Social Media Power

Social Media Tip of the Day: Tagging Your Multimedia Wisely in Flickr, YouTube, and beyond

admin — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:25:30 +0000

It is amazing the kind of exposure you can get by properly tagging the images you upload to Flickr, video clips to YouTube, or any other type of multimedia you share in media communities. First of all, choose descriptive file names, using at least one good key term. Then, always take advantage of tags and descriptions when they are available. An image on Flickr that is named DSC009806 with no tags or descriptions is not likely to get a lot of hits. But if you rename the file “Dalton Publishing Book Release at BookPeople,” tag it: dalton publishing, bookpeople, book release, title of book, austin texas, and add a description like, “Dalton Publishing releases its latest title at the world famous BookPeople in Austin, Texas” - you are much more likely to get a few hits.

Social Media Tip of the Day: Regularly Check the Blogosphere for References to Your Posts

admin — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:20:14 +0000

Make certain you know what others are saying about you and your site. And, if appropriate, comment on their feedback. There are a number of ways to do this, but I find it easiest to use Google alerts. That way, I am informed via email and don’t have to go searching. There are also some nice WordPress plugins that can help you keep on top of this. If anyone else knows of a service or some other way that is better, please let us know.

Social Media Tip of the Day: Know the Difference Between a Business and Personal Profile

admin — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:22:52 +0000

There is a fine line between your business profile and your personal profile in many of the social networking sites. MySpace makes it easy to build a presence specifically for your business, and as long as you keep a business look and feel about your page, there is no question. You need to be careful in Facebook and some of the other sites, though. Use a Facebook page for your business presence, not a profile - remember that these are “social” networking site. LinkedIn, however, is one of the better places for creating professional profiles.

Social Media Tip of the Day: Save More than Your Own Pages on Social Bookmarking sites

admin — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:33:04 +0000

When contributing to social bookmarking sites or news aggregators, contribute content that is not your own. Many people consider it spamming if you only add your own pages and posts to such a community. One way to avoid doing this is to participate regularly on only a few of your favorite sites. Also, keep their submit button on the task bar of your browser to make it easy to add sites you come across.

Web 2.0 Development Firm Launches Interactive Guide

admin — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 19:13:15 +0000

June 30, 2008 Web 2.0 Development Firm Launches Interactive Guide - Social Media Power Offers Hands-on Instruction on Social Media and Optimization: Social Media Power launches a practical, solutions-oriented guidebook to social media and Web 2.0 optimization to benefit entrepreneurs, small businesses, authors, and small publishers.

Read the entire release here…

Top Picks: Facebook Applications for Business Pages

admin — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:07:24 +0000

The Social Media Power team has compiled a Top Picks list of Facebook Applications that we use most often for our business clients. We found that implementing these applications creates an interactive page that also gives visitors a personable look into a business.

My Flickr (http://apps.facebook.com/myflickr/): Display photos from your Flickr account using this application. These photos can include logos, product photos, photos from events, etc.

Upcoming (http://apps.facebook.com/upcoming/): Add all of your events to upcoming.org, and you can easily display them on your Facebook page with Upcoming’s Facebook application.

YouTube Box (http://apps.facebook.com/videobox/): Allows visitors to play your YouTube videos right on your Facebook page.

Simply RSS (http://apps.facebook.com/simplyrss/): This allows you to display up to eight RSS feeds on your Facebook page and display the feeds from your business’s main site and newsrooms.

Book Share Books (http://apps.facebook.com/bookshare/): This application is good to share books key team member’s have written or to highlight books relevant to your industry.

Notes (http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2347471856): Facebook notes are like blog entries, where you can post entries and your fans can comment on them. You can also pipe your regular blog entries into this application.

Static FBML (http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=4949752878&ref=s): This application will allow you to create your own custom Facebook boxes using standard HTML or Facebook Markup Language. Do not be intimidated by this application, though, it is easy to implement, and can add to your page customization.

To see these applications in use, visit:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dalton-Publishing/9792568507

http://www.facebook.com/pages/USInsuranceOnlinecom/10125499057

Note: If you use a particular application regularly, consider donating to the application’s creator.

Social Media Tip of the Week: Getting the most mileage out of your best content.

admin — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 04:19:20 +0000

When you post highly informative entries on your site or blog (especially those that demonstrate your expertise), make sure you don’t just click publish and move on, try and get the most mileage from them as you can. Some ways you can do this is to bookmark them in your favorite social bookmarking sites; add them to crowd-sourced news sites if they fit with their guidelines; submit them to article submission sites if the content is appropriate; create a Squidoo lens from them; or add them as notes, posts, or blog entries to your social networking profiles or pages.

How to Build an Impressive Social Networking Presence, Beginning with Facebook

admin — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:09:47 +0000

How to Build an Impressive Social Networking Presence, Beginning with Facebook

by Deltina Hay

Professional and social networking sites like LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, and Squidoo are effective outlets for finding new readers, but it is easy to find your message spread thin if you don’t choose the right strategy. Many businesses settle for sparse profiles on various sites, never discovering the other powerful marketing tools many of these social networking platforms have to offer-most of them for free.

