How To Use Social Tools Effectively

The ways in which social networking tools are used continues to expand. As usage changes, the opportunities and benefits to the members within these communities also grows.

Perfect example. Michael Banovsky hatched an awesome idea which brought together an instant community of car consumers, fanatics and professionals. Some people even fell into all three categories; myself included – its just another easy way to get Auction Direct involved with the community.

Michael became the pied-piper of a popular twitter conversation known as #carchat. (the hashtag is the icon used to easily identify popular search terms within twitter search.)

For two hours, he lobbed thought provoking, automotive-related, open-ended questions to the community.

The questions, comments and re-tweets flowed. Very quickly.

Michael had the group firing on all 12-cylinders – how did he do it and what were the lessons learned?

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Leverage your passion to engage others.
Put others before yourself and any motives.
Spread the word among your closest connections; when they believe in you, they’ll tell others. Knowing other power users is key.
Invest time. Michael blocked out two hours of his time for this. He also invested his time leading up to this point – enabling him to put this event into motion.
Know when to reach out. It would have been impossible to pull this off with only 47 followers. Having a couple thousand followers helps.

The final result?

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Automotive consumers and professionals participating and sharing – putting the group on cruise control; only subtle nudges of the wheel needed by Michael.
Participants within #carchat building their networks.
Michael’s personal stock gets a boost – all done so unselfishly.
The opportunity to interact with a diverse group – including long time familiar faces like @ScottMonty and newer faces such as @HermanP
A ton of good karma.

Stop by next week’s #carchat. And of course, be sure to follow @michaelbanovsky

In Search of a Midnight Kiss rip Check out Michael’s #carchat article on vLane.com as well.

How effectively are you providing opportunities to engage and discover?

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Socialmedian Makes It Easy For You To Spread Social News On Facebook (techcrunch.com)
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4 Smart Facebook Marketing Strategies

Tired of using Facebook to just update your status with comments about your overall dissatisfaction with it being Monday, trying to build your Mafia and poking people?

Here are four great ways to use Facebook’s resources to either brand yourself or market your company. If you managed to create your profile, add a photo and use any of the social applications available, then you’re qualified to effectively use these tools.

The first three are free; the last item is a paid service.

Create a Group The Best Two Years dvd

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On the groups page, click on “Create a new group” in the top right corner.
Enter your group info; be specific and make it interesting.
Once created, start adding relevant content that will interest potential group members. Add links, pictures and videos. Start a discussion – anything to get people involved and to keep coming back.
Start inviting people that you know will be interested in your group.

Create a Page

Click on “Add this application” in the top right corner.
Instead of Group Members, your Page will have “Fans.”
Pages are now much easier to manage – familiar items from your personal profiles such as the navigation tabs, blurb box, status updates and application boxes are all available.
Be sure to check out Facebook’s new step by step overview for even more tools and tips. Very helpful.
Fans love new content like polls, interviews and contests. Happy fans will your Page rock.

Add the NetWorkedBlogs application

Click on the “+ Add New Blog” button in the top right corner.
On your personal profile, click on the plus sign on the far right side of the navigation tabs.
Select NetworkedBlogs from the list. This will add a new tab called “Blogs” to your profile.

Use the Advertising tool

Promote your affiliate, blog, website… anything, using the targeting capabilities within the Advertising application.
Choose the link wisely. Link to a checkout page that has relevant ad copy to increase your goal conversions. Ads about sneakers linking to a page selling a home based business opportunity won’t be successful.
New strategies even include linking to your Facebook Page, Application, Group or Event.
Your Ad can have 25 characters in the title and up to 135 characters in the body.
Use an image that really pops; pick one that is still sharp because it will be reduced to 110px wide by 80px high.
Choose your target audience – increase the likelihood of interested based on: Location, Age, Sex, Keywords, Education, Workplace, Relationship Status, Relationship Interests and Languages.
Choose your budget; the daily minimum ad spend is only $1.
Test your ads often and keep them fresh. Expect high impressions and low click through rate (CTR) – however the cost per click is still very inexpensive, even when compared to other online channels.

Here’s a couple of examples: Used Cars Blog and the Auction Direct USA group page.

How are you using Facebook to promote your brand or your company?

5 More Ways to Improve CTR (redflymarketing.com)
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Liven Up Your LinkedIn Profile!

You’re on LinkedIn now. But are you using LinkedIn to its fullest potential?

What’s the point of making your professional social networking profile if you’re not going to make it effective?

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Five easy ways to improve your LinkedIn profile and increase your online presence.

Give recommendations to your connections. Build your relationships by recommending your contacts. The good karma created is incredible.
Use LinkedIn’s applications to pipe in your blog content, showcase your reading list and create a poll. Choosing any of the 10 applications available will add an extra level of engagement to your profile.
Join a group and participate within the conversations; asking and answering questions is a great way to either gain more information about something new or position yourself as an expert within your field.
Invite people from within your company to join and create full profiles. Your company will benefit from the additional profiles linking back to its homepage.
Use the additional information section to link back to your company, your blog and any additional sites you may have. (You can link to 3) Most importantly, use descriptive anchor text rather than the domain name. Also, LinkedIn doesn’t use “NoFollow” links, so you’ll be able to pass along potential link juice to your site. (This can help improve your Google PageRank Score)

Check out my profile Eric Miltsch on LinkedIn to see these items in place. They’re easy to use and well worth the effort.

Not on LinkedIn yet? Sign up now using their New User Starter Guide.

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How are you using LinkedIn?

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Hans Kullin – why blogging about yourself makes total sense (socialmediatoday.com)

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