Social Media

May 03

The Importance of Interaction in Social Media

picture credit to java2s

I’m sure you’ve seen those internet marketers who pop onto Twitter every few days to plug their product, then auto-tweet the same thing to every one of their social media accounts. These people are everywhere and while they might catch a few unsuspecting folks in their wide net, they will never benefit from the real purpose of social media, interaction.

You see, we humans are social creatures and we enjoy being with other people. Even if our interactions occur online, there are certain things that make us more likely to pay attention to someone. We trust people we know to give us good recommendations, whereas we are automatically suspicious of strangers pumping hyped up products.

By forming actual relationships with your followers and friends on social media sites, you’ll not only increase the conversion rate of your links, you also boost the probability of forming a lasting partnership. You never know when someone you talk to on Facebook might end up being the co-author of an ebook or help you out with guest posts when you’re sick or unable to write.

There is a never ending stream of ads on social media sites, so we really notice when someone is being real. A major way to prove that you aren’t just into self promotion is to chat up other people. You can pass on links from other people’s blogs and status updates, comment on their posts, and ask questions.

If you are following a lot of people, it can be quite time consuming to answer everyone, so you’ll need to budget your time. However, it’s very important that you do respond to people so they know that you are paying attention. They will also pay attention to you! The next time you need a hand spreading the word about something they will help you by passing the links on, blogging and even recommending you to their friends and followers. This can be a pretty big deal, particularly if you are hooking up with some big names, but everyone matters when it comes to social media!

What can you do to make sure you’re connecting with people, particularly when you are just getting started? Here are a few ideas:

Respond to people’s general questions.
Ask specific people questions.
Ask general questions.
Don’t forget to thank those who respond to you.
Share links that others have posted and let them know you appreciate the resource.
Share links that you find online, even if you aren’t connected to the person, people will appreciate the resources you provide, too.

What are your tips for making sure you’re being sociable?

Apr 30

5 Ways to Avoid Problems on Social Media

Beginner's Track, Social Media Classroom 6 Comments »

image credit to Thesu

Have you ever typed something out in the heat of the moment on Twitter, sent it out into the Twitterverse and then realized that it might not have been the most appropriate thing to say? It happens to all of us and it can cause problems, particularly if what you had to say was insulting to someone else. So, how do you avoid this situation when social media is so instant?

1. Count to 10. It’s a cliché method, but it works! When someone says something and your first instinct is to shoot back a snarky reply, stop, count to ten and reconsider. In fact, that is good advice for anything, even pleasant responses. Give yourself a minute to think about your response and to craft a thoughtful one, rather than sending out something you’ll feel bad about afterwards.

2. Have a goal. Knowing what you want to accomplish with your social media networking is key in posting the right messages. For example, if you want to promote yourself as an expert in conflict resolution, you wouldn’t post a horrible insult to your husband or wife on Facebook. Keep your goals in mind as you post.

3. Turn it off. If things are bugging you on Twitter and the insults are about to fly, just shut it down. This isn’t face to face, so there’s absolutely no reason to put up with it. You don’t even have to walk away, just click that little red X in the corner and do something else instead.

4. Skip the personal chit chat. While some would argue this point, there’s rarely a good reason to post about what you had for breakfast (unless you’re a food blogger or chef!). There’s nothing wrong with adding some of yourself to your social media network, but don’t go overboard. No one needs to know every little gritty detail of your morning routine and posting live updates often results in the sharing of too much information.

5. Write it somewhere else. If you aren’t sure about your response to something or whether you should be sending it out into the Web, write your thoughts in a note on paper or in a word processor instead of in your status update. This makes it that much harder to send it accidentally and you’ll have a chance to reread things when you type it into the social network.

Mostly, if you want to avoid problems, you have to start thinking before you type. Most of us are so accustomed to IM and instant tweets, etc. that we find it difficult to sit back and think for a minute. We tend to fire off those sentences without waiting and that’s what gets people into trouble. Train yourself to wait a moment before responding to anyone and your quality of social media will go up.

Tagged with: Facebook • Social Media • social network • twitter

Apr 28

6 Alternatives to Twitter

Social Media, Twitter 8 Comments »

Yesterday I wrote about Twitter and the best guides out there. While Twitter is most certainly the biggest microblogging system out there, you’ll find that a lot of people are predicting its imminent downfall. There are a number of people who detest the platform and want to see it fall. Will it? Only time will tell.

In the meantime, however, you might want to check out these alternatives to Twitter. All designed to offer fast communication, these sites allow you to get your point across and network with other business owners in short snippets, just like Twitter.

