This article highlights nine small businesses of various sizes and industries that have transformed their online presence with innovative social media marketing practices.

You’re guaranteed to find inspiration for your social media marketing efforts here.

These tactics will work for just about any business—from solopreneur to multi-employee manufacturer. So let’s dive in!

#1: JarvieDigital Photography

Scott Jarvie takes world-class wedding and nature photographs and he has trained a number of photographers using his unique methods. He’s even had a photographic method named after him: The Jarvie Window.

The Jarvie Window has generated interest in Scott's photography around the world.

As a photographer, you would expect Scott to have exceptional photos on his site, and he does. But he uses them on both Facebook and Google+ to create personal engagement and promote his products and services. In fact, Scott has developed different engagement strategies for each platform.

On Scott's personal Google+ profile, he is highly engaged through sharing resources and commenting.

On his Google+ business page, Scott features his photo services.

While Scott is a premium photographer and trainer, he demonstrates his expertise and generosity to photographers worldwide through sharing resources on his website and through his social sites.

Scott not only shares valuable resources, he also promotes the work of his students—a great way to show social love.

#2: The Prospecting Expert: A Consultant

Steve Kloyda founded The Prospecting Expert, a business-to-business consulting firm that helps salespeople with their prospecting skills. He has developed a powerful social presence through the use of video and podcasts.

Steve provides valuable content through a regular podcast show and video channel. Notice also the use of social sharing buttons.

One thing Steve understands is branding. Through the use of his photo and logo, he has created a consistent look and feel across all of his social channels.

Steve's brand is instantly recognizable. Notice also the friendly picture—important when your face is your brand.

One ninja trick executed by Steve is the creation of an iPhone app for distributing his content. While it could cost from hundreds to several thousands of dollars, the marketing benefit of having your content delivered straight to your users’ mobile devices could be invaluable.

Let your customers directly access your content on their mobile devices with a customized app.

#3: Coconut Bliss: An Ice Cream Company

Coconut Bliss is an organic dessert company based in Eugene, Oregon. Their products have become widely popular due to their social media practices.

Coconut Bliss conveys a fun, social brand through rotating photos on their home page.

Technorati discovered in their 2011 State of the Blogosphere report that bloggers use photos more than any other type of media (80% use photos, around 50% use videos and many fewer for all other formats). Coconut Bliss makes an effective use of fun and friendly pictures to show customers eating their dessert products.

Coconut Bliss integrates photos across social platforms.

Coconut Bliss makes an effective use of promotions to engage their fans. In this year’s Veggie Awards, they were able to partner with VegNews to offer a unique prize to Coconut Bliss fans while also getting partnership in a much larger promotion to all readers of VegNews. Two smart strategies: contests and partnerships.

#4: JamaicansMusic: An Online Music Channel

Casey Hibbard highlighted JamaicansMusic in a Social Media Examiner post, but they have some unique social practices worth emulating. After all, they have achieved astronomical growth through smart social media practices—1.5 million new fans in 4 months!

When visiting the JamaicansMusic website, one instantly gets the feeling that this is a social company. In fact, there are three different places on their home page to connect socially.

Make it easy to connect socially, especially if there are multiple offers on your home page.

By providing contests, free music, games and other valuable resources, JamaicansMusic has given their Facebook fans lots of reasons to revisit their page—and tell their friends about it.

When playing this creative songwriting game, JamaicansMusic offers fans more ways to connect socially.

#5: SEOMoz: A Software Company

SEOMoz is a search engine optimization and social monitoring service provider. One thing that distinguishes their site is the use of gaming mechanics to spur participation from their writers and site members. Each post, comment and Like generates points that help distinguish the experts from the crowd.

Gaming mechanics encourage site members to actively participate if they want to rank well against their peers.

Not only does SEOMoz invite social engagement on the first visit, they also use social proof to earn the trust of visitors. See the recognizable brands in the image below.

If you've done business with name-recognizable companies, ask if you can tell others. It provides significant social proof for your business.

#6: Ana White: Carpenter

Ana White is a carpenter billing herself as a “homemaker” who has a website to empower women to do carpentry projects. With over 51,000 Facebook fans, Ana has created a massive following among women (and quite a few men) who love her easy-to-follow blueprints for do-it-yourself furniture projects.

Ana's Facebook page has over 51,000 fans. Her fans post tips and projects here frequently.

Since late 2009, Ana has been publishing free how-to guides for furniture. She also asks her fans to post pictures of their success stories—the very thing people love to do (talk about themselves). As a result, she has a very popular site where most of the posting comes from fans. Very smart!

Ana's fans love to post pictures of their successful home projects.

Notice all the social sharing options Ana makes available at the end of the post above. She makes it easy to share with friends.

Ana has also created a very engaged community on her Facebook page that complements, but is distinct from, her blog.

Remarkably, she doesn’t post that often—she doesn’t have to. While she comments on at least half of the posts, her fans are busy posting and answering questions for each other.

#7: EasyLunchboxes

Kelly Lester founded EasyLunchboxes out of a personal desire to find healthy ways to package food she sent with her children to school. As a solopreneur, she has found unusual success due to her wise social practices and great social branding.

Her blog presents a clean, compelling look into her company. On her website, Kelly has integrated multiple opportunities to connect socially and to subscribe to her newsletter.

In addition to inviting social connections, Kelly has positioned herself uniquely as the "Singing CEO," a title that will be easily remembered.

An important piece of social real estate is the Facebook welcome tab. Kelly makes good use of this space by keeping her brand exciting, telling visitors what to expect from her page and promising valuable content.

Your welcome tab should give visitors a sense of what to expect on your page.

Kelly has created a focused plan to market through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and her blog. She delivers unique content on each channel and integrates them with each other—all while maintaining her personal life as a mom and actress.

With her acting background, Kelly has distinguished her YouTube channel by creating her own TV series. This includes over 150 videos where she has even given her audience a chance to share videos of why they like EasyLunchboxes.

If you or someone you know has an acting flair, think about creating your own video series.

#8: Social Media Explorer: An Agency and Online Service

Social Media Explorer is a business-to-business education and information products company focused on social media and digital marketing.

On their home page, Social Media Explorer has taken advantage of Intent, a Twitter plugin. This allows a user to see if he or she already follows this business.

What is seen before following Jason Falls' Twitter account

What users see if they are following Jason Falls.

As a blog, Social Media Explorer features numerous guest authors. To show social love to these authors, Jason Falls and Aaron Marshall have prominently highlighted the social profiles of each of their authors. This allows readers to quickly connect with the experts and enables the authors to expand their influence.

Each Social Media Explorer author receives prominent recognition for their articles and an easy way for readers to find them on various social platforms.

#9: Orabrush: A Dental Product

After years of failed attempts to market his innovative tongue brush, Dr. Bob Wagstaff decided to give YouTube a try. Spending only $500, he created his first video. In less than 3 years that video has been seen more than 16 million times and helped to generate over $1.6 million in sales and contracts with Wal-Mart and CVS Pharmacies.

While you can’t guarantee a video will go viral like this, there are some lessons to be learned:

1. Talk about something that people care about—in this case, bad breath.
2. Keep your video short—Dr. Bob’s video was only 2 minutes long.
3. Embed your video on your home page.
4. Grab people’s attention in the first 5 seconds—with some minor editing, this video incorporates quick, edgy statements that pull the viewer into wanting to hear the solution.
5. Offer something for free—your first Orabrush is free, if you’ve watched the video.

