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.

10 Tools to Help You Set Up Your Social Media Radar

How would you like to have a system set up to keep an eye on what your prospects have on their minds, what concerns or questions your customers have, what is going in your industry, and what your competitors are up to? What if I told you that the basic tools you will need to do this are all free? I want to impress upon you 3 things:

• You do need a social media radar system.
• It would benefit you with all the information that I mentioned above.
• All of the tools I am going to share with you are free to use.

I am going to share with you what tools to use, the basics on setting them up, and some tips on how to use them. Without further delay here is the lineup of the tools that will compose your social media radar system.

Twitter

One of the amazing features that Twitter offers you is the ability to read whatever information those you follow are sharing. Check out How to Get Started With Twitter to get set up. Then check out Become a Twitter Power User to see how to make the most effective use of your new Twitter account.

To use Twitter as a component of your fancy new social radar system:

• Follow your customers and prospects.
• Follow your competitors.
• Follow similar business to your own.
• Follow the influencers in your industry.
• Read your Twitter stream at least once a day (though 2 or 3 times is better).
• Interact with those you follow.

Google Alerts

According to Google:

Google Alerts are emails sent to you when Google finds new results — such as web pages, newspaper articles, or blogs — that match your search term. You can use Google Alerts to monitor anything on the Web.

What does this offer you? A very powerful component in your social radar set up.

Here is what you need to do to make it work:

1. Go to the Google Alerts Webpage.
2. Sign into your Google account if you aren’t already logged in. I would advise you to use quotation marks to make your search an exact search.
3. Type in what you want to monitor in the Search Query box.
4. In the Result Type drop down menu choose what type of results you are looking for. Usually I would recommend to choose everything.
5. Choose how often you want to receive results.
6. Choose All Results in the How Many drop down menu.
7. Choose to either send your results to your Gmail inbox or a news feed.

Google Reader

Yes Google has done it again with yet another rock star tool. With Google Reader you can follow all of the blogs and feeds you read in one place. Talk about convenience and a time saver. Keep up with industry and competitor news as well as important news from your industry.

Just follow these steps to get started:

1. Go to the Google Reader site.
2. Sign into your Google account if you aren’t already logged in.
3. Click the Subscribe button.
4. Enter the URL of the feed or blog you want to follow.
5. Click Add.

Facebook Page

Create a Facebook Page and you will have an amazing social center for you and your target market.

Check out the article Design Your Own Facebook Page Step by Step to get started.

Now follow the steps in 7 Steps to Customize Your Facebook Page to work your page like a pro.

Social Media Groups

Join groups on social media sites. Make sure to join groups from your local community, places your target market hang out, groups that are relevant to your industry, and business groups. It is great communication platform and you will meet a lot of people.

• Facebook Groups
• Google+ Communities
• LinkedIn Groups

SocialMention

Social is a real time social media search engine. You can see who is talking about you, a competitor, a product or service, or whatever you like.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Go to the SocialMention website.
2. Type in your search in quotes to get an exact search.
3. Enjoy the results.

Yes it is that simple. Not every result will be relevant but you should get pretty useful information. Also, check out all the features of the site. Explore and you just may be impressed.

Facebook Insights

Follow the instructions on the Facebook Insights That You Can’t Afford to Ignore article and you will reap the reward of great data on your Facebook Page followers, what is working, and what hasn’t worked. An amazing and free tool.

Google News

In my opinion one of the best general news pages available. Go to the site and enter whatever it is you are searching for, and that includes you, your competitors, industry, and products. It gives you a list of news stories bout your search. On the results page it even gives you the option to add a section for the specific search on your Google News homepage.

Here is my routine:

• Check out the top stories.
• Search for and check out specific topics.
• Check out both Business and Technology on the navigation on the left.

That is just what I do. Your interests may be different, don’t ignore this powerful tool.

Yelp

Yelp.com is like a very popular yellow pages that allows users to review businesses. With millions of unique monthly users it is definitely not something to be ignored.

Customers

This is the most important part of your social media radar system. Talk to your customers. Listen to them. Pay attention to their concerns. Answer their questions. Get to know them on Facebook. Be social with them in your shop. They are the most important people in the world to your business and they are the most powerful tool that you have in your social arsenal.

What tools do you use to keep your ears open?

