1. Buy your name as a domain name and create a personal blog there.  Purchase and then forward all the .org, .net, etc. versions to that blog. If you’re not going to blog then forward the domains to your main company website.

2. Create social media channels and fully populate them with bio, links, information, etc.. Make sure you use your search keywords in the titles and About Us fields.

3. Get a strategy in place to create new digital content. Press releases, video, blog posts, articles, white papers, etc… If you’re not going to create/write anything then don’t expect to score high in your search engine results.

4. One short talking head video of you is better than no video content at all, plus video gets good returns on SEO.  Create a YouTube channel, upload your video and make sure you correctly SEO/tag your content.  If you can create a video each month you’ll be ahead of the crowd.

5. Login to your main website and add new content as often as possible. This is one of the main factors in Google’s ranking of your site.

6. Make sure in all your content that you use your search keywords in both the title and the content of the post/blog. (See our YouTube SEO blog post for more on this).

7. Use a PR posting tool like PRsafe to post your press releases.

8. Have a press kit posted and ready that includes: Approved headshot of yourself, your bio, experience, a few quotes and links to any pertinent sites or videos.  Create this as a PDF document or upload to PRwebsite.

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VIDEOS

2. You establish yourself as more relevant than your competition who is not using Twitter.

3. You gain experience in how to package content in a short space (aka speak the language of the internet).

4. You create another online asset to be found by search engines.  Once it’s out there it’s working for you.

5. You can convert your twitter RSS feed into an iphone app very easily and for a couple hundred bucks.

6. You can have your Twitter automatically update your Facebook without having to login.

7. The Twitter mobile apps are extremely easy to use and less complicated than Facebook.

8. Twitter has a global search return that a private or semi-private Facebook account doesn’t.

9.  Twitter has a very narrow focus/protocol that will be easier for a newby to learn than other social networking tools.

10.  Twitter lets you find new contacts based on affinities like “sports” or “Boston grocery stores.”  Other social networks, not so much.

To hear Twitter themselves talk about why you should use them check out this article:

1.  I’m afraid I’ll look stupid because I don’t already know this stuff.

The Fear: “If I ask for help or if the “young people” find out that I’m clueless about social media I’m going to feel really out of the loop.  I secretly fear that people are going to make fun of me behind my back.”

The Fact: Part of being a good leader is knowing when you don’t know something.  You’ve got to know when to ask for help… bottom line.  Plus, guess what?  Everyone else has the same fear!  Even the young techy people who you think are so confident and plugged in don’t even know everything.  And if they do have vast amounts of digital knowledge it doesn’t mean they have any business sense at all concerning what to do with their knowledge or how to run a business.  ”Every man I meet is my superior in some way,” said Emerson.  ”In that, I learn of him.”

2. I’m afraid it will be a huge waste of time.

The Fear:  “I’m afraid I’m going take precious time away from my normal work trying to understand what the heck Twitter is but I’m just going to get frustrated and regret having spent so much time on it when I could have been doing other things.”

The Fact: No business grows without research and long-range planning.  Understanding social media is one of those long range planning situations where you have to know what’s happening so you can be ready to adjust your business in the future.  It’s not going to be something that will have a payoff the next day or the next week.  It’s more like taking a college class or investing in the stock market… the payoff comes later and you’re always are glad you did it.

3.  I’m afraid that after someone teaches me that I won’t understand it.

The Fear: “I’m afraid that I just won’t get it.  I’ve had people try to show me stuff before but I just can’t seem to get it. I don’t want to look stupid if I try to learn about social media and then can’t understand it.”

The Fact: If you don’t understand something then maybe it’s less about you as a learner and more about who’s been teaching you.  If you’re not a person who’s familiar with a lot of the online world then you need someone to teach you in a style you can understand with visual aids and using clear analogies.  We think anyone can learn this you just need a good teacher.

