The pains of managing social media are obvious – now let’s look at 10 different cures to make those pains disappear.

#1: I can’t keep track of what’s going on!

Between answering questions on LinkedIn Answers and updating your Ning profile, you missed the fact that one of your customers just wrote a scathing comment on your Facebook page.

Cure: Start a social dashboard.

Social media management platforms allow you to consolidate multiple social media accounts into one place, so you can manage them all more efficiently. You get an overview of what is happening in different channels, all on one screen. The benefits extend far beyond that, but that’s enough of a reason to look into these solutions. Some solid choices include Hootsuite and Awareness. But different platforms work better for different needs.

#2: I’m talking to a bunch of nobodies!

You exchange 40 tweets with someone who is knowledgeable about your industry. Great! A real prospect! Then you find out that she is a 20-year-old college student (with 15 Twitter followers) writing a paper – and she has absolutely no ability to make a purchasing decision.

Cure: Understand social influence.

You should spend time engaging with people who can move your business forward. That means you need to identify the most influential social media people in your niche. Klout is a tool that tracks influence on Twitter and Facebook. Use it to see if that person is a thought leader, a connector, or a decision-maker.

#3: My customers are out there – but where?

Tools like Gist put your customers’ email addresses together with their social media identities.

You just know that your current customers are on social media. But your Facebook page only has 40 fans. Where are your customers, and how do you connect with them?

Cure: Check out your customers’ social profiles.

Flowtown and Gist both unify multiple social media presences based on your existing customer email database. This gives you a quick way to find out which of your customers are using different social media platforms, and which customers are influential.

#4: I share a lot of content – but it doesn’t drive visits to my site.

You’ve seen the recommendations from experts to keep your self-promotion to a minimum. Social media is about sharing. But you’re also accountable for your own metrics. How can you share, and still get people to check you out?

Cure: Create social media landing pages.

By giving you control of the frame of your link, ObjectiveMarketer gives you the chance to message and brand all of your social media links with customized content. You get all of the benefits of sharing great content with your followers, plus you can show them the interesting things that you’re up to at the same time.

#5: I can’t justify all the time it takes to do social right!

Your team spends hours each week retweeting, sharing links and joining the conversation. But now it’s the end of the year, and you need to make a budget for next year. You know you can’t go on with such a long to-do list, but you don’t have the metrics to show the impact.

Cure: Use your existing metrics – just show the social benefit.

Argyle Social tracks the response from your social media updates and maps them back to the conversion metrics you set up on your website. And it looks back up to 90 days in order to account for a longer consideration cycle – showing how a bunch of tweets adds up to an eventual sale.

Argyle Social tracks the social media links you share and maps that activity back to your website conversions.

#6: I don’t know what my followers are doing online!

You see what happens to your own status updates and blog posts – visitors come to your site, readers leave comments, etc. But you have no idea what they’re doing on the rest of the web.

Cure: Tell people what you like to find out what they like.

This is one place where the biggest names in social media can help you. Twitter and Facebook offer login credentials that any website can adopt (there are open source alternatives as well). Whenever possible, you should connect to other sites using one of these login protocols and “Like” content across the web liberally. Often, you can see who else in your network is also interested in that website. In this way, you’ve created a new opportunity for engagement.

Facebook “Likes” are a great way to find out what your fans are interested in from across the web. “Like” the content you find as you browse, and you’ll see what your fans like in return.

#7: I can’t filter out the noise from the important stuff.

Every time you login to Twitter, you see that there are thousands of unread tweets. Your Facebook page is overrun with comments from people you’ve never heard from before. And there are 1,575 blog posts that are ready for a comment from you.

Cure: Get information fast – when you need it.

Cadmus can definitely help in this arena. It’s designed to show you the most important tweets from your network. If you’re looking for information from your network on a specific topic, Nsyght searches across your social network. It’s like Google but only for the people in your social network.

#8: All this engagement isn’t leading to anything!

You get retweeted by the same people over and over. You have the same conversation with multiple followers. You’re running in a hamster wheel, not moving your marketing forward.

Cure: Get yourself some game mechanics.

Game mechanics means linking your marketing efforts together, so that one interaction naturally leads to the next. You have to create a series of social media events that encourage your followers to engage more deeply – and game mechanics provide a solid framework for planning.

#9: There are not enough hours in the day!

As soon as you feel like your Facebook presence is strong, you know you need to create a SlideShare presence. There’s always one more tweet to write, one more blog post to comment on and new marketing campaign to support.

Cure: Make the case for dedicated resources.

Your marketing program needs to evolve, or it will die. That means your team needs new skills, and a more sophisticated understanding of social media. Work internally to make the case, based on your current success, to shift marketing dollars into social media. And make sure you find the people, whether internal or external, who can hit the ground running.

#10: I have all this content, but I don’t know what to do with it.

You’re doing a great job of engaging with your audience. They’re responding and you have some great quotes. But you’re not getting the full marketing benefit from this engagement.

Cure: Create a space on your site to feature the best social content.

