After all, would YOU do business (knowingly) with a sketchy person?

But with the rise of social media comes new challenges for businesses of all shapes and sizes, especially when it comes to reputation: Who knows you and what do they know you for?

Are you helpful? Are you a great person to do business with? Are you a trusted resource or a product pusher?

More importantly, in the transparent business world we now live in, are you AWARE of your reputation… and are you doing something about it?

Which One Are You?

There’s good news and bad news. The bad news is if you ARE Sketchy Sam and don’t want to change, there’s nowhere to hide and social media might end up being a big nightmare. The good news is you have the power to control your reputation through taking action, and this is how you do it.

Imagine that you’re interested in buying an exotic car but know very little about the industry. You decide to go online, Google around, kick out questions about exotic cars on social media sites and two names pop up:

Sketchy Sam

Sam says he’s the best in the world at what he does on his website—which is basically a brochure trying to get you to buy or go away. Sam is always selling and doesn’t see the point in delivering value. There are no interesting articles, advice or videos on his site—unless you pay him first! He’s always wearing a neat suit and acting “nice” in public.

But when you Google him, the only thing that comes up is “Sam’s blog” which was last updated on January 9, 2007 with the title “Buy A Car!!! Now!” and recent information on a lawsuit where he sued his mom for the family cat.

When you search social networking sites, you see that all he’s doing is shouting at people about how awesome and amazing his products are. Anytime someone mentions Sam or his products (positively or negatively), Sam is nowhere to be found. He isn’t a part of the conversation. Plus, when asking around, you quickly find out that not only is he a jerk but he doesn’t follow through on promises.

OR

Likable Laura

Laura doesn’t need to brag about how amazing she is. Others are doing it for her. When you Google her, you find a smattering of interesting information. Links to her web show where she offers tips, interviews she has done with major media sources on- and offline on the car industry, guest articles she has written for other blogs about exotic cars and other great stuff.

On her site, you find all kinds of free amazing content, including the “exotic car race off” with videos of cars racing and “pimp my car” articles on customizing exotic cars. On social networking sites you find her to be helpful, sharing interesting links and content, interacting and (ahem) being a human. Anytime she’s mentioned online (either herself or her products), she jumps into the conversation. If you ask around about Laura, you’ll hear about how she’s “great to work with,” “very authentic” and “recommended.”

Dan Schawbel always jumps into the conversation.

Who Would You Rather Do Business With?

The better question is, of course, how do YOU become Likeable Laura? How do you manage your reputation in the transparent business world?

After all, reputation is everything (well, almost everything). When it comes to marketing, your reputation can either be your champion or your worst enemy. Why? Because it matters. It used to be someone with a big mouth could tell…

…10 people about you?
…100 people about you?

Now an individual can tell thousands of people by using social media, blogs and more simply with a click.

Reputation isn’t just ONE static thing, but a sum of many things, including:

• Being likeable, friendly and kind
• Being known for delivering great service and taking care of clients
• Being a trusted content source; i.e., offering relevant and valuable content
• Being active and engaged—joining in the conversation vs. one-way communication

Plus, when it comes to reputation, search engines have big transparent mouths.

Think about someone telling all of your dirty online secrets (hopefully you don’t have any) to ANYONE who asks. Now that’s something to think about, especially because search engines spill the beans on pretty much everything you’ve been doing online.

When you hear someone’s name for the first time, what’s your natural instinct? In many cases, we rush to our computers or phones and type that person’s name into a search engine.

Is there something you can do about your online reputation? You betcha. Here are five tips for managing your online reputation:

#1: Get Busy Creating Relevant and Valuable Content

Everywhere—on your website, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Every piece of content including photos (and even videos now) is crawled by search engines.

When you create educational or inspiring content (and mention your name or your company’s name somewhere within), you’re essentially controlling your own destiny when people search for you.

Here’s the secret (come a little closer). The content can’t be ABOUT you. Helpful content wins. Think about the interests/passions/needs of your target community as opposed to your own.

Who does this extremely well? HubSpot. To put it nicely, HubSpot isn’t in the sexiest of industries. They create lead generation software, but they’re a content machine. Their Internet marketing blog is extremely popular with millions of page views per month. They even have their own online web show where they go over marketing news and opinions each week.

Go ahead and search for HubSpot. Not only will you find a link to their website, but you’ll find delicious content, links to social media sites, upcoming webinars, YouTube videos and more.

Check out HubsSpot's Internet Marketing Blog.

