Improve your social skills, it’s good for business!
Improve your social skills, it’s good for business!
Search has changed. Marketing has changed
It has a voice now. That voice is your customer “tweeting” on Twitter, reading, participating in and sharing blogs, networking in social communities, and getting advice from other clients and friends.
Your customers are smart, they’re connected and today, they’re part of your sales force. Thanks to social media. Now you’ve got to optimize everything digital—from websites and news to social profiles, blogs, podcasts, you name it. That way, when your customers use any of the various and growing digital avenues to find what they’re looking for, they will be more likely to find you. And don’t forget, they’re also finding your social channels in search engine results. When optimization is done right, you can pretty much ensure they’ll have a cohesive and strategic brand experience.
Long-Term Social Media Strategies
Corporate Blog Design
Online Public Relations
Social Profile Creation
Reputation Management
Content and Blog Post Authoring
Analytics
Widget Development
How to Become a Popular Twit on Twitter
Learn About Twitter
Twitter is a free social networking and microblogging service that allows its users to stay connected in real-time. Users post messages of up to 140 characters, referred to as “tweets”. The user’s followers receive those tweets in real-time. Twitter does not publish the number of users it has, but it is estimated to be well-over 7 million. The audience is thought to be slightly male, with users also visiting TechCrunch, E!Online, realitytvworld.com and the Huffington Post.
Join Twitter
If you want to become a popular twit on Twitter, you need to join the service and create a profile. Visit ww.twitter.com. Click on the green “Get Started-Join!” button in the middle of the screen. Where directed, enter your full name, a username (example: Oneupweb), a password and your email address. Type the coded phrase shown to you on the screen, and select the green button that says “Create my account.”
Make Friends
You can find new friends or follow those you already know. Do this by using Twitter features such as People Search, Twitter Search, Address Book Import and URL Look-Up. As you make friends (i.e. follow others tweets) they will likely add you as a friend (i.e. follow your tweets).
Have Something Interesting to Say
In fact, don’t ever talk about your bathroom habits. Give people some sort of information, something they are likely to “re-tweet” or RT (i.e. share with their followers).
When All Else Fails, Hire a Celebrity
Celebrities have natural pull, and they come complete with fans. If you can’t find a celebrity, try a professional online marketing company.
Be Aware
You must be over 13 years of age to have a Twitter account.
It’s never a good idea to impersonate anyone.
Flickr – flicker.com
Flickr is a photo sharing and management site. Users can upload photos and video from their computers as well as mobile devices. Users must upload content that is theirs, and can tag it with various creative rights. Flickr has more than 24 million monthly users, most between the ages of 18 and 49, with a slightly male slanted audience. Users also search for Yahoo! images and are interested in humor, science and nature.
Friendfeed – friendfeed.com
Launched in October 2007, this is a social aggregator that consolidates the updates from social media websites, blogs and micro-blog updates, and RSS/Atom feeds. It enables you to keep up-to-date on the web pages, photos, videos and music that your friends and family are sharing, in real-time. Friendfeed has 950,000+ unique visitors worldwide and appeals to a young adult, slightly male slanted crowd.
MetaCafe – metacafe.com
MetaCafe is a video sharing site that attracts more than 40 million unique users each month. Specializing in short-form original content, the average video length on MetaCafe is 90 seconds. Founded in 2003, MetaCafe has a slightly male audience between 12 and 49 years of age. The MetaCafe audience also likes searchforvideo.com, break.com and superiorpics.com.
Truveo – truveo.com
Truveo is a video search engine. A wholly owned subsidiary of AOL, Truveo users can search and browse over 300 million videos from thousands of sources across the web. The site reaches over 27 million people monthly, of which 20 percent are in the U.S. The audience is slightly male and youthful. Users also visit searchforvideo.com and MetaCafe.
Vimeo – vimeo.com
Vimeo is a video sharing site. Videos can be published for public consumption, or viewed just by those indicated by the specific user. In October 2007, Vimeo became the first video sharing site to support consumer High Definition. It has over 1.3 million members.
