I’ve put it to the test, and I’m pleasantly surprised. I have talked about social media fatigue before and the benefits of creating your personal social media strategy, to manage your time spent on social media.

Head on over to my FriendFeed and post a comment, or add your thoughts here.

Why Twitter?

I did it because I don’t get it. When I don’t get it, I try to challenge my stereotypes and make an effort to get it. The popularity of Twitter is too big to be ignored, so I had to test.

Part of a Social Media Marketing Strategy?

I have written about the Pros and Cons of Twittering before, and have to confess that the pros were a challenge, but I tried balancing the sides before casting a final verdict.

Here it is.

I’m throwing in the Twitter towel. No more Tweets from my side. They simply don’t return the value of my invested time. Unless you’re a Social Media specialist, I would recommend staying away from Twitter for professional use (and actually even personal use, if you have a day job).

These are tips and ideas I use on a daily basis to get anywhere between a few hundred and a few thousand (or more) StumbleUpon visitors every day.

The article includes lots of tips for StumbleUpon Optimization, including what not to do. Check it out.

This time, we’re moving on to some more details in Social Media Marketing. The question is, can you use Social Media for business purposes or is it just does it fit best just for personal use?  

Getting on the bandwagon

As you probably know, lots of companies have blogs on their websites today. Most communicate the CEO’s view on the business and the industry it’s in. So for the rest of us, is it just for our personal pleasure or private venture we can use Social Media Marketing? Or can we make it part of our marketing efforts?

The answer lies in between the two – you can work strategically with Social Media Marketing, but it should not be tucked away in the marketing department of your company.

Social Media Mix

Once you get comfortable with Social Media and use it regularly (probably daily), you may want to think of a strategy for Social Media. A strategy would include whether you use one blog for business and personal use, which focus areas to include and not include, traffic generation, reputation management, and other aspects.

If your personal blog is relevant for your company, that’s not to say that you should merge it into the company blog. If you have built a personal reputation in your field through your blog, your company will benefit through having you as a high profile co-worker on staff. You can opt to have both a business blog and a personal one – but if your personal blog is well-known (or your strategy is to make it well-known), I would suggest you function as a guest author, and let your company make a big deal out of it. Don’t forget to mention your company post on your personal blog.

Reputation Objectives

Managing your reputation is essential to Social Media Marketing. As I’ve mentioned, things can get out of hand if you develop a bad reputation. Here are a few options for a reputation strategy.

• High-profile influencer. A hard goal to achieve, but not impossible. If you are trying to be (or are) one of the most influential in your niche, you need to combine your social media marketing with offline engagements, writing books and networking on a high level.
• Beat your competitor. Better reputation (or more well known) than you competitor. Depending on your niche, it may be easy to hard to do, in the Social Media sphere. Find out what your competitors are doing and devise tactics to stay ahead of them.
• Serving a niche better than anyone. Coming up with remarkable content and brilliant contributions for the interest group you focus on and creating the place-to-go for your niche.
• A learning experience. This may be the one for you, if you have just started out at Social Media. Start small, create a blog and build as you go. Once you have earned a reputation online, change your strategy to one that fits you better at that time.

Consider how you would like to be perceived. There are other strategies that may fit you better, but by having one, you ensure that you keep focus in Social Media Marketing.

Communities for Business

You may be tempted to create your own community website for people to contribute to your focus area. Not just a blog, but a competitor to Facebook or MySpace. If you run a brick and mortar business, my advice to you is: don’t. Your organization is most likely not ready for it. However, add social features, one at a time, to build customer satisfaction (and manage your reputation as the good guy). Social features are a great way to listen to your customers.

The point is; you don’t need to build it yourself. Create a group on Linkedin if you target business people. American Express has an Open Business Group you can look at for ideas – or make a video and post it on YouTube. There are lots of opportunities that don’t require a big budget – just time, commitment and sincerity.

So – Business or Pleasure?

You’ve guessed it. Social Media is a lot of fun, once you’re engaged in it. Do it for business, but keep your strategy in mind. Check out my earlier posts on where to get started or just delve in. You’ll enjoy it.

Next in this series, I’ll conclude this series with how to create your Personal Social Media Strategy.

This time, it’s about getting noticed and contributing to your social network.

Why promote your social media?

There are several reasons to promote your contributions to Social Media. It depends on your reasons for using Social Media, and what your goals are. Here are some reasons that may fit your profile.

• Spread the word about your niche or focus area.
• Grow your personal fame or influence.
• Make money on your blog.
• Market your company.
• Connect with fun people.
• [Your reason here]

The big reason to spread the word and get people connected to your idea is that without people, there’s no social media. Whether you are passionate about your own fame or a cause, your social strength will grow with your number of connections, readers and contributors.

