LinkedIn Profile Organizer Walkthrough

Ok, you are on LinkedIn and have made some connections. As you get more active you will begin to wish there was an easier to set up and track the profiles and information that interests you. Enter LinkedIn Profile Organizer. In LinkedIn’s own words:

“Profile Organizer includes several tools to help you keep track of important profiles.”

“Track important profiles in a dedicated workspace.”

“Organize profiles into your own personal folders.”

“Keep important details that help you manage your outreach.”

Sounds pretty good huh? I am going to take you on a simple walkthrough so you can start using LinkedIn Profile Organizer yourself. Without further delay lets start this ride.

1. Go to the LinkedIn Profile Organizer Page.
2. Click the yellow “Upgrade Now” button.
3. Sign up for a LinkedIn Premium account (there is no way around this step if you want to use Profile Organizer).
4. Then from the “Send a message” sub-menu or search results page you can save profiles in custom folders and even add notes.

As I said, this is a very basic walkthrough (as I have a basic LinkedIn account) but these steps will get you started easily enough.

The benefits:

• More organization
• Easier to find information
• Tracking

Is it necessary? Though I believe it looks like a great feature, I do not believe it is necessary. If it is a feature you would like it would be worth it for you. If not, don’t upgrade.

Do you use LinkedIn Profile Organizer? If so, what are your thoughts?

5 Step LinkedIn Content Marketing Strategy

Are you linked in? Do you have a LinkedIn account? If you publish content of any kind that is important to you or your brand you should. As a matter of fact, if you are a professional of any kind, you should have an account. You can think of it this way: Facebook is your people you know network, Twitter is your be heard network, and LinkedIn is your professional network. If you want the right people to see your content it would be a huge mistake to ignore LinkedIn.

The first step is, if you don’t have a LinkedIn account start one right now. After you have an account, continue reading to learn a simple 5 step LinkedIn Content Marketing Strategy. On to our first step: Join Relevant LinkedIn Groups.

Join Relevant LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn groups are a great place to let your voice be heard, engage with others, and make new connections. Which groups should you join? How many? How active should you be? Let’s answer these questions in order.

Which to Join

Which groups you should join depend on what your goals are. What is your niche? Are you a photographer? A marketer? Are you a local small business? A leadership guru? Whatever your forte, you should join groups relevant to that.

How Many to Join

This one is a very important question. The more groups you join and are active with the more exposure you and your work will have. On the other hand, if you join too many you wont be able to be very active in any of them. I would say a safe approach would be to just join a hand full, say 5 just for an easy round number, and go on from there. If you can handle being active in more then by all means join more.

How Active

This one is the key. You should be as active as you can. Comment on and thumbs up a few posts by others every week (at least). Post your work (be sure to follow the group rules). Get to know some of the members. You may just find that professional connection you are looking for.

How to Find and Join Groups on LinkedIn

1. Log into your LinkedIn account.
2. Click “Groups” located at the top menu of the page.
3. In the search field you are going to type in your niche and run a search.
4. In the search results click the name of a groups that you are interested in.
5. If you like it then click the yellow “Join” button.
6. Follow the above steps again, this time searching for local groups.

Publish Good Content

Right now content is more important than ever. If you have any interest in good SEO, building your influence, and being found on Google, you must publish plenty of good content. Write your content and publish it to your blog or website (and I would highly recommend that you do have a blog).

Post Your Content to LinkedIn

You want your professional connections to see your rock star content. Post it to LinkedIn. Be proud of your work and let yourself be known in your niche by your connections. Look at it this way, even only 20 connections will likely link you to thousands of professionals. If you want to be seen by the right people then LinkedIn is the place to do it.

Post Your Content to LinkedIn Groups

Remember those groups we talked about a minute ago? Post your content there too. Don’t be spammy and be sure to follow the groups rules.

Engage With Others

Now for a key to the whole thing. If you want others to take you seriously and be engaged, then you have to be engaged with them. Read what your connections and groups you belong to post. Comment and thumbs up where you can. Communicate and show them you are interested. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Show them that you are interested in them and you just may find that they become more interested in you.

What have we accomplished?

• You are now a member of the largest professional network in the world.
• You have joined groups that are either interested in or part of your niche or are local to you.
• You are putting out great content.
• You are sharing your content with other professionals or potential clients.
• You are engaging with potential clients and members of your niche.
• You are meeting great professional connections.