#2: Alert Yourself and Then Join the Conversation

Set up a Google Alert for your business, your name, other key people’s names, your competitors and any key phrases. I add my Google Alerts to Google Reader so I can check them out at my leisure as opposed to getting an email anytime my Alerts are mentioned.

Setting up an alert is one thing; RESPONDING is the key. If you see something, good or bad, jump in and comment on the blog or source. Become a part of the conversation.

Responding to good comments doesn’t have to be rocket science. At the very least, a simple thank you goes a long way if someone mentions you on their blog or website. Negative comments of course can be a little trickier and emotional, but don’t shy away from them. Participate. Take the higher road. Address the concerns. Don’t ignore.

Plus, every little comment you leave is a chance to do good and build your brand. It is also a chance to be a jerk and hurt your reputation.

#3: Watch and Listen From Every Angle

That’s another way of saying that Google isn’t the only answer when it comes to managing your online presence. In fact, there are many other places worth checking out, including:

Google Blogsearch: Blogs move quicker than Google (Google is trying to catch up with Real-Time Search), but to check what is going on with you, your business, competitors, etc., check out Google Blogsearch.

Search.Twitter.com: The hub of the real-time web. Nothing gets closer than up-to-the-literal-second updates. You can also take an RSS feed for keywords, your business, your name, people you want to stalk, etc., and put them into Google Reader (similar to the Google Alerts example), making even more info available to you on ONE screen.

Advanced Twitter Search: That little button on Search.Twitter.com. Allows for better geotargeting and a host of options you’d expect with the word “advanced.”

Ice Rocket: Well-designed search site to help track blogs, the web in general, Twitter, news, etc.

Backtype: Lets you track comments left on blogs and forums as well as on social sites. This is often overlooked, yet extremely important.

Video search: Videos are important and YouTube is the second-largest search engine to Google. Search there for videos about you and the competition. Other video search engines include Google’s Video Search, Yahoo’s Video Search, Blinkx and my new favorite: Truveo (very slick).

#4: Be nice: Taking the High Road vs. Negabots

I know this seems a little ridiculous, but it is so true. Negative people online are annoying—I get it. And most negative people fall into two categories:

• People with legitimate concerns/opposing views (we can all respect that, right?)
• Negabots. You know the type of person. It is 85° and sunny out and he’s complaining it isn’t 86°. Give him $100 and he’ll complain it isn’t $101.

Kill with kindness. Confrontational and overly sensitive are two qualities that often lose online. If you’re nice to people, people will be nice to you. Sure, it’s common, and yet it can be difficult to do.

The master of this is Gary Vaynerchuk, the outspoken creator of Wine Library TV and author of Crush It! Gary has lots of fans and friends, but of course some of those people wake up and drink a cold glass of hatred. Does Gary ignore them? Nope. On any given day, you can find him responding kindly to negative criticism on his blog, Twitter and Facebook accounts and even his Amazon book page where the occasional negative review pops up. Gary responds once nicely and then it’s done. He told me an in interview, “taking the high road is undefeated.” Very true.

Gary Vaynerchuk takes the high road when it comes to dealing with negative people.

#5: Build Relationships With the Likeable Lauras of the World

We become like the company we keep, right? Are there other people in your niche who:

• Have influential blogs (or up-and-coming blogs) that allow for guest posting?
• Have an interview series you can be a guest on?

Remember these delicious pieces of content will do all kinds of good for you, including:

• More traffic to your site (and really… who wants less traffic?). Even if it is just a few people, it’s a win.
• More content created that search engines can index with your name (especially if it’s an interview).
• Association/relationship with other trusted people online.
• A great marketing/promotional opportunity to share this content with your networks.

But here’s an interesting challenge: What can you do to offer them value? This isn’t just about taking. This is about giving value first. This is about building LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIPS.

Start digging around. Search Alltop.com, Google Blogsearch and Twitter. Ask around and start identifying media sources in your niche. Start small with perhaps a few passionate up-and-comers who are more easily accessible than the really big guys and gals.

Start helping them by tweeting about them and sharing their content on Facebook. Leave thoughtful non-promotional comments on their posts that resonate with them. Be helpful as opposed to pushy.

A perfect example is Elena Verlee, a PR specialist, entrepreneur and creator of PR In Your Pajamas. I met Elena because she relentlessly helped me without asking for anything. She offered me an interview on her blog. She consistently tweets my shows and content. She has personally introduced me to lots of great people who were guests on my show.

