febrero 24, 2010

Crear contenido para tu blog pensando en social media

Escribir para la web es un arte vinculado con la experiencia de crear contenido de calidad, que sea atractivo para el lector pero también un arte que debe difundirse en todos los medios que en la actualidad utilizamos para comunicarnos; escribimos un post que luego promovemos a través de las redes sociales porque sabemos que son las vías adecuadas para llegar al público que nos interesa, pero la tarea no es sencilla.

Los blogs siguen siendo la plataforma más fácil para gestionar contenido, pero algo que definitivamente ha cambiado es la manera en la que se consume ese contenido publicado en el blog. Resulta que ahora debemos escribir pensando no sólo en el lector del blog que esta suscrito a través de RSS, también es necesario incluir en cada entrada las opciones sociales para promover, compartir el contenido y hasta en los diversos dispositivos móviles de acceso.

Elementos sociales vinculados al contenido

Este ejemplo de Social Media Stats diseñado por Josh Hallett y publicado en Voce Communications nos permite visualizar los elementos sociales vinculados al contenido que generamos en cada entrada de nuestro blog. El ejemplo fue aplicado a la promoción de un evento, pero también podemos aplicar mucho de los vínculos al contenido de un post de nuestro blog.

En la gráfica se observa que al crear una entrada en un blog es importante pensar en los vínculos que tendrá con las redes sociales, tomando en cuenta que cada una tiene acciones diferentes de distrubución de contenido. Vicular los servicios sociales y hacer que nuestro blog sea amigable para los mismos, permitirá que tengamos acceso a mayor información en el comportamiento estadístico de la distrubución del contenido y analizar las tendencias de consumo.

Comprender el ecosistema social

Entonces conectar nuestro contenido a las redes sociales o distribuirlo a través de ellas no solo es mandar a través de nuestra cuenta de Twitter o Facebook el link al nuevo post. En realidad se requiere más que eso, debemos conocer el ecosistema social, comprender cómo se dialoga con quienes consumen contenido y los canales en que se consume ahora la información.

Un aspecto importante es no caer en la dinámica de Spam en donde utilizas los medios sociales para mandar links de forma masiva, porque eso no es saludable. También debes brindar opciones sociales dentro de tu blog para que sea incluso el mismo usuario quien se encargue de promover tu contenido utilizando las herramientas sociales.

Stephanie Falla Aroche para Maestros del Web.
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Rundes

febrero 17, 2010

The 39 Social Media Tools I’ll Use Today

Amazingly, it seems like there’s more social media tools than Jonas brothers, with the gap growing every day.

I don’t feel the need to experiment with every new piece of software that emerges from its chrysalis, but I do feel a responsibility to you and my clients to have some idea of what’s out there and what’s worthwhile.

Also, at my social media speaking engagements hither and yon I’m often asked what tools I use. So, I took a personal inventory and created this overview of the 39 social media tools I use daily.

Twitter

Tweetdeck
I use Tweetdeck for serious twitter sessions. I find it to be especially valuable and hassle-free for updating Twitter, Facebook, and LInkedin simultaneously. I do this only occasionally, however, as my friends/followers on each site don’t have much overlap.

Tweetie
This extremely intuitive Mac-only app is my hour-to-hour choice for Twitter. It doesn’t have the advanced functionality of Tweetdeck (such as cross-posting to Facebook), but it’s so easy-to-use that it’s my favorite Twitter app. It takes up a lot less screen real estate that Tweetdeck, and I always use Tweetie when conducting my live, Twitter 20 interviews.

Objective Marketer
This power-user Twitter app is the preferred vehicle for Guy Kawasaki. I use Objective Marketer for all of my in-advance Tweets, and when I want to engage in some headline and/or time of day testing. Lifetime statistics, cross-posting, multiple accounts, etc. If you’re serious about Twitter, this is a great app. It’s a good choice for agencies, too. (Disclosure: Objective Marketer gave me a free account)

Note: There are thousands of Twitter apps (literally). If you really want to roll around in the possibilities, spend some time over at Laura Fitton’s (@pistachio) One Forty, the app store for Twitter.

Facebook

I don’t use a lot of apps for Facebook, preferring to play it pretty close to the vest there – for now. (I’m working on a Fan Page that will be launching next month). Meanwhile, however, I do very much like Facebook Lite, which strips down a lot of the shiny distractions, and gives you a threaded News Feed, birthdays, and events – and that’s about it. I think Facebook Lite makes Facebook engagement easier – maybe you will too?

Blog Comments

(The blog is on WordPress)
Disqus
This is what I use to manage comments here at Convince & Convert. There are some elements of Disqus I don’t like, especially that it doesn’t always play nice with other plug-ins, but it does make commenting easier and faster for most of you who already have a Disqus account. I’ve seen my average number of comments increase since I moved to Disqus.

ChatCatcher
This is a nice little tool that finds Tweets about your blog posts, and automatically adds them as comments. This is one of the plug-ins that doesn’t sync well with Disqus, so it’s not working as well as it used to, pre-Disqus. Also, some bloggers (including Ari Herzog and Valeria Maltoni) don’t favor including tweets as comments, since they are not true “comments.” But, if you want to organize and harvest the tweets about your posts, this is the plug-in you want.

