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Mar 10

Why You Should Share Videos, Audio and Photos

picture credit to wareseeker

Social media is often looked at as a text based networking solution. While many social networking sites are indeed text based, most also have the option for sharing photos, audio and videos, something that is sorely underused. Just look at Facebook, for example. While photos are rampant, when was the last time you shared a video on there? Or Twitter, for that matter?

Why should you use multi-media in social marketing? There are a number of good reasons, but the big one is that it makes you real and trustworthy.

The Real You. See, anyone can write anything online. You could be a 16 year old boy writing as a 50 year old woman . . . who would know the difference? Because of this anonymity that is so easy online, people have an automatic distrust of anyone they see just writing information on the web. A photo can drastically up the trust factor, one of the biggest reasons bloggers put a photo of themselves in their profile.

Photos, audio and videos give people a glimpse of who you are and that makes it easier for them to trust you. If you say you’re a 30 year old banker and then appear in a video, people realize that you aren’t faking it, you really are who you say you are. While there are many people who hide their true identity for assorted reasons, if you really want to burst through the barrier of not being trusted, then a quick video uploaded to YouTube can be just the ticket.

You don’t need to share anything terribly produced, even a quick 1 minute video where you explain something about your niche can be a great way to start out.

The Simple You. Another reason that people like to see photos and video of you is that it makes you more approachable. It’s easy to think that a guru is untouchable, someone almost godlike . . . but when you see them chatting away on video, you instantly realize that they are just another person like you. This means people will be more interested in interacting with you, something that is pretty important in social marketing.

Text will always be the base of interaction online, but by adding video, audio and photos, you can really change the way people look at you and react to you. They will be far more likely to trust someone they have “met” than an anonymous persona who tweets at them. Share yourself and the rewards will come.

Mar 09

Twitter TMI Syndrome and How to Avoid It

Social Media, Twitter 6 Comments »

Picture credit to 4.bp.blogspot

“Just changed the most nuclear diaper this year!”

“My ex is the worst pig on the planet and here’s a photo as proof.”

Don’t deny it, you’ve seen tweets just like this before. You may have even tweeted something similar yourself! These types of tweets tend to stem from Twitter TMI Syndrome, a self-destructive spiral that is very easy to fall into.

There’s a fine line between personal sharing and networking on Twitter. You can’t expect to talk about business 24/7 and never discuss anything else. It makes you seem like a robot. So most people encourage realism in tweeting and sharing a little personal information. It makes you seem real and encourages people to connect with you.

That being said, there is a line that is being crossed by even some important internet marketers who have fallen prey to the TMI Syndrome. TMI, or “too much information”, is something that happens on a regular basis and it’s not just bored housewives or adventurous college kids posting this stuff.

What exactly constitutes TMI? It can be hard to tell sometimes, but basically, if you are tweeting something that will make people go, “Whoa, why am I following this person?” then you need to stop. For example:

It’s fine to tweet about your new puppy. TMI is tweeting every time that puppy has an accident on your carpet.

People won’t mind if you let them know the cute way your 4 year old pronounces a word. They will mind if you tweet how he pronounces every single word throughout the day.

It’s not bad to share what you’re having for dinner at the Olive Garden. It’s not cool to share what you eat, snack and see in the kitchen every 10 minutes.

Tweeting that you don’t feel well is ok. Tweeting the details of bodily functions, not so much.

Let’s not forget the safety TMI. I pull my hair every time I see “hubby left for a month, alone with 3 kids” or “going on vacation for a week, hope the plants won’t die” – How about re-phrasing that with “please come and rape me, I can’t wait” or “be my guess while you steal in comfort for an entire week”. I don’t want to be sarcastic, but please, please you must stop. This is specially the case if you live outside the US, but even here it’s still considered TMI.

How to Stop It

You might not even realize that you’re posting TMI tweets. Go to your archives and take a good look at what is there. At least 80% of your tweets should be with your networking goals in mind. If you have a few that are just random fun, that’s ok, but you need to be careful.

Once you are aware of what you’re tweeting, it’s time to implement a wait period. When the urge to share hits you, write down the tweet in a text document or even on a sticky note and wait at least five minutes before you actually tweet it. Many people find that they just type and hit send without thinking too much about it. You’ll have far better results if you take the time to consider what you’re about to send out into cyberspace.

Think about what your goals are. Does this tweet help you reach them? Is it going to offend people? If so, is it worth losing followers over?

Do you suffer from Twitter TMI Syndrome? Do you know someone who does?

