Monday, November 9, 2009

Protect your URL in a social media world

I totally agree that we need to put forth a strong protect our URL in social media - especially if it's a brand name. You probably know about the benefits of shortening your links in a 140 character world. Especially if you've found this, then you've gotten just a glimpse -

But in MY social media world, after posting this blog grab from posterous (a fantastic social media tool), I will then later report is with the link to my blog using bit.ly - http://bit.ly/vickblog.

Grab your redirect shortened URLs like it's the wild west, folks.

And use them over and over! What are your thoughts?

Posted via web from vickie_smith's posterous

Friday, November 6, 2009

Online Marketing and Building Your Brand - The Power of Blogging

If you want a deeper connection with your audience, whether it's B2B, B2C, or even building your personal brand for job search, the reports are in on the success of adding a blog to your marketing mix. You can't ignore the value of being able to post content in your own voice, and having thoughtful content spiced with strategic keywords placement for SEO.

I'm in the process of moving this blog over to my website, because I can't ignore the value of sharing valuable content and hearing what you have to add, or finding out what you want to hear.

It just depends on what you've got to say - but keep it consistent and use your blog for a strong branding effort. Here's proof in the pudding - and the stats to prove it!

Posted via web from vickie_smith's posterous

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

What Lurks Beyond the Keyboard - Social Media Automation

When tackling the task of social media strategy, you can't ignore automation as a solution to covering multiple channels, but do you really know what happens when it goes beyond your keyboard?

Whether it's Twitter, Facebook, digg, de.licio.us, whatever the outlet, if you're serious about creating, monitoring, and maintaining your online brand/presence, you probably have explored automating.

A recent e-mail came to me through my website that I want to share with you because it speaks exactly to the point that I want to make.

Vickie -

My question is about automatic uploading to twitter from other sites.

I see multiple tweets posted at the same time.

When I open my twitter page and see nothing but one person’s tweets I UNFOLLOW them.

You have four tweets from HootSuite all at once plus two or three others. That is fast closing in on my threshold to unfollow you.

Fact is I really love your tweets, but feel I have a live outside your tweets and don’t want to follow many links.

How do these sites work?

Can you control the number of posts from them?

What is the logic of having a lot of tweets? Is it effective? How is results measured?

I plan to try to tweet twice daily – maximum unless someone demonstrates that something else works better.

Thanks for the answers.

You can post this to the blog if you wish, or I can post an entry if you wish.

Thanks

Gordon Hughes


There's an in and there's an out, right? On this we can agree. But how it gets sent out, and how your viewer gets it are two VERY different things. Think of it like the mail truck running out of gas on the way, or maybe hitting a pothole. And that's the mail truck on MY end. What about the mail truck DELIVERING the content? Well, there's not much I can say to that end.

For my own strategy, I've found that for twitter, Hootsuite is well-suited to my needs, being able to schedule content and space it out. I certainly don't want overkill, but I do want to maintain my presence in the area of social media marketing. Therefore, I have to maintain a brand presence on a regular basis.

Now, if there is a follower who chooses to look at content at a particular time in the future, my tweets are obviously going to get backed up and it's going to look like maybe I'm publishing them all at once.

Or maybe, in fact, hootsuite had a hiccup and it didn't post them as I had scheduled.

And hmm, has twitter ever gone down? See, we just don't know what happens when it goes beyond our keyboard.

In the past, in doing e-mail marketing campaigns, I've learned to test the e-mail to myself first to make sure that the content is exactly what I want to appear when a recipient receives it. But do they ever? Or did I just end up in the junk folder?

Do you have any thoughts you'd like to share on the subject? Have you ever had an automation strategy gone haywire?

Monday, October 26, 2009

Retailers Get Ready for Social Shopping Experience

Retailers, especially ecommerce retailers, can no longer ignore the power of social media and how people are choosing to communicate - WHEN they want, with WHOM they want, and HOW they want - especially with the growth of mobile platforms.

I think these numbers will only grow and technology is able to make us more connected than ever - especially how we shop. I hope that online retailers do particularly well this holiday season and weather the storm.

Posted via web from vickie_smith's posterous

Friday, October 23, 2009

How to Segment Your Twitter Strategy in Social Media

Very interesting post by Daryl Pereira on SocialMediaToday. I do agree that your social medial strategy should have a focus and purpose. However, don't neglect to apply these strategies across the board in social media, not just one social "medium," just one channel.

We should all strive to engage our audiences, whoever they might be, B2B, B2C, and to do that, we need to create relevant content (in the right format, in the right venues), and listen - by following and monitoring your brand.

Posted via web from vickie_smith's posterous

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Why Social Media and Search Must Be Integrated

No marketing efforts are standalone, especially in the digital world where the world is FLAT. This eMarketer report proves the point. Consumers are more connected with brands who have a social media presence - and those brands with a savvy team who optimizes their SEO and searchability (or findability!) will shine among their competitors. Does it make you think how you can change your strategy? Reports like this help keep us sharp...now off to searching for relevant content, right?

Posted via web from vickie_smith's posterous

Monday, October 12, 2009

How to get more attention with your social media messages - 4 Tips



Get more attention with your social media marketing messages?

La la la la I'm not listening! Just think of fighting that uphill attention battle every time you want to be heard in “free” social medium forums. There is more clutter now than ever, and people are going to get savvier at learning how to filter out the noise.

Do you Tivo/DVR? Get frustrated when opening up a video and seeing a pre-roll advertisement? People will continue to look for VALUE, and will get better at being able to search for relevant content. Here are tips to help you break through and get people to really want to listen:

1. Headlines - Extra! Extra! Read All About It!
There is a definite art to headlines, and to tweets that grab attention. Guy Kawasaki is a master, and Personal Branding Expert Dan Schawbel is another - if you don’t believe me, just check out their twitter feed, better yet, follow them, and you will see that the reason you should click through is apparent RIGHT AWAY. If it’s a REPORT, OPINION or ADVICE, I know if I should bother finding out more. They saved their audiences time, and it is definitely appreciated. Be open and honest (transparent) as to what VALUE someone will find and people will be more likely to NEED to find out more.
2. What’s your hook song, or first track?
If you’ve ever bought an album, you know that the opening track has to really grab your attention for you to feel the rest of the album is worth your time listening. Same thing with your social media content - Don’t give people a chance to shut you out too soon. If you’ve got a very relevant piece of content for your target audience, think of what part of your content is going to be catchy enough to make them want to keep listening!
3. Keywords, people!
On a social media project recently, I was assigned the task of broadcasting social media content across a wide variety of platforms. Problem was, in order for me to broadcast it, I’d have to rewrite most of the headlines, so I’d have to take time looking through a lot of content to feel if I could put my own brand on the line by broadcasting it. The professionally produced video content, I felt was valuable information, but hidden beneath rather weak descriptions. Don’t make any effort you have wasted, especially with professionally produced content like video, or even a blog post you took time writing - think of it as your front door!
4. How Tos and Tips
It has been found that tweets most likely to get retweeted contain the phrases “How To” and “Tips.” People want to know how they can learn how to do something better, or even just how to do something period. And tips, well, by breaking this blog post down into four easy to digest chunks, you could quantify right away how many tips you were in for. There are too many decisions we all have to make as technology makes life ubercomplicated. If we can save each other the trouble, it makes life so much easier, and gets people to want to listen that much easier.

Isn’t that what this is all about? Please help me by sharing your comments and suggestions with me on these tips, and thoughts on others you’d like to know more about. Thanks!