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Archive for Social Media

Mar

Online Brand Building – Do You Need a Social Media Newsroom?

Posted by: Jon Clayton | Comments (0)

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Curriculum vitae, work experience, references, skills inventory, resume: all describe a source of information where people can condense the vital information about themselves into a single document for interested parties to examine. The idea is giving people an overview they can sort through in order to weigh your merits and strengths against their needs, as well as to get an idea of how you present yourself.

This concept has been adopted for the web in a number of ways, but none more unique than the social media newsroom. A combination bulletin board and press collection, the SMNR is a one-stop location for people to find out critical information about you. Whether you have a new book you’re promoting, a lecture tour you want to draw attention to, or a business plan you wish to propose, the SMNR is the place you gather all the information about your venture together into a clear, concise summary.

SMNR Basics

As implied in the name, a newsroom is a page where you compile relevant press (your own and others’) about the relevant topic. It lists the basic information, quotations, summaries and news stories in question, but then it also goes a step beyond the basics.

In previous articles we’ve discussed the advantages of integrating your audience into the brand, and taking advantage of the web’s powerful communication abilities to bring their influences into the picture. The SMNR doesn’t just present good press, it includes communication venues for people using Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Digg and more. It includes a comments section for added communication, and options for instant messaging or blog connectivity. In short it is more than just a static page, and is an active communications hub.

Do You Need One?

Any organization interested in creating and maintaining a vital web brand will find the SMNR an incredible, vital tool toward this purpose. If you have any good press, such as a positive review or mention from a SM group, consider putting up an SMNR page to centralize further promotion efforts.

The value of the SMNR lies in its convenience for your audience. As we have discussed, the web has allowed people to develop an incredibly short and discerning attention span. If you centralize your relevant information so that people can browse easily, they will be more likely to stay and peruse your content than if they had to hunt down the information themselves. Instead of looking for reviews of your company’s quality, they can find it all right at hand in your SMNR.

Which Social Media?

Given the sheer variety of social media networking sites, there is no one design of SMNR that will work in every situation. There are of course the broad guidelines already discussed, but these are not specific to any situation and for good reason. Applications such as Twitter or Digg are fairly universal, serving as conduits rather than direct sources of information. However services like Myspace and Facebook have differing user bases, and one may be more appropriate to your organization than the other. You must do the research to see what suits your business needs.

The most important piece of advice is to make your SMNR its own distinct element. We have discussed the importance of giving your online marketing efforts their own focus, rather than simply getting to them as you have time. The SMNR is no different. It will not replace the draw of a good blog or video series, just as an author’s webpage does not replace the act of actually reading his books.

Instead, find the social media networks that tie most organically into your usual web branding efforts, and build from there. If you’re focusing on a smaller audience, include instant messaging service so people can drop into the page chat room for quick input. If you’re going for a wider audience, Twitter is still an excellent way to quickly link your newest article or bit of press.

The Press Release

An integral part of any newsroom is the press release. This is not strictly speaking a traditional news story so much as it is a formalized announcement using the news style. As an illustration of the difference, a news story is when a journalism organization covers an event and relays the information. A press release is when the organization itself gives out information they feel is important, usually through a news channel. A good press release keeps to the basic facts, and is short and punchy.

The press release is therefore an outstanding tool for any SMNR. Brief and concise, it explains why your newest venture or change in policy deserves attention. It can be linked through your preferred social media tools and disseminated quickly, bringing people to your page for the full story. From there they can be directed to other materials, and you have your audience at hand.

Extra, Extra

Once again, the focus of the SMNR is as much about drawing in user commentary as it is about distributing information. Take the time to analyze the comments and usage figures from your newsroom against your chosen metrics. Listen to what people are saying, and engage them about these comments. Many good ideas have been lost simply for lack of communication, so take advantage of the fact that your audience is literally right there, in the newsroom with you, and ready to have a dialog.
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Enzo F. Cesario is an online brand management specialist and co-founder of Brandsplat. We are social media consultants. Make your site more findable and your brand more recognizable. For the free Brandcasting Report go to http://www.BrandSplat.com/ or visit our blog at http://www.iBrandCasting.com/

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Online Brand Building – Do You Need a Social Media Newsroom?

