How to Energize your Social Media Marketing

Are you having trouble getting any activity going with your social media accounts? Not finding them to be particularly productive? Here are some pointers as to how to break through the noise and get some value out of your social media time.

Build Relationships

Your first priority should be building relationships. If you are posting and no one is responding, then you aren’t building relationships now are you? Just think about how you behave at a cocktail party. OK, well that might not work for everyone, but some of you will get that the conversation should be 2-way. You should be talking about 50% of the time and listening 50% of the time.

But how do you get that conversation started online?

Broaden your network

I found that social media really came alive for me when I became an open networker. That means that I will connect, friend or follow anyone who requests it. Okay so I did once decline someone whose entire stream was porn. But in general, if you aren’t a spammer, I’ll connect.

How has that helped? Well, I have thousands of people in my network rather than a few hundred. Now I have people that I haven’t personally met, but they understand the principles of networking which are “I help you and eventually you will help me”. Many of these open networkers are more active in social networks and more productive connections than the people I know in the offline world that aren’t active & open online networkers. Also, as an open networker, people can connect to me without fear of rejection. All are welcome.

It was a bit scary making the transition to open networker at first. I was afraid of spammers and yes, I do get unsolicited communications. Some are valuable, some are not. I sort through and trash the bad ones and act on the good ones.

I’ve had to refrain from sharing information about my family and children that I used to post and share more openly. Not knowing every person who connects to me requires me to be a little more protected of personal information. Other than that, I have found it to be a positive experience and have enjoyed the new friends, colleagues and partners I have made.

So how do I broaden my network?

Join groups and forums with people of similar interests or potential customers. If you are on LinkedIn, join the Open Networkers group and you will get a list weekly of open networkers you can connect with. On Facebook you can ask to connect with anyone you went to high school or college with, anyone in your address book, etc. You can connect to friends of friends. With Twitter there are lots of directories and tools to help you find connections that have similar interests as you or follow people you want to follow or who tweet from a location you want to target.

Be patient

Building relationships takes time. It takes more time online than it does in person. I believe that online is more leveraged and will help you scale your business, but it doesn’t replace the face-to-face contact. When you are first getting started in your business, face-to-face will get you more valuable feedback quickly so you can adjust your messages and style.

When you take your networking online remember it can take 6 months or more to develop a productive network, depending on how much time you attribute to it. Yes, you can get followers quickly, but you will not have a relationship with most of them so they will not immediately buy from you or refer you. They will trust someone a friend referred them to first, or someone they met in person, because it is easier to trust and communicate when you can also assess the non-verbal cues. But, you can only meet so many people in person. It’s easier to get your message spread more widely and to build a bigger list online. Online is where you build leverage and scale.

Provide Content

The best way to get people to connect with you is to provide great content. Content ideas include:

• Tips
• Information
• Blog posts
• Quotes and inspirations
• Promos
• Other people’s content, quotes and inspirations, blog posts, etc.

Engage your audience

The most important piece to energizing your social media networks is to engage them. What does that mean? It means you need to interact with them as you would in a face-to-face conversation. You need to:

• Respond to comments they make to you
• Comment on their posts
• Answer their questions
• Post your own Questions
• Compliment others when appropriate
• Be a person. Share who you are, your quirks and brilliance.

Notice that sending out promotions is only a small part of the content you are able to provide. The more you give the more you will get. Remember to give others a chance to shine and give them credit. People love to be complimented.

This all may sound overwhelming but there are ways to automate some of this and to systematize your processes so you can keep it in line with the time you have allotted. I spend about an hour and half on email and social media each day. I consider the two to be linked as many of my social media accounts shoot me an email when I need to respond to something.

Prioritize you networks

You can’t be super effective at managing 15 social media accounts unless it is your full time job. Feedback shows that most people can only effectively manage 3-5 accounts. The top 3 have become (not in any order):

1. Facebook which is great if you have a consumer audience,
2. LinkedIn which is super if you are b2b or looking for tips and support to build your b2c or b2b company, and
3. Twitter which is great for live streams of information and making connections with people with similar interests (then the relationship often moves to a different forum for more in-depth conversations). It’s great for live event recording, customer service, timely announcements and other time-sensitive information.

There are a myriad of other social media platforms and which ones you choose to focus on should be based on who your target customer is and where they like to hang out.

Remember to bring your own energy to your social media communications. Share your expertise. Share who you are. Be genuine.