Assuming that marketing involves bringing people to your site so they can take some action, you should feature some social content from your community on your site. This gives your best followers a pat on the back, and allows others to brag about you so you don’t have to. Testimonial pages are a great way to do just that.

What are your biggest social media pains? The community just might be able to cure them for you. If you’ve figured out how to cure them already, be sure to share your solutions in the comments box below.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

This problem can be easily remedied by taking time to learn from those who are already experiencing success with social media marketing and by implementing a clear, specific, actionable and measurable web marketing plan.

In this article, I’ll give you a step-by-step overview of the actions that will M.O.S.T. help you succeed in marketing your business online.

M: Market Intelligence

Before you implement any social media marketing strategy, you need to create a marketing plan. A plan always starts with research. It’s amazing how many businesses fail to do this step properly before they start marketing. I’ve been guilty of it in the past, so I can sympathize!

Think of it this way: Would you rather hop in a plane with clear instructions on how to get to your destination, or play it by ear?

Before anything else, gather market intelligence:

• Who are your target audience and competitors?
• How are they using social networks?
• Where can they be found?
• How are they interacting or communicating with others?
• What are the best ways to catch your audience’s attention and engage them?

Some tips and resources you can use for market research:

• Keyword research: You would do well to find out the keywords your target audience is using to find solutions to their problems. A brilliant tool for this is Market Samurai.
• Surveys: Perform surveys to find out what your target market is really thinking.
• Forums: Hang out in niche/interest-specific forums and interact as much as you can to build relationships and find out what people are talking about.
• Quantcast.com: See public information on popular websites in your niche to get a snapshot of what you can expect for your own.
• Google trends: Find out what’s hot in the search engines now.
• Google competitors: Check out the top 15 ranking websites in Google for the keywords relating to your niche and look at what they’re doing online.
• Twitter search: Keep your finger on the pulse of the marketplace by instantly revealing real-time tweets for certain keywords and phrases.

O: Objectives

After you’ve gathered valuable and actionable information about your target market and about your competitors, you can then set your objectives.

Sample objectives:

They (objectives) are the means to mobilize the resources and energies of the business for the making of the future. ~ Peter F. Drucker

• Increase website traffic by X% within the next 6 months.
• Increase sales revenue by X% by December 2011.
• Improve search engine rankings and get on page 3 of Google (or better) for specific target keywords (list the keywords).
• Increase lead generation by X% per month by November 2011.
• Reduce customer acquisition costs by X% before December 2012.

Remember: you can’t achieve what you can’t measure, so it’s essential to establish measurable and targeted objectives!

S: Strategy

Create a social marketing strategy with a tactical plan of action.

A clever and enduring strategy would be to “build a strong presence within our niche and engage with our target audience,” NOT “build our brand and get active on Twitter.”

Twitter could be gone tomorrow – replaced by a competitor… or your target audience may stop using it. What will you do then if your strategies bank on that particular service?

A sound strategy will align you with your objectives.

If your objective is to increase traffic, then you might choose a strategy like, “publish a search engine–optimized, engaging and entertaining blog that our target audience loves to read and share with their social networks.”

If your objective is to step up revenue, you might want to adopt a strategy like, “Increase sales conversion while lowering cost per lead.”

T: Tactics

Effective tactics will save you time and money and amplify your success.

Tactics are specific actions, steps or decisions that you can use to execute your chosen strategy.

For example, if your objective is to “increase net profits” and your chosen strategy is to lower overhead by lowering your cost per lead, then your tactics might be:

• Build a presence online.
• Build a branded, customized blog.
• Start building a list by using our blog’s content as bait.
• Create a high-converting opt-in section in our blog. Make it convert well by creating an irresistible freebie to give away.

Social Media Platforms

After you have formulated your M.O.S.T. plan, it’s time to identify, assess and select the appropriate social platforms to use.

The most popular social media platforms for business are LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The best ones to leverage are those where your target audience is already active and engaged. So go to where they are, interact with them, build a relationship and then drive them to an appropriate website of yours (for best results, send them somewhere that continues the conversation, like a business blog).

Your choice and prioritization of platforms should depend on how well they fit into your strategy and how regularly your target audience uses them, NOT which brands are currently generating the most hype on them.

For example, a common trend identified by Marketing Sherpa is that there aren’t many businesses that blog because they perceive it as difficult to initiate and maintain when compared to the investment in Twitter, Facebook, social bookmarking, etc. As a result, these businesses make the mistake of focusing on using specific media just because they are perceived as easier to set up and use, not necessarily because they generate the best return.

Marketing Sherpa’s Social Media Marketing Report 2010 revealed that tactics related to blogging and microblogging earned the highest ratings among social marketers in terms of the most effective tactics for achieving objectives.

Blogging for Business

Once you’ve established your presence on the appropriate social media platforms, the best way to profit from those relationships you’ve built is to drive them to your blog (NOT your company website) and engage with them even more.