And guess what happened? I invited her to be a guest and we had a great interview that was seen by thousands of people. She got on my radar screen by being helpful.

Whose radar screen would you like to be on?

At the end of the day, managing your online reputation is really just being you—your best you. You can’t fake being nice to people. There are no “tricks” to make sure you’re seen as the best person/company in the history of mankind. But by working on your likeability, making an effort to engage and offering valuable content, you can certainly stack the odds in your favor.

Take a moment and Google your company. Do you like what you see? What strategies have worked for you? What have we missed? Give us your comments and feedback in the box below.

Whether you’re using Facebook for business or personal reasons, the good news is that new privacy settings enable you to change exactly who sees what within Facebook.  And those changes impact every prior post you’ve ever made.

New Facebook Privacy Updates

Public outcry over Facebook’s complicated privacy settings hit a peak in the spring of 2010.  See this AP video below:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q8-LSbMRPI

Facebook finally responded.  Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, describes the menu for their groundbreaking new privacy settings as the “Master Switch.”  He promises, “we haven’t removed anything in this update, we’ve just added a simple master switch to control all of your content at once.”

Master Switch: Control most of your settings quickly.

In just a few minutes, you can protect all the content you’ve ever posted, within the Facebook application at least.  There’s no perfect way to protect every bit of information online except not to post it at all, but in addition to the Master Switch controls, this post reveals Facebook’s deepest privacy settings (called granular settings) so you can easily navigate this jungle and take control of your content.

Facebook Privacy Video Tutorial

Watch this video to take control of your Facebook privacy.  Then follow the four steps below for added control.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnjH4n0-shA

Want more protection for your sensitive information?

Here are four more ways you can drill deep into your Facebook privacy settings:

#1: Disable Instant Personalizations

When you “like” or “share” a post anywhere online, Facebook puts it on your wall for you and your friends to see.  It also automatically sends this information to outside sites such as Yelp and Pandora, among others.  If you’d prefer to remain more private, do this:

• Go to “Account.”
• Choose “Privacy Settings.”
• Choose “Applications and Websites.”
• Choose “Instant Personalization.”
• Click “Edit Settings.”
• Uncheck “Allow select partners…”

#2: Take a Fresh Look at Your Photos and Videos

I recently interviewed a woman who lost a job because her Facebook profile picture showed a tattoo.  Another woman, a school teacher in Georgia, recently lost her job because her profile picture showed her holding a glass of wine.  Both people thought their privacy settings were enough protection, but Facebook still indexes pictures so that outside sites can search for them.

What’s the solution? Be more selective about your profile picture.  And while you’re at it, go through all photos and videos of you and untag those that you don’t want to share.  You can’t control which photos or videos your friends post, but you can remove your tag from them! Here’s how:

Go to your profile picture.  Just under it, you’ll see “View Photos of Me.” Click there and look at each photo.  If you want to remove a tag, click “Remove Tag” by your name under the picture.

Photo tagging can turn a private photo into a public one!

Repeat this process for videos—the link “View Videos of Me” is just under your profile picture also.

#3: Create Privacy Lists!

Facebook friend lists are one of the most powerful features they offer for communicating privately and with flexibility.  Once you’ve created them, you can easily specify different privacy settings for each list.  Only want family to see your child’s birthday party pictures? No problem!  You can designate only your “Family” list for that photo album and nobody else will be able to see it unless someone copies and pastes the code at the bottom.  This is an example:

These links are now at the bottom of all photos. Control who sees them with friend lists to minimize the chance of unwanted sharing.

Here’s how to create friend lists:

• Go to “Account” in the upper right-hand corner of your profile.
• Select “Edit Friends.” This will bring up an interactive menu with profile pics of your friends.
• Click on “Create New List” and get started!  Many people create lists for family, friends, business, news, sports, and food, for example.

Creating friend lists gives you much better control.

Creating friend lists for yourself will also give you the advantage of privacy in Facebook’s newly customized Chat feature.

Unless these settings are customized or turned completely off, anybody can interrupt you while you’re logged on and initiate a chat. Rather than ignore it or respond, I suggest going into the options and designating lists to block and lists of who can see when you’re logged on and available to chat.

It’s good to note here that Facebook never saves chat transcripts. Once a chat has concluded and the window is closed, any record of the chat is deleted.  So if you want to have a record of your communications with someone on Facebook, I suggest writing messages instead.

Here’s how to customize your chat privacy settings:

• Navigate to the bottom right corner of your profile and click on “Chat.”
• Select “Options” within the chat window that opens up.
• Designate whether you prefer to be “online” or “offline.”
• Select “Friend Lists.”  Once there, you can select which lists you prefer to chat with and which you’d prefer to block.

