Looking for some ideas to simplify your content creation process?

What follows are 26 tips, from A-Z, to help you create optimal blog posts every time you sit down to write.

#1: Anatomically Correct

A blog post contains several areas that require our attention and care. Pamela Seiple refers to six parts of the anatomy of a lead-generating blog post:

• Eye-catching title
• In-text links to landing pages
• Sidebar/banner calls to action
• Social sharing buttons
• Call to action at the bottom
• Relevancy—making sure the post is relevant from top to bottom

Parts of the blog anatomy.

Example of more anatomical parts to include in your blog posts.

#2: Blogging Platform

By knowing the ins and outs of your blogging platform, you’ll ensure that your posts look as good as they can. Take the time to master the visual editor (or raw HTML, if you prefer) so that you know how to format a post, insert an image and embed a video or podcast.

Whether you’re working in platforms such as WordPress, Tumblr or Posterous, it’s good to stay up to date on the features and new versions.

If you’re not comfortable with the more technical aspects of blogging, try to find someone who can be a resource for you to answer questions as they arise.

WordPress' editor where you can toggle between visual and HTML editing functions.

#3: Categories

Whether your new blog post is a stand-alone article or part of a series you’re writing, it should fit into your blog categories as well as your overall corporate content strategy. Meaning that you want to stay on topic and have your posts fit into the categories you’ve established.

For example, HubSpot has nine categories on their blog. Posts are written to fit in with each of these categories. Writing about category topics such as analytics, blogging, email marketing, HubSpot TV, etc., allows both readers and writers to stay focused on what they can expect to see on HubSpot’s blog.

When you choose your categories, ask yourself, do they make sense, and do they fit into the objectives of my business? Having clearly defined blog categories will help you continue generating meaningful content and topics for your blog.

Write posts that fit into your categories.

#4: Description

Most search engines will use a maximum of 160 characters for your post description on their results pages. If you don’t create a meta-description (defined as a “…concise summary of your page’s content”), a search engine will often take the first 160 characters it finds on your page instead.

Note too, that when you create a meta-description that is fewer than 160 characters, you’ll see the full description in the search engine. Otherwise it will be cut off.

An example of a meta-description created within the All-In-One SEO Pack plugin in WordPress.

An example of how a post's description appears in Google search results with and without the meta-description.

#5: Editorial Calendar

Bloggers find editorial calendars helpful for scheduling and organizing topics for posts. Some people use their calendars to track more elaborate details.

Michele Linn suggests using specific tabs in a spreadsheet to track info for each post such as: post date, author, tentative title, keywords, categories, tags, call to action and status. She says “By tracking more than topic and date it will help to make sure the key elements you need for SEO, digital optimization and conversion are accounted for.”

Download a sample editorial calendar worksheet.

An example of a template for a master editorial calendar as shown by Michele Linn.

#6: Fine-Tune and Revise

Like other forms of writing, a blog post is rarely completed in one draft. Many writers find it helpful to take a post through several revisions and fine-tune the post as you go along. Check grammar, spelling and punctuation, and make certain that all of your links are working.

#7: Guidelines for Writing for Search Engines

By following a few tips and best practices, you can increase the chance that your blog post will be found by search engines—by Google in particular.

The State University of New York at Plattsburgh offers these helpful writing tips:

• Google likes text
• Google likes formatting
• Google likes freshness
• Google likes accessibility
• Google likes outbound hyperlinks
• Googlebot isn’t psychic, so remember to link your pages
• Google likes you to tell it where you are
• Google likes experts

#8: Headings

Joost de Valk offers some good suggestions regarding blog headings. He writes, “The heading structure of your pages is one of the very important aspects of on-page SEO. It defines which parts of your content are important, and how they’re interconnected. Because they have different goals, a single post needs another heading structure than your blog’s homepage or your category archives.”

He offers five basic principles about heading structure:

• The most important heading on the page should be the H1
• There is usually only one H1 on any page
• Subheadings should be H2s, sub-subheadings should be H3s, etc.
• Each heading should contain valuable keywords; if not, it’s a wasted heading
• For longer pieces of content, a heading is what helps a reader skip to the parts that he/she finds interesting

Headings should contain valuable keywords.

#9: Images

Blog posts are made up of more than words and headings.

Judy Dunn recommends five ways the right photo can increase readership and blog views:

• Convey the overall feeling or emotion of your post
• Illustrate a metaphor or analogy that is part of your main idea
• Evoke surprise or curiosity
• Complement your headline
• Make your reader smile

Judy points out too that readers are visual learners and images can help people take in and retain information better.

#10: Journalistic Approach

Bloggers can learn a lot from traditional journalists and the ways that they approach their news stories.

Mickie Kennedy offers five things that bloggers can learn from journalists:

• Get your facts straight
• Trust has to be earned
• Give credit to your sources
• The inverted pyramid works (basic overview in first paragraph and then delve into more details in subsequent paragraphs)
• Editing and proofreading are essential

As shown on Wikipedia.org

#11: Killer SEO and Blog Design

Cyrus Shepard makes an important case for having a beautiful blog. He says, “…the overall design of your site is the first thing visitors see and it significantly influences bounce rate, page views and conversions.”

Cyrus suggests that certain elements on the page will add to a blog’s success:

• Search box
• RSS feed
• Breadcrumbs (helping users navigate),
• Flat site architecture by minimizing the number of clicks it takes to reach your content
• Images
• Keep your best content above the fold
• Link to your best content
• Don’t overdo links
• Watch ad space
• Encourage comments
• Add sharing buttons
• Test the blog for speed
• Check your blog in different browsers
• Pick a powerhouse blogging platform (e.g., WordPress, Posterous, Tumblr)

For a resource that will help remind you of these killer SEO suggestions, check out Cyrus’ infographic, Blog Design for Killer Search Engine Optimization.

#12: Lists

Lists have become a very popular type of blog post.

Nate Riggs offers three types for bloggers to consider: brief, detailed and hybrid lists.

The brief list has little description but can entice readers to bookmark the post to use the list as a resource down the road or to share it across their own networks.

In a detailed list, each bullet is a complete thought and serves as a good way to communicate complex information.

The hybrid list combines the elements of short and detailed lists, often with descriptive narratives or explanations in paragraphs between the actual lists.

Nate’s post has a lot of useful information about lists as a powerful content marketing tactic and is a good example of a hybrid list.

#13: Metrics for Blogging

Magdalena Georgieva identifies five metrics to keep an eye on to know how your blogging is going: visitors, leads, subscribers, inbound links and social media shares.

As Magdalena says, “Measure the performance of your business blog regularly to identify weaknesses in the content you’re producing, what topics your audience truly cares about, and what blogging tactics work for you.”

When you find topics and approaches that work particularly well, try to replicate those efforts and be willing to let go of features that aren’t performing well. Magdalena recommends looking at your five most successful blog posts and asking, “What do they have in common?”

#14: Names, Titles and Bio

Not only are readers interested in the content in your blog post, they also want to know who wrote the post and their role at your organization.

Sometimes you’ll come across a thoroughly researched and well-written post only to find an attribution of “admin.” Even if the blog is only written by you and you’re the administrator of the blog, be sure to include your name, title and a way for readers to contact you.

#15: Original vs. Curated Content

The type of post you write can contain completely original content or can consist of content that you’ve curated.

Pamela Seiple addresses the issue of curated content and makes an important point when she says, “There’s a misconception among marketers that curated content is lazy and unoriginal, but we think it’s the complete opposite. It takes time and careful evaluation to create quality curated content and the result is oftentimes a very valuable piece of content that helps people seeking information on a given topic to cut through the clutter on the web and save time.”

The 26 tips series here on Social Media Examiner is an example of curated posts, pulling in the expertise of others who have written on the topic. As a curator of this kind of post, I love the journey of the research and find it especially rewarding to see the content pulled together in a way that hadn’t been previously available. Curated posts can be incredibly gratifying!

#16: Publish and Promote

Kristi Hines speaks about the publishing and promoting stages of creating a successful blog post. Kristi says that one thing you want to do during the publishing stage is to ensure that your post has some kind of call to action. “Think about what you want people to do once they’ve read the post….”

Promoting a blog post can involve a fair amount of thought and strategy, as you’ll see from Kristi’s approach. She has a different plan in place for “averagely awesome posts, awesome posts and killer awesome posts.”

What differs for the three types of posts is how many social networks she shares the posts with, whether she includes the post in her writing portfolio and whether it’s included in her custom RSS feed or utilizes blog commenting promotion and direct messaging partners in social media to see if they’ll help spread the word.

Kristi describes promotion as taking from a few minutes to a few hours, and recommends taking the time to build a good foundation before you expect to execute a successful blog promotion.

#17: Questions

What are you going to write about post after post, week after week, year after year? Sometimes thinking about content for your blog can seem daunting.

