2011

Top 10 Tips for making social media work for your business

Top 10 Tips for making social media work for your business
This evening I attended the Marketing Dangerously Social Media Challenge meet-up (if you are on Twitter, check out the hashtag #MDSMC for the dialogues between guests).  Presenting this evening were two Vancouver social-media experts:  Neil Godin and Jonathan Christian.  Amongst answering a myriad of questions about social media, time management and networking, Jonathan gave an excellent presentation outlining his top-10 social media tips.  Whether you are a novice or expert social media junky, these tips are a useful road map for getting your foundation set for social media success.
The Top-10 tips for making social media work for you and your business are:


  1. Join or host a Meetup

    [caption id="attachment_1816" align="alignright" width="226"] Check out Jonathan & Neil's Meet-up group[/caption]

  2. Setup an RSS Feed - use programs such as MS Outlook, Google Reader or iGoogle to subscribe sites/blogs you are interested in.  Real Simple Syndication will then push the info you want to your reader of choice.

  3. Join Facebook as your business or  personally ( over 500,000,000 other people have so why haven't you? )

  4. Create a business fan page on Facebook.

  5. Create a social media email signature with pictures:  utilize pictures in your signature to signify popular social sites like Facebook , YouTube , Flickr , Linked-in, and your blog.

  6. Create a YouTube channel and create play lists of your favorite videos or your very own video content.  Marketing tip: buy an inexpensive camera like an HD Flip and start using it for your new YouTube page.

  7. Set up a Linked In profile.

  8. Get tweeting and get connected in real time: There's lots of automated tweeters out there so don't be fooled.  Look for conversations from real people in real time.  You never know, maybe even connect over a coffee and get to know how each of you can help one another's businesses grow offline as well as online.

  9. Use Google local and add your business if you haven't already (type in Fitness Town in Google and check out the listings I added about 18 months ago)

  10. Start blogging and share your stories.  WordPress is a great option for those wanting to start a blog with ease.  Link to it facebook, email and twitter - voila!


In case you are one of those naysayers, or people that refuse to get on the Social Media bandwagon, here's a video for your review.
Social Media Revolution 2 is a refresh of the original video with new and updated social media & mobile statistics that are hard to ignore. Based on the book Socialnomics by Erik Qualman.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFZ0z5Fm-Ng]

Lastly, don't forget to check out these 2 websites for more information on how you can leverage social media to elevate your business to another level:
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