So, if you use social media to connect with your customers (or fans, or followers, or tribe…), authenticity is a must.

Keep reading to discover five tips to make your company more “human.”

#1: Use your name

Putting a name (that’s a real, human name) on your blog posts, tweets or status updates shows your audience that you’re not a robot or an automated stream of sales pitches and company news. Using your name when updating social media humanizes your content and makes you relatable for your audience.

If you use a team of people to update your accounts, each one can sign off on his or her contributions. Even if they just use initials to save space when posting to limited-character services like Twitter, this shows your audience that thought and effort have gone into creating and distributing your content.

Comedy duo Hamish & Andy sign off their tweets and status updates to show who contributed the content.

#2: Add a face

Adding a face to your social media accounts works in the same way as adding a name. It humanizes your content and gives your followers an idea of the person behind the keyboard.

If you prefer to use your company logo or a product image as your profile picture, you can still use photos to add real-person value to your presence.

Many companies have “meet the team” pages, with information about the company members and what they do. This is a perfect place to add a team picture or individual photos.

David Hartstein has some great tips for using photos effectively on your Facebook page, which can be equally useful when adding pictures to your website, Google+ account or photo-sharing sites like Flickr.

Maintaining professionalism in your images so they represent your brand well is a must. As you can see below, IdeaPaint balances fun and creativity in its team photo to show off what the brand is about without losing its professionalism.

The IdeaPaint Facebook page features a great team photo.

Adding new photos regularly is a great way to keep people interested in what you’re doing as a brand. You can show the personality behind the logo by adding “behind-the-scenes” photos and sharing your work in the community through pictures.

#3: Connect with people through your writing voice

So now your audience knows your name and what you look like. They feel like they recognize you, but they don’t know you yet.

Adding personality (your voice) to your content creates a whole picture of you as a person. If you want to connect to people (Remember my intro? That’s what social media is all about!), you need to be a person.

People don’t connect to corporations, robots or automated messages.

Aussie bookshop The Nile does a great job of adding personality to tweets.

Your voice is a huge part of drawing in your audience and engaging them. The way you write has to replace facial expressions, body language, physical gestures and tone of voice, all of which help you get your point across and keep your audience interested in face-to-face communication.

That’s a big task for a 400-word blog post. It’s an even bigger task for a 140-character tweet! Which is why analytics and research are so important to companies using social media—we need a way to measure whether our voice is coming across in our content, and whether we are engaging people or turning them off.

Developing your voice takes time and effort (what doesn’t in social media?), especially if you are acting as a channel for your company’s message.

The important thing is not to quash your own personality in favor of your brand’s message. Writing like you talk can be difficult at first, but by free-writing in your spare time, or just through practice, you can incorporate what you sound like in a conversation into the way you write.

Re-reading your work is important here, too. Even a short blog post can give you some great insights into how you sound by reading it aloud or going over it with someone else.

Jeff Goins has some great tips to help you find the things that make you unique, and how to develop your writing voice to reflect who you are.

With a face, a name and a voice full of personality, you are now a fully equipped human being! Exactly the kind of person your audience wants to talk to, which means you can get your brand’s message across more effectively.

Now for a couple of tips on how to interact with your audience using your new-found humanoid existence!

#4: Listen (the great equalizer)

One of my favorite things about social media is that it acts as an equalizer in a way that no other communication channel does. Unlike writing letters, calling a switchboard or emailing a support team, social media can (and often does) give you access to Fortune 500 company CEOs, celebrities, future employers and those amazing people who make it all possible: web developers.

You can use this to your advantage.

By interacting with your audience on their turf, you have already taken the first step. But engaging your followers takes more than being in the right place at the right time.

If you show up on Flickr and try to generate discussions about new home-security equipment, you probably won’t have much luck. Or if you start a Facebook fan page and fill it with legal jargon, your fans will probably dwindle quickly.

Interacting with your audience in the right way is imperative to a successful social media strategy. This is where listening comes in. Listen to your fans; not just to find out what they say about your brand, but also how they say it. How do they interact with you? How do they interact with each other?

