Tag: Social media

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An editorial focus and calendar that reinforces it may be the single most important thing you can do if you want to blog for thought leadership. In his ground breaking book ‘Brand Stand’, Craig Badings writes…

The more research you do on the topic [on which you choose to focus] the more you will understand the space you want to enter. Ask yourself: Who is already playing in that space? What they are saying? Are they achieving cut through? Does our company have substantially more to say or something unique to offer in that space or not? Your deciding question should be ‘Can we own that space?’ If you cannot own a space my advice would be do not go there.

Badings, Craig (2009-07-08). BRAND STAND (Kindle Locations 790-794). BookPal. Kindle Edition.

If you have decided you can ‘own the space’, here is an overly simplified formula for achieving alignment in your content marketing strategy and getting ownership:

  • Brainstorm around your unique offerings in the space. Ask yourself “what are the problems my clients expect me to solve and how do I solve them in a unique way?”
  • Use Google’s keyword tools to research keywords around those unique offerings
  • Track trusted sites and keyword searches in Google Reader; read primarily those things that deepen your expertise in your unique offerings without losing the context of the whole space
  • Only curate or create content on your blog related to that unique offering
  • Leverage social media, etc. to amplify your content
  • Connect effectively with the readers you draw in

If you do those things in that order, you will have alignment around solving your customer problems and you will be found when people are looking for your solution[s]. In order to effectively cover my space, for example, which is content management and marketing for thought leadership, I track the topics content management, content marketing and ‘thought leadership’ marketing as well as the following tools:

  • Blogging
  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • and supporting tools like Google Reader, Shareaholic, Storify, etc.

Thursday, for example, is Twitter day. Every Thursday I reflect on Twitter as part of a balanced content management and marketing for thought leadership strategy and ‘storify’ a summary of the best articles from the previous week. This tactical approach ‘forces’ me to not only review the best content from the previous week in Google Reader and Twitter, but be sure to cover it in my blog.

Questions? Feedback? Comment below or use the connect form. In the meantime, here’s a summary of the best of what I found in content marketing, LinkedIn and Twitter this past week…

http://storify.com/e1evation/content-marketing-linkedin-and-twitter-for-2-17-20

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Exquisite-gmail red

I haven’t done a screencast for awhile, so here’s a quick riff on Getting Things Done [GTD] in Gmail with Google Tasks…

Effectively managing email is fundamental. So many people are at the mercy of their inboxes! Ethan Waldman had a great post this morning over at The Minimalists that got me thinking about my own minimalit approach to Gmail. I hope he doesn’t mind if I curate a chunk of his thoughts here:

In everyday life, we hear the phrase “less is more” so often that it’s become cliché. But the number of people who actually live a “less is more” lifestyle are few and far between. Of course, when it comes to paring down, some areas of our lives are a lot easier to address than others. Getting rid of the majority of your possessions is difficult due to the emotional connections we have with our things.

There’s one area that I think is relatively untapped, in which adopting a more minimalist mentality isn’t too difficult, and offers huge gains in the form of time savings,and stress reduction.

That area? Email.

Think about it: For most of us, our email inboxes are the epicenter of our lives. Personal and professional communication all mixed up in a stew of disorganization.

The newest things are on top. Older things are pushed to the bottom or onto the next page, with no regard for importance. Most are things that don’t require immediate action—things we could read later, file for reference, or delete right off the bat.

Before I addressed this problem in my own life, the volume of email I received created the perfect opportunity to procrastinate. I could avoid responding to the more important messages by cleaning up and moving around the unimportant ones.

The task of maintaining my inbox took precedence over actually taking action, as critical items would get pushed down the page and I would deal with the junk that just kept flowing in on top. This task was complicated by the fact that I had both personal and professional emails all flowing into the same place with no system for determining which was which.

The solution to my problem only came after I realized that I didn’t need any other product, app, or gadget to solve it. The tools that I needed were already built into the mail program I use (Gmail), and I only needed to learn how to use them to create a better system.

The basis of my system is what Gmail refers to as filters. A filter is a set of actions that you tell Gmail to enact when it finds a message that matches specific criteria. If you get a message like X, do Y to it. Simple, but powerful.

Over the course of years of experimenting and trying things out, I developed a system that keeps my inbox automatically rganized.