What you are after is Social Media Marketing.

Basics of Social Media Marketing

So what is Social Media Marketing? Do you need a degree in marketing to be successful promoting Social Media? Actually, it is more beneficial for you to not know anything about traditional marketing. Unfortunately, if you are already a marketer, you need to unlearn a lot of concepts to really be successful at Social Media Marketing.

If you are schooled in traditional marketing, try reading the book Meatball Sundae by Seth Godin. It will hopefully start you off on the right path.

In fact, by following the getting started guide in this series, you have already started with your Social Media Marketing. It is about spreading ideas and concepts, about people and opinions. Broadcasting a message to a large audience is not part of Social Media Marketing, and is frequently ineffective in Social Media.

Succeeding in Social Media (and thereby Social Media Marketing) requires time, commitment and sincerity.

• Time – you need to allocate the time to manage your social activities and networks. Social Media Marketing is not about running a campaign in an advertising network (although you can, of course, put ads on many social networks, like Facebook). You need to put the time in to either contribute a lot yourself or facilitate key influencers that do.
• Commitment – stay engaged, and stay focused to your social network. If you digress from the focus of the network or only contribute sporadically, your network will lose interest. You would probably stop reading media that only gives you information sporadically, too, wouldn’t you?
• Sincerity – people listen to contributors to their Social Media channels because of their authority. It’s about contributing well-informed content, which is always relevant to the specific social network.

A two way street

If you are not perceived as sincere (by not putting in time, not staying committed or losing focus), it may backfire on your Social Media Marketing efforts. You may have heard of the so-called “Google Bomb” on the White House a while back, where a huge amount of blogs linked the phrase “miserable failure” to whitehouse.gov presidential page. For two years, people searching for that phrase on Google, were directed to George W. Bush’s page.

Perhaps the same won’t happen to you, but the downside of Social Media is that if a bad reputation spreads about you, and it’s strong enough, you will have a very difficult time stopping it.

Be the good guy

Here is the difficult part, if you are part of a large brick-and-mortar organization; there is nowhere to hide. You cannot run campaigns to influence public opinions like you used to. Any and all interactions with your company will be scrutinized, and out of every dissatisfied customer, about 1% will write about their experience. All interactions with your customers count, from call center to website.

If you are engaging in Social Media for your personal use, or for your small company, the same rules count. However, it is easier for you to manage your interactions with readers or customers.

You have to come across as the sincere, authoritative good guy. If you make a mistake (we all do, after all), be sincere about your apology to those affected, and compensate them for their loss.

Where do I use Social Media Marketing?

Start with these 4 steps.

1. Comment on the blogs you follow. If it’s a large blog, your post may be the 50th comment posted. Do it anyway – for two reasons. One, you may attract attention to your own blog (most blogs let you link your name to a url). The other reason is that you build the number of links to your website, from sources that are ranked highly by search engines. By getting linked to from highly ranked websites, your website will rank higher as well. Comment on this post, if you like.
2. Social bookmark your own posts as well as the ones from blogs you follow. If you have written something brilliant, people are likely to find and share your bookmarks.
3. Digg your posts as well. Make sure you write original content in your posts and add them to your Digg profile. Sites like Digg, Propeller, Reddit and others let you add links similar to social bookmarking sites, but they add a voting functionality where you can vote for the pages you like. Vote for your own posts, but vote for anyone else relevant to your focus area (see my previous post about selecting your focus area), even your competitors. If your profile lists a lot of relevant pages, you are more likely to attract followers who don’t know you. That way you build your reputation, a very important aspect of Social Media Marketing.
4. If you’re an expert (or once you’ve become one), try to help others in your focus area. One way is to post best practices and lists (like this one). Another is to select discussion forums (include your blog url in the signature – but only one url) and Answers networks (like on Linkedin – professional networking – and Yahoo – more general questions).

There are a lot more strategies for Social Media Marketing, and I will get more into detail with links to resources in a later post.

Next time

Getting involved for Personal reasons or for Business purposes? We are getting closer to defining a strategy for Social Media, the next post includes tips on Social Media Marketing for Business or Pleasure.

Getting fully engaged in Social Media requires time, commitment, and sincerity. The social aspect means that actual people read what you contribute, so if you use it sporadically, your listeners lose interest. The same goes for what you say – if you don’t come across as sincere on the subject, nobody will bother to hear your opinion.

Stay focused

Although you can dig down into detail with all sorts of tools at one time, try to ease into the social media arena, with one tool at a time. In time, you will be able to select which tools that work for you by trying them out for just five minutes. Until then, here is a place to start.