You have accomplished a lot so far huh? Put the power of LinkedIn to work for you and make your content known.

What are your thoughts? Do you use LinkedIn as part of your content marketing strategy? Why or why not?

How to Brand Your Business on Facebook

What is branding? Why is it important? Your brand is your identity. It is the face you are showing your customers and leads. It can be beautiful or it can be flat out fugly. Yes, your brand is of supreme importance. Here are some tips to help you make sure you show the netizens of the world a pretty face (and this information can apply across your social networks as well as your website and blog).

Share your information.

When someone checks you out on Facebook they are looking for information about you. If you won’t share yourself how can you expect visitors to trust you. Unless you can build that trust it is doubtful that you will ever get to the point of converting leads into customers. Here are some things you should check right away:

• Do I have a (good) profile picture?
• Is my profile completely filled out?
• Have I included keywords in my profile where I can to help myself be found on search?
• Have I included links to my websites and other social profiles?
• Have I included contact information?

These basic issues need to be resolved ASAP. Your ROI just may thank you.

Set up your logo.

You can think of your logo as your social yearbook picture that will either attract a date with your target market or will send them running for the hills. The worst thing you can do? Have no picture at all. Lets face it, not many are very motivated to follow a blank Facebook profile or a Twitter egg. If you are your brand (in a way you always are) then a great headshot is your ticket. If it is a business logo that is more your flavor then here are some attributes it should possess if you want it to have a great impact:

• It should look interesting.
  
• It should represent a message or call to action relevant to what you do or how you want your visitors to respond.
• It should be an attention grabber.
• The colors shouldn’t scream “Blind me!”
• It should represent the genuine you.

Now you have shared the real you with your fans everywhere and given them a rocktastic picture to look at. Now lets look a little closer at that color scheme.

Choose a color scheme.

What are your colors? What colors represent the message you want to get across on the Web? Here are a couple links that I think just might help you out:

• Psychology of Color in Marketing
• Kuler – Color themes.
• ColorCodeHex

Ok, now that we have our colors straight we are really starting to set a mood. Now lets set a tone.

Set your tone.

Your Facebook marketing efforts can either be a bullseye or complete scattershot miss. Here is your wisdom young padawans:

• Keep your logo and color schemes uniform across your sites and social profiles.
• Speak to your visitors rather than just about yourself or your product/service.
• Keep it interesting across all channels.
• Brand to the point that if a visitor from your Google+ profile checks you out on Facebook they will feel that they are in familiar territory.
• Always be consistent without ever being boring.

Now you have something to say and people will listen (if its good content). Now lets leverage what we’ve got shall we?

Leverage your channels.

What are your channels? Social such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Search and your website/blog are also your channels. And lest we forget the granddaddy of channels: email. Here are some tips:

• Set up an email list. With an email list in hand you can send out targeted messages, stay in contact with potentially valuable contacts and leads, and offer promotions and special offers.
• Post to your social media streams regularly (I will go more into this below). To really benefit you really need to do so daily.
• Update your blog and website regularly. To really rock the content marketing your blog should be updated at least 3 to 5 times a week with fresh content.
• Cross promote between Facebook and your other social profiles.

Now to one of the keys that if forgotten will limit the effectiveness of your both your social media strategy and your content marketing.

Post consistently.

I have often heard and read the question: How often should you post to social media such as Facebook? The answer can largely depend on your business and target market. To simplify let me give you some basic rules of thumb (I am going to include tips on more than one channel here):

• Facebook = Post 1 to 2 per day. I wouldn’t advise going over 2 times. If you post too much engagement can drop.
• Twitter = I would say post between 5 and 10 times a day. I know it seems some are publishing tweets every few minutes but there s no benefit to just creating more noise and annoying your followers by completely filling their streams.
• Google+ = Post 3 – 5 times a day.
• LinkedIn = Once a day.
• Blog  = At least twice a week but I would recommend 3 – 5 times a week.

There you have it. By following the tips I shared above you will be taking some strong and positive steps in Facebook branding and social marketing.

How would you describe your approach to Facebook branding.

