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Why I am Thankful for Social Media – Business Relationships Part 3

November 27, 2009 By Leave a Comment
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Are you using any type of social media for engaging with your customers?

Do you have a great story of how some aspect of networking online brought a relationship to the door that would not have occurred otherwise?  I have included one from my recent experience and talk about why I am thankful for social media in my business development efforts.  Listen in on the last in a series of video blog post (using my handy Flip Video on a tripod) on how LinkedIn connections created an opportunity in a very virtual way.

This is Part 3 in a series of Social Media Thankfulness. Part 1 addressed family connections.  Part 2 spoke to Friend Relationships. So of course I covered my business relationships in this last video post. Note, my video camera is on a tripod and I do have two hands on the wheel.

Social Relationship Management

I am also thankful that a tool has been created to help me continue to use social media in the right way.  In my business use of social media I have extended myself to several networks for purposeful reasons and with a strategy.  I use a social relationship management tool called xeesm.com/wendysoucie to manage all my social media links and my ongoing efforts to target, touch and track my efforts.  This tool is in Beta but has recently been opened for public beta testing.  This has really helped focus my efforts and remind me when, where and how long ago I made a personal connection with one of my contacts.

What other tools am I using?

For the business to business market that I consult to, I use LinkedIn primarily.  I provide strategy for companies and training on a variety of social media tools. Even with a broad understanding of how to use many tools, I have to stay focused on where my target audience is. So LinkedIn works for that.

I am extending to Youtube with video blog posts as you can see by this weeks blog posts.  This action occurred after a great presentation by Lee Aase at the AAF Madison luncheon on the virtues of video interviews and posting using Youtube.  I have been following him for his great blog site called Social Media University Global .

One site I think may be overlooked is Slideshare for presentation posting and networking. There is a lot content there and because people are sharing presentations, you can learn alot from peers in your professional space from all over the world.   I think people may forget that networking can happen there as well. I recently saw a great presentation by Social Media Academy alumni  Walter Adamson on slideshare networking that really reinforced this for me.   Expect to see a local Madison presentation by me in the future on this unique and helpful site.

I use Twitter in a variety of ways and with two profiles.  One for me personally @wendysoucie and my focus, but I try and retweet interesting related conversations on @WIsocialmedia for anything related to technology, social media and good business news in Wisconsin. I am not a rabid twitterati fanatic but will tweet a conference or seminar, and when in the office will always have Tweetdeck open to watch the conversations. I am creating a new strategy for Twitter for January and currently are busy following various manufacturers, B2B conversations, and consultants in this space. In January, a collaborative effort I am organizing will be doing a Twitter for business workshop that will focus on strategy, public relations and blogging.  Can’t wait to put the finishing touches on that.

Facebook is growing for me and I use it for both business and social at this point. I am trying to perfect the groups involvement and activity the way I do it on LinkedIn.  It is totally different so I need to adjust my time if I want to learn some new techniques or to engage at a deeper level.  I am just not sure how I will proceed with that. Expect to see a Facebook for business in February co-presented with several people actively using that tool for promotion with a product.

Do you have a good story about social media? What tools are you using to manage the whole relationship part if you are on multiple platforms?

I hope you share

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Filed Under: Business Development, Linkedin, Social Media, Social Media Tools, Video Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Why I am Thankful for Social Media – Friend Relationships Part 2

November 26, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Social Media Marketing Madness Cartoon by HubSpot
Image by HubSpot via Flickr

Using social media to stay in touch with friends is nothing new.  This was one of the original drivers behind Facebook when it was developed on a college campus. For those of us in a slightly older generation, we have picked up social media as a channel and tactic  for business first.  At least that was true for me.  Now I am rapidly collecting my friends  – old and new – to stay in touch using various social media tools.

Improving relationships

Staying in touch is one of the reasons I am thankful for social media. It has helped  with my family and now I am integrating it into how I keep connected to friends from college, hometown, friends in past towns and states.  I can take a moment, when it is convenient for me, to see what is happening in their lives.

Here are ways I am using it:

  • to find college friends
  • to find academic friends who were in the same degree program
  • to find people I used to work with
  • to find high school friends
  • to find everyone who might be from a hometown
  • to gather people I work out with
  • to meet new friends with similar non work interests
  • to create a group of bikers who like certain types of biking

I can choose to participate with a comment or email, or upload a picture. I like best to use Facebook,  Youtube and Flickr. But I have also incorporated Yahoo Groups, LinkedIn and Plaxo to dig people up or to share content.