Lee Odden offers a great piece of advice: “One particularly effective way to get content ideas for blogging comes from reviewing web analytics for the kinds of questions people type into search engines like Google or Bing that deliver visitors.”

In one example, Lee said that he noticed that numerous visitors each month were typing in the question “What does a community manger do?” and search engines were sending them to one of his posts about that topic. He used it as an opportunity to explore other related questions about social community managers and providing content in the form of answers.

What questions are your web visitors asking before they arrive on your pages? How can you maximize your content to answer readers’ questions?

#18: Research

Well-researched blog posts can differentiate your content from your competitors’. Being known as a go-to source in your industry will help make your blog stand out. Where do you go to research posts?

I find that utilizing a variety of sources helps me gather the information I’m seeking.

For example, while I can often find a lot of useful content via web-based searches, sometimes there’s nothing like a visit to the library or a bookstore where I often will discover a helpful book on the shelf that I wouldn’t have known existed if I hadn’t been standing there physically eyeballing them.

Oli Gardner makes a good case for using social media research for your blog posts. He suggests ten social media research strategies:

• StumbleUpon
• Infographics
• Twitter real-time searches
• Facebook events
• Experts who are using LinkedIn
• Uncovering quotes with Delicious
• Letting users tell you within the comments section of your blog and others
• Creating roundup mega-lists with Delicious and StumbleUpon
• Apps on Facebook
• Delicious and Google Marketplace
• YouTube and the UrbanDictionary

#19: Stand Out

When you’ve been blogging in a competitive marketplace for a while, chances are good that you’ll see other bloggers writing on topics similar to yours. It doesn’t mean that you have to stay away from the topic completely; rather you can use it as an opportunity to see what worked and didn’t work in their post and write yours in a way that will help you to stand out in the topic area.

By reading the comments on similar blog posts, you will get a great view of what questions and thoughts people had after reading the post and you can take a slightly different angle by making sure you cover those areas in your article.

#20: Title

How important is the title of your blog post? Simply put, very important!

Brian Clark writes that the title is the first, and perhaps only, impression you make on a prospective reader.

He says, “Without a headline or post title that turns a browser into a reader, the rest of your words may as well not even exist.

But a headline can do more than simply grab attention. A great headline can also communicate a full message to its intended audience, and it absolutely must lure the reader into your body text.”

An example of an eye-catching title from copyblogger.com.

#21: User-Centered Content

Possibly one of the worst mistakes a blog post can make is missing the mark of its readers, forgetting who they are and their needs and interests.

Georgy Cohen goes as far as to say that content can serve as customer service and that to be helpful, content should be user-focused (asking what our users’ problems and priorities are), communicated clearly and presented in succinct language.

#22: Valuable Content

In the perfect blogging world, creating valuable content would be at the top of every blogger’s list for their post objectives.

While our definitions about valuable content may vary, Ahava Leibtag has created a very helpful step-by-step checklist that reminds us to ask five questions:

• Can the user find the content
• Can the user read the content
• Can the user understand the content
• Will the user want to take action
• Will the user share the content

She suggests:

• Findable content includes: an H1 tag; at least two H2 tags; metadata including title, descriptors and keywords; links to other related content; alt tags for images.
• Readable content includes: an inverted-pyramid writing style, chunking, bullets, numbered lists, following the style guide.
• Understandable content includes: an appropriate content type (text, video), indication that you considered the users’ persona, context, respect for the users’ reading level, articulating an old idea in a new way.
• Actionable content includes: a call to action, a place to comment, an invitation to share, links to related content, a direct summary of what to do.
• Shareable content includes: something to provoke an emotional response, a reason to share, a request to share, an easy way to share, personalization.

Download the checklist for future reference.

Ahava Leibtag's Valuable Content Checklist.

#23: Word Count

How many words should you have in your blog post? Some blogs have set parameters for optimal length and put a value on whether a post is short or long.

Corey Eridon has an interesting perspective on word count and suggests that focusing on blog word count might not be as important as you think it is. “Some topics take 100 words to explain, some take 1,000, and that’s okay.”

Corey suggests that writers focus instead on whether posts are optimized for mobile, use effective formatting, communicate in a clear manner and that outlining the points you want to cover may ultimately be a better use of your time and energy.

If you’re restricted to shorter posts by the parameters set up in advance for your blog, then you could also follow Corey’s advice to link to longer-form content you’ve developed around the topic.

Bottom line: Don’t let the quantity of words dictate the quality of your post.

#24: (E)xcerpt

On the heels of our discussion about blog word count, a shorter blog post can also be an excerpt or summary of what readers will find in your longer-form content—e.g., eBook or white paper—but it needn’t be restricted to words.

You can also use an excerpt of the transcript or a brief description to demonstrate what information the users will learn if they watch your video or listen to your podcast.

Mike Stelzner provides great excerpts from his expert interviews on Social Media Examiner.

#25: Your Story

Readers like to get to know how writers tick and often appreciate hearing a few personal details and insights from the person who has taken them on a journey through a post. While business blogs shouldn’t be thought of as personal journal entries, you can tell your readers a little bit about how you operate.

For example, I stated above that writing curated posts like the 26 tips series here on Social Media Examiner is one of my favorite types of posts to write. (Truth be told, curated posts are also some of my favorite types to read.)

In the description of “research” above, I also shared how research is one of my favorite parts of blogging and how I enjoy researching both online and offline by doing the footwork of visiting libraries and bookstores in search of materials.

What parts of yourself are you willing and able to share with your readers?

#26: Zone for Writing

Ideas for blog posts come at all times—when you’re driving in your car, sitting at your desk, and yes, even in the middle of the night!

Chances are good though that the actual writing of the post will happen in multiple drafts and revisions, and depending on how you work, it may take place over a period of days.

What can be helpful is to create a time and place where you can get into the zone for writing and allow yourself to go with it, with as few interruptions as possible.

What do you think? How do you keep your blog posts consistent and dynamic? What tips would you add? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

What’s New This Week?

YouTube Releases YouTube Analytics: YouTube Analytics now gives you a quick overview and more detailed reports for tracking your audience building and retention statistics.  Be sure to check out the updated YouTube Creator Playbook to learn how to take full advantage of the new YouTube Analytics features.

Use the new Analytics to build and engage with bigger audiences, earn more money and make better videos.

YouTube Reaches 20 Billion Video Views per Month: The latest comScore statistics for online video rankings show Google-owned YouTube had a record 20 billion video views in October 2011.

The Google Sites are "driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com."

The New Google Bar Incorporates Google+ Features: Note how this new toolbar enables you to navigate quickly among Google’s services, as well as share the right stuff with the right people easily on Google+. This means marketers will probably notice more Google+ listings in Google search results.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSIMpFfNLEA

SlideShare Redesigns Their Presentation Pages and Names Them “Bigfoot”: SlideShare presentation pages are cleaner and increase the footprint size of your presentations.  You can now discover presentations related to what you’re viewing and it’s easier to share with your friends on SlideShare, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.

"Someone on the team nicknamed the new design 'Bigfoot' and the name stuck!"

Foursquare Adds a “Save to Foursquare” Bookmarklet: Use this new Save button on any page on the Internet to add it to your Foursquare list, and Foursquare will remind you about it the next time you’re nearby and searching for a recommendation in Explore mode.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhRheQ_vBeQ

Here are a few interesting infographics worth noting:

What Is Inbound Marketing:

Check out the Inbound Marketing Ecosystem!

Social Media Tactics in B2B Marketing:

Notice how Pardot's study show LinkedIn as the best source of social media lead generation for B2B marketers.

SlideShare: The Quiet Giant of Content Marketing:

And don’t miss this:

Social Media Examiner presents Small Business Success Summit 2011! (online conference)

Join 25 experts, including including John Jantsch (author, Duct Tape Marketing), Anita Campbell (founder, Small Business Trends), Michael Stelzner (founder, Social Media Examiner and author, Launch), Mari Smith (co-author, Facebook Marketing), Jesse Stay (author, Google+ for Dummies), Hollis Thomases (author, Twitter Marketing), David Siteman Garland (founder, “The Rise to the Top” and author, Faster, Smarter, Cheaper), Joe Pulizzi (founder, Content Marketing Institute and co-author, Get Content, Get Customers), Brian Clark (founder, Copyblogger Media), Lee Odden (founder, TopRank Online Marketing), Ramon Ray (founder, Small Biz Technology and author, Technology Solutions for Growing Businesses) and Lewis Howes (co-author, LinkedWorking)—just to mention a few (scroll down to see full list)!

Go here to learn more.

What social media news caught your interest this week? Please share your comments below.

We sought out hot Twitter tips from the pros. Keep reading for inspiration.

Now’s not the time to let your Twitter marketing go stale.

Twitter has already grown more in the last 9 months than in the last 5 years and this trend is expected to continue.

How does Twitter fit into your social media marketing? Here are 17 Twitter marketing tips shared by Social Media Examiner’s writers.