Virality & Search

Topsy
One part virality tool, one part tracking mechanism, one part social listening post, Topsy is becoming one of new favorites. I’ve moved from Tweetmeme to Topsy on my embedded tweeting, due to improved metrics, and Topsy’s competitive intelligence capabilities are impressive. Find a tweet your competitor sent, and see how many times it was retweeted, by whom, which among them are influencers, etc. It works like bit.ly, but incorporates all URL shorteners into the data mix.

Sexy Bookmarks Plug-in
My friend Michael Stelzner from Social Media Examiner (where I guest post monthly), turned me on to this excellent plug-in that improves upon the social sharing user interface. See an example at the bottom of this post (the little squares that animate when you put your cursor over them).

What Would Seth Godin Do
Technically, I don’t use this plug-in any longer, as my apres-post appeals are now hard-coded, but this is an excellent little nugget that not enough people utilize. Use WWSGD to include a little message before or after each of your posts, asking readers to subscribe to your RSS feed (or buy you a drink). The genius of this plug-in (and the reason it’s named after Seth Godin) is that you can set one message for first-time visitors, and a second message for repeat visitors. Smart.

All In One SEO Pack
Like many bloggers, I utilize the excellent All in One SEO Pack plug-in to optimize posts for search engine rankings. This nifty piece of software allows you to specify page title, description, and keywords for each post. A must.

Photos

Apture
Although I don’t use it all the time, I find myself turning to it with increased frequency. Apture is a handy plug-in that finds photos, videos, links and related content that you can embed or link to within your posts with a single click. Extremely handy for locating and adding links to specific Web pages (see link to Seth Godin above).

Flickr Creative Commons Search
This is my go-to source for photos for the blog and presentations. Using Flickr’s advanced search, you can browse photos that are specifically made available under a Creative Commons license, allowing you to use them with attribution in blog posts, etc.

Shutterstock
When I want a slightly higher grade of photo, or more precise searching, I utilize Shutterstock. This robust source for inexpensive stock photography is my secret lair of images for my presentations and workshops. Pricing is very reasonable, as you can download and use 60 images a year for just $229.

Skitch
I’m no Photoshop wizard. In fact, I’m basically illiterate at photo manipulation. That’s why I use Skitch, an incredibly intuitive image grabber and cropper (for Mac) that has the very attractive added benefit of being free.

Tracking

Google Analytics
No surprise, this is my primary statistical source for Convince & Convert. Despite being free, Google keeps adding functionality to Google Analytics. I have a few goals set up, including visits to my speaking page; visits to my consulting page; time spent on the site, etc.

bit.ly
The dominant URL shortener is also the best – in my opinion – at tracking and analytics. I implement bit.ly URLs whenever possible, and make liberal use of their “+” feature. Add “+” at the end of any bit.ly URL to see how many times it’s been clicked on, and by whom. Try it yourself. Excellent for down-and-dirty competitive analysis.

Swix
This is a slick new social media dashboard program that I’ve been trying. I’m planning to write a full post about it soon, but the real genius of Swix is that it allows you to easily create a unified scoreboard of all your key social media metrics like blog traffic, subscribers, Facebook fans, Twitter followers, YouTube subscribers, and much more.

Authority Labs
By far my favorite tool for tracking search engine positioning, Authority Labs shows you at a glance whether you’re #4 or #40 in Google, Bing and Yahoo! for whatever search terms are important to you and your business. Owned by my friend Chase Granberry in Arizona, Authority Labs gave me a free account.

Content Creation

Cameras
For still photos, I typically use my iPhone 3GS or Panasonic Lumix TZ5. I use the Panasonic a ton with my family, as I find it to have the best combination of zoom and wide angle capabilities.

For videos, I recently got a Kodak ZI-8 which I prefer to my old Flip because it has an external microphone jack. This is an important advantage, as I bought a $30 lavalier microphone and can now grab good audio even at crowded conferences, etc. The one downside is Kodak’s built-in video software pales in comparison to Flip’s, forcing me to use iMovie on the Mac, which I can barely tolerate.

TubeMogul
For video upload and syndication, I often use TubeMogul, which allows you to upload a single video clip to dozens of video sites – not just YouTube. The real advantage of TubeMogul, however, is that you can get comparative statistics. For example, how many views did your video get on each site, and how long on average did viewers watch your clip on each site? It’s a great tool for moving beyond video upload to strategic video optimization.

SlideShare
I upload most of my presentations to SlideShare, and find it to be a valuable resource for growing an audience. My presenation “7 Ways to Build Stunning Business and Personal Brands in Social Media” was originally given in person to 35 people. Since I uploaded it to Slideshare, it’s been viewed 12,360 times. That’s the magnifying power of Slideshare – which also now allows you to upload audio tracks to accompany your presentations.

Listening

Twazzup
For quick Twitter searches, I prefer Twazzup, due to its straightforward interface, and overall speed.

SocialMention
For more comprehensive social media searching, I use SocialMention, which indexes blogs, tweets, message board posts, and a lot more. See my post on How to Create a Share of Voice Report for a free worksheet that uses SocialMention.