I know it’s a bit weird at first when you start communicating with a big black void. But there are people out there and you will be heard. You can be shouting at them, selling them or engaging them into a two-way relationship with you. Which one do you think will be most effective, most productive and most energizing for all parties?

How do I automate the marketing of my blog?

Do you automate the marketing of your blog posts? Here’s what I’ve done.

My blog posts are relevant to small business owners and entrepreneurs who want to market their business better. As such, I have them automatically posted to places that small business owners can find them such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and more. I have spent some time automating this process so I can focus on the creation of content and not the marketing of it. Here are the methods and tools I used to automate the updates of my blog posts.

Twitter

I have two twitter accounts; the first, @expertmktgcoach, I tweet each post once, and the second, @debzimmer, I use to repeat the tweets throughout the day.

I use Hootsuite to import the RSS feed from my blog to twitter. This sends out one tweet per account. With Hootsuite, I can also schedule tweets on that second account so that the tweet reoccurs throughout the day.

LinkedIn

My blog headline posts to my LinkedIn status using Hootsuite. Hootsuite also sends the status to Ping.fm which updates numerous other sites that I visit less often.

My blog is then imported into my LinkedIn Profile using the LinkedIn WordPress Application.

Facebook

I use Facebook Notes to import my RSS feed into my Facebook Page. This creates a duplicate copy of my blog on Facebook. I can also use Hootsuite to import the headlines into my wall on my personal Facebook profile or public page.

Social Bookmarking

Using the WordPress Plugin tool for OnlyWire, my posts are automatically bookmarked to numerous bookmarking sites with which I have accounts. It creates bookmarks at more bookmarking sites than I can reach through Ping.fm. Ping.fm reaches other social media sites that OnlyWire doesn’t, such as Plaxo.

RSS Reader

I use Feedburner for those who want to get my blog posts in an RSS reader format.

Kindle

If you are a Kindle user, you can read my blog by subscribing through the Amazon Kindle Store.

SEO

Each post I write is search engine optimized. I use a number of tools including WordPress plugins to assist me with search engine optimization.

Email

There’s one more automation tool I’m considering but haven’t yet implemented. I see that AWebber is now integrated with Feedburner and can send the RSS feeds in email to your subscriber base. I think that sounds way cool. I just wish the tools I currently use offered that service.

That’s all I’ve got on blog marketing automation. Do you have any tools or systems you use that you particularly like?

Social Bookmarking:

Social bookmarking allows you to store, organize, search, and manage links to web pages on the Internet. Social Bookmarking sites use metadata “tags” to organize links which lends to search engine optimization of the content. The social bookmarking sites offer web feeds of the bookmarked links which enables users to find new bookmarks that are shared by others.

Tips:

• Bookmark articles relevant to your customers or business using one or more of these sites.
• When you see relevant articles to your business, write a comment and link back to your site.

Resource List:

• Digg – Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users..
• AddThis – AddThis is the #1 bookmarking and sharing button on the Internet. We help website publishers and bloggers spread their content across the web by making it easy for visitors to bookmark and share content to their favorite social destinations.
• Delicious – Delicious is a social bookmarking service that allows users to tag, save, manage and share web pages from a centralized source. With emphasis on the power of the community, Delicious greatly improves how people discover, remember and share on the Internet.
• StumbleUpon – StumbleUpon uses ratings to form collaborative opinions on website quality. When you stumble, you will only see pages that friends and like-minded stumblers have recommended..
• Facebook – Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Millions of people use Facebook everyday to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet..
• reddit – reddit is a source for what’s new and popular online. vote on links that you like or dislike and help decide what’s popular, or submit your own!
• Mixx.com – Use YourMixx to tailor the content categories, tags, specific users and groups, and we’ll deliver the top-rated content as chosen by you and people who share your passions. Lists user-recommendations for stories, photos and videos. Customize the start page, join private groups, and rate content.

Here is a list of resources for video creation, video editing, video indexing, video hosting and sharing of your videos over the internet.Get publicity for your company and links back to your primary site using these online Video Tools.

Video sharing is the distribution of your video clips on a web site. Video sharing services can host user generated videos, white label (private label) providers and web based video editing.

Resources: Video Creation & Editing

• Toufee.com – Create gorgeous flash movies & slideshows for your website quickly and easily – without any programming – with Toufee’s flash maker.
• Screen Toaster – A free online screen recorder. Capture video of onscreen action and share it instantly.
• StashSpace – Upload videos to your private online StashSpace to easily access, share, protect from disaster and loss, edit video online, and convert video to DVD. Works with full-length video.