The changes I’ve experienced as a result have been what you might expect: Of the time I spend dealing with email, I spend the majority of it writing or responding to important messages. I spend a small fraction of it actually organizing or finding the important things. They are automatically called out and highlighted before I ever open my inbox.

Gmail is by far the most popular mail service out there, but do you think that most people using it have created a system that organizes their email? Doubtful.

What’s holding you back? Just like getting rid of your possessions, deciding what email is important and what email isn’t forces you to choose. You do have to let go of certain things and decide they are less critical than others. It’s this process of letting go that people often have trouble with.

Some of the things I ultimately decided I could let go were all social media email notifications, nearly all email newsletters, all “deal” or coupon notifications, and all message board notification.  This list may be a starting point for you—the point is that every person must decide for themselves what they are willing to forgo seeing “at the top” of their inbox, in order to gain more clarity and focus on what they define as important.

But where to begin? Focus on what’s important. Create a folder or just use the star in Gmail to start collecting samples of messages that you find are important. Do this over the course of 1 or 2 weeks, and you will soon have a good sampling of what should be high priority in your inbox. Now you can look through them and determine how you’ll teach Gmail to treat the message. Is it from a specific person? Certain domain? Specific subject? Does it have an attachment?

These are all criteria that can be used when you create your filters and teach your inbox to organize itself.

I’m sure you know someone who keeps every single message in their inbox. They never move things into folders, they never delete anything. They never organize. And they defend their system—they don’t want to change because they see no need to. They are happy living with an overflowing email inbox, just like other people are happy living in a house stuffed to the gills with things they never use, or a smartphone overflowing with apps.

In my own life, I’ve found that my inbox minimalism rippled into my business and personal live. The time it took me to respond to important things decreased, and everybody was happier as a result. Less email, truly became more time.

At the end of the day, the choice is yours on what, if anything, you decide to implement. I promise positive effects of your efforts will be felt in and outside your email inbox.

Source: The Minimalists | Inbox Minimalism

 

I have written about this topic in my online ebook ‘personal news aggregation’ which is available [free registration required] at http://personalnewsaggregation.com. I talk about using Gmail and Google Reader to manage just in time vs. just in case information and I think it can rock your world like it did mine…

In the meantime, here’s a little riff I did this morning on using Gmail and Google Tasks as part of a balanced ‘Getting Things Done’ routine:

http://youtu.be/RGRXJqllbE4

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Logo of Blosxom (new Version)
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Happy Monday! Time to talk about trends in blogging and content marketing. First, though, a confession. I accidentally used decaf instead of regular and I’ve been dragging my butt around all day. This blog is fueled by coffee and now that I’ve had a good cup, life can start [at 3:27PM]!

Here’s my bias; blogging is a fundamental component of a successful content marketing campaign. I haven’t bought into the ‘siteless web’ model yet — I believe that a blog is the foundation of a successful online presence and I use a ‘homebase and outpost’ or ‘hub and spoke’ model for content marketing that I first heard articulated by Chris Brogan and Darren Rowse a few years ago.

There are three reasons that strike me as being important at the moment:

  • You own your blog — you don’t own Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn or Twitter
  • They are inexpensive and easy to update
  • According to HubSpot, active business blogs get 7x more traffic than static websites

These all sound like great reasons to me! If you need someone who is smart and beautiful, however, to tell you the same thing in more detail I highly recommend content marketing genius Heidi Cohen. Heidi had an epic post last week called Blogging Is Dead – Long Live The Blog!. In it she said…

“Call me a contrarian but blogs should be a core aspect of any organization’s marketing strategy regardless of whether you’re a B2C, B2B, not-for-profit or a solopreneur.” Source: Blogging Is Dead – Long Live The Blog! [Research] | Heidi Cohen

I soooo recommend you go to the source and read her article in toto. People usually turn to me after reading an article like this and saying to themselves “Makes perfect sense. Where do I get started?” You see, I’m not a content marketing expert like Heidi — I just tell people how to implement what she advocates. I can help you create a successful blog that is the focal point of your content marketing campaign…

Here are some great articles I read this past week about blogging and content marketin trends:

http://storify.com/e1evation/blogging-and-content-management-trends-for-this-we

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Pinterest!