Here are more tips on video marketing.

Orabrush embedded their popular video on their home page, while answering a problem that concerns many people: bad breath.

Some other best practices used on Orabrush’s website: They made it easy for users to tell their stories with video clips. They also prominently feature quotes from the traditional press on their page. Finally, they make their YouTube channel prominent, because this has been a key to their success.

Let individuals and the press sing your praises through videos and quotes on your website.

Finally, Orabrush understands the importance of keeping customers on their website, so they integrated Facebook onto their site.

Integrate Facebook to keep fans on your website.

These nine small businesses have many more things to teach other small businesses everywhere, but they aren’t the only ones.

What do you think? What have you learned that you’d like to share? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Social media allows you to match data generated by social interactions with individual’s preferences and general interests. This creates useful profiles that give marketers insight into how to tailor future offers and products to their customer base.

In this article I’ll show you five ways to use the data generated by your social network profiles—and those of your competitors—to expand your reach and sales.

#1: Listening Data

Nearly every social media plan tells you to begin by “listening,” but what are you listening for? Monitoring news related to your local business environment and industry can give you a sense of the conversation around your products or services, but social listening allows you to expand this information and make it more relevant.

Specifically, you can gather data about the reactions to your products and campaigns as measured by interactions with messages on Facebook, retweets, mentions on Twitter and comments on your blog.

Measuring the volume, sentiment and relevance of these interactions—and tracking this data over time—will allow you to determine how new products, services and/or offers are received by your customers.

Here’s a view inside Gatorade’s mission control, where the brand reviews insights from social data to drive marketing improvements.

Tools like Google Alerts and HootSuite allow you to monitor basic volume of interactions. If the volume grows to the point where manual tracking is not feasible, there are a few paid products like Radian 6, Meltwater Buzz and Scout Labs that allow you to track data in a more automated fashion.

Some large-scale examples of using listening data for product development and service improvement include Dell’s new Social Media Listening Command Center and Gatorade’s Mission Control. How can you model your listening campaign on these examples?

#2: Benchmarking Data

In the past, it was difficult or even impossible for business owners to know how their efforts and branding stacked up against their competition, aside from observing the general performance of the competitors’ businesses and anecdotal information. Social media data allows you to understand your performance relative to your competitors, because so much of it is publicly accessible.

Once you gather the listening data based on your own company profiles, compare it to that of your competitors to gain perspective on your performance.

Observe the size of your communities relative to your competitors. Also, analyze the relative activity of those communities. Do your fans and followers post more or less frequently than your competitors?

Additionally, you can dig in to see who is following your competition and your own profiles, and compare to see who has more relevant community members for your industry.

Note the relative level of effort required to gain the number of interactions your competitors are driving. If you’re receiving either more or fewer interactions than your competitor, but posting with the same frequency, note the differences in your content and what is driving the disparity in results.

Be sure to account for competitors in each social channel on which you are active, and if possible, benchmark yourself against competitors that are active across multiple channels.

#3: Strategic Forecasting Data

RapLeaf, a social data company, provides insights on customer trends.

While market research groups provided one channel for companies to learn about the interests and perceptions of a few customers, companies like RapLeaf allow you to identify your customer base by revealing key insights and trends about what social networks your customers use, other popular websites for customers, relative location trends and relative demographic trends.

The use of social data allows you to hone your financial performance projections and product development, especially if you produce specific promotions for each social network, and can track revenue and profit from the activities on individual channels. Knowing this kind of information about your consumer base allows for more accurate targeting and the power to personalize campaigns.

#4: Real-time Tracking Data

Traditional advertising channels like radio, television and print were able to provide estimates of effectiveness through quantifying radio ratings, television viewership or magazine sales; however, these ads were effectively impossible to track with any real certainty. Social data allows marketers to view relevant and real-time trends including how campaigns are performing at given time and how alterations to campaigns affect results.

Tools like HootSuite provide real-time tracking of social data to drive business decisions.

Not only do these tracking mechanisms allow businesses to see how a campaign is performing, they allow them to view consumer data at a granular level, identify positive or negative trends and make instant modifications.

This ability, combined with the real-time tracing of consumer sentiment, can mitigate wasteful spending or funding for a campaign that isn’t working as planned.

#5: Reflection and Insight

No matter the level of preparedness a company has in listening, gauging relevance, forecasting and implementing, there’s still a degree of uncertainty in social media. The advantage of robust data tracking services is that you never find yourself guessing why something worked or what caused it not to work. Here is a great post on how to analyze Twitter performance, for instance.

Consumer feedback is usually statistically significant, mostly unsolicited and readily available for companies looking to reformulate their efforts. By understanding a campaign through the targets’ points of view and gaining the ability to quantify their evaluation process, social data can be an invaluable tool for marketers.

How will you use social data in 2011 to grow your business? Is there a particular suggestion that you’ve already implemented and can discuss? We’d love to hear what’s working for your business, so leave your comments in the box below.

Using social media to research competitors can provide useful information for any business looking to create a smart strategy.  Learning about your competitors’ activities can give you insight into what works and what doesn’t.

The beauty of social media is that there’s a ton of information about your competitors that is public. And not only is their strategy public, but the reaction to that strategy is public as well. Let’s take a look at some of the things you can learn about your competitors through different social networks, search engines and other outlets.

Competitor Research Through Twitter

Twitter can be a great source of information, because you not only can view a user’s tweets (assuming they’re not private, which generally business Twitter accounts aren’t), but also a user’s followers and the conversation that’s being directed toward him or her.

Finding Competitors

If you have a specific list of competitors that you would like to research, your best bet on finding their Twitter accounts is to visit their website and look for their social links (usually near a Twitter icon in the header, sidebar or footer of their site). Alternatively, you can Google the company name and Twitter to find their account.

If you haven’t compiled a list of competitors, or your main competitors surprisingly don’t use Twitter yet, you can use Twitter search directories such as Twellow and WeFollow to find other companies in your industry that do.

Tweets

The first and most useful information you can learn from looking at a competitor’s Twitter account is simply the strategy they’re using. By viewing their latest tweets, you can see if their strategy includes promoting lots of discounts; direct replies to their followers; or sharing articles, fun facts or other kinds of tweets. You can judge the success of their strategy simply by looking at their follower count.

Followers

Have you ever wanted to see your competitors’ client list? If so, you might just be in luck, because on Twitter, you can view any user’s followers. Thanks to the new Twitter design, you can easily click on a Twitter user’s followers and see, just by scrolling down the page, a short piece of information about each of their followers from their bios.

Twitter gives you a great overview of any Twitter user's followers.

Then you can click on each one to learn more about them, like their follower-to-following ratio, location and their latest tweets.

Alternatively, you can get an overview of a user’s followers by using Twitter tools like Tweepi, which allows you to see follower details all on one screen, including bio information, location, number of followers and following, number of updates and even when they last tweeted.

Tweepi shows you important Twitter user information in one shot.

Replies

Now, let’s take the research deeper. You don’t want just to know who’s following your competitor on Twitter—you want to know what kind of feedback that competitor is getting as well.

If you do a simple search on Twitter for the replies to their username, @yourcompetitor, you’re bound to learn some valuable information.