In your blog, aim to:

• Post valuable, useful content that demonstrates your expertise, and encourage your audience to spread your message.
• Encourage interaction with your market. Instigate conversations. The more participation and involvement you can generate from your audience, the better.
• Pre-sell, NOT sell. Many business blogs make the mistake of posting exclusively about their sales, promotions or discounts.
• Exude your brand.
• Give a taste of what it’s like to work with you or buy from you (fun/enthusiastic/easy, etc.).

The above are key reasons why it’s best to direct Internet users to your blog, not your website.

As long as your target market can be found online and as long as you’ve identified specific platforms that your prospects actively use, you’ll need a business blog to effectively market online.

But wait a second.

We’re not talking about just any business blog, we’re talking about a blog that’s designed, configured and optimized to:

• Attract traffic.
• Convert visitors into leads on autopilot by getting them into your sales funnel.
• Establish you as a trustworthy thought leader in your niche.
• Convert leads into loyal, raving fans.
• Help spread your message and generate buzz by digital word-of-mouth marketing.

Create Your Sales Funnel

Your sales funnel is the process you’ll use to take a prospect from unfamiliarity (“I don’t know you”) to loyalty (“I love you!”) or even fanaticism.

One of the most proven and best ways in our experience to get prospects to become leads can be summarized in this process:

• Opt in -> Relationship building -> Make an offer

Opt-in: When a prospect arrives at your blog, offer them something of massive value in their eyes (maybe an ebook, report, video series, etc.) in exchange for their name and email address.

Relationship building: Using an auto-responder, send them an email every week or twice a week. Your email should also contain something that gives massive value. It could contain tips, links to tools, strategies, reports, updates, etc. Make sure to give value and build your relationship with your audience before you try to sell them anything.

Make an offer: We recommend a ratio of 80% free, valuable content and 20% selling. This means that 80% of your emails give value (no selling) and only 20% of them are invitations to take their experience of you to a higher level and buy from you.

Insanity is commonly defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

It’s really this simple.

Measure: Finally, you need to track your progress while marketing with social media so that you can see where you’re getting the most success and the best bang for buck.

Some metrics you could measure are:

• Quantity and quality of commentary about your brand/business
• Amount of traffic and sources of traffic to your blog
• Network size in terms of followers, fans, etc.
• Leads generated (number of subscribers), different landing pages for different campaigns
• Engagement with influential people
• SEO rankings, number of keywords for which you rank well
• Quantity and quality of incoming links
• Cost per lead
• Conversion rate

Identify what’s not working and then either tweak your approach to make it work, or discard it. Identify what IS working and then scale up that approach to produce a wider smile.

Conclusion

“Blogs are the foundation of all high-profit marketing online today. I see it with my multimillion-dollar product launch clients who funnel all their traffic through a blog. I even see it with my small-hobby-blogger clients who turn their passion into a mid-tier six-figure income. Your business blog can cash in on the elegant promise of that simple lemonade stand we all cherished as kids!” ~Jaime Mintun – marketing maven and copywriter

If you don’t have a blog—start one now. Marketing Sherpa has already identified that if you don’t have a blog, you’re going to find it more difficult to achieve your business objectives through marketing online.

To get the most out of business blogging, check out How to Engage With Social Media and 5 Ways to Make Your Blog Posts Outstanding.

If you’re already using a blog, are you doing well to leverage social media in your favor? Are there any tips or tricks you have to share with our readers? Let us know and leave a comment in the box below.

All images from Shutterstock

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.

Twitter events allow you to network at specific times with larger groups of people through the use of hashtags.

Twitter events can help you find people to build your own Twitter network. And as you participate in these events, you will increase your Twitter authority on the topics you discuss.  You can even create your own Twitter events to drive your networking and social media marketing.

6 Types of Twitter Events

First you need to identify the groups of people you want to network with. Then you should choose the types of events where it’s easy and comfortable for you to network with these people.  This is how you can slowly build up meaningful one-on-one relationships with people who matter to you and to your business.

Fortunately there are several different types of groups gathering around specific topics on Twitter at specific times.

Here are events that take place offline where people use Twitter as a communication tool to share their experience of the in-person event.

#1: Live events. You’ve probably seen Twitter hashtags used by people tweeting from conferences.  People can tweet about any kind of live event.  If you want to get the most out of your Twitter networking at a live event, you should do as Adam Vincenzini says and plan ahead to ensure viral Twitter coverage of live events.

#2: Tweetups. Tweetups are when you meet your Twitter connections in real life.  Tweetups can be impromptu events or with slightly more organization.  And they’re a great way to do some traditional offline networking.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tlxs5Dua2OM

#3: Large-scale offline Twitter events. Some offline events such as the Twestival fundraising event are organized on a wider scale and bring a large Twitter community together.  These are also interesting places to expand your Twitter network if the community is a good fit for your business.

Twestival gets people on Twitter to meet up all over the world.

Here are some events that only take place on Twitter:

#4: Current events. Many businesses can benefit from staying current on trending topics and participating in relevant Twitter conversations. Some current events or breaking news may give you reason to create your own Twitter discussion or chat event.

#5: Twitter Interviews. You can conduct Twitter Interviews with different communication goals. You can do the interview like a journalist or, as this is on Twitter, you can conduct it more like a game show, with a short set of questions aimed at having more fun.  Choose the kind of Twitter interview to use to give you the networking environment you prefer.