Things are getting Pinteresting in social media — Pinterest is the hottest, latest trend to rock the social media world. I spent a good chunk of the weekend working alongside local Pinterest goddess Kerry Geocaris of MarketingSavant and had the chance to consume massive quantities of Pinterest Kool-Aid. This morning, however, my jury is still out…

Don’t get me wrong! Pinterest — like Kerry — is very cute and cool and I can see why she likes it so much. It’s a great, fun place for digital hoarders to collect their social media treasures. Despite the trends — Pinterest is the fastest growing platform in social media right now — I’m not convinced it’s the best tool for me…

I’m currently weighing Pinterest against the a combination of Evernote + Twitter. I can grab graphics using the Evernote clipper in Chrome and send clipped graphics to Twitter from there. Evernote may not be as sexy as Pinterest right now, but I can tag my multimedia so that it’s easier to find later. At first blush, Pinterest doesn’t have very robust metadata or search functionality. Although I’m a digital hoarder like Kerry, I need my hoarding tools to fit into my social media workflow and Pinterest is lacking in that regard…

One trick we learned? The Pinterest extension for Chrome from Shareaholic adds some nifty functionality to the pinning process. After ‘pinstallation’, I can select descriptive text for my pin on the page before pinning a graphic to a board. I’m going to continue to test it and I’ll report back from time to time…

In the meantime here’s the best of Pinterest that I’ve found in my travels around the internet recently…

http://storify.com/e1evation/pinterested

Here’s an infographic I posted using the embed function in Pinterest. It was underwhelming in that the width of this column is 633 and I like my infographics to cover the entire width of the column. Pinterest would not allow me to enlarge it beyond the 553 pixels in Pinterest…

Source: mpdailyfix.com via Todd on Pinterest

More Kool-Aid!

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Image representing LinkedIn as depicted in Cru...
Image via CrunchBase

LinkedIn may not be as sexy as Facebook, Google+ or Twitter right now, but social media trends indicate that it is rebounding and becoming a powerful player in its own right. Again…

Here in Northeast Wisconsin where I live, LinkedIn is actually stronger than any of the aforementioned social media networking tools. Is that the case where you live and work? It’s worth asking the question! Beyond regional anomalies however, LinkedIn is becoming a dominant force in job search and recruitment at a time in our nation’s economy where both are absolutely critical! If you’re a job seeker or are looking for job seekers, social media trends indicate that you should be giving LinkedIn a harder look…

LinkedIn has emerged as increasingly disruptive presence, particularly when compared to other job placement services, a trend which may point toward strong fourth-quarter results.  Evercore Partners analyst Ken Sena wrote, “Strong checks on the quarter, which include data by Wanted Technologies, indications of share gains from Monster, and recent Indications from both Dice and CareerBuilder of continued robust growth in most sectors give us reason to believe that our $160 million net revenue estimation (up 95% y/y) [for LinkedIn] is doable.” Sena rates shares equal-weight with a $70 price target.  That does not mean, however, that LinkedIn will remain the dominant player in online job recruiting. Sena notes that, although Facebook and Google do not currently have offerings in the professional job recruiting space, they may make inroads, “undermining the attractiveness of LinkedIn’s professional social graph to investors.” Source: LinkedIn: The “Other Social Network” (Update 1) – TheStreet

If you’ve overlooked LinkedIn, you might want to look it over again! Here’s my weekly LinkedIn roundup…

http://storify.com/e1evation/linkedin-trends-for-2-9-2012

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English: Facebook icon Español: Ícono de Facebook

Here’s something all-American content marketers can relate to!

What makes up the ‘meat’ of an effective content strategy? Digital Strategist Mark Smicklas decided to illustrate what he believes is crucial with this amazing infographicinspired by the American Classic.

Source: Food for Thought: The Content Strategy Burger [INFOGRAPHIC] | The Content Strategist

Now I’m hungry!

Open-mouthed smile

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SR 99 construction bypass and ramp looking south

A friend who works with in construction industry is skeptical. He’s not convinced that ‘inbound marketing’ [blogging and other social media tools] can be applied to the construction industry. I respectfully disagree! I’ve seen content management and marketing for thought leadership applied to everything from Agriculture to Yoga and I believe it will work in the construction industry as well. Why?

Here are some of my beliefs:

  • Most companies have great stories and content — they just don’t use it as well as they could…
  • At the core, all great marketing is great storytelling
  • At the end of the day, every business is a people business

First, though what is this ‘thought leadership’? A simple definition might be a public display of expertise that can be easily found by people who are searching for it. How does a brand accomplish this? Though effective content management and content marketing. Because of my core beliefs, I think any company — even a construction company — can use the content they have or can create to tell great stories that attract people to their brand.

