A Guide to Social Media Tools and their Uses

As I mentioned in The Weakest Link - Your Social Media Marketing "Killer App" social media tools empower you, using tools that are largely free, to maximize your business' exposure and interaction, connecting and staying in touch more often and with more people than you ever could before.

Now I'd like to talk about how. How does one do this? It all starts with knowing which tools are most useful for your business. In fact I'm often asked "what are the best online marketing tools for small businesses?". I'll save that question for another post. For now let's focus on a subset of that - what are the best social media marketing tools for small businesses?

First let's take stock. Here is a list of some of the most popular social media tools (at least in the US market, in other countries it's a different story mind you). I want to give a nod to Seattle based Creativetechs for doing the thinking and the legwork to gather these sites into tidy categories!

Social Tools

Directories Social Bookmarking Video SharingLinkedIn
Facebook
Myspace
Friendster
Hi5
Google Profiles Dig
Delicious
Stumbleupon
Reddit
Newsvine.com
friendfeed YouTube
Blip.tv
Vimeo
Metacafe
stickam
Photo Sharing BloggingFlickr
Fotolog
SmugMug
Zooomr
Photobucket
webshots Blogger
Wordpress
Twitter

All of these tools enable you to interact with people but in each group a different kind of content is the focus.

Social Directories — in some ways the simplest because it is the content focus is YOU. Each individual creates a profile and the directory enables you to find and connect with people based on the information they supply about themselves in that profile. This has extended beyond individuals to "entities". So that a company or group can also create a profile. Which brings me to one of the most confusing things about these directories - that not all of them approach "entities" the same way and most of them don't make it very easy to figure out how to create a profile for your entity. Facebook invites you to create a Facebook "page" for your business but does not want you to create a "profile" for your business even though pages and profiles can use many of the same features and tools (but not all). On the other hand, LinkedIn has a very limited "page" for businesses providing very limited functionality. Small businesses often struggle to figure out which kind of existence they should have in these directories (should it be me? Should it be my company? Should it be someone else within my company?) both to stay within the terms of service and still maximize the tools marketing potential.

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Social Bookmarking (also called Link Sharing) — these tools allow you to highlight and share individual Web pages you like by sharing a link to them. People can "vote" on each link that has been shared and the links with the most votes move to the top of the page making the site a portal to the "best" content as filtered by the community. Note that an individual profile is connected to the posting of each link so over time you can get to know your fellow bookmarkers by their sharing habits, genre, frequency etc. These sites are useful if you post a lot of content and would like that content to be found and read by more people.

Video Sharing — sites like YouTube are usually very straightforward in functionality. They make it very easy to upload your own video and once the video is uploaded, it is also easily viewed and commented on by others. YouTube also provides ways for the video to be shared and embedded in other sites increasing their ability to turn "viral". Because video can be far more useful for branding than for sales, and because small businesses often do not have access to the budgets or marketing expertise to leverage the benefits of viral video, this tends to be a useful tool only when the business has ready and very easy access to a good quality video writing, production and editing resource that is willing to work for free or at low cost (i.e. close friend, owner, family member).

Photo Sharing — these sites are usually quite simple in functionality. Members can post photos which then can be viewed and commented on by the general public or only by those who are invited to see them. Small businesses sometimes use these sites to share photo galleries instead of building photo gallery capability into their own Web site. I think this usually poses a branding and user experience conflict. Especially since photo galleries are usually pretty inexpensive ($300 or less) to integrate into one's own site.

Blogging — the content is your creativity, your voice. You post content on a regular basis whether it's text, video, photos, podcasts or all of the above. Blogs enable you to be an individual publisher, and usually enable readers to participate in the conversation by posting comments.

Out of all of these tools, the top 3 in my list perhaps will not be a surprise:

FacebookTwitterLinkedIn

Next time I'll go into more detail about each and why I prefer these tools for small businesses.

I also am fond of blogging (go figure!) but that deserves to be covered separately.

Also next week on Tuesday, June 16th I will be hosting a Social Media Marketing hands-on workshop for around 20 small businesses. If you'd like to be one of them learn more about it and register here.

