Social Media - Time to dip your toes

Finally, part 2 of the Social Media Series ..

Thought I’d add another definition, to further refine your understanding (or in case you had forgotten altogether ..) so here it is:

Social media: A category of sites that is based on user participation and user-generated content. They include social networking sites like LinkedIn or Facebook, social bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us, social news sites like Digg or Reddit, and other sites that are centered on user interaction.
- from the SearchEngineWatch Glossary

Other names for Social Media Marketing (or SMM) are Buzz marketing or viral marketing or word-of-mouth marketing.

If the thought of dipping into SMM is overwhelming at first, no need to dive in head first, you can just dip your feet in and test the water.

Here’s how to start:
Two basic steps today, we will look at commenting on (other peoples) blogs, and joining a few communities.

Blogs: If you are not quite ready to start writing your own blog, it’s good to start by reading what other people are writing.  This will give you a good idea of how a blog works, what’s cool and what’s not cool (blog etiquette), the tone of writing (surprisingly human), how links in blogs work, to name a few things.

Firstly, find a blog that interests you on a personal level (i.e. Shoe shopping, Rugby League World Cup, Cooking, Photography) and either subscribe to the RSS feed (find out how to do this here How to Subscribe to an RSS Feed) – or add it to your favourites.
Then find a few industry specific blogs, where your potential audience’s eyeballs might be, that you can to subscribe to, like:
Restaurants in Sydney: http://www.twoflatwhites.com
Perth Foodie Blog: http://www.manthatcooks.com/
Aussie Restaurant Blog: http://www.benjaminchristie.com/blog
Melbourne Coffee Review Blog: http://www.melbournecoffeereview.com/
Next, find a couple of blogs that you can learn from:
Technical:  http://www.techcrunch.com/
Social Media: http://www.readwriteweb.com/
Web Development trends:  http://www.smashingmagazine.com/
Sales:  http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
Or,  go here, if you want to find the world’s most popular blogs, by industry
http://technorati.com/blogs/directory/
When you are ready, you can start commenting on these blogs.  This can benefit you by:
1.    Giving you “authority” with the blogs readers – who will likely click on your profile name to link back to your own website
2.    Getting the attention of the blog writer – who may link back to you, or ask you to write a “guest-post”
3.    Helping you establish yourself as an “expert” with readers

So, you have to write something better then “Great Post” – here’s a list of tips for leaving compelling comments http://lifehacker.com/software/top/special-lifehackers-guide-to-weblog-comments-126654.php

Social Media Next – get involved in a few communities.  Again, you can find social media communities which have a personal focus, and others which are handy to use in business. So again, you need to figure out which ones would best suit your needs (or do what I do, join a ton, then see which ones actually work for you, and stick to them)  Here’s a really good chart of Common Social Media activities – and what needs they meet. This is a very basic chart, but it’s a good place to start.  (Must mention that I’ve adapted this chart from Shana Alberts post –

Once you’ve selected a few you would like to join, click on the “Join Now” button and create your Profile.
A few tips here, it can be a good idea to keep your business and professional profiles separate, though you should be as “human” as possible in your business profile.
Avatar (a little pic that will “represent” you) Make sure your Avatar is not the default avatar – no one will take you seriously.  Upload a photo if you like, and if you don’t like, go somewhere and find an avatar that represents you.
Profile name – try and make it memorable, and if it mentions your company name, even better
Use the same user name on every site so you can build a profile.
Profile details – take some time to give a short snappy profile of yourself – as in, make yourself sound interesting …. sooner or later you will say something brilliant, people will then want to find out more about you so they will take a look at your profile – don’t let them fall to sleep (and yet, be genuine ..) – don’t forget to add a link to your website in your profile, a great way to start building links

Get to know the rules of the community.  Don’t break the rules or you could get kicked off.
Check the FAQs page for newbie’s.  This will help you adjust quickly.  Once you’ve joined one community, you will start to figure out the basic rules that seem to apply to all communities.

Become Active in the community.
There are rules around this which we will discuss in more depth later, but it boils down to:
1.    Giving more then you take (no shameless plugs for yourself, you must contribute and add value)
2.    Be real and honest
3.    Share and Suggest
4.    Be tactful, and if you disagree, be proactive (as in, make your criticism constructive)

And last but not least – check the amount of time you devote to these, it’s easy to let time run away on you.  Be committed to the sites you decide to participate in, but don’t forget that the kids need feeding and the plants need watering, etc etc
Yes, this was rather a long post and yet so much more to cover.  I hope you have enjoyed reading, but if anything doesn’t make sense, just ask!