There is a lot of debate when it comes to Google+ already. Will it be the next big social network, usurping Facebook’s throne just as they themselves once did to MySpace, or will it receive a lot of early buzz, only to fizzle and falter when the hype dies down? So far, Google’s selective invite process and random blocking of new account creation during the beta phase is working well to keep interest and curiosity piqued. We don’t know what it means for the future of social networking, but if you are a freelancer with an invite, this could be a good opportunity for you.

Remember the First Blogs?

If you are wondering whether it might be a good idea for you to get set up on Google+ when the site still has a relatively small number of users, consider taking a lesson from history. Remember when the Internet was still new and blogs were this crazy new trend? If you were born around or before 1980, you likely remember this time. All of the blogs out there were by people who actually had something interesting and relevant to say, and this meant that business was great for bloggers until everyone and their mother started getting one.

Google+ is your second chance to get in at the beginning. The network really looks like it is preparing to be huge, and the simple truth is that everyone’s wall is rather empty right now. If you are looking for a great time to get a bunch of adds from people you have never met, you’ll never have another opportunity like this. People are looking to make their circles larger, and if you have something interesting to share or a great skill you are trying to market, you will find that Google+ may well be your best place to gather a new (and sizable) fan base with surprising ease.

The Benefit to Freelancers

Are you an aspiring writer, comic book artist, painter, or musician? If you can post content that is engaging and refrain from posting the same video every six seconds, Google+ is packed with people who would love to add some new content to their walls and to have something to read while pretending to be focusing on work. After all, most office computer systems haven’t added Google+ to the list of blocked sites just yet.

Of course, if you are a content producer, brand developer, or social media guru, you have another new angle here as well. Start adding the creation of Google+ profiles to your list of offerings. After all, virtually none of your clients will have them just yet, and for those outside of the tech world, the notion of navigating yet another learning curve is just too much to handle. There is plenty of money to be made marketing Google+ profile creation and branding right now, and if you happen to already have invite privileges and the basic knowledge of how to use the site, there is no reason a share of that money can’t be yours.
I’m on Google+ are you?

Google+ really has a lot to offer for a social network that is still technically beta. The features already on the site are fully usable, and surprisingly, there are already great apps available for both the iPhone and the Android. Both apps are pretty solid, although the iPhone app did have some conflicts when Apple released the latest software update, and it shows a real effort on Google’s part to have the network absolutely ready upon public release so that it could gain as large a market share as possible right out of the gate.

Google+ also has a few innate features that help to set it apart from other social networks. The circles feature makes separating contacts into specific groups and sharing only with the groups you want second nature, which is great, and the network also makes it surprisingly easy to hide just the posts you don’t want to see without the need to block the poster. Also notably absent, at least for now, are the notorious character limits that tend to make it difficult for more descriptive individuals to get a good rant into a single post.

More Features Are On the Way
Google+ is already shaping up to offer the best features of Facebook and Twitter by the time it is fully live and public, and there have already been more features announced. Google recently stated that there will definitely be a Games feature implemented into the social network, much to the delight of Facebook game players worried that Plus might actually serve to kill their beloved network. No word yet on whether this means that we are doomed to yet another round of blocking farm and mafia invites from everyone we know, but given the way they have seamlessly improved all of the other current complaints from Facebook users, we think Google just may have a better solution for this as well.

The Bottom Line
Google+ really seems to be working hard to give users an experience that is at once familiar and yet entirely new. In a sense, it is as though they have taken Facebook and removed the most loathed features while adding those that users have been begging for. Yet, in another sense, it is something completely new and something that is decidedly and characteristically Google.
What’s your thoughts on Google+?

Photo by Bruce Clay, Inc

Adding a LinkedIn button, oftentimes referred to as an icon, to a webpage is an easy way to encourage your visitors to share your page with their friends and family. The button essentially allows them to add you to their favorites on whatever service applies. The popular social networking service LinkedIn, which is primarily aimed at professional users, has a button feature that you can use to network your company or personal website and your profile on this networking service.

