a Winning and Engaging Social Presence”.

Below I recap some of the highlights from the hour long interview:

This is part 1 of a 3 part series…

ISMA: What do you mean by “an Engaged Social Presence”?

Brian Solis describes engagement as:

“Engagement is essentially the first step in building a relationship between your customers and your brand.”

Brian goes on to explain that initially, early on in a brands social media experience, that it’s more about establishing a presence and less about strategic engagement and the engagement resembles traditional broadcasting of messages.

In it’s most simple explanation, an Engaged Social Presence is when you are actively participating in the social media platforms in which you belong.

More specifically, however…engagement encompasses two strategies.

Re-active engagement and Pro-active engagement, both necessary for  a truly engaged social presence.

ISMA: You mentioned pro-active and re-active engagement. What is the difference?

Reactive engagement is simply responding to direct dialogue to or about you or your brand/business. It’s a simple concept and it’s the first step of an engaged social presence.

But if you stop there, you are going to remain a social media wall-flower and not establish the social presence necessary to truly excel.

Pro-active engagement is a little more of an art.  This is where you seek out activity on social media that isn’t directed to you or your company and you engage with this information.

To be truly successful in social media, you need to employ both a re-active and a pro-active strategy …it’s about creating relationships first, business second.

ISMA: OK, so we just heard you say that it’s best to employ both reactive and proactive engagement strategies…can you expand on this? In other words, what are some ways to do this?

In order to participate in the conversations, either reactively or pro-actively, you need to know they are happening.

Social Media Monitoring is key for this. Weather you are using a powerful subscription-based tool like Radian6 or a combination of free tools…definitely set up social media monitoring. Set up alerts for mentions of your name, your business name or brand, your competition, key words, industry leaders, and your twitter handle.

Once you have monitoring in place, make it part of your daily practice to read through the alerts which may contain mentions of your name, business or brand.

When someone mentions your name/brand, thank them…answer them … respond to them. This is reactive engagement.

Pro-active engagement is when you use monitoring and searches for industry specific posts, comments or tweets that you can either re-tweet, lets say on Twitter, or answer or make a comment on.

Pro active engagement takes a little more time as you need to first identify the conversations, then qualify them.

Tip: Seek out good tweets that will position your business as an authority in its field and retweet it at 5 per day.

Make sure you open up  Disqus and Gravatar accounts for blog comments – Gravatar stands for Globally Recognized Avatar, so that your brand is being represented uniformly across the social media universe.

Use a good blog searching tool like Technorati or Google Blog Search to find industry specific blogs. Make it a habit to ready them and respond to 3-5 of them each week (tweak this number to work best for you, your business & resources). This habit not only amplifies your brand  and aids in establisheing you as an authority in your field, it also creates back links to your website or Facebook page.

Tip: Use a RSS reader tool to pull in these industry specific blogs – I like Google reader but there are other options available.

LinkedIn is prime for re-active engagement. Join relevant groups and sign up for email notification from these groups. Make it a point to answer or comment on the discussions.

Tip: Update your LinkedIn status daily with keyword rich phrases that have a promotional slant!

Search Squidoo, Slide Share, Flickr, YouTube….find relevant information to comment on. You’ll not only expand your knowledge base, you’ll expand your presence by commenting intelligently on them.

Part II will be posted next week and will include Best Practices for Twitter, Facebook and Social Media.

Part III will contain daily practices for an engaged social presence along with tools, apps and resources to do this.

This blog post is the second in the 2 part series on brand monitoring. In case you missed the first blog post,  here is the link: Monitor Your Brand Online.

Online Reputation Monitoring can be as simple as creating alerts on Google or as comprehensive as subscribing to a syndicated monitoring service like Radian6 that  gives you a complete platform to listen, measure and engage with your customers across the entire social web. You can hire a Social Media Monitoring company who will not only use syndicated or subscription tools like Radian6 and employ a combination of techniques and report on what’s being said but will also formulate effective response strategies and implement reputation management techniques.

As promised in part one of this  blog post last week, here is a comprehensive list of tools you can use to monitor, organize, archive, and manage your online reputation on the different channels and platforms that populate the World Wide Web.

In order to make things easy you should fiirst create a place that will aggregate all your monitoring results like an RSS reader.
Here are some RSS aggregation services : Google Reader, Bloglines,  Fastladder.

The RSS reader will allow you to easily subscribe to most types of content on the web that include the one’s listed below.

Monitoring Tools For:

Blogs

• Blogdigger
• Google Blog search
• Technorati
• BlogPulse Conversation Tracker
• Keotag
• Blogpulse Trends
• Twingly

Comments

• BackType
• Ubervu (beta)

Web Page Changes

• Copernic
• WatchThatPage.com

Twitter

• Twitter Search
• TweetBeep
• Tweetdeck
• Twilert
• Hashtags
• UberTwitter
• Tweetscan

Forums

• Boardtracker
• BoardReader
  

Social Media

• Technorati
• Social Mention
• Who’s Talking
• Facebook Lexicon
• Ice Rocket
• Monitor This

News Search

• Google News
• Moreover
• Yahoo News

Other

• Google Trends
• Username Check
• Trendrr
• Yahoo Pipes

With the explosion of social media platforms and growing Internet usage there has been a paradigm shift in consumer expectations. They are no longer content with being your target audience; they are increasingly moving into a role of partners in creating your brand’s external communication! Businesses no longer have the last word in brand communication; cannot provide style guides and policies for user generated content but they can monitor and engage with their customers in order to tactfully steer their brand impressions.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… I: wait… Top: wait… C: wait…

One of the main objectives for all social media marketing initiatives for a brand is to “navigate the narrative”. In other words,  to ensure that your competitors or disgruntled customers don’t steer conversations in a way that put you on the defensive.