Google Alerts
Like most marketing professionals, I have several Google Alerts set up for my name, my company name, and topics of interest to me. This is invaluable for finding bloggers that have linked to my posts, so I can go to their blog and thank you in the comments – a practice I highly recommend.

Radian6
For advanced social media listening, I often recommend my friends at Radian6, who have – in my opinion – the most robust feature set and product development roadmap of all the widely available social listening platforms.

Email

ExactTarget
To produce, send, and track my free, twice-monthly email newsletter “The Social Media Messenger” (sign up here if you don’t receive it yet), I use my friends at ExactTarget. Given the simplicity of my newsletter, sending it via ExactTarget is like flying on a jet plane to go get a quart of milk, but it’s nice to know that massively advanced functionality is available if I need it. (disclosure: ExactTarget is a client, and I have worked with them for more than six years)

Feedburner
To power my RSS feed and to send daily emails whenever I write a new post, I use Google’s Feedburner service. It’s not perfect, but it’s free and easy to implement. Note that nearly 40% of all subscribers to this blog are via email, not RSS. Are you pushing email subscriptions to your blog hard enough?

Flowtown
As mentioned in my post last week, this is my favorite new tool. Flowtown allows you to take email addresses (like the people subscribed to my newsletter) and determine in which social networks they are active. This is especially handy when you need to segment your audience. For example, when I’m ready to invite people to my new Facebook Fan Page, I can use Flowtown to determine which of you are active on Facebook, and send an email only to that group. Nifty.

NutshellMail
See tomorrow’s post for a deeper look at this tool, but NutshellMail brings your social media activity to you via email, instead of you having to surf around and use tools to see what’s happening. Extremely handy while traveling, I also highly recommend Nutshell for casual social media users.

iPhone

Just about anyone that builds a social media audience partially does so because they create a lot of content, and are responsive. Mobile access to the social Web is a virtual requirement to do it well.

Tweetie 2
I’ve used at least six iPhone apps for Twitter, but for now I prefer Tweetie 2, which makes the best use of the iPhone’s swipe features. You can do more in less time with Tweetie 2 on the iPhone, and it’s super fast and bug-free.

Facebook
The original Facebook app on iPhone was just okay, but it’s been massively improved, to the point that Facebook access via mobile might actually be easier than on a computer. (100 million people use Facebook mobile every month, by the way). The single best aspect is photo and video upload and captioning, which is integrated so tightly with iPhone that it truly is better than laptop or desktop uploading.

Linkedin
Similarly, the Linkedin iPhone app has made major strides, and I find myself rarely using Linkedin via a computer any longer.

Gowalla
For presence-based status updates, I use Gowalla. I’ve tried Foursquare, too. But for me, more of my three-dimensional friends who are close enough geographically that I care what restaurant they are at are using Gowalla. I push Gowalla updates to my Facebook friends, but not to Twitter where I figure my geographic status is less illuminating.

WordPress
The WordPress iPhone app is slick. You can write, edit, update posts; add photos; and approve comments (although not with Disqus). Great little app for on-the-fly blog management.

Analytics
For basic stats tracking, this app is better and faster than Google Analytics on the computer. It also includes a handy “today” reports that shows you what’s happened on your blog since last night – a report that Google Analytics still doesn’t offer.

Print n Share
For true device-agnostic types, this is a great app that allows you to print from your iPhone to any printer. You probably won’t use it every day, but when you need to print a boarding pass or slide handouts from your iPhone, you’ll be delighted you have this one.

Zenbe
This is a no-frills to-do list app that syncs between the Web and iPhone. Indispensable for me, and I’m constantly checking it to see what projects I have due, what posts I need to write, etc.

Bonus: DirecTV
If you have an iPhone and DirecTV, this is uber-handy. If you forget to tape a show, or just want to tape some super crazy show remotely to freak out your spouse when he/she looks at your playlist, this is a must-have.

I’m sure you have your own ideas about tools I’ve overlooked, or things you use that readers (and me) could benefit from. Please leave a comment and let’s discuss.

Rundes

febrero 11, 2010

Why Brands are Becoming Media

Brian Solis is a principal at new media agency FutureWorks, and author of the upcoming book, Engage. You can connect with him on Twitter or Facebook.

One of the greatest challenges I encounter today is not the willingness of a brand to engage, but its ability to create. When blueprinting a social media strategy, enthusiasm and support typically derails when examining the resources and commitment required to produce regular content.

Indeed, we are programing the social web around our brand hub, which requires a consistent flow of engaging and relevant social objects. Social objects are the catalysts for conversations — online and in real life — and they affect behavior within their respective societies.

They are our tweets, our Flickr photos, YouTube videos, Facebook updates and events, Delicious links, FourSquare check-ins, and blog posts.

But once we introduce a social object, we must be ready to back it up with additional relevant content, and create a publishing calendar programmed specifically for each network on which we maintain a presence.

Brands Become Their Media

There’s a saying in theater: A big part of acting is reacting. This is especially true when we consider how many individuals, brands, and organizations engage on the web today. Instead of seeking inspiration and direction from those around us however, we simply react to activity, which may or may not benefit us in the long run.

