6 Twitter Tips The Power of the Conversational Tweet 1. Transparency You have a choice to have either open or closed tweets. My tweets are open and therefore public. This allows total transparency to messages. Anyone can jump in to join the conversation. It means I need to be responsible and authentic about what I share. I take this very seriously. I share my opinions (respectfully), quotes and status. The value of being transparent is that it attracts others who share your perspectives and allows an opportunity to open a door. 2. Listening What is intriguing with this example is that we were both multi-tasking. Listening to the webcast and listening/reading our tweets. Listening is such an important part of communication. By listening and observing, you will find others who not only share your thinking, but you will also find your audience. This was certainly the case with this incidence- we both enjoyed this particular webcast and Lacey was part of my audience in December when I presented. 3. Engagement Listening leads to an opportunity to engage in conversation. It helps to connect the dots. 4. Sharing Engagement leads to opportunities to share each others experience and thereby driving a more meaningful conversation. As shared in my previous post  (S is for Social in Social in Social Media), sharing is key part of being social. 5. Relationship Building Experiential exchange is a valuable act towards relationship building 6. Bridging Conversations With the high utilization of Twitter, it is a great vehicle for connecting conversations from one platform to another- keeping conversations alive. It also highlights the importance of being consistent with your message and what you stand for across all your social platforms or sites. Now I finish where I began…..  this demonstrates the importance of not only being consistent with your information and brand but also the need to be transparent with your information and brand. Now there are some conversations you really don’t have to tweet- in fact this one in particular is best done using traditional means! The act of taking with your vocal cords. Share this post to continue the conversation! I hear Twitter works well. Do you need a business Loan for your company?  Are you over extended and cannot get a loan through a Bank or Private Funding? If so, this is a great opportunity to expand your business, pay off debt, buy that vehicle you may need, buy more inventory or just use the money for what ever you may need it for.  What’s the catch?  None, just have a credit score above 600, no collateral needed, no signup fees and cash within 7 business days!   For more information click here.   We want to help your business grow and thrive during this “Down Economy”.
Pop-upView Separately

6 Twitter Tips

The Power of the Conversational Tweet

1. Transparency

You have a choice to have either open or closed tweets. My tweets are open and therefore public. This allows total transparency to messages. Anyone can jump in to join the conversation. It means I need to be responsible and authentic about what I share. I take this very seriously. I share my opinions (respectfully), quotes and status. The value of being transparent is that it attracts others who share your perspectives and allows an opportunity to open a door.

2. Listening

What is intriguing with this example is that we were both multi-tasking. Listening to the webcast and listening/reading our tweets. Listening is such an important part of communication. By listening and observing, you will find others who not only share your thinking, but you will also find your audience. This was certainly the case with this incidence- we both enjoyed this particular webcast and Lacey was part of my audience in December when I presented.

3. Engagement

Listening leads to an opportunity to engage in conversation. It helps to connect the dots.

4. Sharing

Engagement leads to opportunities to share each others experience and thereby driving a more meaningful conversation. As shared in my previous post  (S is for Social in Social in Social Media), sharing is key part of being social.

5. Relationship Building

Experiential exchange is a valuable act towards relationship building

6. Bridging Conversations

With the high utilization of Twitter, it is a great vehicle for connecting conversations from one platform to another- keeping conversations alive. It also highlights the importance of being consistent with your message and what you stand for across all your social platforms or sites. Now I finish where I began…..  this demonstrates the importance of not only being consistent with your information and brand but also the need to be transparent with your information and brand.

Now there are some conversations you really don’t have to tweet- in fact this one in particular is best done using traditional means! The act of taking with your vocal cords.

Share this post to continue the conversation! I hear Twitter works well.

Do you need a business Loan for your company?  Are you over extended and cannot get a loan through a Bank or Private Funding? If so, this is a great opportunity to expand your business, pay off debt, buy that vehicle you may need, buy more inventory or just use the money for what ever you may need it for.  What’s the catch?  None, just have a credit score above 600, no collateral needed, no signup fees and cash within 7 business days!   For more information click here.   We want to help your business grow and thrive during this “Down Economy”.

Source: vmswashington.wordpress.com

8 Online Advertising Techniques For Small Businesses Far too many small business owners believe that it is ok to treat marketing like a car service and carry it out every 6 months because they have to. A targeted and intelligent marketing strategy will provide far more effective results than an off the cuff and occasional push will. The idea needs to be that your customers have your business so close at hand that they can contact you before they even start shopping for the product or service. This will put you one step in front of all of your competitors and enable you to snatch the sale before they get a chance to. This article will consider 8 simple low-cost methods of advertisement. 1) Make your business easy to find People use countless methods to find what they are looking for, so you need to hit as many of these sources as possible. By engaging in Facebook marketing, putting an ad in the Yellow Pages, advertising in local sources, and making yourself as easy to find as possible, you will be able to reach many more customers searching for your services. 2) Provide business cards to customers If you can provide your customers with a good quality and professional looking card with all of your details on it, they may well keep it in their wallet. Having your details so readily at hand will almost undoubtedly make you the first port of call for services. 3) Ignore break-even customers Whilst this sounds like the wrong thing to do it is too easy to get lost in numbers of customers rather than profits. You are far better off concentrating your marketing on the customers who bring you the highest profits because they are the ones who make your business run. Still make sales to these customers; just target the bigger customers more pointedly. 4) Build an email list Build an email list for your customers so that you can easily and swiftly communicate with them. When writing to customers it is important not to be too pushy and to offer them a reason to come back by themselves. If you offer a 5% discount then you will be able to draw customers back and make some more sales. 5)Treat the customer right Customers really value being treated properly and being cared for. If you put in extra effort to make them happy then they will come back for more. A dissatisfied customer is not a returning customer. 6)Combine business, pleasure and charity Hold events for your partners and key stakeholders which raise money for charity, offer a social occasion and promote your business, all in one fell swoop. Customers will appreciate your actions and you will benefit from an increase in business as they are then more likely to suggest you to other potential customers and they will definitely remember your business. 7)Court local media When carrying out charity events or even when offering sales, it is prudent to approach the local media with the story. Media companies appreciate being given stories because it makes their jobs easier and this can become free advertising for you. Provide press releases with your web address on will allow them to easily access the information and turn it into an article. 8)Provide a newsletter A good way to network your clients and partners is to provide a newsletter at least once a month to keep you business on their minds.  By providing a newsletter you can talk about your business, talk about your clients and partners business which will increase your presence in your area, make the clients and partners happy and to increase your SEO.   We all want to talk about our business and have it thrive in this “Down Economy” but we also want to help our partners out. By doing this, it will help your business in the long run by networking their businesses which will potentially give you more business. Do you need a business Loan for your company?  Are you over extended and cannot get a loan through a Bank or Private Funding? If so, this is a great opportunity to expand your business, pay off debt, buy that vehicle you may need, buy more inventory or just use the money for what ever you may need it for.  What’s the catch?  None, just have a credit score above 600, no collateral needed, no signup fees and cash within 7 business days!   For more information click here.   We want to help your business grow and thrive during this “Down Economy”.
View Separately

8 Online Advertising Techniques For Small Businesses

Far too many small business owners believe that it is ok to treat marketing like a car service and carry it out every 6 months because they have to. A targeted and intelligent marketing strategy will provide far more effective results than an off the cuff and occasional push will. The idea needs to be that your customers have your business so close at hand that they can contact you before they even start shopping for the product or service. This will put you one step in front of all of your competitors and enable you to snatch the sale before they get a chance to. This article will consider 8 simple low-cost methods of advertisement.

1) Make your business easy to find

People use countless methods to find what they are looking for, so you need to hit as many of these sources as possible. By engaging in Facebook marketing, putting an ad in the Yellow Pages, advertising in local sources, and making yourself as easy to find as possible, you will be able to reach many more customers searching for your services.

2) Provide business cards to customers

If you can provide your customers with a good quality and professional looking card with all of your details on it, they may well keep it in their wallet. Having your details so readily at hand will almost undoubtedly make you the first port of call for services.

3) Ignore break-even customers

Whilst this sounds like the wrong thing to do it is too easy to get lost in numbers of customers rather than profits. You are far better off concentrating your marketing on the customers who bring you the highest profits because they are the ones who make your business run. Still make sales to these customers; just target the bigger customers more pointedly.

4) Build an email list

Build an email list for your customers so that you can easily and swiftly communicate with them. When writing to customers it is important not to be too pushy and to offer them a reason to come back by themselves. If you offer a 5% discount then you will be able to draw customers back and make some more sales.

5)Treat the customer right

Customers really value being treated properly and being cared for. If you put in extra effort to make them happy then they will come back for more. A dissatisfied customer is not a returning customer.

6)Combine business, pleasure and charity

Hold events for your partners and key stakeholders which raise money for charity, offer a social occasion and promote your business, all in one fell swoop. Customers will appreciate your actions and you will benefit from an increase in business as they are then more likely to suggest you to other potential customers and they will definitely remember your business.

7)Court local media

When carrying out charity events or even when offering sales, it is prudent to approach the local media with the story. Media companies appreciate being given stories because it makes their jobs easier and this can become free advertising for you. Provide press releases with your web address on will allow them to easily access the information and turn it into an article.

8)Provide a newsletter

A good way to network your clients and partners is to provide a newsletter at least once a month to keep you business on their minds.  By providing a newsletter you can talk about your business, talk about your clients and partners business which will increase your presence in your area, make the clients and partners happy and to increase your SEO.   We all want to talk about our business and have it thrive in this “Down Economy” but we also want to help our partners out. By doing this, it will help your business in the long run by networking their businesses which will potentially give you more business.

Do you need a business Loan for your company?  Are you over extended and cannot get a loan through a Bank or Private Funding? If so, this is a great opportunity to expand your business, pay off debt, buy that vehicle you may need, buy more inventory or just use the money for what ever you may need it for.  What’s the catch?  None, just have a credit score above 600, no collateral needed, no signup fees and cash within 7 business days!   For more information click here.   We want to help your business grow and thrive during this “Down Economy”.