Here is a 5 step guide to getting started, and where to look for more information.

1. Define your purpose.
2. Identify your channels.
3. Subscribe and syndicate.
4. Share your findings.
5. Contribute.

1. Define your purpose

If you are reading this post, chances are you’re not sure which direction to take in social media, what you can get out of it and what you can contribute with. If that’s true, try answering this question: What is the single thing in your life that you are most passionate about?

Do you love being a parent? Is treasure hunting the most exciting thing you can imagine? Are you the type that always buys the latest cool gadgets? Cars? Snow plows? Do you prefer to watch grass grow? Anything that you are interested in, counts.

Except one thing. You. Telling people about how wonderful you are, will not spark their interest. Stick to hobbies, work, family life, growing grass or whatever – just don’t put yourself down as what you are most passionate about. That will earn you an audience of one.

The place to start is your passion. That’s what you focus your Social Media interaction on, to get started.

2. Identify your channels

Once you know what to focus on, it’s time to look for what’s out there, in your focus area. Here are a few tips. For this example, let’s say that your passion is “the Mozart Effect”.

• Google the phrase “Mozart Effect” blog and see what you find. Most likely, you’ll see opinions in a lot of different blogs, that mention pros and cons about you’re the Mozart Effect. Go through the results, and bookmark pages that are relevant to your focus area. These are your blog channels.
• If your focus is on the Mozart Effect for children, try searching for parenting websites and forums, and save those as bookmarks. If it’s the general psychological effect, try psychology sites.
• Search social bookmarking site del.icio.us for “Mozart Effect” to see what other people around the world have saved as bookmarks in your focus area.
• Try identifying any other websites that fit the definition of Social Media, and discuss your focus area. Since it’s your passion, you probably have lots of ideas already.

If you are interested in Social Media or Internet Marketing in general, add this post to your bookmarks.

Those are the channels you can start with. You will add many more with time, but these will get you going. Now, let’s subscribe and share.

3. Subscribe and Syndicate

You can do a lot more than simply bookmark your favorite web pages. Start by collecting your bookmarks in one place, online. First, pick your favorite social bookmarking tool. Two of the most popular are del.icio.us and StumbleUpon.

• del.icio.us has a very basic interface, simply listing links that you or others have saved. You can select browsing links that are popular, or the most recent ones, overall or based on one or more tags. If you use del.icio.us and surf with the Firefox browser, get their extension to post by the click of a button.
• StumbleUpon is originally based on a browser function, to let users “stumble on” to new pages on the Internet. It has grown to be a useful tool for saving (and sharing) your bookmarks with your friends and contacts. If you use StumbleUpon and surf with the Firefox browser, get their toolbar to post by the click of a button.

Syndicate your links and content in one place. Use an RSS feed reader (yes, you can retrieve your collected links in del.icio.us or StumbleUpon as RSS) to list all your chosen content in one place.

Select your favorite online feed reader, like Bloglines or Google Reader to collect all your information in one place. Once you have an account, you can subscribe to blogs directly, by adding their RSS feed to your feed reader. That way, you don’t have to search the web every time you want to find information on your focus area. Just syndicate all your information in one place – and categorize them by adding tags.

Tags are labels you can add to both bookmarked links and feeds. So if you have several nuances to your focus area, you can select one at a time, or all, to read up on.

… and add this blog to your feed reader if you like what it’s about.

4. Share your findings

Sharing what you have collected is easy, if you save your links to a social bookmarking service. You can choose to use several services, if you like. Reasons for that are covered in a later post.

If you use del.icio.us or StumbleUpon, you are already sharing your links. No need to do anything else there? Well, there are things you can do. Add your friends to the service, for example. Get your friends to sign up, and connect with them in the system. Del.icio.us even lets you save bookmarks directly to friends you are connected with (maybe it is of interest to them, but not to you).

5. Contribute

Once you are up to speed with your focus area and what’s being discussed out there, it’s time to add your own content. The best way to do that is by setting up a blog. There are two ways to do that, and they’re both free.

• Install a blog on your own domain / web hosting account. The web hosting is perhaps not free, but if you have a web host already, you can simply install the blogging software there. The blogging software is free. I strongly recommend Wordpress, which is the most popular blogging script out there. Download and install, it takes 2 steps to get it up and running.
• Use a free blog on Wordpress.com, Blogger.com. It’s a simple signup process, then you are good to post.

Blogging can be fun and exciting, but it requires a commitment to regularly add content. That’s the reason you picked a purpose or focus area to start with. It will help you keep focus and stay committed. Once you have been adding content every week for some time, you will get a reader base that will contribute via comments or links their own blogs.

