Tag: Social network

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“Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that can be accessed through your account on their website, on your desktop, by instant messaging and mobile phones. Hundreds of thousands of people and companies, including several presidential candidates, reportedly, are users, although the firm won’t release that information.

What is known about Twitter is that its traffic is increasing rapidly, although it’s still considered a niche site. According to data from Web analytics firm Hitwise, visits to Twitter have more than doubled in the past 3 months and were up 60% in April. Twitter ranked #439 among Social Networks and Forums in late April, but its size is difficult to measure because it has so many ways for access, primarily cell phones.” Click here to read more…

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Alexandra Samuel
Image by Will Pate via Flickr

Part of a series. Original version at AlexandraSamuel.com.

In my recent blog post about how to sustain your social media presence in just 3 hours a week, I advise drafting 3 blog posts in under one hour. That may sound unimaginable if (like me) you’ve fallen into the habit of turning each blog post you write into a mini-manual or philosophical essay.

But back in the day — you know, before Twitter — a lot of blog posts consisted of simply sharing a link and saying, hey, here’s something useful you should read. Now that we’ve got Facebook and Twitter, people tend to share links in 140 characters or less, and the blog-post-as-link-share has largely disappeared.

I’m all for sharing links in an efficient way, through Twitter or Facebook or even delicious. But we’ve lost something in this rapid-fire micro-sharing: we’ve lost the conversation about why something is worth sharing (or reading). We’ve lost the reflections on what we learned by reading the post we’re about to share.

And we’ve lost a great, valuable route to sustaining a blog. My 3-hour social media method relies on bringing back the “I read this and so should you” blog post. But in the era of Twitter et al., just sharing the link is not enough. You’ve got to provide some additional value….something that makes the reader glad to read your blog post, and not just annoyed you didn’t point them towards the original.

Here are seven ways to add value to a blog post you are sharing:

  1. Summarize the main argument of the post (but in a way that still encourages the reader to read the full post)
  2. Share a (brief) excerpt or two from the original post that you think was exceptionally interesting or useful
  3. Explain why you think it’s worth reading, or what you enjoyed about it
  4. Suggest another way to apply the original post’s advice or insight
  5. Raise a concern, criticism or missing piece of information
  6. Ask a question prompted by the blog post
  7. Point to another related or complementary resource, or draw a thematic connection between multiple blog posts

If you can add value to the post you are sharing in one (or more) of these ways, you can draft a useful, legitimate blog post in 10 minutes or less. Don’t believe me? Then watch this video, which records the process of writing yesterday’s blog post about digital fasts.

via feedproxy.google.com

The excerpt above is longer than most of my curation posts, but Alexandra Samuel’s perspective is a good one that summarizes from another perspective what I was discussing with clients in a executive briefing on Friday and I wanted to accomplish three objectives here. First, show them how I first post things to my own site before sharing them with anyone. Second, how you can effectively curate content from other sources to prove your own point and third, ask people to interact with you based on the information you’ve shared. Comment below or ‘connect’ above so we can talk about how this applies to your business…

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I’ve heard it all before… “my company just needs a good website to get my product out. Trust me they will come”… or another good one, “I have a facebook profile and now I can send out product updates and people will just get them.” Er, no. For years Business to Business companies have been trying to match the success, and sometime failures, of traditional media that Business to Consumer companies have had. Then the internet seemed to even the playing field. Only problem was, B2B companies didn’t have the budgets B2C companies had to market that cool website. Plus, the market for their products is much smaller. When I mean smaller, I mean I know a few companies that only have about a dozen or so potential customers. You could technically buy a dozen donuts and email each prospect one. As long as it’s not jelly filled, because that could get messy.

So back to facebook.com and can it work for B2B? The answer is yes. But it does come with a few caveats. Nothing, and I mean nothing, will work without a sound marketing strategy. Also, one of the main reason’s any tactic will fail is lack of follow through. Let’s face it, nobody has any time to do any marketing things during our busy work day right? Wrong. How may of us check our facebook account as often as we check our email? Lots, ok, we also check on our farms, but that’s totally different. So just by checking your facebook account, you have time to add a update that can make your business more relevent to prospects and current customers. So I have written five steps that can help any B2B company get more out of facebook.

via macdesign13.wordpress.com

I’m so glad I know Kiar Olson and I love his perspective on this topic — you can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like to read his ‘5 step’ program…

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Sharing is a foundational part of the social media process. Here’s an interesting perspective on the topic of sharing on the internet…

“The parts of the report that caught my eye included the following:

  • People still share via email and instant messenger more than via social networks. An astounding 59% of all shares on the widget were done via email, 25% via instant messenger and just 14% were passed along on networks like Facebook and Twitter.
  • Twitter, which has recently emerged as the share site du jour for those in the social media world, accounts for only one percent of all shares. Facebook is 11%. Yahoo mail is the highest individual share channel at 26%.
  • Yahoo (44%) and MSN (25%) mail are way ahead of Gmail (19%) as the email provider used by Tell-A-Friend users.
  • Facebook accounts for 79% of all shares via social networks. MySpace is second at 15%. Twitter is just 5% of all social network shares via the widget.