Tagged with: goals • Social Media • twitter

Mar 08

Revver

This site is best known for the revenue sharing program that they offer, considered to be one of the easiest types for earning. For social networking, Revver offers superior embedded player design and very good quality video. Their QuickTime files work best, but they also do Flash conversions and you have 100MB file size limit.

YouTube

You can’t make a list of top video sites without including YouTube, of course. For sheer visibility, this is the site many marketers choose. However, their strict regulations and changing rules mean that it’s not necessarily the best site. The quality of video is so-so and you are limited to 100MB or 10 minutes for videos.

Vimeo

The video quality of Vimeo is very good, but you do need be careful to follow their rules. The embedded player is very easy to use and you can upload any length of video, as long as it’s only 250 MB. However, you need to keep in mind that this is also the weekly upload limit.

Veoh

With very good quality video and audio, easy to use upload system and a quality embedded player design, this video sharing site is a popular one with marketers and anyone who needs to get the word out about their business. There are also no size limits on Veoh, so you can go wild with longer videos.

Blip.tv

Blip is another good place to set up video account. There is a 100MB file size limit, but the top quality (blip.tv has the highest quality video of all these sites) and extremely easy to use uploader make up for that. This is the preferred spot for anyone who is more concerned about quality than popularity.

DivX Stage6 Beta

This is a high end, slightly complicated video site that requires more than the usual steps to set everything up. That being said, the quality is excellent, second only to blip.tv and you have a full 2GB limit for videos.

VodPod

This is a hidden treasure that I’ll tell you about. It’s not a video uploading site, instead it’s a video organizer. The secret of this service is the widget. They offer the best ways to display your videos on your blog. I use them all the times on my personal blog Fantasticos4. You can display the video icon anywhere you want. It will enlarge the screen when your reader clicks it. I also love using their video sequence widget. You can display a series of videos in order. This can be done horizontal or vertical. Try it out, you’ll have fun with it.

All of these video sharing sites are easy enough to use, so if you are looking to get into videos, then check these sites out. It’s a great way to really create a bond with your visitors and interact with them.

Tagged with: video • video sharing

Mar 05

What I Learned from Maxine Clarks

Social Media, Social Media for Business 10 Comments »

Sharing new concepts learned at the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration – Part 2

Maxine Clark and AnaRC

I was impressed by Maxine as a woman, a business owner, a social media example to follow and more. Let me go straight to the point and share with you all I learned from the CEO of Build-a-Bear Workshop:

Follow your passion. Maxine lost her Teddy Bear at the age of 10 and she was proud to announce that she’s found that bear millions of times. This is equivalent to the number of teddy bears sold at the Build-a-Bear Workshop since the day she started the company.

How many of us can make a business out of a need? a passion? a lost Teddy?

picture credit to buildabear.com

Those of in Social Media can learn so much from this lesson. Is our passion clear to our audience? Are we adding value? Are we fulfilling a need? Is our blog/business only focused on me, myself and I? Transcending from the “me” approach to the “client center” approach is the real secret of turning one’s passion into a business.

Make a business plan. The passion was the source of Maxine’s inspiration but her pragmatic approach was what made it happen. She had over 15 years of experience in the retail business and a very elaborate business plan before she started her company. She had also saved some money and done a fare amount of research.

I personally loved this. So many of us in social media are sold the “get rich fast scheme” we have an unrealistic Silicon Valley dream that success will come by magic when we least expect it and we’ll be BRF (beautiful, rich and famous) forever and ever Amen. Yeah right! there’s actually more possibilities that you’ll win the lotto than for that to happen.

So stop buying those “Make money while you dream” ebooks and follow Maxine’s advice: “buy a Business Plan software” It is a tedious exercise but trust me, once you have it ready (or at least started) you’ll have the most liberating feeling you can imagine.

Focus on your employees. Train for top customer experience! One of the moms noted how stellar was the customer service at the BuildaBear Workshop. They are always willing to help and make your child feel the center of the store. Maxine answered with her recruiting strategy. The core competency she looks for in candidates is that of “caring” if they genuinely care, the rest can be done with training. Then the competency development is customer centered. All about their experience and how to make it even better the next time.

Do you make your customer feel that he/she is the only one you have at the moment? Do you take more than you can handle for the sake of money or ego (or to make sure the competition won’t take it) and then under-deliver? Have you given careful thought about the core competencies your business needs? Do you train and empower your staff or do you compete with them?