Nice Trick: You can easily change these for when you’re at work and when you’re at home.

#4: Review the Pages You’ve Liked

Facebook is paying an increasing amount of attention to Fan and Community pages and is exploring ways to use this information for potential advertisers. They’ve started indexing this information with your profile for the first time, so now is a good time to review and possibly discard page affiliations that relate to sensitive or controversial subjects.

Here’s how you to customize your “liked” pages:

• From your profile, click on your “Info” tab.
• Scroll down to the bottom of the “Pages” section, just above your “Contact Information.”
• Click on “Show Other Pages,” and a list of pages will show up.
• If applicable, click on “Show More Pages” to get a complete list.

(This next part is time-consuming, so I suggest you scan for the most important pages to unlike before you proceed, instead of going down the list of outdated pages.)

• Click on a page you no longer want to identify with.
• Once there, scroll to the bottom left corner and “unlike.”

You’re done!  Please note that you can only “like” up to 500 pages, so this is just good housekeeping if you plan to use Facebook for any length of time.

Protect your branding by reviewing your liked pages.

Congratulations if you’ve just worked through this tutorial!

You now have profile settings to be proud of and can share this information with others!

If you only have time for a few mouse clicks, please do yourself a favor and set your Master Switch settings to “Recommended” and you’ll be much more protected than ever before, thanks to Facebook’s new retroactive feature for privacy settings.

Please share this handy guide with your friends! What better use is there for a Facebook “like” button anyway?

Now you have a clearer understanding of how to navigate Facebook’s new privacy settings.  The Master Switch is a quick and convenient way to address lots of issues at one time; however, you can protect yourself and your professional branding better by also going into the deeper settings shown here.

So what do YOU think about Facebook’s new privacy settings? Do you think this new Master Switch adequately addresses Facebook’s privacy issues?  Are you happy with your experience and just wish everyone would quit talking about it? Are you excited about using the more hidden settings? Please share your experiences and thoughts in the comments box below!

If your company’s social media interactions revolve around advance announcements of sales, special offers and insider-only promo codes – to the point where receiving these things is the primary motivation for your fans and followers – then you’re essentially bribing customers to stay.

In this case, social media merely provides a pleasant, whitewashed cover for the bribery.

Thus, the very activities you’re hoping will improve your relationship with customers might well be actually hurting your reputation with them, making those customers less likely to pay your full price without balking.

This article will reveal four ways to build customer loyalty without bribery.

The Slippery Slope

How did your efforts get so off-track?

The downward slide started when you confused customer retention tactics with building true customer loyalty.

Here’s Harvard’s resident expert on service excellence, Francis Frei, explaining the difference between the two:

Francis Frei

“When companies pay customers to try out their products and services, it’s part of a customer acquisition program.  When companies pay customers to remain customers, it’s part of a customer retention program.

When companies invest in activities that increase customers’ willingness to pay, they have a customer loyalty program.  When a loyalty program works, it increases the chance that your customers will choose you over a lower-priced competitor.”

In other words:

• Retention programs bribe customers with frequent-flyer miles and “buy 10 get 1 free” cards.  They add economic incentives for current customers to return for their next purchase.  This is hardly a bad thing, but when done too often, it habituates customers to incentives, which promotes economic considerations over brand preference.
• Loyalty programs increase brand participation among high-value customers to forge bonds that trump economic decisions.  This can mean getting their input on strategic decisions, providing insider-only access to certain products and privileges, and more.  After customers have helped design the next-generation widget, they’re emotionally invested in buying and using it.  Even more so if, as a privileged insider, they’re provided with early access to those co-created products, or even exclusive access to special products as a sign of recognition for their efforts and input.

So what does this have to do with social media?

With social media, customers wish to interact with each other at least as much as they do with the business.  So to create a real customer loyalty program – and the premium price differential that goes with it – you have to create a customer community.

What’s that you say?  You already have a community?

What you likely have are thousands of single customers who have given minimal consent and “opt in” to receive communication from you. That’s not a community.  Heck, that style of one-way communication isn’t even a relationship.

Fortunately (and as you might expect), an appropriate social media strategy can transform your email list into an actual community.

Here are the 4 key elements to real communities along with the primary ways social media can foster each of them:

#1: Repeated Interaction

If I go months without seeing or talking or cross-posting or interacting with your company in some way, well, you’re probably a pretty peripheral part of my life.  The same goes for your customers.

