If you have employed the services of a an Internet Marketing firm, chances are they have advised you to start a Facebook business page, Twitter account and a LinkedIn profile. You might have a blog, too, videos, and a life to lead!  That’s a lot to keep up with while juggling your day-to-day business operations if you don’t have the benefit of someone helping you manage all these accounts.

Here’s a few tips on how you can consolidate some of these platforms and seamlessly integrate them into your day-to-day operations.

Start with the blog

Use what’s happening around you to write blog posts. They can write themselves: a phone call with a client, an internal memo, a conference you attended, your email outbox, etc. Blog consistently and have these posts automatically feed to your Big 3 social media accounts.

How?

I recommend Twitterfeed for getting content out to Facebook and Twitter.

Voila!

LinkedIn has an application that guides you through feeding a blog (for example, Wordpress).

Keep your titles short

We all know by now the word limit in Twitter. Right? It’s 140 characters, in case you have forgotten, so that means you want your most important information in the blog title so that people can read that in the Tweet or status update. Now the URL will take up 25 characters, so make your title 115 characters or less.

Video

Videos are a great way to encourage visitor engagement, whether you’re posting on your blog, Facebook, or your website.  For ideas on how to integrate video into your social media accounts, why don’t you read a post I wrote earlier about optimizing and distributing videos?

Good luck!

There are a lot of social media terms thrown around these days, and sorting through all of the jargon can be tough. First, let’s differentiate between the “big three” social networks.

Facebook logo

Facebook is a social network site that connects friends, family, and businesses. People can share updated statuses, pictures, personal information, links, and more. With more than 250 million users in the world, 120 million of which log on daily, there is a large market to reach here.

Twitter logo

Twitter is another social network/micro-blog that allows users to to send and read messages (or “tweets”). Tweets can be up to 140 characters, and they are shared on your personal page and distributed to people who choose to “follow” you. In the last year, Twitter’s growth rate surpassed 1,000%. The potential here to reach customers is huge.

Wordpress logo

Wordpress is a personal publishing platform that works as a blogging service and as a web hosting service that is run on PHP code and a SQL data backend. Confused? Wordpress.com offers a free blog hosting service that requires no PHP code knowledge and a user friendly interface that allows easy updating, customization, and built in widgets to add to your blog. 77% of internet users actively follow and read blogs, so this platform also provides great opportunity to reach and engage potential customers. Wordpress isn’t the only blog hosting application out there; there is also Blogger, Vox, and more.

Now that we’ve covered some basics, let’s go into more depth…

Social Media Structure

This graph illustrates that every social media account you possess should link back to your homepage. This type of infrastructure is what the search engine spiders and real web surfers like.  There are even some applications, or tools, out there to help make interconnecting your sites simpler. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Place a Twitter widget, or “badge,” on your Facebook page, blog, website, and any other web presence you deem appropriate. Creating this widget is easy:

1. Sign into your Twitter account and click on Settings.
2. Once you’re in Settings, make sure you’re in the Account tab.
3. Scroll down to the 5th field, “More Info URL”. Click on the link directly below it that says “(You can also add Twitter to your site here)”.
4. Select which social media site you want to create a flash/html widget to.

• Depending on your blog layout, you can also have your tweets feed into your blog, alongside your posts. Usually having either the Twitter icon or the feeds on your blog is enough, but not both. You don’t want to spam.
• Add an icon for your Facebook page onto your blog and website. You can create the HTML for your Facebook logo right in Facebook.
• Notify your followers automatically, with a tweet, every time you update your blog. This can be done in a number of ways, but applications like TwitterFeed make it very easy.
• Set up a feed that displays links to your blog posts (anytime you update) on the sidebar of your main website. This requires some coding knowledge, and often it is more helpful to get the help of a third party such as Union Street Media.

With a little handiwork, keeping content fresh on all of your social media channels can be as simple as posting to one.

8/10 consumers trust brands that offer reviews, especially if there are bad ones too!

Sounds like an odd thing to say but the reality is in the consumer-to-consumer marketplace, the truth surfaces about products, services, ideas, and companies. For instance, when looking at reviews for bed and breakfast options recently, some friends of mine showed up with a very bad review from a disgruntled customer. I wondered, how could this be? This place is gorgeous and the hosts warm and courteous. I wanted to find out from them what happened so I asked them. They had no idea about this review but had noticed a dip in their bookings and when they looked at the review, they quickly knew what was going on and told me the other side of the story.