Listening has proven to be influential in driving social media campaigns. Listening, as opposed to talking (or selling!), allows you to determine the best way to connect with your audience.

Monitoring mentions of your brand name, your own name, your industry and your competitors shows you where the conversations are happening and what people are saying about you.

Once you’re in the right place, listening to the conversations around you (and about you) will give you the information you need to jump in with a useful comment, propelling the conversation. You can also tailor your content to be more personal and engaging by listening first.

The great thing about social media is that the consumer finally has as much power as the corporation. Your customers will show you how to engage them, if you will just listen.

A company that listens immediately demonstrates genuineness, originality and credibility. And you know what those equal, don’t you?

#5: Determine why you are here

To quote Jay Baer, “for many companies, the conversation has shifted from ‘why’ or ‘should’ we do social media, to ‘where’ and ‘how’ social media should be done.” The only problem is when a company decides they need to “do this social media thing” just because everyone else is.

No matter what your strategy for social media, you must have a reason for it. Otherwise, you’re just adding to the noise.

Having goals for your social media team (or just you!) to work toward will give your content purpose and will give you motivation and clarity in monitoring and updating your accounts. This will eliminate the wishy-washy gap-filler posts that lower your brand’s credibility.

Plus, your audience will be more likely to get on board if you not only create and share great content, but also have a demonstrated purpose behind your actions.

What do you think? Does your company do a great job of showing authenticity as a brand? Or do you need to adjust your approach? Maybe you have some great tips to add? Leave a comment in the box below and let us know!

This article will reveal five ways you can build meaningful relationships on LinkedIn that will lead to business opportunities.

Is LinkedIn Not Working For You?

Up to this point, you’ve probably focused on building up your connections to grow your online influence and visibility. However, the greater challenge lies in actually going deeper with those connections that you’ve made online. If you’re simply connected to someone but have no further dialogue, what have you really accomplished?

The lifeline of new and existing business is relationships, and having meaningful conversations and in-person meetings are crucial in order to move from the connection phase into the relationship phase.

How can you leverage your professional presence on LinkedIn to connect on a deeper level with people and turn those connections into more meaningful relationships?

#1: Timing Is Everything

The time to go deeper with a connection is when you’re top of mind; after you’ve made a new connection, an introduction, received an introduction, answered a question, received an answer to a question and even after someone has commented on your status update or group discussion!

Action Step: All of these situations give you a reason to take the next step and initiate a related conversation. Give a compliment, ask a question, ask for a favor, ask for advice, or ask for an introduction soon after you’ve had a basic interaction with one of your first-, second- or third-degree connections. Conversations can lead to phone calls, ongoing dialogue and potentially even in-person meetings!

#2: Leveraging Events

If you’re paying attention to what your LinkedIn connections are up to, you may be able to see if they’re planning to attend an upcoming event if it is highlighted in the LinkedIn network. Look for events in your area that you’re also planning to attend or may possibly attend. Live events provide an excellent opportunity to meet and converse with online connections even if they’re second- or third-degree connections!

Action Step: Visit the event RSVP page, determine who’s attending and reach out to one or two of those individuals. You can either send a message (if you have a first-degree or group connection) or an InMail^TM (if second or third degree, or no group connection) letting them know that you’ll also be in attendance and that you look forward to the opportunity to meet them in person. This is a very nonthreatening way to get face-to-face and go deeper with your connections of every degree.

Find events in your area and reach out to connections that you can potentially meet in person

#3: Sync Geography With Travel

Perhaps you have clients in several geographical locations. Where does your network live and work? Under the “My Connections” tab, you can see the location of all of your connections. Let’s say you have a business trip planned to New York City to visit one client, but 15 connections are there whom you might also be able to get in front of. Or perhaps there are a number of connections within the same city whom you can bring together for a special lunch or dinner!

Action Step: Contact connections to let them know you’re going to be in their area soon and ask them if they’d like to meet for coffee or lunch so you can spend a few minutes learning more about their business. Or contact several connections who have complimentary businesses and live in the same area and invite them to a small-group networking dinner!