Source: vmswashington.wordpress.com

Social Media A-Z I have noticed that when the  topic of social network is raised, it usually turns to a discussion of Facebook. Granted it is the biggest player on the planet however it is not the only one. Ok, at some point in the discussion it may get to Linkedin, Google Plusand Twitter (which by the way is a microblog not a network but it is so widely used it surfaces regardless of what topic is being discussed). The reality is,  although these are the “Big Four”, there are so many to choose from and depending on “your fancy” or strategy you may want to develop a presence at other networks as a starting point. Now that I have planted this seed in your thinking, where do you start?  There are so many out there – really. So whatever your passion, go and find your network. If it doesn’t exist, hey create one! So for this post, I thought it might be useful  to share what is out there. Or at least start a list to tantilize your taste-buds. There is a good Mashable resource on 350 sites.  However, as this reference is from 2007, I have used this as a starting point, removing the sites that no longer exist and adding new ones.  I intend to keep this as a live rolling list that will be updated regularly. I will attempt to publish biweekly, as I research the sites and add to the list.  Feel free to share any sites with me too! Hey, let’s develop our own community of sharing social networks and the associated reviews! Looking forward to hearing from you. In the interim, knock yourself out with the list below! Books and Community BookCrossing.com – It’s the World’s Library. It’s a smart social networking site. It’s a celebration of literature and a place where books get new life. BookCrossing is the act of giving a book a unique identity so, as the book is passed from reader to reader, it can be tracked and thus connecting its readers. There are currently 980,418 BookCrossers and 8,340,566 books travelling throughout 132 countries. Our community is changing the world and touching lives one book at a time.  Bookins.com – Book sharing website that enables members to exchange used books with each other in real time. BookMooch.com – Users can exchange books with others through points. Users gain points when they give books to others. GoodReads – is the largest site for readers and book recommendations in the world. They have more than 6,500,000 members. Goodreads users recommend books, compare what they are reading, keep track of what they’ve read and would like to read, find their next favorite book and form book clubs. Library Thing - A book network community of over a million members PaperBackSwap.com –  the site help avid readers swap, trade & exchange Books for free.They  only pay for the delivery charges. Read It Swap It – A free service that allows users to exchange books with others. Revish – Revish is  community for book lovers, letting them write reviews of their favorite books,  join groups, and  maintain a reading list. Shelfari – Shelfari is a popular social networking service for book lovers by amazon. Socialbib – Book swapping network between students. Professional Business Networking & Community ArtBreak – ArtBreak is an artist community for sharing and selling artwork. Atomic Reach - Atomic Reach is a social publishing network  that connects companies and brands looking for high-quality content. Blogtronix – Blogtronix promotes corporate social networking, multimedia microblogging and cloud hosting. DoMyStuff – An online community where busy people can quickly find Assistants to complete their chores. The Assistants you’ll find on DoMyStuff.com are individuals and businesses located near you who compete by bidding to run your errands. This bidding system ensures that you find the best people to do your stuff at the lowest price. Doostang – An career community with over 750,000 elite professionals with inside access to thousands of jobs from top employers. Empire Avenue - Empire Avenue is a game platform  and online community where you earn virtual currency for being social — the more social you are, the more virtual currency you will earn. In addition to gaming, there are groups and social networking for a wide assortment of professionals, hobbies or general interests. HR dot Com -  Human Resources Professional social network. members share their expertise, network with other HR executives, continue their education. … iKarma Inc. – iKarma is an online professional and relationship management  network that is focused on attaining customer feedback and ratings for professionals in a social network media. ImageKind – ImageKind is a community and marketplace for professional artists. Jambo – Jambo  provides a Mobile Membership Directory that works like a radar to give any group of people the ability to detect, search, browse, and connect to each other, when they happen to be in the same city and as close as a few blocks away, Jigsaw – An online business card networking directory for users to establish contacts with each other. Each business card is listed with an email id and a contact number.- ProSkore – An online professional community where members are ranked according to their overall reputation – which includes their social networks as well as their professional experience and recommendations they receive through the PROskore community. Konnects – Konnects enables members newspapers to  engage with their readership and become the central hub of their social network community.  The Social Media features allows readers to provide feedback and add their content Lawyrs – A professional social networking community for lawyers. Linkedin – LinkedIn is a professional social networking website for business users and the the most popular professional business site out there. For more information you can read my post on Linkedin. mediabistro.com – mediabistro.com is  an online community that is dedicated to anyone who creates or works with content, or who is a non-creative professional working in a content/creative industry. That includes editors, writers, producers, graphic designers, book publishers, and others in industries including magazines, television, film, radio, newspapers, book publishing, online media, advertising, PR, and design. Ryze.com –  is a business social network. Members get a free networking-oriented home page and can send messages to other members. They can also join special Networks related to their industry, interests or location. Spoke.com – Spoke allows business professionals to create user-friendly profiles of companies and people in a smooth and organized process that replaces existing inefficient data gathering techniques. Profiles are shared with the community at large, including peers, partners and industry experts – all able to interact and collaborate to create relevant insights about people, companies, industries and trends. Viadeo - professional social network XING – XING is a  social network for business professionals. Members network from different industries, find jobs, colleagues, new assignments, cooperation partners, experts and generate business ideas. Family CafeMom – CafeMom is a social networking site for mothers to connect and share thoughts with each other. CommonGate – CommonGate is an open  social network and blogging of theme-based communities (Gates) where people can make l connections and share relevant  content with friends, family and colleagues. This  social network enables users to create their own social network. The social blogs contain posts from any of the members, a communal voice within the site. eFamily – A premier social network to connect with family members and relatives in a private and secure environment. Famster – A private secure social network for family members. Geni.com – An exciting social networking site enabling members to create their family tree. All Geni users can share an unlimited number of photos, videos, and documents with their families.  Geni’s Pro subscription service allows users to find matching trees and merge those into the single world family tree, which currently contains nearly 60 million living users and their ancestors. Genoom – Genoom is a social networking platform designed to build private family networks. With Genoom, users can create their own family network and genealogical family tree to connect with relatives from around the world. From centralizing current family connections to discovering and sharing ancestral information, Genoom offers users a secure, private, and interactive family networking environment on the Web. Kincafe – An ideal social network for families to connect with their beloved ones. Kinzin – Kinzin is a Social Publishing® service for groups and individuals to privately share photos and create personalized print products. These printed materials are for  Parents for sharing with families, Coaches for sharing with teams, Teachers for sharing with students’ parents, Businesses for sharing with employees, Hobby group leaders for sharing with members, Camp counsellors for sharing with parents, Event hosts for sharing with guests. Baby Center –  BabyCenter is  a social network  for parents. It is the Web’s #1 global interactive parenting network, with more than 100 million parents.  Baby Center provides moms with advice from hundreds of experts around the globe, medical advisory board-approved information, friendship with other moms, and support at every stage of their child’s development. Minti – A collaborative parenting site. LifeTime Moms  –  social network and resources for mothers myfamily.com – An excellent way to connect with your family members. OneGreatFamily.com – An online shared database with combined knowledge and data at a single place. OurStory.com – OurStory enables users to share stories of their families with others. The Family Post – A sharing network for communication with family members. Are you looking for Business loans?  Learn more about Business Loans at: www.vms-washington.com and ask about the Durbin Amendment that was passed on October 2011 and how it will help you lower your credit card rates.
View Separately

Social Media A-Z

I have noticed that when the  topic of social network is raised, it usually turns to a discussion of Facebook. Granted it is the biggest player on the planet however it is not the only one. Ok, at some point in the discussion it may get to Linkedin, Google Plusand Twitter (which by the way is a microblog not a network but it is so widely used it surfaces regardless of what topic is being discussed). The reality is,  although these are the “Big Four”, there are so many to choose from and depending on “your fancy” or strategy you may want to develop a presence at other networks as a starting point. Now that I have planted this seed in your thinking, where do you start?  There are so many out there – really. So whatever your passion, go and find your network. If it doesn’t exist, hey create one!

So for this post, I thought it might be useful  to share what is out there. Or at least start a list to tantilize your taste-buds. There is a good Mashable resource on 350 sites.  However, as this reference is from 2007, I have used this as a starting point, removing the sites that no longer exist and adding new ones.  I intend to keep this as a live rolling list that will be updated regularly. I will attempt to publish biweekly, as I research the sites and add to the list.  Feel free to share any sites with me too! Hey, let’s develop our own community of sharing social networks and the associated reviews! Looking forward to hearing from you. In the interim, knock yourself out with the list below!

Books and Community

  1. BookCrossing.com – It’s the World’s Library. It’s a smart social networking site. It’s a celebration of literature and a place where books get new life. BookCrossing is the act of giving a book a unique identity so, as the book is passed from reader to reader, it can be tracked and thus connecting its readers. There are currently 980,418 BookCrossers and 8,340,566 books travelling throughout 132 countries. Our community is changing the world and touching lives one book at a time.
  2.  Bookins.com – Book sharing website that enables members to exchange used books with each other in real time.
  3. BookMooch.com – Users can exchange books with others through points. Users gain points when they give books to others.
  4. GoodReads – is the largest site for readers and book recommendations in the world. They have more than 6,500,000 members. Goodreads users recommend books, compare what they are reading, keep track of what they’ve read and would like to read, find their next favorite book and form book clubs.
  5. Library Thing - A book network community of over a million members
  6. PaperBackSwap.com –  the site help avid readers swap, trade & exchange Books for free.They  only pay for the delivery charges.
  7. Read It Swap It – A free service that allows users to exchange books with others.
  8. Revish – Revish is  community for book lovers, letting them write reviews of their favorite books,  join groups, and  maintain a reading list.
  9. Shelfari – Shelfari is a popular social networking service for book lovers by amazon.
  10. Socialbib – Book swapping network between students.

Professional Business Networking & Community

  1. ArtBreak – ArtBreak is an artist community for sharing and selling artwork.
  2. Atomic Reach - Atomic Reach is a social publishing network  that connects companies and brands looking for high-quality content.
  3. Blogtronix – Blogtronix promotes corporate social networking, multimedia microblogging and cloud hosting.
  4. DoMyStuff – An online community where busy people can quickly find Assistants to complete their chores. The Assistants you’ll find on DoMyStuff.com are individuals and businesses located near you who compete by bidding to run your errands. This bidding system ensures that you find the best people to do your stuff at the lowest price.
  5. Doostang – An career community with over 750,000 elite professionals with inside access to thousands of jobs from top employers.
  6. Empire Avenue - Empire Avenue is a game platform  and online community where you earn virtual currency for being social — the more social you are, the more virtual currency you will earn. In addition to gaming, there are groups and social networking for a wide assortment of professionals, hobbies or general interests.
  7. HR dot Com -  Human Resources Professional social network. members share their expertise, network with other HR executives, continue their education. …
  8. iKarma Inc. – iKarma is an online professional and relationship management  network that is focused on attaining customer feedback and ratings for professionals in a social network media.
  9. ImageKind – ImageKind is a community and marketplace for professional artists.
  10. Jambo – Jambo  provides a Mobile Membership Directory that works like a radar to give any group of people the ability to detect, search, browse, and connect to each other, when they happen to be in the same city and as close as a few blocks away,
  11. Jigsaw – An online business card networking directory for users to establish contacts with each other. Each business card is listed with an email id and a contact number.-
  12. ProSkore – An online professional community where members are ranked according to their overall reputation – which includes their social networks as well as their professional experience and recommendations they receive through the PROskore community.
  13. Konnects – Konnects enables members newspapers to  engage with their readership and become the central hub of their social network community.  The Social Media features allows readers to provide feedback and add their content
  14. Lawyrs – A professional social networking community for lawyers.
  15. Linkedin – LinkedIn is a professional social networking website for business users and the the most popular professional business site out there. For more information you can read my post on Linkedin.
  16. mediabistro.com – mediabistro.com is  an online community that is dedicated to anyone who creates or works with content, or who is a non-creative professional working in a content/creative industry. That includes editors, writers, producers, graphic designers, book publishers, and others in industries including magazines, television, film, radio, newspapers, book publishing, online media, advertising, PR, and design.
  17. Ryze.com –  is a business social network. Members get a free networking-oriented home page and can send messages to other members. They can also join special Networks related to their industry, interests or location.
  18. Spoke.com – Spoke allows business professionals to create user-friendly profiles of companies and people in a smooth and organized process that replaces existing inefficient data gathering techniques. Profiles are shared with the community at large, including peers, partners and industry experts – all able to interact and collaborate to create relevant insights about people, companies, industries and trends.
  19. Viadeo - professional social network
  20. XING – XING is a  social network for business professionals. Members network from different industries, find jobs, colleagues, new assignments, cooperation partners, experts and generate business ideas.