Life Organization Through Facebook

Do you spend so much time on social media sites like Facebook that some people who you may know could be thinking: Holy crap they really need to get a life! If so here is an idea. What if you could use Facebook to better organize your life? I am going to give you some ideas on how to use Facebook to get organized in your social life, event planning, and project collaboration.

Social Organization

Facebook provides you with some great tools to organize your social communication. From getting your thoughts out there to having great discussions with others, one on one or in groups, Facebook has you covered.

Wall

Trust me, it is ok to write on walls, no matter what your parents told you. Of course I am talking about your Facebook wall (don’t worry, I’m not encouraging your 4-year-old to whip out the crayons). When you log into Facebook the first thing you are presented with is your wall. Consider it a dynamic stream of what those you are connected to have to say. From here you can read what others share. Take the time to do this. What your friends have to say is as important to them as what you have to say is to you.

Here are some tips:

• Follow posts that you want to read every comment about. Just point at the post, click the down arrow, and choose Follow Post. You might want to do this with posts that have an extremely great importance to you.
• Don’t be afraid to hide the updates from sources that you don’t want to see. Click the same down arrow you would to follow a post, then choose Hide. If you don’t want to see any posts on your wall from that source then click hide all.
• Comment, like, and share. Social media is all about the social. The more engagement you offer, the more will be returned to you.

Messages

If you have a new message you will see a number over the message symbol on the blue bar at the top of your page. If you want to see all of your messages click the message symbol and open See All at the bottom of the list. Then click the new message button, type the names of and select the recipients, and type your message.

Tips time:

• Use Facebook Messages to hold group talks online. Just select all the people you want to be involved and type your message.
• You can even attach files and photos to messages.
• Send a message instead of a wall post when you don’t want the rest of the Facebook world to see the conversation.
• You can use messages to hold virtual meetings online.

Chat

Facebook chat, some love it and some hate it. It is a great way to conveniently hold an online 1 on 1. Just expand the chat bar in the lower right corner, click the name of the friend you want to chat with, type your message, and press the Enter key.

Can I have a T for tips:

• Click the video camera symbol to start a video chat.
• You can add friends to the chat to make it a group conversation clicking the gear symbol in the chat window and choosing Add Friends to Chat.
• You can add attachments.
• Use emoticons. It can help to clarify your meaning, makes it a lot more personal, and helps others understand how you are feeling. It really does make chat more interesting and fun as well. 🙂

Graph Search

By clicking the search area of the blue bar at the top of the page (if you have Graph Search activated on your Facebook) you will start Graph Search. You can search just like you used to, but Graph Search offers you more options. I would recommend that you explore it and see what you think.

Here is some tip-tation:

• Use Graph Search to find more detailed information about your friends.
• Choose the Tour option to see how it works.

Lists

By dividing your friends into lists you will make your wall reading and information sharing a far easier affaire. Just click More by Friends on the left side bar to get started.

Tipy tipy two by four:

• Make custom lists that have meaning to you.
• Make use of your Restricted List for those that you don’t want to share most of your updates with.
• Remember to set what update types so you only see the types of updates that you want from each list.
• When you post a status update, unless you want it to be a public one, choose the list that you want to make thee update visible to.

At this point you are communicating with your friends, professional connections, and groups you belong to in real life. You have also organized your connections into manageable lists and are learning more about your friends. Now lets take your organization efforts to the next level and organize some real world events with Facebook.

Event Organization

Yes you can organize and promote an event on Facebook all for free.

Events

To set up an event you can use (duh) Events. It is easy to use and works remarkably well.

How:

1. Type Events in Facebook Graph Search and click My Events.
2. Click the Create Event button.
3. Completely fill out the box and click Create.

Easy peasy huh?

Groups

You can do two very effective things in Facebook Groups when it comes to organizing your event.

First:

Promote and post messages about your event to groups that you already belong to.

Second:

Start a group whose sole purpose is to make your event work in the rock star way that you know it should. Here is the how:

1. On the Facebook homepage click Create Group in the Groups section on the left sidebar.
2. Completely fill in the box.
3. Click Create.

This is the strategy:

1. Create a private group for the event planning.
2. Within the group you can have discussion, share photos and files, ask questions, and share information. The perfect forum to start planning the most rocktastic event your town has ever seen.

Interest Lists

Interest lists allows you to Create or follow lists to keep up with the information that is important to you..