In order to cultivate the conversations taking place in the social media arena, you need to know that they’re happening! Social media monitoring is the somewhat new but indispensable tool that all serious marketers should use in order to keep track of what people are saying about their brand, their products and their competitors.

The first step to monitoring your brand reputation is listening. Whoever said “eavesdroppers are never happy” could not have been more wrong. You might not be always be happy with what you hear about your brand but I guarantee that you will be a lot unhappier if you don’t listen in!

Social media is the speakeasy for all those incessant public conversations that you must listen in on and eventually join.

One simple way to discover what people are saying about your brand is to simply create a Google Alert so that you’ll get an email anytime your brand name is mentioned.

However, Google Alerts are limited – and aren’t designed to be a comprehensive online brand management tool. That’s why you need to use a variety of online tools to find out what people are saying.

Here are the steps you need to take in order to deploy an ongoing online brand monitoring campaign.

Choose the Keywords You Need to Monitor:

Anything associated with your brand and company needs to be monitored.

For example:

• Your brand name
• Products
• Trademarks
• Competitors
• Clients
• CEO

Channels You Need To Monitor:

The key to managing your online reputation is a comprehensive daily monitoring of various platforms like:

• Social Media Platforms (Facebook, MySpace)
• Blogs (WordPress, Blogger, Twitter etc)
• Video Sites (Youtube)
• Image Sites (Flikr)
• Articles (ezine, articlebase etc)
• Tags (keywords on social bookmarking sites and Twitter Hashtags)
• Wikipedia
• Press releases
• Comments
• Forums
• Complaint Sites (Ripoffreport, Complaintsboard etc)

Next…how to monitor all these platforms?  For a comprehensive list of tools that will help you monitor your online reputation and keep you posted on all the conversations taking place in the social media universe stay tuned for part two of this blog post that will publish next week. In the mean time go ahead, set the radar in the right direction; start with creating a Google Alert.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… I: wait… Top: wait… C: wait…

Online retailers plan the holiday sale season months in advance; designing and executing special promotions and marketing campaigns to promote these sales events through various media channels. Businesses primarily rely on email, CPC & CPM campaigns besides traditional marketing.

As the Holiday Sales season comes to a close, the effort is intensified in order to capitalize on the last minute shoppers (substantial). And because there is so much going on, there is a chance that some crucial details can get overlooked!

Here are a Few Tips to Optimize Your Online Holiday Sales Campaigns:

1. Reinforce the SEO code and on-page content to include holiday keywords:
   The focus of all your SEO efforts should of course be on the landing pages but since some of the other relevant pages have higher page rank and more backlinks chances are that these could show up in organic search results, especially in very competitive markets. Make sure the Meta code includes some of the hot search terms.
2. Create buzz on social media platforms; remember to use the right keywords:
   The idea is to increase engagement and become more visible on all the platforms where your target audience is regularly present. Promote your brand and the promotions based on specific profiles of social media networks; it’s a great way to segment and target! Provide relevant information and useful tips that go above and beyond selling. Use consumer reviews and positive feedback to attract new customers.
3. Improve cross-selling and up selling opportunities:
   Showcase related or complementary products when customers view one product that interests them. Suggest more upscale products and try to upgrade the sale! This technique is known to improve sales figures immediately. Don’t pass up the opportunity to provide suggestive selling at the end of the sales process, even in the shopping cart!
4. Update product photographs with emphasis on holiday colors:
   This in more relevant as pre-campaign prep work; often retailers will be ready to launch a big promotional campaign only to realize that their product images are old and need a facelift. Make sure that you have fresh product photos available and uploaded for ease of use.
5. Segmentation for email campaigns:
   To make your email campaigns more effective, segment your list based on customers’ shopping experience and history. This enables you to target your communication more effectively for higher conversions.
6. Create special landing pages:
   You may be spending your media dollars on ads on search engines but if those ads do not navigate the user back to an effective landing page your dollars might be wasted. Higher click through rate (CTR) plus high conversions are the recipe for increasing holiday sales. Have your agency design custom landing pages for different segments to close the deal effectively.
7. Provide gift packaging options:
   Customers want value that goes beyond the product. If there is price parity with competition, you might woo them by offering more choices in gift packaging and shipping!
8. Analyze the data for next year’s campaign:
   Make sure you have analytics installed on the website and that your team conducts post-campaign analysis to identify areas of strength and weaknesses in the process for future campaigns.

Considering the rising trend of consumers looking to the Web for shopping deals and an anticipated increase in Web sales during holiday seasons, there is a tremendous opportunity for businesses to expand their customer base and develop long term relationships with these new customers, retaining them well beyond the holidays.

