Archive for social media marketing – Page 3

Pinterest: 3 Reasons To Take Note

Even if you’ve never been on Pinterest, you’ve probably heard of it—this hot social network is drawing attention everywhere, from newspapers and magazines to television and political campaigns. Since beginning just a few years ago, it has become the fastest website in history to hit 10 million visitors a month—buoyed to success by loyal fans who spend hours on the network each day.

So what’s all the fuss about? What is this latest social craze? Why does it matter?

1.  Pinterest Is Visual Bookmarking. To put it in a nutshell, Pinterest is a super simple way to visually bookmark what you like on the Web—products you’re interested in buying, recipes you want to try, outfits, craft ideas, articles, infographics, etc.—all through pictures that link back to their original sources. As a new user, you set up boards (like folders) named for categories of your choosing; then, when you see something you want to bookmark, you pin it into its category and have it neatly organized to find again. As you pin, you build stunning, pretty-to-look at boards that hold all your favorite places online.

With an attractive and user-friendly interface, it easily solves a felt need for individuals—how to organize info online. Read More→

LinkedIn Power Tips: Give Before You Receive

If you’ve noticed, LinkedIn is quickly becoming the social networking site for professionals to connect and do business. Maybe Facebook is better left for your family and friends? Just wondering… I’ve invited Chris Buffaloe of SerenityVA.com to share tips on using the LinkedIn recommendations feature. (photo courtesy jannoon028)

The value of referrals, recommendations, or testimonials cannot be underestimated. Recommendations are similar to testimonials of your good name, good product(s), or expertise. They enhance your credibility as an expert similar to how quality content, quality presentation of that content and frequency of content enhances your page rank and authority status for your website. They also raise your credibility.

Recommendations in LinkedIn are social proof. They tell a LinkedIn (LI) candidate that the person is qualified or recognized as a valued colleague that has or will add value to your business. As you interact with connections, you become more familiar with their areas of expertise and perhaps are able to use this knowledge in your business execution.

Once you can recommend a connection, you proceed with some expectation that they will reciprocate. However, do not expect that all people that you have recommended will in turn write a recommendation for you. As you proceed in building your connections, keep in mind that your connections are your referral sources – focus on those contacts that have the potential to directly (or indirectly) enhance your business or expertise. Read More→

3 Networking Tips with LinkedIn Groups for Business

LinkedIn is today to working professionals what Facebook was to college students when it first launched: a networking tool with a specific audience and purpose in mind. Facebook has since degenerated to an all-inclusive social media outlet for friends and family, but LinkedIn still retains its reputation as an online social networking service for the working world.

As of last month, LinkedIn reported an astounding 131,200,000 members, with 12% of those being entrepreneurs.  While many users leverage LinkedIn during job searches, the users who really derive the most value from the network are:

  • Entrepreneurs
  • Salesmen and women (10% of all users)
  • Academics (9% of all users)
  • Other professionals

In facet, LinkedIn benefits anyone whose livelihood depends on staying current with new technologies and trends, and keeping an open line of communication with a powerful network of successful peers.

LinkedIn Groups

One of the features that keeps these working people connected on LinkedIn is the Groups feature.  The LI membership base is a veritable ocean of users, but with Groups, you can shrink that ocean down to small pools of relevant people with whom you can: Read More→

The Pros of LinkedIn vs. Facebook for Professionals

You’re probably already on Facebook, sharing photos of your kid’s first birthday party and links to your favorite articles, recipes and videos. After all, Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with friends and family. But when it comes to using social media for your business, do you really want your professional network colliding with your personal life? (photo courtesy Nutdanai Apikhomboonwaroot)

There is, of course, the option of creating a Facebook page solely for business purposes, which is a good way to separate your personal and professional networks. These types of Facebook pages, however, are often most successful when running a B2C business, and your clients consist of consumers who use Facebook on a regular basis.

LinkedIn, on the other hand, is great for B2B service providers looking for a more professional social media platform. It’s a social networking site designed for the career- and business-minded professional. Users range from recent college grads to CEOs, all looking to expand their professional network so they can improve their career or business. (You can also have a business page on LinkedIn, as Patsi does here for Content for Coaches.)

Here, we’ll examine the benefits of LinkedIn vs. Facebook for professional service providers, such as executive coaches and lawyers. Read More→

Entering the World of Social Media:
Better Late than Never

(A guest post by Frank Anderson.)