Here is how to get started:

1. Click Add Interests in the Interests section of the left side bar of the Facebook homepage.
2. Search for lists to follow or click the Create List button to make your own.

How to apply this to event management?

• Create a list relevant to your event.
• Follow lists that can give you great ideas for your current or next event.
• Share your list with others involved in the event.

Graph Search

The newest feature from the Facebook new feature machine. Some love it and others hate it. My personal opinion: I like it. It really does make finding information on Facebook that much easier. With Graph Search you can look up much of the information you will need to make your event happen. You might also find people and companies that can help you along the way.

We have planned and hit that epic road trip of badassness with the help of everyones old friend Facebook. Now it’s time to get some work done.

Project Organization

You have all used the apps. You have played the games. You have liked, watched videos, shared, posted, read, and laughed at Grumpy Cat. But the truth is, you can also use Facebook to be productive.

Apps

Facebook has some great apps available that you should be taking advantage of. Here are the top 10:

• Slideshare Online presentation tool and content promotion powerhouse.
• Prezi Create impressive presentations that are completely cross platform and free.
• Jolidrive Jolidrive unifies all your content from multiple services in one simple and beautiful interface accessible from anywhere.
• Wunderlist Make lists, and plans with elegant simplicity.
• Pixlr Express Edit photos totally free.
• Pixlr-O-Matic Do really cool things with images for free.

These are a few examples. Explore the AppCenter and search on Google or Bing to find more.

Groups

Here is a useful idea. You can make a private group, add your team members to it, and guess what you have? A very cool private boardroom to hold virtual meetings in, an information sharing post, and a convenient way to keep each other updated. Neat huh?

Messaging

As I said earlier, you can use Facebook messaging to hold group conversations. What does that equal in a business context? An easy to use platform for virtual meetings.

Chat

Long story short, you can also use Facebook Chat to hold group conversations. Just add the people you want involved and start the coolest meeting of your digital life.

See? Facebook isn’t just a time waster. You can use it to get more organized and be more productive. I challenge you to explore all the ways you can use Facebook to better organize your life and ind increase your productivity badassery.

What are some of the ways that you use facebook to be better organized and more productive?

 

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Leverage the Visual with Pinterest

Pinterest Facts

• Traffic on the Pinterest site increased over 5% from 2011 to 2012.
• It produced 4X the revenue per click as Twitter.
• Pinterest buyers spend more and make more purchases than any of the other top 5 social sites.
• You can use hashtags on Pinterest.
• You can set your logo as your Pinterest profile picture to increase brand recognition.
• 79% of Pinterest users are female.
• Almost 80% have at least had some college.
• 69% have an annual income of at least $50,000.

I would like to thank the Marketing Land blog for the above statistics. The infographic can be fount at http://marketingland.com/infographic-marketer-guide-to-pinterest-36487 and has other great information as well.

Pinterest is the #4 social network in the top 5. It is popular and growing. From the above statistics you can see that it is a great social platform for business.

Getting Started

Getting started with Pinterest is easy. Just follow these simple steps:

1. Go to Pinterest.
2. Click “Join Pinterest”.
3. Click to join wit Facebook, Twitter, or your email.
4. Follow the on screen instructions and you are ready to enjoy all that is Pinterest.

Set Up Your Boards

So far so good huh? Now things get more interesting. Why more interesting? Because now you are going to make Pinterest your own. How you ask? By creating your own pin boards of course. 🙂 And by the way, this part will be even more painless than setting up your account was. Lets go for it:

1. Log into your Pinterest account if you aren’t already there.
2. Point at your name in the upper right corner and click “Your Boards”.
3. Click “Create a Board”.
4. Give your board a name.
5. Write a description (not necessary but a good idea).
6. Assign your board a category if you want.
7. Make it a public or private board.

Now onto the best part of all…

Start Pinning

Now for the fun. Welcome to the wonderful world of pinning. Here are a few pointers:

• From within Pinterest if you want to repin something just click on it then click the “Repin” button.
• From outside Pinterest use the “Pin It” button. The way it works is simple:

In Pinterest point to “About” next to your name in the upper right corner and click “Pin It Button”.

Drag the “Pin It” button to your bookmarks bar of your browser.

Then when you want to pin something that you find on the Web just click “Pin It” and fill in the information asked for.