Categories : Social Media

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Mar

Strategies for Effective Twitter Marketing

Posted by: Jon Clayton | Comments (1)

Effective Twitter marketing strategies for a mommy blogger:

Imagine you are a mommy blogger and your Twitter participation goal is to increase readers for your mommy blog. Some of the steps you would most likely take are:

• Use Twitter and third-party search functions to search for people tweeting about subjects you write about, such as childcare, home schooling, behavioral issues. You would then follow these people.
• Include links to your blog posts in your Twitter updates.
• Tweet links from other publications for articles on these topics.
• Ask questions on Twitter as to what are the most pressing questions of parents raising young children today. (Then try to answer these questions in your blog posts.)

Effective Twitter marketing strategies for a book author:

Of course many of the strategies are similar to what a mommy blogger would do on Twitter. Except in this case you want people to buy your book – not just read what you’re written and made available for free. So in addition to following people who might be interested in your topic and sharing information connected to your topic, you might:

• Tweet a link every so often to a chapter of your book.
• Offer a discount on the book price to people on Twitter.
• Do a joint project with another author in which a certain number of people get your book free when buying the other author’s book and vice versa – a certain number of people who buy your book get the other author’s book for free.

Effective Twitter marketing strategies for a business:

In your case we can assume that your goal is more than a one-time purchase. You want to create relationships with people who will hopefully be your customers/clientele over a long period of time.

For you, effective Twitter marketing strategies include many of the above steps plus a clear-cut demonstration of your knowledge base. This knowledge base can be demonstrated by:

• Responding to questions asked on Twitter in your area of expertise. You don’t have to give away the entire store, but you do need to try to answer the question and/or provide a link to where the answer can be found.
• Tweeting links to information provided by people in the same field as you are. This indicates a willingness to share while demonstrating that you are comfortable providing information from others in your same field.
• Offering special discounts to people on Twitter.

In conclusion, you cannot follow these strategies only for a couple of weeks and then give up because the strategies haven’t produced massive results. You have to sincerely commit to consistently implementing your strategies long-term if you hope to have effective Twitter marketing strategies.
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Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is an Internet business consultant. If you liked this article, you’ll love her FREE report on “How to Become a Twitter Marketing Expert” – grab your report now from www.millermosaicllc.com/free-twitter-report

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Strategies for Effective Twitter Marketing

Categories : Social Media

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Feb

An Overview of Bing Webmaster Center

Posted by: Jon Clayton | Comments (1)

Hands up those of you who have verified your sites with Google Webmaster Tools? Ok, good. Now keep your hands up if you’ve done the same for Yahoo Site Explorer? Hmmm a few hands dropped then.

Now keep your hands up if you’ve verified your site with Bing Webmaster Center? Oh dear.

Seems quite a few webmasters are concentrating on Google and forgetting about the other major search engines. If you want to understand how search engines interact with your site and find potential issues before they impact your traffic, you really need to verify your site and sitemaps with the big 3 and monitor your stats regularly.

Most people are familiar with Google Webmaster Tools and Yahoo Site Explorer, but today I want to give you a brief overview of Bing Webmaster Center.

To add a site to Bing Webmaster Center, simply login to your Bing account (or create a new one) and then type in a URL and a sitemap if you have one. You will be prompted to verify your site via either a meta verification tag you place in your home page header, or an XML file that you upload to your server.

Once you’ve verified your first site, you’ll see a dashboard that looks quite similar to Google Webmaster Tools, with the following tabs:

Summary - lists the date Bing last crawled your site, the number of indexed pages, your domain score and the top 5 pages of your site.

Profile - lists your URL, the verification process you used and the email address associated with your site.
Crawl Issues - lists any issues Bing discovered while crawling and indexing your site, such as 404 errors, malware infections and long dynamic URLs.
Backlinks - lists which webpages (including your own) are linking to your site.
Outbound Links - lists the web pages your site is linking to.
Keywords - allows you to see how your pages are performing in search results for specific keywords.
Sitemaps - provides various ways for you to notify MSNBot of new sitemaps or when you change an existing sitemap.