The democratization of publishing and the equalization of influence allows us to create and connect with a wider reach. Everything starts with a mission, and is fortified by the content we create.

Among the most valuable resources we procure through dedicated publishing is good will, social capital, and influence. It comes at a price however: The cost of production, distribution, and support. In the end, you get out what you put in. The investment represents time, money, creativity, and passion.

Thus, we not only become our media — through production and engagement, we can become influential.

Productive Social Media Must Be Earned

While establishing a presence is elementary, captivating audiences is artful. In the near future, brands and organizations will create new or augment existing roles for editors and publishers to create timely, relevant, and captivating content on all social media channels. This work is in addition to the other reactive and proactive social media campaigns that are already in progress. A strategic editorial calendar should blend video, audio, imagery, text, updates, and other social objects and networks to reach, inspire, and galvanize communities.

Earned, Paid, and Owned Media

In media, there are several channels that populate and shape perception — earned, paid, and owned media. Each requires a dedicated management system that actively creates, monitors and stimulates strategic movement.

Recently, Sean Corcoran, an analyst at Forrester Research, published a detailed post that describes the differences between earned, paid and owned. He clarifies the roles for brands who undertake the responsibility of embracing new media. Dave Fleet, a thought leader in new media and public relations, also visualized Corcoran’s thoughts through a series of graphics that represent the social media ecosystem.

As Corcoran points out in his recent report:

“Increasingly, interactive marketers are being asked to manage a wide range of paid and unpaid marketing communication —- despite the fact that many marketing departments are still organized around traditional paid marketing channels. All types of online media (whether ‘earned,’ ‘owned,’ or ‘paid’) can play specific roles in meeting marketers’ objectives —- especially when seamlessly working together. To find the right balance between these types of media, marketers should take stock of their resources, listen for the impact of earned media, look for opportunities to shift short-term paid media to the role of catalyst, and begin to build out a solar system of long-term owned media touchpoints.”

In other words, paid, earned and owned media require thoughtful programming and targeted distribution and must be linked to a systematic review of behavior and activity that surrounds each object. And, the analysis of activity and ultimately the end result should play a monumental role in the creation of future publishing and social activation.

Corcoran uses the word “touchpoint,” which by standard definition, refers to any point of contact between a buyer and a seller. Touchpoint is part of the greater opportunity here. But more importantly, these touchpoints require direction and the establishment of a path that offers a complete experience — a beginning, a middle, an end, and a reward.

These experiences are definable by paid, earned, and owned media.

New media necessitates a collaboration between all teams involved in creating and distributing content, including advertising, interactive, communications, brand, and marketing — with an editorial role connecting the dots. We are competing for attention and our success is dependent on our ability to not compete against each other. Producing content and lobbing it over the firewall to an “audience” will only confuse communities. Therefore, we are obligated to build pipelines that carry strategic communications, each with calculated intents, targets and outcomes.

If we examine the differences between earned, owned, and paid, we can visualize necessary programming and dedicated channels for each.

Owned media is essentially that which we control. If we designed the object, we own the content within the object. Most likely, we also own (or lease) the distribution channels that present these objects to our target communities. We do not however, control the impression and perception of our objects. We lose that control at the point of distribution.

For example, in addition to standard web pages, social media presences contribute to our portfolio of owned media including Twitter accounts, Facebook Fan Pages, Blogs, YouTube channels, etc. By creating presences in the communities where our customers, prospects, partners, and influencers congregate and collaborate, we can lay the foundation to contribute “earned” social objects of value.

Social hubs are also gaining prominence in social media plans as brands weigh options for directing traffic. The creation of strategic landing pages can extend the rich, interactive experience within social networks (channels which we partially own) to pages we do own. This shapes the experience in a way that maintains interactivity and targeted options for action. I’m not necessarily recommending the creation of microsites, unless it’s warranted in the overall program. But a bridge that connects the social experience to a valuable destination is important.

Forrester’s Corcoran recommends that brands create a “solar system” of owned media. However, I suggest that brands instead create a focused ecosystem of media that establishes presences where their communities are already active — a brand or organization-specific social media ecosystem. This requires research. In the process, we uncover not only locations that require our engagement, but also how, where, when and to what extent to participate. We just may find that the given locations for social profiles represent only part of the many opportunities rife within the Conversation Prism.

Paid media represents the visibility we purchase, such as display ads, paid search, and sponsorships. When paired with owned and earned media programs, paid media can complement, reinforce, and polish a brand’s voice, directives, mission, and stature. While many argue over the future and fate of advertising, what’s clear is that online paid presences can benefit initiatives where action and experiences are defined and promoted through the click path. Current trends reflect a shift away from branding programs and place emphasis on sparking desired activity, empowering viewers and their social graph to share in the experience all in ways that measure the cost per action.

Earned media is the result of our owned, paid, and participatory media programs and is reflected in the blog posts, tweets, status updates, comments, and ultimately actions of our consumers, peers, and influencers. Earned media is linked to owned media campaigns as well as proactive initiatives that attempt to incite viral and word-of-mouth activity. Garnered visibility is also tied to communications and public relations programs as they continually seek to gain the attention of reporters, bloggers, analysts, and influencers who can drive awareness and behavior.

