Find Balance in Your Social Media Communications Strategy for a More Rewarding Experience

Posted by Steinar on Apr 25, 2010 in Blog, Marketing | 0 comments

Clients often ask me what they should tweet about once I set them up on Twitter.  It’s a valid question, given that most new Twitter users shut down only days after getting started.  The fact is, most of us are not wired to opening talk to strangers and find the fear of criticism paralyzing.  We’re all victim to this at some degree.

Hopefully, the following 3 components will help get your head around how to approach your social media communications strategy.  Start with the component that feels most comfortable and grow from there to create a complete picture of yourself for others to follow.

3 Essential Content Types for Effective Social Media Communication

Talk about …

1. Yourself – this gives your readers some clue about you as a person.  People like to talk with people so make sure to inject a little about your personality, hobbies and daily life.
2. Your company, product or services – at the end of the day, if your goal is to sell something, find new customers, or engage with existing customers you must talk about what you have to offer.  This is basic, but is a must.
3. Your industry or community – social media is about community so get involved.  Something happening in town you think others might find interesting – share it with your followers?  Developing news in your industry?  Serve as the go-to-person within your niche for the latest news and share information as it comes across your desk.

WARNING: do only one of these three things and you risk turning people off.

• Only talk about yourself and people will get bored or even annoyed.
• Only talk about your company and you’ll come across as a pushy salesperson.
• Only talk about your community or industry and you’ll just be a news source.

The trick is to have a balanced approach that provides your followers with a complete picture of you as a person, member of the community and provider of valuable products and services.

What do you think?  Does this make sense as an approach to execute your social media communications strategy?

Use Safari, MobileMe and Ping.fm to share browser bookmarks and content across iMac, iPhone and iPad

Posted by Steinar on Mar 30, 2010 in Blog, Marketing | 0 comments

Here’s a quick video to illustrate how I use Safari, MobileMe and Ping.fm to share browser bookmarks and content across my iMac, iPhone and iPad.

Why do I take this approach?

• MobileMe syncs Safari bookmarks across any Apple device you setup with MobileMe and Safari
• Safari is a great browser - fast, reliable, and compliant with most of the latest website components
• I constantly switch between devices and need consistent access to the same bookmarks
• Ping.fm allows you to centrally manage how you share and distribute content.  Rather than setting up share controls in individual applications like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, I prefer to centrally control the content from my blog and use Ping.fm to handle the distribution.

What do you think?  Do you see value in using Safari, MobileMe and Ping.fm to share browser bookmarks and content across multiple Apple devices?

PS – here’s how I made that finger cursor mouse on my Mac

Finding your Rhythm for Blogging, Social Media and Engaging Customers Online

Posted by Steinar on Mar 9, 2010 in Blog, Marketing | 0 comments

Whether you are new to blogging and social media or have been at it for a while, finding your rhythm can be a challenge and something that requires continuous improvement.  This is especially true as the tools and platforms change in relation to your marketing strategy for engaging customers online.

This is my 100th post on this blog, so I thought it would be fitting to review my daily process.  Let’s start with my goals.

My blogging and social media goals:

1. Stay informed of the latest news, trends and topics within my niche
2. Connect with other marketers, customers, and folks I find interesting
3. Share my thoughts and those of others with my network
4. Deliver valuable content to build my network, engage my market and grow my business online

Daily blogging, social media, and market engagement process:

1. I use Google Reader to find the latest news and keep my finger on the pulse of what happening within my niche.  I subscribe to dozens of news sources, popular blogs and Google searches to find relevant articles, with which I can share, comment on, or use as inspiration for my next blog post. I usually check Google Reader 2-3 times a day for 5 minutes each and complete 1-2 actions as a result.
2. I use this blog as the main source for content creation and distribution.  Creating content on my own domain allows me to maintain full control.  Sure I post information on Facebook and Twitter, but anything with substantial content resides on my blog.  I publish new posts every 1-2 days.
3. I use the WordPress ping.fm plugin to automatically share my blog RSS feed with Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, and a few other popular social media and bookmarking sites.  Again, this allows me to maintain control rather than setting up 3rd party sites to receive my RSS feed.  If I ever want to turn off my stream, I can control this from one central dashboard in ping.fm.  Not everything flows through ping.fm – only content that I want to share with my entire network.
4. My iPhone is my Internet Marketing Remote Control.  I can manage Twitter, check Google Reader, update WordPress posts, reply to comments on my blog, check in with Facebook friends and fans, snap images and record & publish podcast episodes from my iPhone with the click of a button.  Of course, I can also use email and talk on the phone.
5. At night, I like to use Google Reader to answer questions on Twitter from people looking for help.  I have several dozen search queries set up and RSS feeds organized in Google Reader to make this simple.  Answering people’s questions on Twitter allows my to meet new people, learn something new, and share content I find helpful.

Keys to Success with Blogging and Social Media

The keys to successfull blogging and social media vary, depending on your particular situation.  Here are a few things I find helpful:

1. Write original content.  It’s OK to quote others, but the majority of your content should be original.
2. Find a frequency of engagement that suits you and be consistent.
3. Reply to comments, messages, and mentions quickly.
4. Write as if you were talking with your reader, but keep search engine optimization in mind.
5. Proactively promote your content by leveraging your RSS feed and providing links for people to find you.
6. Have a content creation strategy to help define what you will talk about and how that unfolds over time.

I hope you find this helpful as you continue to define or improve your process for blogging and engaging your market online through social media.

Any thoughts?  What tools and process do you follow to increase your efficiency and effectiveness?

4 ways to use Google Reader to track your industry, engage your market and monitor your brand

Posted by Steinar on Feb 25, 2010 in Blog, Marketing | 0 comments

As many know, Google Reader is one of my favorite tools to help establish yourself as a market leader online.  In this audio post I discuss the 4 ways Google Reader can help you track your industry, engage your market and monitor your brand.

Listen or Download

Four advantages of Google Reader

1. Ability to track your industry by subscribing to popular blogs or RSS feeds that contain the latest news, trends and product information
2. Ability to share information with your social network via share button, shared custom Google Reader RSS feed or email link
3. Ability to save searches from Twitter to easily identify opportunity to engage with people asking for help on topics you understand
4. Ability to track mentions of you, your company, your brand or your products and service so you can jump in the conversation early and often.

How do you use Google Reader?  What other online tools do you use to accomplish these or similar tasks?

What does your Twitter psychological profile say about you?

Posted by Steinar on Jan 20, 2010 in Blog, Marketing | 0 comments

I have been doing some research on tools to analyze customer sentiment on social media networks and ran across TweetPsych which maps your psychological profile versus other Twitter users.

My results are pretty accurate based on my interests, work, and stream of content I share on Twitter.  I’m most interested in Internet marketing, SEO, and new media and specialize in consulting, teaching and generally helping others learn how to leverage the Internet to grow their business.  This comes accross clearly when you look at the TweetPsych analysis.

Visit TweetPsych to view your profile.

What do you think?  Do you find it useful have this kind of Twitter psychological profile information?