Commit to posting at least once a week – and start with short posts, commenting on other blogs. If you like the post you’re reading now (or even if you don’t), comment on it in your blog if it’s relevant to your content. And add me as your friend on StumbleUpon or del.icio.us.

Moving on

What’s next? Having a blog is good, but you need to spread the word about it to develop a reader base. That is covered in the next part of this series – how to market yourself in Social Media. It’s not difficult, but it requires time, commitment and focus (plus sincerity, as I’ll get to).

Stay tuned for the next part of this series.

What is Social Media?

Social Media is an online phenomenon, which encompasses a lot of things. In fact, the term is so new, that its definition is rather hard to pin down. You can say that Social Media is online interactive media, where information and activities can be shared among users.

Many would say that social media is democratic, in that everyone has a say in whether a provider of social media is popular or not. For instance, a blog that is well written and contains a lot of useful information for its readers will spread by one or more social platforms. It may be mentioned in other blogs, bookmarked in a social bookmarking service, discussed in forums, and so on.

The big idea about Social Media is that information is shared (or sharable). Another point is that content is added through collaboration and syndication. 1+1=3 sort of thing.

What types of Social Media are there?

The list is long.

Blogs (Wordpress, Blogger.com), Discussion Forums, Social Networks (Linkedin, Facebook, Myspace), Photo sharing (Flickr, Picasa, Panoramio), Instant messaging (MSN Messenger, ICQ), Music sharing (Last.fm), Video sharing (YouTube), RSS, Podcasts, Bookmark sharing (del.icio.us), Calendar sharing (Google Calendar), Microblogs (Twitter, Pownce), and a lot of other kinds of tools are all Social Media.

Social Media is any platform that lets you both publish and receive text, sound, video and/or pictures online. In upcoming posts, I will go further into detail about a few of these platforms, with some details on how to get started.

Why use Social Media?

Chances are you are using several types of Social Media already. There are so many providers that have appeared the last few years, and the tools are spreading like wildfire.

Here are a few examples where Social Media can be of use for you.

• Career development
• Fun
• Keeping in touch with friends
• Making a name for yourself
• Business networking
• Productivity your personal life
• Sales and marketing

There are many reasons to get involved, and there are a lot more than on the list above.

So how do I choose where to start?

The classical answer is “it depends”. It depends on what you want out of it, and how much you want to (or can) contribute. Getting involved with a purpose is better than jumping in without a plan.

The next post on how to get started in Social Media is about which ways there are to get into the game. Later in this series, I will bring it all together with a Personal Social Media Strategy for you to choose.

Topics that will be covered, are:

• A series on Getting Started In Social Media
  • Blogging
  • Networking
  • Bookmarking
• Social Media Marketing
  • The Basics – Why and How?
  • Business or Personal
  • Communities – Home or Away?
• Strategic Socializing
  • Defining The Strategy
  • Managing Your Channels – Where To Start and What To Prioritize?
  • Managing Your Engagement – Avoiding Social Networking Fatigue
• Your Personal Social Media Strategy

It doesn’t stop there. Defining your Personal Social Media Strategy, as I’ve mentioned before, is a hefty task. There is a lot more to come on that topic.

I am focusing on adding well working methods and tools to the articles, to get you up and running in the Social Media game. Most of us have very little spare time on our hands, so these articles are designed to help you with the tools you need to use Social Media, whatever your experience is.

Stay tuned for more.

Here are five strategies for you to choose from. Each one has its benefits, and there’s probably one that fits you better than the others.