But a sincere email traded back and forth once or twice a week for a couple of weeks in a row changes all that.  You’ve gained top-of-mind awareness as a conversational partner.  Your company has gone from an “it” to a “person” (or a “thou” for you Buber fans out there).  You could rightfully consider me part of your community.

And yet email is an extremely clumsy and intrusive platform for this kind of exchange.  Facebook, Twitter, an online forum, a Wiki or even blog comments all represent far superior methods of fostering this kind of day-to-day interaction.

But take note: what you’re looking for is back-and-forth between members, and between your company’s representatives and members.  One-off comments and one-way communication won’t cut it.  For a dramatic illustration of the difference, just compare Copyblogger’s comment section to your own blog’s comments.

#2: Interaction Involving Built-up Meaning

If your forum members or blog commenters or Twitter followers don’t have inside jokes, community-specific allusions, and their own slang, you probably don’t have a real community. It’s a harsh standard, but it’s the truth.

Unfortunately, you can’t create these things for your community.  You can only create an environment that will foster their creation. And the best way to do that is through engaging in projects that matter, which leads us to principle #3…

#3: Actual Consequences of Community Interactions

Something has to be at stake.  For communication to move past chit-chat, social grooming, and opinionated bloviating, there has to be a task or a mission or a conflict.

When people work toward a shared goal – when tomorrow’s discussion builds on today’s and so on – then decisions matter. Prior conversations matter.  And that’s when allusions, references, inside jokes, and slang build up as a natural result.

To continue with the Copyblogger theme, the whole “third tribe” meme that started off with a simple blog post and evolved into a separate community and learning site is a perfect example of this.  Third Tribers know exactly what is meant by that term, and by allusions to James Chartrand’s Underwear.

So to achieve Real Community Elements 2 & 3, you need to come up with a galvanizing goal – a project that people want to be a part of and would be willing to donate their time, efforts, and skills to.  Provide the platform(s) for interaction and the galvanizing goal and you’re off to the races.

Seth Godin routinely does this by providing an impetus and platform for meet-ups,  collaborative projects and ways for his fans to help him support his book launches.

#4: Separation of Outsiders from Insiders

Back during the initial flap following the iPhone’s barely-two-months-from-launch price drop, Seth Godin suggested that Apple offer early adopters the following considerations:

“Free exclusive ringtones, commissioned from Bob Dylan and U2, only available to the people who already had a phone. (This is my favorite because it announces to your friends – every time the phone rings – that you got in early).”

“Free pass to get to the head of the line next time a new hot product comes out.”

“Ability to buy a specially colored iPod or an iPod with limited-edition music that no-one else can buy.”

Rather than dealing with price drops by providing discounts or store credit, Apple could have provided increased recognition and therefore increased loyalty and willingness to pay a premium to maintain that loyalty and recognition.

Yet despite being one of the clearest paths to high profit margins, most companies fail to do these kinds of things at all, let alone do them through the very platforms and technologies most suited to them.  Instead they misuse social media and abuse their brand equity through ill-advised retention strategies.

What Loyalty Programs Does Your Organization Have?

How have you transformed your company’s email list or “group” into a real community?  What galvanizing goals have you used to inspire community involvement and crowdsourcing?  What special recognition do you give to your brand insiders?

Let us know your thoughts and ideas in the box below.

In this article, I’ll share some tips to help you leverage social media to gain more exposure.

#1: Reap What You Sow

What are you aiming for? What is your goal?

If you want to get yourself known, social media is a great way to build visibility and a platform. Getting known might be your goal or it might be a means to an end. Again, social media can help you build connections that pay off in terms of opportunities and offers.

At the very least, when you do the right things in social media, you’re building a profile that represents you in the best possible light when anyone wants to look you up. It is a rare potential employer who will not do a quick Google search, and apparently even potential dates now do this routinely!

#2: Model Real Life

Social media grew out of real-world social rules and therefore what works in real life works well in social media, but with wider distribution and accelerated cause and effect.

Often people say to me that social media does not work, but what they really mean is they tried to extract value before they put any in. In fact, at the time of this writing I almost got into a protracted debate on Twitter about this very thing. Because this one person didn’t see any results, he believed social media “didn’t work.” The problem is, social media does not work for people who just want to take and be selfish, so he is setting himself up for a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You can’t withdraw very long from an empty social capital account. Essentially, if you want to get out value, then you need to start putting value in.

