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Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Social Media Convergance
Increasingly businesses are utilizing multiple social media outlets to connect with and engage customers or potential business partners. For a small business keeping up with all of the social media sites can be a daunting task. But it is possible to utilize multiple social network tools to provide a uniform face to the world.
Personally, my first problem is keeping fresh content on all of the sites my company is currently active on (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and my company blog). Here are a few ways you can manage your social media presence to minimize time spent and maximize your company's visibility and credibility online.
First: I maintain a company blog to establish myself and my company as experts in the special education data tracking domain (yes, I do two blogs). The way I manage this is to use scheduling features for my blog which allows me to write posts one or two months in advance and have them appear at regular intervals. I mix this up with writing "current" blog posts in response to events in the news to keep my content fresh and interesting. I try to never go more than a week without posting something new to my blog.
Second: I use TwitterFeed to automatically send my blog post titles and shortened URLs to Twitter. This helps me to keep my twitter feed current.
Third: I use Hoot Suite to schedule other types of posts to my twitter account including, retweets of interesting tweets I see from people I am following, re-posting the links to my past blog entries and commentary on current events that I think will be of interest to my followers. I try to post to twitter every day. Again my goal is to keep my content current - not to become one of the twitterers that posts multiple times an hour.
Fourth: I use a custom background on my twitter page to allow me to brand my twitter account and keep it consistent with the image portrayed on my company website. You can put a variety of company relevant information in the Twitter background, including logos and contact informaiton. See my Twitter profile (ddtracinfo) for an example.
Fifth: I keep my company Facebook page current using RSS Grafiti which grabs all of my blog posts and all of my Twitter tweets and puts them on the Wall for my company page. Again this helps to keep my Facebook profile current - so all I have to do is check in on the discussion board to see if people are asking questions I need to answer.
Sixth: I use Twitter to help with my business networking. I used Twitters search feature to find people interested in or involved in the disability community and followed them. Many of these people then followed me back. It is possible to invite those that follow you back to connect with you on LinkedIn to enhance the relationship. You obviously need to put the information in your Twitter account about the fact you are on LinkedIn and that you would be happy to connect.
Seventh: On LinkedIn it technically against the rules to have any personal contact info in your profile and depending on where you put it you could get your account suspended. But you can put your Twitter name in your LinkedIn account with out risk and on your Twitter account you can give people the information to connect on LinkedIn. In addition, you can invite you rLinkedIn connections to follow you on Twitter. Twitters more lenient policies on chatting with others allow you to communicate more easily.
These are very simple ideas but they do add tremendous power to your social media networking if you use them to your advantage.
-------------------------------------------------------
http://onlinebusinessnetworker.net/blog/2009/07/using-twitter-to-help-your-linkedin-networking-and-vice-versa/
Personally, my first problem is keeping fresh content on all of the sites my company is currently active on (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and my company blog). Here are a few ways you can manage your social media presence to minimize time spent and maximize your company's visibility and credibility online.
First: I maintain a company blog to establish myself and my company as experts in the special education data tracking domain (yes, I do two blogs). The way I manage this is to use scheduling features for my blog which allows me to write posts one or two months in advance and have them appear at regular intervals. I mix this up with writing "current" blog posts in response to events in the news to keep my content fresh and interesting. I try to never go more than a week without posting something new to my blog.
Second: I use TwitterFeed to automatically send my blog post titles and shortened URLs to Twitter. This helps me to keep my twitter feed current.
Third: I use Hoot Suite to schedule other types of posts to my twitter account including, retweets of interesting tweets I see from people I am following, re-posting the links to my past blog entries and commentary on current events that I think will be of interest to my followers. I try to post to twitter every day. Again my goal is to keep my content current - not to become one of the twitterers that posts multiple times an hour.
Fourth: I use a custom background on my twitter page to allow me to brand my twitter account and keep it consistent with the image portrayed on my company website. You can put a variety of company relevant information in the Twitter background, including logos and contact informaiton. See my Twitter profile (ddtracinfo) for an example.
Fifth: I keep my company Facebook page current using RSS Grafiti which grabs all of my blog posts and all of my Twitter tweets and puts them on the Wall for my company page. Again this helps to keep my Facebook profile current - so all I have to do is check in on the discussion board to see if people are asking questions I need to answer.