Related Articles:

The Weakest Link - Your Social Media Marketing "Killer App"Getting Good Rank: Search Engine PrimerThe Marketing Skills You Can Learn from Obama The Outsourcing Paradox

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Attraction marketing is in essence the internet marketing technique used to educate customers on a product and the services one offers even before the product is o

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Getting Good Rank: Search Engine Primer

Do you remember those IBM commercials from the early 2000's? The ones where the execs are sitting around a board room table and there's a lone techie at one end spelling out "the new tech thing"? Awe and mysticism seems to fill the room. Appropriately quizzical theme music twinkles in the background. This is one of my favorites:

Clearly this is an exaggeration but those commercials crack me up. Perhaps it's because durng my careeer I've been on both sides. Perhaps it's also because I've spent more than 13 years sitting right in the middle - translating.

A little while ago I found myself in such a situation. I was moderating a panel for a great group of entrepreneurs-in-the-making and the topic was Search Engine Marketing. Much like the "Universal Business Adapter" lots of people eye Search Engine Marketing with a bit of awe and a lot of mystique.

One usually finds mystique in situations of information scarcity, not so with SEM (just do a search for search engine marketing and you'll see what I mean) and yet, the topic is still little understood.

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I think part of the challenge is with the way SEM is covered:

coverage often starts in the middle without treating the beginning, which makes it difficult to catch up.coverage often doesn't treat the topic from the perspective of small business owners — how do you know which of the techniques you're reading about is actually both meaningful and feasible for your small business?

So I've decided to tackle the problem and share it not only with the people who attended that event, but with Inc.com readers here.

First let's address the biggest question — what does Search Engine Marketing actually mean?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the act of optimizing your Web site and what I like to call your "digital footprint" so that search engines like Google will rank your site above other sites when people search for things. When looking at Google, this refers to the left side of screen or the "organic" listings which can draw more than 70% of the search engine clicks. If you want to get really in depth check out Google's Webmaster Tools http://google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769 (beware, there's a LOT of information there).

Search Engine Advertising (SEA) is making a payment directly to a Search Engine (or through a broker or service provider) so you can place a text advertisement on the search engine results page (or SERP) when people search for things. This is also called "sponsored links" or "Pay Per Click (PPC)" advertising. You bid for a certain keyword phrase and you pay the search engine each time someone clicks on your ad.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) — has come to mean different things. Some people use the terms Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Advertising synonymously. I think this isn't really accurate or especially useful. Marketing is not just advertising. I think the better use of "SEM" is to refer to all of the ways that you can use search engines to market what you have to offer.

Next week I'll cover the most critical factor in any search marketing campaign — your keywords. How do you choose them? How should they be different for SEO vs. SEA? How do you keep from loosing your shirt by buying the wrong ones in a PPC campaign? Stay tuned'

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DOXA Documentary Film Festival (AdLand)

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Sorry, flash is not available.

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Sorry, flash is not available.

Target audience: Anyone interested in film, but more specifically a young
urban audience from 21-45.

Communications objective: To develop a radio campaign that would set DOXA
apart from other entertainment.

Creative Strategy: The creative strategy was based on an insight that people
want alternative forms of entertainment. When it comes to movies, far too
often moviegoers are stuck with what Hollywood offers them.

Campaign Description: The campaign highlights many Hollywood movie
stereotypes. The radio spots use a film listings, phone-in service to
demonstrate the lack of choice and expected storylines found in traditional
theaters but then goes on to suggest DOXA as a completely different film
experience.

Market commercial ran in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland.

Creative Director: Jordan Doucette

Writer: Matt Bielby

Production House: Silent Joe West

Account Director: Ben Tarr

Agency Producer: Jen Cursio

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How to Use Your LinkedIn Profile ? a Checklist

So how did you do with your LinkedIn homework assignment?

Just getting the lay of the land on LinkedIn is a great start but wouldn't it be nice if more of the social marketing tools come with a "recommended usage" manual?

Twitter has just launched Twitter 101 which I think is pretty great.

If you are on LinkedIn profile but wondering how to maximize your use of it, I've created this profile "Cheat Sheet" so you focus your attention on the features that deliver the greatest impact AND understand how much time you should reasonably expect to spend on it.

