I recently participated in a teleclinic about social media called Get Connected. Get Found.™. Debra Murphy of Masterful Marketing in Marlborough, MA developed and delivered the program. The clinic included two 90-minute sessions, a week apart.  Participants dialed in to get connected via the phone, then followed along as Ms. Murphy presented the information in the packet of (over 40) slides she had prepared for each session. Participants asked questions and discussed as each topic was covered.

The slides included:

1. Detailed information about the social media websites
2. Step-by-step instructions on how to set up your social media accounts in a way that presents you in the best light.
3. Tips on how to get the Big 3 (LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter) to play together (so you can avoid duplicating your efforts when updating). Come to find out,  you’ll need a Google account and Google Alerts to help.
4. And, so much more.

I signed up for the teleclinic because I had set up accounts at the Big 3, and over the past year and a half, have dabbled at each site, not really understanding how to make them “work” for me. My original intent was to focus on LinkedIn and Facebook, and maintain a presence at Twitter – because I had to. Turns out that what I considered to be the black sheep in the trio (Twitter), resulted in more connections, more immediate responses, more information being shared, and yes, more community. That was an eye opener!

I came to the teleclinic thinking, “I’ve got my accounts at the Big 3 – Now What?” I learned that it is not enough to just have “accounts” set up with each of the social media websites. It is important to present a consistent “persona” across all of the social media websites – and that involves defining your “message” and “image”, strategizing, and planning. I also learned that the Big 3 (when set up correctly) play together well, and, that there is a plethora of adjunct tools that are available to help you keep the websites updated and in synch, and track interactions.

So, the teleclinic is chock full of information and tips that guide you through the social media experience. In addition to the slide packets for each session, participants received recordings of the sessions – and – a copy of Ms. Murphy’s e-book entitled, Get Connected. Get Found.™: The Practical Guide to Marketing Using Social Media. 

I highly recommend that web professionals and web diy’ers participate in this social media teleclinic. The next sessions are June 16 & June 23, 2009. To learn more about the teleclinic and/or to sign up visit Get Connected. Get Found™.  More information about Debra Murphy of Masterful Marketing.

Ego searches are searches that you perform looking for information on the Internet about you (your company and/or products). They are referred to as “ego” because they are searches to find out what people are saying about “you” (as opposed to what they are saying about your peers and competitors).

Three popular ways of performing ego searches are:

1. Active: Going to a search engine and entering your name in the search box
2. Passive: Adding a Google Alert
3. Passive: Entering your name (company name and/or products) in your RSS reader

You may want to start your search with an active (manual) search. After you do that several times, you will realize that a passive search will help tremendously – from a time management standpoint. 

When implementing a passive strategy, the references to your name are searched for by Internet tools and the search results are delivered to you (your reader or e-mail). Then at your convenience, you read the e-mail or go to your reader, and choose the listings you want to read in their entirety.

I have found that as comprehensive as the search results from the automated searches (passive searches) are, they do not report everything that is on the Internet about you. Therefore, my recommendation is to implement a passive strategy, and once every 6 – 8 weeks, perform an active (manual) search in order to discover anything that may have fell through the automated cracks.

What if your ego search reveals something that you do not like?
Okay, I’m going to cut to the chase on this one. The best way to combat unflattering information is through content, content, content. Add so much content using the same keyword term (your name? company name? product name?) as with your ego search that the offending information gets moved to the distance realms of the search engine results pages.  Indeed, the information may not have been created by another. It may be information created by you… when you were another person…maybe some college antics or sports team banter or you lost your temper in an online forum.  The point is that the information does not serve your best interest today.

If the unflattering information was created by another, my experience has been that offenders defend their “truth” and refuse to remove any of their statements. Cut your losses and develop a program to bury the offending statements.

Reputation Management Strategy: Bury the unflattering information
Write articles, issue press releases, add content to your blog, ask colleagues to write about you in their blogs, request that you become a guest blogger in another’s blog, actively participate in forums, add videos to YouTube, become a reviewer for Amazon, etc. Do whatever it takes to get your name out there in a legal and positive way.