The reviewer in question had failed to book through the proper reservation system and assumed they would hold a room for him for the same time each year that he had been visiting during leaf-peeping season in Vermont. As the hosts were not aware of a booking they of course gave the room out to another party who had booked properly. He was furious and called them to complain. A few days later, some deeply unpleasant reviews began to surface on Trip Adviser and their bookings dropped during their most important season. Once they had sourced these reviews back, they went on the offensive and reached out to other long term guests asking them to provide some fair and balanced feedback on Trip Advisor. They came flooding and started to push the bad reviews down  becoming clear to others that there was a malicious hijacker at work rather than a bona fide review(s).

The lesson from this is that you will get bad reviews from time to time – it’s the nature of people’s sensibilities. It’s healthy in fact as it allows you as a business to learn from your customers to make your business better, much like test marketing. However you must keep a close eye on any muckraking and manage your reputation as best possible. Unless people break codes of conduct, then it is hard to have conversations removed from your digital footprint, but you can contribute to the conversations and provide more of the type of content that you want associated with your  brand. Encouraging customers to do the same is key, as people love user generated content in a trust based community as the web is.

How can you monitor your brand?

Two suggestions:

1. Set up a Google Alert on your brand, which means that whenever you are mentioned in news, other blogs, customer reviews etc you get emailed a list of these results either daily, weekly or monthly to your choosing.
2. Search you brand in Google with Google Suggest and see what Google is suggesting as you type. You will see any bad associations and be able to investigate the search results.

The blogosphere is an open and often candid forum, so being able to smell a rat and respond can help restore that trust that might have been lost either fairly or unfairly, as in the case of my friends at the B & B. Strengthening your community in life and online will inevitably help you create a strong business.

Tell me your stories on this. How you have had to manage your online reputation?

Traditional “Outbound” Marketing is the kind of marketing that we all grew up with. It is essentially advertising and is based on quantity. You choose your message and then pay certain media outlets, newspaper, TV, radio, in your market area, to carry that message to potential clients. The more that you pay the more exposure you get.

This model had and still has many benefits; most notably it allows the advertiser to present a consistent brand with very little chance for criticism or feedback (you can’t effectively talk back to a television ad). It also allows for a very direct sales message. You present your brand and your value proposition and wait for inquiries to start coming in.

This model also has lots of disadvantages, most notably it depends on the strength of your chosen outside media outlet. This presents two problems; first, media buys are just that, it is the purchasing of space/time on someone else’s brand. The problem here is that all the capital that you spend on these outbound channels has a very short return on investment window. Once the issue of the paper or the round of TV advertising expires you’ll have no residual benefit aside from a small amount of brand recognition from your client base. All that money you have spent is gone and can no longer work for you.

The second, and perhaps more compelling problem, is this: paying for advertising through traditional marketing channels is based on the assumption that your customer base has limited channels for news and entertainment and thus the channel you have chosen has value to your customer base. You spend money with these outlets because you believe that these channels are where people in your area come for news and entertainment and thus your message will be seen.

This basic assumption of limited marketing channels is quickly changing. Twenty years ago a given market had a finite number of media outlets, it had its papers and its television stations and that was it. The population was totally dependent on these outlets for  information. Because of this limited number of channels, you could also get away with a relatively “hard sell” message. An extreme example of this would be Billy Mays’s infamous high impact product commercials, which were aggressive and totally based on the viewers investment in the media channel that they were watching. That paradigm is a thing of the past.

Today those traditional channels are only one of many options. Blogs, national news websites and online entertainment have released a torrent of information upon the population. This torrent has fundamentally changed the way people find and interact with information. The Billy Mays approach of pounding a message into an audience is no longer effective because the multiplicity of information sources has softened people’s tolerance for the hard sell. Now people want value instead of pitch.

Enter the “Inbound” marketing model. If the Outbound model is based on quantity then the inbound model is based on quality. Just as the outbound model grew out of the media that supported it, the inbound model is closely tied to the media from which it was conceived.

With the sheer mass of online information sources, people can pick and choose where they get their information and how they are entertained. The simplicity of the Google search page makes every user a pundit who can judge different information sources against each other and decide who to listen to and to send others to. This qualitative evaluation presents major challenges for any business or organization looking to attract attention to its message or brand.

The quality-based inbound model takes advantage of this individual punditry. In the old model a larger competitor with a larger marketing budget could drown out its competition. Now if a website and blog are well optimized and are the best source of information about their product or service, people are naturally going to come to them whether it be for widgets or world peace. The quality of a website and information will naturally draw people to it allowing them to make a decision on the message or value proposition based on the quality of the content. Because of the nature of online media individuals can then share their evaluation, whether positive or negative, with others.

The main challenge that this presents to any brand is the basic acceptance of the lack of control inherent in the Inbound marketing model. As the Outbound model allowed you to control your brand image and message the inbound model leaves you wide open to commentary and criticism from every angle.