The following additional tools are available when you’re logged into Webmaster Center:

Robots.txt validator
HTTP verifier
Keyword research tool

So don’t ignore Bing Webmaster Center. Remember that Google is NOT the Internet.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

An Overview of Bing Webmaster Center
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Categories : Social Media

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Jan

Five Social Media Predictions for 2010

Posted by: Jon Clayton | Comments (0)

Do you think the evolution of social media defies prediction? The truth is, social media’s explosion in 2009 shares common traits with general business trends and the growth of the Internet itself.

For entrepreneurs, global brand teams, and key players in mission-driven organizations, heeding the signs of what’s ahead becomes the difference between survival and extinction. To help these professionals as they begin a brand-new year of opportunity, social marketing and success strategies firm Epiphanies, Inc. is sharing five trend-infused predictions for how social media will affect the business world in 2010.

1. “You” Goes Social

In 1997, business thought leader Tom Peters unleashed the concept of personal branding — “The Brand Called You” — to a new generation of daring doers. In 2009, Best Buy made headlines by requiring applicants for a senior marketing position to have a Twitter account with 250 Followers to qualify.

In the blogosphere, arguments ensued over that number. Still, the point is clear: The future of “The Brand Called You” is social. In fact, more than 80% of professional recruiters plan to use social media platforms to screen job applicants, and also source “passive” candidates – people who would consider a better offer from a different company.

Bottom line: Employees and entrepreneurs alike will discover, on a widespread level, their social media presence and social networks make or break their professional fates.

2. SSO Steals the Show

Back in the heady days of Web 1.0, a whole new industry cropped up around Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Gaming Google became a billion-dollar business, and they fought back with ever-changing algorithms. The only way to win over the long run was to consistently add information-rich, keyword-relevant content to your website

It works the same way inside social media platforms, too, with Social Search Optimization (SSO). As it becomes ever more important to be found inside Facebook and LinkedIn, and since Google and Bing are now aggressively indexing social media platforms, content continues its reign as king of the online realm.

Bottom line: Because social activity and relevant content inform search engine results, SSO trumps SEO with authority.

3. Professional Standards Proliferate

TraditiPagesonal marketing agencies have clued in to corporate interest in social media. Whether they add it as an in-house service or partner with a third party, these agencies know they have to offer social media services to stay competitive.

But how does anyone know who’s reputable, and who just hung out a shingle? To answer this as an industry, social media is going the way of other serious vocations. Certification programs are coming online, from Hubspot’s Inbound Marketing University to the International Social Media Association’s (ISMA) various designations for professionals and virtual assistants. Other programs, like Social Media Magic University, provide niche training, and brick-and-mortar colleges now offer social media coursework.

Bottom line: Social media education and accreditation will be a significant factor in 2010 hiring and outsourcing decisions.

4. Business-to-business (B2B) Gets It

As a rule, businesses that sell to consumers (B2C) adopt new communication tools before the B2B world does. Until now, B2B has been resistant to social media, but in 2010, the B2B world will get over their reluctance and start embracing it.

There have been enough success stories to make it happen. Avaya sourcing a $250K sale through Twitter. Serena Software reporting cost savings with its “Facebook Friday” network building. Blendtec’s “Will It Blend?” YouTube videos tied to a 700% sales jump. There’s no point in taking a “wait and see” approach anymore.

Bottom line: With 92% of B2B buyers using the Internet for their purchasing research, and social media ever more critical to being found online, B2B adoption will accelerate.

5. Networks Consolidate

Social media companies may not have found the right money-making business model yet, but the life cycle pattern looks very familiar: Introduction, Growth, Maturity, and Decline. In 2010, social media will officially shift from Growth to Maturity.

Minor microblogging sites are disappearing. Facebook adoption continues to accelerate, squeezing out smaller sites. Only 1/5th of all custom Ning sites were active earlier in 2009. Maturity is coming, and it’ll reveal its full force very soon.