Family

  1. CafeMom – CafeMom is a social networking site for mothers to connect and share thoughts with each other.
  2. CommonGate – CommonGate is an open  social network and blogging of theme-based communities (Gates) where people can make l connections and share relevant  content with friends, family and colleagues. This  social network enables users to create their own social network. The social blogs contain posts from any of the members, a communal voice within the site.
  3. eFamily – A premier social network to connect with family members and relatives in a private and secure environment.
  4. Famster – A private secure social network for family members.
  5. Geni.com – An exciting social networking site enabling members to create their family tree. All Geni users can share an unlimited number of photos, videos, and documents with their families.  Geni’s Pro subscription service allows users to find matching trees and merge those into the single world family tree, which currently contains nearly 60 million living users and their ancestors.
  6. Genoom – Genoom is a social networking platform designed to build private family networks. With Genoom, users can create their own family network and genealogical family tree to connect with relatives from around the world. From centralizing current family connections to discovering and sharing ancestral information, Genoom offers users a secure, private, and interactive family networking environment on the Web.
  7. Kincafe – An ideal social network for families to connect with their beloved ones.
  8. Kinzin – Kinzin is a Social Publishing® service for groups and individuals to privately share photos and create personalized print products. These printed materials are for  Parents for sharing with families, Coaches for sharing with teams, Teachers for sharing with students’ parents, Businesses for sharing with employees, Hobby group leaders for sharing with members, Camp counsellors for sharing with parents, Event hosts for sharing with guests.
  9. Baby Center –  BabyCenter is  a social network  for parents. It is the Web’s #1 global interactive parenting network, with more than 100 million parents.  Baby Center provides moms with advice from hundreds of experts around the globe, medical advisory board-approved information, friendship with other moms, and support at every stage of their child’s development.
  10. Minti – A collaborative parenting site.
  11. LifeTime Moms  –  social network and resources for mothers
  12. myfamily.com – An excellent way to connect with your family members.
  13. OneGreatFamily.com – An online shared database with combined knowledge and data at a single place.
  14. OurStory.com – OurStory enables users to share stories of their families with others.
  15. The Family Post – A sharing network for communication with family members.

Are you looking for Business loans?  Learn more about Business Loans at: www.vms-washington.com and ask about the Durbin Amendment that was passed on October 2011 and how it will help you lower your credit card rates.

Source: vmswashington.wordpress.com

30+ Social Media Curation Sites and Tools What is social media curation? Today,  with the exponential growth of social networks and blogs,  it can be overwhelming searching for information on the internet. As a result, the act of filtering, selecting, reviewing and providing commentary with a perspective on an article, or collection of articles, have become increasingly important. This is known as social media curation.   A good media curator is someone who reads extensively, then can pull content and organize it in a logical way for the benefit of others. Web 2.0+ has an immense amount of information. Curators sort through it, find the wheat in the chaff, and present it in a friendly manner” . I would agree with this definition however would also add that a curator would also share their perspective  and perhaps alternative ( or supporting) viewpoint using the posts that they have selected. Why curate? Curation provides another offering for your on-line audience. It also helps reduce the noise of the plethora of information on the internet. Curation also provides a stream of fresh posts for your site or blog. Curation sites The number of curation sites and tools have grown dramatically. Furthermore, more recently the profile of curation  has been elevated as more organizations and entrepreneurs are looking at ways to augment their blogs or content. I personally usePinterest and am very new to it so I am feeling it out. Changing gears a little bit, I would like to share that I am intrigued by Bookriff which is very new site and start-up. I learned about this site at a recent conference in Canada. Very exciting site that brings curation to another level. Bookriff allows you to select chapters from an assortment of books, add your own commentary and then publish it as a commercial book. Each time a Riff is distributed, all content owners get paid. BookRiff’s technology manages the authoring, bundling, licensing, attribution, and payment details for each of these custom compilations. Brilliant! How exciting. Love it! Potentially turning the publishing sector upside down.The mastermind and CEO  behind Bookriff is Rochelle Grayson. It was a total pleasure to hear her speak on this innovation. Now it is time to share that list. Below, I have listed 30+ curation sites for your perusal. Enjoy! Aggregage- a new site with a content marketing focus.Agregage creates online “curated” communities by centralizing content from quality blogs, whitepapers, social networks around particular topics and then it is displayed on a new site dedicated to that given topic. Amplify- “The easiest way to clip, share and discuss things that interest you.”  Add the Amplify web clipper to your browser to clip and share things you find on the web.(Mar 7 2012: Amplify is closing down its site) BagTheweb-  BagTheWeb helps users curate Web content. For any topic, you can create a “bag” to collect, publish, and share any content from the Web. Blekko - “Provides a differentiated editorial voice in search.” BlogBridge- BlogBridge is for true info-junkies who want a better way to wrangle all their RSS feeds from blogs and news into one pretty cool organizer. Bookriff – . Riffs are remixes of published books, essays, magazine articles, and your own content. Bundlr-  Create topic pages with photos, videos, tweets and documents. Share them with everyone CIThread- This has a content marketing focus.Simplifies content marketing production, distribution, measurement & optimization across multiple initiatives & social channels Clipboard - Helps organize content, facilitates collaboration and sharing with others. Curata- Curata helps marketers maximize their content curation efforts with web-based tools to easily find, organize and share online content. Curated.by- let’s you collect & organize topic based content (media, links, tweets) into bundles. Curation Station - allows users to gather information, select the items that fit their goals, and then distribute them . A paid service targeting marketers. Eqentia “From your context, let us find you content. From that content, let us find you people. You take action.”  Aggregate, curate, and re-publish content what matters. Evri - automatically and constantly indexes millions of topic-specific streams from thousands of different sources to filter through the web and delivers customized news experiences. Factiva-a  business intelligence platform- with a unique combination of authoritative business news and Information, plus sophisticated tools, Factiva helps you easily find, monitor, interpret and share the essential information your organization commands. Feedly- a simple and elegant way to read and share the content of your favorite sites. Flockler- Drawing from social media and the web, publishing videos, photos and text, and personal commentary and editorial, Flockler lets you curate for a particular subject, event, person or business.. iFlow- a real-time, online information exchange that brings together everything you want. You can organize, combine, filter, curate or remix your flows to get a different view on your content and/or to share. kbucket- KBucket is a user indexed search site. A place where experts “content curators” organize, comment, tag and publish their research Keepstream a social media curation tool that helps organize tweets,  into shareable, embeddable collection pages. Kurat helps you to discover relevant content on specific topics. Within Kurat you can easily curate this information and publish it. Kurat can be used as content discovery and publishing tool behind company social media efforts and as a personal newsreader. Loud3r-  a real-time content discovery, curation and publishing platform that delivers the best news, blogs, photos, videos and social media about any topic. My6sense -Read and share your relevant content from your RSS and social streams. Mlkshk- Save, Share and Discover.Use browser extensions to save with a simple right-click.Pick a topic (Shake) and  Invite other MLKSHKers in to post and curate their submissions with one click. Mysinydicaat- a personalized agregator built on the idea that it should be easy to collect, filter, share web content that is important to you. Paper.il-Paper il crawls the web linked to your topic. Once set up the curation is updated automatically. Pearltrees - collects, organize and share everything you like on the web. Pinterest- a Virtual Pinboard that  lets you organize and share all the  things you find on the web. PostPost - PostPost is the Twitter strip search tool. It strips out the noise by delivering search results from the people on Twitter you value the most. Qrait- A realtime curation platform designed to fulfill the needs of content curators.Qrait lets you combine real-time filtering and your own personal touch to create something of value. Redux is a new kind of TV—hundreds of channels of entertaining, and-picked video, all from a  community of curators. Scoop.it- Create a topic of interest, Scoop.it crawls the web for related content that you can select and curate for your online magazine. Shareist - Lets you create your own custom curation website. discover, create, organize, and share content that matters to your audience. Snip.it- create collections of links (we call them snips), add your thoughts & discover others with relevant opinions on issues you care about. Story Crawler- intelligently searches and gathers information across multiple online platforms—whether it be social media, news articles, blogs, RSS feeds, video sites forums and user generated content—to bring users the most relevant real-time data.. Storyfy- Lets you curate social networks to build social stories, bringing together media scattered across the Web into a coherent narrative. Storyful-  Storyful was founded by journalists who wanted to separate the news from the noise of the real-time web. Storyful is used to curate “stories” via social media tools, images and videos. Summify- recently purchased by Twitter, Summify Creates a beautiful daily summary of the most relevant news from your social networks. Themeefy- discover, curate, compile and publish your knowledge from the web to personal Theme magazine(s). Yourversion “The best way to discover new content that’s relevant to you.” YourVersion brings you the latest news, blogs, tweets, and videos on your chosen topics in one place.YourVersion automatically organizes the bookmarks by topic for you. Now that is quite the list. Now, as you consider curation and select a tool, please share your experience here! Or perhaps you already curate-  do share your tips. Would love to hear from you.
View Separately

30+ Social Media Curation Sites and Tools

What is social media curation?

Today,  with the exponential growth of social networks and blogs,  it can be overwhelming searching for information on the internet. As a result, the act of filtering, selecting, reviewing and providing commentary with a perspective on an article, or collection of articles, have become increasingly important. This is known as social media curation.   A good media curator is someone who reads extensively, then can pull content and organize it in a logical way for the benefit of others. Web 2.0+ has an immense amount of information. Curators sort through it, find the wheat in the chaff, and present it in a friendly manner” . I would agree with this definition however would also add that a curator would also share their perspective  and perhaps alternative ( or supporting) viewpoint using the posts that they have selected.