In his thought leadership classic ‘Brand Stand‘, Craig Badings tells the story of Dick Dusseldorp, a thought leader in the Australian construction industry before the phrase ‘thought leader’ was cool…

During the 1970s and 1980s, when union action on most construction sites in Sydney were crippling the construction industry, the sites on which Lend Lease was building suffered no such misfortune. This was because Dusseldorp’s philosophy was to create a community of interest between Lend Lease’s key stakeholders. When other companies around him were banging heads with the unions, with resultant long delays and cost overruns on projects, Dusseldorp was sitting down with the workers and unions and discussing their issues. The results were agreements, jointly committed to by workers and management, and a share in the resulting rewards for buildings completed on time. He was a master at getting people to transcend their traditional conflicts and work towards mutually beneficial goals.

Badings, Craig (2009-07-08). BRAND STAND (Kindle Locations 237-243). BookPal. Kindle Edition.

How did he do it? In part he used content management and content marketing along with other communication skills to position his firm at the thought leadership center of his industry in his country. Speaking of Dusseldorp’s organization Lend Lease, Badings says…

It launched a website… along with a four-part DVD series, using a former TV journalist to interview a number of independent third parties about their views on the future workspace and its impacts across business, design, people and location. As a result, Lend Lease reached those who made decisions about office space and helped stimulate and frame the debate around the impacts and implications of future work environments in Australia. Through the series, the company engaged communities linked to its industry and positioned itself at the centre of this debate. It is the logical place to be as a leader in the construction industry, but Lend Lease has done it in a way that doesn’t push the company’s point of view. It took the approach that it would rather invite leading experts in this field across various disciplines to participate in and frame the discus-sion.

Badings, Craig (2009-07-08). BRAND STAND (Kindle Locations 224-231). BookPal. Kindle Edition.

Joy Davis, CSI, CCPR, of CSI in Albuquerque, says…

“In many ways, construction is a relationship-driven business, and at the root of every great relationship is trust. No single person can know everything about construction, so we need trustworthy experts we can turn to who can help us achieve our goals. Thought Leadership is a strategy based on the idea that you can be your clients’ preferred expert – a person they trust, and whom they think of first when they have a question, or a new project.” Source: Thought Leadership and Social Media in the Workplace

Every business — not just construction — is a people business, but because of the critical nature of construction projects trust may be even more important. How can that trust be most effectively engendered? Content management and marketing for thought leadership may be an answer that the construction industry has overlooked! Comment, call or ‘connect’ so we can talk about how this applies to you and your organization…

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I’ve hit the Twitter wall! Apparently my ‘twitter ho‘ [warning! link NSFW] strategy of follow everyone is tragically flawed…

According to Twitter…

“We do not limit the number of people who can follow you, but we have put limits on how many other accounts you can follow. Every account can follow 2,000 users total. Once you’ve followed 2,000 users, there are limits to the number of additional users you can follow. This number is different for each account and is based on your ratio of followers to following; this ratio is not published. Follow limits cannot be lifted by Twitter and everyone is subject to follow limits, even high profile and API accounts.” Source: Twitter Help Center | I Can’t Follow People – Follow Limits

I have been using a cool new app called SocialBro [I don’t make these names up — I just report them] to aggressively follow more people. Even I didn’t realize there was a limit. Until now. I’ll have to consult with the great Twitter oracles in my network @tommytrc and @mmangen to see where I went wrong. This social media stuff can be tricky — even for an instructor that supposed to know it all [remember, all is a lot to know!]. I’ll report back on what I learn next Thursday — twitterday @ e1evation!