Reach out to connections based on your travel in order to arrange for face-to-face meetings

#4: Ask for Advice

Most influential people don’t like to have their brains picked, but everyone loves to give advice whether they admit it or not! People love to give their opinions when asked, and asking for advice can actually endear you to people because it makes them feel important.

When you reach out to an influential connection, first explain who you are, reference a common thread, give a genuine compliment, ask for advice, and explain your reason for doing so. Always have a reason when asking for advice. You’ll be amazed at how you can open the door to building a deeper relationship around common personal and professional interests by asking for advice!

Action Step: For example: “Hi John, we connected recently here on LinkedIn and I noticed that you commented about the upcoming technology event taking place next month in Seattle. It appears that you’ve attended in the past and you really seem to have a grasp on the subject matter. I’d like to ask whether you think it’s a good fit for a marketing team to attend, as I am thinking about taking my company. Thanks so much in advance for sharing your thoughts!

#5: Be a Resource

Going beyond basic listening and serving as a resource to your connections is a powerful way to stay top of mind and develop more meaningful relationships on LinkedIn. Review status updates, discussion topics and questions from your connections frequently to determine where you can add value, provide insight or resources, or help promote your connection through a key introduction.

Once your connections see you as a resource, they will classify you as a valued relationship in their network. Acting as a resource can create opportunities to move from online social networking to offline conversations and face-to-face meetings.

Action Step: Look for opportunities to reply to connections’ status updates, questions or discussion topics publicly, and then send a more detailed message to them privately with additional tips and resources that can help accomplish their goals.

Take time to reply privately to connections where you may be able to offer more detailed resources, tips, or guidance to them

If the purpose of social media is to build your network of connections, you must also think about how to engage those connections to turn them into true relationships. As you build solid relationships, you’ll create more opportunities for introductions and referrals into your own business.

There are plenty of resources available to help you grow your influence on LinkedIn. Here’s a great resource for learning more about the basics of LinkedIn and also some top marketing tips that can help you gain greater visibility on this powerful, professional social network.

Challenge yourself to go out and participate on LinkedIn with a strategic focus on getting to know your connections better, and use the steps mentioned in this article to help you generate conversations and face-to-face meetings. You stand to gain a greater return on your social networking investment if you can turn connections into relationships. Good luck!

What do you think about these tips? Have you tried any?  How is LinkedIn working for your business?  Please leave your comments in the box below.

The truth is, most marketers simply don’t have the time to use all of these tools on a daily basis.

So the trick is to create and maintain a social media presence in as little time as possible, while remaining effective and worthwhile.

Here are three tips to manage your social media presence in as little as 10 minutes per day.

#1: Take One Platform Bite at a Time

Will you need a solid presence on Twitter and Facebook if you want to rock social media? Probably, but it doesn’t mean you have to get it all going at once.

If you only have 10 minutes to work with, then you’ll have to focus, which means that you shouldn’t try to divide your time among all platforms equally.

For those getting started

Don’t try to master each platform at once. Pick one and get that platform up and running before you jump to the next. If it’s Facebook, then take the time to get your Facebook page set up properly. If you decide to start with Twitter, then read this guide to get started.

This means you’ll need proper branding (images, messaging, etc.), a proper bio, a decent FBML page and an active wall.

Focus on getting each part perfected before you move to the next, but in the end, it’s the wall that counts.

Want to see a good example of how to rock a wall page? Check out this recent conversation starter:

By asking questions when you post a link on Facebook, you can encourage engagement.

For those already rolling

If you’ve already got everything set up the way you need it, then I recommend that you alternate between platforms on a daily basis. Ten minutes spent on Facebook in one day is better than 3 to 4 minutes every day.

Juggling doesn’t work, so take it one platform at a time.

#2: Respond to Your Fans

Many companies feel the need to talk first and respond later. This isn’t going to work.

First, most people aren’t listening to you. They’re waiting for you to respond. This is especially true of consumers.

Even though this might seem like a drag, the reality is that it’s an opportunity for you to create an excellent experience and add to your company’s narrative. If you can make a difference with just one reply, then you’re golden.