Improve Your Tweets

Mari Smith @marismith

#1: Share valuable content in your own voice

Do your best to craft your content tweets, @replies and promotional tweets all with a seamless style that matches your personality and/or brand.

Ideally, you want people to read your tweets and feel naturally compelled to click on your links and retweet you.

You just want to add value and have no agenda or attachment to “making the sale,” yet you’re strategic and mindful about how you tweet. Then you’ll see a marked improvement in your retweet and click-through rates.

A content tweet from Mari with a link to an informative blog post, and an upbeat comment in square brackets.

Mari Smith, co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day.

Debbie Hemley @dhemley

#2: Use keywords in your tweets

Keywords have been and continue to be a relevant and driving force for web content (whether we’re talking about a website, blog post, Facebook update or a tweet). Keywords are the backbone of content.

So I’d have to say hands-down, my best Twitter marketing tip for business is to make a list of keywords that best describe your business and industry. Use these words as you compose your 140-character posts.

Think quality over quantity. Make every character and tweet count!

Debbie Hemley, social media consultant and blogger.

Shane Snow @shanesnow

#3: Share links to useful content

Sharing links to useful content is, statistically speaking, more effective at growing and retaining followers than “engaging” with them in conversation.

That’s not to say that conversations aren’t useful in helping people to like you, but if you want to grow your fan base, you need to share more links than you do @replies.

Shane Snow, co-founder of Contently.com.

Nichole Kelly @Nichole_Kelly

#4: Use search features to discover what your clients want

Use the search feature in a Twitter tool like HootSuite to watch for conversations about a problem your business can solve. It will give you insight into what is on your prospects’ minds and provide an open door for you to help them.

Try providing a link to a great article or video that answers their question. This one action could lead to an ongoing dialogue that in turn may lead to a customer relationship later.

Nichole Kelly, publisher of FullFrontalROI.com.

Improve Your Networking

Kristi Hines @kikolani

#5: Connect with the right people and tweet with them

There are two crucial things businesses should focus on when implementing their Twitter strategy.

The first is not finding just anyone to follow in hopes that they follow you back, but finding relevant people to follow who are more likely to follow you back. You can bloat your account to 100,000+ followers, but if they are not interested in your content, it gets you nowhere.

You need to be using tools such as Follower Wonk, Twellow and Wefollow to find people who are in your region (if you’re a local business) and interested in your industry. Then start following them.

The second is after you find your targeted audience, don’t just tweet at them—tweet with them. Follow their conversations; add in your two cents from time to time. Follow anyone who talks about your brand and thank them for their compliments or help them with their concerns. Follow anyone who talks about your industry and show why you are an authority.

Doing these things will help you run a successful Twitter campaign that will give your brand exposure as a leader in your industry!

Kristi Hines, Internet marketing specialist with Vertical Measures and author of Kikolani.

Carla Dewing @CarlaDewing

#6: Use a classic icebreaker

Most followers become nameless, faceless numbers on a follower list. Remember when networking used to be about meeting people face to face? Icebreakers were important then, and they’re just as important now in the virtual world.

Icebreakers help you share a common connection with a stranger—and make you memorable enough to begin and sustain a long-term relationship.

When you find relevant tweets from among your followers, retweet their blog link—and follow the author’s feed. Then send them an @message, detailing something insightful about their blog post. At the end of the tweet, link to a similar post you’ve written.

This should result in more blog comments, retweets and followers, all from 10 minutes of effort. Twitter is all about icebreakers, and collecting followers who instantly recognize you in a sea of faces. Invest time in your introductions and they’ll make all the difference to your feed.

Carla Dewing, content marketing expert and part-owner of Contrast Media.

Charlene Kingston @SocialMediaDIY

#7: Cultivate relationships

Pay attention when someone tweets about your blog posts or retweets something you’ve shared. When you are building a business, never take it for granted when people help you spread the word. Start by thanking them for the tweet. And take it a step further: add them to a private list for tweeters and retweeters.

At least once every day for five minutes, review the tweets in that list. Look for great content that you might have missed, information from smart people you need to follow and conversation trends you might have missed. Jump into conversations, retweet items your community would appreciate and thank people for sharing great things.

But most of all, get to know more about these people who volunteered to become part of your team by sharing your content. It’s all about relationships, and Twitter helps you build relationships with these important members of your community.

Charlene Kingston, founder of Social Media DIY Workshop.

Jim Lodico @jlcommunication

#8: Engage your audience

Find ways to reach out and engage your audience. Too many businesses want to just set their Twitter feed on autopilot or constantly push promotional content.

Although there is a place for the promotional tweet, your feed will receive much more attention if you make it a resource for your followers. Sharing articles of interest, leading discussions on topics important to your industry, answering questions and sometimes just being there can do this.

It’s about creating relationships and building trust in those relationships. Although they may not be clients now, when the time comes, you’ve already cleared the first hurdle for your followers.

Jim Lodico, copywriter and marketing consultant.

Sara Hawkins @saving4someday

#9: Be helpful

Plenty of people are filling up Twitter streams with the tech-equivalent of screaming infomercials to buy things. Effective marketing on Twitter takes time. But it also takes more than just selling or pushing your message.

Engaging and interacting with your consumers in a consistent and helpful way will keep your product or service at top of mind. Not everyone needs your offering right now. You want to provide information and solutions that keep them reading, so when they need what you have, they know you’re there for them.

Sara Hawkins, lawyer and blogger.

Stephanie Gehman @airport_girl

#10: Transparency lends credibility

If you mess up, admit it. If you don’t know the answer to a question, admit it. If you’re inexperienced, admit it. If you’re willing to admit that your business is not perfect and is a work-in-progress or open to suggestion, your audience is more likely to take you seriously. You build your company’s credibility and trustworthiness.

The quickest way to lose credibility? If, as a business, you attempt to cover-up, lie or over-promise and under-deliver.

Be honest, be real and be transparent.

Stephanie Gehman, marketing manager for Harrisburg International Airport in Pennsylvania.

Bring Twitter Followers Back to Your Website

Tim Ware @HyperArts

#11: Use hashtags to create and curate conversations around your brand

You can reward your followers when they participate by retweeting them or displaying their tweets on your site or blog.

Bergdorf Goodman is a high-end clothing and shoe retailer that is using the Instagram photo app as well as a Twitter hashtag (#BGShoes) to encourage fans to tweet pictures of their shoes (purchased at BG of course) around the city of New York.

Bergdorf Goodman is capturing all of the photos and tweets on this interactive map, which gives users an incentive to participate.

Here’s another example, the San Francisco Food Bank (@SFFoodBank) gave followers a challenge: Try to spend less than $5/day on food. And tweet about it along the way, using the #hungerchallenge hashtag.

Participants are listed on the Hunger Challenge website (and you can pity them in real time as they tweet about their barely full bellies, all captured in the hashtag stream: http://twitter.com/#!/search/hungerchallenge).

Food blogger @CarinaOst is one of the participants able to help increase awareness of hunger in SF and promote the Food Bank.

These tweets were not just blank advertisements; they were an entertaining journal of the struggle of trying to eat on a budget each day!

Tim Ware, owner of HyperArts Web Design.

Christine Gallagher @ChristineG

#12: Share links back to your website for list-building

In most cases, people aren’t going to buy from you right off of a site like Twitter. You need to shift your thinking from “How can I get this person to buy from me or hire me now?” to ”How can I bring this person into my community and strengthen the relationship with him/her on an ongoing basis?”

One of the best ways to do this is to encourage visits to your blog or website by providing something of value for free in exchange for email addresses. (Make sure what you’re giving them is extra-juicy and useful!) That way, you have permission to keep in touch and build an ongoing relationship with prospects.

This shouldn’t be thought of as list-building just for the sake of boosting your subscriber numbers; rather, it’s a natural continuation of the solid foundation you’ve begun building with a potential client or customer within the Twitterverse.

Christine Gallagher, relationship marketing speaker, trainer and coach.

Janet Aronica @janetaronica

#13: Tweet links to your blog more often

When you’re thinking about using social media for lead generation, you want to use Twitter as not only a conversation channel, but also as a way to drive traffic to your content.

I found a significant increase in traffic from Twitter and engagement with our account when I posted several tweets of a blog post rather than one the morning. It gives your followers a chance to catch that link if they missed it the first time and also targets people in different time zones.

Don’t be spammy and go overboard, but sharing your content several times (if it’s valuable) will give you the extra edge.

Janet Aronica, Inbound Marketing Manager at HubSpot.

Fit Twitter Into Your Social Media Marketing

Stephanie Sammons @StephSammons

#14: Connect your LinkedIn account with your Twitter account

Syncing your LinkedIn account with your Twitter account can make your Twitter activities much more relevant to business. Not only can you share content across both networks simultaneously, but also you can keep track of your professional connections from LinkedIn and follow their tweets!

