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Social Media For Personal Use vs. Business Use

August 10, 2011 By Jeremy Anderberg 1 Comment

On our weekly show yesterday, The Social Truth, we talked for a little while on the differences between using social media personally and using it for your business/brand. Unfortunately, due to some technical issues, the show was not recorded, so I thought I’d give you a short recap of what we talked about.

I’ve personally encountered a lot of people recently who have been thrust into doing their employer’s social media because 1) they are young and 2) they know a little bit more than the next person. This is all well and good, except that most people’s understanding of social media comes from how they’ve used the various networks personally.

The reality, however, is that using social media for your business or brand has a few key differences that must be taken into account. If you are using the exact same strategies (if you have a strategy at all), you are missing out on the full power of using the social world for your marketing purposes.

The highlights:

Content
- Personal. Here, it’s okay to simply share the old Twitter mantra “What are you doing?”. Your family, friends and coworkers may in fact be interested simply in what you’re up to that night. And they are definitely interested in pictures of your kids, kittens and kite-flying afternoons.
- Business. This is all about sharing content and giving value. Most of your updates will include links, or little nuggets of wisdom related to your industry. That’s why they are coming to you.

Networks
- Personal. Stick with what you like. Think of it more like a hobby. Love making videos? Dive in to YouTube, and try out Twitter later on. Are you a photographer? Stick to Flickr for now, and try out YouTube later. Don’t feel obligated to be on everything.
- Business. Have a footprint on all the channels you can reasonably handle. Obviously you don’t want to be overloaded, but you want to reach your intended audience where they are, and they probably aren’t all in one spot. We especially advocate for the Big 5: blogging, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.

Facebook specifically
- Personal. You don’t have to reach out much. Here it’s okay to simply be a consumer and digest all the posts coming your way. Put smiley faces and “lols” on everything you like.
- Business. Get familiar with applications. You can literally do just about anything within a Facebook page that you’re able to do on a standard website. If you didn’t know that, you’re already behind. Do some research and know what they do. Also be intentional about reaching out and adding comments to other pages that add value to the people reading.

Consistency
- Personal. It’s not crucial that you’re posting every single day multiple times. I am one who has a love-hate relationship with social media. Yesterday, for instance, I forgot to tweet altogether, and I get paid to do social media (Yikes! Am I fired?). At the end of the day, though, my friends/family/followers will come back to me because they have a real relationship with me.
- Business. Consistency is crucial. If you’re not posting every day, your audience is finding a similar company who is. I guarantee it. There are tools like Tweetdeck and Hootsuite that allow you to do this if you have to be out for a few days. Make it a priority to share fresh content at least once or twice every single day.

A couple last points. You want to make sure to clean up your own social media once you become in charge of business or branded accounts. Go ahead and delete some of those old college photos, and clean up the language as well. This doesn’t mean don’t have fun, it just means be a little more aware of what you are posting and the people who might see it.

You also want to make sure you have a strategy for jumping into social media for business use. Read some books and take a look at the companies who are doing it really well. Have defined goals and ways of measuring those goals, just like you would with any other marketing or advertising strategy.

Using social media for yourself may be intuitive, but it’s almost certainly not intuitive when you are doing it for a business or brand. If you have questions or comments, drop ‘em below…or find us on Facebook and Twitter as well!

Jeremy Anderberg

Jeremy is a blog-reading, report-writing project manager. In his spare time he enjoys reading a good thriller, drinking a freshly brewed cup of coffee, and spending time with his wife.

Filed Under: Social Media for Small Business, social media marketing Tagged With: blogging, brand building, brand marketing, branding, des moines social media agency, des moines social media company, des moines social media firm, facebook, facebook marketing, joe soto, One social media, online marketing, small business social media, social marketing, social media, social media agency, social media blog, social media company, social media consultant, social media consulting, social media des moines, social media for small businesses, social media iowa, social media marketing, social media marketing blog, social media marketing services, social media services, social media strategy, twitter, twitter marketing

3 Social Media Changes You Don’t Want to Miss

July 8, 2011 By Jeremy Anderberg 1 Comment

As a social media company, it is our job to stay on top of all the fancy new stuff that pops up every 10 seconds or so in our industry. Most of these changes don’t really mean much to you, our readers – they are new startups working out glitches, back-end programs that make our jobs easier, or simply new ideas that haven’t quite reached critical mass yet.