Why curate?

Curation provides another offering for your on-line audience. It also helps reduce the noise of the plethora of information on the internet. Curation also provides a stream of fresh posts for your site or blog.

Curation sites

The number of curation sites and tools have grown dramatically. Furthermore, more recently the profile of curation  has been elevated as more organizations and entrepreneurs are looking at ways to augment their blogs or content. I personally usePinterest and am very new to it so I am feeling it out.

Changing gears a little bit, I would like to share that I am intrigued by Bookriff which is very new site and start-up. I learned about this site at a recent conference in Canada. Very exciting site that brings curation to another level. Bookriff allows you to select chapters from an assortment of books, add your own commentary and then publish it as a commercial book. Each time a Riff is distributed, all content owners get paid. BookRiff’s technology manages the authoring, bundling, licensing, attribution, and payment details for each of these custom compilations. Brilliant! How exciting. Love it! Potentially turning the publishing sector upside down.The mastermind and CEO  behind Bookriff is Rochelle Grayson. It was a total pleasure to hear her speak on this innovation.

Now it is time to share that list. Below, I have listed 30+ curation sites for your perusal. Enjoy!

  1. Aggregage- a new site with a content marketing focus.Agregage creates online “curated” communities by centralizing content from quality blogs, whitepapers, social networks around particular topics and then it is displayed on a new site dedicated to that given topic.
  2. Amplify- “The easiest way to clip, share and discuss things that interest you.”  Add the Amplify web clipper to your browser to clip and share things you find on the web.(Mar 7 2012: Amplify is closing down its site)
  3. BagTheweb-  BagTheWeb helps users curate Web content. For any topic, you can create a “bag” to collect, publish, and share any content from the Web.
  4. Blekko - “Provides a differentiated editorial voice in search.”
  5. BlogBridge- BlogBridge is for true info-junkies who want a better way to wrangle all their RSS feeds from blogs and news into one pretty cool organizer.
  6. Bookriff – . Riffs are remixes of published books, essays, magazine articles, and your own content.
  7. Bundlr-  Create topic pages with photos, videos, tweets and documents. Share them with everyone
  8. CIThread- This has a content marketing focus.Simplifies content marketing production, distribution, measurement & optimization across multiple initiatives & social channels
  9. Clipboard - Helps organize content, facilitates collaboration and sharing with others.
  10. Curata- Curata helps marketers maximize their content curation efforts with web-based tools to easily find, organize and share online content.
  11. Curated.by- let’s you collect & organize topic based content (media, links, tweets) into bundles.
  12. Curation Station - allows users to gather information, select the items that fit their goals, and then distribute them . A paid service targeting marketers.
  13. Eqentia “From your context, let us find you content. From that content, let us find you people. You take action.”  Aggregate, curate, and re-publish content what matters.
  14. Evri - automatically and constantly indexes millions of topic-specific streams from thousands of different sources to filter through the web and delivers customized news experiences.
  15. Factiva-a  business intelligence platform- with a unique combination of authoritative business news and Information, plus sophisticated tools, Factiva helps you easily find, monitor, interpret and share the essential information your organization commands.
  16. Feedly- a simple and elegant way to read and share the content of your favorite sites.
  17. Flockler- Drawing from social media and the web, publishing videos, photos and text, and personal commentary and editorial, Flockler lets you curate for a particular subject, event, person or business..
  18. iFlow- a real-time, online information exchange that brings together everything you want. You can organize, combine, filter, curate or remix your flows to get a different view on your content and/or to share.
  19. kbucket- KBucket is a user indexed search site. A place where experts “content curators” organize, comment, tag and publish their research
  20. Keepstream a social media curation tool that helps organize tweets,  into shareable, embeddable collection pages.
  21. Kurat helps you to discover relevant content on specific topics. Within Kurat you can easily curate this information and publish it. Kurat can be used as content discovery and publishing tool behind company social media efforts and as a personal newsreader.
  22. Loud3r-  a real-time content discovery, curation and publishing platform that delivers the best news, blogs, photos, videos and social media about any topic.
  23. My6sense -Read and share your relevant content from your RSS and social streams.
  24. Mlkshk- Save, Share and Discover.Use browser extensions to save with a simple right-click.Pick a topic (Shake) and  Invite other MLKSHKers in to post and curate their submissions with one click.
  25. Mysinydicaat- a personalized agregator built on the idea that it should be easy to collect, filter, share web content that is important to you.
  26. Paper.il-Paper il crawls the web linked to your topic. Once set up the curation is updated automatically.
  27. Pearltrees - collects, organize and share everything you like on the web.
  28. Pinterest- a Virtual Pinboard that  lets you organize and share all the  things you find on the web.
  29. PostPost - PostPost is the Twitter strip search tool. It strips out the noise by delivering search results from the people on Twitter you value the most.
  30. Qrait- A realtime curation platform designed to fulfill the needs of content curators.Qrait lets you combine real-time filtering and your own personal touch to create something of value.
  31. Redux is a new kind of TV—hundreds of channels of entertaining, and-picked video, all from a  community of curators.
  32. Scoop.it- Create a topic of interest, Scoop.it crawls the web for related content that you can select and curate for your online magazine.
  33. Shareist - Lets you create your own custom curation website. discover, create, organize, and share content that matters to your audience.
  34. Snip.it- create collections of links (we call them snips), add your thoughts & discover others with relevant opinions on issues you care about.
  35. Story Crawler- intelligently searches and gathers information across multiple online platforms—whether it be social media, news articles, blogs, RSS feeds, video sites forums and user generated content—to bring users the most relevant real-time data..
  36. Storyfy- Lets you curate social networks to build social stories, bringing together media scattered across the Web into a coherent narrative.
  37. Storyful-  Storyful was founded by journalists who wanted to separate the news from the noise of the real-time web. Storyful is used to curate “stories” via social media tools, images and videos.
  38. Summify- recently purchased by Twitter, Summify Creates a beautiful daily summary of the most relevant news from your social networks.
  39. Themeefy- discover, curate, compile and publish your knowledge from the web to personal Theme magazine(s).
  40. Yourversion “The best way to discover new content that’s relevant to you.” YourVersion brings you the latest news, blogs, tweets, and videos on your chosen topics in one place.YourVersion automatically organizes the bookmarks by topic for you.

Now that is quite the list. Now, as you consider curation and select a tool, please share your experience here! Or perhaps you already curate-  do share your tips. Would love to hear from you.

Source: vmswashington.wordpress.com

4 Simple Ways to get rid of Traffic and Build Your Business We’re going to talk about four ways that you can – starting today – lose traffic to your website or blog, yet still come out ahead in the long run. Clean Your Room You are a dirty (dirty, I said) little social media user, aren’t you? When’s the last time you cleaned out your Twitter account? Purged your Facebook friends? Took a really long, hard look at your LinkedIn connections. Your audience should make you proud, plain and simple. If you haven’t taken the time to clean out your audience, how do you know who’s really there? Sure, you can automate some of these tasks with monitoring tools like TwitSweeper – a service that scans yourTwitter followers for spam and blacklisted accounts each week and sheds the riff raff automatically – but the onus is on you. Think like a kid on this one: If you have so many toys in your toy box that the lid won’t even close, who are you going to get to the ones you really want to play with? You can’t. Because they’ll have fallen to the bottom of the box. Cultivating and curating your audience is a neverending obligation. And by ditching the wrongs, you make room for the rights. The people you truly want to develop relationships with. Loss: People who aren’t really customers or never will be. Gain: Space for real fans and time on your end to spend with them. Quit Acting Like You’re Walmart You do not have something for everyone. I promise. This is a short point, but great businesses are built because an audience knows how to use that business. Walmart is great if you want to go fill your cart with piles of crap, heave that crap into the back of your car, and then heave that crap into your house. Don’t make your audience heave and haul crap from place to place. When you take the time to admit what it is that you love, what offers you the smartest profit margins, and makes you smile at the beginning and end of every day – that’s what you should be focusing on.  The people who wanted to heave and haul crap? Sure, they’ll go away. But the good news is you’ll have a lot more time to spend on the audience who will gravitate toward who you are and what you do…and that’s because people who get what you do will refer you to people who need what you have to offer. And then suddenly, being Walmart doesn’t matter anymore. You’re a specialty bistro. Loss: Time wasted on trying to serve people things you don’t love serving. People who don’t really know what they want and don’t understand enough about you to bring you more loyal customers. Gain: Focus. Fans who know who your brand is and what it’s all about so they can hand-deliver more people just like them to your doorstep. Have an Opinion If you’ve ever stopped by RedheadWriting, you know I’m not afraid to have an opinion. It’s time to stop thinking that having an opinion is bad. When’s the last time you went to a dinner party and everyone around the table agreed on every single topic discussed? It’s the same way with brands and their audiences. We won’t always agree with our customers and customers won’t always agree with us. But great brands are willing to take a stand and abide by a certain set of beliefs. People will fall by the wayside – but that’s just it. They’re people. They have their own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Just like your very human brand. Don’t believe me? Think of one (just ONE) wishy-washy person in your life you’d be willing to throw yourself in front of a train to save. (Aside from a relative…) You want to cultivate an audience for your brand that will throw themselves in front of trains for you. And wishy-washy just doesn’t get that type of fan in your corner. Oh, and I might as well tell you now: You’re going to tick some people off along the way. It’s okay. Because by ticking them off and sending them away, you’re keeping the ones who truly matter and eventually, attracting more people just like them. Loss: The fear you’re going to offend some folks (because you are). The people who are easily offended by who you and your brand truly are. The people who never really liked YOU in the first place. Gain: People who share similar views and even when they don’t respect you and your brand for putting it out there. Say No (duh) With everyone crawling out of the woodwork saying that Pinterest is social’s destination-du-jour, maybe your brand should be the one saying no. Maybe you should say no toTwitter. Quora. Facebook. Honestly, maybe the only place you should be is LinkedIn or perhaps an industry-specific forum in addition to your blog (do you need a blog?). The beauty of our business climate is that it’s ripe with choices. It’s also a time- and soul-sucking curse. It’s time you say no to outlets that don’t serve you or your audience. And if you’re afraid of the 38 users you might miss on Pinterest by focusing on your 3800Facebook fans who chat, share, like, and promote your brand and result in conversions, I’ve got news for you. Those 38 people? They’ll still be on Pinterest if and when you decide it’s a good move to spend your time there. And if they’re not, well – no loss, really. Saying no in the social realm is something that we must get better at in business. It’s okay to while away the hours on one site or another sharing funny images and whatnot, but our businesses deserve a definitive NO. By walking away from outlets that don’t serve you OR your desired audience, you can stop being a follower and become a leader. Which is why I’m betting you went into business in the first place. Loss: Tendonitis caused from a wicked case of Helium Hand (you know, saying yes all the time). Audiences who aren’t interested enough in you or what you have to offer to understand where YOU live and hang out with you there. Audiences who probably aren’t very committed to a platform to justify your investment in it – especially if it’s the Next Big Thing. Gain: Smaller audiences that will – if they’re committed to you, find you in the places you dospend time. Time to focus on the outlets that mean the most to your brand and audience. A greater understanding of your brand and its audience, as you’ve listened to who they are, what they want, and where they live enough to know where you’d be best off spending your time. Are you looking for Business loans?  Learn more about Business Loans at: www.vms-washington.com and ask about the Durbin Amendment that was passed on October 2011 and how it will help you lower your credit card rates.
View Separately

4 Simple Ways to get rid of Traffic and Build Your Business

We’re going to talk about four ways that you can – starting today – lose traffic to your website or blog, yet still come out ahead in the long run.