The younger generation is, without fail, the heaviest participant in social media. Born straight into the world of online dependency, the art of social media is considered just another common form of innate communication. (Image by Nutdanai Apikhomboonwaroot, freedigitalphotos.net)

However, while Generation Y was spending their younger years amidst the World Wide Web, those born in the era of picture books and hand-written correspondence suddenly find themselves faced with an intense learning curve.

Engaging in social media in any capacity can be quite intimidating. The great thing is, however, at one time or another, we all start at the same level. Each of us faces similar challenges while striving to build an online reputation.

While one inquiry of interest can come in seconds or another in a matter of months, the recipe for success remains the same: maintaining discipline and a unique spark of creative will.

This great element of equalization is part of the magic that makes social media so unique. For anyone, anywhere, and most importantly  ̶  at any age, social media can provide a new and exciting world of engaging opportunity.

The ability for potential consumers to recognize and relate to you or your business through social media is proving successful for those willing to make the effort. If you’re not doing so already, no worries   ̶  it’s never too late!

Find your voice. Promote your business by promoting your personality. In the limitless world of social media, without doubt there is a group of like-minded individuals waiting to spot you in the crowd. Social media might lead to that breath of fresh air you never knew you needed.

If you don’t know where to start, turn first to a little self discovery. Explore your intended niche, your personal interests. Here are four tips to getting started: Read More→

Say NO to Auto-Feeds:
Your Blog & Facebook, Social Sites

Today’s guest post is written by Christine Buffaloe, of Serenity Virtual Assistant Services, a great resource for social media know-how, for Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Many people who think they don’t have time for social media use applications that automatically feed their blogs into Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Although this seems like a good idea, it may do you more harm than good.

Here are 5 reasons why you should NOT automatically feed your blog into these social media sites:

  1. You cannot personalize the content.  If you want to make your status updates more appealing,  post it in the form of a question and ask others to comment. You are more likely to get fans to “like” your post, comment and share.
  2. The inability to “tag” others in your status updates. This goes hand-in-hand with personalizing your status update, but it is important to “tag” either your friends or pages if the content is appropriate for them or their pages. This will not only show on your feed, but theirs as well.
  3. The content you feed into Facebook may not be appropriate for Twitter and LinkedIn. These social media sites are all different in as much as you are appealing to a different audience in each of these.
  4. Those that use the auto-feed are re-hashing material to all of the social media sites. If you have folks that are following you on all three, they will see the same materials and are likely to become annoyed and stop following you. Keep it fresh.
  5. Remember, keywords are essential when posting to your status update to your Facebook business page. On Twitter hash tags (#) are key.

Now, if you are gung-ho about the auto-feed I found a couple of ways in which to do this, but only feed to one network. Read More→

Tips on Blog Post Optimization

What are the steps you need to follow to ensure each blog post is optimized for search engines as well as well-written for your readers’ interests? Oh my… there are a lot. But to keep me out of overwhelm, I wrote them down, and put them into a flow chart.

This is good for days when I’m brain dead and likely to forget something important. But it’s also a good chart for anyone working with a V.A. or assistant who needs to take over some of the tasks for you.

After I decide what it is I want to write about (see my earlier post, Blogger’s Block: Writing Tips to Get “Unstuck), I follow these steps for posting on my blog:

Flow chart, continued: Read More→

Facebook Fan Page: Top 5 Reasons to Have One

As some of you know, I’m not an avid Facebook fan, but as a business owner, I don’t ignore the fact that so many people use it daily. There are certain pitfalls with it, like with any social networking site. You don’t want to get caught up wasting time if you’re running a business. But you can’t ignore the numbers of people there everyday.

The biggest issue is whether or not YOUR clients are using it, and are they seeking information there in your core expertise? Just by sheer numbers, you’ve got to believe they are. Unless your core audience isn’t web savvy, but again, just about every demographic is using FB now.