YouTube – youtube.com
YouTube is a video sharing site. Users can upload and share video clips through websites, mobile devices, blogs and email. Videos can be published for public consumption, or viewed only by those indicated by the specific user. YouTube is owned by Google and has struck partnership deals with content providers such as CBS, BBC, Universal Music Group, NBA, the Sundance Channel and more. YouTube reaches over 79 million U.S. viewers monthly, and attracts a more youthful following. The typical user also likes MetaCafe, Fotolog and last.fm.
How to Get Fans on Facebook
Learn about Facebook
Facebook is a social networking site. Founded in 2004, Facebook has quickly risen in popularity, boasting more than 200 million users. More than two-thirds of Facebook users are out of college, and the fastest growing demographic is 35 years of age and older. It has a slightly female audience. An estimated seventy percent of Facebook users are outside of the United States.
Create a Business Page
Pages are distinct presences that are optimized to represent a business, and are separate from user profiles. You can create one for your company by logging into your personal Facebook account and visiting ww.facebook.com/pages/create.php. Fill out the required information, and select the blue “Create Page” button at the bottom of the form.
Start Spreading the News
You now need fans for your page. The best way to do this is to use your other marketing efforts to promote your Facebook page. For instance, you could include a Facebook logo with a clickable link on your homepage or in your company e-newsletter. Other ways to spread the news and invite fans to your page include asking your business contacts and friends to become fans of your page, using your personal account to become a fan of the business page, and then inviting all of your contacts to do the same. You should also include a clickable link in your email signature.
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Friends
Start posting pictures on your business page. Then, tag the pictures with the names of the individuals who appear in them. Make sure you spell all names properly. That way, if those people are on Facebook, they will get a notice with a link to the new Facebook Page, and it will be included in their news feed for all of their friends to see.
Be Aware
You should update your Facebook business page at least once per week.
People will see all that you post. This includes wall updates, pictures and videos.
LinkedIn – linkedin.com
LinkedIn is a social networking tool. It is self-described as an interconnected network of experienced professionals from around the world, representing 170 industries and 200 countries. Users can find, be introduced to and collaborate with professionals that are within their network. LinkedIn has over 38 million users, including executives from all Fortune 500 companies. It is backed by Sequoia Capital, Goldman Sachs and others. LinkedIn has a slightly male audience, with a majority of users 35 and older.
MySpace – myspace.com
MySpace is a social networking site. With more than 65 million users per month, the audience is slightly female, with the dominate age group being teens and young adults. MySpace is also popular in the music industry, with more than 8 million artists and bands within MySpace Music, and it’s quite popular in the United Kingdom.
Ning – ning.com
Ning is an online service/platform used to create, customize and share a social network. It competes with larger social sites (see “Facebook” and “MySpace”) by allowing people to create their own social
networking sites around particular interests with their own choice of design and features. Ning has more than 8 million U.S. monthly users and is slightly female skewed.
Squidoo – squidoo.com
Squidoo is a free site that allows web users to create single web pages (called lenses) based on their interests. Lenses are pages that can be thought of as flyers or signposts that gather everything a person knows about a topic, and snaps it all into focus. Squidoo has 5.8 million visitors per month, over half of which are female. It is popular with those ages 12 to 49 as well as those likely to visit wikihow.com and answerbag.com.
Tumblr – tumblr.com
Tumblr is a blogging platform that allows users to post text, photos, quotes, music, videos and images from a browser, phone, desktop or email. Users can “follow” other users to view their posts. It is completely customizable and boasts that it is easy to use. It reaches more than 1.1 million U.S. users monthly. Tumblr has a slightly male audience, and attracts young adults. The audience also visits friendsorenemies.com and shops at American Apparel, Urban Outfitters and Hot Topic.