Lately, with some long drives on the interstate between appointments, I have tried a few video blog posts to share.  Part 1 was about family. This one is Part 2- Friend Relationships  in my series of Why I am Thankful for Social Media:

Have you made new friends or reconnected with others by using a social media site?  Which ones were most helpful to you and why? Please share in comments.

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Filed Under: Linkedin, Social Media, Social Media Tools, Video Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Why I am Thankful for Social Media – Family Relationships Part 1

November 25, 2009 By 2 Comments

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Do you have a large extended family?  Do you live miles, towns, states, or even countries far apart from loved ones?

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Consider how social media has significantly changed how we stay connected to family.  I have family members in Oregon, Colorado, California, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, Washington, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, Maryland, New Jersey, Paris France, and Nice France.  Does that make your issues of driving to Grandma’s house 1 hour a way seem pretty mild?

Here is why I am thankful for social media:

  • I can share pictures and video taken this summer with relatives in France
  • I can trade Facebook updates with a 67 year old brother
  • I can see my nephew’s son growup on a more regular basis from across the USA
  • I can stay in touch with the hectic lives of Generation Y family without asking dumb questions
  • I can follow the careers of people at a distance and learn some interesting professional facts
  • I can send them referrals from my network to help them with business
  • I can help my college graduate son cleanup his language, pictures and presence online

Here are the rest of my thoughts in this video blog post:

What are you thankful for?  See Part 2 – Why I am Thankful for Social Media – Friend Relationships


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Filed Under: Facebook for Business, Linkedin, Social Media, Video Tagged With: , , , , ,

How can social media help my business? Part 1

November 12, 2009 By 1 Comment
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This is a good question and one that I have been asked at every meeting I have with a business.  You are not

Social Media Wordle

alone in asking. As business owners, we are concerned with the return of investment of our time, any costs involved and we want to see change and sales revenue increase right away.  If this is a hard question for you to answer even to yourself, perhaps, you are asking the wrong question.

The start of customer engagement

If you are interested in true customer engagement, I believe your question should change to “How can I use social media to help others?”

I define social media this way: It is a two-way conversation via the Internet (from many to many) bringing shared knowledge that benefits and brings value to the people involved.

What value can the knowledge you have of your business, products, personal passions, or favorite activities have to others?

What if you freely shared that information?

Social media works by sharing your content via text, images, slides, video or audio. Businesses win by solving problems.  Customers win by educating themselves using the media that best suits their lifestyle, time availability and depth of knowledge. All this is done in the space/place that each individual spends his available time.

So then, what should I do?

First, its OK to take baby steps with social media. You have my permission to do little things.

Second, don’t make a sales pitch and this is not just free advertising.

So, lets get started.

It helps to take marketing materials already created and just re purpose them.  For example, most every business has a list of frequently asked questions or could come up with this pretty quickly.

Using this material as our knowledge base, here are some ideas:

1. Collect frequently asked questions used in your business
2. Write it up as an article between 300 and 500 words.
3. Video yourself or others answering each question (video each question separately and make answers between 60 secs and 1 1/2 minutes max).
4. Have someone else record, separately, the audio for the interview /answer questions video, with digital recorder( mp3) Length should be the same as the video.
5. Create a slide show of the Q & A with good product pictures. Answer the questions using product pictures or step by step pictures and limited text.

You have just created 5 pieces of original content that can be placed on no less than 5 different types of social media sites as well as being added to your very own website.

Stay tuned for Part 2 where we will talk about what to do with this new content in the social web.

Do you have content you can already use?

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Filed Under: Inbound Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Strategy, Tips and Techniques Tagged With: , , , ,

Business Reviews: Social media at its best

November 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Image representing Flip Video as depicted in C...
Image via CrunchBase

After hearing Lee Aase, of Mayo Clinic speak at a recent American Advertising Federation – Madison meeting about how Mayo has taken on the social media conversation space, I was inspired.  Lee talked about how they(Mayo Social Media group consisting of 2-3 people) have invested all of $200 in a flip video camera to do video blog posts and video interviews of real people using their great services.

I also heard Ron Davies speak about his coaching programs at a recent Internet Marketing conference.  Ron talked about his long hours of travel across Canada and how he has become more productive by blogging in the car with a Flip video attached with Velcro to his dash.

Part of the video generation

Guess what?  I have a Flip video camera and recorded my first video post. Utilizing safe driving techniques while on a recent 3 hour drive, I talked about social media and how it provides consumers the opportunity to create reviews of business products, services and companies on a variety of sites.  Don’t worry – its only 8 minutes long.

Is this good or bad?  Listen and watch the video to find out my opinion.

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Filed Under: Business Blogging, Social Media, Social Media Strategy Tagged With: , , , ,
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