So… spend the most significant portion of your time responding to @’s, messages, wall posts, and most importantly… putting out fires.

This boils down to being an effective listener and having done a good job of setting up listening stations, while simultaneously being ready and willing to embrace detractors by meeting them on their turf and doing your best to take away their ammunition.

If you’re dealing with a light day (no complaints), then spend time getting to know your people better. Don’t differentiate between customers and prospects, because anyone can become a brand evangelist if you treat him right.

If this takes your 10 minutes, then at least you’ve spent time on the important side of social media, which is improving and repairing relationships.

Look at how Facebook responds to complaints about their recent changes via Twitter. Not only did they adjust their policies, but they adjusted their messaging as well.

#3: Reach Out And Help People

Pick an off-day to reach out and lend a hand to people who don’t expect it.

Many times, this can be a random person in a Facebook group, or even someone tweeting a question about your particular industry or niche.

Don’t ask them to follow you and don’t link a product. Simply seek out those who need help using searches and your networking skills, and give them what they need.

Might this lead to an invitation to join you on Facebook, Twitter, or your blog? Sure, but that’s not the goal.

The goal is to get on people’s radar, and get them talking about you.

It’s highly possible that the people needing your help the most don’t actually know who you are, and just as you wouldn’t shove a business card in someone’s face at a conference (you wouldn’t, right?), you shouldn’t shove a link down a Twitter or Facebook user’s throat.

Just extend a helping hand so that they know who you are and how to find you. That’s it.

Once you’re good at doing this, you should be able to hit both Twitter and Facebook in less than 5 minutes. A tweet takes what, 10 seconds? In 5 minutes you should be able to send out 6 to 12 tweets and reply to a dozen Facebook threads.

If you’re worried about doing too much at once, then use a service like Social Oomph to schedule your replies. There’s nothing wrong with scheduling an authentic tweet, especially if it prevents the appearance of spam.

I’m not a customer of Blue Sky Factory, but they sure as heck treat me (and others like me) as if I were one.

Pick Your Poison

Each of these three steps is important, and each will help you rock the social media universe. The key really is to focus on one or two actions per day, and leave the rest for tomorrow.

Obviously, putting out fires is important, but don’t get wrapped up in it. There’s always another fire.

The same is true of replies. You don’t have to reply to everything. Sometimes a blanket statement will do, while other times a tweet to a blog post will do.

If you’re hearing a lot of the same thing, then maybe it’s time to address it on your website so that you can send the message to everyone at once.

Lastly, don’t underestimate the importance of just hanging out. Marketing messages often go unnoticed on Twitter and Facebook. Let your actions tell the story and your interaction be the message.

Don’t try too hard to stand out. Believe it or not, doing the opposite might earn you all the respect you need.

How do you manage your social media? Let us know your thoughts and ideas in the box below.

In this interview, Merritt talks about how social media is changing the world of publishing and how social media will continue to change the publishing world. And you’ll also get an inside look at SmartBrief’s publishing model.

Some of the takeaways in this video are:

• Blogs enable everyone to become a publisher
• Twitter is the best publishing platform to develop your personal brand
• Businesses are interested in learning more about mobile strategy and content aggregation

SmartBrief tests different tactics with their social media readers and is finding new ways to integrate reader input and develop their community further. This is why Merritt predicts audiences will get even more involved in the creation of the content they consume in the future.

What do you think about the future of publishing? Any comments? Please add your voice in the box below.

In this interview, Jason shares the biggest mistake businesses make when using social media. He also shows the similarities between social media and public relations, how to engage customers and his excellent insights into the future of social media.

After you watch the video, be sure to read the takeaways listed below and let us know what resonated with you most.

Here are some of the key points Jason shares in this video:

• Listen to your competition as well as your current customers and what they are saying about your company
• Social media conversations are dialogues and even “multi-logues” where others listen to your 1-on-1 conversations
• Social media is about building long term lasting relationships with customers
• Listen for and respond to both positive and negative comments multiplies the good vibes around your brand
• Soon businesses will be creating social businesses where customers come for community and not just to buy your product
• The best social media programs take the online world and move it to the offline world

What’s next for Jason? He’s busy consulting, writing projects and creating an online learning portal for businesses to learn basic social media techniques.