Here are three tips:

• Make sure to add your Twitter account to your LinkedIn profile. Visitors to your profile will be able to follow you on Twitter right there from your profile page! Have more than one Twitter account (perhaps personal and business)? Add them both to your LinkedIn profile and designate your primary account.
• Install the LinkedIn “Tweets” application on your LinkedIn profile and immediately go through and follow each of your LinkedIn connections who have Twitter profiles. In most cases, your professional connections are going to follow you back!
• Create a Twitter list of your LinkedIn connections automatically with the click of a button using the Twitter application in LinkedIn. This makes it easy to follow the stream of updates on Twitter coming from your professional connections.

Twitter is a firehose of information, data and resources. I’m a big fan of making sense out of that data and making it more relevant to your professional network! Integrating your Twitter account with LinkedIn is a great way to do this. To learn more, catch this article from Social Media Examiner: How to Use LinkedIn With Twitter for Better Networking!

Stephanie Sammons, founder and CEO of Wired Advisor.

Make Twitter Tools Work for You

Ben Pickering @bpicks

#15: Take advantage of tools to help curate and share relevant content

Sending out 140-character messages every so often may not seem like a task that requires marketing automation software but, to the contrary, these tools can greatly improve the effectiveness of your Twitter marketing.

There are a slew of services available, some free and some paid, to help manage your Twitter account. At Strutta, we use the HootSuite dashboard to track Twitter activity, which can be easily categorized into multiple streams that we follow.

We also use Summify to help filter through the noise and surface news that is most relevant to our industry. This enables us to find content that is both useful to consume and valuable to share with our followers via retweeting.

Sharing relevant content from other trusted sources helps establish your credibility, especially when mixed with your own original content.

When it comes to sharing, having a platform like HootSuite where you can schedule tweets is extremely helpful.

Given the short shelf-life of a tweet, you can easily schedule content to be pushed out at pre-set intervals to maximize visibility.

Ben Pickering, CEO of Strutta.

Andrea Vahl @AndreaVahl

#16: Add columns of searches in HootSuite

I have a separate tab in HootSuite set up only for searches that I want to monitor throughout the day. I have several columns of searches on this tab so I can see in one glance what people are talking about with respect to those searches at any given moment.

I use a combination of searching on hashtags and searching on just keywords.

In this screenshot, I show one search I have with the hashtag #Facebook.

Then I also have a search where I put the words “how do I” which will give me an exact match on that phrase, and the word “Facebook” which will show both of those key phrases anywhere within the tweet.

I’m looking for people asking questions about Facebook that I can help with. I can then answer the person’s question and perhaps follow them. When you help people who have questions about your niche on Twitter, you stand out as a leader and authority in your field.

Make sure you are authentically helping people out and not giving a sales pitch. So if you want to watch for people asking questions about your niche—which is yoga, for example—you would put the keywords “how do I” and “yoga.” Or you may find that a better search question could be “where do I.” Test out different keyword phrases to see what works best for your business.

Andrea Vahl, co-author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies and Facebook community manager for Social Media Examiner.

Still Need Help?

Jamie Turner @60Second Tweets

#17: Get a Twitter tutorial from your teenager

I was at a conference last week where a professor who specializes in new and emerging media made this confession—he frequently asks his students to teach him how to use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media tools.

He went on to explain that at one point, during one of his tutorials, a student turned to him and said, “Aren’t I paying YOU to teach me this stuff?”

The truth is, if you’re like most businesspeople, it’s very hard to keep up with all of the changes taking place. One way to get more efficient about using Twitter and other tools is to sit down with someone younger than you and ask him or her for a front-lines tutorial.

Oh sure, we all understand the CONCEPT of Twitter, but when it comes to the practical application or the unwritten rules, it’s hard to keep up. The solution, I’ve found, is to not be shy about asking someone younger for a brief, in-the-trenches tutorial. In the long run, it’ll save you hours and hours of anguish.

Jamie Turner, co-author of How to Make Money with Social Media.

What do you think? What’s your favorite Twitter marketing tip? What works best for your business? Please share your comments in the box below.

This article will share six easy ways to turn lurkers into leads.

Some background

A little background starts by evaluating your current lead generation process and whether it’s helping or hurting your efforts.

It’s important to understand the relationship among your lead generation strategies, your social media channels, your blog and your landing pages. Many times when we think of generating leads in social media, we look at the content we’re posting and neglect to look at the surrounding elements that also touch the user.

Every status update about a new blog post has three steps to drive lead generation: the status update, the blog post and the landing page. Each one of these has a different role in the process and offers a unique opportunity to optimize lead conversion. A typical lead conversion process in social media looks like the image below.

Understand your opportunities to convert leads.

You’ll notice there’s a critical component in the middle—the blog post. We spend a lot of time creating relevant content for our readers and promoting it through our social media channels. But many times, we forget to look around the content of the post to see if there is an EASY way for our visitors to become leads.

Karen Rubin, marketing product manager and marketeer for HubSpot, offered these great tips to help you optimize your blog to convert your social media traffic into leads.

#1: Offer an email blog subscription

RSS has become one of the most popular ways to allow readers to subscribe to your blog. However, it has significant limitations for lead generation. There’s no way to message an RSS subscriber directly because you don’t actually have any contact information. Your only point of contact with an RSS subscriber is when you post a new blog article.

Offering an email subscription as your primary blog subscription vehicle allows you to keep your subscribers up to date on the latest content while also sending emails that facilitate your lead generation process. Once the user has opted-in to receive updates from your company, you have the ability to continue to market to them and nurture them throughout the buying process.

Offer an email subscription on your blog.

#2: Add a Welcome pop-up for new visitors to drive email subscribers

I know many of us probably cringe at the idea of having a pop-up when someone comes to our site; however, this has been shown to tremendously increase the number of subscribers to your blog.

Chris Penn from Blue Sky Factory tested this methodology and was able to increase his blog subscribers by 733% in only two months! If you implement this well and establish rules for when the pop-up will show, it can greatly increase your email list.

Drive email subscribers with a Welcome pop-up.

#3: Include RELEVANT calls to action on your blog posts

Every blog post should include a call to action that is relevant to what the post is about. Karen pointed out that “The key is that your call to action be relevant. On the HubSpot blog, if we have a blog post about social media and marketing, we don’t include a call to action to our landing page optimization webinar. We include one to a social media–based webinar.”

Put a call to action on EVERY blog post.

#4: Keep it light and easy

Most of the calls to action we see on websites are all about buying a product or requesting to speak to a sales rep.

Karen describes this as a process of building trust, “just like you don’t ask a girl to your place to spend the night on a first date, you also don’t ask a visitor from social media to sign up for a demo with a sales rep. Someone who has read 140 characters about a blog post on Twitter and clicked through to see what the article was about likely doesn’t know enough about your company to want to dive in head-first and sign up for a trial or a demo.”

Many times our blog has first-time and repeat visitors; therefore, include calls to action that make it super-easy to buy if they’re at that point, but also include the “softer” call to action for those on a first date with your site. You definitely don’t want to force someone to search for how to get more information about your products or turn off a first-time visitor with a sales offer. Balance is the key.

#5: Be your own advertiser

Traditional content creators’ goals are to bring in visitors and then sell ad space to make money. As the world of marketing has changed, marketers are creating content and using social media to drive visitors.

Why not also use your ad space to promote your own offers? Modify traditional banner ad locations into new calls to action for your offers and drive more of your visitors to landing pages where they have the opportunity to convert into leads.

Use traditional advertising spaces to promote your own calls to action.

#6: Optimize your offers with landing pages

Once someone has clicked on one of your calls to action, make sure your landing page is optimized to convert the visitor into a lead. HubSpot recommends you follow the 7 steps outlined here to start converting more leads! For example:

• Keep it simple: keep everything about this page simple, including the number and nature of the questions you ask.
• Keep it short: seeing a massive list of 15-20 questions will make your prospect think hard about the value of his or her time.

At every stage in this process there will be people who fall off and don’t convert. You can maximize your efforts and minimize fall-off by optimizing each step in the process to drive efficient throughput.

Ultimately, the lead conversion process on your blog is just as important as the actual blog post itself. The goal is to create an efficient lead generation process between your social media channels, your status updates, your blog and your landing pages. Don’t let your social media strategies fall flat because you haven’t created an efficient way for them to become a lead.

What do you think? What has worked for driving leads on your blog? Do you have an example of a great blog that is set up to convert leads? Leave a comment below to share your thoughts or questions.

As enticing as the saying is, “If you build it, they will come,” we all know that just because we build a social media presence, people don’t magically start knocking down our door.

Instead, we need to encourage people to come to our social pages and once they’re there, we have to create enough value for them to hang around. And through these repeated exchanges, casual users can become regular visitors as well as valuable leads.

In previous posts, I’ve written A-Z guides to help create the absolute best presence on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs. Now let’s turn our attention to harnessing the power of those efforts for lead generation.

