Things to do…

1. Actively build your network
2. Tweet regularly and consistently
3. Tweet content of value to your network
4. Post about trending topics
5. Improve your tweets
6. Be retweetable
7. Prune the list of people you follow
8. Cross-promote
9. Build trust
10. Convert your network

For more information see http://bit.ly/8ZcEa2

With over 30,000 weekly downloads, “Add this” continues to be one of the most popular social bookmark sharing plug-ins. It provides support for over 200 services, including: Twitter, AIM, Blogger, Delicious, Digg, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

Using Add this is quite simple. You can either click on the Add this button in Firefox browser or right- click on the text which you want to share and choose the service from Add this menu.

Posted in SocialTimes.com

Add This Icon

Brian Solis writes:    An overnight success ten years in the making, social media is as transformative as it is evolutionary. At last, 2010 is expected to be the year that social media goes mainstream for business. In speaking with many executives and entrepreneurs, I’ve noticed that the path towards new media enlightenment often hinges on corporate culture and specific marketplace conditions. Full social media integration often happens in stages — it’s an evolutionary process for companies and consumers alike.

Here are the ten most common stages that businesses experience as they travel the road to full social media integration.

Stage 1: Observe and Report

This is the entry point for businesses to better understand the behavior of an interactive marketplace.

Listening: Employ listening devices such as Google Alerts, Twitter Search, Radian6 and  PR Newswire’s Social Media Metrics to track conversations and instances associated with key words.

Reporting: Distill existing social media conversations into an executive report. This early form of reporting is merely designed to provide decision makers with the information they’ll need for continued exploration of social media and its potential impact on business.

Stage 2: Setting the Stage + Dress Rehearsal

Once the initial intelligence is gathered, businesses will set the stage for social media participation. This is an interesting phase, as it often joins Stage 1 as a more comprehensive first step. Instead of researching the best ways to engage, many businesses create accounts across multiple social networks and publish content without a plan or purpose.

However, those businesses that conduct research will find a rewarding array of options and opportunities to target.

Stage 3: Socializing Media

The next stage in the evolution of a new media business is the proverbial step towards “joining the conversation.”

As companies take the stage, they will eventually pay attention to the reaction of the audience in order to respond and improve content, define future engagements, and humanize communication.

Conversation: Representative of an early form of participation, this stage usually evokes reactive engagement based on the nature of existing dialogue or mentions and also incorporates the proactive broadcasting of activity, events and announcements.

1) Quit counting fans, followers, and blog subscribers like bottle caps. Think, instead, about what you’re hoping to achieve with and through the community that actually cares about what you’re doing.

2) Learn how to measure stuff, and quit making excuses for why you can’t do it.

3) Approach social media methodically, and with the same care that you would any other business investment you make.

4) Quit waiting for the water to be perfect before you get in. It’s not going to be, ever. Try something that makes strategic sense for your business.

5 ) Think long term, and commit to it. That doesn’t mean some of your experiments can’t be finite, but the overall approach has to be for good.

6) Focus on what you’re good at. Know the core of your business, and make that the center of your work, especially through the amplifier of social media.

7) Recognize that potential missteps shouldn’t paralyze you into inaction. Acknowledge that there are ways to recover.  Having a plan to pick yourself up is the key, rather than trying to avoid failure at all costs (including stagnation).

http://altitudebranding.com/2010/01/10-ways-to-get-serious-about-social-media/

According to a recent survey by VerticalResponse Inc., 70 percent of small to medium-sized businesses plan to increase their use of social media in 2010. At the same time, 79 percent say they will not run television ads and 70 percent say they will not make radio buys.

There’s no question that adopting a comprehensive social media strategy can be an inexpensive and effective way to improve customer relations and spread the word about your business. But that doesn’t mean you should put it at the top of your 2010 To Do List and start “tweeting” like a maniac.  In fact, she had one piece of advice for small business owners: don’t plunge in.

For your own sanity – and success – ease into the waters thoughtfully when planning to launch a social media strategy lest you abandon ship in frustration – or even worse, do your business more harm than good.

Consider these five tips before tweeting one word:

Don’t get in over your head – If you’re a small business owner who is also the marketing department, the worst thing you could do is launch a large, unmanageable strategy that takes up too much time and ends up neglected.

Create and share information – Social media is about engagement, and creating and sharing content is key to connecting with customers and other industry leaders. You may not realize it, but you, as a small business owner, are an expert and have sound advice and informed opinions to share. When writing your own content, always maintain an appropriate and professional tone and use links to other sites, blogs, or news articles to help illustrate your point.

Keep everything connected – Once you’ve created your page on Facebook, or established your blog or Twitter account, cross-promote your content so that the same message is going out across every site. For example, Tweet about your blog post or send a link in a message to your LinkedIn group. Many social media tools can be integrated.