Clean Your Room

You are a dirty (dirty, I said) little social media user, aren’t you? When’s the last time you cleaned out your Twitter account? Purged your Facebook friends? Took a really long, hard look at your LinkedIn connections.

Your audience should make you proud, plain and simple. If you haven’t taken the time to clean out your audience, how do you know who’s really there? Sure, you can automate some of these tasks with monitoring tools like TwitSweeper – a service that scans yourTwitter followers for spam and blacklisted accounts each week and sheds the riff raff automatically – but the onus is on you. Think like a kid on this one: If you have so many toys in your toy box that the lid won’t even close, who are you going to get to the ones you really want to play with?

You can’t. Because they’ll have fallen to the bottom of the box.

Cultivating and curating your audience is a neverending obligation. And by ditching the wrongs, you make room for the rights. The people you truly want to develop relationships with.

Loss: People who aren’t really customers or never will be.

Gain: Space for real fans and time on your end to spend with them.

Quit Acting Like You’re Walmart

You do not have something for everyone. I promise. This is a short point, but great businesses are built because an audience knows how to use that business. Walmart is great if you want to go fill your cart with piles of crap, heave that crap into the back of your car, and then heave that crap into your house.

Don’t make your audience heave and haul crap from place to place. When you take the time to admit what it is that you love, what offers you the smartest profit margins, and makes you smile at the beginning and end of every day – that’s what you should be focusing on.  The people who wanted to heave and haul crap? Sure, they’ll go away. But the good news is you’ll have a lot more time to spend on the audience who will gravitate toward who you are and what you do…and that’s because people who get what you do will refer you to people who need what you have to offer.

And then suddenly, being Walmart doesn’t matter anymore. You’re a specialty bistro.

Loss: Time wasted on trying to serve people things you don’t love serving. People who don’t really know what they want and don’t understand enough about you to bring you more loyal customers.

Gain: Focus. Fans who know who your brand is and what it’s all about so they can hand-deliver more people just like them to your doorstep.

Have an Opinion

If you’ve ever stopped by RedheadWriting, you know I’m not afraid to have an opinion. It’s time to stop thinking that having an opinion is bad.

When’s the last time you went to a dinner party and everyone around the table agreed on every single topic discussed? It’s the same way with brands and their audiences. We won’t always agree with our customers and customers won’t always agree with us. But great brands are willing to take a stand and abide by a certain set of beliefs. People will fall by the wayside – but that’s just it. They’re people. They have their own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Just like your very human brand.

Don’t believe me? Think of one (just ONE) wishy-washy person in your life you’d be willing to throw yourself in front of a train to save. (Aside from a relative…) You want to cultivate an audience for your brand that will throw themselves in front of trains for you. And wishy-washy just doesn’t get that type of fan in your corner.

Oh, and I might as well tell you now: You’re going to tick some people off along the way. It’s okay. Because by ticking them off and sending them away, you’re keeping the ones who truly matter and eventually, attracting more people just like them.

Loss: The fear you’re going to offend some folks (because you are). The people who are easily offended by who you and your brand truly are. The people who never really liked YOU in the first place.

Gain: People who share similar views and even when they don’t respect you and your brand for putting it out there.

Say No (duh)

With everyone crawling out of the woodwork saying that Pinterest is social’s destination-du-jour, maybe your brand should be the one saying no. Maybe you should say no toTwitter. Quora. Facebook. Honestly, maybe the only place you should be is LinkedIn or perhaps an industry-specific forum in addition to your blog (do you need a blog?).

The beauty of our business climate is that it’s ripe with choices. It’s also a time- and soul-sucking curse. It’s time you say no to outlets that don’t serve you or your audience. And if you’re afraid of the 38 users you might miss on Pinterest by focusing on your 3800Facebook fans who chat, share, like, and promote your brand and result in conversions, I’ve got news for you. Those 38 people? They’ll still be on Pinterest if and when you decide it’s a good move to spend your time there. And if they’re not, well – no loss, really.

Saying no in the social realm is something that we must get better at in business. It’s okay to while away the hours on one site or another sharing funny images and whatnot, but our businesses deserve a definitive NO. By walking away from outlets that don’t serve you OR your desired audience, you can stop being a follower and become a leader.

Which is why I’m betting you went into business in the first place.

Loss: Tendonitis caused from a wicked case of Helium Hand (you know, saying yes all the time). Audiences who aren’t interested enough in you or what you have to offer to understand where YOU live and hang out with you there. Audiences who probably aren’t very committed to a platform to justify your investment in it – especially if it’s the Next Big Thing.

Gain: Smaller audiences that will – if they’re committed to you, find you in the places you dospend time. Time to focus on the outlets that mean the most to your brand and audience. A greater understanding of your brand and its audience, as you’ve listened to who they are, what they want, and where they live enough to know where you’d be best off spending your time.

Are you looking for Business loans?  Learn more about Business Loans at: www.vms-washington.com and ask about the Durbin Amendment that was passed on October 2011 and how it will help you lower your credit card rates.

Source: vmswashington.wordpress.com

Facebook: Five Business Success Tips List of tips that can help a business create fabulous Facebook pages. 1) Create a Page People Want to Visit. What is it about your business that would make people want to come back to the page often, or create a community atmosphere?  Whatever that is, make your Facebook business page reflect that — instead of just asking people to buy your products, or touting the virtues of your management team.  For instance, American Family Insurance drew nearly 40,000 “Likes” when it added a Teen Safe Driving tab to its Facebook page for parents and teens looking for ways to negotiate the rules for new drivers, and one  featuring storybook favorite Clifford the Big Red Dog encouraging families to offer “be big” ideas for improving their local communities. 2) Plan for Success. Creating a Facebook page for your business and hoping for success is like any other kind of  “pray and spray” marketing effort:  doomed to failure.   You need amarketing plan for your Facebook page before you start the process.  What tools will you use to drive traffic?  (Facebook ads?  Organic search?  Promotion in your company’s other marketing channels?  PR?  Email?  All of these plus banner ads on your other websites linking back to Facebook?)  Don’t forget regular content updates — and communicating with your friends and fans.  (Not all Facebook updates show up on people’s news update pages — you have to interact with them before your data shows up on their update pages.) 3) Find Your Place. If you run a bricks-and-mortar business, find your place on Facebook Places, and encourage check-in and mapping.   (Set up your Foursquare presence at the same time, if you haven’t already.) Like other aspects of your Facebook business page, think carefully about how you can interact with your customers to encourage them to use Facebook Places, and what benefits your company can get — and offer to your guests — through Facebook Places. 4) Participate in the Conversation. Facebook is a place where people talk — and they expect others to talk back.  It’s not just a place where they are going to click “like” every time you post something new — even if they do like it.  So be prepared for comments, criticism, suggestions, and questions — and don’t automatically block or delete anything negative.  Remember, if you block an unhappy customer from posting on your Facebook page, they are perfectly free to post on their own — or start a page that highlights a customer service problem. 5) Select the Right Tools. Small businesses often start their social media marketing effort using free tools — but businesses in regulated industries such as insurance, financial services, and healthcare probably need the more robust compliance, monitoring, approval, and management tools available with social CRM tools like Socialware or Actiance.    For a list of free and paid tools, with examples, check out the downloadable presentation from a recentwebinar on the basics of social media marketing in a regulated environment. Why hasn’t your processor mentioned the Durbin Amendment?  Learn how to lower your card acceptance cost: www.vms-washington.com and ask about the Durbin Amendment that was passed on October 2011 and how it will help you lower your rates.
View Separately

Facebook: Five Business Success Tips

List of tips that can help a business create fabulous Facebook pages.

1) Create a Page People Want to Visit. What is it about your business that would make people want to come back to the page often, or create a community atmosphere?  Whatever that is, make your Facebook business page reflect that — instead of just asking people to buy your products, or touting the virtues of your management team.  For instance, American Family Insurance drew nearly 40,000 “Likes” when it added a Teen Safe Driving tab to its Facebook page for parents and teens looking for ways to negotiate the rules for new drivers, and one  featuring storybook favorite Clifford the Big Red Dog encouraging families to offer “be big” ideas for improving their local communities.

2) Plan for Success. Creating a Facebook page for your business and hoping for success is like any other kind of  “pray and spray” marketing effort:  doomed to failure.   You need amarketing plan for your Facebook page before you start the process.  What tools will you use to drive traffic?  (Facebook ads?  Organic search?  Promotion in your company’s other marketing channels?  PR?  Email?  All of these plus banner ads on your other websites linking back to Facebook?)  Don’t forget regular content updates — and communicating with your friends and fans.  (Not all Facebook updates show up on people’s news update pages — you have to interact with them before your data shows up on their update pages.)

3) Find Your Place. If you run a bricks-and-mortar business, find your place on Facebook Places, and encourage check-in and mapping.   (Set up your Foursquare presence at the same time, if you haven’t already.) Like other aspects of your Facebook business page, think carefully about how you can interact with your customers to encourage them to use Facebook Places, and what benefits your company can get — and offer to your guests — through Facebook Places.

4) Participate in the Conversation. Facebook is a place where people talk — and they expect others to talk back.  It’s not just a place where they are going to click “like” every time you post something new — even if they do like it.  So be prepared for comments, criticism, suggestions, and questions — and don’t automatically block or delete anything negative.  Remember, if you block an unhappy customer from posting on your Facebook page, they are perfectly free to post on their own — or start a page that highlights a customer service problem.

5) Select the Right Tools. Small businesses often start their social media marketing effort using free tools — but businesses in regulated industries such as insurance, financial services, and healthcare probably need the more robust compliance, monitoring, approval, and management tools available with social CRM tools like Socialware or Actiance.    For a list of free and paid tools, with examples, check out the downloadable presentation from a recentwebinar on the basics of social media marketing in a regulated environment.