This isn’t a one way street however. Success is absolutely conditional on the techniques and methodologies that inspire dedicated programs focused on outreach, relations, and hopefully the engendering of productive and mutually beneficial relationships. Crowd-powered visibility also merits an official and devoted listening and response initiative to ensure that each respective community aligns with the mission.

Participatory media is an extension of earned and owned media. It takes the shape of a hosted hub where brand representatives and our communities can interact and collaborate. Good examples of this are Dell’s IdeaStorm and Starbucks’ “My Idea” network, which resemble branded wikis designed to elicit responses and establish community-focused governances. Participatory media equalizes the balance of power, providing a dedicated platform the gives voice to the consumer and a channel for their ideas.

Sponsored media is a new category that fuses owned, paid, and earned media. Sponsored media is championed by companies like Izea, Ad.ly, and Twittad, among others, and is creating a new medium for packaging messages through trusted voices within highly visible and social channels. Sponsored media can take the form of paid tweets, blog posts, appearances, and featured objects on targeted profiles. And, whether you agree or disagree with the idea, the reality is that it works, and seems to benefit all parties involved, from the brand, to the paid affiliates, to their communities. In fact, Forrester’s Josh Bernoff and Sean Corcoran shared their thoughts on why sponsored media is worthy of consideration.

Sponsored objects fuse earned, paid, and owned media, as technically: 1) The messages are owned; 2) The voices are paid, and; 3) With more thoughtful approaches, the responses within targeted communities can inspire a positive wave of earned media.

Disclosure: My company works with Ted Murphy, Founder/CEO of izea.com.

Influence

As media, brands earn prominence and hopefully influence as rewards for contributing meaningful content. On Twitter, brands can earn legions of loyal and responsive followers, who in turn become brand advocates and ambassadors, extending the messages, mission and purpose of the brand to their followers as well. On Facebook, brands can cultivate vibrant and dedicated communities where interaction inspires increased responses — each reverberating across new social graphs. On Ustream and YouTube, we can earn global audiences of viewers who tune in to watch our programming and interact with brand representatives in a live community that spills over other social networks. And of course, our blog is more important than we may realize. Through our posts, we can establish a strong alliance of subscribers who hope to learn new things and participate in the discussion of a brand’s future.

As Tom Foremski points out, we have the ability to earn noteworthy, equal, and in some cases, greater influence than those authorities whom we’ve relied on over the years to help us reach greater audiences and communities. As influence is equalized, our ability to earn presence and relationships is derived from how we program, manage, and participate in all forms of media. And, it is through a balance of media and engagement that we also establish the foundation for affinity. People align with movements they can believe in, and it is the human, intellectual, and financial investment in genuine content that defines experiences, and hopefully one day earns the significance your brand deserves.

More business resources from Mashable:

- The Maturation of Social Media ROI
– The 10 Stages of Social Media Business Integration
– HOW TO: Use Social Media to Connect with Other Entrepreneurs
– HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy
– 9 Great Document Collaboration Tools for Teams
– HOW TO: Choose a News Reader for Keeping Tabs on Your Industry
– 5 Advanced Social Media Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses

Images courtesy of iStockphoto, cogal, YanC, Juanmonino

Reviews: Delicious, Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, Twitter, YouTube, iStockphoto, ustream

Tags: blog, blogging, brand, branding, business, facebook, List, Lists, MARKETING, small business, social media, social media marketing, social networking, twitter, ustream, youtube

Rundes

febrero 11, 2010

5 Ways to Avoid Sabotaging Your Personal Brand Online

Dan Schawbel is the bestselling author of Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, an award winning blogger at Personal Branding Blog, a national speaker and consultant on branding and a BusinessWeek columnist.

There have been countless incidents in which professionals have lost their jobs, been evicted, or even been arrested for things they’ve done on social networks. There has never been a more important time to discuss the many ways you can sabotage your personal brand, and how you can prevent these mistakes before it’s too late.

A new report by Microsoft states that 64% of HR managers think it is appropriate to look at online profiles of candidates and 41% have rejected people as a result. Your online presence — which may consist of both content that you provide (on your LinkedIn profile for instance), as well as what’s written about you by people you may or may not know — is slowly becoming part of the formal recruitment process. It’s also where first impressions occur before in-person handshakes are made, so you have to make sure you are managing your brand online, before someone else does it for you. The following are five ways to avoid sabotaging your personal brand.

1. Don’t Ignore Brand Mentions

58% of Americans don’t even Google themselves, but employers and potential customers certainly will. It’s safe to say that people are already talking about you, either online or offline.

As you create your personal brand on a variety of platforms, your name will start popping up in search engines and on social networks. This can be both beneficial to your brand or harmful depending on the context. The viral nature of social networks, as well as their new ubiquity, should encourage you to start listening in on what people are saying about you.

Negative mentions will spread fast unless you keep your ear close to the web, so I recommend you setup a Google alert for your name, your company’s name, key competitors, partners, and industry buzz terms. There are many other free tools that can help you monitor your brand. You can also try Social Mention for a more complete solution to brand mentions on social networks.