This strategy takes time and patience. It will take the search engines a while to add listings with the new content.

What online activities do you recommend to get your name out there in way that will interest the search engines? 

The social networking websites are very popular these days. Business people as well as the general public are spending more and more time on them. Each person has limited time, and yet they are choosing to spend their time at websites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Why? Because they are fun. You can interact in real time, voice your opinion, leave comments, vote on others’ comments,  help others get connected, share photos, get answers to your questions, answer questions, give and receive recommendations, and well… network!

Now let’s talk about your blog. How fun is it? Not meant to be fun because you are a serious business person? Well, look at what you have for competition. Imagine that a prospect in your target audience spends “fun” time at one of the social networking websites, and then decides to buckle down and “find that widget/business person” they’ve been meaning to purchase/connect with. Assume they do a Google search and one by one they click on the links presented to them on the first page. In any given category, they will probably search until they find 3 – 5 contenders.

What if your blog, instead of being just like all the others in your field, included components familiar to your prospect at the social networking websites? You would not only set yourself apart from the competition, but, also engage the prospect by simulating the “fun” aspect of the social networking websites – even if your topic is very serious. So now you’ve got the content of the blog to distinguish yourself as well as the participatory aspects of your blog.  The message you send by including social networking components in your blog is that you care about your clients/customers – and - that you know what is going on in the world; you are with it!

So how do you get there? Here’s some ideas for helping your blog thrive during the social networking craze.  

1. Encourage communication
   • End your posts with a question soliciting input from your audience
   • Allow comments on your posts
   • Add a comment notifier like Subscribe to Comments by Mark Jaquith
       
2. Encourage people to voice their opinions
   • Add a plugin/widget that allows you to create Polls. Search the WordPress Plugins for “polls” and “vote”.
   • Add a plugin/widget that allows readers to vote Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down on each post. Search the WordPress Plugins
   • Add plugins/widgets at the bottom of each post for your readers to be able to add the post to digg, del.icio.us, stubleupon, reddit
       
3. Build Customer Loyalty
   • Add a Feedburner Chicklet  for “Subscribe” to my blog, and a Feedburner link for “Receive updates by E-mail”
   • Add a comment notifier like Subscribe to Comments by Mark Jaquith
   • Add plugins/widgets at the bottom of each post for your readers to be able to add the RSS feed to a reader so that their reader is automatically updated each time you post

Remember your goal is to remind visitors of the pleasant experiences they’ve had at the social networking websites. You do not want to junk up your blog nor add so many widgets that your message (posts) can’t be found. Choose the components that will engage your audience in a manner that is comfortable and managable for you.

Which plugins and widgets do you recommend in order to engage a target audience and build loyalty?

Today I am attending a virtual conference for B2B Marketers – Market Profs B2B-2.0 Expo. First presenter of the day, David Meerman Scott, provided an information-packed presentation called “Tuned in to Extraordinary Opportunities – New Rules for B2B Marketers”.

Some notes on that session…

David suggests that marketing on the Internet is marketing to buyer personas not to nameless, faceless prospects. He suggests that each company develop detailed persona profiles for each of its client types. Then create different content geared toward each of the personas – using their lingo and referencing things of interest to them. He even suggests dumping the copywriters and hiring journalists because journalists know how to write for different personas.

Today’s online marketing is about “idea spreading and solving problems” and not about begging and paying for attention as was done in the past.

David asserts that “You are what you publish” on the web, and suggests producing eBooks and allowing FREE downloads, creating and consistently stocking your company’s online media section (.e. what’s new, news), and providing opportunities for people to talk about you and make your content viral (viral marketing). He cautioned that with the viral marketing campaigns, expect to fail, and move on to the next campaign.

David’s message really hit home for me. I have been introducing similar ideas to my clients for a while now. David’s presentation gave me ideas about how I might be able to get the stragglers to follow. I’ve downloaded his eBook “The New Rules of VIRAL MARKETING: How word-of-mouse spreads your ideas for free” to provide inspiration, and indeed, a reminder to get clients producing more content.