#1: Assets

As part of your social media marketing plan, Michelle deHaaff suggests that companies examine social media and online assets to see what they can leverage for full social media engagement. She identifies seven key assets: location, people, stories, images, video, audio and words to help us think about engaging more fully.

#2: Brand Message

Ethan Lyon suggests that users want to identify with a brand. He offers Nike’s identity as an example, “Customers buy Nike because the brand gives them the confidence to succeed—much like an effective coach.” What is your brand message? What should users know about you? Can they tell that from what you’re posting?

#3: Compelling Messages

Use compelling messages throughout your communications. Craft messages that users can relate to and won’t be able to resist. These are generally the messages that speak like real people and not marketing spin. Below is an example from Pogue’s Post.

David Pogue uses a conversational tone and a bit of humor to drive home a point from Pogue's Post.

#4: Differentiations

Because there’s a tremendous amount of competition vying for consumers’ attention in the social media arena, businesses that can differentiate themselves will stand out and get noticed. Zappos Service Twitter page shows how to make it friendly and feel like you’re hanging out with a good friend. Create remarkable content.

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=8364&message=1

Zappos employees tell you when they're signing off and when they're leaving for the night.

#5: Etiquette

Michelle Golden recommends in her book Social Media Strategies for Professionals and Their Firms to practice good etiquette. “Definitely don’t write about and link only to your stuff. Instead, go out of your way to promote others liberally.”

#6: Feedback

Users who write comments and ask questions appreciate receiving feedback. Make it a regular practice to take time to respond.

A fan poses a question on Social Media Examiner's Facebook page and Cindy King responds with a timely answer and directs the fan to a link.

#7: Google

Remember that the social media updates you post via your blog, Facebook page, tweets and YouTube channel appear in search results, too. The person searching is an active user looking for information, and bringing the user to your pages is an excellent way to get in front of potential customers.

A person looking for sources for how to choose a paint color would find blog posts and videos. This person is looking for help and the companies have provided advice and solutions. The companies have found ways to get in front of potential customers.

#8: Help a Reporter Out

Companies are often looking for ways to share experiences that might be referenced in blog posts and articles. You don’t have to be a big company to get picked up for a story.

Sign up for Help a Reporter Out and when you have a story to share on a topic, offer the information to the reporter. HARO is one good way to spread information and get high-quality, free publicity for your business. Keep your eyes open for other ways to distribute information about your business with social media press releases.

HARO serves as a vital social networking resource for sources, reporters and advertisers.

#9: Icons

Social media icons help users share your content and offer ways for people to like your content. Likes are valuable votes of confidence and go a long way with users who may have come to your site for the first time. Make your content easy to share.

#10: Joy

In Guy Kawasaki’s new book Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions, he tells us that achieving trustworthiness will go a long way for a business. People want to do business with companies and people they can trust. And sometimes it means that we may end up giving our time or some kind of service that we’re not compensated for. Guy suggests that we give with joy.

#11: Knowledge-sharing

Share your knowledge freely in blog posts and white papers. Some businesses are afraid they’ll give away all of their secrets. Your knowledge is a valuable asset; don’t be afraid to share what you know.

HubSpot's inbound Internet marketing blog regularly shares the blogger's personal experiences in marketing and is very generous about sharing tips.

#12: Leverage Content Products

Jeff Bullas recommends using 7 content products for marketing: social media, e-newsletters, blogs, white papers, article marketing, case studies and online videos.

Use a good mix of content, because not all users will read a case study or watch an online video. You’ll increase your odds of being seen by more people by using a mix of content products.

#13: Monitor Conversations

Monitor conversations about your brand and competitors. There are many social media listening tools that will help you keep a pulse on what’s being talked about. The more you know, the more responsive you can be.

#14: Nobodies Are the New Somebodies

One of the most serious mistakes we can make is to pass up a potential lead because we don’t perceive the company or person to be a valuable lead. As Guy Kawasaki says, “Nobodies are the new somebodies in the world of wide-open communications.” Treat everyone with the same attention and respect.

#15: Offline Skills

Online skills don’t have to be inherently different than the way we act offline. Erica Swallow suggests that we use our offline skills and go out there and “Meet people, communicate and build relationships… Be genuine, track conversations and respond to inquiries promptly and thoroughly.”

#16: Produce Content

Not only do we have to produce content, we also have to produce enough of it. HubSpot provides some interesting recommendations: “Businesses must produce enough content for their blog to kick off growth in leads, which starts with about 24 to 51 posts.” HubSpot found that more indexed pages on Google also translate to more leads. They suggest that every 50 to 100 incremental indexed pages can mean double-digit lead growth.

#17: Questions

Lisa Barone recommends that social media marketers should “answer questions because they’re a good way to establish your authority, but also for people to ‘test’ you out.”

#18: Relationships

Lisa Barone also suggests that “social media is an emerging lead generation tool because it lowers the barrier to the sale by building relationships, displaying expertise and through networking you’re able to bring in more people than cold calling ever could.”

#19: Showcase Your Experience

According to Erica Swallow, “The first step to engaging a community of potential customers is sharing content that showcases your expertise. A simple social media update usually isn’t enough to convey a full analysis on a topic. Include links with your updates that expand on key ideas. Keep in mind that your goal is to create value for your followers. Learn what your fans respond to and what they don’t, and then adjust your updates based on that information.”

#20: Target Personas

Buyer personas have been around long before social media hit our radar screens, but marketers have found that having a good picture in mind of the target customer is beneficial in terms of how we write our content.

A blog, for example, can have multiple categories of topics and so you may find that certain categories speak more to certain personas than others. And certain Facebook and Twitter updates may appeal to certain users.

Regardless of how you segment these groups, it’s incredibly beneficial to share target persona information with whoever is developing content for your social media channels.

Before writing, review your persona list to remind yourself whom you're conversing with.

#21: Useful Content

Kristina Halvorson, author of Content Strategy for the Web, says that if our content isn’t supporting the successful fulfillment of our business objectives or our users’ top goals, then it’s a waste of pixels. She suggests adding two columns to a content inventory: value to user and value to business.

#22: Value

Guy Kawasaki says there are three types of value: 1) pointers to useful, inspiring or entertaining content, 2) personal insights, observations or content, 3) advice and assistance. Guy’s recommendation is to pass along these gems to friends and followers to help them derive more value from online resources.

#23: Word of Mouth

The Marqui Web Marketing Blog’s post 6 Ways Social Media Marketing Helps B2B Lead Generation says, “Word of mouth has been, and continues to be, one of the best ways to generate more leads for your business. Buyers tend to trust peer referrals more than any other source of information and since social media allows people to share their experiences (both good and bad) with a wide range of people, this can help increase trust in your company’s products and services.”

#24: Excellence

The Network Singularity blog says “there are 5 C’s to social media excellence: coordination of social media activities, commitment means engaging with your environment and deliberately pursuing social interactions, confidence in your social media activities, comprehension of social media, and cultivation of worthwhile and friendly relationships.”

#25: Yes

Being likable on social media enhances our potential for lead generation. Guy Kawasaki says one way to become likable is to “adopt a yes attitude. This means your default response to people’s requests is yes… By contrast, a no response stops everything… To make a default yes work, you must assume people are reasonable, honest and grateful.”

#26: Zeal

Enthusiasm is contagious. By showing the fervor you have for your business, products and services, and through the content you share on your social media channels, users will be inclined to want to stick around, engage and build a relationship. Reach out and show your enthusiasm.

What ways have you generated leads with social media? What would you add to this list? Leave your comments in the box below.

To take your Facebook marketing to a new level, here are hot Facebook marketing tips direct from the top industry pros. You’ll want to incorporate these priceless ideas.

The best way to get the most from Facebook is to model the best. Find out who’s doing it right and getting real results, and model their strategies. Here are seven ideas from the top authorities in Facebook marketing. Take notes—these tips are too good to pass up!

#1: Bring Facebook to Your Website

“The number-one thing you can do is to bring Facebook onto your own turf. It can be done with a few simple lines of code. This can be one of your most powerful tools for improving your brand awareness,” says Jesse Stay, author of multiple Facebook books, including FBML Essentials.

This page describes the many ways to add Facebook to your website. But the easiest way to add Facebook to your site is to use the Facebook Like Box.

The Facebook Like Box allows you to show your Facebook page feed, the number of fans and pictures of people who are fans (who are also friends of visitors!).

#2: Try Really Inexpensive Facebook Ads

“The best ‘bang for the buck’ in Internet marketing today is Facebook advertising. The targeting options are limitless and surprisingly inexpensive for businesses of all sizes. Facebook advertising can help marketers of all kinds get insights into how different demographic groups respond—and for a fraction of the cost of other alternatives,” said Chris Treadaway, co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day.

Setting up an ad on Facebook is super-easy. Just go to the Facebook Ads section and click the “Create an Ad” button. Then simply set up your ad.