#3: Be Likeable

Another aspect of social media engagement is that your basic interactions are communicating more than the 140-character status updates. People also read between the lines. Again, this can work for or against you.

Brands are built through experience just as much as what you say and any image you create. The brands you love and hate are much more about how they have treated you than their logos and corporate mission statements!

The same is true on a personal brand level. It’s about treating people well and giving them a positive experience with you. It really helps if you like people because you are going to need to be consistently a good person to know.

Using light humor, being kind, sharing about more than just your work—including your interests—allow people to connect with you on a human level as well as a business and technical level.

Beyond this we have to be aware of boundaries and limitations to sharing. We have all seen the damage that can be done through “overshare” or Too Much Information, and also what we find humorous might well put people off, or even cause emotional or professional damage.

Consider a popular blogger who is constantly on the attack, belittling people, making fun of people, “digging up dirt” and so on. Yes, he will gather a following—bullies often do—but how do these kinds of tactics affect long-term relationships and loyalty?

At SXSW I had a discussion about this very topic and we realized many of the highly visible people who used this approach 4 or 5 years ago are now seldom heard from and nobody will take their calls.

Social karma works in the negative as well as the positive, and the Internet has a LONG memory!

Does This Really Work?

At this point you might still be skeptical. So to reassure you that there is some real cause and effect going on here, just look at your own social media activity.

• Who do you follow? Think about your top three social media users and what they have in common.
• Which blogs do you read? Again, which are your “must-read” blogs?
• When have you had the best results? Think back to when you had your best win. What did you do?
• How do you attract new contacts? When you want a social media or list boost, what works best for you?
• What can you test today? Still skeptical? Good! Test, verify—what can you try today to move your metrics needle?

I am 100% sure that when you put out good, valuable, positive stuff—when you share only the best—that’s when you will get the best results. It also follows that the people you are most attracted to or listen to most are the people you get the most value from, be that entertainment or education, and with whom you feel the best connection.

#4: Share, Share, Share

Tactically this is about sharing good stuff. If you want to position yourself as an expert, then share what you know.

The more you share good stuff, the more people will want to listen to you. Even better, if you share your expertise with good stuff from other people mixed in, it shows you’re generous and have your followers’ best interests at heart rather than pure self-promotion.

• Answer questions in LinkedIn.
• Share links, videos and anything useful that you find in Facebook and Twitter.
• Post your slide decks to Slideshare.
• Upload advice videos and demonstrations to YouTube.
• Write valuable content in your blog and answer comments.
• Invite people to ask you questions on your Facebook fan page, Twitter and your blog.

#5: Conduct a Whuffie Audit

Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing fame invented the futuristic reputation, or social capital–based currency, of Whuffie. Some days I wish Whuffie really existed and that just by looking someone up we could see what kind of person they were and how much they added to society. Unfortunately we do not have Whuffie yet, but you can “audit” yourself to see how much social capital you are generating.

Keep an eye on your key metrics to see if they are growing and what behavior is influencing them:

• Followers, friends and subscriber counts—How many people you have following you is not the best metric, but it does tell you if you’re attracting versus annoying people!
• Retweets, clicks and shares—If people want to share your stuff, it’s a hint that what you are putting out is valuable.
• Comments, favorites, discussions—Can you spark discussion and debate? That’s value right there.
• Key contacts, referrals, recommendations and testimonials—Are you reaching people and are they telling others about you? What do people say about you behind your back? Will people publicly connect their name, and reputation, to yours?

Closing Thoughts…

I know how frustrating it is when we say things in interviews like “provide value, join the conversation.” Hopefully I’ve explained a bit more about what this means and some of the steps you can use. It comes down to having the intention to really help, inform and be an excellent person to know.

A reputation is difficult and time-consuming to build, but with social media we can damage it in an instant. When you have what’s best for your community in mind, you will not go far wrong.

How does this work for you? Got any tips to share? What has worked best in your experience? Please SHARE your thoughts in the comments!

The growth and usage of Twitter is not surprising. Compete.com estimates approximately 21 million unique monthly visitors, and a quick search on Twitter yields a variety of conversations from music, sports, politics, events and products.

For business however, there’s an art to using Twitter, and the most successful at it follow an unwritten set of rules. The following are 5 important tips to follow on Twitter; all lessons that I have learned while working for companies like HP, Yahoo! and Intel.

#1: Do Some Research

Research is fundamental. I suggest that marketers or small business owners spend a few weeks understanding what types of conversations are happening on Twitter and then formulate a communications plan before actually engaging. This will help drive consistency in the messages shared on Twitter.