Pinterest Hints

• Organize your boards with meaningful names. Your visitors will thank you.
• Write a description identifying your pins.
• Remember, good SEO applies on Pinterest too.
• Be yourself and show the world your flavor.
• Completely fill out your profile and upload a picture (just like you should do on any other social network.
• So things don’t get too noisy try following individual boards rather than every board of everyone you follow.
• Always remember branding.
• Good content applies here just as much as it does on your blog or Facebook Page.
• Include links to your other social profiles in your About section.
• If you are selling on Pinterest post your prices and how your readers can make the purchase.
• Have fun pinning!

Tell me about your Pinterest experience. How do you use Pinterest? What tips can you share?

Bring Your Social Media Under Control With HootSuite

What is HootSuite? According to the HootSuite website:

Save your time and your sanity. Improve productivity by managing all of your social networks within HootSuite. The dashboard is designed for you and your team to listen, engage and measure all from one simple interface.

I would say they summed it up very well. HootSuite is a social dashboard designed to make your social media life an easier one. Read on to see how to get started on this amazingly sanity saving service.

Check Your Accounts in One Window

One of the coolest features of HootSuite is you can keep up with your social media accounts in one window. Rather than logging in and out of your various accounts you can view them all from one program. HootSuite allows you to manage your Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Foursquare, WordPress, MySpace, and Mixi accounts. That in and of itself is pretty impressive. Keep in mind that with a free HootSuite account You can add only five connections to your networks and advanced features such as analytics won’t work. For most of you this very adequate for your needs.

Post to All in One Shot

Another benefit of HootSuite is that it allows you to post to all of your added networks at once. Posting is easy:

1. Click inside the field at the top of the webpage that says “Click to select a social network”.
2. Choose the networks you want to post to.
3. Where it says “Compose a message…” type your post.
4. Click the Send Now button.

Easy peasy so far huh?

How-To

How do you get started? Just follow these simple steps:

1. Go to http://hootsuite.com/.
2. Bookmark the HootSuite page so you can return quick and easy.
3. Under “Sign Up Today – Free” either sign up using Facebook or fill out the form.
4. Add your profiles.
5. Set up your streams so you can keep track of the information you wish to use HootSuite to follow.
6. Explore your new HootSuite set up.

Pretty simple, and you didn’t have to download and install a single program. If you have any questions please comment below and let me know.

Tell me about your HootSuite experience.

4 Steps to Simplify your Social Media World

Social media has without a doubt become a very powerful focal point in most of our lives. It is where we market our brand, socialize, make plans with friends, get entertained, and just hang out. I believe it has become a good thing. I also believe it has empowered everyone to get their message out to a global audience. The challenge is, it can be such a time thief. How can we keep up with our social networks and still have time to run our businesses and even go outside once in a while? Here are four steps to make your social media manageable again.

Simplify your feeds.

In time as you the number of those you follow grows your social feeds can become a true challenge to keep up with. Let’s face it, most of us don’t have time to spend two to four hours a day reading updates on social networks. What makes this really challenging is that in order to grow your following you have to follow others. What is the solution? How can you follow so many and still keep up with your social media feeds?

HootSuite

HootSuite is a social media management program that does many things well. The main feature I use it for is to place many of my feeds into one window so they are quicker and easier to read and manage. You should give it a try.

Paper.li

With paper.li you actually view your Twitter feed as if it is the front page of a newspaper. Now you can more easily scan through the “headlines” and see the top stories of your massively long Twitter stream of updates (if it isn’t that long now it will be as you follow more people). It works great and I use it everyday.

Twitter Lists

Are there some on your Twitter feed that you don’t want to miss an update from? No worries, Twitter has a feature called Lists. With lists you can create a list, make it public or private, and add those you want there. To get started go to your profile and click “Lists”.

Circles

In Google+ create Circles to organize your contacts. It works slick and easy. You can organize your Circles any way you wish.

In setting up and using HoorSuite, paper.li, Twitter Lists, and Circles you have made your social media readable again.

Simplify posting

The first thing I’d like you to do is start paying attention to what your friends and contacts are already posting. In doing so you will get to know what is on their mins. You will discover what is important to them. By knowing what they are interested in, thinking about, and what is important to them you will gain invaluable insights into what you should be posting about.