Why hasn’t your processor mentioned the Durbin Amendment?  Learn how to lower your card acceptance cost: www.vms-washington.com and ask about the Durbin Amendment that was passed on October 2011 and how it will help you lower your rates.

Source: vmswashington.wordpress.com

5 Easy SEO Tips for Small Businesses The old saying “If you build it, they will come” does NOT apply to your Web site; you’ve got to do more than simply publish it and one of the best things is to increase your position on the search engine results page.  A beautifully designed website is great for a company’s image. However, the same website with no traffic is bad for business. Read these five easy non-technical SEO strategies to improve your websites visibility and traffic. Step One – Google Local Business ListingIt is no secret; Google is king of the search engines. This is why the majority of your SEO efforts should be focused on having your website indexed by Google. It is not likely that your small local business will be able to compete with large national companies, their keywords and SEO efforts. However, it appears Google has realized this and has accommodated the small local business owner by creating free Google Local Business Listings. Many times if a Google user searches for a particular business niche and types in a city, the Google Local Listings will appear before all other listings. Also, new technology (mainly smart phones) allows for Internet users’ geographical location to be automatically updated and provided to the search engine. With automatic location updates, Google Local Listings are very important for relevant searches (the best example could be the use of the service for a local restaurant or store). Because of this, it is important that all small businesses claim and optimize their Google Local Business Listing. Claiming and updating the information can be very beneficial from a business standpoint by attracting new customers and improving online presence. Claiming a Google Local Listing is simple, free and quick. All you have to do is sign up for a Google account and claim your business. Once signed in you will be able to optimize your account by entering in your services/products, updating your location, providing contact information, uploading images/video, and adding other relevant business information. After your updates are complete you will be sent a PIN and need to enter it in order for the listing to be seen by Google users. *Be sure to read the Google user agreement and follow all of the conditions in the agreement. Failure to do so could result in the removal of your Google Local Business Listing. Step Two – Begin Blogging on your Website Blogging is a very important aspect of SEO. Today’s search engines love new, fresh content and a blog is the best and easiest way to generate fresh content on your website. Many of the pages on your website are most likely static and change infrequently. This alone can keep your site from appearing in search engines. A blog serves several purposes for your business and website. Foremost, a blog is a great way to interact with your current and future customers. It allows your company the opportunity to discuss important news and information quickly, easily, and affordably. A blog also allows your company to be seen as an authority in your industry – resulting in increased customer trust and respect. Blogging allows your business to showcase it’s strengths by putting the company’s expertise into words. A blog can also make your company larger through sharing and linking. Every new reader that shares your article could potentially assist you in gaining new customers! Each blog entry should focus on one topic and should attack one keyword or phrase. The title should contain the keyword or phrase and encourage reading, filled with useful, relevant information. These are just a few great ways to use your business blogas an SEO tool for your website. *A business blog should be considered even if you are not interested in SEO. Step Three – Social Bookmarking for Traffic Once you have completed steps one and two, it is time to start driving traffic to your website using free social bookmarking tools. There are a number of social bookmarking websites,Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and many more; each is a great way of introducing Internet users and search engines to your website and content. Every time a new blog entry is written, it should immediately be bookmarked on the social bookmarking website of your choice (or all of them). Bookmarking each new blog entry helps increase links to your website and provides an easy way for interested readers/customers to find your website and content. By bookmarking the pages and new content of your website, you are helping search engines quickly locate your website and index new information. If your bookmarks receive additional attention from other users, of the bookmarking website, search engines will notice this and give your site much more attention. The effects of social bookmarking can last many months, but it is best practice to continually and consistently update your website content with new blog entries and same day bookmarking. http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social-bookmarking-websites is a great list of the 20 most popular social bookmarking websites. Step Four – Utilize Twitter Effectively If you are serious about SEO and creating a strong online presence for your business, you should sign up for Twitter. Twitter is a free service that allows users to follow other users and share information. Twitter is great for business! Twitter allows small businesses to easily and freely connect and communicate with new customers. In addition, it is a great business networking tool that can help small businesses interact and connect with other successful companies. Do NOT use Twitter to continually spam other users with links to your website. Doing this will accomplish nothing, except for zero followers and zero benefits from the service. Instead, use Twitter as a way to meet new people and share relevant information in your industry. Once you have created a decent following (60 followers), you can begin tweeting links to new blog entries and information on your website. Search engines will follow the links and quickly index your website. Should your tweet be retweeted by another Twitter user, search engines will give even more attention to your Twitter account and website. These are just a few of the great uses Twitter provides small businesses. Step 5 – Get Links through Directories Inbound links are very important for SEO. Inbound links are other websites linking to your website. Inbound links can be difficult to obtain, but the easiest way is by submitting your website to directories. Not all directories are created equal; links from unrelated websites could have zero SEO influence and serve no purpose (for instance, it makes no sense for a plumbing company to submit their website to a massage therapist directory). Each industry tends to have established niche directories with relevant information and good link quality. So, do some research and locate directories that relate to your industry and submit your website. Many of these directories are free but some charge a listing fee. Every company interested in SEO also needs to submit their website to the DMOZ Open Directory. The directory is free and very important for SEO. *Before submitting your website to DMOZ, be sure to read the user agreement and do not violate any of the conditions. That’s all! There you have it – five easy non-technical SEO steps for small business owners. It is very important to note that these are just a few techniques to increase search engine visibility and increase website traffic. However, using these strategies on a poorly designed website with bad navigation, bad code, bad title tags, bad keywords, and other negative attributes will not provide the same results as would be seen on a website designed for SEO, which focuses on easy navigation and search engine accessibility. Why hasn’t your processor mentioned the Durbin Amendment?Learn how to lower your card acceptance cost: www.vms-washington.com and ask about the Durbin Amendment that was passed on October 2011 and how it will help you lower your rates. 
View Separately

5 Easy SEO Tips for Small Businesses

The old saying “If you build it, they will come” does NOT apply to your Web site; you’ve got to do more than simply publish it and one of the best things is to increase your position on the search engine results page. 

A beautifully designed website is great for a company’s image. However, the same website with no traffic is bad for business. Read these five easy non-technical SEO strategies to improve your websites visibility and traffic.

Step One – Google Local Business Listing
It is no secret; Google is king of the search engines. This is why the majority of your SEO efforts should be focused on having your website indexed by Google. It is not likely that your small local business will be able to compete with large national companies, their keywords and SEO efforts. However, it appears Google has realized this and has accommodated the small local business owner by creating free Google Local Business Listings. Many times if a Google user searches for a particular business niche and types in a city, the Google Local Listings will appear before all other listings.

Also, new technology (mainly smart phones) allows for Internet users’ geographical location to be automatically updated and provided to the search engine. With automatic location updates, Google Local Listings are very important for relevant searches (the best example could be the use of the service for a local restaurant or store). Because of this, it is important that all small businesses claim and optimize their Google Local Business Listing. Claiming and updating the information can be very beneficial from a business standpoint by attracting new customers and improving online presence.

Claiming a Google Local Listing is simple, free and quick. All you have to do is sign up for a Google account and claim your business. Once signed in you will be able to optimize your account by entering in your services/products, updating your location, providing contact information, uploading images/video, and adding other relevant business information. After your updates are complete you will be sent a PIN and need to enter it in order for the listing to be seen by Google users.

*Be sure to read the Google user agreement and follow all of the conditions in the agreement. Failure to do so could result in the removal of your Google Local Business Listing.

Step Two – Begin Blogging on your Website

Blogging is a very important aspect of SEO. Today’s search engines love new, fresh content and a blog is the best and easiest way to generate fresh content on your website. Many of the pages on your website are most likely static and change infrequently. This alone can keep your site from appearing in search engines. A blog serves several purposes for your business and website.

Foremost, a blog is a great way to interact with your current and future customers. It allows your company the opportunity to discuss important news and information quickly, easily, and affordably. A blog also allows your company to be seen as an authority in your industry – resulting in increased customer trust and respect. Blogging allows your business to showcase it’s strengths by putting the company’s expertise into words. A blog can also make your company larger through sharing and linking. Every new reader that shares your article could potentially assist you in gaining new customers!

Each blog entry should focus on one topic and should attack one keyword or phrase. The title should contain the keyword or phrase and encourage reading, filled with useful, relevant information. These are just a few great ways to use your business blogas an SEO tool for your website.

*A business blog should be considered even if you are not interested in SEO.

Step Three – Social Bookmarking for Traffic

Once you have completed steps one and two, it is time to start driving traffic to your website using free social bookmarking tools. There are a number of social bookmarking websites,Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and many more; each is a great way of introducing Internet users and search engines to your website and content. Every time a new blog entry is written, it should immediately be bookmarked on the social bookmarking website of your choice (or all of them). Bookmarking each new blog entry helps increase links to your website and provides an easy way for interested readers/customers to find your website and content. By bookmarking the pages and new content of your website, you are helping search engines quickly locate your website and index new information. If your bookmarks receive additional attention from other users, of the bookmarking website, search engines will notice this and give your site much more attention.

The effects of social bookmarking can last many months, but it is best practice to continually and consistently update your website content with new blog entries and same day bookmarking.

http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social-bookmarking-websites is a great list of the 20 most popular social bookmarking websites.

Step Four – Utilize Twitter Effectively

If you are serious about SEO and creating a strong online presence for your business, you should sign up for Twitter. Twitter is a free service that allows users to follow other users and share information. Twitter is great for business! Twitter allows small businesses to easily and freely connect and communicate with new customers. In addition, it is a great business networking tool that can help small businesses interact and connect with other successful companies.

Do NOT use Twitter to continually spam other users with links to your website. Doing this will accomplish nothing, except for zero followers and zero benefits from the service. Instead, use Twitter as a way to meet new people and share relevant information in your industry. Once you have created a decent following (60 followers), you can begin tweeting links to new blog entries and information on your website. Search engines will follow the links and quickly index your website. Should your tweet be retweeted by another Twitter user, search engines will give even more attention to your Twitter account and website. These are just a few of the great uses Twitter provides small businesses.

Step 5 – Get Links through Directories

Inbound links are very important for SEO. Inbound links are other websites linking to your website. Inbound links can be difficult to obtain, but the easiest way is by submitting your website to directories. Not all directories are created equal; links from unrelated websites could have zero SEO influence and serve no purpose (for instance, it makes no sense for a plumbing company to submit their website to a massage therapist directory). Each industry tends to have established niche directories with relevant information and good link quality. So, do some research and locate directories that relate to your industry and submit your website. Many of these directories are free but some charge a listing fee.

Every company interested in SEO also needs to submit their website to the DMOZ Open Directory. The directory is free and very important for SEO.