In the meantime, if you’re interested in Twitter trends, you might like this screencast I did a few weeks back on how I’m using Getting Things Done [GTD] principles for content marketing. Twitter has become an even more critical part of my social media strategy because of the way I use it now…

Here’s the roundup of the best Twitter articles I read in the past week…

http://storify.com/e1evation/twitter-roundup-for-2-9-2012

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Google Talk

Google. Sigh…

By now, most people have heard that the Google motto is ‘don’t be evil‘. Current trends in social media indicate that many are wondering whether or not Google has forgotten that mantra and took a left turn somewhere in 2011. Even I, the Google fan boy that I am, must admit that some of Google’s recent changes — like the ones made to Google Reader on November 1, 2011 — have left a sour taste in my mouth…

Still, as a social media instructor at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, I fought hard to have a Google class added to the social media curriculum. Why? The value of Google’s ‘free’ tools is so great that I think it’s foolish NOT to use them despite the hidden cost. All of life is about trade-offs and compromises. Although I may have sold my soul to Google long ago, my students still have a choice…

I firmly believe that Google has two of the three most powerful tools for the collection phase of content management; Gmail and Google Reader. I firmly believe I would not be who I am doing what I am doing without those two tools. Gmail allows me to effectively handle my ‘just in time’ content while Google Reader helps me handle my ‘just in case’ content. They go together like peanut butter and chocolate to help me manage the content I need to be a thought leader in my space…

Per usual, here’s a collection of the best Google articles I’ve found this past week. Enjoy!!!

http://storify.com/e1evation/this-week-in-google-at-e1evation

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Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...

The words are different, but the concept is the same. Digital C4 days ‘gather, curate, write, publish & share’. I say ‘consume, curate, create, connect and converse’ – I’ll let you decide which one is easier to remember. The bottom line? You need a ‘lather, rinse, repeat’ [easy to use and repeat] content life cycle if you want to play in the content marketing space. Comment, call or ‘connect’ so we can talk about how this applies to you and your organization…

Content Life Cycle [INFOGRAPHIC] – Infographic List

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Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

The Facebook IPO is now history and the dust is settling. How will the social media and the rest of the market react? How will the IPO affect social media trends? That story remains to be written…

I see two trends that may affect Facebook and social media long term; the occupy movement and privacy concerns. Let me explain…

I find it humorous in a way [sad in others] that some Facebook customers are asking for a cut of Facebook’s overwhelming profits. Is there another example of ‘products’ asking for a share of the producer’s profits? If so, I can’t think of one at the moment…

…but this is a world where the 99% rail against the 1% and question an organization’s right to make a profit. If you don’t want Facebook, don’t use it. Weigh the pros and cons and make an intelligent decision that you can live with. In the meantime, don’t be surprised that YOU are the pig in the picture…

The privacy issue is becoming more of a concern to me. I think one of the things that bothers me most about the Facebook IPO is that the overwhelming success seems to gloss over people’s privacy concerns. Has the market voted for profits over privacy? Perhaps…

Ponder that! In the meantime, here’s my weekly roundup of Facebook trends…

Is there life after the IPO?

Is there life after the IPO?

Is there life after the IPO?

Is there life after the IPO?

Is there life after the IPO?

Is there life after the IPO?

Is there life after the IPO?

Is there life after the IPO?

http://storify.com/e1evation/facebook-trends-for-this-week

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English: Mashable.com logo as of late 2008

According to Mashable,

schools are on a short list of organizations that have been notoriously slow to adopt emerging tech. But within the last few years, as social media becomes more integral to students’ lives, educational institutions are finally catching on, and catching up.

When it comes to higher ed, there are not only opportunities for digital learning, but digital marketing too. Some schools have taken the reigns on both sides, with mixed results…

Source: How Higher Education Uses Social Media [INFOGRAPHIC]

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English: Facebook icon Español: Ícono de Facebook

Not all social networks are created equal. Knowing which one to use in order to reach your target audience is critical. This infographic may be of some help…

Visual Loop – A Who’s Who of Social Media

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WordPress logo blue
Image via Wikipedia

Blogging is fundamental to an effective content marketing campaign. In my humble opinion no other tool is more effective in driving people to your thought leadership position. Why?

  • Blogs are easy to update and can contain a wide variety of content
  • It is easy to optimize their content for Search Engine Optimization [SEO]
  • Most blogging platforms are open source [i.e., FREE]

When you consider that 2012 is the ‘year of content content marketing’ and that you can add a blog to your website for free, my question to you is what’s holding you back?

I see three reasons why people hold back…

  • Perception
  • Fear
  • Time

I think the answer for most people is simple. The words blogging and blogger bring up images of 40 year old white guys sitting in their pajamas in their parents’ basement spewing out politcal rants. While that demographic has clearly capitalized on the benefits of blogging, it doesn’t take away anything from the power of blogging for content marketing.