Engage with customers – Your customers are talking about you online whether you like it or not on their blogs, consumer-focused websites and on review sites like Yelp, Yahoo! Local, and CitySearch. While you can’t take control of the conversation, you can help steer it by listening, engaging with customers and working to resolve any problems.

ngage in the conversation – An online conversation is taking place right now about your business, your industry or issues affecting your community. Inject yourself and opinions into the conversation by following opinion leaders on Twitter and social networking sites and commenting on blog posts. Whenever possible, include a link back to your content or website.

http://www.azbiz.com/articles/2010/01/02/news/on_guard/doc4b3b82e834515702809935.txt

David Armano wrote: (full article)

Do You Live Social?

Some have asked, Where does social media live? Is it marketing? Is it public relations? Is it IT or corporate? Is it a combination of multiple business units and functions, and if so, who leads the efforts and how does an organization choose partners? These are valid and complex questions, currently with no simple answers. Social media is still emerging and being defined in real time.

There’s a question missing from that litany, one that organizations or individuals rarely ask themselves…Do you live social? Many organizations simply skip this question because they assume that they themselves don’t have to be social (open and collaborative) to reap the rewards (cost savings, marketing ROI, effective reputation management, and search engine juice) they think they might get from social media.

But social media’s not a product you foist on others, or some rigid business process that, if implemented, yields results. You shouldn’t treat social media like a temporary advertising campaign. Social media is more organic than that. It’s a way of thinking and approaching business that requires passion and commitment and, above all, willingness to participate in social spaces honestly and freely and by the rules of the social network itself. When someone ridicules your organization in the social space, unfiltered in real time, how do you react? If you are trying to control rather than participate in the discussion, then you’re not living social. When your own employees talk about your organization on a social network what do you do?

An organization which bans the use of social networks of its employees may have perfectly good reason to do so, but then turning around and hiring an ad agency, PR firm or business consultancy to go out and “be social” for them will limit potential success. One of the beautiful (or perhaps frustrating, if you’re in marketing) aspects of social media is its ability to detect and look askance at posers. If you’re not genuinely, honestly engaged in the social network, you’re not going to get far with those who are.

It’s not easy for organizations to adopt a social mindset, after decades of command-and-control marketing and PR. I believe that starting small is the way to go. Pilot initiatives that demonstrate success by being more open, collaborative and participatory pave they way for changes that can slowly influence the direction of an organization. Executive sponsorship will also help give social media efforts teeth. I’ve always been pleasantly surprised to see initiatives such as My Starbucks Idea result in new ideas getting implemented, like splash sticks. (Full disclosure: Starbucks is a client of Edelman, the firm I now work for).

Training can help get you started, too — some individuals naturally lean toward working/living in a social way while others need a bit of assistance.

So while managers debate who will control social media inside their organizations — marketing, PR, corporate, IT — I say stop and ask the bigger question: Do any of the people who make up your company, agencies, partners and so on actually live social? Do they demonstrate that they work and play in a connected fashion? Once we begin to resolve that (and don’t underestimate the power of baby steps), then we can worry about which discipline, department or agency/consultancy is best equipped to help lead the way.

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2009/12/do_you_live_social.html

Willa Plank writes:  Don’t expect instant sales, but make sure to get actual results. Social media is more about brand outreach. Make sure you have a reasonable goal and a well-thought out strategy to achieve that end. First, listen to what is being said about your business and competitors on Google alerts, RSS queries, Twitter, Yelp and BackType. Make sure you have your profile account names on all print communications you distribute, such as flyers and menus. Identify your biggest fans, and figure out how to organize them or point them out in some way. For example: On Twitter, if you know a person is a loyal customer, mention them in a post or announce a free service or product they’ve won for loyalty. Or reach out to other bloggers in your industry. Sarah Endline, founder of dark chocolate treat maker Sweetriot in New York, said she connected with blog site Hungry Girl and that lead to getting her company’s name out and sales.

Don’t forget social media is a tool to strengthen offline relationships. Many small businesses already have personal ties to customers in their communities, and these tools are designed to enhance those relationships, not replace them. For instance, you can use social-media tools such as YouTube to give customers a behind-the-scenes glimpse of your company, or display more of your personality than you can through an ad. “It also allows you to show your culture,” Endline says. “They’re not just there to [see] a static promotion from you. They want value.” And remember, a social network is “really a big room of people,” author Schaffer says. Use it to “meet” potential clients or business partners, but make sure you follow up with an in-person meeting or phone conversation.

Social media icons allow for people to find your social media sites and bookmark you on their favorite bookmarking sites.  These icons are easily recognizable and will assist in driving people to other sites you participate in.

from Jon Bishop's site

Are you looking for free social media icons or “share” icons?  Try this link:

http://www.jonbishop.com/2009/06/27-excellent-free-social-media-icons-sets/

Although ROI ≠ metrics, traditional web metrics like traffic counts, number of comments, Twitter followers, Facebook fans, etc. are an important component when calculating your ROI.

The trick is to not rely solely on the numbers, but on what the numbers end up leading to. For instance, does your increase in website visitors correlate with higher sales? Are people that find your website from Twitter or Facebook then clicking on your product pages or going to the e-Commerce section of your site? That’s the sort of data you want to be able to look for.

http://mashable.com/2009/10/27/social-media-roi/

http://socialnomics.net/2009/08/11/statistics-show-social-media-is-bigger-than-you-think/