#3: Leverage Friends of Connections

Once you have created your Facebook ad, here’s a little-known tip that can supercharge your ad.

“Imagine watching your favorite TV show. The commercials come on, but instead of fast-forwarding through them (as you likely usually do these days), you notice a picture of YOUR friend in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. Your friend is pointing to the business in the commercial saying, ‘Hey, I like these guys. Check them out!’ Amazing, huh?

“Facebook’s ‘Friends of Connections’ ad targeting allows your fans to be featured in your ads,” noted Dave Kerpen, author of Likeable Social Media: Marketing to Win in a Facebook World.

Here’s how you use this option. When you set up your ad, look under ‘Targeting’ and you’ll see an option to display more detail. There you will see the connection on Facebook choices.

You must be an admin of a Facebook page to select the page for the "Friends of Connections" option.

#4: Give Your Fans Fun Reasons to Connect

“People love a reason to get together. Why not have the equivalent of a happy hour on your Facebook wall? Rather than serving up drinks and party favors, ask folks to bring their favorite link. Consider offering networking opportunities by asking folks to share something about themselves. You could also lure people in once in a while with an expert who will answer their most pressing questions,” says Michael Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner.

On Social Media Examiner's Facebook page, we had a happy hour and encouraged fans to post their favorite blog sites. It was a huge success!

#5: Use Video as Your Secret Weapon to Gain Fans

“Videos seem to be a preferred medium not only by the fans, but by the news feed algorithm as well. Whenever a non-fan watches your videos, a button pops up in the top left corner suggesting he/she ‘Like’ your Facebook page. To take advantage of this feature though, you’ll have to upload the video file onto the Video Tab inside Facebook (not link to a YouTube video),” said Ekaterina Walter, social media strategist for Intel.

When non-fans view your videos on Facebook, they will see the Like button for your Facebook page in the upper left corner of the video screen. This feature is a great tool to gain exposure and recruit new fans.

#6: Turn Your Facebook Page Into a Lead Generator

Facebook as a lead capture source? “You bet!” says renowned Facebook expert Mari Smith.

“One of the first apps to add to your Facebook Fan Page is ‘Static FBML’ (Facebook Markup Language), which allows you to add your own custom content, including an opt-in box. You can add multiple iterations of the FBML app, and try out various lead-capture systems—ezine signup, giveaway, ask campaign, etc. Each opt-in box can appear on a separate tab, each of which has its own unique URL, allowing you to accurately split test results,” noted Mari Smith, co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day.

In the example above, Darren Rowse of ProBlogger uses an opt-in box on his Facebook page to promote his podcasts. Notice how he created a separate tab for the opt-in. This is a great way to call attention to what you want your fans to see.

#7: Turn Your Facebook Page Into a Thriving Community

“Your Facebook presence can serve as a meeting place for like-minded individuals. Make it a point to involve your customers as much as possible. Ask questions and suggest items for them to share on your wall. Ask yourself more than “What should WE share?”—ask, “What would our fans like to share with us and one another?”—and build your strategy around those answers. Allow them to connect with others who share the same interests by encouraging them to use your Facebook presence as a platform for sharing,” said Rob Birgfeld, director of digital strategy at SmartBrief.

By simply asking an offbeat question, a community can emerge, as seen above. This question was posted in the late afternoon on a Saturday and 64 people responded.

Want to Learn More About Facebook Marketing?

If you’re not fully leveraging the power of Facebook, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Most businesses are just now getting started with Facebook.

There’s one easy way to take your Facebook marketing to the next level. By attending the web’s largest online Facebook conference, Facebook Success Summit 2010, you’ll become empowered to use Facebook to gain more exposure, better engage customers and grow your business.

The great part is you’ll be learning from 22 Facebook experts (including the 7 mentioned in this article). In addition to Mari Smith, Jesse Stay, Brian Solis and Michael Stelzner, you’ll learn how Intel, Cisco, Microsoft Xbox, SAP and the Washington Redskins are all leveraging Facebook.

It’s the web’s largest online Facebook marketing conference. Go here for a free sample and to learn more.

Have you tried any of these master tips or do you want to add Facebook tips of your own? Let us know! Please leave your comments below.

The good news is social media has finally made it to the grand stage of “accountability.” A place where there are lots of people who want to measure it. The bad news is there isn’t a single clear-cut answer.

However, with a few simple steps, you can build a measurement strategy that accomplishes your goals.

Defining Terms

To start, let’s agree that brand awareness is a measure of how recognizable your brand is to your target audience. For those looking to get ahead of the curve on social media measurement, the first step is to align your social media metrics with metrics your company is already comfortable with.

Also, let’s agree that the measurements for social media aren’t all that different from how you’ve been measuring traditional media. To put brand awareness measurement into the context of the sales funnel, the key areas to evaluate fall into three categories:  social media exposure, influence and engagement.

With that understanding, let’s look at how you can level the playing field between your traditional media metrics and your social media metrics.

#1:  Measuring Social Media Exposure

How many people could you have reached with your message?

In social media, this measurement is about as reliable as a print magazine’s circulation, but knowing your potential audience does have value because it represents your potential sales lead pool.

Unfortunately, as of the writing of this post, some of these metrics have to be accounted for manually, so you’ll have to balance the level of effort to track the metrics versus the value you’ll receive from them to determine their importance to your overall strategy.

A good example of where there can be unreliability in social measurement is when isolating unique users for each of your metrics. You want to avoid counting the same person twice in the list below, but realistically it’s difficult to do.

These measurements highlight the number of people you’ve attracted to your brand through social media. To mitigate the potential for duplication of users, track growth rate as a percentage of the aggregate totals. This is where you will find the real diamonds.

• Twitter: Look at your number of followers and the number of followers for those who retweeted your message to determine the monthly potential reach. You should track these separately and then compare the month-over-month growth rate of each of these metrics so you can determine where you’re seeing the most growth. A great free tool to use for Twitter measurement is TweetReach.
• Facebook: Track the total number of fans for your brand page. In addition, review the number of friends from those who became fans during a specified period of time or during a promotion and those who commented on or liked your posts to identify the potential monthly Facebook reach.  Facebook Insights provides value here.
• YouTube: Measure the number of views for videos tied to a promotion or specific period of time, such as monthly, and the total number of subscribers.
• Blog: Measure the number of visitors who viewed the posts tied to the promotion or a specific period of time.
• Email: Take a look at how many people are on the distribution list and how many actually received the email.

Exposure is the top of the brand awareness funnel and represents your potential sales lead pool.

#2:  Measuring Engagement

How many people actually did something with your message?

This is one of the most important measurements because it shows how many people actually cared enough about what you had to say to result in some kind of action.

Fortunately engagement is fairly easy to measure with simple tools such as Radian 6, Biz360 and TweetEffect. These metrics highlight who you want to target to retain on social media channels.

For a starting list of key performance indicators for engagement, this post by Chris Lake is a great start.

• Twitter: Quantify the number of times your links were clicked, your message was retweeted, and your hashtag was used and then look at how many people were responsible for the activity. You can also track @replies and direct messages if you can link them to campaign activity.
• Facebook: Determine the number of times your links were clicked and your messages were liked or commented on. Then break this down by how many people created this activity. You can also track wall posts and private messages if you can link them to activity that is directly tied to a specific social media campaign.
• YouTube: Assess the number of comments on your video, the number of times it was rated, the number of times it was shared and the number of new subscribers.
• Blog: Evaluate the number of comments, the number of subscribers generated and finally the number of times the posts were shared and “where” they were shared (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, email, etc.). Measure how many third-party blogs you commented on and the resulting referral traffic to your site.
• Email: Calculate how many people opened, clicked and shared your email. Include where the items were shared, similar to the point above. Also, keep track of the number of new subscriptions generated.

#3: Measuring Influence

This category gets into a bit of a soft space for measurement. Influence is a subjective metric that relies on your company’s perspective for definition. Basically, you want to look at whether the engagement metrics listed above are positive, neutral or negative in sentiment. In other words, did your campaign influence positive vibes toward the brand or did it create bad mojo?

You can also use automated tools like Twitalyzer, Social Mention, Radian 6 or ScoutLabs to make it a little easier, but ALWAYS do a manual check to validate any sentiment results. Influence is generally displayed as a percentage of positive, neutral and negative sentiment, which is then applied in relation to the engagement metrics and to the metrics for reach where applicable.

A great application for influence is to look at the influence by those who engaged with your brand in the above categories. Do you have a nice mix of big players with large audiences engaging with your brand, as well as the average Joe with a modest following?

If not, your influence pendulum may be about to tip over, because it’s important that you spend time engaging with both influential users and your average user. Note: many of the automated tools that track sentiment and influence are not free. And many times, you will need a combination of tools to measure all of the different social media channels.