Unlike a Facebook personal profile, Facebook Fan Pages allow you to:

  1. Get to know your clients – FB Fan pages track some demographics of your Fans
  2. Get found – Fan Pages are public so they get indexed and are included in external search engines
  3. Get known – Fan Pages allow you to customize the landing page and offer real value to your clients and future clients
  4. Get found and get known by millions- Fan Pages have no limit to the number of fans you can have, and your fans are your centers of influence and referral sources
  5. Get new clients – Fan Pages allow you to engage people on a personal level via polls, contests, dialog… and create credibility and trust

Drum roll, please. I’ve got a new Fan Page for my business Content for Coaches and Consultants: You’re invited to come see what’s there, what’s new in leadership concepts, brain science, and personal development:

Patsi’s Facebook Fan page

If you’re interested in learning, hit the “Like” button and become a regular reader/fan. I’ll be posting some of the best tid-bits from all the books I read. It’s like an open buffet for people who like learning. Hope you “like” it!

The Sociology of Social Media: TED TV Talks

Having fun while learning has become my idea of a really good time. Forget drugs, booze and rock and roll. Now you can learn all about social media and the sociology of the Internet through video lectures.

If you’re an information junkie like I am, you spend way too much time over on TED.com watching fascinating videos on every topic of major importance in this world.

Unbelievable, non? It combines education with entertainment. It’s a great way to learn about the sociology of how people are using computers to connect with a global community.

My actual big screen TV is ignored (except for tennis  and we’re waiting for the French Open at the end of May.)

What I find fascinating is the sociology of social media: we’re still operating with the same primitive brains. We crave connection with others and to find meaning in our lives. Now, however, we’re doing it online, on the Internet, using social media tools. Twitter is like a town square for the globe.

It’s hard to choose which lecture to watch on TED TV as there are so many good ones. I was glad to see this blog post over at OnlineCollege.org because my colleague Carol Brown has posted about 15 terrific TED Talks that pertain to social media and the Internet.

Here are some of the great talks that will help you learn more about new ways to use traditional media and innovative ways to bring more to the digital sphere – and the sociology that’s evolving.

  1. Peter Hirshberg on TV and the web: Take a look back at media and technology history with this talk. You’ll get a chance to see why watching TV on the web can be so much more engaging.
  2. James Surowiecki: When social media became news: Most of us spend a pretty good part of the day using social media, whether it’s reading blogs or using social networking sites. Here you can learn a bit more about the role social media is starting to play in reporting the news and what it means for more traditional media.
  3. Seth Godin on the tribes we lead: When you hear the word “tribe,” you probably think of it in the more traditional sense. But in this talk from marketing guru Seth Godin, you’ll learn about how it can be applied to how we use the web– with powerful results.
  4. Jimmy Wales on the birth of Wikipedia: It’s hard to remember a world without Wikipedia, but a decade ago the site was just getting its start. Learn how founder Jimmy Wales helped to create the amazing new media giant from this talk.
  5. Evan Williams on listening to Twitter users: You can’t do much on the web, or off of it for that matter, without hearing about Twitter these days. Check out this talk to gain a better understanding of how the site came to be what it is today.
  6. Stefana Broadbent: How the Internet enables intimacy: The internet is generally deemed a tool that makes humans more distant from one another, engaging in less real-time interaction. Broadbent argues against that here, claiming that this powerful new media tool actually lets us get closer together.

Now that’s my idea of a good time!

Feed Your Blog Automatically to LinkedIn & Twitter

Update From Patsi, February 2012: We apologize for not updating this post earlier. I no longer update any social media automatically, but am posting manually (read why here, Say NO to Auto-Feeds: Your Blog & Facebook, Social Sites). This is time-consuming and may require a virtual assistant for some of you. I recommend SerenityVA.com.

How do you get your blog posts to feed into your LinkedIn profile and Twitter automatically? I asked social media expert AnnaLaura Brown to write a guest post. This is the 2nd part of her post Connect Your Blog to Facebook.

For LinkedIn you have a couple of options as well.

Your first option is to add the WordPress blog option to your Linkedin profile.

To do this:

  1. Go to edit profile and scroll down to the bottom. You will see a link that says Applications- Add an Application.

Click on that link and you will see this page of options. There is an option to add your blog link with Typepad or WordPress.

Click on the link and you will be taken to a page where you can add in the RSS feed for your blog.  From now on your new posts will be automatically posted to this section of your LinkedIn profile.

The second option is to add your Twitter stream to LinkedIn and then by default as long as your blog posts are appearing in Twitter they will also appear on LinkedIn.

You do this by going to the same page where you added your blog and clicking on the tweets application.

Twitter Read More→