Monitor the @mentions of your competitors for fan sentiment.

In the above example, you can see that @Target’s fans like their latest commercial, selection of Christmas items, pricing on certain products and even one of Target’s charitable contributions during the holiday season.

Most Popular Content

Another great Twitter search tool is Topsy. This one is specifically for researching what content on a website gets the most retweets—a sign that it’s the type of content that people like and something that you should consider emulating for your own blog or website.

See the most popular pages tweeted from a competitor's website.

In the above search, you can see a few important things in particular—this company uses services similar to Sponsored Tweets for Twitter advertising, as marked by the #ad hashtag after the first tweet. They also received lots of good feedback and changed their in-store return policy, news that’s being shared often.

Competitor Research Through Facebook

Facebook is one of the top social networks for businesses, and another one where you can find out a lot of information about your competitors’ strategy and fan interaction.

Finding Your Competitors

Again, just like with Twitter, you can find your known competitors’ Facebook fan page links on their website or simply through a Google search. But if your competitor isn’t using Facebook fan pages, you can use the Browse All Pages directory on Facebook to find companies in your industry that are using the search or the category types listed, such as products, services, restaurants and more.

Strategy

There are lots of strategic elements that can be determined by viewing a competitor’s Facebook fan page. To get a full view of what they’re doing, you may have to Like their page with your personal profile.

Once you’ve become a fan, you’ll be able to see all sections (formerly tabs) of their profile. You’ll be able to find out if they’re using their Facebook page as lead generation through gathering email addresses, feeding other social media accounts or blog posts through their page, eliciting customer reviews, creating amazing landing pages or using premium applications from Involver or North Social.

The main strategy you’ll want to check out is how they use their wall for fan interaction. Do they post their latest offers, videos, blog posts, news, photos or other items? Why is this valuable? Because not only will you see their activity, but you’ll also see how it goes over with their customers.

Fan Activity

Unlike Twitter where you have to do a special search for a competitor’s replies to their @username, you can see fan response (or lack thereof) directly on each item of your competitor’s wall. This is a great way to gauge what fans in your industry like the most, from discounts to random status updates, simply by seeing the number of Likes an update receives and reading through the various comments.

See the popularity of an update on your competitor's Facebook fan page wall.

One particular thing to note is that it’s not always updates from the official fan page that get interaction. In the above example on Toyota’s fan page, it’s a fan posting on their wall that got other fans’ attention—a key reason to make sure that your page shows both your updates and those from fans.

Favorite Pages

Facebook fan page owners can add other fan pages as their favorites.

Find your competitors' additional pages through Favorite Pages.

This is a key area to check out, as it may lead you to find more competitors’ fan pages, revealing more of their ultimate Facebook strategy.

Competitor Research Through LinkedIn

Thanks to the new company pages on LinkedIn, you can learn some interesting information about how your competitors are using LinkedIn for business.

Finding Your Competitors

Locate your competitors’ company profiles on LinkedIn via their website, a Google search or using the search box at the top right-hand corner of your LinkedIn screen.

Followers

You can browse a company’s followers using the link in the top right corner of the company profile page showing their follower count.

View a company's followers on LinkedIn.

If you’re not directly connected to followers of a company (first connections) or sharing a connection with a follower (second connection), you’ll only be able to see a limited amount of information about a company’s followers, although it might still be enlightening.

Employees

You can also view information about a company’s employees if they’re connected to them on LinkedIn. If you do share connections, use the links for first connections and second employees in your network (shown in the box above) to see more details about those employees.

Also, don’t miss the helpful statistics about employees, including the following information compiled about all employees linked to the company:

• Job function composition—percentage of staff who are administrative, research, development, sales, marketing and executive.
• Annual company growth—a line graph that compares your competitor’s growth with others in the same industry and of similar size.
• Employees who have changed their title—a line graph that compares your competitor’s employee changes with others in the same industry and of similar size.
• Employees at the company with new titles.
• Years of work experience—a bar graph that compares your competitor’s employees’ experience with others in the same industry and of similar size.
• Highest education degree attained—a bar graph that compares your competitor’s employees’ education (bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, associate’s degree, certification, and high school diplomas) with others in the same industry and of similar size.
• Most common universities attended—a bar graph showing percentages of employees from the top five universities that they have graduated from.

Strategy

With the new company pages, companies can add more information to their profile. View their Recent Blog Posts and Activity on LinkedIn to see what your competitors are doing to boost their profiles and gain new followers.

More Competitor Research on Social Media

Want to go beyond the top three social and professional networks? Here are more ideas on social networks and websites to research your competitors.

• YouTube—check out your competitors’ video marketing strategy by finding their YouTube channel and seeing what types of videos they post and their popularity through number of Likes and comments.
• Social Mention—use this real-time social media search engine to find your competitors on other social networks, and view mentions about your competitors by other social media users.
• Geo-based social networks—are your competitors taking advantage of Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook Places, Whrrl or other location-based social media? Find out and be sure your company is “check-in” friendly if applicable.
• Boardreader—don’t just focus on social media! Some of the strongest, most loyal community members can be found in forums. Boardreader will help you find your competitors and any talk about them on forums and message boards throughout the web.
• Local search and review directories—does your business have local competition? Be sure to check out your competitors’ profiles on review sites such as Yelp, Merchant Circle, Google Places and more to find out if they’re garnering reviews from their customers, sharing discounts and taking advantage of local search to dominate in search results.

Do you research your competitors via social media? Please share your tips below, as well as valuable information you learned from doing the research and analysis.

LinkedIn Groups offers one of the best ways to make the most of your social media engagement time, but you must adopt the right strategy to be successful. This article will show you how.

LinkedIn allows you to join up to 50 groups, but you can’t possibly be effective and spend enough time to make a difference in 50 groups.

What works best is to focus your time and effort on a deep and narrow approach in order to build influence within LinkedIn Groups, enhance your credibility and generate new connections.

Here’s how:

#1: Identify the Best Group Opportunities

Evaluate the groups you’ve joined or intend to join and focus on the top 3 to 5 groups that most accurately represent your target demographic. Also, you’ll want to choose groups that don’t have a huge membership.

I recommend that you choose groups that have at least a few hundred members, but no more than a few thousand if you really want to maximize your visibility.

Plan to proactively visit each of your top groups 2-3 times a week. Don’t wait for the daily or weekly updates that come to your email inbox. Identify your best opportunities and plan to make frequent and consistent appearances!

Find groups that represent your target demographic.

#2: Target the Most Popular Discussions in Each Group

The most “popular” discussions within a group generally get the most visibility. These are the topics where members are most actively engaged and they feature discussions that you will want to weigh in on. The most popular discussions are at the top of the group discussion page, and typically there will be quite a few comments associated with them for you to review and learn from.

Participate in popular discussions.

As you weigh in on popular discussions, respond to existing comments, provide an insight or opinion or even ask a thought-provoking question to generate additional comments. You can also “Like” and “Share” these discussions with your connections.

If your comments add value to the popular discussions, members will begin to recognize you as a thought leader within the group.

#3: Start Your Own Discussion

Starting your own discussion thread is also a powerful tool within a group, but you must be strategic with this. I recommend that you wait to start your own discussion until after you’ve spent some time participating in the top discussions first (#2).

In addition, observe the contributions of the most active group members in order to understand their concerns, goals and objectives. What seems to be important to them?