Learn about Digg
On Digg, users (referred to as the “community”) submit news, articles, videos, images and more. Once something is submitted, others in the community see it and “Digg” (or vote) for what they like best. If a submission receives a number of Diggs, it will appear on the front page for millions to see. People who visit Digg are also likely to visit Metacafe and the Washington Times. More than half of Digg users are male, and the 18-49 age range is dominate.
Join Digg
Using the navigation tools at the top, select “Join Digg”. Enter your username, password, email address and birth date to create your account.
Submit an Article
Find an article that you like, and that you think others will like as well. Log-in to Digg, and using the navigation at the top, click “Submit New”. Enter the URL and indicate which type of media it is (article, video or image). Give your submission a title and description, and choose the appropriate topic to list it under.
Digg Other Articles
Go out, and “Digg” other articles that you see. Hopefully, those that submitted the articles you “Dugg” will “Digg” the articles you submit (give to get).
Use Your Family and Friends
Ask them to sign up for a Digg account, and to vote for your article, but don’t forget to try to make additional friends via the Digg community.
If submitting a link to your site, ensure that you are able to handle the additional traffic it can bring.
You must link to original sources. Keep it clean.
Mixx – mixx.com
Mixx lists user recommendations for stories, photos and videos. Users tag the content, which then allows it to find its way to relevant audiences. It is popular in the United States, India, Canada, Egypt and the United Kingdom. Mixx has a slightly male audience between 12 and 47 years of age.
Newsvine – newsvine.com
Founded in 2006 by veterans of Disney, ESPN and other media organizations, Newsvine brings together stories from large and small outlets around the world. Anyone can contribute a story, and the Newsvine community votes on them to determine placement. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of MSNBC Interactive News. With more than 1.2 million U.S. users, Newsvine’s audience is slightly male, middle-aged, watches MSNBC and subscribes to Newsweek.
Propeller – propeller.com
Propeller is a social news portal. Users post links to stories and videos from the mainstream media as well as YouTube, blogs and other niche sites. Users can also comment on posted stories, share with friends and bookmark them to read later. In essence, Propeller takes news and turns it into a conversation. The site reaches more than 588,000 U.S. monthly users and attracts a slightly male audience. Users are likely to also visit Blogging Stocks and read Forbes and Newsweek.
Reddit – reddit.com
Reddit displays user-generated news links. Users then vote on those links, and the most popular are promoted to the front page. The site has 1.4 million monthly users in the U.S., with a more male, adult audience. The typical user reads Wired Magazine and also visits newswithviews.com.
SlashDot – slashdot.org
SlashDot is a news site that features user-submitted and editor-evaluated current affairs news. The tag line for SlashDot is “News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters.” The news on this site has a heavy slant toward Linux and Open Source issues. The core audience therefore consists of Linux enthusiasts and various other enthusiasts of the open source software movement, as well as those who use Windows.
Technorati – technorati.com
Technorati collects, organizes and distributes the global online
conversation. In other words, it’s a blog search engine that indexes more than 1.5 million new blog posts in real time, daily.
Yahoo! Buzz – yahoo.buzz.com
Yahoo! Buzz shows the percentage of users searching for a specific topic on a given day. Users can add stories as well as vote and commenton them. It reaches 4.7 million people in the U.S. each month and attracts an educated, slightly male audience. The typical user likes E! Online, redbookmag.com and Forbes.
How to Cook Up Something Delicious
Learn about Delicious
Delicious is a social bookmarking service. Users can save all of their bookmarks online, share them with others and see what other people are bookmarking. It also shows the most popular bookmarks, in real-time. Delicious reaches more than 318,000 U.S. users monthly, with most users in the 35-49 age range. The typical visitor listens to National Public Radio (NPR).
Join Delicious
Using the navigation at the top, click on the green “Join Now” button. Enter your first and last name, email address, username and password, and agree to the Terms of Service.