Start using Buffer. Buffer is an amazing service that (for free) allows you to schedule your Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook posts. It is very convenient and powerful if used in the right way.

Structure your time

From its very beginning social networking has always been very addictive for many. As your list of friends grows it can become overwhelming. My advice?

Limit yourself to posting and reading two to three times a day. That is enough. You will be keeping yourself out there without turning yourself into a spammer.

Go outside once in a while. There is more to life that Facebook, Twitter, and your computer. Be sure to take breaks. Who knows? You just may find that you enjoy the real world.

Organize your inbox

Just a couple of quick and easy pieces of advice here that I know will make your life easier.

* Organize your messages into folders, categories, or labels (depending on the email program or service you are using).

* Mark important messages with a star or flag. In doing so they will always appear at the top of your messages.

If you simplify your feeds, simplify your posting, structure your time, and organize your email you will find that your social media life will become easier.

What are your tricks to manage your social media accounts or to just make your online world an easier one to live in?

10 Ways to Get Inbound Links

What is an inbound link? An inbound link is hyperlink pointing back to your site. That is the short, simplistic, but very accurate answer. Inbound links will help your search engine optimization (SEO). It will give you more exposure. In the end result these links can help you to gain more traffic. The question of the hour is: How do I get other websites to link back to me?

In this article I am going to give you 14 ways to get inbound links. Without further ado lets see about getting you some links.

Write fresh and compelling content.

Content is king (yes I am repeating it again for good reason). Good content is the key to keeping and drawing engagement from your readers. It is the number one must for your SEO. It will both draw users back to your site and can help you gain new ones. It can also inspire visitors to link back to you. Why would anyone link to a website that has no compelling content? Give them something worth linking to and they will link. If you need help finding content to write about check out: 6 Ways to Find Content to Post.

Submit your content to directories, search engines, and social bookmarking sites.

These are still very useful promoting your web based masterpieces. Submitting your webpage to these giant link collectors also gives you inbound links. What would I recommend?

The Open Directory Project

The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors.

Through submission to the Open Directory Project you will gain more exposure and it can help your SEO.

Google

Google adds new sites to our index, and updates existing ones, every time we crawl the web. If you have a new URL, tell us about it here. We don’t add all submitted URLs to our index, and we can’t make predictions or guarantees about when or if submitted URLs will appear in our index.

Why not try to give yourself a head start.

Bing

Submit your Site to Bing

It may not be Google but it still holds a big enough of a percentage of the market that it shouldn’t be ignored.

Stumble

StumbleUpon is a giant collection of the best pages on the Internet.

Adding your webpage to StumbleUpon will give you more exposure and if you have provided good content that people are interested in this can become a very powerful tool.

Digg

Digg delivers the most interesting and talked about stories on the Internet right now.

Digg is huge and very popular.

Delicious

Discover, remember, and showcase your passions from around the web.

Sign up and add your site as one of your social bookmarks. Get the exposure you deserve.

Get involved with similar blogs and forums.

Getting involved in similar blogs and forums to what you are writing about will bring you many benefits:

• You can place links to your webpage.
• You can make good connections in your field.
• You can read great information.
• Blogs and forums are very popular, including with Google.

My best advice is to start off by introducing yourself (without making it sound like a shameless advertisement). Next begin reading and getting to know the culture of the blog or forum (believe me, each one has its own way of doing things). After that start sharing good information and making helpful comments and get to know the actual users. When you make comments you usually have the option of including some kind of signature. That is a great opportunity to place a link to your  webpage.

Get to know bloggers.

Bloggers are very important people to modern business and online advertising. Their blogs get high ranks in Google search results. Some of them are real influencers whose voices are heard. If you can get their attention in a positive way they can really help your online exposure and Internet word of mouth.

Use link bait.

Link bait is something you put on your site to encourage people to link to your site.

Some examples:

• Good information.
• New or unique news.
• Something funny.
• A great online tool.
• Useful infographics.
• Something creative.
• Things that will benefit your readers.
• Most important of all, good content.

Be active in social media.

Social media is where everyone is. It is also where you should be. When you add new content post about it to your social accounts. You are doing two very powerful things here: you are giving your content much more exposure, and you are creating great links back to your webpage. By posting to social you are also increasing the chance that others will share your content and create even more links.