#4:  The Lead Generation Funnel

After you’ve measured through the influence portion of the funnel, you’re now creeping into where too many companies are starting their measurement efforts: the lead generation funnel. This is where the brand awareness portion of the funnel ends and the traditional ROI-driven action begins.

Exposure, influence and engagement represent brand awareness in the measurement funnel.

Understanding your reach, engagement and influence through these primary social channels will allow you to define your presence and impact, which can then be applied as a model to other social networks.

Now that you’ve tracked all of this information, how do you make it meaningful? Excel is a great tool to help organize your data. Build yourself a standard dashboard in Excel that highlights the key metrics that matter to the organization. Create a tab for a high-level overview of multiple campaigns, and a tab for each campaign for the time period you’re reporting on. Ultimately, you should put the information into the same format that you’ve used to report on traditional brand awareness campaigns, with social media as just another vehicle in the overall marketing mix.

If you’re looking for tools to use for tracking, this post by Mani Karthik at Daily Bloggr gives a nice view of options.

To really understand the importance of measurement, here’s a great post on social media measurement from Social Media Examiner: Is Social Media Marketing Measurable? The Big Debate.

What about you? Are you measuring?  How are you measuring?  What metrics would you add? Leave a comment below and let’s talk.

Make no mistake about it:  a true investment of time and resources is necessary to see significant social media marketing success.

But the real question is, “Just HOW MUCH time is needed to see solid success?”

This question was recently answered in the new study, 2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, authored by Michael Stelzner.  Based on the report findings, ROI is top of mind for most marketers using social media.

Top Social Media Questions Marketers Want Answered

According to the data, the number-one question marketers most want answered is how to track social media ROI.  A sampling of questions includes:

• How can I tell a convincing story to management about the ROI for social media marketing?
• What are the key metrics to follow for measuring ROI in terms of customer satisfaction, revenues and brand loyalty?
• How effective is social media versus the resources needed to maintain the effort?
• Are there any industry benchmarks that track the impact of social media marketing?

In the 2009 study, the number-one question from marketers was related to social media tactics, followed by ROI.  Now tactics have moved down considerably and the ROI question has moved up.  One reason for this could be that social media is maturing and more people have started using the tools and tactics.  Now they want to know if the long-term payoff for their time and resources is really there.

Time Versus Return for Social Media Marketing

When looking at ROI, you also have to look closely at just how much time you’re investing.  Unlike some other traditional forms of marketing, when it comes to social media, your investment is more time than money.

The industry report results shed some light on the amount of time marketers are really spending on social media marketing.

Out of the 1900 marketers’ responses, almost all were using social media for marketing purposes and the majority of these marketers were fairly new in the social media area.

• 91% of respondents indicated they were employing social media for marketing purposes.
• 65% of marketers have either just started or have been using social media for only a few months.

When drilling down to the actual hours spent using social media tools, the largest group was in the 1 to 5 hours per week range.  Of that group, 43% are spending 4 to 5 hours each week on social media activities. A significant 56% of marketers are using social media for 6 hours or more each week and 30% for 11 or more hours weekly.  It’s interesting to note that 12.5% of marketers spend more than 20 hours each week on social media.

This chart shows the overall breakdown of marketers’ time spent using social sites.

But even more interesting than the time spent on social media marketing, the report also showed a correlation between the amount of user experience and the time spent using social media tools. The median weekly time commitment for beginners was 1 hour versus 10 hours for those doing this for a few months or longer. Because 65% of respondents indicated they were newbies or just a few months in, much of their time spent on social sites could be more trial and error than solid strategy. Perhaps the difference in time spent using social tools is because the marketers who have the most experience also have more well-defined social media strategies, allowing them a clear plan of action on the social sites.

Just like with anything else, experience is golden.  The more user experience one has with social media marketing, the more valuable every minute spent on social media sites becomes.  The time spent on social sites is not as important as the actual results.  What we really should be looking at is what kind of results are you getting for that 1 hour, 4 hours, even 12 hours per week?

Top Benefits of Social Media

When the respondents were asked about the benefits they’ve received from social media marketing, there were some clear winners that stood out above the rest.  When looking at ROI on social media marketing, money in the bank can’t be your only indicator of success.  Increased traffic, lead generation and happy, connected customers all are factors in deciding which social media strategies are working best for your business.

According to the survey, the number-one benefit of social media marketing is greater exposure (85%).  Improving traffic and building new partnerships followed next.  More than half of marketers indicated a rise in search engine rankings was a benefit of social media marketing.  The report states, “As search engine rankings improve, so will business exposure, lead generation efforts and a reduction in overall marketing expenses.  More than half of marketers found social media generated qualified leads.”

This chart shows how respondents viewed the benefits of social media marketing.

Outsourcing Social Media

Because time and ROI are such a central focus for many marketers, it was surprising to see that very few were outsourcing their social media efforts.  According to the report, some factors may be that social media outsourcing is fairly new and the majority of respondents were new to social media, perhaps yet unaware of what they should and should not be outsourcing.

The chart below shows how the majority of marketers are not outsourcing their social media activity.

Where we’re seeing the outsourcing trend is in the larger organizations.  According to the report, “the larger the organization, the more likely outsourcing is taking place.  For example, 25.7% of large businesses and 25% of mid-sized businesses are currently outsourcing, compared to only 10.6% of sole proprietors.”  Like many marketing trends, what starts with the “big guys” tends to make its way to the smaller businesses—therefore, we may be seeing more outsourcing overall in the coming year.

Check out the full report here.

Now it’s your turn!  Do you feel your time using social media marketing is worth the return? Does your own experience match up with the results? Share here—we want to hear from you!

Social media goes beyond Facebook or Twitter.  It’s about connecting with people and developing relationships.  And sometimes those connections can be literally face-to-face!

Social media allows us to make connections faster and over greater distances, but there is power in social media to bring us closer to our neighbors, too.  One of the ways to do that is with a Tweetup.

What Is a Tweetup?

There are some things that just can’t be done with a 140-character limit.

A Tweetup is an in-person meeting of Twitter users. It has also become a colloquialism for any in-person networking event organized using social media.

For example, there are lots of events on Facebook that result in large parties. One I was recently involved with is Bring Gary Vaynerchuk to Chicago. The whole thing was organized through Facebook. The end result was to meet Gary in Chicago, along with a lot of other entrepreneurs, networkers and wine lovers.

How Tweetups Benefit Your Business

Obviously Gary benefited from the Facebook event by having a lot of attention drawn to his book. Did anyone else benefit?

On a personal level, Nancy S. (a friend, entrepreneur and wine connoisseur) was inspired by meeting Gary. Nancy has been hesitating about starting a new venture, and gained new confidence from the event.

Kelly Olexa, the event organizer, also benefited by hosting this event. She is now recognized as the person who brought Gary Vaynerchuk to Chicago, and she was able to network with a targeted audience during the event.

The nice thing about a Tweetup is that it doesn’t have to involve a celebrity. The key element to a successful Tweetup is having something people are interested in. Just think of parties you’ve had before and what made them successful. You’ll generally get more people to come when you give them a reason to be there.

We’ll cover how to organize a Tweetup in a second. For now, let’s take a look at three major benefits you get from a Tweetup:

Thought Leadership

This is when people recognize you as a leader and influencer of opinion. Kelly gained credibility as a thought leader by reaching out to Gary and getting him to come to Chicago.

Community-Building

By bringing people together around a common interest, you help them to get to know each other better. Whether it’s a backyard barbecue or a national convention, the most important aspect of any networking event is the conversations and relationships that develop.

Credibility-Building

The person who organizes a Tweetup is recognized as a leader and an expert. In Kelly’s case, her expertise is in media, getting the word out, and organizing events. She was able to capitalize on her complementary interest in wine to develop a major event with Gary.

Other benefits of hosting a Tweetup include:

• Deeper relationships
• New testimonials
• Media exposure
• Lead generation
• Increased sales

Organizing a Tweetup

The first thing to understand about organizing a Tweetup is that it has already been done. There are lots of resources out there for you to use and make it easier for yourself.

Three of those resources are Meetup.com, Eventbrite and Amiando. They all have free elements to their service, and paid components as well.

Meetup allows you to join and participate for free. When you decide to become an organizer for events, there is a subscription fee for accessing those tools. You can subscribe for up to 6 months at a time for $12/month. You can charge for events through Meetup if you want to. They allow you to connect to Amazon Payments and PayPal to collect fees.

The great thing about Meetup is that it announces your new Meetup Group to the community. You just pick a topic, describe your Meetup, and you’re ready to go.

Eventbrite and Amiando are more like Ticketmaster. You can use them to organize events, and when you charge a ticket price they take a percentage of the sales.

Aside from using a service such as Meetup, Eventbrite or even Facebook to organize your event, there are three important organizing elements I want to draw attention to.