While I do think there is a separation between what I would call hyper-tech users (those who owe their soul to Google, defer to other bookmarklets and other methods rather than clicking on the share widgets provided) and the average Joe or Jane, the statistics are significant. They show us how wide of a gap there is between those two crowds. When we as Internet marketers are making recommendations and building functionality for the mainstream, we have to remember that WE are not the mainstream.

Another insight I get out of this data is that one-to-one communications – email and instant messenger – are still enormously powerful. Most people either don’t realize they can share with more folks via social networks or are not comfortable doing so. It might just be that sharing the information with one or two people is the methodology of choice for the rest of the world. That can change how we approach social media strategies for some products and services. Design programs and products that inspire more one-to-one pass alongs rather than “LOOK WHAT I FOUND!” messages on social networks.

To gather some comparative data, I asked Tell-A-Friend competitor ShareThis if they minded sharing some cursory data. For the month of October, their users also shared more via email (46.4%). Twitter was higher than Tell-A-Friend’s results, but also surprisingly low (5.82% of all shares). Facebook accounted for 33.32% of all share paths for ShareThis in October, higher than Tell-A-Friend. If you’re wondering about ShareThis’s IM numbers, they don’t offer instant messenger clients as share options, sans AOL Instant Messenger, which is buried on the third tab of their full icon set option.” New Study Reveals How People Share Online | Social Media Explorer

How do YOU share? For me the most important tool in my toolkit is Shareaholic! I’m pretty sure it’s available for all major browsers at this point…

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A couple of days ago I filled in for Dana VanDen Heuvel in a class he was teaching at NWTC on social media. As luck would have it, I taught on the topic of Facebook pages — here are two hot posts that popped up today that I wish I had shared with the class. Although the first targets non-profits, much of it is applicable to small businesses and other organizations as well…

“Facebook Pages are where most nonprofits establish a home-base on Facebook. You can send targeted updates to fans, engage supporters on a wall, and give visitors a customized experience by using a variety of applications.

Your Page comes standard with a few applications developed by Facebook like Discussions and Events. But you can also add third-party applications to your Page.” Source: Eleven Killer Facebook Page Applications For Your Nonprofit — SocialFish

Item #6 on the list is ‘Static FBML’. Mari Smith has some good stuff here for those interested in creating a web page within a Facebook page…

“Let’s assume you have your Facebook Fan Page up and running now. (If not, see FANtastic Fan Pages for ideas and help). Some of the basics include adding a custom graphic, installing apps – particularly Static FBML, adding custom content including a landing tab, and ensuring you’re adding relevant, quality content on a regular basis. I’ll be covering all of these subjects and more on this blog and also on SocialMediaExaminer.com.

If you have visitors to your Fan page and they are not yet fans, I call them non-fans, you ideally want those visitors to be directed to your custom Welcome Tab rather than your Wall.

The idea behind this is you want to have a clear and inviting page that provides these visitors with an immediate sense of who you are, what you do, why they should become a fan, AND you want to provide a call to action with a nice visual to your Become a Fan button.” Source: How To Add A Custom Landing Tab To Your Facebook Fan Page | MariSmith.com

You’ll have to go to the sources to get more, but they’re both great articles. If you want to leverage Facebook pages, but don’t know where to start, I can help! Comment, call or use the contact form to discuss how this applies to your business…

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Facebook logo
Image via Wikipedia

The reasons for creating an online store on Facebook are obvious: it has 30 million users in the UK alone, offers can be spread virally and it’s where people are spending large chunks of their online time.

Neither does creating an online store have to be expensive. Applications, such as Storenvy and ShopIgniter, make it relatively simple to add a store tab to your Facebook page.

Perhaps the key reason why creating Facebook store is a no brainer is because Facebook delivers a social shopping experience that is very difficult to replicate.

Trying to build a social shopping site outside of Facebook would be an expensive, slow and risky challenge. Not only do you have to attract users in their millions, but you also have to persuade them to start spending as much time on the site as they do on Facebook.

The fact is that Facebook has such a massive head start on its rivals (with 600 million users and counting) that it could dominate the world of ecommerce, let alone social shopping, in the years to come.

via socialmediatoday.com

Facebook. Are you on it? Comment below or ‘connect’ above to discuss how this applies to you and your organization…

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There are some changes in the wind and it’s best to be prepared…

Facebook’s latest scheme – to share your private data with anybody they want, whether or not you agree ahead of time to let them do so.

That’s according to a Facebook blog post this week that’s a clear attempt to head off another potential PR nightmare stemming from increasing privacy concerns surrounding the world’s largest social network. Source: Facebook’s Latest Scheme: Give Your Private Data to Anyone They Want | Twittown

Check your settings right away!