*Before submitting your website to DMOZ, be sure to read the user agreement and do not violate any of the conditions.

That’s all!

There you have it – five easy non-technical SEO steps for small business owners. It is very important to note that these are just a few techniques to increase search engine visibility and increase website traffic. However, using these strategies on a poorly designed website with bad navigation, bad code, bad title tags, bad keywords, and other negative attributes will not provide the same results as would be seen on a website designed for SEO, which focuses on easy navigation and search engine accessibility.

Why hasn’t your processor mentioned the Durbin Amendment?Learn how to lower your card acceptance cost: www.vms-washington.com and ask about the Durbin Amendment that was passed on October 2011 and how it will help you lower your rates. 

Source: vmswashington.wordpress.com

How to Get Over 100 Tweets on Autopilot on Each and Every Post You Write I am asked over and over again how I manage to get over a hundred tweets per post on a regular basis. The answer is actually quite simple and, in many ways, very obvious: it’s all about networking and collaboration. Here are my 7 ways to get an impressive number of retweets nearly on autopilot. 1. Quantity Matters I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – quantity of your Twitter followers does matter. Of course, I am not discounting quality either. As a matter of fact, we will talk about it a little later. You have to admit though: with 32K+ followers, my posts are much more likely to get retweeted for that reason alone. I can see that those of you who are following me @VMS_Washington are raising their eyebrows: 32K? What is he talking about? The thing is that my followers are divided into 6 different Twitter accounts. Not only this strategy helps me to get the maximum number of followers in the shortest period of time, but also every time I send a tweet about my blog post, I get 6 RTs instead of one. Bottom line for me was that quality is important for networking, but without quantity yoursocial media traffic generation will go down the drain. 2. Quality Is the Key Now that we talked about quantity, here’s what I think of quality when it comes down to social interaction. It’s IMPERATIVE. You have to respond to your followers. You have to initiate conversations with them. You also have to initiate/follow/respond to tweets from more influential bloggers you’d like to get to know better or rather be known by them. For every tweeted post from my own blog, I retweet several posts by other bloggers. 3. Collaborate In other words, create a small group of bloggers in the same niche as yours and agree to add each other’s RSS feeds to your Twitter accounts, whether you use MarketMeSuite, Hootsuite, or Twitterfeed.com. It goes without saying that you need to choose wisely here. If your group gets too big, it’ll be too difficult to know who is holding their side of the bargain. Smaller group is best, and by that I mean 15-20 bloggers – that’s my sweet spot. So now, every time you publish a post, it’ll be automatically RTed by everyone in your group, as well as you’ll be automatically RTing their content, so it doesn’t appear like all you do is self-promote your own blog. Quality issue: since you need to limit the number of bloggers in your group (in my opinion), you HAVE TO make sure that: 1. These bloggers have a substantial influence in the twittersphere. Always try to make sure that the bloggers you recruit have at least the same or ideally many more Twitter followers and their content gets RTed by their followers (just take a look at the number of RTs they get on their own posts). 2. Also, make sure their content is of quality – since you’ll be automatically RTing it, it’d better be good or you’ll loose credibility with your own followers. Where to find collaborators: everywhere. Literally. Look for blogs in the same niche that you like and contact their owners, explaining the benefits of collaboration. Check out the people you follow on Twitter – the ones you’d really like to connect with – and send them a DM or, better yet, go to their blog and use the contact form to get in touch with them. Look for existing collaboration groups you can join. If you notice the same people RTing each other’s content, chances are they are in a group of sorts. Be creative and don’t be afraid to create your own group, if you can’t find any to join. Hint: Skype is a perfect place to create a group like that. That way you can always send everyone a message to share your post on different networks. 4. Send Email to Your List Every time you send an email to your list letting them know you’ve got a new post up, make it easy for them to RT your post right from your email. That way, even if they don’t have the time to read your post, they still might RT it, IF you make it simple. I, like most bloggers I know, use Aweber for my email autoresponder and as of right now there’s no way to add social media sharing buttons to your emails.However, I found an easy way to do it directly from an email through a free service called ClickToTweet. It’s rather simple, really – you write a tweet the way you’d like to, include your shortened link and your @Mention and click “Generate Link!” And voila – you now have a link you can add to your Aweber or whatever other autoresponder you are using and all your subscribers have to do is to click on it to retweet. 5. Show Favoritism It’s funny because I use them a lot to bring my new Twitter followers back to my blog, yet I completely ignore my own inbox since it takes so long to get rid of a bunch of spam in search of a couple of legit messages. Well, what happens is that not all messages are spam and some of my followers sometimes request that I take a look at their blog posts and RT them. Once I do that, I, per Kristi’s suggestion, keep their ID in a text file and occasionally ask them to RT one of my posts that I really want to do well. 6. Use Triberr.com Triberr.com is still a fairly new service created by Dino Dogan geared specifically towards forming groups with one common purpose – to RT each other’s stuff. This has recently become my trump RT card. Because of the kind of tribe I am in, my content has quite a reach, and yours can too. 7. Use Plugins Definitely, make it easy for your readers to RT your content. Here’s what I use on my blog to encourage RTs: 1. Social media sharing buttons to the right of the page. It’s not a plugin I use; these are hard-coded into my theme and are actually pretty easy to add. The reason they are hard-coded is because of speed – I don’t need yet another plugin to slow down my blog. If you don’t know how to do it, just choose one of the multitude of social sharing plugins. 2. I also use Twitter @Anywhere plugin at the end of each posts – it’s one of the easiest ways I found to get your readers to RT your content because all it takes is one click. 3. CommentLuv Premium: the recent paid version of the famous plugin has significantly increased my reader engagement by offering them a choice to RT my post, “like” it on Facebook, or click on +1 in order to get access to their last 10 posts. Marketing Takeaway Some of these methods require some initial investment of time and / or money, but once set up, they can run on autopilot, which is my favorite part about this whole Twitter promotion process. Are there more ways to promote your post on Twitter and get more RTs? I am sure. Are there any more automated ways to do it? I doubt it. Final word of wisdom: the number of RTs your post gets is not always reflective of the amount of traffic you might get. A high retweet number is nice to have for social proof and self-satisfaction, but you should never rely upon your RTs alone to bring you traffic. Why hasn’t your processor mentioned the Durbin Amendment?Learn how to lower your card acceptance cost: www.vms-washington.com and ask about the Durbin Amendment that was passed on October 2011 and how it will help you lower your rates. 
View Separately

How to Get Over 100 Tweets on Autopilot on Each and Every Post You Write

I am asked over and over again how I manage to get over a hundred tweets per post on a regular basis.

The answer is actually quite simple and, in many ways, very obvious: it’s all about networking and collaboration.

Here are my 7 ways to get an impressive number of retweets nearly on autopilot.

1. Quantity Matters

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – quantity of your Twitter followers does matter.

Of course, I am not discounting quality either. As a matter of fact, we will talk about it a little later.

You have to admit though: with 32K+ followers, my posts are much more likely to get retweeted for that reason alone.

I can see that those of you who are following me @VMS_Washington are raising their eyebrows: 32K? What is he talking about?

The thing is that my followers are divided into 6 different Twitter accounts.

Not only this strategy helps me to get the maximum number of followers in the shortest period of time, but also every time I send a tweet about my blog post, I get 6 RTs instead of one.

Bottom line for me was that quality is important for networking, but without quantity yoursocial media traffic generation will go down the drain.

2. Quality Is the Key

Now that we talked about quantity, here’s what I think of quality when it comes down to social interaction.

It’s IMPERATIVE.

You have to respond to your followers.

You have to initiate conversations with them.

You also have to initiate/follow/respond to tweets from more influential bloggers you’d like to get to know better or rather be known by them.

For every tweeted post from my own blog, I retweet several posts by other bloggers.

3. Collaborate

In other words, create a small group of bloggers in the same niche as yours and agree to add each other’s RSS feeds to your Twitter accounts, whether you use MarketMeSuite, Hootsuite, or Twitterfeed.com.

It goes without saying that you need to choose wisely here.

If your group gets too big, it’ll be too difficult to know who is holding their side of the bargain.

Smaller group is best, and by that I mean 15-20 bloggers – that’s my sweet spot.

So now, every time you publish a post, it’ll be automatically RTed by everyone in your group, as well as you’ll be automatically RTing their content, so it doesn’t appear like all you do is self-promote your own blog.

Quality issue: since you need to limit the number of bloggers in your group (in my opinion), you HAVE TO make sure that:

1. These bloggers have a substantial influence in the twittersphere.

Always try to make sure that the bloggers you recruit have at least the same or ideally many more Twitter followers and their content gets RTed by their followers (just take a look at the number of RTs they get on their own posts).

2. Also, make sure their content is of quality – since you’ll be automatically RTing it, it’d better be good or you’ll loose credibility with your own followers.

Where to find collaborators: everywhere.

Literally.

Look for blogs in the same niche that you like and contact their owners, explaining the benefits of collaboration.

Check out the people you follow on Twitter – the ones you’d really like to connect with – and send them a DM or, better yet, go to their blog and use the contact form to get in touch with them.

Look for existing collaboration groups you can join.

If you notice the same people RTing each other’s content, chances are they are in a group of sorts.

Be creative and don’t be afraid to create your own group, if you can’t find any to join.

Hint: Skype is a perfect place to create a group like that. That way you can always send everyone a message to share your post on different networks.

4. Send Email to Your List

Every time you send an email to your list letting them know you’ve got a new post up, make it easy for them to RT your post right from your email.

That way, even if they don’t have the time to read your post, they still might RT it, IF you make it simple.

I, like most bloggers I know, use Aweber for my email autoresponder and as of right now there’s no way to add social media sharing buttons to your emails.
However, I found an easy way to do it directly from an email through a free service called ClickToTweet.

It’s rather simple, really – you write a tweet the way you’d like to, include your shortened link and your @Mention and click “Generate Link!”

And voila – you now have a link you can add to your Aweber or whatever other autoresponder you are using and all your subscribers have to do is to click on it to retweet.

5. Show Favoritism

It’s funny because I use them a lot to bring my new Twitter followers back to my blog, yet I completely ignore my own inbox since it takes so long to get rid of a bunch of spam in search of a couple of legit messages.

Well, what happens is that not all messages are spam and some of my followers sometimes request that I take a look at their blog posts and RT them.

Once I do that, I, per Kristi’s suggestion, keep their ID in a text file and occasionally ask them to RT one of my posts that I really want to do well.

6. Use Triberr.com

Triberr.com is still a fairly new service created by Dino Dogan geared specifically towards forming groups with one common purpose – to RT each other’s stuff.

This has recently become my trump RT card. Because of the kind of tribe I am in, my content has quite a reach, and yours can too.