What was your biggest takeaway from this video? Please share your comments below.

As my recent poll shows, generating incoming traffic is the number-one need that people have right now, and for good reason. Traffic translates into:

• Attention, engagement, conversation and recognition
• Spreading your message far and wide
• Prospects and subscriber opt-ins
• Customers, increased sales and leads
• Media and interviews, which lead to more attention

… and last but not least, an ego boost.

In a previous article here I mentioned the many benefits of Twitter for your business. Now here are seven key points you need to know if you want to get more targeted traffic from Twitter:

#1: Know your audience

Growing your traffic always starts with your audience if you want to do it right. Untargeted, uninterested “hits” are a waste of time and resources at worst, and at best just pure vanity.

• What does your audience want and need?
• How do they like it delivered?
• Which topics are on their minds right now?
• Are there trends that are growing in popularity?
• How do these folks speak? What words and phrases do they use?

This means that driving traffic starts with listening and observing. Get to know your target so you can most efficiently engage them.

Twitter has a tool for this. Use search.twitter.com to find what people in your niche are talking about and follow some of their conversations.

Once you get an idea of what people are interested in, join in those conversations and talk to people.

#2: Get the “right” followers

So much rubbish is thrown around about how to grow your follower count that it makes it seem that the number is all that matters. Wrong!

You need people to want to hear what you have to say. This means you do NOT want people who auto-follow because they are either:

1. Robots and not real human beings (e.g., spam software, people trying to inflate their follower count, scrapers)
2. Not actually reading your tweets and just following to allow you to DM them

The followers you most want are those who follow you because they are interested and think they will get value from your tweets. These people are most likely to find you via:

• People retweeting your stuff, either within Twitter or using a TweetMeme button
• Referrals from other Twitter users
• Your blog; for example, your articles that say “Follow me on Twitter at @chrisgarrett and tell me what you think,” or your sidebar Follow Me button
• Other people’s blogs, when you guest post or comment
• Clicking your forum signature when you participate in discussions, or your email signature

Unfortunately Twitter closed off a really nice way that people used to get targeted Twitter followers. It used to be that we could “listen in” to conversations that people we followed were having, but now you have to be following both parties. This means we can’t discover new people that way. If someone puts something before they mention your @name it can still work, and I still occasionally get followers through that.

Essentially the advice is, put your Twitter name where it will be seen and encourage people to share it!

#3: Build engagement

Talk to people.

Engage your followers. Don’t just see them as a passive list of eyeballs! Treat folks as human beings and you will do much better at this stuff. It is called social media for a reason.

• Ask questions
• Hold conversations
• Dip into others’ conversations
• Encourage feedback

#4: Get clicks

So now your followers are seeing you as an interesting person and not a robotic “feed,” which means they are more likely to take notice when you tweet out a link.

Tweet Valuable Links

Whatever you do, don’t just tweet your own stuff. That is both selfish and boring!

Get into the habit of sharing anything cool, regardless of who created it. Retweet good stuff and other people are going to be more willing to retweet yours. Tweet out fun and useful links your friends send you in email or from the news. Be known as a person who tweets good stuff.

Timing

Not everyone is online at the same time. There is a whole world outside of your timezone, plus people have a different schedule than you. You know the feeling of confusion when you land in a foreign country. Not only have you got to adjust to local time, but also people seem to have their meals at a different time of day, shops open and close at strange hours, and business meetings seem to be held randomly. Twitter is like that, you can’t just look at a time zone converter and think people will be at their desk at a certain time.

1. Tweet the same thing a few times, a few hours apart, to give your message several chances to be seen.
2. Vary the times of day you tweet and monitor response.
3. Watch for the peaks and troughs of activity in YOUR stream (not just what works for others).

I tend to aim to catch the peak times for Aussies, the EU/Brits, East Coast USA, and West Coast USA, but it is far from an exact science!