Also study prior popular discussions. What topics have resonated with members? In starting your own discussion, pose a question, ask for help or advice or post a relevant and interesting article or resource for the group’s benefit. Your goal with starting your own discussion is to encourage as much engagement as possible!

Start a discussion by asking a compelling question.

Start a discussion by providing a helpful tutorial for the group members.

If you’re truly engaging members of the group with the discussions you initiate, you’ll have the opportunity to be recognized as a “Top Influencer” in the group page sidebar, which can help you build visibility and authority within the group.

Focus on becoming a "top influencer" for greater visibility in LinkedIn Groups.

Note: It’s extremely important to add value when starting discussions and avoid promoting your own products, services or content. After you’ve earned some credibility within your top groups, it’s acceptable to post one of your own articles from time to time. Just make sure that what you post to the group answers a question or solves a problem with members, and don’t ever post sales-related material.

#4: Follow Up and Follow Through

One of the disadvantages of LinkedIn Groups is that it’s difficult to keep up with updates unless you proactively visit your top groups as recommended. Make sure to keep up with the conversations you’re participating in.

Don’t let too much time lapse and don’t leave a conversation open. Keep your comments fresh and interesting to demonstrate your commitment to your groups.

Also consider handing out “Likes” for interesting posts by group members and share valuable posts as LinkedIn status updates. When you share a group discussion post as a status update, you’re exposing it to all of your connections and giving the post greater visibility within LinkedIn. Promoting and connecting others on LinkedIn can build social influence.

#5: Start Your Own Group

If you’re willing to make the commitment, another option is to start your own LinkedIn Group. If you manage your own group, you have control over many aspects of your group. To an extent, you can control which discussions get more visibility through the “Manager’s Choice” feature.

As a group owner, you will have control over the "Manager's Choice" discussions.

As the founder of the group, it’s actually your job to lead discussions with the group! Ultimately it will be the members who push the most interesting discussions to the top. When you start your own group, make sure that you have a well-defined niche or theme. Otherwise you may not get much traction. Focus on bringing people together who can benefit from sharing mutual experiences and insights.

Using this approach for your LinkedIn Group participation strategy can help you maximize your time and energy on the network. Making a commitment to adding value to a small number of targeted groups on a consistent basis will help you build influence and new connections. In addition, you’ll find that there’s little competition in this strategy!

What strategies are you currently using within LinkedIn Groups? Are you finding relevant groups for your industry where you can truly add value? I would love to hear about your experiences. Leave your comments in the box below.

But very few think of leaving a comment on a blog as a strategy to driving awareness—and potentially, down the road, garnering leads.

Wait, how can leaving a comment on a blog drive awareness (or leads) for your brand? You might be surprised at how effective this strategy can be, given the right circumstances. B2B organizations, for example, are often positioned well to capitalize on this approach based on their need to establish themselves as thought leaders on various topics.

But, before we get to the “how,” let’s talk a bit more about the “why.”

Why Comments as a Strategy

Think about the leading business blogs. Take the Harvard Business Review (HBR) blogs, for example. The traffic on those HBR blogs is pretty heavy, right? According to a simple Compete.com query, the main HBR blog site had more than 330,000 unique visitors in March 2010 (its highest point during the year). That’s some serious traffic.

More importantly, if you’re interested in the kind of people who are disposed to read HBR (and let’s face it, many companies are), it can be the right traffic for your organization or clients.

Sure, the HBR blogger builds credibility and thought leadership with the 330,000-plus eyeballs that are reading the initial post—but so can you (to an extent) with a thoughtful perspective in the comment stream. In effect, what I’m saying is you can raise visibility and awareness for you and your company by commenting on well-read industry blogs like HBR regularly.

A blog commenting strategy can also serve as a solid foundation for future blogger outreach “campaigns.” By commenting regularly on blogs that you’ll be targeting in future blogger outreach campaigns, you’re building trust and credibility with bloggers that will pay off down the line.

Take that concept one step further for a moment: What about using a blog comment strategy as a way to open the door to guest posts on targeted blogs that your customers may be reading on a regular basis?

Personally, I’ve done this a few times in the past with success. Namely with Gini Dietrich and Danny Brown—two bloggers (and now friends) who are very heavily read in the digital PR industry (and, more importantly, blogs I know some of my clients are reading).

Bottom line: Don’t sell a thoughtful blog comment short—it takes time and energy to produce an insightful comment. And bloggers know that—and they’ll take notice.

Now that we know a blog comment strategy is a viable potential tactic to increase online visibility and awareness, how do you go about developing such an approach? Follow these seven simple steps and you’ll be up and running in no time:

#1: Research and identify the blogs your customers are reading

Start culling the list by using tools like Alltop, Technorati and PostRank. Or, just do some good old-fashioned Google searches. And, once you find a few industry-leading blogs, don’t forget to review their blogrolls. They’re usually full of other blogs your customers are reading.

Finally, why not use Twitter to crowdsource your blog list? For example, tweet “What are 3 blogs in your Reader that you simply couldn’t live without?” This tactic might give you a nice mix to add to the list.

#2: Organize for daily consumption

To track and follow these blogs daily/weekly, you’re going to need a system—a methodical process for scanning new posts and identifying comment opportunities. The best tool? A “reader.” Most folks use Google Reader—but not me. I religiously use Feedly. It’s a bit less “geeky” than Google Reader and is organized more like an online magazine for blogs. What I love most about Feedly is the customization—group blogs by topic, browse by most recent posts or review in “cover” mode. Whatever suits your fancy.

Feedly is a less geeky alternative to Google Reader for monitoring blogs regularly.

#3: Track and monitor bloggers via Twitter lists

Yes, you want to comment on these blogs, but you also want to monitor the bloggers’ other online behavior, including Twitter. By building specific Twitter lists, you can easily scan and see what these folks are talking about and sharing on a daily basis. Check it once a day—just enough to give you some insight into the way they think and what they’re talking about. Respond or retweeet a few of these bloggers’ posts (and leave a few comments), and believe me, they’ll notice and remember you.

By using Twitter lists you can track and follow what bloggers are sharing and commenting on daily.

#4: Get to know the bloggers

Spend about two weeks reading the bloggers’ posts and getting to know their style and the topics they like to write about. I say two weeks (seems like a lot, I know) because not everyone blogs every day like Jay Baer or Darren Rowse. Some people are actually human (in case you didn’t catch that, this is a compliment to Jay and Darren) and only blog 2-3 times per week. In that case, you’ll need to read a few posts to get a better sense of their blogs.

#5: Provide insightful comments

Sure, this might seem obvious, but there are a few tricks to the comment trade:

• Add one piece of useful information. Instead of focusing on adding too much—concentrate on just delivering one super-useful contribution to the post. Specifically, look to add one quality piece of content to the frequent “list posts” we see so many of online these days.
• Play devil’s advocate. One of the common refrains we hear is there is too much agreement among bloggers. Take a contrarian stance. Offer a substantiated argument, backed by facts and data. More often than not, you’ll be seen as guiding a constructive conversation about the topic at hand.
• Get personal. Don’t be afraid to share a personal story or anecdote as a way of highlighting your point. Be sure to make it relatable, interesting and when possible, poignant.