Using It

Image via Wikipedia

Using a social networking button is actually quite easy. The way you find it on the LinkedIn system is by going to your profile. Under your profile, you will find an option to edit your public profile settings on the upper right-hand side of the screen. After you click on this, you will see a button that reads, “promote your profile with customized buttons”. Clicking on this button allows you to choose from a selection of social networking icons that you can include on your webpage. You can also include them in your e-mails, if you wish. After you select an appropriate design, you simply copy the code and paste it into whatever webpage or other service you wish to use it on.

Social networking has become one of the most important ways that businesses connect with potential clients. By harnessing the power of social networking and putting it to use on your blog, website or other Internet presence, you can make sure that all of your various web presences are networked together, which helps you to drive traffic to each of the sites that apply. It’s important to have all the social networking icons on all your webpages!

Considerations

Because LinkedIn is used by professionals more than it is used by individuals that want to share personal information, it is more sensible to open up your profile so that everybody can see it. When you use one of the social networking icons, you have to make certain that you have your profile set to public so that people can actually see your profile when they click on the icon. Clicking on the icon brings them to your profile, at which point they can choose to follow you or take whatever other action they wish. Hopefully, they will use this feature to share your profile with their friends.

Depending upon what service you are using, there may be different procedures for including the code for a LinkedIn Icon. If you’re using a WordPress blog, for instance, you may have this functionality built into your template already and not need to use the LinkedIn feature itself. The same applies if you’re using the Blogger service, where you have to enter the code as a new gadget.

This can be a powerful social networking tool, but be certain that you use it in the appropriate places. Most of the time, people will prefer to use their Facebook icons for personal sites and to use their LinkedIn profile as a way to network with other professionals, which makes it more appropriate to put these buttons on sites that are designed for business more than anything else.

Do you have LinkedIn on your webpages?

The LinkedIn social networking service is best known as a place where professionals meet. Many of those professionals, no doubt, have videos that they would like to share with individuals that may already be their colleagues or with individuals that may need their services and just not know it yet. The LinkedIn social networking service has recently added the ability to include videos on your profile and this should be of use to many different types of users on the site.

Ease of Use

The video upload feature is very easy to use, really having no differences compared to uploading other forms of media onto the social networking site. In fact, uploading video to LinkedIn is easy enough that anybody who has already uploaded the pictures or their slideshows will be able to figure it out simply by looking at the interface. The video upload feature is most powerful because of the potential it holds for users whose profession involves public speaking, giving seminars or for users that have a particular product to offer for which they have already created a marketing video.

By uploading a video, users can make it accessible to their entire network and make sure that they get the maximum value out of the video marketing materials that they paid for. This feature should find itself being heavily used by people who want to advertise the services of the corporation for which they work and by users who are trying to get out there and market themselves as consultants.

Compared to Other Services

While there are already plenty of other video sharing services available on the web, having this capability on LinkedIn have some advantages that those services do not offer. For instance, because LinkedIn is a professional site and because the people who use it are largely doing so because they want to expose themselves to the world in a way that emphasizes what they can do, you’ll be dealing with a more professional audience. Compare this to YouTube where your video may end up with inappropriate comments that reflect badly upon your business or upon your offerings. Of course, on LinkedIn you can control who actually sees the video by restricting it to your network, so you can be sure that you’re not going to end up with random people, or competitors, deliberately sabotaging your video in the comments section as they potentially could on regular video sharing sites.

There’s quite a bit of potential with this new offering from LinkedIn and it will no doubt be put to use for posting commercials and other advertising materials very quickly. Those businesses that want to show off their more personal side, however, can also put the service to use as a way to connect with their network in a less formal way. Given the thrust of the social network and the potential of video to make a very lasting impression, this could be a very powerful tool for many different types of businesses and the various entrepreneurs on LinkedIn.

Have you uploaded a video to LinkedIn?

Twitter has become one of the most widely used tools for social networking and, increasingly, for business. Users of the Macintosh OS will find that they have a new feature that they may find very useful if they rely upon the service a great deal. Twitter, through this feature, allows you to send an update to all of your followers from anywhere without having to log into the service itself. It works as a simple alt menu function.

The Function

Using this service, you can send a tweet from anywhere within the OS environment. For example, if you happen to be working on the Safari browser and find something interesting that you would like to tweet to your followers, you can simply highlight it, click on it and select the option to tweet. This can vastly cut down on the amount of time it takes to send information to your followers and encourages more use of the system.