7. Use Plugins

Definitely, make it easy for your readers to RT your content.

Here’s what I use on my blog to encourage RTs:

1. Social media sharing buttons to the right of the page.

It’s not a plugin I use; these are hard-coded into my theme and are actually pretty easy to add.

The reason they are hard-coded is because of speed – I don’t need yet another plugin to slow down my blog.

If you don’t know how to do it, just choose one of the multitude of social sharing plugins.

2. I also use Twitter @Anywhere plugin at the end of each posts – it’s one of the easiest ways I found to get your readers to RT your content because all it takes is one click.

3. CommentLuv Premium: the recent paid version of the famous plugin has significantly increased my reader engagement by offering them a choice to RT my post, “like” it on Facebook, or click on +1 in order to get access to their last 10 posts.

Marketing Takeaway

Some of these methods require some initial investment of time and / or money, but once set up, they can run on autopilot, which is my favorite part about this whole Twitter promotion process.

Are there more ways to promote your post on Twitter and get more RTs? I am sure.

Are there any more automated ways to do it? I doubt it.

Final word of wisdom: the number of RTs your post gets is not always reflective of the amount of traffic you might get.

A high retweet number is nice to have for social proof and self-satisfaction, but you should never rely upon your RTs alone to bring you traffic.

Why hasn’t your processor mentioned the Durbin Amendment?Learn how to lower your card acceptance cost: www.vms-washington.com and ask about the Durbin Amendment that was passed on October 2011 and how it will help you lower your rates. 

Source: vmswashington.wordpress.com

Your Average Facebook Post Only Reaches 16% Of Your Friends You’re not unpopular, it’s just the nature of the news feed. Amongst all the business-related news at FMC, Facebook revealed that the average news feed story from a user profile reaches just 16 percent of their friends. Your actively shared links, photos, and status updates probably reach much higher than 16 percent of your friends, while more inane auto-generated posts about new friendships, wall posts, and articles you read may only be seen by your closest buddies. Overall, this is actually a good thing, because the reduced visibility of irrelevant content makes room for what you want to see. But don’t be alarmed if all your friends don’t like that awesome concert photo, they may just be offline. After his Q&A session about ads during the Facebook Marketing Conference, I followed up with Boland, asking if the 16 percent average distribution rate hampered communication. He defended Facebook’s news feed, saying “No, there are pieces of content you create that are interesting, and there’s some that are not.” And the 16 percent doesn’t just apply to users. Business Pages have the same average reach, which is why Facebook is launching its new “Reach Generator” to help marketers buy extra distribution of their Page posts on the ads sidebar, in the web and mobile news feed, and even on the logout page. The stat from Director of Product Marketing Brian Boland was backed up by VP Chris Cox who said this holds true “in aggregate across all profiles, all types of content, all interactions, all ages, and all demographics.” By reducing the reach of low relevance posts, Facebook leaves news feed space for compelling wedding photos, new job announcements, funny videos, and urgent questions. Still, it means the ambient intimacy of the news feed can’t completely replace the reliability for direct communication. Why hasn’t your processor mentioned the Durbin Amendment?Learn how to lower your card acceptance cost: www.vms-washington.com and ask about the Durbin Amendment that was passed on October 2011 and how it will help you lower your rates. 
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Your Average Facebook Post Only Reaches 16% Of Your Friends

You’re not unpopular, it’s just the nature of the news feed. Amongst all the business-related news at FMC, Facebook revealed that the average news feed story from a user profile reaches just 16 percent of their friends. Your actively shared links, photos, and status updates probably reach much higher than 16 percent of your friends, while more inane auto-generated posts about new friendships, wall posts, and articles you read may only be seen by your closest buddies.

Overall, this is actually a good thing, because the reduced visibility of irrelevant content makes room for what you want to see. But don’t be alarmed if all your friends don’t like that awesome concert photo, they may just be offline.

After his Q&A session about ads during the Facebook Marketing Conference, I followed up with Boland, asking if the 16 percent average distribution rate hampered communication. He defended Facebook’s news feed, saying “No, there are pieces of content you create that are interesting, and there’s some that are not.” And the 16 percent doesn’t just apply to users. Business Pages have the same average reach, which is why Facebook is launching its new “Reach Generator” to help marketers buy extra distribution of their Page posts on the ads sidebar, in the web and mobile news feed, and even on the logout page.

The stat from Director of Product Marketing Brian Boland was backed up by VP Chris Cox who said this holds true “in aggregate across all profiles, all types of content, all interactions, all ages, and all demographics.” By reducing the reach of low relevance posts, Facebook leaves news feed space for compelling wedding photos, new job announcements, funny videos, and urgent questions. Still, it means the ambient intimacy of the news feed can’t completely replace the reliability for direct communication.

Why hasn’t your processor mentioned the Durbin Amendment?Learn how to lower your card acceptance cost: www.vms-washington.com and ask about the Durbin Amendment that was passed on October 2011 and how it will help you lower your rates. 

Source: vmswashington.wordpress.com

5 Ways To Manage Social Media Overload Have you conversed on Facebook, tweeted your favorite articles, and checked into Foursquare yet today? What about pinned an image on Pinterest, bought or sold stock on Empire Avenue, and done whatever it is people are doing on Google+ nowadays? I won’t even ask about the number of blogs you’ve read or mobile apps you’ve used. Just thinking about these tasks can cause some to become overwhelmed—they experience “social media overload.” New social networks and tools are introduced every day, which means new challenges and questions for marketing professionals, social media strategists, and average people looking to brand themselves online. Which platforms should I use? When should I use them? There are only 24 hours in a day, how do I find the time to manage all my networks?! I’ll admit, there’ve been times I felt like I was stretched pretty thin trying to keep up with various obligatory social tasks. Thankfully, I no longer feel that way (most of the time). Here are a few of the steps I took that really helped manage the social mediaoverload. 1. Prioritize Which tasks are the most essential? Determining your priorities is crucial in managing your time online. When you are faced with a giant list of tasks that need to be done, invest your time and energy first where it will make the most impact, and later return to do tasks that aren’t as much of a priority. For me, responding to Facebook and blogcomments ranks above tweeting my favorite articles, so I do those first. 2. Filter If you always have hundreds of unread blog stories in your feed reader or you skip over a certain user’s updates on a routine basis, it’s time to get picky. There is such a thing as subscribing to too many things. After all, what is the point of following or subscribing to people if you never ever read what they are saying? I’ve cut down on the number of blogs I subscribe to, and it has helped a lot. There’s also something cathartic about trimming those lists, have fun! 3. Aggregate Applications like TweetDeck and HootSuite can do many things to help you save time and feel less overwhelmed. It is easy to save searches for terms, see direct messages and mentions from Twitter at a glance, and collect information from multiple platforms so you can read it in one place. Signing up for one of these tools (I recommend HootSuite) will save you time in the long run. 4. Automate We all have lives, right? This means we aren’t online all the time. Using a tool to schedule your updates means you can plan what to say and let the tool publish it for you at a specified time. HootSuite, TweetDeck and Buffer are all great scheduling applications to use. 5. Relax If you have to take a break from the Internet for a few days to interact with real humans (which I promise won’t kill you), know that it will still be there when you get back. On the Internet, everything is archived. If you feel like catching up after being gone for a while, all it takes is visiting a few RSS feeds or scrolling down some Timelines. Then, jump back in right where you left off. Part of the fun of social media can be trying different things and sorting through the chaos to find something you truly enjoy. If that chaos ever gets to be too much to handle, I hope these tips will help with your case of “social media overload.” Have you ever felt like you were spreading yourself too thin with social media? If you have other ways of managing overload let me know in the comments below. Why hasn’t your processor mentioned the Durbin Amendment?Learn how to lower your card acceptance cost: www.vms-washington.com and ask about the Durbin Amendment that was passed on October 2011 and how it will help you lower your rates. 
View Separately

5 Ways To Manage Social Media Overload

Have you conversed on Facebook, tweeted your favorite articles, and checked into Foursquare yet today? What about pinned an image on Pinterest, bought or sold stock on Empire Avenue, and done whatever it is people are doing on Google+ nowadays? I won’t even ask about the number of blogs you’ve read or mobile apps you’ve used. Just thinking about these tasks can cause some to become overwhelmed—they experience “social media overload.”

New social networks and tools are introduced every day, which means new challenges and questions for marketing professionals, social media strategists, and average people looking to brand themselves online. Which platforms should I use? When should I use them? There are only 24 hours in a day, how do I find the time to manage all my networks?!

I’ll admit, there’ve been times I felt like I was stretched pretty thin trying to keep up with various obligatory social tasks. Thankfully, I no longer feel that way (most of the time). Here are a few of the steps I took that really helped manage the social mediaoverload.

1. Prioritize

Which tasks are the most essential? Determining your priorities is crucial in managing your time online. When you are faced with a giant list of tasks that need to be done, invest your time and energy first where it will make the most impact, and later return to do tasks that aren’t as much of a priority. For me, responding to Facebook and blogcomments ranks above tweeting my favorite articles, so I do those first.

2. Filter

If you always have hundreds of unread blog stories in your feed reader or you skip over a certain user’s updates on a routine basis, it’s time to get picky. There is such a thing as subscribing to too many things. After all, what is the point of following or subscribing to people if you never ever read what they are saying? I’ve cut down on the number of blogs I subscribe to, and it has helped a lot. There’s also something cathartic about trimming those lists, have fun!

3. Aggregate

Applications like TweetDeck and HootSuite can do many things to help you save time and feel less overwhelmed. It is easy to save searches for terms, see direct messages and mentions from Twitter at a glance, and collect information from multiple platforms so you can read it in one place. Signing up for one of these tools (I recommend HootSuite) will save you time in the long run.

4. Automate

We all have lives, right? This means we aren’t online all the time. Using a tool to schedule your updates means you can plan what to say and let the tool publish it for you at a specified time. HootSuite, TweetDeck and Buffer are all great scheduling applications to use.

5. Relax

If you have to take a break from the Internet for a few days to interact with real humans (which I promise won’t kill you), know that it will still be there when you get back. On the Internet, everything is archived. If you feel like catching up after being gone for a while, all it takes is visiting a few RSS feeds or scrolling down some Timelines. Then, jump back in right where you left off.

Part of the fun of social media can be trying different things and sorting through the chaos to find something you truly enjoy. If that chaos ever gets to be too much to handle, I hope these tips will help with your case of “social media overload.”

Have you ever felt like you were spreading yourself too thin with social media? If you have other ways of managing overload let me know in the comments below.

Why hasn’t your processor mentioned the Durbin Amendment?Learn how to lower your card acceptance cost: www.vms-washington.com and ask about the Durbin Amendment that was passed on October 2011 and how it will help you lower your rates. 

Source: vmswashington.wordpress.com