#6: Leave a digital “breadcrumb”

Don’t go overboard here. Just a Twitter handle will often suffice. If you’re not on Twitter, use your blog/site URL. What you want to avoid is being too aggressive. No links back to your site (unless it’s extremely relevant). No language saying readers should follow you on Twitter. Your comment should stand on its own merits—just leave readers a way to get back to your blog/site.

#7: Follow up with an “ask”

If the goal of your blog commenting strategy is to obtain guest posts, this is obviously a critical step. In the past, I’ve found this to be a great way to broker a guest post on different blogs (a client of mine secured a guest post on Jay Baer’s blog this way). Read the blogger for a few weeks. Share a number of posts on Twitter. Leave a few well-thought-out comments. Then do your asking. You’ve established that you’ve taken the time to leave comments and share their content on Twitter.

By this time, the blogger should recognize you (as much as anyone can “recognize” someone online). If you approach the blogger with a thoughtful request and a solid rationale, it makes it difficult for him or her to say no. Then, all you have to do is follow through on that promise and deliver extremely compelling content.

What about you? Have you implemented a blog commenting strategy in the past? What steps would you add to this list? Leave your comments in the box below.

The other day I drove past a local convenience store that makes most of its profit from beer, Slush Puppies and beef jerky (not that there’s anything wrong with that). A big sign out front asked passers-by to Like them on Facebook.

“It’s official,” I thought. “Now every business in America has a Facebook page.”

Unfortunately, few businesses actually have a strategy for their Facebook page, or for the rest of their social media activity. They tweet, blog and set up a Facebook business page out of fear of being left behind, rather than as a way to engage their audience.

If your social media engagement is reactive rather than proactive, it’s time to step back, take a deep breath and develop a content strategy that will engage your community.

A content strategy doesn’t end with good signage.

What Is a Content Strategy?

Last year while doing some research into what certification organizations were doing in social media, I interviewed Susan Cato, Senior Director of Web and New Media Strategies at CompTIA, who said,

“You can’t have a social media strategy without a content strategy.”

I thought this was brilliant. She clarified far more effectively and in fewer words what I had been saying. But what does it mean to have a content strategy?

There are three important elements to developing an effective content strategy.

• You need to know what your customers, audience or community want to talk about and be willing to engage in those conversations.
• You need to know where your audience wants to have these conversations; in other words, where they “hang out” online.
• You need to measure the results of your conversations to see which ones catch fire.

Let’s start with what your customers want to talk about.

Knowing Your Audience’s Pain Points

Developing a content strategy often starts with a keyword analysis. Now, you may think of a keyword analysis as a tool for blog posts or blogs for SEO, and you’re right. However, it will also help you uncover the language that your audience or community is using while on the social web.

For example, if you’re a plastic surgeon and you’re putting out some great content about “rhinoplasty” but everyone’s talking about “nose jobs” you’re not reaching anyone. Likewise, if the conversation is about “curb appeal” and you’re talking about “landscaping,” the conversation may pass you by.

A keyword analysis begins with a list of words or phrases that you believe your audience is using to find products or services like yours. There are a number of software tools that you can use to determine how often your phrases and related phrases appear in searches, which provides insight into which you should use in your content strategy.

Some popular keyword analysis tools include:

• Keyword Discovery or WordTracker: two popular paid tools
• Google AdWords: a free tool that uses Google AdWords data to determine what phrases are popular.

Red leather jackets were probably more popular when "Beverly Hills Cop" came out.

A keyword analysis will only start you on the path to a content strategy. Once you’ve identified some of your key phrases, you need to get to work on where your community wants to have these conversations.

Knowing Where Your Audience Hangs Out

Once you have a general sense of what’s important to your audience, you need to determine where to have these conversations. Most businesses, non-profits and individuals would best be served by focusing on one or two platforms… going deep rather than going broad to start.

Where your audience is can depend on their age and gender, as well as your offerings. There are plenty of statistics that break down social media sites by demographics. Flowtown has a great infographic on social media demographics on their site.

LinkedIn can be a powerful tool for B2B (business to business) companies. Facebook does well for B2C (business to consumer) offerings. Blogs and online video-sharing sites like YouTube can work for any audience, but may be blocked by corporate firewalls.

You can also use “listening tools” to see if the conversations are already taking place across social media. There are a number of free and paid tools for listening for specific terms in social media.

• Google Alerts: This free tool will send you daily emails of news, blog posts, tweets and more around any keyword you’re following.
• TweetDeck: With this popular Twitter app you can set up a column to follow the conversation around a specific topic.

You can follow conversations around your key terms by creating a search column in TweetDeck.

• Radian6 and Sprout Social: These are two examples of paid social media monitoring services for companies that need more robust tools.

Here are some ways in which you can begin to implement your content strategy through different social media tools:

Blogs: Blogging is a powerful method for engaging your audience; it has both SEO and social media benefits. Blogging around your keywords is an essential piece of a content strategy.

One of my favorite new tools for developing blog content is the Keyword Questions tool at WordTracker Labs. Enter a key word or phrase and it will return related questions people have asked at partner search engines.

People have questions; now you can blog the answers.

By typing in “BBQ,” you see questions like “how to make BBQ ribs in the slow cooker” and “how to BBQ corn on the cob.” In other words, you have the topics and titles for your next two blog posts.

Note: this technique works equally well for YouTube and SlideShare.

LinkedIn: Try searching through the Answers section in LinkedIn to answer questions around your keywords. For example, an accountant might search for “profitability” or “capital tax issues.”

An HR consultant can answer questions on “employee retention” to establish credibility with her audience.

Facebook: Ask questions on your Facebook business page that build on your content strategy. Of course, this will work better once you’ve built a following on Facebook. Be sure to check out 10 Ways to Grow Your Facebook Page Following and 4 Proven Steps to Facebook Page Success for more on that.

Mint does a great job of asking questions that engage their target audience and start a conversation.

Twitter: Check out Twitter’s search function or the Advanced Twitter Search if you need to filter your phrase to a geographical location or by attitude.

Are you running a Mexican restaurant near Portland, Maine? This is your search.

Measuring the Results

A keyword analysis and some social media demographics will get you started, but you need to measure the impact of your conversations to see if you’re making headway. I recommend—at least at the beginning—to keep this as simple as possible. Some suggestions:

• Track how many comments and Likes your Facebook post gets.
• Track monthly how many followers, retweets and mentions you or your brand gets.
• Measure how many comments your blog posts get and how much traffic they receive.
• Measure social media referral traffic to your website; in other words, how much traffic is sent from Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn?

In Google Analytics, check your “referrers” to see which sites are sending you the most traffic.

A note for small businesses: many of the articles you read on social media metrics focus on how often people are talking about your brand on the social web. If you run a specialty grocery store in Bangor, Maine, chances are you’re not going to be trending on Twitter anytime soon. Instead, pay attention to your influence locally, or your depth of engagement with your audience.

Content Strategy Takeaways

Some final thoughts on developing a social media content strategy:

• Listen. Having a content strategy isn’t always about talking. It’s about listening and understanding.
• Be patient. Putting up one tweet with a keyword in it doesn’t make a content strategy. A content strategy is about building trust with your audience, your community or your customers. That takes time.
• Be flexible. A keyword analysis and social media demographics will only take you so far. You’ll need to evolve your content strategy over time, based on what’s going on in your industry, with your audience and in the world around you.

Your Turn!