Find related websites and request a link exchange.

Lets face it, you have nothing to lose by asking. The truth is that other content provides want links to their work as well.

Publish an RSS feed and submit it to aggregators.

By doing so you will be creating links back to your content and setting your webpage up for greatly increased exposure. You will also be providing your readers a convenient way to both discover and follow your content.

Build a Collection of Tools

People like easy and convenient. With the right quality tools both are accomplished. Try providing a list on online tools that will make your target markets lives easier and they will love you for it.

Review products, apps and services.

Review can rank high and if you offer good reviews that your readers will find useful they will be apt to share the information. Try reviewing sites, services, and tools that are relevant to your niche.

These are a few ideas to get you started and they work. Inbound links, though not the only factor, are still important to SEO and online marketing. Start working your inbound links right now.

What are some ideas you have to gain inbound links? What has worked for you?

33 Social Media Web Tools That Will Rock Your Online Marketing

The right tools can make any project easier. Whether you are working on a computer, building a deck, fixing your car, or doing electrical work the proper tools will make all the difference in the world. The same holds true with your social marketing. With the correct tools, your online marketing will work faster, easier, and more effectively. In this post I am giving you 33 tools that will rock your online marketing. Check them out and enjoy.

Posting

SlideShare

Post your presentations online. This is one very cool service. You simply create your presentation on your computer as you normally would with your presentation software, then you use SlideShare to upload the presentation to the Web. It works pretty slick and can help you in using more variety in your posting.

Quozio

Post beautiful quotes. Just go to Quozio, type in your quote, and let Quozio do the rest. Make the quotes you post more attractive.

Buffer

Schedule your posts. This can be very handy if it isn’t abused.

PlagTracker

Make sure your content is original. This service is an excellent way to make sure your work is originally you.

Google URL Shortener

Easy to use URL shortener from Google.

Listly

A list maker. This is social list making at its best.

Brainy Quote

Find quotes. If you are looking for quotes you will be impressed with this huge database.

Organization

HootSuite

Your social media dashboard. This app makes your social media services much easier to manage.

Pocket

Save websites to view later.

Tweepi

Manage your Twitter account. This is a multifunctional program that does what it does very well.

Tagdef

Look up hashtags to discover what they mean and other useful information.

Google Reader

Make the blogs you follow more manageable. With Google Reader all of the blogs you follow can be read from one window.

JustUnfollow

Manage your Tweeps. Very useful.

Paymo

Manage your business from the cloud. The functionality of this one will surprise you.

Monitoring

Monnitter

Tweet search engine.

StatMyWeb

Many website statistics. The features are truly mind-blowing.

TweetReach

How far does your tweet reach?

Klout

See how influential you are.

PeerIndex

See who you are influencing.

Facebook Insights

Valuable information about your Facebook Page.

SocialMention

A social media search engine.

Topsy

A conversation search engine.

Google Analytics

Social media analysis.

Google Alerts

Get the information you want.

LikeAlyzer

Master your social stats.

Keyword Tools

Google Keyword Tool

Find great keywords from the company that is the king of all search engines.

WordStream

Find profitable keywords from a trillion-keyword database.

Translation

Google Translate

Translation between languages

Cloud Storage

Dropbox

One of the best out there.

Email List

MailChimp

Work your email list like a champ.

Online Publishing

Webs

Your free website. You don’t even need to know how to code. You are pretty limited to their templates but it is easy and free.

Formatpixel

Publish like a champ. Check it out and you will be surprised.

WordPress

Start your blog today.

These are some of my favorite tools. Give them a try and let me know what you think.

What are some of your favorite online marketing tools?

Social Fitness

You hear it from the doctor, news media, and even the White House. America needs to get in shape. I have a good question for you though. What kind of social shape are you in? Are you too socially thin or socially obese? Are you socially weak or strong? In this article I will give you some tips on how to:

• Have social room to breathe.
• Get social stamina.
• Become socially flexible.
• Gain social strength.
• Build social power.
• Have social balance.

Breathing

Breathing may just be the most important thing any of us ever do. Without breath there can be no life. It is said that a human being can only live 4 – 8 minutes without oxygen. Lets all take a deep breath as we think about that. Now, answer me this: How long do you think your social media program will survive if you don’t give it room to breathe? Trust me when I say that if you just push and go go go you will burn out and find no joy in it. This is the Internet! It is supposed to be fun, not something to burn out over.