Give back. As a social entrepreneur, this was my favorite part. Maxine actually gave before she even made profit. Giving back has been part of her business model and culture from the get go. Maxine and her husband just opened up a health center “Casa de la Salud” to improve the health conditions of Hispanic families in her area. You can imagine how thrilled I was to hear that.

Do you give back to your community? Do you share your assets? Remember that they don’t need to be money. It can be knowledge, time, friendship….

Listen to your customer. I was moved by the way Maxine read letters from her clients to the audience. It was actually part of the presentation. Her customers are able to reach her directly and influence her. One mom asked a question on Facebook. That question not only was heard, but also ended up turning into a new line of products the company will offer. How cool is that? The other thing that really moved me was the fact that Maxine has chosen to manage her own accounts. This includes Twitter! and she added: “That’s why you’ll see my tweets come out at 3:00 am”

We were so impressed by her that even Chris Brogan called Maxine “Your Highness” to show his admiration. I have taken so many notes that I can go on writing but I learned even more from the way she engaged with her customer’s letters, Facebook messages and tweets even during her presentation.

Thank you Maxine for sharing your success with us all.

Tagged with: BuildaBear • Disney social media conference • Maxine Clark • Social Media for Business

Mar 03

5 Tips for Stagnating Social Media Strategies

Intermediate Track, Social Media Classroom 7 Comments »

image credit to rostock.de

You started out with an awesome social media strategy, one that you just knew was going to bring in all sorts of traffic. And it did. But then it all stopped . . . you haven’t changed anything, but the traffic isn’t increasing and your followers have stopped growing. Now what?

A stagnating social media strategy is one that needs some tweaking. The very nature of social marketing demands constant changes in the way we do things. In fact, if you continue to do the exact same thing all the time, you’ll find that you hit a plateau after a while, where nothing really goes forward.

To help you prevent this common problem, here are a few tips:

1. Re-evaluate your target market. Maybe you’ve saturated the existing market and need to branch out. It can be worth taking a second look at your target market and see whether or not you need to adjust your aim. You might need to reach some other people, as well, in order to continue growing.

2. Try something new. If you’ve only used text until now, why not try making a relevant video and sharing it? Sometimes just the excitement of doing something new can draw in more followers and interested potential clients. It’s certainly worth a try. Contests, video, audio and free reports are all excellent methods of giving your readers a bit of a boost.

3. Add a social media account. Once you’ve become familiar with Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, it might be time to add another network to the mix. Reaching out to a new area will help increase the number of people you come in contact with, as well as increase the visitors to your site.

4. Be more active. Sometimes you just need to be a bit more approachable and that often happens by upping the amount of time you spend on social media. Even increasing by ten minutes a day can have some great effects and get you out of that rut.

5. Make a plan. Do you have a plan as to what you’re going to do each day on social media? If not, take a look at your goals and then decide what you need to be doing every single day. Don’t be vague, make notes on specific topics to cover, etc.

There’s so much you can do with social media to promote your business, but if you’re finding that you’re stuck, then it’s time to change things up a little. Re-evaluate where you are and what you’re doing with your marketing and come up with a better plan that will allow you to get out of the rut and start growing again.

Tagged with: social marketing • Social Media • Strategy

Mar 01

Social Media Metrics You Need to Pay Attention To

Intermediate Track, Social Media Classroom 3 Comments »

image credit to hair website

Ok, it’s Monday and some of us question why we even exists at the beginning of the week. Imagine then what some of our clients ask us on Mondays. Here are some answers! If you’re using social media as a promotional tool, it makes sense that you’ll need to monitor a few specifics in order to know if it’s working or not. Most businesses just look at the amount of traffic that is coming in from those sites that they are using for promotion, but they fail to check other very important areas.

So, what should you be paying attention to? Here are a few tips:

How long the visitors stay. If someone comes through a link on Twitter, but clicks away before your page has a chance to load, it’s not going to do you a lot of good. You want people to stick around. A common reason that visitors leave quickly is because your website wasn’t waht they were looking for, so make sure you are nice and clear about what you do on social media sites.

Whether they bother to share your content. In an ideal world, you’d be able to enjoy viral reposting on every single blog post you write. In the real world, you might not get that very often. However, by writing viral content and promoting it the right way, you’ll have a far better chance of getting others to spread the word about your business.

How many people answer the call to action. Your site should have a call to action, be that to sign up for your newsletter or make a purchase. You need to track the number of visitors from social media to see what the conversion rates are like. This is an area that can always use improvement, so keep tweaking your social media strategy and see where you can go with it.