What strategies or tactics have you used to engage your customers or community with social media? What’s worked and what hasn’t? What platforms have you used that weren’t mentioned above? Leave your comments and suggestions in the box below.

This can be a real problem if you’ve made Facebook updates an integral part of your communications strategy.

These are the times when having a ready-and-waiting list of Facebook ideas will come in handy. In this post I’ll show you 26 practical ways to use good content for your Facebook pages, everything from A to Z.

Some days knowing what updates you want to post to your Facebook business page comes easily.

#1: Alltop

If you’re looking for a comprehensive list of content ideas, the online magazine-rack format of Alltop may be just what you’re looking for. According to Alltop, the purpose of the site is to help you answer the question, “What’s happening?” in all the topics that interest you. Alltop aggregates the headlines of the latest stories from websites and blog feeds, and displays the five most recent headlines. When you mouse over a headline, you’ll see the first line of the post. Perusing the vast number of headlines will give you access to loads of great material.

#2: Business Updates

These updates include news about your business and are akin to mini press releases, including: announcements of new products and services, new hires and new customers you want to welcome on board. Word of caution regarding these types of posts—limit how frequently you use them so you’re not seen as a self-serving broadcaster!

#3: Contest

A contest is a good way to engage with your Facebook community. There are a number of apps that can be added to your page and become a tab on the navigation bar. Some companies use their Notes tab as a place to post information about how to enter a contest and official rules. A contest requires planning and forethought, so it’s best to go this route only when you’ve already invested the time and necessary resources.

#4: Data

Facebook is an excellent way to share facts and statistics. You probably come across great data all the time that your fans will enjoy, too. For example, in 10 Fascinating Facebook Facts by Amy-Rae Elliott, the author shares interesting Facebook posts. Here’s a sample: 1) the meaning of the term poke has never been defined, 2) the average Facebook user has 130 friends, and 3) Mark Zuckerberg calls himself a “Harvard Graduate” on his Facebook profile (not what you learned in the movie The Social Network, was it?) What unique facts can you share?

#5: Events

With Facebook Apps you can easily share information on Facebook about upcoming events you’ve been invited to or are hosting. Events can be classified as open, closed or secret (only visible to invitees). Among other things, you can add an event description, photos, videos and links, and specify whether guests can bring a friend. You can invite friends and manage and promote the event.

Facebook fan pages can have a lighter side.

#6: Fun

Facebook fan pages don’t always have to be serious. You might want to mix up your posts every now and then by adding some fun ones. Callan Green’s post, Killer Facebook Fan Pages: 5 Inspiring Case Studies, shows how Pringles, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Adidas, and Red Bull have broken out of the mold by creating fun content. Red Bull, for example, has “aggregated tweets from sponsored athletes like skateboarder Ryan Sheckler and snowboarder Shaun White and included them directly in their Facebook presence.”

#7: Gimmick

As described on The Daily Gimmick, gimmicks are often a big way to draw in new customers and entice existing customers to buy more. Here’s one used by Miller Lite’s Fantasy Football Draft Sweepstakes: “On September 1, one lucky winner and nine of his friends will be flown to Dallas for two nights where they will get to conduct their fantasy draft in the fully stocked Miller Lite’s suite at the state-of-the-art Cowboys Stadium. They will enjoy all the amenities of the suite…”

#8: Helpful

You don’t have to be Heloise to list helpful hints. Communicate with readers about things that will help them. For example, what time- or money-saving tip can you share with your readers? Maybe there’s a new phone app relevant to your audience or an upcoming conference where if you register today you’ll save $100. Your readers will thank you for the recommendations and heads-up.

#9: Info

Depending on the business category you selected when you set up your Facebook page, there will be fields for you to fill in to describe your business; e.g., hours, web URL, detailed info, mission. It’s good practice to use the open-field space to put your other social networking profile URLs such as your Twitter, blog and YouTube channel. You only get a limited amount of real estate, so use it to your full advantage.

#10: Jokes

It’s okay to be funny on Facebook. You can be your own comedian or rely on others for Facebook jokes. For inspiration check out Jokes, Jokes and Funny Pictures, and Top 100 One Liners.

#11: Keywords

Keywords are one of the most powerful features of all online content. As Justin Smith tells us in his post 10 Key SEO Strategies Every Facebook Page Owner Should Know, “One important SEO strategy that should be employed on your Facebook page whenever feasible is placing keyword-dense prose as close to the top of the page as possible. Because Facebook limits where page owners can place large chunks of text on the default Wall tab of Facebook pages, the ‘About’ box actually represents the highest place in the CSS structure of the page to add custom text.” Are you using your About box most effectively? Take advantage of those 250 characters and make them work for you.

#12: Like

In the post, 10 Ways to Grow Your Facebook Page Following by Ching Ya, she suggests that in order for a page to be Liked, it must be likeable first; which translates to quality wall posts and consistent engagement. Facebook has some ready-made sharing buttons. Place a shout-out or a reminder to Like your status updates and instruct fans to click the Share button right next to your message so that their friends will be alerted about the update, too.

#13: Movie Reviews

On Facebook’s Blog, Austin Haugen writes that he asks his friends, “Have you seen any good movies recently?” as he’s making weekend plans. Austin suggests using Rotten Tomatoes as a movie review site. You’ll immediately see the reviews most relevant to you without having to register, search for friends or fill out a profile.

#14: Offers

Your Facebook page can be your own daily deal site. For instance, a national movie chain posted, “Last chance to win 1 of 4 prize packs, click the link below. Good luck!” What are your offers?

#15: Promote

In order to be successful, Facebook fan pages need to be promoted inside and outside of Facebook. Social Media Examiner uses Facebook Friday Expert Sessions for Q& A sessions among experts and page fans. Cindy King’s post How Facebook Friday Expert Sessions Increase Fan Engagement discusses how the sessions help to increase fan engagement. She writes, “These sessions are a great way for fans to quickly get the information they need. And you can model this for your business. These open Q&A sessions with industry experts are a great way to encourage engagement with your fans and get your updates to show up more in your fans’ news feeds.”

#16: Questions

While you can use questions and answers in one longer session as discussed above in #15, updates can be made on an as-needed basis to answer questions that come up on your social networking sites or in your in-person meetings with customers. Update your group or fan page on a regular basis with helpful information and answers to questions.

#17: Reads

What book or magazine article are you reading today? What’s on your future reading list? If the book is available on Amazon (what isn’t, these days?) you can add a link to the book so your readers will be able to learn more and maybe they’ll order the book based on your advice. Your audience will appreciate hearing about books that wouldn’t ordinarily hit their radar if it weren’t for your update.

#18: Separate

Fletcher Prince suggests in his post Twitter Updates and Facebook Page Updates for Your Business to keep Twitter and Facebook updates separate because he sees them as “two very different platforms with different capabilities, audiences, and tone.” I agree and would take it one step further—to establish distinct messaging strategies for your profiles.

For example, planning that you’ll communicate on Facebook about what books you recommend, but as a rule, knowing that you will not use your tweets for that purpose. This becomes helpful too when you have multiple people managing your profiles and separate them into different content turf. For a list of tweet ideas, see the companion post to this piece, 26 Twitter Tips for Enhancing Your Tweets.