The last couple weeks, however, have brought about 3 major news items that are worth sharing. The first is the release of Google+, a social network that is Google-based and is supposed to be a new rival for Facebook. The second is a trio of information bits from Facebook regarding their chat features. And finally, YouTube is in the works of redesigning their user experience, and the early results look promising.

1) Google+

Currently in Beta Mode with limited availability, Google+ seems to be aiming at being a simpler and more user-friendly social network. Friends are organized into “circles” such as work, friends, family, acquaintances, etc. The rumor is that it will be open to the public as of July 31. They will also be rolling out business profiles sometime in the next few months.

Pros:

Seamlessly integrates with other Google Apps, especially chat.
Has built-in video chat.
Organizes friends better than Facebook, making it easier to find the ones you’re truly interested in following.

Cons:

Yet another social network to share content on.
Not sure yet of how it competes in the social world with the giants that are already present.
Has yet to integrate things like events (Google Cal?) or collaborative work (Google Docs?).

2) Facebook Chat

Facebook held a live event viewed by thousands of people online to announce their latest upgrade. The Facebook Chat feature has long been known to be a little glitchy, and not as easy-to-use as Google Chat or Skype. They seem to be trying rather hard to fix that problem. Their trio of items to note:

Group chat: You can now add multiple people to a single chat box, making things like weekend planning a breeze.
Chat sidebar: depending on your browser size, you may now have a sidebar with a listing of your friends and the ability to chat with them right there, versus just that little box in the bottom right corner.
Video chat: This is the biggie. Facebook has partnered with Skype to bring video calling to any of your Facebook friends.

Pros

Group chat seems like an awesome feature and will be easy-to-use. This will make life much more simple for a lot of people and even businesses.
The ability to video chat without having to download a program is huge. You now have access to all your friends, versus just those with the Skype program.
They capitalized on the best video technology out there (Skype) instead of trying to create their own.
You can leave video voicemails when your call isn’t answered.

Cons

You still have to download a plugin, and it may not be user-friendly for those who aren’t tech-savvy.
Still no group video chatting – that really would have been icing on the cake. It will likely be a paid premium feature in the future.

3) YouTube Redesign – Codename “Cosmic Panda”

This change might be my personal favorite. Virtually since its inception, the site has looked a little clunky, and not very user-friendly. All of that is about to change with this update. The overall design is slick and clean, and makes navigating much more intuitive. To activate the update for your account, visit www.youtube.com/CosmicPanda.

Pros

It just looks and feels so much better. That’s a big pro in our book.
Playlists are organized neatly on the right side and can be seen at all times.
Channel stats such as subscribers and views are now easily visible on the rop right.
You can change the video size manually, putting the viewing experience totally in your control.
It is easier to scroll through videos of a selected channel.

Cons

The “Featured Video” seems to be lost, so the video that people see when they land on your channel is likely just the most recent upload.
That’s about it for now! We LOVE this update!

What do YOU think of all these changes? What pros and cons have you found? What are you most excited to start using? Chime in here on the blog, or over on our Facebook and Twitter pages!

Jeremy Anderberg

Jeremy is a blog-reading, report-writing project manager. In his spare time he enjoys reading a good thriller, drinking a freshly brewed cup of coffee, and spending time with his wife.

Filed Under: Social Media, Social Media News, Social Media Trends, YouTube Tagged With: blogging, brand building, brand marketing, branding, des moines social media agency, des moines social media company, des moines social media firm, facebook, facebook marketing, joe soto, One social media, online marketing, small business social media, social marketing, social media, social media agency, social media blog, social media company, social media consultant, social media consulting, social media des moines, social media for small businesses, social media iowa, social media marketing, social media marketing blog, social media marketing services, social media new jersey, social media Pennsylvania, social media Philadelphia, social media services, social media strategy, twitter, twitter marketing

How To Improve Your Writing For Social Media (In 140 Characters Or Less)

May 14, 2011 By Rob Wormley Leave a Comment

To see the real-time stream of these tweets on Twitter, click here.