You can also find the Small Business Buzz chats on their blog.

#6: TweetChats. There are a number of regularly scheduled TweetChats. Small Business Buzz, or @sbbuzz on Twitter, holds chats every Tuesday to discuss small business topics.  Another interesting regular TweetChat takes place on Thursdays, @lrnchat to discuss learning and social media. It’s easy to see how you can expand your Twitter network by finding TweetChats with your preferred audience.

Variety in Communication

It’s important to note that people use multiple social media platforms for communication. Conversations are not limited to Twitter. There are also interesting events to look for outside Twitter and then come back and follow the contacts you meet there on Twitter.

Facebook. Many events are shared on Facebook. Be sure to follow the people you meet on Twitter, find them on Facebook and have a look at what they share and discuss there.

LinkedIn. Be sure to check out LinkedIn events too.

Although it requires a little bit of research, it’s often easy to create strong relationships when you connect with the same people on different social media platforms.  It’s interesting to note that one-on-one networking is usually easier to initiate on Twitter.

Tools for Twitter Events

Hashtags. Hashtags are key.  They enable people to gather into groups on Twitter. This is how you find others interested in similar topics.  You can read more about how to follow hashtags in this previous article.

Twitter tools. Many Twitter applications come and go, but they often have some great features and make Twitter networking easier and more fun.  Unfortunately, there isn’t a solution to fit all of your needs in following or creating Twitter events. So it’s always worthwhile doing a little research to look for what’s useful for you. Here are some Twitter applications you may find interesting: TweetChat, Tweetvite, and TweetMyEvents.

Event tools.  Sometimes you simply need an event management tool. There are a variety of online tools to help you: Eventbrite, Amiando and meetup are popular event tools. But again, you’ll need to check them out to find the one best suited to your particular needs.

Social Media Networking

Twitter is only one social media communication tool.  Other social media platforms work well when combined with Twitter networking.  For example, many people share photos from events on Flickr and they often share the links to their photos on Twitter. The comments on these photos are also a great resource to help you find people to follow and grow your network. You can also do the same research with YouTube videos, Posterous pages and any other social media platform your audience frequents.

In addition, Foursquare and other geo-location applications are making it easier to create events and bring people together in person. This is why more and more businesses will be including event networking in their social media marketing plans. And Twitter plays a key role in developing your network, thanks to its ease of real-time one-on-one networking.

What other events on Twitter do you use to grow your Twitter network? Have you participated in a Tweetup?  If so, what was your experience? Please share them in the comments below.

How can social networks become useful marketing and operations tools for smaller businesses that don’t have a large customer base?

This question has kept many small businesses from interacting on social networks, as a recent study showed that only 24 percent of small businesses had begun social media marketing.

Here are five tips to optimize your small business’ social networks to attract more customers online.  Small business owners and marketers do not have the luxury of lots of free time to monitor social networks, so these tips are intended to help you be as efficient as possible.

#1: Make Your Profiles About More Than Just Your Industry

While you should be demonstrating expertise on your Facebook fan page and your blog, you should also be adding local context to this information.  What does the information you are providing mean for your specific region?

If you are selling homes, provide information and links about the local area, as well as the real estate you are offering.  As a small business, you are competing against large national news sources, so provide something the big guys can’t afford to give—local perspective.  The Wydler Brothers Realty Team does just that, offering insights on the Washington, D.C. market as well as homes they are offering in the area.

On their blog, Wydler Brothers Realty offers advice on the general DC area, in addition to their expertise in the real estate industry.

#2: Offer Value

By far the most important tip to getting value from social media for your business is offering value to the customers you want to interact with.  First, make sure your social media presences contain all the information a customer needs to find you on and offline, and provide a clear idea of what your business offers.

Second, define what you’ll be offering your potential customers in return for their attention and time.  You can offer promotions or discounts specifically for fans of your Facebook page, for instance. 

If you do not have the budget for special offers, make sure the content you are offering is valuable to the potential customers you are trying to reach.  Envision the need you are filling for the target customer and serve the customer with useful information related to your business or industry.

Rackspace sees high interaction from polls. Smaller hosting companies could learn from what the market leader is doing, and replicate the types of activities that drive engagement.

#3: Show Consistency

Nothing is more likely to reduce the effectiveness of small business social media outreach than inconsistency and spotty participation.  You can’t expect potential customers to revisit your Facebook profile if it is hasn’t been updated in the two weeks since they first visited, or expect them to make a purchase from your Twitter outreach if you only post 2 updates per month.

For example, Naked Pizza, based in New Orleans, messages its followers on Twitter 1 to 15 times per day.  It is now receiving 20 percent of its total revenue from these interactions.

#4: Diversify and Connect

It takes some time investment on the front end, but reaching out on multiple social platforms—then connecting the different presences with the same themes and message—is crucial to reaching the most possible customers on social networks.   You don’t want to replicate the same message on every platform, either.  Though services like ping.fm are great for simplifying content posting, try to add something unique to each social media presence you maintain.