Using your status update on your wall to communicate is great. But if someone doesn’t log on frequently to view the latest stream, they may miss your message or update. You can use the “Send an Update to Fans” feature to remind them of an important event, a new blog post, a poll and more.

To update your Facebook page fans, you must be the administrator of that page:

1. Click on “Edit Page” under the Profile Picture on the left hand side.
   
2. On the right hand side of the page, around the middle part, you will see a bar “Promote Your Page”. Click on “Send an Update to Fans”.
   
3. Write your message to your fans. You can target your update by location, sex and/or age. If you want to include a link, simply click “post link” underneath the message box.
   
4. Click on “Send”. Your fans will receive their updates in their “In Box” under “Updates”.
   

When it comes to growing your  followers on Twitter, you have approximately 2 seconds or less to grab someones attention and positively influence them to click the “follow” button.

Whether it is lead generation, brand awareness, reputation management, search engine optimization or any of the other many benefits you can enjoy with Twitter, one fact remains, you need followers. And the more qualified followers you have, the better your results.
Below are  some proven tools, tactics and ideas to pump up the volume on your Twitter style and successfully build your Twitter following.

Your Twitter account needs to have a good presence in order to attract followers.  Here are five easy-to-do Twitter Style tips that you should absolutely incorporate before you even attempt to find your followers!

1. Have a unique avatar, preferably one that is a photo of you. People naturally connect with photos. An option for brands or business accounts is to display a logo in place of a photo. If you opt for a personal photo, it should be a professional close-up.  A default avatar on Twitter screams … “Don’t follow me!”
   Bonus tip: Use the same avatar to represent you or your business/brand across the social universe. This will help visually establish your brand…even if your brand is you!
2. Fill out your bio and link. You have 160 characters to tell everyone who you are and what your interests are! People are more likely to follow you or your business when the bio is filled out. You can be straightforward, clever, show personality or simply list a few descriptive phrases separated by commas.
   Bonus tip: infuse your bio with keywords and key phrases…it’s indexed by search engines! This is also the place that gets searched by directories like TweepML and Twellow when pulling words that people search for.
3. Create a branded background or have someone design it for you!  Sure you can use the default Twitter background…they even give you several choices. However, you’ll attract more followers with a well-branded background. Remember that this background will look different on different size monitors, browsers and screen resolution.
   Bonus tip: Use your background to display  link URLs to your other social networks, your web or blog site, and your email and other contact information. These links are not hyperlinked unless you use a program like clickableNow but even then, the links are only clickable to those who also have the software.
   Create your Twitter Background: There are many online resources that allow you to create a somewhat unique Twitter background, including: Twitbacks, Twitter-Backgrounds.net, and TwitterBackgrounds.com. Most of these include a customizable paid-for option.
4. Register your Twitter account(s) with Twitter Directories.  This will make it easier for others to find and follow you on Twitter. We recommend WeFollow and Twellow to start. Twellow bills itself as the Yellow Pages of Twitter Directories.  Twellow is a directory of public Twitter accounts listed by categories. You can add your account to multiple categories. Mashable compares 15 directories in this article that you may want to include!
   Bonus Tip: Use Twellow to search the hundreds of categories and search features to help you find people who matter to you. The more you follow on Twitter, the more will follow you back. You can also create an extended bio on Twellow which provides you with ample room to tell everyone who you are and about your business/brand.
5. Tweeting- be engaging and provide interesting content. When you tweet, remember to be authentic, interesting, thankful, retweet other information you find helpful. Below is a video containing some great ideas and ways to tweet…specifically for businesses created by Brett Farmiloe.

View more presentations from Brett Farmiloe.
 

The web is an great platform for publicity; unfortunately not all of it is positive!

If you have a website that depends on traffic from search engines then your reputation is vulnerable to external forces. Negative websites whose sole purpose is to provide a platform for your disgruntled customers to malign your brand (your keyword) can show up in Google search results and invade your search real estate. These sites become popular because they use certain techniques that attract searchers who are typing in keywords associated with your brand. Potential customers who might be searching for your product or service, comparing prices, or looking for your product reviews on the web, may also come across negative publicity that is displayed on the first page of Google search results along with your legitimate website! Google search results page will list these negative sites if these sites have gained momentum and are optimized for relevant search terms/keywords.

Many big companies are regularly confronted with this Internet Reputation Management nightmare and have to employ strategies to push down negative press and relegate Google position of negative sites that malign their brands.

Online Reputation Management or counter-SEO is a specialized area that requires professional skills and tools. It focuses on systematically dealing with the threat of negative websites and devising long-term solutions to protect companies against keyword predators.

Below is a list of SEO and social media marketing techniques that you can use to ensure that the first page of Google search results for your brand related keywords does not include negative websites.