2. Don’t Spread Yourself Too Thin

A future problem, which some might say is a current problem, is the volume of social networks and the amount of status updates and messages you receive each day. If you’re active on each and every social network that launches, you will start to spread yourself too thin, which can really hurt your brand. You won’t possibly be able to update all of your social profiles, as well as keep track of pictures, profile information, groups, etc. In general, you should only join the largest social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), as well as those networks in your industry.

As I noted in a previous Mashable post, you should reserve your full name on as many of the popular social networks as possible by using a service such as namechk.com, before someone who shares your name claims them and you’re locked out for life. But just because you have claimed your name everywhere doesn’t mean you should expend valuable time and energy maintaining a presence on every social network.

There are some websites that allow you to scale your social feeds so that one status update can automatically spread to other networks, without manually publishing content. You can use hellotxt.com or ping.fm to spread your status message to many social networks at once, including Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and Bebo. You can also go to your LinkedIn profile and syndicate your tweets for your LinkedIn status update automatically or by using “#in” for each tweet (if you want to be selective). There is also a Facebook application for Twitter so you can syndicate your tweets through your Facebook profile.

3. Know Your Audience

It’s really easy to forgot who you’re connected with on social networks as they grow. You might start out with high school, college, and summer camp friends, and then add some co-workers when you start a new job. There will be a point where you’re going to have to make a strategic decision, who you accept and who you don’t. The second you add your manager or colleagues is the time when you have to rethink what you publish or what you syndicate from other social networks. One mistake could cause you trouble.

On Facebook, you may want to have a profile page for your inner circle of friends and family members and then a Facebook Fan Page for your professional image. This way, you can make your profile private and hide it from search, while having a fan page that you can point your coworkers to. They will know that you are hiding your profile but should respect your privacy, especially since you’re giving them the option to follow your fan page.

4. Limit Self-Promotion

Certainly, self-promotion is an extremely important part of building your brand because if no one knows of your achievements or the company you work for, then how are they going to do business with you? Yet, I’ve noticed that people often over-promote themselves in various ways across the web.

Successful self-promotion only works in moderation, because if you’re constantly only promoting yourself, many people will unfollow, unfriend, or block you from their network. The best way to build a strong personal brand is to promote other people, which creates goodwill and a connection, as well as distributing value based on what you have to offer: Your expertise. If you’re helping people 80 or 90% of the time, then people will be much more accepting of your self-promotional messages the other 10%. You will also start to notice that other people will promote you — and their endorsement is even stronger than your own proclamations.

5. Be Consistent

Consistency is extremely important when it comes to any kind of branding, from personal to corporate.

Selecting a unified “picture” and spreading it across all your social media — your website, your blog, your presentations, your press kits, your business cards, etc. — will build image recognition in the mind of your audience. Consistency is significant for pictures, your name, as well as the fonts, the colors and the overall message that you communicate through your online properties.

There is no question that you already have a personal brand — whether you built it yourself or not. The way to differentiate it from everyone else is through management. By paying attention to mentions of your name online, not spreading yourself too thin, knowing your audience, offering more value than self-promotion, and being consistent, you can be very successful.

More business resources from Mashable:

- Social Media Marketing: How Pepsi Got It Right
– How Social Media Helps One Small Business Connect with Fans
– 5 Ways Small Businesses Can Avoid Social Media Panic
– HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy
– The 10 Stages of Social Media Business Integration
– HOW TO: Use Social Media to Connect with Other Entrepreneurs

Images courtesy of iStockphoto, drflet, titaniumdoughnut

Reviews: Bebo, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ping.Fm, ResuWe Facebook Application, Twitter, iStockphoto

Tags: brand, branding, brands, business, facebook, linkedin, List, Lists, personal brand, personal branding, small business, twitter

Rundes

febrero 9, 2010

7 Ways to Promote Your Offline Event Using Social Media

Susan Payton is the President of Egg Marketing & Public Relations, an internet marketing firm. She blogs at The Marketing Eggspert Blog, and teaches marketing courses at Marketing EggSchool. Follow her on Twitter @eggmarketing.

We all know about Tweetups and online events, but what about events that you didn’t specifically invite the Twitterati to attend? Conferences, meetings and parties are all events that might not have started online, but which can definitely benefit from online promotion and mention.

Leverage your offline event with some smart social media marketing. Here are seven ways you can maximize exposure of your event using online tools.

1. Blog About It

Before, during and after your event, blog about it. Blogging beforehand can alert others about your event and encourage them to learn more or register to attend. Live blogging during your event can create buzz and excitement for those who were unable to attend (and provide them a snippet of what they missed, which will encourage them to look for your next event). Blogging after can provide a recap, as well as info on upcoming events.

SXSW attendee Allen Stern liveblogged several sessions at the 2009 event. His blog posts are little more than notes from the presentation, but they do a good job of relaying the highlights to readers quickly.

2. Post Photos on Flickr

Everyone loves seeing photos of themselves (as long as they’re flattering). By posting photos of your event on Flickr and tagging them with people’s names, you can generate interest in your event from the people who attended and those who follow them on various social media channels.