#1: Visit the Venue

Especially when you’re hosting the Tweetup at your business location, take time to look at the location from the perspective of guests. You might even ask a couple of friends to give you their opinions.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Will guests be able to have conversations without shouting at each other?
• Is there enough light to read business cards?
• Where will refreshments be?

#2: Use Name Tags

Everyone has an online handle, and it’s often different from their real name. Plan to have name tags that show both.

#3: Be Active During the Tweetup

To get the benefits of hosting a Tweetup, guests need to see you and meet you. Make a point of speaking to everyone and introducing yourself.

Stuart Foster wrote an excellent article for Mashable entitled Organize a Successful Tweetup. He outlines 17 things both to do and to avoid when planning and hosting a Tweetup. I suggest you print the article and keep it as a resource, but there’s something else you need to do first.

Networking Before a Tweetup

You’re going to have the most success by making sure you have lots of people to invite. To get a good crowd, you need two things:

1. A local network (not huge – millions or even thousands – a couple of hundred people is plenty)
2. A common interest

The common interest part is fairly easy, and it doesn’t have to be directly related to your business.

When the earthquake struck Haiti, you know a lot of business owners organized fundraising activities. You could easily use status updates, tweets, and email – even the telephone – to reach your network and tell them about an event like that.

The great thing about it is that everyone you tell is definitely going to tell a friend or two. Being able to help others gives everyone a good feeling.

You could be a hardware store owner and still find plenty of common interests for a Tweetup. In spring, organize an event around garden planting. For the do-it-yourself crowd, organize summertime events around barbecuing, deck installations, and landscaping.

Any time you’re stuck for an idea, just pick up the phone and call your best clients. Ask them what they’re interested in and would like to know more about. Finding a common interest is easy. Building a local network is a tiny bit more challenging. And I mean just a tiny bit because there are lots of tools to help you do it.

Naturally you’re going to start with the social media sites you already belong to. Twitter is an excellent one to use, and not just because Twitter developed Tweetups. It’s also because there are several applications and two features in Twitter designed to help. (If you don’t have a Twitter account, here’s an instruction booklet to get you started.)

One feature in Twitter is geotagging. Just login to your Twitter account and go to Settings. Check the box for Geotagging under Locations. Here’s a screenshot to show you what it looks like:

For your own profile, turn geotagging on so other people can find you. For your network, spread the word about geotagging so it becomes easier for you to find other people.

The other feature in Twitter is its Search function. You can type a city and radius into the search field to find local Twitter users. For example, someone in Toronto could type:

Near:Toronto within:50mi

This is going to show you Twitter users living within 50 miles of Toronto.

You can see from the image above that a Twitter search gives you tweets along with who made them. That can be a lot of extra information to sort through. Fortunately, there are some great services out there that help you do the work. Two I particularly enjoy are Twellow and TwitterLocal.

Twellow is yellow pages for Twitter users. You can register for a free account, but you don’t have to be registered to use the service. Twellow is cool because it lets you search Twitter users in several ways. You can search by location, interest, name, and subject, to name a few.

It also has a neat feature called Twellowhood. It lets you zero in on any geographic location in the world. (Remember what I mentioned about geotagging?) You start by picking a continent, then a state or province. When you get to an area that’s small enough – say, Ontario, Canada – Twellowhood gives you a list of cities in that province.

The number beside each city is how many Twitter users are located there. Just click on a city and you’ll get a listing of every local Twitter user.

TwitterLocal is a little different. It’s an Adobe AIR application that you download to your computer.

Once installed, TwitterLocal allows you to filter tweets by location – similar to the Twitter search function I showed you. Obviously this is handy for watching the conversations happening in your area. It can be a great way to get ideas for which common interest to tap into for your next event.

In every case, your goal is to develop new relationships with people in your locale so they can attend your Tweetups.

Keep in mind that your own existing network can help you meet local people, too. Tell them what you are doing and ask your connections to help by introducing you to local people. I was surprised at the people I was introduced to through my own network.

Cooperating With Customers

Social media has become part of our cultural and marketing landscape. We’re also generally social creatures who enjoy meeting new people and making friends.

Hosting a Tweetup allows you to cooperate with your customers to give them three important benefits:

1. They’re learning more about the common interest.
2. Everyone gets to meet new people and be social.
3. Guests develop a deeper relationship with you and your business.

Take your first step today. Pick a common interest and use Twitter to organize a Tweetup with 10 friends. That gives you a doable project with a safe audience. You can build from there.

Have you participated in tweetups? Post your experiences and questions below. And, even more importantly, come back to write about the experiences you have. Let’s make a conversation here that helps everyone build success with social media.

#1: 50% of Small Businesses Say Lead Generation is Biggest Benefit of Social Networking

According to the “Small Business Marketing Forecast 2010” from Ad-ology, lead generation is the biggest benefit of social networking for U.S. small businesses.

Here’s the breakdown of respondents’ top benefits of social networking:

• 50%: Generating leads
• 45%: Keeping up with the industry
• 44%: Monitoring online conversation
• 38%: Finding vendors/suppliers

This chart shows the level at which the respondents found each social networking benefit useful.

Here’s a surprising statistic: While 67% agreed that social media is a good way to increase business, 39% of those surveyed said they did not plan to use social networking in their marketing plan in 2010.  This number is likely tied to the finding that 31% reported that their customers do not use social media, 29% stated they do not have enough time to devote to it and 21% said they do not know enough about social media.

Although more businesses are beginning to adopt social media strategies into their overall marketing plans, this report suggests businesses still have a long way to go before social media is fully integrated into marketing efforts.

#2: Online Forum Users Are Enthusiastic Brand Advocates

According to a recent survey published by PostRelease, people who actively contribute to online forums are overwhelmingly more engaged in “influential” activities – both online and offline – than people who don’t use forums.

What’s most interesting about these findings is that a forum contributor’s influence far extends past the walls of the forum.  Here are some statistics:

• 79.2% of forum contributors help a friend or family member make a decision about a product purchase – compared with 47.6% of non-contributors and 53.8% overall.
• 65% of forum contributors share advice (offline and in person) based on information that they’ve read online – compared with 35% of non-contributors and 40.8% overall.
• 57.7% of forum contributors proactively recommend someone make a particular purchase – compared with 16.9% of non-contributors and 24.9% overall.

There’s also an interesting correlation between forum users and blogging.  The study found that those who contribute to online forums are 10 times more likely than non-contributors to also publish a blog, and are 9 times more likely to take an active role in organizing an offline event or meeting for a group that originally met online.

For marketers who are looking to connect with the key influencers in their niche, the findings suggest that online forums are a smart place to start; however, marketers should proceed with caution. Justin Choi, founder and president of PostRelease, writes, “Online forums are great places to find enthusiastic consumers and influential brand advocates. The people in forums are often discussing specific products, sharing advice and asking each other for recommendations.  For marketers, participating in that discussion is not quite as simple as jumping into a forum conversation – forums have rules about that.  But there are tools for connecting in a way that’s transparent and relevant.”

Here's a snapshot of the behaviors and habits of people who contribute to forums versus the non-contributors.

#3:  Only 47% of Companies Experimenting With Social Media

A study by Gartner predicts that by the end of 2010, more than 60% of Fortune 1000 companies will manage an online community.  However, another study by ComBlu brings Gartner’s findings into question.

ComBlu’s study, The State of Online Branded Communities, shows how most companies do not understand how to engage within online communities and have no real idea of what their customers want on these sites.  Furthermore, most companies are unaware that people interact on these sites in different ways, so many companies are merely pushing data with little or no interaction.

The report reveals that when companies do get people to join their communities, their lack of engagement is extremely obvious to the sophisticated user.

“Instead of engaging the visitor, the brand drives them away because they offer little of value. Consumers today are sophisticated users of social tools and seek out communities to learn, share and interact. If these elements are missing, or there is no obvious organizing structure that fulfills specific needs, the ‘faux’ community will be quickly abandoned,” stated the report.

Here are some interesting findings related to brands and their online community activity (or lack thereof):

• 47% of brands are still in the experimental phase, meaning they “exhibit lots of social activity with little connection or integration with each other.”
• 24% are community ghost towns, meaning there is no engagement and very few members with no return visitors.
• 20% show a cohesive strategy and typically had robust engagement tools and multiple activities with an active participation from their community.
• 9% show community overload with multiple messages to the same audience, most likely causing confusion and diluting the message.

Perhaps even more important, the study points out that some of the most effective online community best practices were used the least.  Of the 135 communities they examined, only:

• 44 have a community manager. A community manager acts as the face of the community. Without one, there is no cohesive bond between the community sponsors and its members.
• 44 allow social networking. This practice allows community members to connect with each other and find shared interests, thus promoting further connection.
• 35 offer social bookmarking. This best practice gives community members a tool to personalize and aggregate their online experience at the brand’s destination site.

What do you think about these study findings? As always, we want to hear from you. Have you had similar results that support the data above or does your social media experience contradict the findings? Let us know your thoughts in the comment box below!