24 TECHNIQUES FOR COUNTER-SEO CAMPAIGNS:

1. Create systems to monitor conversations, aggregate the results and identify common themes
2. Build micro-sites on different servers optimized around the themes to index and push down negative search results
3. Conduct keyword research and optimize your domains for negative, highly searched keywords
4. Provide controlled platforms for consumers where they can air negative sentiment and share their experiences directly with you: Facebook, Twitter, Blog Comments, feedback webpage, complaints blog
5. Create sub domains, blogs, media channels (.TV); enlist popular bloggers to avoid Google Clustering
6. Use electronic and traditional PR techniques and optimized press releases
7. Create Professional LinkedIn profiles with optimized links to the company website
8. Use no-follow on low quality outbound links
9. Use YouTube, Slide Share and social book marking sites regularly for universal search and optimize with keywords and anchor text
10. Optimize Google Maps and Local searches and use enhanced listings option that allows custom anchor texts
11. Analyze negative website’s backlinks and try and obtain those links for your website
12. Use 301 redirects instead of 302 or Meta refresh
13. Use a combination of keyword density, semantic keywords for Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) by Google, and related anchor texts on a webpage to increase page relevance
14. Try and get into Google’s Onebox (Google vertical search results for a keyword) ex: Google News, Google Base, Google Product Search and other Google owned vertical search services
15. Use PPC to improve traffic to domains
16. Create link-bait campaigns with SEO article writing and submission to sites like Article Base and Ezine. Create Wikipedia articles, electronic press releases; leave comments on forums and blogs even those with <nofollow> attributes
17. Use blogroll on company blog with link to other company domains
18. Submit all company domains to free and paid directories and local search directories
19. Include negative keywords
20. Create a page with file-name and page title “negative keyword”
21. Renew domains for as long in the future as possible (Google looks at the renew dates to gauge authority and commitment to subject matter)
22. Start a corporate sponsorship campaign with high profile causes to get valuable backlinks from: .edu, .org, .gov
23. Submit website to high ranked foreign or another language directories
24. Make your RSS feeds seeded into the most potent feed engines and directories

Online reputation management is an increasingly important SEO function that can help counter negative search results and ensure a company’s ownership of keywords related to their company and brands. Contact Harp Social and find out how we can help you manage your online reputation.

So what exactly does SMCP look like?

The symptoms include:

1. Inability to actively engage others on Twitter
2. Forgetfulness to update your Facebook page daily
3. Slow to tweet, with lack of interesting content
4. Sluggishness in updating your LinkedIn status
5. Dizziness at the thought of keeping your social media lively and engaging

Businesses of all sizes are suffering with this new syndrome, including Fortune 100 companies!

TWTRCON stats reports recently that: A Weber Shandwick study conclude’s that Fortune 100 companies need a “Twittervention”. It goes on to note about those same companies:

• 76% of businesses with Twitter accounts failed to post frequently
• 52%+ failed to display personality or consistency of voice and did not actively engage with others
• 50% had fewer than 500 followers
• 15% of all accounts have become inactive

While these statistics are specific to Twitter and Fortune 100 companies, it’s not too big of a leap to presume that they equally apply across the social universe and to businesses large and small.

Recommended actions?

• Listen
• Participate
• Update
• Engage

The key to social media health: A sound strategy coupled with consistent execution, the right collection of tools, resources and discipline and understanding the different social media cultures goes a long way to alleviating SMCP.

As the saying goes…if you’re going to do something, do it right.

This tried and true philosophy rings just as true today for any businesses entering into social media marketing.

For small businesses and entrepreneurs, it is not uncommon to find the owners and employees wearing many hats – from new business development to accounting to customer service. And now, if they don’t also dawn the social media marketing cap…they’ll be left behind.

According to Maria Veltre, Executive Vice President of Citi’s Small Business Segment…

“While social media can provide additional channels to network and help grow a business, many small businesses may not have the manpower or the time required take advantage of them.”

Social Media Marketing is more vital than ever for businesses of any size to gain exposure and compete in the marketplace. When a business attempts to undertake this type of marketing themselves, they can set themselves up for failure and summarily dismiss an impactful, powerful marketing tool.

Enter the Social Media Marketing Specialist.

Hiring a trained social media marketing professional to strategize and execute your social media for your business is a smart decision on many levels.

A Social Media Marketing Specialist will:

• Develop a strategy based on your marketing goals ensuring that you enter into the correct social platforms for your business objectives.
• Open the proper social accounts, brand them and build them out according to the set strategy.
• Provide the opportunity for subscription-based social media monitoring that would otherwise be unavailable or unaffordable and simply overwhelming to the individual business.
• Cross pollinate all of your social platforms with each other to reinforce your brand and your presence across the social universe.
• A Social Media Marketing Specialist knows the culture of each social platform, the nuances, and how to best engage on behalf of their client.
• In addition, some strategists also offer maintenance and growth plans so that small business owners can concentrate on what they do best- their business while resting assured that their social media accounts are working hard for them.  It is often overlooked that social media marketing takes a great deal of time, and without the proper time & attention, a businesses social media accounts will not succeed.
• A good SMM Specialist will also be able to provide a set of success metrics, ROI reporting and be able to optimize your social media marketing campaign based on these metrics.
• Stay on top of the ever-changing social world, applications and developments to guide their clients successfully into new and appropriate opportunities. Again, a time-consuming effort that a typical business does not allow for.
• Provide the reassurance & expertise to amplify your brand, enhance your reputation and drive traffic/increase sales.