Here are some tips to give yourself some room to socially breath:

• Take a break once in a while. Physically, if you just continue to push with no rest, you will tear your body down rather than build it up. The same holds true with a social media program. Just understand that you are not required to sit in front of your computer for hours at a time without pause. Yes, there is more to life than just social. Go out and experience it.
• Don’t overextend yourself. There are over 200 known social networking websites on the Internet. If you are hooked into too many you will effectively have time for nothing else and you will burn out. Not to mention, you wont be very effective on any of them because you are spread too thin. My advice would be to pick no more than 4. Ask yourself these 4 questions:
  Which one do most of my target audience hang out on? Which one will I find most of my influencers on? Which one will make it easiest to display my wares? Which one will help my SEO the most? There you have your 4.
• Have a routine. Rather than an unorganized hit and miss shotgun approach have a plan. How often will you post at each site? What kind of posts will you make? How often will you engage with your stream? How will you keep up with it? Have a planned routine and work it.
• Know when to walk away for a while. Yes there should always be room for life in the real world. Once in a while go out and experience it. Then you will never burn out on social.

Stamina

Without energy the human body just wants to sit and sleep. With plenty of stamina the body wants to keep going. Social media can be the same way. With social, if you don’t have stamina you will run out of wind and stop. How do you build up some social stamina?

• Get a good social tool to work from. With the right tool your social media life will be easier and you will be able to pick up the momentum to keep going. My favorite tool is HootSuite. Check it out and I think you will love it as well.
• Practice. Just like any other activity, social media gets easier and you get better at it with practice. Keep working at it. Leverage what works. Drop what doesn’t work for you.
• Keep going. There is never a good time to give up. Keep going and it will eventually pay off. Social marketing is something that takes time and patience.

Flexibility

When it comes to your body, the surest way to injury is to never stretch your muscles. In the realm of social media, if you aren’t flexible in your approach you will come off as stiff, and you may even injure your marketing efforts.  Here are some tips to get a little social flexibility:

• Pay attention. Pay attention to what is working and what isn’t. Is it rock star or is it epic fail? Are you seeing ROI? If it isn’t working, and you have leveraged it to its capacity maybe it’s time to change gears and try something else.
• Keep an open mind. Read about what others are doing. Follow blogs. Pay attention to the news. Read books and articles. Really great ideas are everywhere. Keep an open mind to a different or new approach.
• Embrace change when it makes sense. When a change makes sense embrace it. Change is nothing to be fearful of. What is frightening is the thought of trying the exact same thing over and over while expecting a different result.

Strength

You need a strong body to lift a heavy weight. In the same way you need a strong social presence to lift a heavy social media strategy to the heights of success. How do you build a stronger social presence?

• Post regularly. At the very least you should be posting once a day to each account. At the most it should be 3 to 5 times. Post much more than that and you may be accused of being a spammer. The point is, be active so your name stays out there.
• Continuously engage with others. Yes that means reading what others are posting. Comment, share, retweet, like, favorite, etc. If someone sends you a message or comments on your post respond as soon as you can. Keep the conversation going and keep building relationships. That is what both social media and marketing are all about anyway.
• Put out good quality content. Content is not only king (yes it is important enough that I will keep repeating it) but is the key to effective SEO. Over time good content will build into a strong Web presence that will result in a true return on the time invested.
• Keep it interesting. People like interesting, entertaining, funny, informational, and different. People love the visual. Post the kind of things that your audience wants to read. Mix things up once in a while. It is ok to post text. It is also a good idea to post images, video, Slideshares, infographics, and yes even the occasional meme. The key is, if you aren’t offering them something in a way that they will find interesting they wont read your posts.

Balance

Just as in everyday life if you have no balance you will fall over, in your social media life if there is no balance something will eventually fall down. Just like any other aspect of living you need balance to be healthy. Spend your time on social networks. Also, spend time with other necessary parts of your business. Take time for a hobby. Spend time with friends and family. Take alone time for quiet. Find the balance you need and your social will stand stronger than ever.

Now take the steps you need to take to get into social shape.

How socially fit are you? Comment and let me know your thoughts.