Seesmic: This site lets you organize your online networking by integrating Twitter and Facebook right into the new format. You can add multiple Twitter accounts and keep track of everything through Seesmic’s interface. Create groups and searches that will organize it all for you.

Flokio: With Flokio, you set up your very own social media network. It has some interesting possibilities. Create your own microblogging setup and invite people to join. This could be ideal for specific niches like bloggers, IM experts, etc. but can also be used to create a network for smaller groups such as your church or workforce.

FriendFeed: Another compilation site that allows you to integrate a number of social networks, FriendFeed also lets you post your own updates and links when you want to. You can network with others on FriendFeed and see all of their social media postings at once, as well.

12seconds: This interesting site offers the same concept as Twitter, but in video. With 12 seconds of video, you can update friends, family and other networking partners on anything . . . anything, that is, which will fit in 12 seconds of video. The site lets you record video from your mobile phone and email it to post.

Plurk: One of the longer standing Twitter competition sites, Plurk lets you do microblogging in a very similar way to the micro-giant. In fact, many people prefer Plurk for its community of business networkers. It’s certainly worth a try and probably the closest thing to Twitter you’ll find on the internet.

identi.ca: This site allows you to send out small status updates to your followers. It is very similar to Plurk and Twitter, but with a smaller number of users. It’s also international, so there are multiple languages being used on the site.

Whether you dislike Twitter, want an alternative or just need more social networks to keep you busy, these six alternatives should do the trick. While only two are pretty much identical to the microblogging site, you may find the others very useful in your pursuit of network contacts.

Tagged with: networking • Social Media • twitter

Apr 27

7 Social Media Methods for PR

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

image credit to spotzero

Traditional public relations is not interactive. Billboards, print and television ads all have a One-Way label on them. They merely tell the viewer what to buy and what to expect from their products.

Social media is gradually becoming the preferred method of advertising. While traditional ads are still being used, of course, social media is now becoming a part of the world of advertising for PR companies who have clients looking for the latest edge.

1. Direct contact with media. If you have a business that needs a little extra exposure, then Twitter is a great way to make contact with media. Most media companies are now online, so you can easily contact them. A 140 character message is far more likely to be noticed than a lengthy email. I just saw how Ann Curry from NBC got in contact with non-profit organizations through Twitter during the Haiti earthquake. It really works!

2. Survey your customers. Social media is a great place to get information on what your clients need or want. Ask questions on Twitter or Facebook and find out everything you need to provide your client base with great products and service.

3. Pick up reviews. There’s no rule saying that you have to ask for testimonials in the usual way. Ask clients to submit a video of someone using your product, or to take photos. Hold a contest and encourage everyone to pass it on. You’ll get plenty of testimonials and lots of great publicity.

4. Hold a giveaway. People love free stuff, particularly if it’s actually worth something. Giveaways and freebies go viral very quickly. Soon everyone will be telling their friends and you can expect to have a lot of interest in your business.

5. Arrange real life meetings. While social media is great, there’s nothing like seeing someone face to face to really get your point across. Through social media, you can arrange meetups and conventions that let you talk to your contacts face to face.

6. Keep everyone updated. There’s nothing like anticipation to get people talking about your company. Social media is an excellent way to give people a little taste of what’s to come, drop hints about a new product and finally release it.

7. Interact with your clients. No one runs a perfect business. You’re likely to run into people who aren’t happy with everything all the time, but with social media, you can catch complaints and fix the problem. This will boost the amount of good publicity you get since people tend to be very appreciative of companies that respond well and will tell their friends how you listened to them.

You don’t have to use all of these methods, but all of them are great ways to make your business more visible. You’ll be able to boost public relations and increase publicity without huge investments.

Tagged with: Business • PR • Social Media

Apr 17

Social Media and Time Management

Intermediate Track, Social Media, Social Media Classroom 19 Comments »

picture credit to time managment central.net

Having trouble figuring out how to keep from spending too much time on social media? While it’s a great way to ensure that you have plenty of exposure, your business can’t run on social media alone. That means good time management skills are required and you have to carefully plan your time on any social media site to be successful.

Ideally, you will have a schedule to follow. That might be just 15 minutes a day on LinkedIn, or it could be an hour a day spread out over several social media sites. The choice is yours and it really depends on how much you need to dedicate to other areas of your business.

To make the most of your time online, try:

Keeping track of your posts. Whatever you do online, make sure you track it. This will help you remember what you did before and avoid repeating yourself.

Set up multiple feeds. Having your Twitter posts automatically appear on Facebook is a great way to save time and boost the impact of everything you say and do online.