Social media marketing, executed and measured strategically, cannot be done well by anyone and it is not free! Time (and a great deal of it) and expertise are your investments into a well-strategized, executed and measurable social media campaign.

Writing effectively for online media and social networks is an evolving art.  As print becomes redundant, social media emerges to fill the gap with its short form communication style that is meant to engage non-readers.  There are numerous articles with tips on writing for the web and writing-guides and rules for individual platforms like Twitter and Blogs.  But there is definite dearth of information on the actual process of writing:

OK, so you have set up a Twitter account.  What next? What should you talk about 4 times a day? What language and style should you use? Where do you get the ideas?

Instant messaging. Twittering. Facebook updates, Blog posts, all  provide social platforms for businesses to communicate with their customers in a more informal environment while effectively promoting their cause.  For the social media writer it can be an onerous task to consistently deliver such effective messages  in a conversational style.  Here are some tips on making the process a little easier.

7 STEPS TO WRITING EFFECTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA MESSAGES:

Define Your Core Audience:

Assuming that you are a subject-matter-expert or at least have good understanding of the topic you plan to write about, the first step in the process is to get to know your target audience (customers). Your marketing department (or your client’s marketing department) should have  detailed profile of the customers. Your first order of business should be to get acquainted with them- where they live, what are their likes and dislikes, their media habits and their buying and consumption behavior is all information that will give you clues to the topics they would be interested in. These consumer insights will help you in using the right references and language to keep your audience engaged.

Identify and Select the Social Networks:

Based on your research you can now match the consumer with the social networks they are most likely to be found on.  Pick the most relevant platforms that cover your consumer spectrum.  Select your platforms wisely because the choice of your medium also sends out a message about who you are!

Monitor Conversation & Analyze the Environment:

Before you start setting up your profile on these social networks, spend some time monitoring relevant conversations. Use tools like Keotag , Radian6 and Google Alerts to find conversations based on your keywords. Get a good sense of the topics that your consumers find engaging.  What language and keywords are they using?  Decide on a tone and personality that represents your brand and your consumer.

Know the Rules:

Understand the rules and protocol of the community before you venture in. Each social media network has its own written and unwritten rules.  Facebook has different rules for Business/Fan pages than for individual pages and Twitter users have certain expectations.

Write Down Your Goals:

Like all marketing campaigns,  social media marketing initiatives should always be based on goals. Articulating your goals and setting key performance indicators for each element in your marketing mix is crucial to success. The goals will also guide you in crafting the right message and measuring its effectiveness.

Gather Your Stories:

Before you arrive at the party, it’s a good idea to rake up interesting stories and information about your subject to keep people engaged.  Accumulate enough material that will last you while. Identify all the sources for finding information (websites, blogs, news sites, press releases) and organize them in a spreadsheet.  Keep a section for topical messages.  As you proceed to write, take the cues from your audience and expand on stories that spark their interest.

Follow the Thirds Rule:

Remember not to talk about you and your company all the time; it is sure to turn your audience off. Divide the conversations in thirds (the Twitter rule):  about you/company, about them (consumers) and general industry information that your readers might be interested in.

If done right,  social media marketing provides enormous opportunities for businesses to promote their brand and products.  It is when companies get into it without forethought and planning that it can backfire and become a liability- a mess that is much more difficult to clean than to create!

What are the top five things beginners should know about social media?

The question was asked in one of the social media groups that I belong to on LinkedIn:

“I’m giving a speech for … and would like to know five hot topics you think
beginners would like to know.”

This is a very good question which got a lot of response from many members (me included). Following are some of the more insightful responses:

Top five tips for beginners for any social media environment:

Response 1
Colart Miles
Business Process Manager at The Edge

1. Be generous.
2. Learn the basic etiquette for each environment.
3. Reciprocate positive behaviors
4. Declare boundaries… inner circle for friends & family only, professional circle for business contacts… etc.
5. Be authentic.

5 + 1) HAVE FUN!!!

Response 2
Diane Rayfield
ISMA Certified Social Media Marketing Specialist  for Harp Social

1. Define your social media goals before going in and build each social platform around them.
2. Update your social platforms daily.
3. Use plugins and apps to cross-pollinate all your platforms.
4. Add your Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook links to your email signature.
5. Proceed slowly. Don’t open more accounts than you can successfully manage on a daily basis.

Response 3
John Lusher
Business Development Specialist for Technology & Social Media.

1. Have a strategy before you start. What are you trying to accomplish?
2. Be yourself.
3. Be giving, work to promote others, not yourself.
4. Update frequently.
5. Connect with others in your field and out of your field, learn from them all.

Response 4
Alex Parr
Great Networker who runs a Suffolk WiRE network, Brains-Trust mastermind group and is an experienced property lawyer

Great question.  I couldn’t agree more with the comments made by Colart and Diane. What I would find of immense value, as a “newbie”, would be to find out how to “define social media goals before going in and build each social platform around them” and what it means to “have a strategy before you start”.