#2: Determine Your Goals

Not all businesses use Twitter the same way. Some, like @ComcastCares, use Twitter merely for customer support. Dell uses Twitter to sell products or share company-related information. Often, I see smaller, more local businesses use it to build relationships with their constituencies to drive customer loyalty programs.

Whatever your goals are, it’s important to think about what you want to achieve with Twitter before spending your valuable time and resources on it.

#3: Specify Your Twitter Profile

There are many options you can use when creating a Twitter profile. You can create a company-branded account, a personal account or a hybrid account.

Branded account:

A branded account is simply where your Twitter name corresponds with the name of your company, and usually the avatar is your company logo.

Personal account:

A personal account is a little more human and unites your own personal brand with that of the company you work for or own.

Hybrid account:

A hybrid account usually takes different elements from both the branded and personal accounts.

Every business is different, so whichever option you choose, there has to be a level of balance. Branded profiles are great for certain content—for example, industry news, contests, investor relations, etc. Personal profiles are more beneficial if your organization wants to leverage the employee’s personal micro-community or wants to have a more human presence.

When I worked for Intel, I used two profiles to build community: my personal Twitter profile and one I created for Intel. I followed an 80/20 rule that seemed to work perfectly for the community that I engaged with.  On my personal account, 80% of what I shared was conversational (i.e., asking/answering questions, sharing industry-related news, etc.) and 20% was Intel-specific content. The branded account was the opposite—80% of the content shared was Intel-specific and 20% was personal.  This worked very well and click-through rates on links I shared were well above industry average.

#4: Build Social Equity

To be successful on Twitter, you have to build trust and credibility with your community. The end result is an increase in your social equity. That doesn’t always translate to the number of followers, tweets, or retweets you may have either. Rather, it’s more about developing a reputation as a trusted source of information or being seen as an expert in a particular subject.

You won’t succeed in building your equity by pushing out one way marketing messages about your business. Instead ask questions, be personal, and engage people naturally within the community. Otherwise, customers won’t listen to what you have to say and your equity may even decrease.

Buying Twitter followers is not recommended either. There are a lot of companies that will promise you thousands of followers for a very low price. The problem is that many of the followers will never read your content, click through to your links and they’re probably just bots spitting out a multitude of Bit.ly links. Besides, if it becomes public that you did purchase followers, you will be called out by the community and your reputation may be damaged.

It’s not worth buying followers just to increase your “perceived” equity and influence because that’s all it will be, perceived.

#5: Track, Measure and Iterate

Any small- or medium-sized business should invest in a paid tracking service like Radian6 or ScoutLabs to better track Twitter conversations, identify trends, measure sentiment and get a quantifiable snapshot of what’s going on in the social web.

If you want to measure sales, you can simply use a tracking code or coupon code specific for Twitter that will help measure conversions. If you want to measure how much money Twitter has saved your company, you can track how many issues you resolved, leads you gathered, and dollars you saved through Twitter engagement versus traditional channels. If your goal is to handle customer support issues via Twitter, it’s wise to check if there are any decreases in the call volume to your customer support center.

The great thing about using Twitter for your business is that it’s very easy to iterate your metrics and communications plan on the fly. It’s important, however, to remember that your plan should always map back to your goals and objectives so you don’t lose focus.

What Twitter tips would you add? Are you tracking your Twitter activity?  Got a question?  Please comment in the box below.

Watch this video to pick up some of the nuggets of social media advice he gives his clients. One valuable tip Steve gives is about “shared mutual gain” and what it means.  Steve also explains why he quit blogging.

You will also learn why Steve believes digital is mandatory and not optional.  And here are a few other takeaways:

• Why you need to have a presence on all social networks where your customers are spending time.
• How to use mixed messages to tailor your stories to different venues.
• How to measure social media metrics.
• Why the different vectors of reach, engagement and reputation lead to trust.
• Why it’s important to understand people & understand business.

And Steve also shares some insights about why he stopped blogging on Micro Persuasion and started lifestreaming on Posterous.

What are your takeaways? Do you agree that blogging is old? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Do any of these sound familiar? “Who has time?” “You expect me to do all this on top of my normal duties?” “How do you fit everything in?” … and so on.

I am not going to lie to you. Social media does take time. In fact, time is going to be one of your major hidden costs of doing business on the Internet.  And for some of us, that time could be wasted if we are not careful.