Headlines

There are two main driving factors that affect your chances of getting a click:

1. Your reputation
2. The headline

Hopefully at this point #1 is taken care of, but #2 takes some work.

First of all, use my free download 102 Proven Headline Formulas as a starting point. There are 102 fill-in-the-blank templates which ought to give you a head start on writing a compelling caption.

If you use an interesting title and it matches your audience’s wants and needs, then you are going to get clicks.

Split test

You might not get it right the first time, so try another variation:

• Phrase it as a question
• Make it into a “How To” headline
• Use curiosity versus just the facts

A lot of this is about learning what your audience reacts to best.

#5: Measure performance

When you use a link-shortener with a built-in click-tracker such as bit.ly, you can see how well any of your links perform. This is useful for improving over time and to see which links get picked up virally.  As they say, what you measure you get more of!

With Twitter it’s not just the link clicks that YOU get, but the retweets and shares that really drive the real traffic. TweetMeme and bit.ly can give you vital reporting about how well you do, as well as your Google Analytics.

#6: Do more of what works, but test, test, test

When you find what works for you, do more of that. Keep in mind though that if you only do the same things you will either get the same results and not improve, or you will wear out that technique. Experiment, learn and mix it up.

Trends change, techniques improve, fads go out of fashion. Do not get stuck on rails, move and flow with your audience.

#7: Encourage sharing

Once you have your initial click, your job is not done!

Make sure your article has a TweetMeme button so that anyone who likes what you shared can easily share it too.

If you want to get really fancy, give people an incentive to share, such as a random prize drawing for anyone who tweets your message. Of course, the message will contain a link back to you …

Once in a while it doesn’t hurt to actually ask for retweets. Just don’t overdo it, as you will only annoy your followers. This will make them less responsive, rather than more.

Does it really work?

Here is a case study for you. For the last Social Media Success Summit in 2009, Mike Stelzner and I ran a competition on chrisg.com using all the advice mentioned here in this article.

The competition post was retweeted over 1,000 times

Using TweetMeme we can see that the competition post was retweeted over 1,000 times before it stopped tracking.

Social Media Success Summit 2009 Competition Clicks

Just the cli.gs link alone was clicked 12,753 times.

So yes, it does work.

Bottom line:

• Gather the correct audience
• Be awesome
• Share cool stuff
• Encourage other people to share it too

Does Twitter work to generate traffic for your stuff? Got any tips to share? Anything people do that annoys you? Please share—go ahead and comment below right now!

With Twitter and Facebook updates appearing in Google search results, many businesses are trying to figure if this is good or bad—and what to do next.  Ziff Davis featured this blog post a while back.  It got me thinking about the implications of the real-time web and how businesses can navigate through these rough waters.

The Business Upside to Real-Time Search

Here’s what real-time search means for you:

• Increased reach of your messages:  With Facebook and Twitter appearing in the search results, branded social properties will now have the opportunity to share their messages to a broader audience on the social web.
• Growth in social equity: Businesses now have the opportunity to increase their Facebook fans and Twitter followers by strategically posting at optimal times and authentically engaging in conversation.
• Potential customer acquisition:  Google is a trusted source.  When it lists content on the first page, a lot people click.  It’s a fact. By actively participating and strategically posting content, you’ll have the opportunity to convert and/or upsell via social media messages.

Here is a quick video highlighting real-time search to get you up to speed:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRkYmx4A9Do

Now the Dark Side of Real-Time Search

The business challenges are clear. Not only do brands (small or large) need to be ready to engage online with their constituents in real time, they must also be willing to relinquish some control of their marketing messages.

The good news is you don’t have to give up full control as long as you are willing to participate. Participation can mean listening, watching and monitoring all the activity that happens on the social web, and in this case, Google search engine results pages.

You need to be ready to use Twitter Search to monitor trending topics, branded terms or any other keywords that may apply to your brand or business, and engage in the discussion.  Common reasons to engage include:

• Having something of value to contribute
• Intercepting a ticked off customer and changing his or her attitude
• Correcting false information

The caveat is that the technology today is still not fast enough to monitor live conversations.  Real-time search requires “real-time” monitoring which translates to “boots on the ground” brand participation.  If a brand is highly engaged and savvy with Twitter, it will be ready to respond when issues arise on the fly.