#5: Be Competitive

Observe your competition and their social media activity.  If your business is the only one in your industry and region interacting on social networks, congrats, you’re ahead of the curve.  But more likely than not, your competitors are experimenting on social networks, too.  Observe what they are doing to grow their base.  Which tactics are working?  Which are not?  This is exactly what you’d do in a competitive assessment offline, looking for ways to improve your process by evaluating your competitors.

Remember to stay persistent, as it takes time to establish robust presences on social media sites.  If you act on these five tips in your social media outreach, you will leverage your time effectively, and see improved results from promoting your small business on social networks.

What techniques have been most successful for you on your business’ social media presences?  Which of these tips do you see the most/least potential in?  Let us know by commenting in the box below!

By honing your social networking skills and adapting them to this fast-paced environment, you can use Twitter as the starting point to build a strong business network.

There are two parts to networking on Twitter:

• First, you need to connect with the people you want to get to know.
• Second, you need to find a way to establish relationships with the right people and get beyond the scope of Twitter.

Just like in the offline world, you’ll find people with different styles of communication and different levels of people skills.

We don’t all have Mari Smith’s communication pizzazz.

But don’t let this deter you. You simply need to identify the communication styles used by the people you want to connect with and then join in.

Here are 8 different ways to begin networking on Twitter.

#1: Show Others What You Want to Talk About

First, remember to show others what you are most interested in. You communicate your areas of interest in several ways:

• Paint a picture of who you are with your Twitter bio.
• Shows others what you like to talk about with the content you tweet.
• Share the conversations you are interested in by using hashtags in your tweets.
• Tell others who’s important to you with the names of your Twitter lists.
• The lists you are on show how others see you.

By paying attention to the consistency of your Twitter presence, you’ll send a strong message of what interests you and you’ll attract the people you want to connect with most.

#2: Get Your Actions Right

Your first impression always counts, even on Twitter. Others will notice content on your Twitter profile page: your Twitter handle, your photo, your name, the page you link to and your bio. And they will also notice the actions you take.

• Follow. Do you have approximately the same number of followers as the number of people following you?
• Autofollow. Do you automatically follow everyone?
• Welcome messages. Do you send a welcome message? Is it a personalized message or one that looks like an automated message? Does it promote something or does it show you want to connect and care?

There are no absolute guidelineson what you should do.  You simply need to act in an appropriate way for the people you want to connect with. 

Twitter monitoring will help you find out how to make the right first impression. Regular monitoring will also keep you up to date on any changing trends in Twitter etiquette so you can adjust your tactics when needed.

#3: Retweet Others

Do you feel uncomfortable about reaching out to others on Twitter?  Retweeting is a great way to start networking but you usually need to do a bit more to get a response and start a dialogue.  For example, add some personal comments to the retweet.  Notice how others engage with people and copy the ones you like.

"Good morning!" The simplest tweets often work best.

#4: Shout Out to Others

If you want to connect with someone on Twitter and just don’t know where to start, here are some ways of simply shouting out to people on Twitter to get them to notice you.

• Consider mentioning them for #FollowFriday.  You do this by simply saying something nice about the person, include their Twitter ID and “#FollowFriday” or “#ff”.

• Another option is a public mention of someone you appreciate.

Show your appreciation after connecting elsewhere.

#5: Link to ‘Other’ Social Conversations

As you monitor Twitter and other social media platforms, you’ll notice more conversations. Show others you are paying attention to their conversations.

• When you notice someone’s birthday on Facebook, send a “Happy Birthday” with their @name on Twitter to show you are paying attention to them.
• When you come across a great LinkedIn question, link to it and give the @name of the author on Twitter.
• When you read a great blog post, share the link and take the time to find and mention the author’s @name in your tweet.

The more you show others you are listening to them, the more they’ll pay attention to you.

#6: Write Tweets to Engage Conversations

After getting on other people’s radar, it’s time to take the networking up a notch and try to begin a real conversation.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to reply to a tweet and add value.

• Add useful information.
• Ask a good question.
• Show you are sincerely interested in the topic.

Make it easy to respond to your tweets.

#7: Introduce People

As you meet more people on Twitter, you’ll see people with similar interests.  Take the initiative and introduce people! This is a great way of strengthening your own network because others will notice your introductions and make associations.

Introductions are easy to make.

#8: Create Opportunities to Network Further

What can you do when networking opportunities just do not seem to pop up naturally? Create a reason to network with the people who interest you!  Tweetups and Twitter discussions are a great way to do this.

Another easy first step is to start a public list of people you recommend on Twitter. As you come across people to add to this list, give them a shout out to show your recognition. You’ll find it much easier to connect with people this way.

You might also want an additional step to feel more comfortable with the people you meet on Twitter. Sometimes you need a good ice-breaker.  I find Twitter Interviews helpful because they are usually a fun experience for both participants and I also get to know more about the people I interview.

Networking Beyond Twitter

As you begin to develop your network on Twitter, you’ll want to regularly spend time making connections beyond Twitter.  A phone call or a chat on Skype is always a good step.