Have a plan. By writing down your social media goals and then working out a plan, you can stay focused and it will help keep you from getting distracted, something that is very easy to do when you are online!

Keep the noise to a minimum. It might be fun to follow a gazillion people who tweet about stuff you’re interested in, but if you’re on social media for business, stick to following those who are specifically for business.

Stick to it. Don’t drop out of social media for a while and then try to come back. It takes a lot more energy and focus each time to recover your previous position. Instead, keep up the momentum and stay on top of things.

Get a timer. If you have a hard time remembering to stop working after a couple of minutes, make sure you set your timer to remind you when the time is up. This can be done several times a day, or you can work on social media for a steady block of tiem.

Figure out what works. Everyone is different. You might have a hard time working for 10 minutes at a time, so if an hour of solid time works best, go with that. There’s no hard and fast rule.

There are so many things to distract you while you’re online that it can be easy to sit down to work for an hour and end up spending three hours chatting or commenting on Facebook or tweeting with friends. Proper time management and planning will help you stay on track.

Tagged with: productivity • Social Media • time management

Apr 13

Secrets of Successful Twitter Users

Intermediate Track, Social Media Classroom 5 Comments »

image credit to bubblefriends

If you’ve ever seen someone with 25,000 followers and wondered what their secret is, then you’ve come to the right place. There are a few things that you can do to improve your popularity on Twitter, but your best bet is to pay attention to what the best Twitterers are doing. Granted that you won’t get obsessed with the numbers, instead with the quality and community building. However, since numbers do count, here are some tips:

Offer only quality

What makes you follow someone who has a lot of followers already? Chances are it’s the quality of their tweets. If someone is offering real information that people can actually take and use, then they are going to be pretty much guaranteed a lot of followers. Many top tweeps claim that 90% or more of their tweets are merely to impart information. The rest tend to be responding to other people.

Talk back

Don’t ignore people when they tweet you, as that’s a sure way to lose followers. What you’ll notice is that while the big dogs aren’t able to respond to every tweet, they do tend to interact a lot with their followers. When someone sends you an @ message, be sure to respond. Of course, this doesn’t apply if they are being rude or spamming you.

Use visuals

The vast majority of those who are popular on Twitter use photos from time to time. Twitpic is very easy to use and lets you upload a photo and post a shortened URL, though you can also use an account like Flickr and shorten the URL yourself. The idea is to give visuals of some of the things you talk about, making it easier for your followers to understand.

Network with the Big Wigs

Twitter evens the playing field. You can talk to just about anyone . . . though there’s no guarantee they will talk back, of course. Messaging people with carefully thought out notes can get you noticed, but the big reason to follow them is the same reason you’re reading this post, to see how they do things. Everyone has special methods and you will be able to check these out easily if you are following the person on Twitter.

Link Out

You need to have somewhere to link, so make sure you have a website or blog. All the promo in the world won’t do you much good if you have nowhere to send your followers! Make sure you have a well designed webpage.

We can all learn a lot from the biggest names on Twitter. When someone else is successful, don’t be jealous of them, take the time to admire what they do and learn from them! That doesn’t mean you should copy them outright, either, but do learn.

Tagged with: learning • Social Media

Apr 12

How Secure is Social Media?

Social Media 6 Comments »

If you have ever been hacked, you know what a mess it can cause. Not only does the hacker get into your accounts and mess them up, the sense of being violated can be debilitating. Unfortunately, anyone using social media is a target because they are putting themselves out there for the world to see. That doesn’t mean you should hide and cower away in a dark corner . . . but you do need to be careful.

Here are a few tips that I’ve gleaned from the internet on how to stay safe on social media.

Use a different password for each account. This helps prevent a full on attack. If you do get hacked you are only hacked in one account, not all of them.

Change your passwords frequently. It’s a good idea to continually switch up your passwords. You should also use hard to remember combinations of letters, numbers and punctuation. Keep track of everything by writing it down in a private notebook or look into some of the keyword saving options online.

Don’t reveal too much online. While social media is certainly a social thing, you don’t have to share everything. Do you really think it’s that difficult for someone to find out what your dog’s name is and then reset your password by answering your security question? It’s not. So pick something that you don’t talk about online and keep it a secret.

Never click on suspicious links. Unfortunately, social media is overrun with spam these days, but some of those links that pop up in your friend feed are actually phishing schemes, designed to grab your login info for various sites.

Check for spyware regularly. Even if you don’t think you’ve been to a suspicious website or clicked on anything that could have infected your computer, you need to install an anti-spyware program and run diagnostics on a regular basis. This will also keep your various accounts from getting hacked.