4.  I’m afraid of social media amplifying my own company’s shortcomings and bad public opinion.

The Fear:  “I’m afraid that some customers who don’t like our product or who have had a bad experience will hijack our social media channels and just start ranting about how much they hate us and our product.  I’m afraid that opening all these avenues of communication will take us out of control and open up the field to all the people who have had bad experiences with our company for whatever reason.”

The Fact:  People who have had a bad experience are going to share about it 10 times more than a person who has a good experience. This is a tried and true principle.  In olden days this consisted of a telephone call or whine-fest at a random friends get together, after church, etc… Now that communication forum has moved online.  From a business perspective it is actually more of an opportunity for good than for bad.  When the conversation happens online then you are able to see exactly how customers are framing their dissatisfaction AND you have the opportunity to employ some good customer service and try to make it right via communicating with the disgruntled folks directly.  Your business couldn’t do that back in the pre-digital world.

5. I’m afraid of being totally overwhelmed.

The Fear: “I’m afraid that once this process starts I am going to get totally overwhelmed and lost.  Like trying to learn Chinese in a weekend.”

The Fact: Focus on the philosophy behind social media, let the details follow.  Take it one step at a time.  Latch on to helpful analogies and visual aids.  When you start to get overwhelmed take a break and remind yourself of a recent accomplishment where you did successfully learn something.  Remember, people who you consider experts have been learning this stuff day and night for years.  You can gain the knowledge you need just be patient and trust that time and effort are going to pay off in the long run.

- Rolling your jeans up at the bottom like Zack Morris (mid 90s)

- Saying “diesel” as a replacement for “cool”

- Slap bracelets

- Neon

Now many of these things have come back or at least have resurfaced with some kind of postmodern ironic appreciation, but the fact remains, they are trends, now dead.  People are so used to this come-and-go process in our culture that when things like Twitter come along many simply write it off as a fad. I was in a conversation the other day where someone predicted the death of Twitter within 18 months.  At first my reaction is, of course, it’s all going to die/morph/change eventually, BUT it’s creating something that is more than a trend, it’s creating a new human mode of expression.  The new human mode of expression that started with email and is now continuing with Twitter is simply the idea of being online- communicating via digital instead of physical.  It’s the same modal shift that letter-writing and the telephone brought, the difference is obvious.

Yet many business leaders take the idea of a trend as an excuse not to learn the language, not to participate or to simply ignore what’s happening.  This is not the fault of the tools it’s the fault of modern leadership culture, specifically, not being flexible.  It’s fear, really; fear of being overwhelmed, fear of not getting it, fear of exposing personal insecurities to the whole world, etc… But the bottom line is that just because something is a trend doesn’t mean you should ignore it.  If Twitter does die in 12 months, will you be any more prepared for what the next “big thing” is?  Chances are it’s going to work in a very similar way to Twitter (people make profiles, gain connections, communicate).  So if a business leader can overcome the initial fear related to a trend they are in a position to benefit from more than the trend itself but the cultural impact that the trend leaves in it’s wake.  All it takes is a first step.

The secret to being relevant in an information society is being…FLEXIBLE!

]]> http://themunichgroup.com/blog/2010/02/14/social-media-goals-not-tools/feed/ 1 http://themunichgroup.com/blog/2010/02/10/know-your-audience/ http://themunichgroup.com/blog/2010/02/10/know-your-audience/#comments Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:32:56 +0000 Munich Blogger http://themunichgroup.com/blog/?p=15 Check out this chart- It shows a sample breakdown of what your potential audience might be using in the way of social media.  A lot of times usage and channels varies depending on WHO the audience is.  Just because Twitter is insanely popular doesn’t mean that if you’re a mortician it’s going to help your business.  Get a sense from your current clients and potential clients about where they’re spending their time online and what they’re doing there.  If your target audience is on youtube then it sure makes sense to be creating quality content in video.  If they’re hardcore bloggers then start writing.  If Twitter is a big one for them then start tweeting.  The lesson of the day is just because you are spouting quality information doesn’t mean that it’s on a channel people are watching.  Speak the right dialect at the right time on the channels people are already watching.