Bottom line: Wikipedia currently lists 173 “major active social networking websites” (excluding dating websites). Expect this number to drop significantly in 2010.

With 2010 upon us, any fears of the new world of social media, of the loss of control, and of criticism need to be set purposefully aside or addressed head-on. More than anything else, it’s essential to take action now in the social arena. There’s simply too much to lose, and countless opportunities to gain.
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As Certified Social Media Strategists and Certified Inbound Marketing Professionals, Lani and Allen Voivod of Epiphanies, Inc., train teams, craft strategies, and serve as long-term success partners for a handful of global brands, industries, and mission-driven organizations. Find out how they can help your business boost visibility, community, competitive edge, memberships, and profits at http://facebook.com/AhaYourself!

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Five Social Media Predictions for 2010

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Nov

7 Social Media Tactics for Explosive Results in Your Business

Posted by: Jon Clayton | Comments (0)

First, let’s define the term Explosive Results for our usage.

A standard social media campaign helps spread the word about you and encourages other people to as well.

An explosive social media campaign has inherent viral exposure, inspires community driven communication, helps make the web a better place, and even brings joy to people, however fleeting.

When you share in social media, if your goal is just to get more people to see your links, you’re on the right track, but at the same time, you’re limiting your potential. You may think that getting explosive results from social media will take more time, energy and money, but this doesn’t have to be the case.

If you’re a business owner, you know that working harder doesn’t necessarily mean better results – what if you’re working hard on the wrong thing?

Sometimes the remedy is working smarter. Here are a few small changes you can make to your social media approach that can propel your social media results from lukewarm to smoking hot.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #1 – Hot Content

The cornerstone to any social media campaign is the content. If you get this component wrong, it doesn’t matter if all other elements are perfect. Study what’s going hot in your targeted topic and find a unique angle to fit your content into what people already like, without stealing their ideas.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #2 – Niched Network Nuances

The more tightly focused your submissions to social media sites are, the more likely they are to go viral, whether they are links you share by other people or your own. Here’s the logic.

People follow other people with similar interests. They’re on sites like Google, Yahoo, StumbleUpon, Delicious and Digg actively looking for new content. Put those two things together and you have a whirlwind of clicks happening. The only question is, will it be your link that gets clicked or passed over?

Having 5000 connections on Twitter or Facebook is useless if you are connected to people who don’t want your broadcasts, and you’re just as useless to them if you don’t want theirs. If my interest is in improving my existing business and you’re trying to get me to sell your network marketing products, it doesn’t matter how many times you ask me. If I’m not interested, your continued broadcasts will be ignored, or worse yet, blocked completely.

It’s about the perfect balance of quality AND quantity.

And if I’m not paying attention to you, I can’t and won’t spread your message. If you are in network marketing, why not go after people who love the network marketing concept but can’t seem to find the right company? That’s a perfect match, and can dramatically cut down your search for the right partners and prospects.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #3 – Simplify Sharing

It amazes me how many people miss this one.

You’ve got great content. You’ve got a massive, niched network.

Why feed them content that’s hard to share? Does that report have to be in PDF format? If so, does it have to be behind an opt-in wall if you’re spreading it among people who have Already opted in? Anyone connected to your business through its Facebook page, or your Twitter stream is also part of your opt-in list. Yes, it would be best if they were on your email newsletter list, but what faster way to get them there than to show them you don’t need to hold them prisoner there?

If your whitepaper is of such high value that you don’t Want it to spread, well, that’s something different. But if you’re sharing it so other people will spread it, make it easy for others to share.

•    Send your su.pr link so all they have to do is click the Thumbs-Up button.
•    Put a few sharing links on your page.
•    Make it easy for them to Retweet.

The easier it is for them to share, the more likely they are to do it.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #4 – Consistency

And now we come to the area I fail at the most. It’s one of the things I know I need to do, but I haven’t quite gotten the hang of how to brainstorm, create and distribute quality content consistency, and still give them best possible service and support to my customers and clients. I always err on serving people who have bought from me, figuring that next blog post can wait until tomorrow.