Rob Wormley

As a social media specialist, Rob thrives in situations that require constant creativity. On days when Rob isn’t working hard to create, maintain, and strengthen relationships online, you might find him spending time with family, browsing through his nearest bookstore, or sipping on a cup of coffee at his local Starbucks.

10 Reasons Why Your Competition Is Beating You On Social Media

April 29, 2011 By Rob Wormley 3 Comments

Although you might not want to admit it, I bet you’re paying attention to how your competition is doing on social media. Have you noticed lately that their social media profiles are growing a lot faster than your company’s social media profiles? It might be because of one of these ten reasons:

1. Your competition has a presence on multiple social media sites. While you’re spending all your time updating your company’s Facebook page, your competition is busy sending out tweets, uploading YouTube videos, connecting with potential leads on LinkedIn, creating a new album of photos on their Flickr photostream, and updating their blog. Your competition understands the importance and value of building an online brand presence through the use of multiple social media platforms.

Create a presence on all the popular social media sites

2. Your competition is updating their social media profiles consistently. Your competition’s social media profiles continue to grow because they continue to provide consistent, valuable content to their followers. They have maintained a loyal following thanks to the consistent updates they post on their social media profiles, and have even started attracting new followers.

3. Your competition is going out of their way to invite customers to connect with them on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Are you telling the customers who walk into your door about your social media presence? Is it in your brochures? Your quarterly newsletter? Your email signature? On the back of your restaurant menu? Your competition is going out of their way to invite customers and prospects to connect with them on their favorite social media sites.

4. Your competition is posting a variety of content. Your competition isn’t re-posting promotional text from their website. They are creating Facebook photo albums of their last corporate event. They’re finding interesting links that relate to their industry and sharing them with followers. They are uploading client testimonial videos and behind-the-scenes video tours to their YouTube channel. Your competition is posting content that they know their followers will like. They aren’t worried about leaving out the promotional text from their website, because they are attracting new customers by providing value.

Create a Flickr photo gallery and share it on Facebook

5. Your competition is cross-promoting. Your competition is telling their Twitter followers about their Facebook page. They are ending every YouTube video by inviting viewers to connect with them on their other social media sites. They are embedding their Facebook page feed into their blog. They understand that their LinkedIn connections might not ever realize they have a Flickr account unless they occasionally share links to their Flickr photostream on their LinkedIn profile.

6. Your competition isn’t afraid to answer the hard questions. If you’re afraid to answer the tough questions that people might post on your company’s Facebook page, don’t be. Your competition isn’t afraid. In fact, they encourage their followers to ask tough questions, because they see it as an opportunity to strengthen their online reputation. Instead of ignoring or deleting tough questions that show up on their Facebook page, they’re being proactive. They’re taking the time to come up with a helpful, thoughtful answer that will show people how much they care about their customers.

7. Your competition is customizing their profiles with recognizable brand designs. You might understand the importance of presenting a consistent brand design when promoting your business in the physical world (you have a standard design or logo that appears on your flyers, your company shirts, your store sign, and your press releases), but you’re not (successfully) incorporating your company’s consistent design into your social media profiles. Your competition has taken time to design visually-interesting, customized designs for all their social media profiles.

: Customize Your Social Media Sites

8. Your competition is taking time to listen to advice, suggestions, and other helpful comments. Your competition is not only improving their online reputation by listening to advice and comments made by their followers, but they’re also using these comments to improve their business in general. They value the interaction that is happening on their social media profiles, and they are using suggestions made by followers to evolve their business in the physical world.

9. Your competition is utilizing social media tools to become the expert in your industry. Where are your potential customers going to learn more about your industry? If you think it is your website (or your competition’s website), you are wrong. Your potential customers are learning about your industry on places like Facebook and Twitter because it’s easy for them. Your competition understands that. That’s why they are going out of their way to provide valuable content and information to people on their social media profiles. They are becoming the experts in your industry.

