I actually thought this blog post would be easier to write and there would be an abundance of companies being smart about how they incorporated social media into their online marketing holiday campaigns. There wasn’t. Or maybe I was too distracted by cashmere gloves and other items the gift guides were telling me I needed for the people I love. But I did find a couple of cool examples of social media.

1. Etsy’s Facebook Gift Guide

By far my favorite example of social media is how Etsy connects to your Facebook friends and suggest presents based on what Facebook pages they like. It’s not 100% accurate, but it’s some nifty engineering that provides some good gift ideas. Etsy can be a bit cumbersome when it comes to finding items you or friends might like so having options laid out for you definitely helps. It’s also reliant on your friends and family actually liking pages on Facebook. Check out their Facebook gift ideas yourself.

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A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog post outlining my attempt to boost my measly Klout score to something more impressive. I was encouraged as my score quickly climbed out of the mid 20’s, and flew through the 30’s. I was engaging with Twitter followers, interacting with friends on Facebook, and sharing pictures on Instagram.  I checked into every location on FourSquare no matter how mundane (I am one day away from being the mayor of Boulder’s FedEx Office) and participated in trends I knew nothing about. When I hit the 40’s, I was ecstatic. I figured within weeks I could be in in the high 60’s, competing with the most elite members of the ‘twitterati’ for social media dominance.

And then… I stalled. For more than a week my Klout score has been stuck at 43 and won’t budge. I decided to audit my social media efforts since vowing to raise my Klout score to see if I can figure out how to get my Klout score ascending once again.

Here is what I’ve gathered…

Stay focused:

I have a lot of interests, and I gave them all attention when it came to Twitter. Unfortunately, nobody seems that interested in hearing me weigh in on digital marketing, social media, music, Adrian Peterson, movies, TV shows, politics, football, dogs, my family, baseball, AND (most recently) The X-Factor. When working to build your online brand, remember that you are also building an audience. If you are aiming to build an audience with all of the same interests as you, you might have trouble finding any followers. Start thinking about shaping your influence by focusing the content you create and share on one or two topics. Many of the most successful social media figures generally stick to topics that fall under the same heading (sports, music, film, etc.) and only branch out on issues that are getting universal attention. [Read more...]

Guest post by Marianna Pratt

LinkedIn exists to facilitate business and professional connections. You’re telling prospective clients or customers, search firms or potential employers who you are. Your LinkedIn profile should reflect your personality as well as credentials, but keep it professional. And look for LinkedIn profile tips that can boost your results.

LinkedIn can be a terrific B2B business marketing tool, especially for generating leads. Your profile tells people why they should do business with you, so write engagingly, in the first person. Fill each profile section with relevant, enlightening information about yourself and your company.

Here are some specific LinkedIn profile tips: [Read more...]

Guest Post by Clare Tischer

Use the below four guidelines to sing on key in social media as a small to medium business.

1) Now, let me clear my throat…
One of the first things I learned when I dove into social media was that voice is a huge priority. No, not your voice. Your business or brand’s voice! Who is it? Is the brand male or female? For example, if you’re Calvin Klein, the brand is androgynous but either he or she smells great and wears perfectly crisp, black T-shirts and never smiles too much. One of my first social media clients was a Latin fusion restaurant in town known for its savory brunch and late night truth serum. I felt stuck for a couple of days, brainstorming how to speak to an audience that consisted of both families with young children and also black-out bound undergraduates. While watching an episode of Modern Family, it hit me: When creating content for this client, I would channel Sofia Vergara’s character, Gloria. For those of you unfamiliar with the show, Gloria is a Columbian bombshell, a newly remarried young mother who manages to be both provocative and, because she’s totally unaware of her own sexual intrigue, family friendly. I allowed Gloria to inform everything I wrote for this client. What would Gloria do?

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Guest post by Beth Hartman

These days, everyone knows that having an online marketing strategy is important for any business, from the smallest street stall selling seashells to the largest enterprise solutions obsessed with acronyms and international profit margins. The tricky part is how to go about managing your online marketing strategy, which can seem like an overwhelming process, especially when you are just starting. One great solution that works well for many folks is to use the services of an online marketing expert like Trada, which leverages a crowd-sourcing model to create pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns affordably for small and medium businesses. Another strategy that may work well for certain businesses is to use social media to get your customers to do a lot of your online marketing for you, since creating content yourself can be time consuming. Depending on the business, this can work for small, medium and large organizations targeting both B2B and B2C markets.

[Read more...]