Twitter will simply become one of the communication tools you use in your overall business networking plan.

Do you network on Twitter? What tactics do you use to reach out and connect with others? I’d love to hear about what works best for you.  Please share your stories in the comments below.

Do you want to improve your Twitter listening skills? Here’s a closer look at how to monitor your brand, yourself or your competitors using Twitter (and you don’t need to be a big business!).

Why Is Twitter an Ideal Listening Tool?

Here’s why Twitter is one of the best social media platforms for listening:

• Real-time results. We’ve all heard examples of how breaking news spreads immediately on Twitter. Because of Twitter’s real-time search engine, you can get a quick pulse of public opinion.
• Wide reach. Twitter is useful to many different types and sizes of businesses.
• Direct feedback. You hear what people are saying as they say it.

With these points in mind, simply follow these guidelines to grow bionic listening ears.

#1: Decide What You Want to Monitor

Decide which information you want to monitor.  Common types include your brand names, industry keywords, customers and competitors.

A daily listening routine gives you more value over time. Spend the time you need to find the right mix and create a routine that works for you.

# 2:  Find the Best Real-Time Monitoring Tools

Real-time market information is valuable to many businesses today. Here are Nathan Hangen’s suggestions for using Twitter tools. But as professional blogger Ching Ya says, “there’s no such thing as the perfect search tool.” Have a look at Twitter monitoring tools in the decision tree below that Ching Ya put together:

Twitter Monitoring Tools. Image source: http://www.wchingya.com

A good place to start looking for the right people to monitor on Twitter is Twellow.  Also check out Twellowhood for location-based searches.

# 3: Track With URL Shorteners

Use URL shortening tools to monitor the links you share on Twitter and help you find out what’s popular with your audience.

As Jeff Bullas says, the popular URL shortener bit.ly “allows you to track how many people are clicking on the shortened link with a set of metrics that displays it in a visual format as well as textually.” This makes it easy to track your important links and monitor the interactions you have on social media.

#4: Follow Hashtags

Hashtags are a simple search tool. People follow hashtags for Keywords, Events and Trending Topics.

You can simply use Twitter search on a hashtag.  You can also go to Hashtags.org for statistics.

Found a hashtag, but don’t know what it’s about?  Look it up on What The Hashtag, a user-editable encyclopedia for hashtags.

There are also many tools to help you monitor hashtags such as Monitter and Twitterfall.  Have a look at how John Haydon uses multiple hashtag searches on TweetGrid to make sure he doesn’t miss parts of the conversation relevant to him.

Be sure to watch the above video!

# 5: Monitor Trends When It’s Appropriate

Twitter is the best social media platform for real-time search. If staying current on what’s happening in the world is important to your business, you also need to stay current on the latest tools for monitoring trending topics on Twitter.

Hashtags are also used for trending topics, so the tools you use for hashtags can also help you to monitor trending topics.  In addition to the hashtag tools mentioned above, there are a few other tools to keep in mind when following trends on Twitter:

• Trendistic provides a variety of graphs to follow and compare different trends.
• Tweetmeme reveals popular retweeted content.
• Follow @twithority and @TweetingTrends for up-to-date tweets on current trends.

#6: Use Twitter Lists to Monitor People on Twitter

You might find it convenient to create your own Twitter lists and monitor people through these lists.  Remember, you can set up a private list to follow your competitors and you’ll be the only person to see this private list on your Twitter profile.

You can also set up an RSS feed to follow someone else’s Twitter list using Twitter Lists 2 RSS.

#7: Set Up a Listening Plan

A simple listening plan can involve these simple procedures:

• Check your keywords on Twitter Search.
• Sign up for RSS feeds of the search results you need.
• Sign up for email updates for your most important keyword results using tools such as SocialOomph.

You might lose the edge of real-time search but you’ll find more value in a regular routine. With clear objectives on what you need to monitor and by drilling down to find what you’re looking for, simple monitoring tools can give you great results.

#8: Build Relationships

As Olivier Blanchard says, you’re listening to people, so remember to be human. Listening is the first part of creating real relationships with people and it’s only one part of using social media for your business.  You still need to connect your Twitter listening to other social media activities to cultivate and nurture relationships in social communication.

As you proceed to connect and engage with people on Twitter, here are a few words from Olivier: “Engagement doesn’t have to be a perfectly designed and executed PR program where every bit of interaction is carefully crafted and weighed against all possible outcomes. Let it be a living, breathing, imperfect thing: Wing it a little.”

To develop your bionic ear you’ll need to interact and adapt your approach based on what you learn when listening on Twitter.  Follow these 8 steps to listen more and learn more about the people you want to connect with on Twitter.

What are you doing to develop your Twitter listening skills?  How is it working for you? Please share your comments below.

Twitter’s role as a Magic 8 Ball for our shared culture is unrivaled, and it has almost single-handedly ushered in the era of real-time search and social customer relationship management.

But Twitter is the online equivalent of HBO – important more because of who uses it and the media’s infatuation with it, rather than the actual size and impact of its audience.