You need to watch where your time goes to ensure you’re spending it efficiently and with the desired impact.  Here are five tips to help you.

#1: Spend Your Time Intentionally

It’s all too easy to just chit chat, browse and surf, get distracted or feel like we are making progress when really we are avoiding work and using social media “engagement and interaction” as an excuse to procrastinate. There are good conversations and wasteful conversations and you need to decide which is which.

Consider a face-to-face networking event. Do you spend all of your time speaking to one person at that event about the weather, or do you spread yourself around a bit and find new and interesting people to connect with? Are you just hanging out or do you direct your efforts toward a precise tactical aim or specific goal?

You need to know what you are doing and how you are going to measure your success.

How does this help you find time? Well, most businesses and individuals already allocate time for marketing, networking and research. If you know that your social media activities come in under one of those headings, and your efforts in social media are going to achieve equal or better results to other things you could do under those headings, then you are equipped to carve out time to try social media instead.

#2: Carve Out Time Where Social Media Is More Efficient

Because of my social media efforts, I no longer have to pitch, write proposals or go to sales meetings. I have never had to cold-call for my own business, and I do not write competitive bids.

How much time could you save if you didn’t have to do this kind of sales lead generation or closing?

In my previous job, I would have to spend more than six hours in a car just so I could go to one 30-minute sales presentation competing with several other companies with very little differentiation between us. Not only was it soul-destroying and a colossal waste of time, it was actually very ineffective.

I am not saying you will be able to 100% replace your old way of doing things with social media right away, and I would not suggest that is wise even if you could. But you should be able to take an hour or two out of a week to test social media and see how the results look. In fact, combining approaches usually works best, as each technique and medium compounds the results of the others. Reaching prospects through a multi-channel approach is normally much better than the sum of the parts.

The great thing about social media is you can pretty much get involved anywhere and any time.

#3: Use “Dead” Time

How much time do you spend just waiting? I was recently at a conference in Las Vegas and because of the long-haul nature of the travel and the fact that I would be alone much of the time, I did a lot of hanging around and waiting, which I filled with social media. Just think of your average business trip… What do you spend a lot of time doing?

• Flights
• Taxis
• Queues
• Departure lounges
• Restaurants
• Meetings
• Hotels
• …?

If, however, you have an Internet-connected laptop or smart phone, you can at least use some of this time to stay connected, engage with people, write some content or otherwise go from “hanging around” to being semi-productive. If nothing else, you will feel like you are not all alone in the world!

How long does it take to check your messages and send out a tweet, status update, check out a link, or answer a question? Seconds? Minutes at most?

How many times during the day do you get the odd 10 minutes where you are simply waiting?

Even at my desk I have to sit and wait, watching progress bars as something calculates, prints, renders or uploads. Those are prime “check what is happening in social media” times!

What if you find you have more than a few minutes to spare?

#4: Escape, Bulk-Produce, Store Up and Schedule

On those occasions when you have a good chunk of time, make the best possible use of that time and get a power hour of content produced.

• Outline and write a set of blog posts to go out later when you are too busy
• Brainstorm and create ideas, mind map your thoughts and generate headlines
• Plan for the future, write up an editorial calendar, “most like to meet” list or line up meetings with people with whom you have lost contact
• Get organized and make your week more efficient with tasks, to-dos, filing and an empty inbox
• Write out some interesting tweets to go out over the next week so you only have to check in and reply each day

One of my friends “escapes” to the coffee shop a couple of times a week and does all his content creation and planning for that week in those few concentrated hours. Being out of the office with zero interruptions (other than the constant stream of fresh latte) means he can bang out several quality items and his brain cooperates, rather than fights against his productivity with distractions and… Ooh, shiny!

#5: Just Relax

My last point is that this is not meant to be a chore. Nobody is testing you, tracking your use of time or holding you to any grading system. It should be useful and it should be fun!

Aim to build a reputation for being helpful and providing value, and most of all being a real human being. Then people will be much more forgiving and understanding. You do not need to be perfect.

If you do not post an article this week, so what? Your Twitter followers might be concerned if you do not appear for a few days, but they are not going to start saying bad things about you if you are too busy to tweet!

For me, social media is primarily social. It is my coffee break. Yes, I do find it a very effective set of tools for my business, but I also deeply appreciate the people who are at the other end of those avatars and tools. If you keep relationships foremost in your mind and do not treat social media as something you have to do or else, you will have much greater success at it!

What do you think? Have you struggled to find time? How do you find time for social media? Please share your comments below…

Photo by Leo Reynolds