BlogHer posts photos from its conferences and events both in the header on its website and in its Flickr stream. It invites participants to upload their own photos from the events into the Flickr stream, which encourages interaction.

3. Put it on Facebook

You can also post the photos and tag them on Facebook. The added benefit of doing so on Facebook is that when you tag someone, it appears on their wall. Anyone who is a friend of someone you tagged can see the photo. The idea is that it will lead them to want to learn more about the event (because hey, they want their photo put on Facebook from a cool local event too). Note that you’ll only be able to tag people that you’re connected to.

If your event or company has a Facebook Page, you can include highlights from the event, like quotes from keynotes, activities, awards or even faux pas from speakers.

For even more interaction, visit the profiles of those that attended and leave custom comments: “Hope you got that wine stain out of your blouse. Sorry about that!” “Great comment you made at the keynote presentation!” Etc.

The Wine Conference, an annual event held in Houston, posts updates on the conference to its Facebook Page. Here the event posts logos for its sponsors, photos from events, and blog links about the conference.

4. Post Photos to Twitpic

Twitpic is a great tool that allows you to take a photo with your phone or camera and upload it directly (via a shortened URL) to Twitter. Anyone following you on Twitter will see your tweet and the link to the photo, and can click to view it.

During your event, what better way to show those not in attendance what they’re missing than by taking photos and sending them in real time? Save your hi-resolution photos to be processed later, but upload snapshots from your phone instantly to create a sense of visual livestreaming as the event is underway.

5. Tweet the Event

Don’t overlook the best real-time tool in social media for your event. Sending tweets out to your followers is a great way to keep everyone updated on what’s happening. Whether it’s an awards show where you can share the winners before journalists write about them, or a conference where you can tweet soundbites, Twitter is a great tool for connecting people online and offline to your event.

Make sure your organization or business doesn’t have legal objections to you tweeting from the event. If the event covers trade secrets or other sensitive stuff, you may be entangled in more legal issues than you can shake a stick at if you’re not careful. The NFL banned tweeting from football events this season, for example, and is imposing fines for those that violate the ban.

6. Use Hashtags

The easiest way to track tweets and other mentions of your events on social media platforms is to ask all participants to use a # with a designated keyword or phrase when discussing it.

For example, in 2009, BlogWorld New Media Expo used the hashtag #bwe09 on Twitter to track all mentions of it. Many presentations used this hashtag or one relating to a particular topic as a way to field questions and comments during the presentations. For those unable to attend, following the hashtag was a great way to stay updated on soundbites from the conference.

7. Livestream Your Event

If your event is a conference or educational platform, consider livestreaming it via web video. Using services like Justin.tv or Ustream.tv, you can broadcast your event live over the Internet. This helps expand your audience and interact with them, even if they are not present in person at your event.

Wrapping it Up

Remember that you can get the most out of online promotion if you start long before the event. Map out a strategy that includes what you will do prior to the event, during, and after. Ask employees and attendees to assist you by posting their own take on the event through their blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr accounts. Make it as easy as possible for anyone to share their content and photos of your event online.

More social media resources from Mashable:

- 5 Levels of Effective Communication in the Social Media Age
– Zen and the Art of Twitter: 4 Tips for Productive Tweeting
– The Tao of Tweeting
– How Social Media Has Changed Us
– 5 Tips for Building Lasting Online Friendships
– 4 Steps for Effective Online Networking

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, sjlocke

Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, Twitpic, Twitter, iStockphoto

Tags: blogging, BLOGS, business, event planning, Events, facebook, flickr, justin.tv, List, Lists, live blogging, livestream, livestreaming, MARKETING, small business, social media, social networks, twitter, ustream

Rundes

febrero 8, 2010

5 Insightful TED Talks on Social Media

The 2010 Technology Entertainment Design conference will be kicking off tomorrow in Long Beach, California, bringing the leading minds of many fields together to talk shop about innovation, change, and what the future holds.

As social media has become a game changer for industries across the board, you can bet the experts at this year’s TED conference will have their sights set on peeling back the hype and getting at the core of what social technology has in store for this year and beyond.

Perhaps the best part of the TED conferences is that videos of the talks are archived and free to view right on the organization’s website. Given the wealth of insight we’re sure to see tomorrow, we thought we’d whet your appetite by highlighting a few recent and exceptional talks from TED’s past, with a focus on social media.

1. Alexis Ohanian: How To Make a Splash in Social Media

We’ll start things off with a real-life social media parable about how the biggest and most effective forces on the web usually take shape by accident. Alexis Ohanian of Reddit.com tells the quick and hilarious story of how the social web provided some unexpected help to Greenpeace in halting the Japanese whaling industry. Internet marketers take note: The meme is all powerful, and it cannot be controlled.

2. Clay Shirky: How Social Media Can Make History

In this talk, consultant, professor and author Clay Shirky discusses the unprecedented immediacy of real-time citizen journalism made possible by social media and the nearly ubiquitous access to mobile web technologies. From the election crisis in Iran to the massive earthquake that shook China in May of 2008, Shirky discusses how media is made on the ground, as-it-happens, via the social web.