Overview on Completing Your Profile
As I described in "A Guide to Social Media Tools and their Uses" all social networking sites begin with a single user creating a profile. Unlike other sites where your profile questions ask you to reveal your secret lust for sci-fi action flicks, your LinkedIn profile is showcase of your professional preferences and accomplishments.

You want to consider how you'll be using your profile when you complete it. I'll be covering LinkedIn strategies in one of my next articles (and I welcome your submission of your LinkedIn strategies here).

Linked in also offers its own suggestions on the LinkedIn Tips and Tricks blog, plus user submitted LinkedIn case studies which may be helpful to you.

Let's get started!

The Photo
I do recommend including a picture. LinkedIn profiles seem incomplete without them. Also try to be consistent with your photo — if you have a photo on other social networking sites it's a good idea to use the same photo everywhere. Note: it's also wise to be consistent with your name — use the same spelling, middle initial, honorific etc. everywhere. This is important for SEO and for building your online brand.
5 minutes

The Headline
The headline is a bite-sized explanation of what you do and what your value is. Note that your headline shows up ALL OVER LinkedIn, especially in lists. Your headline very often accompanies your name. Make sure your headline is at least clear and concise. If you are building "brand you" consider making it more engaging.
You could spend countless hours tweaking and refining this single 120 character field. Just try not to.

"Current"
Hopefully I'll save a few minutes of confusion by noting that yes, your "current" section is created directly from the Experience items for which you check "I currently work here". It is not editable separately from the Experience listing but do consider what you use for your "title" for your most current jobs since this will show up at the top of your profile.
15 minutes

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Web Site fields
You get to include three active links to external sites. Links you include in other parts of your profile won't be clickable so these are valuable. Make sure you use one of these for your company's Web site, then perhaps use the other two for your professional blog, and perhaps another profile like your company's Facebook page. TIP: don't use the generic "My Website" labels. Instead select "Other" and you will be able to choose your own label which will become the text of your link.
10 minutes

Public Profile
Social networking sites are now giving you the opportunity to create a "custom URL" for your page on their site. Here I explain how to set up a custom URL for your Facebook Profile or Facebook Page. On LinkedIn you edit this through your "Public Profile" field.

For example, my standard LinkedIn page is: http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=257307&trk=tab_pro
But my lovely custom URL is: http://www.linkedin.com/in/maishawalker
5 minutes

Your Summary
Use this area in a similar way to a cover letter. Explain in (relatively) normal-speak what makes you unique or different, why someone might want to connect with you, and possibly few details about your products or services. Note that you cannot create clickable links in this area.
30-90 minutes

The Resume or "Experience"
While it might seem tedious to enter every job you've had for the last 20 years this really is an opportunity. Think of it this way, while it would be strange for you to randomly send your resume to everyone you meet, sending your LinkedIn profile is perfectly reasonable and can give you that extra edge.

As LinkedIn user Divya Gugani aptly describes "Adding my profile link in outgoing emails adds credibility and the extra qualification nudge with certain requests... I like being able to subtly sell my expertise."

There is some debate how long each job description should be. I think this depends on your experience. If listing more than 5 jobs, perhaps use brief descriptions that include important keywords. If listing 5 jobs or fewer, longer descriptions won't be as problematic.
1-4 hours (depending on how badly your original resume needs an update!)

Contact Methods
If you would like to receive emails from strangers who might have opportunities for you, choose to accept "Introductions and InMail" so that anyone can email you. Also use the checkboxes to indicate what kinds of inquiries you're interested in.
5 minutes

Build Connections
LinkedIn doesn't have a lot of value without connections. This also tends to be a big strategy question for most people — do I connect broadly or intimately? I will address this question in my future post on LinkedIn strategies, but for now, if you're just starting out you don't have to worry about this. Just go into "Imported Contacts" and check your email address books for people who are on LinkedIn. The best and easiest way to gain useful connections is with the people you already know.
30 minutes