Save a Bookmark
If you have something you think is “delicious”, and you want to bookmark it for yourself or others, choose “Save a New Bookmark” from your Delicious home page. Enter the url, give it a title, and add any tags or notes you’d like. Then hit “Save”.
Be Aware
You must have JavaScript enabled in order to save or edit a bookmark.
Bookmarks saved with your buttons are public by default.
Imported bookmarks are private by default.
BlinkList – blinklist.com
BlinkList is a social bookmarking service. Users can save links, share them with groups and friends, and save a local copy of any webpage on their computer. BlinkList also recommends web pages that users may be interested in based on previous bookmarks. The site reaches more than 56,000 U.S. users monthly. BlinkList appeals to educated, affluent males.
Diigo – diigo.com
Diigo is a bookmarking service, web highlighter and knowledge-sharing community. It provides users with a virtual highlighter and sticky notes they can place directly on any webpage. Annotations can be kept private, shared with groups or with the entire community. Diigo has more than 20,000 U.S. monthly users and is popular among middle-aged males.
Simpy – simpy.com
Simpy is a social bookmarketing site. Launched in 2004, it is one of the oldest social bookmarking sites still operating today. Users can save, tag and share links and text notes. With 39,000 U.S. monthly visitors, the Simpy audience is slightly male, middle aged and also visits Delicious.com.
StumbleUpon – stumbleupon.com
StumpleUpon discovers websites based a user’s interests, learns what that user likes and brings them more. Using thumbs up or thumbs down ratings to form collaborative opinions on website quality, rating a site automatically shares it with other websurfers with similar interests. StumbleUpon reaches more than 1 million U.S. users monthly, with the majority of the audience between 35 and 50 years of age. A typical user also visits TechCrunch and reads The Onion.
How to Give a Relevant Opinion on Epinions
Learn about Epinions
Epinions is a consumer reviews community. It provides customer insight, advice and personalized recommendations. ePionions is part of the Shopping.com network, which is an Ebay company. The site reaches more than 3.5 million people every month. The audience is slightly male, educated, and middle-aged.
Join Epinions
Click on “Join Epinions” at the top right of the screen. Enter your desired Epinions ID, your email address, password and security code, and click on the orange “Create My Account” button at the bottom of the form.
Write a Review
When you are logged into your account, you can write a review on any product, topic or review page. Click on the “Write a Review” link. You will be redirected to a form. Complete this form with your review. You must have a minimum of 20 words.
Be Aware
You cannot post the same review twice.
You cannot post more than one review about the same topic.
Buzzillions – buzzillions.com
Buzzillion is a consumer generated product review site. Top companies such as Zappos and Staples share their customer reviews with Buzzillions, displaying them on the site for anyone to read. The site also collects consumer reviews throughout the internet. People who use Buzzillions are likely to visit cecbcomparison.com and are interested in forums and reviews on golfing and cycling.
Omgili – omgili.com
Unlike typical search engines that search for sites and pages, Omgili crawls the web looking for consumer opinions, debates, discussions, personal experiences and other kinds of subjective information. It focuses on user generated content such as forums and discussion groups. With more than 881,000 U.S. monthly users, the site attracts an educated, male audience.
Viewpoints – viewpoints.com
Viewpoints offers consumer reviews, advice and ratings. Users, called “social influencers”, share their experiences by writing blogs posts, reviews and how-to guides, and participating in forums. Viewpoints then helps organize and present that content to others. With 250,000 reviews and more than 1 million monthly visitors, the Viewpoints audience is slightly female and middle aged. The Viewpoints audience also likes Estee Lauder and PC Magazine, and visits bettersleep.org.
Yelp – yelp.com
Yelp serves up user reviews and recommendations of top restaurants, shopping, nightlife, entertainment, services and more. Users, referred to as “Yelpers”, have written more 5 million reviews, and 20 million visitors look up a business each month. The site is popular with young, educated adults, and is slightly more female than male. The audience also likes insiderpages.com, mytravelguide.com and magicyellow.com.