A great example of a missed opportunity is when Motrin released the Babywearing ad (see below); and didn’t notice the negative groundswell in Twitter until it was too late.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO6SlTUBA38

With Facebook updates now appearing in search results, brands must be more strategic when posting messages. It’s going to require marketing and PR to work collaboratively with search engine optimization (SEO) or web teams within the organization. If that’s a challenge, there are tools like Google trends which display how often a particular term is entered into Google relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world.

Use Google Keywords

Another important data source is the Google Keyword tool that will determine the competitiveness of keywords and how many times that term is searched in Google in a given month.

Google keyword data is significant for many reasons. Marketers can use this data to strategically post messages on Facebook that can be indexed and eventually appear in the search results. Take the following as an example of the latest update from the Adobe Photoshop Facebook fan page:

A more effective status update might be to include the keyword phrase “Photoshop tutorial” instead of just “Tutorial” as seen above.

Now don’t get me wrong, this status update is really good. It’s concise; they are providing value to their readership by giving away free tutorials and they are empowering the community to share their work on the wall (disclosure: Adobe is an Edelman client).

However, by simply adding “Photoshop” to this update, Adobe would have the opportunity to have this particular update appear in Google real-time search results when someone searches for “Photoshop tutorial.” A brief look at the data in the keyword tool shows that the term “photoshop tutorials” yields approximately 301,000 monthly searches.

A Few More Concerns

Some may view the indexing of Facebook status updates as a threat of disruptive technology.  And while this may be true in some cases, there are definitely things that brands must think about and prepare for:

• Spam:  Spammers will continue to use Twitter and status updates by placing links within messages in hopes of their messages also appearing in the search results. This happened when the Skittles home page redirected to Twitter search for the term “Skittles.”  See http://www.socialcustomer.com/2009/03/skittles-social-media-experiment.html.
• Increased Facebook participation: In order to capture mindshare and search engine real estate, brands must now use Facebook status updates more often; especially around product launches or important announcements.  It’s just as important, if not more, than traditional website copy and blog posts.  Just be careful not to spam the community as balance is important.

So what are your thoughts about real-time search? Do you see it as an opportunity or a threat to businesses?  Please comment below.

Ann talks about how she manages being the public face on Twitter for her organization. She also shares how her own Twitter strategy has evolved over the last 2 years.

In this video Ann also discusses the challenges of having employees represent your brands on social media and how to approach social media policies.

This video contains many great tips for businesses using social media. Here are some of them to listen for:

• How Ann mixes business and personal tweets on Twitter
• Why businesses struggle to humanize their brand 
• Why it’s important to identify your goals for social media and to put bumpers in place
• How to set social media policies that work
• Why employees represent their business in a wider environment today and how this impacts the hiring process
• How social media beginners should start by wading in and listening before they speak

Be sure to check out the Marketing Profs blog and website where you can find an overwhelming amount of marketing resources, including a Social Media ROI Case Study collection.

What takeaways do you have after listening to Ann? What’s your experience of Twitter? How does your social media policy work for your company? Please share you comments below.

The pace is fast and this video is full of useful information. Be sure to read the list of takeaways below.

Here are some key takeaways from this video?

1. Listening is so important. The unstructured data you get from listening gives you more than surveys. Be sure to check out his tutorial: Grow Bigger Ears.
2. Establish your presence: Create passports to establish a presence.  Go where the people’s voice is rather than drive traffic to your site.
3. Monitor sales marketing and content marketing that drives leads instead of monitoring ROI.
4. Integrate social media into your customer support, sales and marketing.
5. Chris’ Twitter strategy:  12 to 1 ratio: promote 12 times more stuff from other people, and it pays to mix business with pleasure on Twitter
6. Chris is working one new books called Social Media 101 and and How Human Business Works and why this is important in today’s business world

What about you? What do you think about this video interview? How does listening on social media help your business? Please share your comments below.