Then at some point, I noticed a decline in return traffic – people weren’t coming back because they’d already heard everything I had to say. The solution? I got help for my content creation process. The ideas are still mine, but I was able to barter help for research, transcribing, and editing. I am also able to get audio and video polished much less expensively than I thought, though I don’t always use this option due to time constraints.

The other thing that helped a lot was getting over my perfectionism complex. Release your content as soon as you can. I can’t tell you how much money I’ve left on the table from my old fear of the typo and grammar police. Not to mention the fact that I felt like I was leaving my audience hanging.

You subscribe to something because you want to get regular updates. If your favorite daily news show started coming on once a week, you’d probably switch channels. If you’re inconsistent without explanation, your audience numbers will drop and your network will fade.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #5 – Think Engagement

Measuring your results by page view alone is a thing of the past. When the web was mostly text and images, it made some sense that how many pages a visitor viewed at your site was a true measure of engagement.

Nowadays this isn’t the case. You want to look instead at how long people are at your site. The exception, of course, is when customers are coming to your site to buy, and the order processing system takes them off your page. But if people aren’t leaving your site because they’re ready to buy or subscribe, you truly must look at why they aren’t paying more attention to your content, and what changes you can make to get them to stay.

This is critically important in understanding which content will go viral naturally. What posts are people staying on your site to comment on? When do they take a few extra seconds to retweet? Are they watching your videos all the way through?

Once you know the content your audience is most connected to, and why, you can make more of it.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #6 – Three-Way Connection and Communication

That’s not a typo. Three-way communication is when the way you conduct yourself online is observed to a third party, who is also indirectly being addressed by your manner or statement. I wish I could credit the proper author of this, but I just don’t remember who it was who first observed that three people are positively affected by an act of kindness – the person giving, the person receiving, and the person observing.

One example of this in action is having a conversation with a peer about their new product on a social media site. Your friend is probably Dying to tell someone about the testimonial they just got, but don’t want to be rude or are too humble to brag. Ask them in front of your audience, and the conversation is exposed to your connections and re-exposed to theirs.

Connection is just as important – if communication is the conveyance of information, connection is doing so in a way that bonds. A several hundred closely bonded contacts will spread your message faster and farther than several thousand distant aquaintances.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #7 – What’s In It for All?

In the 80s, we all thought about what was in it for ourselves. In the 90s we decided to focus on others, hence, what’s in it for them. Today, we’re in the age of the win-win-win situation. Tell them how you benefit and tie it to their benefit.

Want someone to help you spread your stories? Make sure they know how important it is to you, why you came to them for help, and how they’ll be perceived for being the bearer of your good news.

You may look at the list above and feel that it’s intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. Focus on doing just one of these things better each day for a few weeks, and before you know it, you’ll be doing them habitually. The results you’ll get will help these new habits stick.
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Can you really get up to 27,000 visitors in a week from social media? I did and I can show you how to do the same without cheating the system, or spending 20 hours a week on social media sites. Find out how in this free video at http://www.freetraffictip.com/27kvisitors and see the proof for yourself, today.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

7 Social Media Tactics for Explosive Results in Your Business
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Categories : Social Media

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Nov

How You Use Social Media Can Kill Your Business

Posted by: Jon Clayton | Comments (0)

The social media movement has expanded the number of people we can reach and connect with on a personal level. The new relationships and connections we create with people all over the world can have a profound effect on our personal and business growth. We learn about cultures and nations that we were, perhaps, previously ignorant of. None of this is a new concept, but what may be is how quickly you can destroy your business by using social media incorrectly.

Transparency is a Utopian Concept

Not too long ago, Michael Fortin wrote an article titled “Don’t Be Transparent, Be Authentic Instead”. That article is an important read for any social media wrangling business blogger and you can search for it online.

That article is the tip of the iceberg in the concept of ‘transparency’ being too Utopian to work within the jaded confines of our society. Of course, true transparency is ideal. Many things about a perfect world are. Unfortunately, as a group, most of the world isn’t ready or willing to accept true transparency without penalty.