#19: Static FBML

(Important Update: Facebook no longer supports FBML. Please refer to the articles on Facebook iFrame.) Nick Shin’s post How to Customize Your Facebook Page Using Static FBML shows how to add a clickable image, embed a YouTube video and how to set the FBML box as the default landing tab. As Nick suggests, static FBML gives you the ability to make your Facebook page serve as a marketing vehicle which can help drive traffic to your website and engage further with your audience. Social Media Examiner’s Facebook page does this quite nicely with the Welcome tab and the embedded video.

#20: Tagging

You can tag your status updates by including the “@” symbol before a friend’s name. This way the person will receive a notification and a wall post linking them to your post. Tagging within your status updates is a powerful way to increase the social and shareable features of Facebook. Check out this video by David Erickson to learn more.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxw16T2tWPM

#21: URL

When you create your Facebook page, the URL will first appear with over 100 characters including the name of your business, city and state, followed by a long string of numbers. Hardly easy to communicate! But as soon as 25 people have Liked your page, you can visit here to choose a user-friendly URL for your page; e.g., www.facebook.com/yourbusiness.

#22: Visual Aids

Want to make a point with an image? Use an app such as SlideShare to upload your presentations, documents and PDFs. Remember, content doesn’t need to be limited to the printed word.

Facebook updates are checked on screens of all sizes.

#23: Web Writing

Christina Halvorson, author of Content Strategy for the Web, defines web writing as “The practice of writing useful, usable content specifically intended for delivery online.” Facebook updates will not only be read on computer monitors and laptop screens but on other devices too, such as iPads and smartphones.

Remember that you’re writing for online delivery, so be sure to use a good balance of chunked content, hyperlinks, images and videos.

Good rule of thumb: Commit to a social media content strategy.

#24: Excellence

Soumitra Dutta, in the November 2010 issue of Harvard Business Review, writes in her article, “What’s your personal social media strategy?”, how today’s leaders must embrace social media for three reasons: 1) communicating as a personal brand, inside and outside of your company; 2) engaging rapidly and simultaneously with peers, employees, customers and the broader public; and 3) providing an opportunity to learn from instant information and unvarnished feedback.

Used properly, Facebook business pages provide a vehicle for demonstrating your business excellence, which is even more reason to give thoughtful consideration to the quality and quantity of your company status updates.

#25: YouTube

As already discussed in this post, videos will enhance your Facebook updates. Here’s an important perspective from Ekaterina Walter, a social media strategist at Intel, who shared thoughts about social media initiatives in an SME interview, “The Inside Scoop on How Intel Manages Its Facebook Page.”

Ekaterina encourages businesses to upload raw video files versus just linking to YouTube to enhance their engagement strategy. As she says, “If you upload a raw video file, not just linked from YouTube but uploaded on Facebook, and your fans share it with their friends, when somebody who’s not a fan or liker of your Facebook page actually watches the video, there is a sweet little thing—a button that pops up on the upper-left corner of the video that invites you to basically like the page, or in the old terms, to become a fan of the page. That is the fastest way for folks to just click on it and become a fan.”

#26: Zen

We’ve gone over 25 tips before coming to this last one. This is a good place to wrap up by saying that Facebook updates shouldn’t feel overwhelming. In fact, quite the contrary happens when you view Facebook as a zen-like experience, commit to enlightenment and make a point to provide content that doesn’t add to the noise. Commit to memorable, thoughtful content.

Final Thoughts About Facebook Content Ideas

Whether your business communication is targeted for B2B or B2C end-users, Facebook offers a unique and powerful vehicle for creating a memorable experience.

What Facebook content ideas can you add to this list? Which ones are you already using? Which ones do you enjoy most? Leave your comments in the box below.

Photos from Flickr: smemon87, boetter & Jorge Quintero

Here are our top five articles (in order of popularity) from this year…

#1: Five Must Read Social Media Marketing Studies

Here’s a quick overview of the this article:

Study 1: By 2010, 26 Million (1 in 7) U.S. Adults Will Use Twitter Monthly

The study by eMarketer found the following: “In 2009, there will be 18 million U.S. adults who access Twitter on any platform at least monthly. That represents a 200% increase over 2008 levels. Usage will reach 26 million U.S. adults in 2010, a further 44.4% climb.“

Study 2: Americans Spend 17% of Online Time on Social Media Sites

As popular social media platforms continue to grow their numbers of users, it is logical to conclude that Americans are spending more time on social networking sites.  According to a study by The Nielsen Company, among those paying the most attention to this recent trend are advertisers. Online ad spending increased by 119% to $108 million in August 2009.

Study 3: In 2010, Over 50% of Marketers Will Be Using Social Media

The “2010 Media Planning Intelligence Study” by the Center for Media Research, examined the likelihood of marketers including social media in their 2010 marketing plan.

Study 4: Blogs Most Useful Social Media Tool, Say 51% of Businesses

McKinsey Quarterly’s “Global Survey” examined companies’ overall assessment of the value of different social media technologies.

Study 5: 75% of Marketers Plan to Increase Social Media Use in 2010

The study by the virtual events provider Unisfair showed that marketers are most focused on attracting and keeping customers in 2010 and they plan to use social media to make this happen.

Click here to see the full article.

#2: Five Ways to Promote Your Facebook Fan Pages

Have you ever wondered, “How do I promote my Facebook fan page?” or “Why do I even need a Facebook fan page?” This article reveals five ways to use the power of Facebook to grow your fan base.

Here’s a snapshot of the five fan page strategies:

Strategy 1: Invite People From Your Facebook Friend Lists

Segment personal friends and professional colleagues into lists and invite these lists as groups to your Facebook fan page instead of sending individual invites. This is the easiest and fastest way to jump-start your fan base.

Strategy 2: Find People With Facebook Search

The updated Facebook Search feature (see the Search bar at the top of Facebook) gives you a view into conversations of your friends and status updates that may even show you who may be looking for the services you provide.

Strategy 3: Attract People With Facebook Social Ads

Social Ads provide advertisements alongside your Facebook sidebar, which show related actions your friends have taken on the site. It is possible to tailor ads to your friends and their interests, which makes it more appealing for them to take action because you are interested as well.

Strategy 4: Facebook Fan Page Twitter App

The Facebook Fan Page Twitter application is a great tool that brings your Twitter following back to your fan page. When you post a status update, a link or a photo (you can choose) on your Facebook fan page, there will be an update to Twitter with a shortened bit.ly link back to your fan page.

Strategy 5: Facebook Fan Box Widget

The Facebook Fan Box Widget is a great feature to add to your blog or website. This widget allows you to show your fan base and allows others to become fans instantly.

Click here to see the full article.

#3: How to Add a Retweet Button In Your PDF Documents

One growing trend on Twitter is the retweet button showing up on websites everywhere.

The retweet button allows any reader to easily post a tweet into his or her Twitter account.  And it’s not just any tweet, but one that’s prefabricated by you and links back to the original landing page where your document resides.

A retweet button in your PDF file empowers readers to easily share your PDF with their fans as well as allows readers to show their appreciation of your work by simply clicking a button. It also provides steady streams of traffic to your PDF file (because as people discover the file, they will retweet it if they like the content), plus allows you to know precisely who is sharing your document (for marketing engagement)

Check out the entire article to learn the 6 steps to add retweet buttons to your PDF files.