Who’s talking about you and what they’re saying. Keep a running search for your business name and check it frequently. Google Alerts is a great way to do this and keep track of who has been talking about your company. You should find out what people are saying. If it’s good, you’re fine, but if they are badmouthing you, it’s time to look for a solution and a way to deal with those who are having a hard time with your business.

Staying on top of your social media presence is vital if you want to make sure that you are doing things right. If you see a decline in conversion rates, for example, you can adjust your networking strategy to make sure that you get the publicity necessary to boost the number of visitors and to increase conversion rates, as well.

Happy Monday

Tagged with: Social Media • Strategy

Feb 26

Social Bookmarking: How Social is It Really?

Social Media 2 Comments »

picture credit to earningguys.com

When it comes to social media, most of us think first of social networking. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, these are all places that come to mind. Next, you might think of video sites like YouTube and Hulu. Social bookmarking is usually at the very bottom of the list. Why is that?

The main reason is that for all the talk of sharing, most people only use social bookmarking for their own personal gain and never actually check out what others are doing.

This doesn’t mean that social bookmarking can’t be social. StumbleUpon is an excellent example of very social bookmarking. It allows you to find great sites quickly and easily and it can really be quite addictive. Even there, you’ll find many people who bookmark things that are really not worthy of bookmarking, just to get the added exposure.

If you look at places like Reddit, Propeller, etc. you will rapidly see that there is very little actual sharing going on. Most people bookmark and leave it at that, doing it only for the actual backlink to their website. However, if you look, you will find others like you who are actually interested in engaging with others. Start by befriending these people and checking out their links. Make comments on what they are doing and what they bookmark.

Certain bookmarking sites are better for this than others, Digg and Propeller, for example, get a lot more comments than Reddit or Fark. You need to divide your time between a handful of sites that are best suited to your business niche. Some sites are very specific in the type of niche they accept. If yours isn’t on the list, then chances are they aren’t looking for the content that you like to share.

It’s also vital that you bookmark something other than your own posts and content all the time. It’s tempting, but don’t do it. A good rule of thumb is to bookmark 10 other sites for every one of yours. Keep in mind that you want to give people value, so don’t just bookmark everything you put up, stick to the really important stuff.

There are so many different areas of social media to explore, bookmarking being just one of them. Do you use social bookmarking? Do you think it’s social enough?

Tagged with: bookmarking • Social Media

Feb 24

What I learned from Guy Kawasaki

Social Media, Social Media Events 40 Comments »

Sharing new concepts learned at the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration – Part 1

Picture credit to Jeannet Kaplun

Holy Kow!
I must admit that I’ve had an admiration for Guy Kawasaki but always knew that he didn’t have the style I wanted to pursue for myself nor my clients. However, I was genuinely curious to hear about his ways of using Twitter. Guess what? I ended up learning a ton from Guy and totally changed my perception of him. Here’s what I found most relevant:

It’s ok to use ghosts as long as you’re transparent. Often we’re under the impression that we must do it all when it comes to our social media presence for the business. At that point it’s better if we close the shop and stay on our pajamas writing blogs and engaging with every single comment that comes our way. Then come the bills!! It’s ok to delegate and be transparent about it. Guy gave excellent examples of what he delegates: The staff will do the research, look for killer content relevant to his communities and target audience, edit some publications, manage his brand accounts, monitors traffic, sentiments and so forth. Not ok to make people believe your secretary is actually you!

Take a practical approach: I’m in love of Guy’s definition of the CyberNazis: “poor SEO expert who goes in life telling people that he knows how Google works and really has no clue about what he’s doing” the he added: “most likely still leaving with his mom and spends most of his time playing video games and dictating to people the right way to use social media”. I found that to be so true. It’s ok to have the humility to know that people are not waiting for your little tweet all day long. So set-up some automatic tweets. Guy uses Objective Marketer and TwitterFeed to do that. Here I’m not too sure about the numbers, Guy sends 25 links 4 times a day. I’ve done it twice since the conference and my traffic has actually gone from 540 to an average of 1010 per post. So it really works. I have the temptation to go up to 3 times, but it totally embarrasses me. The best idea is to do it at different times of the day. Usually the people who are around 7 am are not the same folks who join the evening Twitter parties or chats. So the same applies to the afternoon crowd, usually young moms who have their toddlers napping or business owners who have already taken care of morning business and are managing email inboxes, @replies, LinkedIn connections and so forth. Give me your advice on this one.
Use of powerful tools. I love it when the pros share their secret tools. Here is a list from Guy: Stumbleupon, Prosterous (I just started that one today. Check it out) MyAlltop (love the one created for LATISM) and Friendfeed. If you remember any other I might have missed, please add it here.