Create your Company Profile
Lots of people miss this one. When you mouse over or click on a company name in LinkedIn it takes you to a profile describing that company and displaying it's current and former employees plus details like where the company is located. To do this for your company, you first have to add your company to LinkedIn beyond adding it in your "Experience". Here are instructions for how to add your company profile to LinkedIn (you'll need a valid and accessible company email address). Once your company is added, click on your company name from your profile and then you can alter the company description to your liking by clicking on the Edit Profile link in the top right corner.
45 minutes

Set updates to be sent weekly not as they happen
If you don't want to receive an email every time someone in your network makes an update, you can change your settings to send you messages weekly or not at all. Just click on the "Account & Settings" button in the top right corner. I pretty much set everything to weekly except discussion replies, connection invitations, and emails from my connections
5 minutes

Recommendations
I've seen a lot of recommendations lately on LinkedIn. Unfortunately the more I see them, the less of an impression they make on me. Often people send generic emails out asking for recommendations from almost everyone in their network, and often people get generic recommendations back. The recommendations that most impress me are the ones that are not generic but really specific and sincere. Did the recommender use a specific product? Attend a specific event? See high return from a specific service you provided? Were they one of your partners in a venture? Sometimes a profile's long list of recommendations shows only that the person knows how to get lots of people to write something generic about them. Is this meaningful?

If you want a meaningful recommendation, sometimes the best way to get one is to write one if that's feasible. And while there are always exceptions, if you can't write a meaningful recommendation for someone there's a reasonable chance they won't be able to write a meaningful one for you. Writing recommendations is time consuming so I suggest that you write them only when you really have something worthwhile and not generic to say.
15-30 minutes per recommendation

Sneak Peak: Tagging
For a natural categorizer like me (INFPers unite!) LinkedIn's tags are a dream come true. It's a quick way to categorize the people in your network in a way that is personally meaningful. So if you are trying to build out a client base in Cincinnati, you can do a search for all of your contacts who have the word "Cincinnati" in their profile, and then "tag" the relevant profiles for future reference. After getting very excited and telling a colleague about this feature, I discovered "tagging" is still in beta so not all LinkedIn users have access to it yet.

One problem I've found with tags so far is they aren't integrated with other LinkedIn features. So as of this posting you cannot for example select all of the people you tagged as Cincinnati and send them all an email. Nor can you use tags in the "compose message" area. But you can export your tagged lists for use in other software.
30 minutes - several hours depending on # of contacts and # of categories

Keywords & Search Engine Optimization — this is a profile bonus
Keep in mind that when someone does a Google search for your name, it's likely that your LinkedIn profile will be one of the first links that shows up (unless you have a very common name or share a name with a celebrity). Take advantage of LinkedIn's high search-ability. Think about the keywords you'd want to be found under on search engines and on LinkedIn itself. Make sure that you include keywords relevant to your industry and position. You might decide to go back and rewrite things at the end to address this.
30-90 minutes

A Warning
Some have complained about the difficulty of deleting a LinkedIn profile. While LinkedIn does provide instructions for how to terminate a LinkedIn profile or close a LinkedIn account there have been some posts that describe user frustration in not being able to delete one's profile.

So, what's the damage?
According to my estimates, doing all of the things I outline above should take you between 4.5 hours and 9.5 hours (not including recommendations or the countless hours you'll spend transforming your 120 character headline into iambic pentameter). That's 1-3 days working a few hours per day, or 1-3 weeks working just a few hours per week - stretching it over a longer period is often a better plan for additional objectivity and less burnout.

I look forward to your comments outlining things I may have missed and your submissions of LinkedIn strategies for my upcoming article! We'll also cover things like Groups, Applications and other ways you can use LinkedIn beyond basic profile setup.

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Read Related Articles by Maisha:

An Introduction to LinkedIn: In Restrictions a Gold MineTop Twitter Techniques (or 9 Good Excuses if you want to Ignore Twitter)Facebook Demystified: Profiles and Pages and Groups (oh my)A Guide to Social Media Tools and their Uses

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Blogging's 11 Big Payoffs pt 2

From the comments and emails I've received, the benefits I described in the first half of Blogging's 11 Big Payoffs have hit home but also helped you think of new ways that your blog can help you build your business.