I just went boldly in, dipped my toe in the water and am having great fun learning as I go along. I love Twitter http://twitter.com/alexparr but I am not sure about Facebook and how to use it from a business perspective.  What I think is important is that people give it a try … it is a very daunting experience, so a lot of encouragement would be very well received.

Response 5
Anthony Tham
Public Relations Manager at Travel Salem

1. Listen. Social media is about communicating with your consumers/audience. Don’t just broadcast information, but listen to what people are saying (directly to you or via other forums) and respond accordingly.
2. Tying into strategy, have some sort of measurement tool to calculate your social media success…or failure <—it happens
3. Like Diane said, take advantage of all the free apps and websites that make your social media experience richer and easier. My favorite: UberTwitter on my BlackBerry and TweetDeck for the computer.
4. There’s a saying: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Use Flickr to post photos/videos. Very simple interface that allows you to track how many views you get. More than 4 billion photos have been uploaded to Flickr!!!
5. Plan your social media usage accordingly. It can be a bit time consuming even if you focus on only one or two of these social media platforms. Make sure you’re thinking about what you want out of it by organizing your time and workload.

Yes, blogging is important. It’s like a second website. Using Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and whatever platform that you go with, you’ll be able to drive people to your website or blog; creating a free-flowing of information regarding your business/organization or whatever you’re promoting.

Harp Social has the certified expertise, tools and social media acumen to take your social media marketing campaign to the next level. Find out how we can help you use social media more effectively for your business. Call or email now to get started! 630.691.9500 or drayfield@harpsocial.com

Share your thoughts on the five top items for beginners below!

If you’re using Twitter as a tool to promote your brand or products, it’s crucial that you write retweetable tweets. The shareability of your message makes it viral and extends the reach of your message beyond your own Twitter followers. The trick is to make sure that the content you are writing provides immediate payoff by entertaining, giving useful information, provoking or sharing experiences that help your followers. If your tweet provides some kind of value and is not another “me-too” , it has a good chance of being passed on. Once it’s passed on, your message gains momentum through a wider audience and increases your influence. If you use your 140 characters wisely you can compel your followers to spread the message and help you develop your following.

Use these tips to encourage retweets:

• Add a link to your tweet (You’ll want to use a URL shortener like bit.ly or ow.ly)
  If your tweet is compelling enough, your followers will appreciate more details on the subject and a link to your blog or some other source that will provide them with more information,  making your initial tweet more valuable.
• Leave room for the RT@username
  If your original tweet is ready to be retweeted conveniently without much action required by others, it will be retweeted more often. Keep it short  so it has room for the user to append the RT with their own signature. If you use up the allotted 140 characters the user will have to edit or reword. The easier you make it for your followers to retweet, the better the response. Some might have the time to edit and add a personal message before retweeting but the vast majority are in a rush and want to simply pass it on.
• Add your comments or remarks to the tweet when retweeting
  Just as it is more likely for people to read a forwarded email if it has a personal message from the sender,  your tweet is also more effective if you put some personal remarks in front of the message you want to retweet. It makes the tweet less generic and gives it a better chance of standing out in the Twitter-clutter.
• Establish your credentials with your bio and URL
  Websites and blogs have “About” pages that tell visitors if the owners of the web entity have the credentials to back what they are promoting or what makes them subject matter experts on a specific topic. Similarly, Twitter provides “Bios” for the Twitter user- an area that affords them the opportunity to introduce themselves and build credibility. Always fill out the bio using keywords and phrases. Also provide a link where the visitor or follower can find more details about you; a website, a social media profile page or simply your LinkedIn profile. The bio and URL go a long way in setting you apart.
• Throw in something  personal every now and then
  Even though your tweets are for your business or company, your followers want to know the person behind the tweets.  Occasionally, add in a snippet from your life or personal experiences that give your followers more insight about who you are outside your work and the subjects you care about. Personalizing your Twitter messages builds a connection between you and your followers. They will be more inclined to retweet  if they feel that they can relate to you!

Social media isn’t always the right tool for the job. Not every company needs a blog. YouTube worked for BlendTec, but it might not work for your company. And yet, there’s something to this. Over the last three days, I’ve spoken to four HUGE brands in America that are considering social media for one project or another, and there are many more out there working on how these tools might integrate into their business needs. Here’s a list of 50 ideas (in no particular order) to help move the conversation along.