This functionality will be expanded so that it can be used on any Apple device. This means that users of these systems will be able to very easily send whatever information they want to their followers and makes it much easier for them to share information on the fly. Of course, if you happen to be a business user, you can easily send anything you want to the people that follow your business when you are offering a special deal on goods or services or when you just want to make sure that your business is in their minds.

Other Features

Twitter also introduced a follow button that allows users to instantly sign up to be a follower of a webpage. If you happen to be a business user, this is a very easy way for you to encourage your visitors to follow you without requiring them to take the extra step of finding and following your profile on Twitter. These buttons are added in the same way that any other social networking icons added to your site and make it very easy to expand the possibilities for communication with the people with whom you do business.

Twitter has also introduced an application for mobile browsers that makes it easier to use the service on the go. Much like other applications, it reformats the service in a way that is much easier to read on the smaller screens of mobile devices and which doesn’t require users to try to click tiny links on a small screen.

With all of these new features, the Twitter service is enabling users to employ it in more flexible ways and to ensure that they get the most out of the service if they’re using it for business. Adding the social networking icons styled button to your website is a great way to pick up new followers and using the mobile application is an excellent way to keep in touch with them when you are on the go and when you want to send them a quick tweet to keep them apprised of new offerings.

Photo by webtreats

By now, you have observed the phenomenon that is social media. Social media has surpassed Internet communication and has become an online resource all its own. Face Book now has over 300 million users, while LinkedIn has 55 million professionals networking around the world. You know of social media…now the question is: should you play social media manager and start your own social media campaign?

It is far too easy to say yes, and encourage new company owners to embark upon a half-hearted social media experiment, just so they can say they are part of the trend. However, creating a social media campaign requires investment not only in money but also in time. The only way you can justify social media expense is if you can observe the benefits and identify the purpose of your campaign.

Why Should a Business Use Social Media Websites?

Running a social media campaign is not just about setting up an account and filling out a profile. A social media manager is actively involved in a company’s online marketing and oversees status updates, features, profile information, links and numerous other details because it is all part of one important project.

What are the most obvious advantages of social media campaigning? Social media is a great opportunity to subtly build brand awareness and brand trust, to keep your customers updated as to new company news, to interact with your public, to promote goodwill, to find new leads and to survey a portion of your audience.

What company wouldn’t benefit in these areas? Social media is well worth the investment, provided the company can find a competent social media manager and devote the proper amount of time to running the page. A company that invests in social media shows itself to be attentive to its online audience, smart to new technology, and actively involved in cheap and easy advertising. In many cases, your prospective leads will be more interested in how you conduct yourself as a company in the public eye rather than with how you “sell” your website on a homepage.

The Proper Approach for a Social Media Manager

The person in charge of running your social media pages should have a strategy in mind as he or she begins setting up profiles and posting updates. Part of running a successful social media site involves avoiding the most obvious mistakes. Do not bother creating a social media profile or page if you haven’t the slightest idea what to say. Make an effort to separate your personal and professional pages, so that you can represent your brand with dignity.

A social media manager is wise to the beneficial effects that social media networking can bring. However, before starting a campaign it is wise to identify your marketing goals, not just online, but as a company moving forward into the new age. The only way to calculate return on time investment is to compare your goals and your company’s progress.

More than a few people have suggested that social media sites are like the “phone books” of the modern age. Social media is where people go to learn information and the first rule of business is that you must go where people go. How can you justify not showing your brand and establishing your name in such a crowded location?

You could take it even further by saying that social media marketing is like the fusion of a phone book listing and a television advertisement. The necessity of social media is obvious. Now you should ask: what are you as a social media manager willing to do to make your social media campaign successful?

“Social media is no longer a distraction from your job but part of your job. Companies go to great lengths to hire social media managers to keep the company culture strong. Find out why business needs social media!”

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If you are new to the idea of social media marketing then it’s important to start with a refresher course on the most important websites making names for themselves and how you, as a business owner or perhaps even a social media manager, can use these online tools to your advantage.

Firstly, do not copy and paste your profile information and status updates to every major website. You must create a strategy in which you use each social media website for a unique and relevant purpose. It’s better to not use a website at all than it is to create duplicate social media pages. Why is this? Because (a) search engines typically penalize web pages that feature duplicate content and (b) you’re communicating with the same audience saying the same thing.