Here’s another one:

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/e1evation/status/166135819520843776″%5D

I wouldn’t be too concerned about that one either. You or your brand can become a thought leader in your space if you engage in a content management and content marketing campaign tailor made to demonstrate your expertise.

Blogging, on one level, isn’t much different than writing an ’email to the world’ — from that perspective, most people or organizations are already producing more than enough content to feed an interesting blog.

Comment or use the ‘connect’ form so we can talk about how this applies to you and your organization. In the meantime, here are the best articles I found on blogs and blogging this past week. Enjoy!

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Image representing LinkedIn as depicted in Cru...
Image via CrunchBase

LinkedIn has been the ‘red headed step child’ i.e., the neglected tool in my content management and social media strategy for awhile. Thank goodness my class at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College forces me to get current at least three times per year! Where would I be without those students?

If you’ve been neglecting LinkedIn this social media news should make you think twice about leaving LinkedIn out of your social media strategy:

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/e1evation/status/164712758456221696″%5D

It will definitely have an impact on what I do and teach! It’s late and I’m kinda tired so I’m gonna stop here, but I’ll leave you with my LinkedIn roundup for the past week. Have a great weekend…

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2/3/2012

2/3/2012

2/3/2012

2/3/2012

2/3/2012

2/3/2012

2/3/2012

2/3/2012

2/3/2012

2/3/2012

http://storify.com/e1evation/trending-topics-for-linkedin&#8221; target=”_blank”&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;View the story “Trending topics for LinkedIn” on Storify&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;]

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Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...
Image via CrunchBase

Twitter has not always been a starting player in my content management and content marketing lineup — in fact, for a long time I must confess I neglected Twitter. Oddly enough, it was Google’s changes to Google Reader and privacy issues with Facebook and Google that made me rethink my content management and content marketing strategy…

When I started to think about the fact that Twitter is pretty much ubiquitous — one of my favorite college words for ‘everywhere’ — I rethought Twitter’s role in my content management and content marketing world. I had a big of a revelation a couple of weeks ago as to how Twitter could play a central role in my content marketing strategy — you can view it here. Now I’ve gone from neglecting Twitter — thinking of it just as one of the bases I have to cover — to giving it a starring role!

I used Twitter in concert with Shareaholic — one of my ‘must use’ tools — in fact, I call it the ‘Swiss Army knife’ of social media. Thanks to Shareaholic I’m always ready to send any good thing I stumble upon to my Twitter account via HootSuite. Why via HootSuite? Well, there are a lot of reasons why I use HootSuite and I should go into that again sometime. In this case, though the reason is that HootSuite gives me great analytics on how my tweets are doing.

If you want to focus on Twitter for content management and content marketing like I do, try adding Shareaholic and HootSuite to your mix!

Here’s a summary of great Twitter articles I read this past week via @Storify…

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I summarize the top Twitter news every Thursday at this time…

I summarize the top Twitter news every Thursday at this time…

http://storify.com/e1evation/trending-topics-in-twitter-for-this-week-on-2-2-20&#8243; target=”_blank”>View the story “Trending topics in Twitter for this week on 2/2/2012” on Storify]

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Image via CrunchBase

Google, Gmail, Google Reader, and now Google+ are all a vital part of a content management and marketing for thought leadership system. I use Gmail and Google Reader for content management and Google+ for content marketing. Gmail, and it’s business version Google Apps for Business, are critical for managing what I call ‘just in time’ information — information that affects relationships and revenue. Google Reader is what I use to handle ‘just in case’ information like news and industry trends. Applying this approach to your content management will go a long way toward lightening the load in your inbox, but Gmail features like Priority Inbox, keyboard shortcuts, etc. give Gmail a clear advantage over other email systems, too. Google Reader allows users to create a virtual newspaper that delivers up to the minute reports on the things that are important to your world. Together these Google products are like the peanut butter and chocolate combination of content management. The cherry on top of the sundae is that these Google tools, like so many others, are available as excellent android apps as well!