1. Niche Influencer – Carefully pick your social channels and identify where other high profile influencers are active. For example, if you are passionate about the climate and feel that you have a lot to say about the environment, use a place like Greenedia to identify where to add your comments. Drive users to your blog by getting involved in qualified discussions. Partner with ‘green advertisers’ on your website – but make sure you screen them first, and throw them out if they don’t live up to your standards. Use feed readers to aggregate posts from around the web, and be sure to post your opinion when a hot topic comes up.
2. Expert Reputation Builder – slightly different from the Niche Influencer strategy, the ERB strategy is focused on managing your reputation as an expert. Unlike the NI strategy, you’re not focused on a cause or niche, but can provide your expert opinion in a lot of areas. Use tools like Yahoo Answers or Linkedin Answers to reply with your expert opinion – there you’ll be rewarded with Best Answers if you’re good enough. Build a repository of answered questions on your own website, referring people to relevant pages as you answer similar questions on different locations. Use a microblog to post short blurbs about recurring issues, and link to your own answers. Plan your time for staying up to date in your area – use 15 minutes a day to read blog posts and a half hour a day to read books, articles and other publications about developments in your area.
3. Productivity – this strategy is for those with little time on their hands. Use social bookmarking (such as del.icio.us) for collecting your bookmarks in one place. Spend a few minutes a day to read up on your contacts’ bookmarks and blogs, and see if there is anything for you to add. Avoid tools like Twitter and Facebook, that have too much information clutter for easy management. If you want to be an Influencer for your niche, create your blog and be very selective with what you write and how much time you spend on it (it’s a lot easier if it’s part of your job). If you want to be an Expert, use ONE social network (like Xing, Linkedin, Yahoo, or whichever is biggest in your part of the world) and focus on getting your voice heard, using short and concise feedback.
4. Recreational Socializer – simply staying in touch with your friends, checking what they do and trying new stuff online. This one is easy – stick with the social activities your friends are using, and deselect the ones that you don’t have time for. Follow up every month, to see if you are getting the fun out of using the social networks – otherwise boot the ones that don’t work for you.
5. Socialist – if you want to be an Influencer in the Social Media sphere, you test and try a lot of the new social media that become available. Mashable lists a lot of invitation-only betas out there, where you can get invited as one of the first to try the activities. Review them in your own blog, then review them again when they come out of beta. Use the big ones, from Facebook and Linkedin to Squidoo, Twitter and Digg (and 20 others), to spread your presence in the social media sphere.

Engaging in Social Media (or Social Marketing) requires time, commitment and sincerity. If you are not perceived as sincere, no Social Strategy will work for you. If you don’t allocate the time for it, people will stop listening. If you’re not committed, nobody will care what you have to say.

Here is a place for you to start, if you’re new to Social Media.

• Linkedin – add your professional profile and use it to stay up to date with your personal and professional connections. As an online rolodex, if nothing else. If you’re in a Xing-dominated part of the world, like Germany, start there instead.
• del.icio.us – keep your bookmarks in one place. There are alternatives, and StumbleUpon may be more fun for you, but pick one with browser integration, so you don’t have to leave the page you’re visiting, just to add a bookmark.
• Blog – if you own your own website, download Wordpress and install it (it takes 3 steps). If not, use free blogging systems like Wordpress.com or blogger.com
• Feed readers – reading the latest news and blog posts in one place. Tools like MS Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird have built-in RSS support. Or if you prefer using an online tool (reading from anywhere), Google’s GReader could be the place to start for you (especially if you already have a Google account).

Keep it simple. Don’t overclutter your life.

Pros

1. Ease of use – Twitter is very easy to update with posts and status messages.
2. Manage your personal image – you can get personal with your contacts by keeping them up to date on what you are doing.
3. Keeping it short -you have to limit your posts in Twitter to very short messages, which means you have to think about what you want to say and boil your point down to a sentence or two.
4. Pluggability - Twitter lets you export your twits to RSS and other social media tools. For instance, showing your latest twit on your blog may be an integration to let you manage your mood or activity status. Also, promoting your blog or Squidoo lens has additional marketing benefits.
5. Networking - you can import your contacts from your e-mail address book and you can integrate with other social contact lists.

Cons

1. WIIFM - busy professionals usually don’t have time to try hundreds of new social media. The ever-returning question “What’s In It For Me?” is dominant for busy people. In short, Twitter does not add as much value to Social Media Marketing as a lot of other channels, like Linkedin or Facebook.
2. Feature poor - if you’re considering microblogging, have a look at Jaiku or Pownce before deciding which to use. Twitter is missing some of the features of these competitors.
3. Less efficient than social bookmarking – if you want to link to your blog or website, Social Bookmarking tools like StumbleUpon and del.irio.us are a lot more efficient and time saving in posting links.
4. Clutter risk – unless Twitter is a complement to your other Social Media engagements, there is a risk that Twitter becomes just another social tool in the list of tools you don’t really use.
5. Requires time – if you don’t keep your Twitter account updated with new posts daily, the usefulness of the tool diminishes.
6. SEO isn’t everything – even though there may be benefits in linking to your money-making pages, there are better ways of marketing yourself in social media.

Bottom line

Engaging in Social Media requires time, commitment and sincerity. I would recommend using Twitter (and similar tools) only if you are committed to Social Marketing, and have a clearly defined Personal Social Media Strategy. For most professionals, the time and resources at hand are scarce. Twitter is mostly for personal use, and for fun more than business.

Social Marketing is suited for marketing people, not products or companies. Focus on yourself, your credibility and reputation by writing about things you are passionate about. Without mentioning any of your skills, how wonderful your company is or what Fortune 100 companies you have worked for. If people are interested in you, they will find that information on your Linkedin or Xing profile.