3. Evan Williams: Listening to Twitter Users

With a couple of anecdotes building the ultimate social media case study, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams discusses how a little side project called Twitter became a game-changing phenomenon with the help and input of the very users who made the service a success. From innovative marketing uses to core functionality, Williams provides the evidence for what we knew all along: Users know best.

4. Stefana Broadbent: How the Internet Enables Intimacy

As social media changes our social lives, speculation has abounded for years on how the web may be disconnecting us from intimate interactions in favor of meaningless quests to rack up followers and “friends.” Not so, says Stefana Broadbent, who explains that social networks function the same way online as they do in real life. While we may have lots of friends, we only really communicate regularly and meaningfully with a handful of them, and social technologies like e-mail, texting, and tweeting allow us to do so more often across time and space.

5. Seth Godin: The Tribes We Lead

From professional sports mascots to balloon animal makers, some communities are so extremely niche that they could only properly thrive on the Internet. So argues blogger and author Seth Godin, who believes that our revolutionary new connectedness has brought human culture back to its roots, and that tribes (groups of people mobilized around a shared interest) are the present and future of all web content.

What are your favorite TED talks about social media? Which did we miss? Let us know in the comments.

Reviews: Iran , Twitter, reddit.com

Tags: future, List, Lists, social media, social networks, technology, TED, TED Talks, twitter, video

Rundes

febrero 3, 2010

2010 MarketingSherpa Social Media Marketing Guide

One of the most trusted sources of marketing research and information is MarketingSherpa. I’ve been a subscriber for many years and always look forward to the reports on Search Marketing, Email Marketing and B2B Marketing. Last year MarketingSherpa started conducting research and publishing a Benchmark Report on social media marketing.

The new Social Media Marketing Benchmark Report (affiliate link) was recently released and I’ve had a few days to take a look and will provide a review for our readers.

As you can expect, this guide is a “meaty” 250 plus pages of research, charts & tables, examples and well written advice. Over 2,000 marketers participated in the survey covering a myriad of topics ranging from strategy to forecasting & budgeting to integration with other marketing channels to specific research on social applications such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs.

MarketingSherpa emphasizes strategy with this edition and has coined an acronym similar to a phrase we’ve often used here on Online Marketing Blog, “Social Media Roadmap“.

What MarketingSherpa introduces in this report is “ROAD” Map, which stands for Research, Objectives, Actions and Devices. The ROAD Map guide along with determining what phase a company is in with it’s social media maturity, helps determine next steps, planning and execution.

Based on my personal experience with a variety of companies at different stages of the social media maturity model, I think this emphasis on strategy is warranted. There has been an overemphasis on “strategy before tactics” as of late, but without any useful model to act on. This most recent guide from MarketingSherpa offers a methodology many “social media gurus” are lacking.

For a while, social tactics and the latest “shiny object” captured marketers attention. Then came more business minded advice suggesting the need for a social strategy. Most companies have heard of and had staff use a variety of social tactics. That initial familiarity brings companies to a stage of “I get it, but what next?”. That’s where a Social Media Roadmap, or in the case of this report, ROAD Map come in to play.

Companies’ used of social media is in transition from trial to strategic and the five chapters dedicated to ROAD Map offer more than enough data and examples for most companies to make confident next steps.

Besides the strategy, tactics, technology and tools that are covered in this report (plus research findings), there are several special reports which offer sage advice on consumer social media experience (Social Media Friends, Followers and Max Connectors) and integration with other marketing channels such as Email and Search Engine Optimization (did I hear Social SEO anyone?).

There are also chapters dealing with social media and agencies, regulating employee use of social media, social media and IT, and the inevitable comparisons between business and personal use.

On the research findings, social media budgets will be increasing substantially over last year. Most will go towards people resources and the rest to technology and services. Many companies do not plan to outsource much of their social media marketing activities so many of the survey respondents did not indicate much budget going to hiring outside agencies.

One interesting stat was that social media budgets (11%) edged out SEO (10%). Is this the sign of a trend? It’s more complicated than that because the lines between SEO and Social Media are very, very blurry. The trend we’ll see is that social media (like SEO a few years ago) will draw budget away from other channels until it matures and gets it’s own cost center and budget.

Another interesting observation was that “B2C marketers lead their B2B counterparts in the formulation and consistent implementation of social marketing practices.”

I’ve said many times that social media is a platform, not a tactic. That means it touches many other communication and marketing channels in an organization. It’s not a stand alone discipline. According to the MarketingSherpa Guide, Social Media integrates best with Web sites, Email, Search Engine Optimization and Public Relations.

How are organizations measuring social media success? The Business.com Social Media Benchmarking Study shows companies are surprisingly unsophisticated in this area, relying mostly on Google tools such as Alerts or Yahoo Alerts. That spells a HUGE opportunity for social media monitoring service providers as these companies mature in their use and expectations for measurement.

This is a very hefty report and I would recommend it only if you’ll actually read it and implement the suggestions. If you read and use only 10% of the insight in this guide you will have paid the approximate $450 cost many times over. I understand many companies are still feeling tight budgets but I have to say, you probably can’t afford NOT to get this guide.

You can get more information on the guide from the Marketing Sherpa web site (affiliate link).