Resources: Video Index

• Google Videos – The Google Video is an index and is the most comprehensive on the Web, containing millions of videos indexed and available for viewing.

Resources: Video Hosting & Sharing

• YouTube – Owned by Google and the largest on the web. With a simple one-time log-in, you can have your YouTube account automatically update your Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and Google Reader shared items when you upload a video.
• Vimeo – Vimeo is a respectful community of creative people who are passionate about sharing the videos they make. We offer advanced privacy options, sharing tools, and high quality video encoding.
• Revver – We support the free and unlimited sharing of media. Our unique technology pairs videos with targeted ads and tracks them as they spread across the web. So no matter where your video travels, you benefit because we share the advertising revenue with you.
• MySpace Video – Share videos with your MySpace community.
• Yahoo Videos – upload your videos, watch and rate the videos of others, save your favorites, build playlists, and leave comments.
• MSN Soapbox Videos – User generated video content on MSN Video.
• Motionbox – Quick, easy, and reliable, Motionbox is a secure place to share, edit, and store personal videos. Make DVD’s and Flipbooks from your videos.
• TinyPic – A photo and video sharing service that lets you easily upload, link, and share your images and videos on MySpace®, eBay®, Orkut Scrapbooks, blogs, and message boards. A Photobucket company.
• Facebook Video – Lots of traffic. Share your video with your Facebook community.

Do you have more favorites? Please share them in the comments below.

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Social Networking:

A social networking website facilitates community building among people who have something in common. They provide a means to connect with people you know through school, work, or activities. They also aid in the creation of new friendships.

Ways to using Social Networking to Grow Your Small Business:

• Find directories related to your specific industry and add your company profile or link. You can do this by going to Google and typing “my industry directory”.
• Post and comment in Yahoo and Google Groups with a link to your site in your signature.
• Yahoo Answers - Answer questions in your niche. Only answer questions related to your product. Include a direct link between the question and your link in the source box if you don’t want to get banned.
• Create a Google Notebook and include your site’s link.
• Create a presence on the leading free social networks. It’s another way for potential customers to find you, it’s free, and it can drive more customers to your website. The links back to your website help to give you a higher page rank in the search engines. Popular social Networks include:
  • LinkedIn – LinkedIn is an interconnected network of experienced professionals from around the world, representing 170 industries and 200 countries. You can find, be introduced to, and collaborate with qualified professionals that you need to work with to accomplish your goals.
  • Ning – Ning lets you create and join new social networks for your interests and passions.
  • Bebo – Bebo is a popular social networking site, owned by AOL/Time Warner, which connects you to everyone and everything you care about. It is your life online – a social experience that helps you discover what’s going on with your world and helps the world discover what’s going on with you.
  • Facebook – A social utility that connects people, to keep up with friends, upload photos, share links and videos.
  • Myspace – Young demographic and with strong interest in music.
  • Ecademy – A Business Network. Create new contacts and find friends, Market your business and get found on Google, Share knowledge, opportunities and do more business
  • Biznik – Biznik is an award-winning community of entrepreneurs and small businesses dedicated to helping each other succeed.
  • Nexopia – Canada’s largest social networking site for youth. With over 1.2 million members, and hundreds of new accounts created every day, Nexopia is quickly solidifying its reputation as the online place for teens to connect and express themselves.
  • StudiVZ – Germany language social networking site that is popular in Germany.
  • orkut (popular in Brazil) – orkut is an online community designed to make your social life more active and stimulating. orkut’s social network can help you maintain existing relationships with pictures and messages, and establish new ones by reaching out to people you’ve never met before.
  • Hi5 – hi5 is the most globally diverse social networking site in the world, with over 80% of our users from outside the US. The hi5.com site was designed for this global audience from the beginning, and was the first in-language social networking site in many countries around the world. The site has been translated to over 40 languages and dialects (with more than 60 planned by the end of 2008).
  • Xiaonei – Chinese – The most real effective Social networking platforms, in-depth to meet your social, entertainment, information, and many other needs.

Note: To get more marketing lists such as this, go to the sidebar and download our Free Report: “187 FREE Ways to Explode Your Business!”

Microblogging

What is Micro-blogging? Micro-blogging is a type of blogging but all posts are very short (usually less than 160 characters).

How do I Microblog?