Successful social media managers suggest that you strategize and decide upon a special purpose for each website that you decide to incorporate into your campaign. Let’s consider the four most important websites and effective ways to use them for business.

Face Book/Fan Page: Face Book allows business owners to create either a personal or business page. If the owner chooses to incorporate a personal page into business, he or she will be allowed more options than using a strictly business profile. At this point, the owner can create a fan page or business page and serve as an administrator of the page. He or she will then have the ability to add friends and perform standard Face Book features that are not available with a business page. Face Book can be used for business in the way of advertising new products, services or discounts, as well as sharing multimedia images. Face Book is also ideal for networking, as users can view friends of friends.

LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a professional website helping people to expand their network of friends and acquaintances. Unlike Face Book and MySpace, LinkedIn promotes a business first attitude. Features here include people finders, job listings and questions and answers. LinkedIn can be used to increase your visibility, connect with more companies and users, enhance your search rankings (since LinkedIn is web searchable) and perform company reference checks. Some people love LinkedIn because it allows them to “stalk” interviewers and potential employers, or potential employees on the management side. LinkedIn also uses keywords to its advantage, making networking much easier even for newcomers.

Twitter: Twitter limits all of your links and statements to 140 words. Twitter is ideal for sharing status updates, connecting with important people, answering questions, providing insight into the daily experience, and searching for relevant keywords to your business. There are also many valuable web tools like Who Should I Follow and Summize, which give you further advantages in searching.

MySpace: MySpace operates similarly to Face Book but with many more options in the way of formatting the page, creating a unique theme and lending you more web space. MySpace is popular among younger users and is the preferred social media site for web-savvy merchants and entertainers who want to focus more on visual spectacle.

Blogging: WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr and SquareSpace are among the most popular blog sites online. Practically every popular social media site has limitations on how long posts can be, thereby giving the advantage to blog sites when it comes to full features and long commentaries. However, full-length blogs are among the most effective tools you can use for establishing professional credibility and targeting new leads with keywords.

All of these popular websites are being used to promote businesses and encourage interaction with the large online community. Have you signed up and filled out your profiles? More importantly, have you devised a short-term and long-term strategy as to your goals and objectives in each particular social media site? This attention to detail could spell the difference between success and an embarrassing waste of time ala PeopleofWalMart.com. Keep your social media page positive, welcoming and above all else, interesting!

“You have heard about social media, but you may not be familiar with how the idea works and what websites are the most valuable to pursue. Learn about the top social media sites and how you can use them for business.”

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Admit it. You have a Facebook account you’re just dying to get back to right? I don’t blame you. Where else can the common man get the exposure he needs without having to deal with criticism from ‘concerned’ friends and family members? However, not everyone has the time and leisure to sit back and add friends all day long, but wouldn’t you like to? Knowing how to maximize your Facebook time can help you create a vast network of friends who will be available to you almost any time you wish to parlay.

The good news is that you can do just that by applying some simple techniques that can teach you how to maximize your Facebook time:

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One of the most common mistakes companies and managers make is delegating the position of social media manager to an untrained staff member; perhaps someone who works well with computers (or even customer service) but someone who doesn’t really understand online marketing.

It is important to emphasize that social media is a facet of advertising/marketing, every bit as important as website development and TV/radio spots. Many large companies actually hire a social media manager by name and pay full salary to organize and strategize a complete campaign. Though you are communicating with the public, and though you are giving the appearance of hosting a laid back and fan-friendly site, the strategic approach is actually formal and cautiously set out from the beginning.

What Makes a Qualified Social Media Manager?

A social media manager is a marketer first and is now specializing in this new online marketing avenue. Targeting is a major point of business and involves identifying your professional and online goals, as well as your audience. Questions such as, “What are the needs of my business?” and, “How can my social media page help me reach these objectives?” are imperative. Additionally a social media manager should also predetermine the budget (time and money) for social media, as well as who will be posting updates and replying to comments. Another issue to consider is networking with other contacts; is it a priority and who specifically in your industry are you targeting with your updates, commenting and interaction?