Don’t let this fact frighten you away.  If you believe in your message and brand, there is nothing to fear from healthy conversation and constructive criticism. In fact criticism is great! It means people are interested. Getting a healthy dialogue going with your critics is a fantastic way to draw attention to your message.

Once you engage in this new model, a conversation will begin with your client base about the quality and validity of your brand. Quality and identity of your brand will be extended or snuffed out by this ensuing conversation.  The “quality” that this model is based on is not limited to the content generated by the brand. The content generated by the brand is ideally just a starting place for other people to add their own layers of meaning. This process will help you refine your brand and make it more pertinent to your client base. With this new model you can’t tell people what they need, instead you need to listen to them and adapt.

Essentially by building a solid web presence based on solid SEO structure that utilizes inbound principles and effectively engages in social media you can build a brand without spending a cent on traditional advertising.

The growth of your brand will most likely happen slowly at first, as it takes time to gain traction with Google. However, in this system your brand will be evaluated and improved as you communicate with your client base. In the outbound model a brand had to pay an advertising agency to conduct focus groups to find out what their target market wanted. Now all you have to do to get a pulse on your market is engage with the resources that you already have. By doing this your brand will be refined every step of the way by the very people that make up your market, for free.

Inbound Marketing Model concepts can be put into action by anyone with the attention of a few hours a week using an effective website, on-site blog and twitter account. Of course having these tools in not enough, the tools alone are useless, what gives them power is the skill and passion that the user brings to them. So dive into the flow. Start the conversation and  you will find that your brand will come alive with a more competitive stance and a community of supporters and critics that will drive you to improve your message and brand as your brand grows.

Click here to view the embedded video.

As the number of businesses using multiple social media platforms continues to grow, the question frequently comes up:  Which content should go where?

Is it Facebook content or blog content?

The two platforms that provide the biggest source of confusion are blogs and Facebook. There is a purpose for both, and each is ideal for particular types of content. It is important to understand the intention of each of these channels.

So, should you put your next update in your blog or on your Facebook page?

The purpose of a Facebook business page is to:

• Connect with old customers, new customers, potential customers, and colleagues;
• Share content that is both relevant and interesting;
• Engage your fans with contests, business news, and other engaging content;
• Keep fans in the loop on upcoming events, conferences, or anything where your company will have a presence.

The purpose of a business blog is to:

• Display your expertise;
• Develop a depth of content that distinguishes your business;
• Bring readers up-to-date with the latest industry information;
• Keep momentum going in the search engines for important keywords and topics.

If your content is meant primarily to engage, or is something you want to quickly share with others, post it to your Facebook profile. Examples of Facebook-appropriate material include: announcing a limited- time offer, photos of a local event your business attended, videos, or anything with a more personal tone.

If you can distinguish your company by elaborating on business-related topic, make it a blog post. Blogs are an excellent forum for professional information, and can spark interesting dialogues as people post comments.   If your target market is local, take advantage of the opportunity to include relevant localized keywords and information. Like Facebook, blogs can be used for a variety of material, and may incorporate some of the pieces you put on your Facebook page (images, videos, etc.).

It’s not always clear-cut whether a post should go on Facebook or on your blog.  In some cases, writing a blog post and linking to it from your Facebook profile (and other web presences) is the best strategy. It is often a case by case situation.

Both platforms are important in establishing your online presence, and it’s important to properly link them together, as well as to your other sites—most importantly, your main website.

Facebook this, Facebook that… You can talk all day about what you can do with this tool, but before getting into the details of how to use the site, we should first establish why to use it.

There are a number of areas where this social networking platform can help your business on and offline. Here are 8 reasons why you should take advantage of them.

Why Facebook Is a Great Way to Unlock your Business Potential

With an effectively crafted Facebook page you can…

• Drive web traffic to your other sites through your Facebook page and generate more leads. Someone who stumbles across your Facebook page may not have found your main site otherwise. It’s important to maximize your web exposure.

• Take advantage of the 150 million users to increase brand awareness, manage your reputation, and engage in word of mouth advertising, Web 2.0. style. Facebook has one of the largest web populations, and the purpose of this site is for people to communicate with each other. Join these conversations to make sure your business is portrayed in the best possible light.

• Engage your customers with promotions, events, contests, and interactive applications. Engaging customers is one of the best ways to spark brand loyalty. Having a variety of activities for your fans to participate in can make their engagement with you skyrocket.

• Understand your customers more effectively based on their comments, response to your updates, and use of your applications. Since Facebook is based in real time, you can get a first hand look at how your customers react to your status updates, marketing initiatives, and more.