Equation of a Successful Social Media Post

There are two types of posts in the realm of social media: those that are engaged with and those that are ignored. How are your posts doing? Are you getting the clicks that you are looking for? Are your posts selling? Ignored posts can be a great source of frustration for content writers. Are your posts being ignored? Perhaps it’s time to learn the successful post equation:

Hook + Useful + Benefit = Success

Lets take a closer look at the parts of the equation of posting success.

The Hook

The hook is exactly what it sounds like: something to get your readers’ attention. It can be something funny, shocking (yet tasteful), off the wall, or best of all it can be visual like a picture or video. Remember, the visual sells. Why is this an important point? It is important because if you don’t get your readers’ attention in the beginning you will likely lose them before the end.

Some tricks to make developing effective hooks easier:

• Brainstorm. Make a list of everything that comes to mind. When brainstorming there are no bad ideas. Keep it going till you run out of ideas for a hook. If you have a hard time getting started walk away for 15 or 20 minutes and come back to it.
• Save what you have brainstormed to use later. Over time you will have a list to fall back on if you need a hook but can’t come up with one.

The Useful

So you have hooked them in with a rock star level hook. Yes you are that good. Now what? Now that you have their attention it’s time to give them something they can use. If you get someone’s attention but have nothing to offer them you will lose that attention and have a hard time getting it back again. What is useful? Something that your reader can relate to and apply in some way. It can be something they can use in their business, to enhance their life, to find pleasure in, or even to share with others that need the information. Have something useful to offer them and you will keep their attention.

The Benefit

At this point you have hooked your readers in and provided them something they can use. Is that enough? Nope. If they can’t actually reap a benefit from what you have to say then they have no reason to use the information you have provided or to even continue reading your posts. A perceived benefit is a key to successful sales. Some examples of a good benefit?

• Something they can be entertainment by and laughter. People like to be entertained. They like things that amuse them.
• Show how what you are posting can improve their lives.
• Explain in a few words how the information can be beneficial to their business or career.
• Let them know whats in it for them.

A Successful Post

Look at what you have done. You got your readers’ attention, offered them something they can use, and showed them how the information you are selling will help them. What do you have? An epic post that just may lead to engagement and conversion.

Hook + Useful + Benefit = Success

Here are a couple examples:

“Want to save some money? Come to our big sale this Saturday and save save save! Save money and get quality merchandise.”
is better than
“Come to our big sale this Saturday and save save save.”

Or,

“Lose the old clunker and cruise in style! Visit us today for great deals on used cars. Upgrade your ride while giving your wallet a break.”
is better than,
“Great deals on used cars. Visit us today.”

Apply this simple formula to all of your posts and let me know if you have seen a difference in the responsiveness of your readers.

Share your comments. What tips can you offer on writing great social media posts?

8 Ways to Grow your Twitter Following

Twitter has become nothing less than a phenomenon. Last year Twitter passed the half a billion user mark. That is a lot of users. It is also a huge market. Though Twitter is a very unique and amazing tool for communication in general, it can also be a powerhouse of a social marketing platform. There is one key to making Twitter work for you: To be heard you need followers. I am not going to advise you to buy followers nor am I going to direct you to a tool that promises to do it for you. I am going to give you good Twitter best practices that you can grow on. Here are 8 ways to grow your Twitter following and get your voice heard.

Follow Others

Following others is a key to getting followed yourself. If you don’t follow them why should they follow you? It is all about community and relationship building. Who should you follow?

• Follow your collaborators. Whether they are vendors, investors, or you name it, you should be following those that contribute to you or your business. It shows them appreciation, helps you keep tabs on their latest news, and are usually easy follow backs.
• Your target market. Current customers and prospects are good choices to follow. Doing so will give you ear to their questions, interests, and what is on their mind.
• Follow influencers. It is only wise to create connections with power players in your industry. Many will follow you back. Best of all, forming a relationship with them can possibly create a great connection that you may need in the future.
• Follow experts. The reason is obvious: they know the industry and you can learn from their tweets, You can ask them questions. Get connected to those in the know.
• Follow the competition. This one may not lead to a follow back but this is a great way to see what they are up to, what is working for them, and what isn’t. Their followers will also see your name in their list of followers.
• Follow those that follow you. First of all it is only polite. Second, if you don’t, many of them will unfollow you. There are a couple exceptions to this rule. If they are an obvious spammer, bot, or would reflect in a negative way on your business then it might actually be wise to not follow them back.

The really cool thing about following others is that if they follow you back you will receive the following benefits:

• Every post of yours that they retweet, favorite, or comment on will be seen by their followers.
• The fact they you are following each other will be seen by their followers. This could lead to even more follows.