The best thing about these products is that they are free, or have the appearance of free. Even with news like this report from Mashable, I still think these tools are a good value…

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1

Google+ is still an unknown variable in my content marketing world. I’m not happy with the way that Google is ‘forcing’ me to use it whether I want to or not, but I am gradually starting to use it as part of my content marketing plan. Sometimes I’m grateful that my social media certification course at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College forces me to be familiar with all these tools! btw, Google Reader is what I consider to be a ‘secret weapon’ for my work. I’ve done several posts on it — here’s a link to a series I did on getting content into and out of Google Reader that you might enjoy…

In the meantime, here’s a collection of the best content I’ve read on Gmail, Google Reader and Google+ in the past week:

[View the story “Trending topics in Google for this week” on Storify]

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facebook

Love it? Hate it? Facebook must be part of a complete social media tool kit. I originally started using Facebook five or six years ago to start keeping tabs on my high school boys — now I teach Facebook for Business as part of my social media certification class. I have to admit that while my love for Facebook is waning that is remains a social media tool that everyone must master…

You see tools are just that. Tools. You don’t have to love them. They don’t have to be fun. Some tools are just so important that you have to hold your nose and use them sometimes. Facebook has become sort of like that for me. It used to be one of my favorite places to hang out online — now every time they make an improvement, the improvement means Facebook has exposed more of your privacy. As long as you  remember that you are not the customer, you’re the product — it is possible to have a fulfilling social media relationship with Facebook. Just be careful as to how you go about it and no one will get hurt…

Here’s my weekly summary of the best Facebook information I have found in this past week…

[View the story “Trending topics for Facebook on 1/31/2012” on Storify]

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Image via CrunchBase

My readers know well my passion for Google Reader and the power it brings to content management. Last week I cracked the code on autoposting to Twitter with the help of ifft.com and I’ve prepped a Google Reader tips and tricks video that I’ll share with you later in the post. First, though, here’s something that made me smile…

Devon Heaton of Servant of Chaos made my day with his post on how social media mechanics like me are on the rise…

You need an individual uniquely suited to “getting s#@t done. You need the Social Media Mechanic.

This is the person who can implement your strategy, find the right bits and pieces and bolt them together. This person will know what needs to be done to make the right things work – and sometimes even do the wrong things (let’s face it, we’re still making mistakes and learning from them, right?).

But without the Social Media Mechanic, you’re just going to be left with a whole heap of unconnected parts. So once you’ve got your continuous digital strategy underway, start seeking your Social Media Mechanic. You’ll never get out of the trough of disillusion without one!

Source: The Rise of the Social Media Mechanic – Servant of Chaos

I have always referred to myself as an internet ‘plumber’ much to the chagrin of @lisenbury who pleaded with me to use the phrase internet ‘electrician’. For some reason, that didn’t suit me but social media mechanic fits just fine! So, if you’re looking for a social media mechanic, look no further…

As proof of my worthiness, I offer this ‘riff’ on Google Reader for content management. Google Reader is the most important tool in my content management workflow and here are just a few tips for using it well;

http://youtu.be/BM2ve8c4fR0

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On Tuesday, I usually focus on tools for content management and marketing for thought leadership. I had just prepared a post on Google Reader tips and tricks when my good friends at Zemanta shared a little tool from their labs they call Quotelove. Quotelove is a nifty tool for curation that allows me to highlight and grab any text I find with a minimal amount of fuss. Here’s an example of a quote that I curated using this content management tool…

The Rise of the Social Media Mechanic – Servant of Chaos

I have written before on the rise of the Business Designer – a person uniquely adapted to optimise your business processes. But in line with the Hype Cycle, the Business Designer is most effective later in the cycle – as you climb out of the Trough of Disillusionment. Most businesses are not in this space as yet. And many are still facing the ascendant forces of the Peak of Inflated Expectations. It is in the way up this peak (and the way down the other side) that you need an individual uniquely suited to “getting s#@t done. You need the Social Media Mechanic. This is the person who can implement your strategy, find the right bits and pieces and bolt them together. This person will know what needs to be done to make the right things work – and sometimes even do the wrong things (let’s face it, we’re still making mistakes and learning from them, right?). But without the Social Media Mechanic, you’re just going to be left with a whole heap of unconnected parts. So once you’ve got your continuous digital strategy underway, start seeking your Social Media Mechanic. You’ll never get out of the trough of disillusion without one!

via: www.servantofchaos.com

shared with Quotelove

I plan to curate more of Gavin Heaton’s thoughts on ‘social media mechanics’ later on. For the time being, I wanted to give a shout out to the smart Slovenians at Zemanta that give me such great tools for content marketing…

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