Don’t get me wrong. I advocate participating in Twitter, and I’ve certainly grown my own audience via that channel.  Twitter indeed should be part of almost every company’s social media tool kit. (See the great post here on how to methodically grow a Twitter following.)

However, Twitter alone does not constitute social media, and you’d think it does given all the disproportionate attention being paid to it at conferences and in trade publications.  Let me provide seven reasons why you shouldn’t focus solely on Twitter…

As an aside, I presented a half-day workshop at the Email Evolution Conference on social media strategy (slides here) recently with DJ Waldow and Mike Corak, and the majority of the questions were about Twitter. That got me thinking that perhaps social media types aren’t fully recognizing Twitter’s limitations?

So, fully expecting each of you to tell me I’m wrong in the comments, here are 7 reasons why Twitter is not the Valhalla of social media:

#1: Growth Is Slowing

The true size of the Twitter audience is a bit tricky to pin down because 55% of its users access Twitter via third-party and mobile applications. But new data from Compete.com shows a clear stagnation in Twitter’s runaway growth.

Has Twitter Peaked?

According to these numbers, the audience using Twitter actually declined from August to December 2009 (during the same period, Facebook went from 250 million to 350 million members).

#2: Young People Don’t Use It

Today’s marketing coordinator is tomorrow’s CMO, and younger Americans don’t embrace Twitter. A new Pew Research study shows only 8% of U.S. teens using Twitter, compared to 66% engaged in texting. Do young people not appreciate the m:any-to-many nature of Twitter, preferring the one-to-one paradigm of text messaging?

Regardless of the reason, as the current teen population ages, it threatens Twitter’s preeminence unless adoption rates soar.

#3: New Features Aren’t Being Used

Last Fall, Twitter rolled out the option for users to “tag” their location onto Tweets, to add geographical context. In true Twitter fashion, it wasn’t “rolled out” per se, it just appeared as part of the API that third parties access. Since then, .023% of all Tweets include location data, according to Sysomos. Not an overwhelming participation rate.

Twitter lists, while useful for categorizing people to follow, haven’t really taken off either. Nor has the new, integrated retweet capability.  With each new release of features being met with tepid response, Twitter users are making the statement that they like Twitter just the way it is. That’s great for keeping the existing user base satisfied, but further impedes growth potential.

#4: Facebook Sharpening the Knife

You may remember that Twitter refused Facebook’s $500 million buyout offer last September. So as expected, Facebook just added Twitter-style features and functions to its service, to evaporate Twitter’s competitive angle.

Updating Facebook from third parties like Tweetdeck? Check. Tagging people with @ within status updates? Check. Posting to Twitter directly from Facebook? Check. Stripped-down interface option, with status updates at the core? Check (Facebook Lite). Retweet-style sharing tools? Check.

Functionally, everything Twitter does, Facebook does just as well, with the exception of mobile usage. Because Facebook has so much more overall functionality than Twitter, the mobile experience is a bit more clunky than Twitter. However, it’s important to recognize that 3 times more people use Facebook from a smartphone every month than use Twitter at all.

#5: The Better You Are at Twitter, the Worse You Are at Twitter

Being a new user on Twitter is as lonely as Michael Boublé at a Green Day concert. “What’s happening?” it asks, followed by a box and a blinking cursor. Twitter success requires an understanding of the unique rhythms and cadences of the community, and a give first, get later mentality that is a bit counterintuitive at first. The site is exceptionally poor at welcoming and training new users, which may result in its high churn rate.

But a bigger problem with Twitter is that like CB radio, it doesn’t scale well. If you have a few hundred followers, you can semi-coherently keep them straight, and watch what they are doing via your public stream. But once you get into the many thousands of followers, that public stream is a cacophony at best. Twitter lists can help in this regard, but many Twitter power users lament that the way they use the service is forced to change significantly as their own Twitter connectivity increases.

Much less time is spent in the public stream, where discoveries occur, and much more time is spent answering replies, and monitoring relevant topics via Twitter search.

When your most popular users are the ones who have the hardest time using your service to its full advantage, you have some issues to consider.

#6:  FourSquare and Gowalla Go Back to the Future

The new location-based darlings FourSquare and Gowalla are stealing a lot of the place-based intimacy that originally propelled Twitter. The “original” Twitter contained a substantially larger percentage of tweets about the author and what he or she was doing in his or her own life at that moment. That type of status update has been migrating, first to Facebook, and now to the location services.

Because you actually know the people you are connected with in most cases, FourSquare and Gowalla feel a lot more like the original Twitter, with a sense of engagement that today’s Twitter can’t deliver.

#7: Measurement Lacking

Other than retweets and clicks – data that inexplicably is only available from third parties – Twitter provides no statistics to its users other than followers/following. Meanwhile, Facebook has been busy adding layers to its Insights platform, which provides a nuanced dataset enabling business users to test, optimize, and evaluate the efficacy of their time spent on Facebook.

The lack of integrated metrics on Twitter may not be a big deal for personal users, but for corporations looking to embed Twitter into an integrated social CRM approach, it’s a gaping hole that is currently being patched by inefficient, home-grown workarounds.