Sixth: I use Twitter to help with my business networking. I used Twitters search feature to find people interested in or involved in the disability community and followed them. Many of these people then followed me back. It is possible to invite those that follow you back to connect with you on LinkedIn to enhance the relationship. You obviously need to put the information in your Twitter account about the fact you are on LinkedIn and that you would be happy to connect.
Seventh: On LinkedIn it technically against the rules to have any personal contact info in your profile and depending on where you put it you could get your account suspended. But you can put your Twitter name in your LinkedIn account with out risk and on your Twitter account you can give people the information to connect on LinkedIn. In addition, you can invite you rLinkedIn connections to follow you on Twitter. Twitters more lenient policies on chatting with others allow you to communicate more easily.
These are very simple ideas but they do add tremendous power to your social media networking if you use them to your advantage.
-------------------------------------------------------
http://onlinebusinessnetworker.net/blog/2009/07/using-twitter-to-help-your-linkedin-networking-and-vice-versa/
Labels: blogging, facebook, linkedin, social media, twitter
Monday, August 31, 2009
Blogging for Business
Many businesses now have one or more blogs associated with their company (I personally have been blogging for my small business for the past three years). The questions entrepreneurs need to be asking is
However, there are also many reasons not to blog. Entrepreneurs are frequently strapped for time and simply cannot devote the amount of time necessary to regularly create substantive blog posts that will be useful to their target audience. If you cannot blog an average of once a week then it is generally not a good idea to start a blog. Nothing looks worse than starting a blog and putting up one or two posts then letting it slide. I have been to many small company websites where the last blog entry was posted over a year ago. Leaving me (and their potential customers) wondering if the company is still in business.
Another reason not to blog is if you do not have much to say on topics that might be of interest to your potential customers. You can only build credibility if you posts offer insights that benefit the people that may buy your product or services. Not having much to say is something that is difficult to fake. Some bloggers do post references to what other people say on a topic of interest, which is OK on occasion, but without original content of your own you are offering little reason for people to visit your site. If you do reference information from someone's blog or website cite it. Nothing can hurt your credibility more than if you are perceived to be stealing another person's ideas and trying to pass them off as your own.
If you do decide to blog choosing the topic for your blog is important. Ideally you want offer information in your blog that people will find interesting and that is relevant to your product or service. You can blog about company news, product releases, special offers, tips or present information relevant to your domain. It is very important that whatever you blog is informative and interesting and that it is not just an advertisement for your company. People read blogs for information and nothing will turn them off faster than flagrant self-promotion.
There are a number of very good how to articles on blogging. I personally found these atrticles very helpful:
See http://news.developingmindssoftware.com for my company blog.
- Should I blog?
- If I blog what should I blog about?
However, there are also many reasons not to blog. Entrepreneurs are frequently strapped for time and simply cannot devote the amount of time necessary to regularly create substantive blog posts that will be useful to their target audience. If you cannot blog an average of once a week then it is generally not a good idea to start a blog. Nothing looks worse than starting a blog and putting up one or two posts then letting it slide. I have been to many small company websites where the last blog entry was posted over a year ago. Leaving me (and their potential customers) wondering if the company is still in business.
Another reason not to blog is if you do not have much to say on topics that might be of interest to your potential customers. You can only build credibility if you posts offer insights that benefit the people that may buy your product or services. Not having much to say is something that is difficult to fake. Some bloggers do post references to what other people say on a topic of interest, which is OK on occasion, but without original content of your own you are offering little reason for people to visit your site. If you do reference information from someone's blog or website cite it. Nothing can hurt your credibility more than if you are perceived to be stealing another person's ideas and trying to pass them off as your own.
If you do decide to blog choosing the topic for your blog is important. Ideally you want offer information in your blog that people will find interesting and that is relevant to your product or service. You can blog about company news, product releases, special offers, tips or present information relevant to your domain. It is very important that whatever you blog is informative and interesting and that it is not just an advertisement for your company. People read blogs for information and nothing will turn them off faster than flagrant self-promotion.
There are a number of very good how to articles on blogging. I personally found these atrticles very helpful:
- Blogging Basics
- Blog Quality Guidelines
- 40+ Topics for Corporate Bloggers
- 6 Key Ways to Measure the Success of your Blog
- 7 Best Blogs about Blogging
See http://news.developingmindssoftware.com for my company blog.