Post Regularly

Sticking with it and not overdoing it are the secrets here. I would say post between 3 and 5 times a day. Post much more and followers could become annoyed and unfollow you. Post less and you wont even be on the radar.

Be Active in TweetChat

A TweetChat is like a virtual meeting on any topic you can imagine. It is a very cool way to meet other tweeters, get your voice heard, and make new connections that could become potential  followers. Just go to TweetChat and follow the instructions to get started.

Be Interactive

I can make you one 100% safe guarantee. If all you do is post and follow you are going to have a hard time keeping your current followers or attracting new ones. Retweet, Favorite, and Reply the tweets of others. Interact with them. Don’t just throw ads in their face over and over again. Make it interesting and mix it up.

Tweet Content

Yes, content is king even in the twitterverse. If you aren’t writing something others find interesting, entertaining, useful, educational, or otherwise attention grabbing, they are not going to follow you and read your tweets. Good quality content on the other hand is the true way to win follows and influence tweeters.

Promote Your Twitter Account

The secret to doing this is simply to get the word out there. Here are some ideas, maybe you can think of more.

• Tell your Facebook, Google+, and Linked in friends about your Twitter account.
• Tell your real life friends and family.
• Put a link to your Twitter profile in the signature of your email.
• Put it on your business cards.
• Put a link to your Twitter on your blog or website.
• Wherever you can give it exposure without being a spammer, do so.

Use Direct Messages Wisely

One easy to lose a follower or potential follower is to spam their inbox. The Direct Message feature should be used to ask legitimate questions that you don’t want to ask in the open for everyone to read, or,  if you have a legitimate thing to say just between the two of you. It should never be used to spam people for follows or to buy your product.

Fill out your profile completely

If you don’t you wont get the follows. it is that simple. People won’t trust someone that doesn’t at least share basic information about who they are. The very basics?

• Profile picture
• Name
• Bio information

As I said, these are the bare bone basics. The more information the better.

Follow these tips and have some patience. You will get followers.

What tips do you have to increase your following on Twitter?

Become a Twitter Power User

It may surprise you but there is a lot more punch in 140 characters that you may think. There is truly power in this thing that we call Twitter. The question is are you using Twitter to its full potential? What can you do with Twitter and how can it benefit you? What kind of power does Twitter provide you?

Power to Meet Influencers

An influencer is a person or thing which influences. They can be top experts, the very popular, those in top leadership positions, those whose voice is heard by the masses, etc. One cool fact is that for the most part you can find them on Twitter. You can read what they have to say, share your posts with them, and even communicate with them. Twitter is one of the easiest ways to meet them.

To meet influencers:

• Use Twitter search to find them. You can search by name or even search the name of your industry or location to see what comes up.
• Browse to them through Twitter categories.
• Check out who your followers and those you follow are following.

Power of a Listening Post

You can’t expect to be a great communicator without being a great listener. You can’t hope to be a good leader without being a good listener. You can’t be an amazing marketer without being an amazing listener. Listening is half of the equation whether you are talking about communication, leadership, or marketing. Consider Twitter a very powerful extra set of ears.

To use Twitter as a listening post:

• Follow the competition. By following your competitors you can see what they are up to. You will know what ways they are reaching out to customer’s and collaborators that you want for your organization or brand. You may even learn a lesson or two about what is or isn’t working for them and apply it to your business.
• Follow those you do business with and your Facebook followers. Following them opens yet another communication channel. It shows them that you are interested in what they have to say. It also provides yet another marketing channel to them.
• Follow relevant blogs. Blogs can be some of the best free information and even education you will find. They can inform, inspire, and even provide step by step instructions on how to do almost anything. Bloggers can also be powerful influencers and connectors.
• Follow local businesses. Forming relationship with local business’ can provide local connections, opportunity for community involvement, and may lead to future clients.
• Follow local news. By following news sources you can keep up with current events, be in touch with what is effecting the lives of your customers, and keep tabs on what is happening in society that may have an impact on your brand.

Power to Grow a Following

The bigger your following the bigger your net of sources of information, influencers and connectors, connections, and potential clientele.

To grow your following:

• Follow others.
• Tweet regular original content.
• Interact with others.
• Promote your Twitter account.

I will provide detailed guidance on how to strategically do all four of these in a soon upcoming post.

Twitter can be a very powerful tool if used consistently, patiently, and strategically. It is everywhere. Start becoming a Twitter power user today.

How do you use Twitter to promote your name or organization?