A social media manager should also have excellent writing and communicating ability, as well as a willingness to reach out to the community and engage in virtual conversation. One important aspect of social media networking is making friends with people you don’t know. In social media, you really don’t know who’s who and who is going to be your most valuable ally a year from now.

There is a great deal of team effort in social media management and every decision made should fit in with a company’s broader marketing strategy. All employees involved in the campaign should know this strategy and it should be detailed inside a social marketing plan.

Factors That Will Make Your Campaign Successful

Most importantly, it’s important to create a rich company culture, one that lends itself to the online experience. The New York Times (February 12, 2011) recently ran an article that suggested that not every profession needs social media, such as financial firms or law firms. However, we have also heard reports coming from the Kentucky Bar Association that due to the high use of social media within the legal industry, the Bar now sees fit to regulate social media as a form of advertising.

Therefore, it’s not going out on a limb to say that every company can benefit from social media—as long as the strategy is laid out and assignments are effectively defined and delegated.

Lastly, remember that social media is an evolving technology, and thus campaigns should be adaptable to what survey data reveals. Unlike a website, which largely exists for sales purposes the primary benefit of a social media page is for your customers. The page is there to serve them, interactively provide information they need and make them feel part of the company’s culture.

It’s up to a highly organized and ambitious social media manager to keep things fun and festive, but always productive.

“A qualified social media manager can help to create a brilliant social media campaign. Unfortunately, many companies underestimate this marketing professional’s role. Find out what is needed in social media and how to succeed.”

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Etiquette is the type of broadly interpreted social science that can inspire an entire book worth of tips, understandings and precedents. However, we only have time to provide the basics of social media etiquette in this feature. There are multiple disciplines of proper etiquette, including behavior concerning social media websites and portable devices in the office, as well as how to generally “type” to people online. The main focus of this article is to share how one goes about presenting himself or herself as a professional company.

Being a Friend First, a Company Second

While there are various instances of impoliteness on social media, the one golden rule everyone must abide by is that social media doesn’t tolerate spam. If you spam a person’s page or post a comment advertising your services, you will probably find your comments deleted and your ID blocked as a friend forever. Unfortunately, many people misunderstand the word spam and think that if they personally post an advertisement for a product rather than relying on a robot, they are not spamming.

Wrong! Spamming refers to any untargeted solicitation. Why, the term spamming could even be used to refer to a “sales pitch” that you give to someone else in casual conversation. Social media is a walled paradise away from the “hard sell” business world outside and the last thing anyone wants to hear is an unsolicited advertisement.

How then do you go about “advertising” without advertising? Usually by way of (1) sharing helpful and objective information about your industry; (2) posting about incentives, discounts or gifts to your customers; (3) company news, local shows, new directions, new campaigns; (4) multimedia content; (5) sharing links to third party sites that fit in with your message and objective.

You can also subtly advertise by showing yourself to be an expert in your field, one that doesn’t need to advertise or beg for attention. You focus on establishing credibility and in creating brand awareness—not on making promises or bragging about your accomplishments.

Social Media Interaction Etiquette

When it comes time to make friends and to spread goodwill throughout cyberspace, make sure you approach your pages and their pages professionally and respectfully. This not only requires a positive and dignified manner of speaking, but also requires some tact when it comes to talking with the community.

Make the effort to fill out your profile page completely, if for no other reason, than to link people back to your sales website. Explain the type of person you want to befriend on your profile so that there are no misunderstandings. It is similarly impolite to befriend people randomly without any introduction or explanation as to who you are. While you can take a chance and “add” a person based on just his/her likable profile, never start selling your business immediately after adding, because this will forever associate you as a spammer.

Make sure that all posts are dignified, relevant and politically correct. Not only should you reflect honor and discretion in your posts, but you should also make sure that you are not forwarding too many messages to your friends or sending out time-wasting requests based on your daily actions. If you have a social media manager ensure they follow your rules for engaging your tribe.

Finally, post your work in a word processor first so that you can catch any spelling or grammatical errors before you share them with the world. A misspelling that goes months without a correction reflects poorly on a professional organization.

Following these tips can help build your brand awareness over time, and more importantly, build your brand trust amongst the community. What tips would you like to suggest?

Photo by hanspoldoja