I liked the issue raised in a comment by SaveMoneyCostCutting from last week. Sometimes it is a fine line between too much marketing and just enough. It is important to establish a position on this that will work based on what you're selling and to whom you're selling it. There's no one-size-fits-all on that one. Blogging is a tool you can use creatively to get out what you need to say to the world, and/or as a serious business tool for driving leads, creating advertising inventory (aka traffic), generating sales and building a brand. Just be true to the brand and the tone you establish.

I also like jimfracis' comment that blogging helps him "shape his convictions". As I mention towards the end of the "Credibility" paragraph helping you to actually articulate what you know or believe is definitely a big benefit.

If you think that blogging might be a great leads or revenue generator for your business, the problem is how to justify the fact that blogging is *really* time consuming, especially when you consdier that typically you'll spend at least the same amount of time marketing your blog as you do writing it, often more, sometimes, 2-3 times more.

So to help you to decide whether to blog or not to blog, I'll outline the final 5 of Blogging's 11 Big Payoffs.

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Networking

I think many people don't understand what it really means to "network" (not that I'm a guru). But instead of focusing on "networking" I'd like to talk specifically about "how to build" a network that will educate you, inform you, support you emotionally, and tell you about opportunities, and one that will also enable you to inform, support, provide opportunities for and educate it. This is a network that serves your needs 360 degrees. When you're building a network it's critical that people in your network know what it is that you need, and what you have to offer. Regularly publishing content that makes clear your areas of focus is a great way to help people very tangibly understand why they should connect with you. It's one thing to say you're an expert, it's another thing to write 50 articles about it that are read, appreciated, forwarded, reposted etc. Making it very clear what how you can help people is ironically also a great way for other people to figure out how they can help you.

Customer Loyalty, Customer Service & Customer Education

Product details, how-to instructions, usage hints can all be smart content to provide to build both sales and loyalty especially if your product is technically complex or has a lot of hidden features. A blog can be used like individual FAQ posts to answer both old and new customer questions. And just like FAQs, your posts/answers can highlight features that customers don't know about, or help customers understand the best way of using your product or service.

Related Articles by Maisha:

Blogging's 11 Big Payoffs

To Blog or Not to Blog

Building Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (final/part 3)

Building Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (part 2)

Case Studies

One of the greatest benefits of Case Studies is self-identification. Case studies offer detail and context about a specific situation your product resolved and provide more information about the customer you worked with. This is wonderful for potential customers, enabling them to see themselves and see their specific needs, situation, challenges not only laid out in front of them and tangibly understand that you can fix it.

Social Media Content

Social media strategies and campaigns are built around content. Whether the content is video, images, or text, those businesses who invested in the idea that "content is king" now have a leg up in creating social media strategies because they have a store of content that can be used to support, encourage and extend dialog. If you have a blog you also have the beginnings of a wonderful social media strategy.

Consistent Presence

Presuming you blog with some regularity, blogging, like all social media tools, has the excellent benefit of helping you strengthen more of your weak ties by communicating with large numbers of people frequently and with relevance.

Advertising Revenue

Not that I created this list in any order of priority, but I do advise making a mental note of how far down on the list this one is (at the bottom). While generating significant revenue from your blog by selling advertising can still work for some bloggers, these days it is a difficult way to justify the investment if advertising revenue is the only payoff. You have to either have a significant amount of traffic (I'd think about 50,000 page views minimum) or have a captive audience of readers who are extremely difficult to reach else where, or both. While Google AdWords are great it generates tiny amounts of monthly revenue for most bloggers so don't assume that's all you'll need!

So Now What?

You may have looked at this list of payoffs and recognized several that fit squarely into your business strategy. So now what?

Armed even with knowledge of what reasonable goals are, I find that businesses trying to dive into the world of blogging are still somewhat at a loss for how to start. How on earth do I build an effective blog? How much time will it take? What tools are available and which ones make the most sense for our needs? How do I actually get all the payoffs?

Stay tuned — next time we dive into the technical side of blogging and how to get started.

Till then I look forward to hearing more about blogging benefits and what you get out of blogging for your business.