As a business owner you can use microblogging to build relationships with potential customers and get referrals. Here are some tips…

• Connect with people you know from the present or the past.
• Connect with people who have shown an interest in your field. Find them through groups, directories or searches on their mircoblog posting topics.
• Tweet it: tweet about your product, service, information, tips, etc.
• Include keywords in your message
• Ask people to take action – click on link.

Resources: Microblogging

Here are several sites that provide a micro-blogging platform:

• Twitter – Twitter is a free social messaging utility for staying connected in real-time.
• Plaxo – We securely host address books for more than 40 million people. And now, we’re bringing those address books to life with “Pulse,” a new way to enrich your connection with the people in your life. Pulse is meant to be a better way for you to stay in touch with the people you actually know and care about — your family, your real-world friends, and the people you know from business. Pulse makes it easy for you to see what they’re creating and sharing online — their blogs, the photos they’re uploading, their restaurant reviews, and so much more.
• LinkedIn – LinkedIn is an interconnected network of experienced professionals from around the world, representing 170 industries and 200 countries. You can find, be introduced to, and collaborate with qualified professionals that you need to work with to accomplish your goals.
• Facebook – Leading Social networking site. Status feeds are microblogs.
• Plurk – Plurk is an easy way to chronicle and share the things you do, the way you feel, and all the other things in between that make up your life, with the people close to you..
• Jaiku – Create your own microblog and connect with your friends. Post from the Web, by SMS, or from desktop clients. Add comments, use icons. A Google company.
• Identi.ca – Identi.ca is a microblogging service. Users post short (140 character) notices which are broadcast to their friends and fans using the Web, RSS, or instant messages.

Tools:

• SocialOomph – Easily manage multiple twitter accounts on one single page. Schedule tweets and send DM’s to all of your followers.
• TweetDeck – TweetDeck is your personal browser for staying in touch with what’s happening now, connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook and more. TweetDeck shows you everything you want to see at once, so you can stay organized and up to date.
• HootSuite – HootSuite is the ultimate Twitter toolbox. With HootSuite, you can manage multiple Twitter profiles, pre-schedule tweets, and measure your success. HootSuite lets you manage your entire Twitter experience from one easy-to-use interface.
• Ping.fm – Ping.fm is a simple and FREE service that makes updating your social networks a snap!
• Wefollow – A directory of twitter users.

Are there other tools and platforms that you love? what are they and why do you recommend them?

Note: To get more marketing lists such as this, go to the sidebar and download our Free Report: “187 FREE Ways to Explode Your Business!”

What is a blog ? A blog is a contraction of the term weblog, a type of website. A blog usually has regular entries of text, images and links to other information. Unlike a website, a blog allows readers to leave comments, thereby interacting with the author and other readers.

Business Blogging Strategy

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You can get a Free Blog from one of these resources:

• Blogger – A team in Google focusing on helping people have their own voice on the web and organizing the world’s information from the personal perspective.
• WordPress – WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time. More simply, WordPress is what you use when you want to work with your blogging software, not fight it.
• TypePad – TypePad is the premier blogging service for professionals and small businesses. TypePad hosts many popular blogs and small business websites.
• LiveJournal – LiveJournal is on the forefront of personal publishing, community involvement, and individual expression. One of the world’s most respected blogging platforms.
• Blog.com – Blog.com is the choice for almost two million bloggers. Blog.com provides a fully-featured publishing platform for free. Blog by yourself or establish a writing community, all under an address that looks like: you.blog.com
• Windows Live Spaces – Make your own space on Windows Live. It’s your place on the web to express yourself.
• Facebook – Leading Social networking site.
• MySpace – Second largest social networking site.
• HubPages – HubPages has easy-to-use publishing tools, a vibrant author community and underlying revenue-maximizing infrastructure. Hubbers (HubPages authors) earn money by publishing their Hubs (content-rich Internet pages) on topics they know and love, and earn recognition among fellow Hubbers through the community-wide HubScore ranking system. The HubPages ecosystem provides a search-friendly infrastructure which drives traffic to Hubs from search engines such as Google and Yahoo, and enables Hubbers to earn revenue from industry-standard advertising vehicles such as Google AdSense, Kontera, and the eBay and Amazon Affiliates program. All of this is provided free to Hubbers in an open online community.

Note: To get more marketing lists such as this, go to the sidebar and download our Free Report: “187 FREE Ways to Explode Your Business!”