To avoid the scattershot approach, choose one or two social networking sites that fit your business well and invest the time to maximize your presence in them. Let’s explore what that might look like if Facebook is one of your choices.

Prepare your best information before you start.

Avoid the “I will go back and fill that in later” trap. Have all your necessary information on hand, ready to copy and paste on the spot. Complete a worksheet containing:

1. Key Terms:
Make a list of your best key terms and weave them into the rest of your worksheet items. Key terms are one, two, or three word terms that someone might use if they were searching for your business in a search engine.

2. General Information:
Your Name
Business Name
Email Addresses
URLs
Instant Messaging screen names

3. Biographical and Descriptive Information:
Short bio (50 words)
Longer bio (100 words)
Short company description (50 words)
Longer company description (100 words)
Business mission statement

4 List of Products

I based these worksheet items on a typical Facebook profile and page. If you choose a different social networking site, examine some completed profiles and base your worksheet items on them.

Create an account and thoroughly complete your profile

If you haven’t already, get a Facebook account. Completely fill out your profile using your worksheet. Under the relationships tab, choose “networking.” You can skip the personal and education tabs for business profiles, but there is no harm in filling them out. If you have an existing account, upgrade your profile information using your key terms.

But don’t stop there!

Facebook, like most good social networking platforms, offers many marketing opportunities for businesses-some for free. You can find these by clicking the “Advertising” link in the footer of the Facebook site, or by following this link: http://www.facebook.com/business/.

Since I can’t cover all of the marketing tools in one article, let’s focus on my favorite: The Facebook Page. It’s my favorite not only because it is free, but because it makes use of the many diverse Facebook applications.

Facebook pages are specifically for marketing a business or a product. They offer a way for a business to represent itself to the Facebook community in an authentic way. Facebook users can search pages the same way they search for people within the network community.

Create your page by going to “Page Manager” in the left sidebar of your Facebook profile, or by following this link: http://www.facebook.com/business/ and choosing Facebook Pages. Choose the best category for your business.

Use key terms in the name of your Facebook page!

It seems that the actual page name is the only text on a Facebook page that is used in a search. With that in mind, use at least two of your best key terms in your page name.

Populate your page with all of your best worksheet information. You may have only a few seconds to catch a reader’s attention, so put your best key terms forward.

Once your page is in place, add applications to help represent your company in your own unique way. To find applications for your page, click on “Applications” in the upper left corner of your page, or search for them here: http://www.facebook.com/apps/.

Applications are not difficult to install and are usually very easy to set up. Use this general rule of thumb when choosing an application: If you can’t figure out how to set it up after the second try, find another one. There is often more than one application available to accomplish the same task.

Applications Top Picks:

My Flickr (http://apps.facebook.com/myflickr/): Display photos from your Flickr account using this application. These photos can include logos, product photos, photos from events, etc.

Upcoming (http://apps.facebook.com/upcoming/): Add all of your events to upcoming.org, and you can easily display them on your Facebook page with Upcoming’s Facebook application.

YouTube Box (http://apps.facebook.com/videobox/): Allows visitors to play your YouTube videos right on your Facebook page.

Simply RSS (http://apps.facebook.com/simplyrss/): This allows you to display up to eight RSS feeds on your Facebook page and display the feeds from your business’s main site and newsrooms.

Implementing these applications creates an interactive page that also gives visitors a personable look into your business. To see all of these applications in use on one page, visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dalton-Publishing/9792568507.

Note: If you use a particular application regularly, consider donating to the application’s creator-they do not get paid to develop these applications.

Promoting your social networking presence

Now that you have invested the time in creating an impressive presence on Facebook (or whichever social networks you chose), go the extra mile and research how you can promote your new presence both inside and outside of the network. Here is a link to Facebook’s promotional guidelines: http://www.facebook.com/pages/manage/promo_guidelines.php.

Of course, invite everyone on your mailing lists to join your network and visit your sharp new page!

Don’t turn your back on your investment

Remember: The social Web is a fickle place! You need to keep your content dynamic and interesting in order to encourage people to return to your page, or to recommend it to their friends. Do this, and you will see better results than those who just move on to building their next profile. Once you have a good, healthy presence in one community, use your experience to move on to your next successful presence.

Social Media Tip of the Week: Don’t spread yourself thin.

admin — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:29:24 +0000

Like any good networking strategy, it is best to do a lot in a few areas as opposed to a little in all of them. First, get a feel for all of the options available to you in the social media arena, then decide which of them are the best fit for you and which you actually have time to maintain. Since dynamic content and participation are what will help you succeed in the social Web, invest them wisely.

Social Media Tip of the Week: Complete your profiles!

admin — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:45:31 +0000

When you join social networking, social bookmarking, media sharing, or other social sites, be sure and complete ALL of the information in your profile. This is how people will learn more about you, and what will ultimately lead them back to your site.