When Transparency Fails

Let me give you a couple of examples of transparency failure we’ve seen.

Failure 1: We had a copywriter who was posting on Twitter about the work he was doing. He made several posts within a few hours which were ugly complaints about a client and how ’stupid’ he felt that client was. We obviously considered this unacceptable and immediately removed him from our list of subcontractors, but think about this: If he was hoping to use Twitter to get more client work – how many potential clients just read that and thought… “I’m not going to risk being badmouthed on here, I’ll find someone else.” Everyone gets frustrated, but what if the client he was working on read that? Put it this way, if you wouldn’t say it to your client directly – don’t post it either.

Failure 2: We had a designer who was a day late returning her design phase work. When we contacted her, she said she had a family emergency the night before and was unable to send in her work because she wasn’t home. A quick check on Facebook showed that she was actually out at a party that night and posted multiple times while drunk talking about how much she was drinking and even hinting at wanting to bring a man she met there home with her. Obviously, we relieved her of the design work, handed it to another designer who caught up on the time schedule, and never again worked with her. In this case, people are allowed to have a life, we understand that. But if you cannot get your work done and have to lie about why – it’s a problem. If you do not have enough class to not post details about your ‘wild nights’ to everyone on your social networks — that’s also a problem.

How We Monitor Social Media Conversations

My business has been around for over a decade and is very focused on client satisfaction and excellent treatment of our web design clients. We have a network of hundreds of copywriters, designers, and coders who work with us on projects. However, even with screening of those experts when they come on board with us – you don’t always know someone until you have observed them over a long period of time.

That’s why we monitor what they say online.

How do we do that? Well first we get as many of their social profiles as we can. Usually, we ask for a list of them. We’ve also found that most people won’t provide them all. We then Google search the usernames of the ones they have given us because most people use the same usernames over and over. We also monitor blogs, and check for listings of social networks on those.

We have a system set up to consolidate all their social media comments into one master feed. That master feed can then be browsed directly to see what they’re up to, but that’s a lot of things to read each day. What we do is take the master feed, run it through a filter that creates two sub-feeds based on certain things we think are important to monitor. The first sub-feed is created by running the master list through a keyword & synonym filter that pulls out words related to business – for instance, “client” “business” “work” etc… The second sub-feed has a filter that runs their posts through a check for foul language and words like “sex” “drugs” “drunk” etc… There are hundreds of words in each filter.

Seem a bit ‘big brother’? It probably is – but reputation and client treatment is very important to us.

Here’s the thing: If we can read it and you can lose work with us over it… how many POTENTIAL clients did you lose also?

7 Ways to Edit Yourself

We’re not suggesting you stop having a life and stop making mistakes. You can post about those things and it simply makes you a more interesting person to read about. Just use common sense:

1. If you wouldn’t say it to a client or boss – don’t say it where they can read it either.
2. If you wouldn’t say it to your grandmother – don’t say it on your public posts.
3. If you wouldn’t say it to a police officer – don’t post it on your social networks. For that matter, don’t do it either.
4. If you plan to lie to your boss – don’t put the truth where they can see it.
5. If you plan to go out and get drunk and know you have a tendency to post while drunk – give your phone to a friend to keep for you.
6. Learn how to use privacy settings and understand how visible your posts are on different social networks.
7. If you want a place to vent – create a completely different identity for yourself to do that. Name no names in your posts, and make no connection to your other profiles or email addresses.

Consider it all part of Internet Etiquette. Social networks are great to hear more personal things about someone and we encourage people to share a bit of themselves online (using normal cautions etc..). In the long run, full transparency is too Utopian for our modern world to handle well. We’re still at a point in our societal growth that when someone seriously calls a client an idiot – they tend to get a bit upset about it.
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Nicole Hernandez is a web developer with a specialty in web standards and accessibility. She is the owner of Website Style and publishes technical articles on her blog called Beyond Caffeine.

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How You Use Social Media Can Kill Your Business

Categories : Social Media

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