1. Add social bookmark links to your most important web pages and/or blog posts to improve sharing.
2. Build blogs and teach conversational marketing and business relationship building techniques.
3. For every video project purchased, ensure there’s an embeddable web version for improved sharing.
4. Learn how tagging and other metadata improve your ability to search and measure the spread of information.
5. Create informational podcasts about a product’s overall space, not just the product.
6. Build community platforms around real communities of shared interest.
7. Help companies participate in existing social networks, and build relationships on their turf.
8. Check out Twitter as a way to show a company’s personality. (Don’t fabricate this).
9. Couple your email newsletter content with additional website content on a blog for improved commenting.
10. Build sentiment measurements, and listen to the larger web for how people are talking about your customer.
11. Learn which bloggers might care about your customer. Learn how to measure their influence.
12. Download the Social Media Press Release (pdf) and at least see what parts you want to take into your traditional press releases.
13. Try out a short series of audio podcasts or video podcasts as content marketing and see how they draw.
14. Build conversation maps for your customers using Technorati.com , Google Blogsearch, Summize, and FriendFeed.
15. Experiment with Flickr and/or YouTube groups to build media for specific events. (Marvel Comics raised my impression of this with their Hulk statue Flickr group).
16. Recommend that your staff start personal blogs on their personal interests, and learn first hand what it feels like, including managing comments, wanting promotion, etc.
17. Map out an integrated project that incorporates a blog, use of commercial social networks, and a face-to-face event to build leads and drive awareness of a product.
18. Start a community group on Facebook or Ning or MySpace or LinkedIn around the space where your customer does business. Example: what Jeremiah Owyang did for Hitachi Data Systems.
19. Experiment with the value of live video like uStream.tv and Mogulus, or Qik on a cell phone.
20. Attend a conference dealing with social media like New Media Expo, BlogWorld Expo, New Marketing Summit (disclosure: I run this one with CrossTech), and dozens and dozens more. (Email me for a calendar).
21. Collect case studies of social media success. Tag them “socialmediacasestudy” in del.icio.us.
22. Interview current social media practitioners. Look for bridges between your methods and theirs.
23. Explore distribution. Can you reach more potential buyers/users/customers on social networks.
24. Don’t forget early social sites like Yahoogroups and Craigslist. They still work remarkably well.
25. Search Summize.com for as much data as you can find in Twitter on your product, your competitors, your space.
26. Practice delivering quality content on your blogs, such that customers feel educated / equipped / informed.
27. Consider the value of hiring a community manager. Could this role improve customer service? Improve customer retention? Promote through word of mouth?
28. Turn your blog into a mobile blog site with Mofuse. Free.
29. Learn what other free tools might work for community building, like MyBlogLog.
30. Ensure you offer the basics on your site, like an email alternative to an RSS subscription. In fact, the more ways you can spread and distribute your content, the better.
31. Investigate whether your product sells better by recommendation versus education, and use either wikis and widgets to help recommend, or videos and podcasts for education.
32. Make WebsiteGrader.com your first stop for understanding the technical quality of a website.
33. Make Compete.com your next stop for understanding a site’s traffic. Then, mash it against competitors’ sites.
34. Learn how not to ask for 40 pieces of demographic data when giving something away for free. Instead, collect little bits over time. Gently.
35. Remember that the people on social networks are all people, have likely been there a while, might know each other, and know that you’re new. Tread gently into new territories. Don’t NOT go. Just go gently.
36. Help customers and prospects connect with you simply on your various networks. Consider a Lijit Wijit or other aggregator widget.
37. Voting mechanisms like those used on Digg.com show your customers you care about which information is useful to them.
38. Track your inbound links and when they come from blogs, be sure to comment on a few posts and build a relationship with the blogger.
39. Find a bunch of bloggers and podcasters whose work you admire, and ask them for opinions on your social media projects. See if you can give them a free sneak peek at something, or some other “you’re special” reward for their time and effort (if it’s material, ask them to disclose it).
40. Learn all you can about how NOT to pitch bloggers. Excellent resource: Susan Getgood.
41. Try out shooting video interviews and video press releases and other bits of video to build more personable relationships. Don’t throw out text, but try adding video.
42. Explore several viewpoints about social media marketing.
43. Women are adding lots of value to social media. Get to know the ones making a difference. (And check out BlogHer as an event to explore).
44. Experiment with different lengths and forms of video. Is entertaining and funny but brief better than longer but more informative? Don’t stop with one attempt. And try more than one hosting platform to test out features.
45. Work with practitioners and media makers to see how they can use their skills to solve your problems. Don’t be afraid to set up pilot programs, instead of diving in head first.
46. People power social media. Learn to believe in the value of people. Sounds hippie, but it’s the key.
47. Spread good ideas far. Reblog them. Bookmark them. Vote them up at social sites. Be a good citizen.
48. Don’t be afraid to fail. Be ready to apologize. Admit when you’ve made a mistake.
49. Re-examine who in the organization might benefit from your social media efforts. Help equip them to learn from your project.
50. Use the same tools you’re trying out externally for internal uses, if that makes sense, and learn about how this technology empowers your business collaboration, too.

Source: ChrisBrogan.com

You may be familiar with Dell, Starbucks and Jet Blue…a few well-known brands that have been trumpeted for their brilliant use of social media. But what about lesser known and smaller businesses? Does social media marketing “work” for them too?

A general misconception out there today is that social media, especially Facebook and Twitter are for large consumer brands. While a lot of these well-known brand giants have embraced social media and are seeing its numerous viral benefits, small businesses should not shy away from social media.  In reality, a small business (either consumer or B2B) with smart strategy, branded implementation and a touch of social savvy, can improve their customer loyalty and increase awareness with today’s word of mouth marketing platforms…just like the big guys.

Social media is not only a useful tool for consumer businesses, but for professional services too. Any type of business, through social media, can build their brand or business, forge new relationships, increase referrals, provide customer care, increase customer loyalty, drive traffic to their business and/or website and most importantly, provide a personable touch to their customers or potential ones.