I love Twitter. It enriches my life every day. I hope it sticks around for a long, long time. But, figuring out what you want to do on Twitter is not your “social media strategy” – it’s just a short-term, tactical plan for a platform that survives despite its shortcomings.

What do you think? Are you still sold on Twitter? Please leave your comments below.

Posterous is known as the most “social” networking place of social media. It’s also the ideal solution for sharing content that’s too long for a tweet and too short for a blog post.

There are many different reasons and motivations to create a free Posterous account. Let’s have a look at the 7 most common reasons for businesses to use Posterous.

#1: Can Replace Your Blog

When a regular blog is not for you, Posterous can give you similar advantages to a regular blog without the work of setting up a blog and maintaining it.  All you have to do is send in your content by email.  It’s that simple.  This is why Posterous is great for lifestreaming.

This can be a good starting point for businesses hesitating to create their own blog. Posterous can provide a place to learn more about social media and develop the right content strategies.

#2: Fills a Gap Between Blogging and Microblogging

Posterous is an easy way to publish more content to reach different audiences. Steve Rubel says, “I still see a big space in between blogs and Twitter that allows you to have a hub and spoke strategy and post in multiple formats.”

And as Ted Villa says, “Posterous is clean and nimble, simple to use and a great tool in any organization’s social media toolkit. It’s a great way to extend a client’s footprint online and increase links to their site as well as their social media sites.”

This can fill a gap in your presence on social media.

#3: Can Improve Your Visibility

Posterous can help you improve your visibility in search results in two ways.

First, you have more updates for search engines to find. If you like to share photos and videos online, Posterous makes it very easy to do this (see reason #7 below for more details). And with photo and video publishing made this easy, you end up sharing more content to increase your online search results.

Second, you can publish your Posterous content on your own website. Unlike other social media platforms, you can set up your Posterous account on your own URL.  This means you can set up your Posterous account on:

• Your own domain name separate from your company website
• Or even use a sub-domain of your current website or blog

This is something important to keep in mind as the social media landscape changes over time.

#4: Gives You Another Voice on Social Media

Many business professionals also use Posterous to post content that would be off topic on their main website or blog and engage with a different audience online.

Posterous provides an easy venue to share different “social” content. A separate platform makes it easy to create an additional point of connection with your audience, with a different style, to engage different mindsets.  As Debbie Weil says, “There are distinct differences in how you talk or write for the different platforms.  Simply put, you write in a different ‘voice’ and, generally, talk about different topics.”

This makes it easy to reach out to different audiences.

#5: Makes it Easy for Groups to Publish Content

Posterous allows you to set up group accounts too.  This means you can set up:

• Posterous pages for individual team members
• Collaborative Posterous pages for different company employees to post on the same page
• Collaborative Posterous pages to bring people outside your company to collaborate on one Posterous page

Here’s one example of how Posterous brings social networking to a higher level: ClickIdeas

#6: Helps You to Segment Content for Different Audiences

You can use your Posterous account to create different points of contact with your audience.  Pat Kitano says, “I originally intended this slideshow (How to create a blog without “writing” one) for local businesspeople who wanted a blog for marketing purposes, but didn’t have the inclination to start a blog due to writing and time commitments. After posting the slideshow, I received feedback that Posterous was a great method to create new ‘blogs’ on a variety of topics and interests that were parallel to the principal blog. One mentioned how fast Posterous blogs were indexed by Google.”

This makes it easy to test different market segments outside of your main blog or website.

#7: Is the Easiest Option to Share Photos

Posterous is simply the easiest social media platform to share photos and videos.  All you have to do is email your photo or video to Posterous and it does everything else. This means you can publish your favorite photos and videos from any location where you have access to your email, even from your mobile phone.

This is why many users choose to post all of their photos and videos to Posterous and set it up to feed their Facebook, Twitter and other social media profiles.

Bonus: Makes You Easy To Connect With

Sometimes a personal touch helps you to create a stronger connection with your audience on social media.  This is why some business professionals use Posterous as a place to provide a unique glimpse into their personal lives.

Jason Falls does a good job at providing both personal and business insights on his Posterous page: Falls, Off the Rocker. He links to these Posterous posts from his Twitter account and invites his Twitter followers to get to know him better.

A Step Toward Creating Social Connections

Creating a social presence and adapting to different social media platforms are not easy for many businesses.  Posterous provides a way for businesses to make a social connection between their own website and other social media platforms as they learn more about incorporating social media into their current marketing tactics.

Ready to Give Posterous a Try?  Here’s some good resources to check out:

• Read Mashable’s Posterous Guide.
• Have a look at Guy Kawasaki’s Twelve Tips and Tricks.
• And remember to subscribe to Social Media Examiner.  There’s more to come on Posterous and other social media platforms.

Now It’s Your Turn

• What are you interested in getting out of Posterous?
• Do you already have a Posterous page?
• How is Posterous helping your social media marketing?

Share the link to your Posterous page below and tell us what your experience has been so far in the Comments section below.