10. Your competition has support from employees, clients, and other businesses in the community. Your competition is succeeding on social media because they have support from every employee who works for the company. Every one of their employees is promoting the company’s social media profiles in email signatures, at meetings with potential clients, and everywhere else. Your competition also has support from clients. They even have support from other businesses in the community who are interested in building a relationship online with them.

: Interact with other businesses in the community

If you want to start seeing better numbers on your social media sites, implement some of the strategies that your competition is implementing. Use this list to beat your competition on social media. Become the expert in your industry. Invite your customers to connect with you on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and any other social media site you use. Listen to what your followers have to say. Update your profiles consistently, and provide value. It’s worth your effort and your time.

Still have questions? Ask me on Twitter. I’m @robwormley.

Rob Wormley

How Enchanting is Your Business?

March 15, 2011 By Joe Soto 2 Comments

Guy Kawasaki’s latest book, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions, forces readers to reflect upon the ways they have created, maintained, and sometimes broken relationships with people throughout their lives. The former chief evangelist of Apple and author of the international best-seller The Art of the Start has written a book that will be known for transforming not just businesses but interpersonal relationships as well.

Enchantment on Amazon.com

Guy’s understanding of human relations makes this book stand out in a sea of other business books trying to teach you how to grow your business, while overlooking the human side of what makes relationships work, both offline and online.

Through his use of personal anecdotes, real-life case studies, bulleted lists, detailed diagrams, and interesting photos, Kawasaki has put together a truly inspirational book that can be used by anyone—from the local coffee shop barista, to the recent college graduate, and all the way up to the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. If you are passionate about the work you do, this book is definitely for you. (Keep reading…we’ll show you how to apply the lessons in the book to your social media efforts!)

You will fill up a notepad with notes and ideas of how to make your own business more enchanting* using his proven enchantment tips that are sprinkled in each chapter throughout the book. From establishing goals, achieving likability by finding shared passions, and achieving trustworthiness to learning the differences between utilizing both push technology (e.g. Twitter) and pull technologies (e.g. Blogging, Facebook) to be more enchanting online.

We admire how Guy doesn’t just tell you what to do. He tells you how to do it. For example, he explains how to to tell a story, immerse people, and shares his idea of building an ecosystem which allows more people to help you because their success is intertwined with yours.

He ends the book with chapters on how to enchant your employees, and if you are an employee, how to enchant your boss.

Our advice is to not buy this book and read it. Buy the book here* and take notes. Write in it. Highlight it. Dog ear it. More importantly, use it as a guide to build a more enchanting business and be more enchanting to your clients.

So HOW DO YOU APPLY the principles taught in Enchantment to your social media efforts? Watch our archived video review and learn how we apply lessons from the book to real clients to get real results.

This is a slideshow of Guy’s recent Enchantment speech:

Enchantment v2.2

Guy’s enchanting infographic:

Reviewed by: Joe Soto & Rob Wormley

*Amazon affiliate link

Note: Guy sent me a free copy of the book to review, and I’ve since ordered the book for some of my clients. It’s well worth it.

Joe Soto

Husband, Father, Entrepreneur, Social Media Strategist, Speaker, and always learning.

What Happens When You Don’t Use Facebook?

February 4, 2011 By Mike Bal 1 Comment

We talk to a lot of people who don’t think Facebook is necessary for their brand or company. What they don’t realize is that millions of people have come to rely on Facebook as their primary form of interaction with companies, brands, and people.

What happens when someone can’t find you on Facebook? They give up and look for someone or something else to replace you. The hardest thing to do as a brand is to get people to trust you. Facebook makes taking that step a little easier for the customer. They can start by clicking the “Like” button. From there they can interact with you and your page all the while developing a better relationship with your brand.

Marketers have spent years trying to find the perfect customer. A customer who wants to hear what you have to say and who will spread the gospel of their favorite brand. Facebook offers a way for those customers or fans to find you and we would recommend taking advantage of it.

Having a presence on Facebook doesn’t mean you are getting anything out of it. You have to be willing to maximize your efforts by creating strategies that get your customers and “fans” involved. By being valuable to those who choose to follow you, learn from you, be entertained by and informed by you.