I ended up learning so much that I’m even harvesting some fruits already. I hope you can also put some of these lessons into practice. And please share your thoughts about how often we should push our own content to the networks.

Tagged with: Disney social media conference • Social Media Events • social media tips

Feb 24

Why Being Yourself is the Best Strategy

Beginner's Track, Social Media, Social Media Classroom 16 Comments »

Online, it’s easy to adopt any personality you like. You can even pretend to be of the opposite gender if you so choose. The point is that no one knows you online, so you can literally be anyone. And many people choose to change themselves and present a more scholarly persona.

While there are occasionally reasons to change your online persona (such as when you’re on a company account), it really is best to just be yourself. There are a few reasons for this:

Better Off-Line Experience. When people meet you in real life, they’ll already know what you’re like. You might not think you’ll ever actually meet anyone that you interact with online, but these days, more and more people are meeting in real life, after knowing each other online. Meetups, tweetups and such are all times when you could be meeting others from your Twitter network and they’ll probably notice how different you are!

Relax and Focus. It’s also a lot easier to keep up your real personality. If you’re trying to be someone you aren’t, it can be very difficult to keep it up and you’re likely to slip up. If someone realizes that you are essentially lying about who you are, you will lose credibility. There’s no point in losing trust for no good reason. You can relax and focus on your social media goal without having to guard a fake personality.

Only you are the You. The final and best argument for just being yourself online is that you are the only you. Everyone is unique and you are the only person who can really be yourself on social media! By portraying your real personality, you’re bound to stand out because you ARE unique! There’s no need to try hard to be someone more exciting or interesting. You might not be as wild or hilarious as some people out there and that’s ok. By being who you really are, you’ll find that people respond to you and you’ll have loyal followers who are interested in you for you. Why do you think we love @GaryVee talking about m&m flavor in his wine?

Are you being yourself online? Why or why not? Share your reasons in the comments, I’d love to hear what you think.

Tagged with: be yourself • Social Media • unique

Feb 23

10 Ways to Find Time for Social Media

Beginner's Track, Social Media Classroom 12 Comments »

picture credit to nofatclips

“I just don’t have time to do more in my day!”

Does this sound familiar? If you find yourself struggling to find time for online networking, it might be time to take a second look at your schedule. I’ve compiled some ways you can find the time in your day for 15 minutes of social media, if you have more ideas, please share in the comments.

1. Get up 15 minutes earlier. It’s not a lot and you can use those early morning minutes to tweet, check your Facebook fan page and update your LinkedIn profile.

2. Cut into your lunch. Eat a little faster and spend the extra time on social media. I often have lunch with my cyber friends. Nothing wrong to send some tweets in between bites.

3. Make the most of your commute. Stuck in traffic? Hanging out on the subway? Use those moments to network with others . . . they all add up!

4. Use your bathroom breaks. Before heading back to the couch, office or wherever you’re going, take a moment to update your status. If you spend one minute each time you head to the washroom, you’ll rapidly add up to the allotted amount of time.

5. Network during commercials. Did you know that the average television show has at least 8-10 minutes of commercials? If you jump on social media during the commercials, you’ll easily gain around 20 minutes every hour.

6. Update while you walk the dog. Mobile devices mean we can network anywhere and what could be a better way to multi-task than to tweet or update your Facebook while getting some exercise?

7. Skip television. Why not turn the TV off and get promoting your business, instead? While you can tweet and such during commercials, actually leaving the television off is even better for productivity.

8. Stay up 15 minutes later. Those extra minutes won’t really affect your sleep, but they could have a major impact on your online social status.

9. Carpool. By letting someone else drive sometimes, you can easily use up your travel time on a social media site or two. Just don’t forget to talk, too, or no one will want to share rides with you!

10. Workout body and social media. My best posts have been written when I’m working out on the treadmill. So, turn off the TV or the radio and workout your social media presence too.

11. Treat it as email. If you’re the formal type that needs to set aside a proper time for everything. Then you want to treat your social media presence like email. So before you check your emails, open Twitter and reply to all important direct messages and replies, do the same with Facebook, Linkedin, Blog comments and whatever else you got yourself into.

If finding time for social media has been your excuse, you now know how to find that extra time in your day. You don’t need to spend hours and hours on Twitter to be effective. In fact, if you only have a 15 minute chunk of time during the day, you can set your posts to publish throughout the day, giving the impression of being online far more often than your situation actually allows for.

Don’t let excuses hold you back!

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