But many brand and marketing managers responsible for social media don’t quite understand what social media monitoring is and why it’s important. Here’s a quick primer:

Social Media Monitoring Is Listening

Listening to online conversations is technically done without ears. Using search engine technology, social media monitoring tools scan the Internet looking for documents that contain keywords you select. They return those results in some sort of order that allows you to see where people have mentioned your brand, company, product or whatever you specified.

Seeing these results reveal which websites or blogs you should visit to either see what people are saying about you or actually participate in those conversations. Without monitoring, the conversations are happening without your knowledge.

Social Media Monitoring Can Be Free

The easiest way to start monitoring social media is to sign up for some free tools and services. Google Alerts allows you to search for a word or phrase just as you would in a regular search, and then notifies you when something new pops up on the web with that search term. You can subscribe to email updates of the new search results or add them to your RSS subscriptions. (If you don’t know what RSS is, watch “RSS in Plain English,” a video from CommonCraft.)

You can also search for your company or product name on Twitter to see real-time conversations that include mentions or discussions of your brand. Add Technorati to the list and your monitoring will cover the majority of blogs as well.

Paid Social Media Monitoring Solutions Are Often Worth the Investment

The one drawback to the free monitoring solutions is that manual work will be required to quantify the results for your executives or report your findings. Paid social media monitoring services like Radian6, Scout Labs and Techrigy pull all those conversations together into an organized, web-based dashboard and allow you to pull charts and graphs that explain the information with very little work on your part.

One big benefit to many (but not all) of the paid solutions is their ability to analyze sentiment and tone of the conversations through fancy computer algorithms using natural language processing. What this means is that you can log in to your service, see that there were 250 conversations mentioning your brand this week, and of those, 83 percent were positive, 10 percent were negative and the other 7 percent were neutral.

Paid monitoring solutions offer dashboard experiences like this one from Radian6 which makes monitoring your brand easier

Monitoring Is Only the First Step

Finding and cataloging the online conversations about your company is just the tip of the iceberg in social media monitoring. Once you know where conversations are taking place and what is being said about your company, you can then participate in the conversation. This is critically important for companies because today’s web-savvy consumer requires direct access to the people behind the products and services they buy or shop for.

Let’s say you find a customer upset about the service she received at your place of business earlier today. Letting the individual mouth off to her friends who have a natural predisposition to either agree or jump on the bandwagon of hate only guarantees your company will be thought of negatively by those involved in the conversation. However, social media case studies show time and time again that entering into similar conversations with a simple, “I’m sorry you had a bad experience. What can I do to help?” shows the disgruntled fan—and her bandwagon-jumping friends—that you’re truly interested in improving the situation. The customer response is almost always something like, “Wow. I didn’t know you were listening. Thanks for offering.”

Smart Monitoring Can Build Your Business

Please don’t think that social media monitoring is limited to mitigating online detractors. By analyzing the conversations around not just your company, but also your industry or even competitors, you can gain a significant market advantage and actually drive business.

Let’s say you’re monitoring mentions of your nearest competitor and uncover a trend that people are complaining that their product (say, a coffeepot) is great but not durable. You then change your advertising campaign to trumpet the fact your coffeepot lasts three times longer than the competitor’s.

For another example, suppose you have a national product that has inconsistent sales patterns from region to region. Your social media monitoring shows you what people in the Pacific Northwest say are the best and worst qualities of your product, but the answers are different in the South. This consumer intelligence helps you better market your product based on geographic and cultural specifics which can be the difference in customers choosing you or your competition.

Last but not least, sophisticated monitoring can even reveal individual customers who are at the point of making a purchase decision, enabling you to reach out and help them make a connection to your product at the absolute perfect time.

What Are You Waiting For?

Now that you have an idea of what social media monitoring is and what it can do for you, dive in. Start a Google Alert for your company or product. Add one for some general industry terms your customers might use when discussing your category. Add one for each of your competitors. As you feel comfortable, add Twitter and Technorati searches, then branch out and start exploring other social media monitoring tools. At the very least, you’ll have a better idea of what people are saying about you.

What social media monitoring tools are you using? What are your thoughts?  Please leave a comment below.