How are you being valuable to your customer base?

Mike Bal

Hi, I studied advertising, I have a passion for creativity and I love working in social media. I try to write about the combination of traditional marketing, branding, and advertising strategies that can apply and work affectively with social media. I also enjoy music, batman and life.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: blogging, brand building, brand marketing, branding, des moines social media agency, des moines social media company, des moines social media firm, facebook, facebook marketing, joe soto, One social media, online marketing, social marketing, social media, social media agency, social media blog, social media company, social media consultant, social media consulting, social media des moines, social media iowa, social media marketing, social media marketing blog, social media marketing services, social media new jersey, social media Pennsylvania, social media Philadelphia, social media services, social media strategy, twitter, twitter marketing

Twitter Hashtags Can Help Draw Traffic towards Your Business Website

September 30, 2010 By Joe Soto Leave a Comment

Using Twitter hashtags can draw a lot of traffic to your website

If you have been using Twitter for popularizing your business, then you must have noticed hash (#) tags being attached to certain keywords in a number of posts. Apart from allowing these keywords to be properly crawled by search engines, proper usage of hashtags can also draw targeted traffic towards your business website, thereby allowing you to potentially find new customers/ clients.

Sounds fascinating, doesn’t it? In fact, it is even easier than it sounds. Simply add some hashtags related to your business anywhere within the messages you post on Twitter, and you can see that your posts are being indexed for high speed searching, and are also appearing on Google real time search a lot more than ever before.

Need to know more before you can think of using this tactic in your social media marketing campaigns? Check out this link.

Joe Soto

Joe Soto is the CEO of One Social Media. A leading expert in social media marketing, Joe has over 12 years of experience in all aspects of sales, marketing, online lead generation, and Internet marketing.

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Filed Under: search engine optimization, Social Media for Small Business, social media marketing, twitter Tagged With: business marketing, Social Media for Small Business, social media marketing, twitter, twitter for small business, twitter marketing

How to Use Twitter and LinkedIn to Enhance Your B2B Marketing

August 20, 2010 By Joe Soto 3 Comments

Twitter and LinkedIn are great tools for B2B marketers

Do you use social media channels like Twitter and LinkedIn to grow your business network? Then you have taken the most important step in growing your business already. Both of these networks are greatly beneficial for owners of small to medium businesses, and can potentially boost your revenue earning capacity to a great extent.

However, in order to gain measurable benefits from either of the networks, you need to follow proper tactics. These include:

Identify target audience: On both Twitter and LinkedIn, you can find members whose interests match your business. Start connecting with those members and your network will grow quickly. Plus, since they are already interested in topics related to your business, chances are slim that they would mark your messages as spam.
Monitor before you start promoting: Always monitor the conversations that your members of your target audience are carrying out on the networks. This will allow you to interact with them seamlessly, without coming across as a spammer looking for some quick business.
Provide value: When you finally start posting content, keep it interesting and engaging. You can, for instance, upload small presentations on SlideShare and post the link in your networks. Or, if you find a really interesting article on the Web, post a link to that in your accounts. Add value, and you will always have followers.
Get the message across: Always post a few promotional entries in your accounts. After all, you are using the networks to make a bigger client base. But, keep the number of promos in check. Ideally, 4-5 general posts should be followed by one promotional post. That will inform your network about your business, yet not make you look like a spammer.

These 4 pointers should help you improve your B2B network using Twitter and LinkedIn. Always remember, moderation is the key in this scenario. Maintain a balance between general and promotional posts in the networks, and you will do just fine. Or, if you are finding it too difficult to pull off, simply enlist the services of a reputable social media company to get it done.

Joe Soto

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Filed Under: social media marketing, twitter Tagged With: B2B social media marketing, des moines social media company, LinkedIn, One social media, small business social media, social media des moines, social media for small businesses, social media iowa, social media marketing company, social media Philadelphia, social media services, social networking, twitter

Social Media Success Story: Old Spice's "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" Commercial

July 20, 2010 By Joe Soto 4 Comments

Have you seen the latest commercial (The Man Your Man Could Smell Like) by Old Spice? At the time of writing this, 9,730,984 people have already seen it on YouTube, and that’s quite a feat given the fact that the video has been made available since just a little over three weeks now.