• Prove your expertise by sharing relevant articles and news stories with your fans. People frequently will not trust a business unless it has proven that it knows what its talking about. Use Facebook as a tool to exhibit your knowledge of your industry.

• Increase your chances of showing up in search engine results . As search engines increasingly incorporate real-time social media posts into their results (see Google’s Real Time Search for example), sites like Facebook are becoming an integral part of any Search strategy.

• Acquire a better understanding of your audience using Insights. This Facebook tool, which is automatically enabled for your business page, provides demographics of your typical customers (see image below).

Facebook Insights data

Why use Facebook to market your business? The better question is why wouldn’t you use it?

• Learn Facebook basics
• Learn how to leverage Facebook to underscore your brand
• Learn how to get fans (and what to do with those fans)
• Learn how to optimize your Facebook page
• Learn about applications and FBML (Facebook Mark up Language)
• Learn how to measure your Facebook traffic
• Learn how to effectively link your networks

With over 300,000,000 Facebook users, 120,000,000 of whom log on daily, the business opportunity Facebook presents cannot be ignored. According to Socialnomics, social media has claimed the number one web activity spot over the previous “less acceptable” contender. Facebook is a free way to improve your online presence. To increase your success online, your business must be part of this popular activity.

Leading companies have joined the crowd and are successfully using their Facebook pages to keep their customers happy and connected with with their brand.

Look at who is making the best of Facebook: 10 Successful Facebook Business Pages (from the Penn Olsen Social Media blog). With due diligence, and focused hard work, your business could be among the leaders.

Facebook logo

A business Facebook page is different than your personal Facebook page.

• You have “fans” instead of “friends”
• It represents your brand, not you.
• You have access to much more information about your traffic.
• There is more customization for privacy settings.

The business page is built off of your personal account and gives you plenty of tools to reach the growing network of individuals using Facebook. You can run ads on the Facebook sidebar, track the demographics of your page traffic with Facebook Insights, create a badge or fanbox to promote your page, start discussion boards with the fans, add company information and events, and much more.

There are many ways to use these features and many ways to optimize your page; but to start, how do you create a business page?

How to Create a Business Page

You could spend a couple of hours trying to navigate through the Facebook pages and menus, but I’ll condense the whole process right here.

• First click on the “Advertising” tab in the footer of any Facebook page.

Click on Advertising

• Once you’re brought to the landing page, be sure to click on “Pages” on the navigation bar.

Click on the Pages tab

• Once here, you can either:

A: Create a New Facebook page for your business.

or

B: Manage your existing pages. If you only have one page, you’re brought directly that page’s editing screen; if you have multiple pages you can chose which page editing screen you wish to view.

Bookmark this page for easier access in the future. (Alternatively you can type in your page name into the search bar, and find it that way.)

If you click on the create a new page button you have the options to:

• Choose your business category, brand, product, organization, etc.
• Name your Facebook Page, which is simply the name of your business.
• Make sure your profile isn’t publicly visible until you’re happy with the information and the way it looks. (Click the button with the arrow pointing at it in the screen shot below to chose this option.)

Click the box to make the page not publically visible.

• Return to the “manage your existing pages” link.
• From here you can click the “edit page” button on your desired page; if you have only one page, you’re automatically brought to the editing screen for that page.

In the editor page, you can upload photos, change your information, add applications, and play with a variety of other customization options.

Play around with these options; further elaboration on how to use them will come in the near future!

149 South Champlain St, Burlington, VT

I recently came across another powerful use that Twitter provides people with last week. It not only provided an awesome place to network, but it supported a new local business. Last month, I began to see a trend start to rise with something along the lines of this: #btvfall2009tweetup. Curiosity got the best of me, and I started researching what this was all about. Turns out, a new local bakery, August First was hosting a “tweetup”. A tweetup is a gathering of people who use the social-networking tool, Twitter. The event was organized through Twitter by using a third party app, twtvite. This application allows you to organize an event by giving details such as directions to the event and a yes/no/maybe RSVP option. This had been the second invite I had seen in about a month and I was ready to join in on the fun.

The event was organized by John Connors (@JohnCVermont) who specializes in Information Technology at Saint Michael’s College. Upon arrival, I was handed a badge with my real name and twitter user name on it so people would know if we had crossed paths on Twitter previously. Surprisingly, most of the faces in the cozy bakery were familiar. Everyone seemed very content with their coffee in-hand and talking technology. August First was a great location to have this event with their welcoming environment and their variety of tasty treats.

I will now be making an effort to attend every tweetup I can, not only for the geek-talk, but for great time all around.

If you’re on Twitter and want to see what’s going on with the team, you can find us on our Twitter List here. Also, you can follow August First here.

Cheers,

Matt Sisson