Change everything if you are hacked. First, make sure you notify the social media network that you’re using, if you have been hacked. Then change your password. If any other sites use the same login information or if you had any of their info within that account (for example, a Gmail account that has the passwords and registration info for all your social media sites), be sure to change those, as well.

While there is no need to be paranoid, it’s just common sense to keep your information safe and avoid the nasties out there who prey on innocent people.

How do you stay safe on social media?

Tagged with: security • Social Media

Apr 05

Negative Feedback, Not as Bad as You Think

Intermediate Track, Social Media Classroom 16 Comments »

image credit to WSHA

I recently read that one of the main reasons businesses and individuals don’t use social media is because they worry they’ll get negative feedback. Considering that no one really likes to hear someone saying something bad about them, this makes sense . . . or does it?

The truth is that we need feedback in order to get better. That doesn’t mean someone should insult your kids or anything while you’re on social media sites, but in that case, you might not want to put certain personal information out there. For business, however, it can be extremely beneficial for you to get feedback, positive and negative, from your clients.

Why Negative Feedback is Good for Business

Not everything negative is, well, negative. You can learn a lot from what people think is wrong with your business. Imagine you have a bunch of people complaining about a certain flaw in your product. Chances are you need to fix the flaw. And once you do, you will end up with better reviews and therefore, better sales.

In addition, when you fix something that your clients are complaining about, you will gain their appreciation. People like to be listened to, so when you provide them with solutions to the things they are discussing, they’ll be very happy. Since many companies don’t have a good way to communicate issues, this can also bring about a rave review from the clients that you’ve helped. It’s amazing how much a little positive change can do to create great word of mouth advertising! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people on Twitter get excited and retweet when a company has helped someone who was having problems with their product or service. It impresses people!

So, negative feedback, even when presented in a nasty way, is an opportunity to improve your business. You might not be able to change everything that people would like, but by paying attention to what your target market has to say, you’ll gain their respect. You will also be able to refute untrue claims, something that wouldn’t be possible if you weren’t even online, interacting and monitoring what is being said about your company.

If someone makes a comment about your company that is untrue, it’s a good business practice to put the truth out there. You don’t have to turn it into a huge argument (which would only reflect badly on the company), but do make sure you let people know the truth about your business.

There are so many great reasons to get into social media if you have a business, don’t let the negative things drag you down. Use them to improve things and you won’t be sorry.

Tagged with: Business • interaction • negative feedback • Social Media

Mar 31

How Personal is Too Personal?

Beginner's Track, Social Media Classroom 9 Comments »

picture credit to digital life

By now you know that I advocate sharing a bit of yourself in social media. After all, without it, you wouldn’t be anything more than a posting robot! People like to know a bit about the person behind the tweets, so it’s a good idea to get a little personal once in a while, but just how do you do this without going too far? I’m going to share some tips with you today on how to build bonds without sharing everything.

Avoid airing personal issues. If you’re fighting with your husband, no one needs to hear it. Instead, stick to things that would interest your clients. For example, if you sell natural bathroom cleaning products, you might write about how the odor of a chemical cleaner really irritated your nose. The most important here is also to respect the privacy of your loved one. Even when it comes to the kids, you want to safeguard their integrity and dignity. Don’t say anything about them that you would not share about yourself.

Keep it relevant. Even when discussing personal things, there’s no reason to go too far off topic. If you’re in advertising, there’s nothing wrong with mentioning how much you enjoyed one of the SuperBowl ads, for example, and linking to it on YouTube. This is something that is relevant to your audience, but still gives a bit of insight into your likes and dislikes.

Keep it light. Delving into serious issues might be too much for your audience. This obviously depends on who is in your target market, but you need to keep them in mind when approaching personal updates. In general, it’s best to keep things fairly light. Avoid political issues unless you want to alienate many of your potential customers, for example.

Respond to questions. It might be easiest to respond to what people are asking of you . . . this gives you a pretty good feel for what your audience is comfortable with in the personal arena.

Use common sense. Really, common sense is the best way to go . . . think about everything before you actually post it. This will prevent a lot of hassles, particularly since most things are posted in the spur of the moment. Wait a minute before posting and think things through. Will it further your cause or hinder it?

With social media, it is very easy and tempting to get very personal. Every time something happens, after all, you are only a few keystrokes away from letting the world know. However, you need to be careful and consider the consequences before posting personal notes. Remember that if you’re doing this for business, just about anything could affect how your clients see you, for good or for bad.

Tagged with: personal information • Social Media

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