In case you haven’t had the opportunity to experience the latest sizzler on YouTube, here’s your chance to even the score.

But the video is only half the story. In fact, it’s not the story at all. The real story is about all those dozens of videos that have come in its wake, as part of an effort to create custom video responses to those who have Twitter-ed or Facebook-ed the Old Spice guy (played by actor Isaiah Mustafa).

Old Spice has taken their campaign to a whole new level with these personalized videos dedicated to specific fans on the social web. They are picking up fans on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube and sending them video shout-outs. And everybody seems to like them (not just those for whom the videos are meant!) Mustafa has already thanked close to 100 fans via YouTube and is still continuing to do so.

What’s really the best part of the campaign is the number of views that these videos are garnering. For all those who thought that the Old Spice commercial was the end of the line, Old Spice has proven them wrong by taking the campaign to the next level and continuing the message with these personalized video replies.

Shout-outs have already been received by popular and celebrated Twitter-users like ‘The Ellen Show’, Digg founder Kevin Rose and TV star Alyssa Milano, besides a host of other people like you and me. Some of the replies have already received over a million views. Among the most notable ones are @Gillette with 1,583,511 views, Re: Anonymous with 820,522 views and Re: Alyssa_Milano 4 with 796,565 views.

So Tweet the Old Spice man today and don’t be surprised if he replies back with a video before you log off for the day.

Joe Soto

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Filed Under: facebook, social media marketing, Social Media News, twitter Tagged With: des moines social media company, facebook, old spice, One social media, social media des moines, social media for small businesses, social media iowa, social media marketing company, social media Philadelphia, social media services, twitter

5 Careers That Can Benefit From Twitter

July 19, 2010 By Joe Soto Leave a Comment

Twitter: The next career builder for you?

With 190 million visitors per month and 65 million Tweets a day (Source: Twitter COO Dick Costolo via TechCrunch), Twitter has become both inevitable and indispensible for making your voice heard all over the Internet. Or, if it is not your voice, then the voice of your business.

What started as a curious 140-character micro-blogging platform for letting your friends know what you are up to (well, it still remains pretty much that, but with newer features and tremendous possibilities hitherto unrealized), has now evolved into a powerful and all-pervasive marketing tool. Everybody who’s somebody in the world (or is yet to become a ‘somebody’) is on Twitter. And so are millions of businesses, corporate houses, organizations, institutions et al.

As the world continues to get into the habit speaking its heart out in 140 characters, we take a quick look at 5 careers that can benefit immensely from this unique social media platform.

1. Real estate agents: Even when the market is down and your profits seem to be spiraling downwards, you can look up to more business by finding prospective clients on Twitter. Use the platform to find people who are planning to move, relocate to a new place, buy or sell a house. Reach out to them with pertinent offers and solutions. You could soon be turning your followers into bona fide customers.

2. Artistes: Celebrities need to stay relevant and unless they’re looking for self-inflicted solitude a la Greta Garbo, cannot afford to drop down to list C. While celebrity tweeting is largely viewed upon as a series of pretty unimportant updates like what they had for lunch or what they bought on their last shopping spree, they have their true merits too. Twitter can help them stay relevant and know that they have fans who are really waiting for the next big news. Twitter can also be a neat promotional tool to popularize an upcoming event such as a film release or special appearance.

3. Journalists: We depend on them to bring us fresh news every day. And who do they rely on? Besides news agencies, Twitter can act as a great platform for garnering news, especially breaking news that gets everybody talking. If you wish to find a ready public to read your news, share your stories with your followers and you could soon be sharing them with the entire world!

4. Politicians: Thanks to Barack Obama, the virtues of Twitter are no longer unknown to those in active politics. Twitter offers a great platform to connect with those whose interests they represent, in a genuine and personable way. It can also help in raising mass awareness about issues that you want heard.

5. Career counselors: In this economy, just about everybody is looking for a job. If you have the knowledge of job openings and company profiles, people are definitely going to follow you. Tweet out your career suggestions and help people get back into work.