Two important notes:

Get Your Blog Featured
I will be highlighting a variety of companies as examples in upcoming posts. If you've had success with your Blog and can describe results/back it up with real data, you can submit your Blogging strategy here.

Get a Free Blog or Web Site!
Even in a bad economy there's a silver lining. I'm giving away a free Web site! If you'd like to be the lucky business owner tell me about your business and why you should win here. I acknowledge I'll be choosing the winner purely based on my own discretion. Heck I may even choose more than one. I look forward to seeing your entry!

Post Your Comment

Have a question? Got something to share? Something I missed?

Your feedback, comments, real world experience and tactical questions are an important part of the discussion. If you have a comment, question or feedback post it below.

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Blogging's 11 Big PayoffsTo Blog or Not to BlogBuilding Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (final/part 3) Building Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (part 2)

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10 Tips to Avoid the Biggest SEO Mistake

I started this Search Engine Marketing Series with a definition of the two SEM areas — Search Engine Advertising and Search Engine Optimization. Last week we focused on SEO with SEO My Web Site in 3 Easy? Steps. We discussed the three elements of SEO and what I call their "blind spots".

As we learned last week, the first of those 3 elements is your keyword list. Your keyword list is critical because it is these keywords that will be used for optimizing your your HTML code & programming and build your incoming links. When you start doing SEA you'll find that your keywords are critical there too.

So what are keywords?

Keywords are the word or phrase that someone types into a search engine to find something they are looking for — like "buttermilk pancakes" or "cannon digital camera".

When a searcher types in one of these phrases, a "search engine results page" (aka SERP) is returned with a list of Web sites that the search engine has decided best fits that phrase.

Here are the SERP pages for "buttermilk pancakes" on Google (top) and Yahoo (bottom):

So let's say you own a diner in Durham, NC and you'd like anyone who searches for "buttermilk pancakes" to see your diner at the top of the results page.

That sounds pretty good, right?

I mean the #1 ranking, I know the pancakes sound good and yes — that was a trick question.

In fact, choosing "buttermilk pancakes" as your keyword phrase could not only waste a lot of your resources, it could also cause problems for your business.

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Here's why.

First — there is such a thing as too much traffic. How many phone calls do you need from someone in another state trying to place a delivery order or asking you'll mail them your pancake recipe? If your staff time get's maxed out by inquiries from people who won't ever do business with you, your staff won't have time or energy for the people who will.

Second — you will have devoted valuable time and money on a top position for a keyword that may hurt your business rather than help it. Those resources could have been spent far more productively elsewhere.

Unfortunately, many small businesses fall into the trap of choosing the keywords based on volume — thinking the ones that provide the most traffic will be the best investment. But what you really want is to focus on the keywords that will bring you the most business, even if they bring a small amount of traffic.

So how do you do that?:

Focus on "Buying" Phrases — as shoppers get more serious keywords get more specific like "buttermilk pancakes durham nc". Think of what people are searching for when they're ready to buy.

Skip Generic Phrases - tire kickers love generic keywords. As in the example above, try to make your keyword phrases 3 words or longer.

Iterations - try using what I call "iterations" like locations. "durham nc" "north Carolina" etc.

Is it soda or pop? — there may be more than one way to say the same thing. Use Google's keyword suggestion tool to choose the most popular term and maximize your reach.

Do a Search - for each keyword you're considering, make sure you actually look it up in the various engines. You'll glean really helpful data from this.

Know your neighbors - know what kinds of results you'd be surrounded by. Ranking on some keywords can hurt your brand by association.

Know your competition — your search competition — who is at the top of the list for the keywords you want, how big is their site and how well optimized is their site?

List Length - for SEO the size of your list should depend on how much content you have to work with and how fierce your competition is. Start by looking at the keyword density of your competition as a target. For example 5% density means 5 repetitions for every 100 words. You can then figure out the potential size of your list by taking the keyword density you're aiming for vs. the number of words you have available per page and the number of pages on your site.

Product & Brand names — these can be highly valuable. If your customers know them, don't forget to optimize for them.

Don't forget Misspellings — of brand names, product names, location names, your company name, names of prominent staff etc.

Have you been burned by keywords or have they been the path to success?

Share some of your keyword tips below!

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