#4: Three New Social Media Studies Worth Reading

Here’s a quick overview of the this article:

Study 1: Social Media Engagement Big Challenge for Many Businesses (Deloitte)

Survey results from a Deloitte study (2009 Tribalization of Business Study) pointed to some key challenges that organizations are facing as they move toward integrating online communities into their social media strategy.

Study 2: Social Media Used as a Discovery Tool by 18% of Online Population (Nielson Company

This study by Nielson Company examined the relationship between social media and user search options.  The report compared social sites to search engines and portals like Yahoo! Of those surveyed, 18% reported social media sites as core to finding new information.

Study 3: Businesses Slow to Incorporate Social Media Into Practice (BIA/Kelsey)

Although numerous recent reports show how businesses plan to incorporate social media into their 2010 marketing mix, a recent study by BIA/Kelsey reported that many small- to medium-sized businesses are slow to incorporate the strategies into their plans today.

Click here to see the full article.

#5: How to Create Headlines That Go Viral With Social Media

If you are struggling to get more clicks and bookmarks on your articles, there is one area in which your content might be letting you down: your headlines.

Without a compelling headline, you will not attract attention, and your article will not spread as easily. If you do write a killer headline then you will get more clicks, more bookmarks, and your readers will be compelled to share it with their friends and contacts.

Compelling headlines grab attention, identify a targeted group, are specific, generates curiosity, and promises powerful benefits.

To grab your audience where it counts, you want your headlines to show empathy and make your readers feel. Here are three popular headline emotional hot buttons:

Boost and Slam—What is the best/worst/most/least? Compare and contrast.
Laugh, Cheer, Snigger or Cry—Human interest that tugs the heartstrings work.
Outrage, Anger, and Righteous Indignation—Listen to talk radio or the talking heads and their jabbing fingers on any cable news network.

Check out the entire article for more emotional hot buttons and a free PDF of 102 Proven Headline Formulas.

As we move into the new year, we are looking forward to sharing with you the latest trends and insights in the social media world.  On behalf of all of us at Social Media Examiner, we wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous new year in 2010!

So, now it’s your turn.  What do you think of our top 5 social media articles for 2009? Which article resonated most for you?  What social media topics do you think will hit the “Top 5” list for 2010?  Let us know your thoughts!

In this interview I talk with Scott Monty—head of social media for Ford Motor Company—and the man in charge of Ford’s social media presence and initiatives like TheFordStory.com.

When you think of Ford, you might think “old American car company.” However, under the direction of Scott Monty, Ford has become one of the leading big businesses in America using social media to connect directly with consumers. And it certainly seems that Ford is on the right track to success, recently reporting 1 billion dollars in profit!

In this video, you’ll learn how Ford uses TweetUps to help Ford executives connect with customers across America and how Ford is humanizing its brand. Scott also provides advice to other businesses that are looking to capitalize on social media. Scott also has a little fun, as you’ll see…

VIEW VIDEO HERE NOW:

What did you think about the video? How has your opinion of Ford changed in recent years?

Social media is no more a one-off playground for brands than television advertising, direct mail campaigns or customer relationship management programs. It’s serious business and should be treated as such.

The following question then becomes relevant: “How do we think about social media strategically?” The good news is that it’s not that difficult, provided your planning team has an understanding of two things and a healthy grounding in another.

The two essential knowledge bases you’ll need are an understanding of the social media tools available (from blogs and social networks to wikis and beyond) and the philosophical foundations to be successful in social media (think share, not sell). The healthy grounding should be in the 5 essential pillars of a social media campaign.

This is the point in the post where most social media marketers would throw out a standard list of five things to guide your social media thinking that generally parallels the marketing mix variables you’re used to. Product, place, price, promotions and public relations can be a starting point. You can even define your product, your target audience, your competition, environmental factors and your metrics or measures of success.

But to take full advantage of your social media efforts and drive buzz, business or both, read on.

Social Media Examiner’s
5 Essential Pillars of a Social Media Campaign:

1. Connectivity

If you aren’t connected to your consumers, and conversely they are not connected to you, then social media success is impossible.

Whether you have customer service chat available on your website, a support forum, commenting enabled on the company blog or even a company presence on Twitter, you must have a connecting point for your customers to find you. Social media is about conversations. Conversations cannot be had if you’re nowhere to be found.

Being connected doesn’t just mean you throw up a form on your website, though. It means you have a person or persons monitoring conversations about your brand online, answering questions, even if the questions weren’t posed directly to them. Connectivity means not just being plugged in, but also being turned on.

2. Generosity

If you’ve read anything about social media on- or offline, you’ve probably heard the phrase, “Give to Get.”

Online social media is an almost identical environment to a social gathering offline. People gravitate to individuals, groups or conversations they feel they can get the most out of. By providing something of value to your customers, or potential customers, in your online activities, you earn trust. The more trust you earn, the more influence you’ll have.

Generosity requires a cultural shift, however, in the way most marketers think. You cannot be generous to others if your top priority is selling more stuff. That is selfish.

You have to approach the online consumer with the attitude that you have something of value to provide, free of charge. In exchange for that, you hope to build and strengthen relationships with others. Those relationships, over time, will equal a much higher return on investment than one-off, one-time customers.

3. Honesty

Have you ever heard a politician or professional athlete respond to a reporter’s question with, “No comment?” It appears as if they’re hiding something, doesn’t it?

If what you’re doing in social media is building relationships, you can’t build them without honesty.

If your product is made with a lesser material than your competitor’s, don’t hide it. Either get better material or find a positive reason it’s made that way (e.g., it’s cheaper, thus saves consumers money).

If the company makes a mistake and has to recall a product, simply say, “We made a mistake. We’re very sorry.” As long as you mean it, people will believe you.

And you don’t have to suddenly treat confidential company information with open records policies, either. The public is a lot smarter than you think. When sensitive information is in question, simply say, “I’m sorry. That’s information we don’t talk about outside the company for competitive reasons.” That answer is honest. “No comment?” Not so much.

4. Personality

If you had to boil successful communication in the social media realm down to an essence, it would be to be human. Consumers flocked to social networking sites and blogs to get away from one-way blasted marketing messages hurled at them all day.

By visiting only the websites they want to visit and finding like-minded consumers to share recommendations and conversations with in social networks, the public has created a new environment for communications—one that requires you, even as a company, to be human.

To put it simply, people want to talk to another human being when making buying decisions, discussing products and services and discovering new products and services. You cannot have a conversation with a logo, a building or a company. You have conversations with human beings.

5. Imagination

Social media is much like a social event. But after a while, social events or conversations with the same groups of people become stale and predictable. The conversations that last are those where at least one person always has something new to say, a never-ending stream of stories or jokes.

Approach your planning as if you’re the person who will keep the life in the party. Develop an editorial calendar for website or blog content and brainstorm a contest, promotion or game for customers and fans to engage with on a monthly or quarterly basis. Remember that you’re building relationships, but, like dating or even marriage, you have to be creative to keep the relationship fresh and invigorating.

Your Turn

If you think through the 5 Essential Pillars of a Social Media Campaign, you’ll at least be well on your way to success in social media. But these are meant to be guidelines, not rules. What other topics or areas have you found equally as important to social media success? How are you using your imagination to keep campaigns fresh and alive? Inspire your fellow readers with a comment.

“Photo Credit: ‘Supreme Court Pillars‘ (CC) by David Paul Ohmer on Flickr.”