So what exactly, should small businesses be doing? Almost every small business out there can benefit from a strategic combination of a WordPress blog with the right plug in applications, a Facebook Professional Fan page and my personal favorite, a branded Twitter account. Cross connect these powerful tools, and point them to your website for added traffic and increased inbound links which will benefit your results on search pages.

There are also many management tools, widgets and aggregators available today to make these platforms more efficient and useful.

The uses and benefits of Twitter are growing and expanding everyday.

Below I’ve listed some of the top 10 reasons why all businesses, no matter how big or small, no matter what your industry, should be on Twitter.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
   The real name of a Twitter account is indexed by Google, along with each tweet. Your bio should be rich with keywords as it is also indexed. And, there is growing speculation that soon Google will also index the links in every tweet. This indexing can create a positive effect on your search engine page rank…just one of the many benefits of Twitter on your business.
2. Brand Awareness
   Whether you have a well established brand and are seeking top-of-mind awareness, or you are a fledgling brand, business or organization just starting out, you can successfully launch or solidify your brand on Twitter to your followers and beyond.
3. Product Launch/Testing
   Twitter is an excellent tool to test the waters for a new product, seek advise on a product, service, ad campaign or to announce a new product with links to the details. Create buzz and excitement around your event on Twitter.
4. Drive Traffic to your Website
   Your Twitter account, when linked to your website or blog, will drive incremental, measurable traffic there. Not only can you link the account, you can embed links in your tweets which then may be shared or re-tweeted creating viral traffic to your site.
5. Brand Monitoring
   Twitter is an excellent tool to eavesdrop on what’s being said about your business, industry or organization and /or your competitors.
6. Find Employees
   Use Twitter to promote and link to job openings. Twitter acts as your virtual HR assistant.
7. Announce Events/Promotions/Products/Services
   Used correctly, Twitter is an effective tool for announcing upcoming events (webinars, sales), new product launches, new services and more. Get the word out and provide video or page links for more information.
8. Meet Industry Peers
   Network with like-minded professionals, meet new people who are interested in your business or service and keep an eye on what your competitors are doing.
9. Customer Service
   Augment your Customer Service or Customer Care departments with Twitter. Providing educational and reactive, helpful tweets and action help create customers for life!
10. You Tell Me
    Please feel free to provide your thoughts on why businesses should be on Twitter. Check back to see what others have posted.

Strategy is Key
While it is free, and relatively easy to build your Facebook public page, attention to detail in set up, naming and business apps are important. There are certain apps to avoid that will end up weighing down your page and creating long download times. And once you have your page up, you’ll need time to invest in updates, social ads, event ideation and page growth.

1. Meet your Peers
   Facebook provides the perfect “social” platform on which to network with like-minded professionals and industry leaders.
2. Establish Credibility
   Use Facebook to leave comments, tips and ideas on other’s pages and you’ll earn respect as an authority in your community/profession.
3. Virtual Handshake—Open Doors
   Facebook provides the perfect atmosphere to reach out and introduce yourself to people who were unreachable before!
4. Added Functionality Makes it Easy
   There are thousands of apps and tools that make it easy to connect, grow and conduct business on Facebook. In fact, if used correctly, it may well be the most powerful business tool in your online repertoire.
5. Increase Visibility/Brand Awareness
   Facebook has over 200 million active users. The average user has 120+ friends. More than 6 million users become fans of Facebook pages every day. Pretty easy math.
6. Your Competitors are on Facebook
   If they aren’t now, they will be soon. Be the industry leader and put your business on Facebook. Your presence will not act as a viral marketing tool for your business/brand but provide a hub in which to differentiate yourself from your competitors.
7. SEO, SEO, SEO!! And did I mention…
   This benefit has so much weight that it should be numbers 1-10 and is, by itself, reason enough to establish a Facebook page. Facebook is a heavily weighted site (#8) by Google and is given prominence in SERP (search engine page results). Therefore, your site on Facebook, will be given a lot of SEO weight.

   Fact: 60% of a website’s page rank on Google is determined by the number of relevant inbound links back to the website.

   Facebook is highly indexed by Google and other search engines. A presence on Facebook, with it’s additional linking opportunities and viral aspects, will quickly aid in moving your business up the Google search results.

8. Message with Abandon!
   Because your fans have chosen to “fan” your public business page, you have the ability to ‘message’ your fans without fear of being caught in spam filters.
9. Targeted Social Ads
   Facebook allows businesses to create social ads…ads that can be tested, targeted and interacted with across the Facebook landscape. You set the budget, Facebook does the rest.
10. Not just for Kids
    You may be asking yourself…what business does your business have being on Facebook? Isn’t that just for kids? While primarily used by college kids in its infancy, Facebook has grown up. The largest user age group demographic is 35-55, and that group is doubling in size roughly every two months! That being said, if you target youth, you’ll find no shortage of them on Facebook.

Facebook has significant implications for business owners, marketers, and entrepreneurs. This highly successful online social networking platform currently boasts 200 million active members and is predicted to be at 500,000 million members by 2011 or sooner. Over half of all active members log in daily for an average session time of 20 minutes – that’s a huge captive audience! Plus the demographics are a more mature and wealthier audience.