Facebook recently announced some forthcoming changes to its terms of service that mean it might be worth another look at your privacy settings.

The new privacy policy means that Facebook can share your details with “Pre-approved third-party websites and applications”. Now, you might be totally fine with this but many people still think of Facebook as a ‘walled garden’ and aren’t aware that Facebook set much of their information as available to ‘Everyone’ a few months back with a slightly confusing privacy wizard that users were asked to complete.

With this in mind, it’s well worth another look at your privacy settings. There are a lot of options to check through, so here are some less obvious ones you might miss… Source: 5 Facebook Privacy Settings You Should Check Right Now

You’ll have to go to the source for the settings you need to change…

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It’s a well known secret in real estate that the three most important aspects of a property are ‘location, location, location’. In social media, there’s a similar mantra. It’s called ‘share, share, share’…

“If you step back and take a look how information moves in Social Media, it’s quite different than “Traditional Media.” Back in the day, most people got their information from newspapers or magazines. The direction of information is from the few (the writer or publisher) down to the many. We’ve all seen this in action in our daily lives, maybe to the point of not even noticing it anymore. Got a favorite newspaper columnist or TV show host? One single person communicating to possibly millions of people with little interaction between the communicator and the listeners.

As we step into the Social Media arena, the direction and flow of information is between the readers and the writers. The interaction (thanks to the internet) tends to be instant and the ripple effect from this sharing of information can spread far and wide. With the users of Social Media able to contribute news and information to anyone willing to listen, we now have a conversation. Just like the conversations you are already having at the local coffeeshop or at work.

The recent buzzing and tittering by the media about Twitter and Social Media in general, it’s no wonder business owners may feel forced into using these internet-based communication tools, or perhaps miss sales opportunities their competition is getting instead of them. Not being familiar with the landscape, many make that sometimes fatal error of confusing Social Media with traditional advertising.” Source: The Secret to Social Media – Business Networking – Biznik

This isn’t something to be afraid of — it’s something to be embraced and leveraged. Using the right set of tools, sharing is easy…

As the internet marketing gurus at Hubspot say ““Each thoughtful post on your blog is a public demonstration of your thought leadership, personal integrity, humor, and professional insights. You don’t have to refute one of Einstein’s theories to get respect.” To that I would add each thoughtful ‘share’. In my seminars I ask people how many of them have ever forwarded a link to their friends or saved a bookmark. Of course EVERYONE has done that. What differs is the efficacy or efficiency of their tools.

Shareaholic

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYefcEknS2Y

Shareaholic is my personal favorite and one of the first Firefox add-ons I install whenever I move to a new computer. I also recommend ShareThis, another Firefox add-on as well…

ShareThis

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMSCJeagRAE

In closing, I’ll share with you one of my most important tactics. I’m always on the lookout for something good to share — it helps establish my thought leadership position. If something is really good, however, I’ll do a blog post FIRST and THEN share that post with others. Yes, it’s important to share but it’s ok to be a little selfish in the process by sharing something from an internet property that you own so that it drives traffic to your homebase, wherever that may be. Questions? Feedback? Leave a comment or use the contact page to reach me…

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Facebook, Inc.
Image via Wikipedia

A recent study by Business.com said that 83% of respondents said that Facebook is their favorite social media tool for reaching customers and no wonder — when Facebook recently passed 350 million members after gaining 250 million members since August 2008 [yes, that’s right — the Facebook ‘nation’ is larger than the United States and growing at an incredible rate] it became clear that if someone was online, you’d probably find them in Facebook…

Yet, as a social media consultant I see so much confusion around the topic of personal profiles, groups, and [fan]pages that I thought it might be time to share THE single best post I’ve found on the topic and share some of the practical experience I’ve gained over the past year working extensively with people and brands in Facebook. I agree with internet marketing expert Dan Zarella when he says “If I could give you only one piece of Facebook marketing advice, it would be: People have profiles. Brands have pages.” He goes on to say…

Social networking profiles represent people. From your Facebook profile, you declare personal relationships, grow your network by manually accepting friend requests, and discover other people in your network to add as friends. Your Facebook profile includes facts about you including your favorite movies, what schools you went to, and your favorite quotes.

Your brand isn’t a person. It doesn’t have a favorite quote or book. You can’t friend a brand, and it certainly can’t friend you back. Brands don’t have friends. Brands have fans. Fans have discussions about your brands, share news about them, and share information about your brands with others.” Source: On Facebook, People Have Profiles, Brands Have Pages.

Here’s the part where it really gets good…

“Profiles are for People. At this point in Facebook’s community’s development, you do not want to keep a profile if you are a brand. Keeping a brand profile is a surefire way to come across as totally out-of-touch. And worse, even if you were to pull off a successful corporate profile, Facebook has been known to suspend profiles for “too much marketing activity.”

Groups are for People. Groups really aren’t suitable for a serious marketing effort. They originally were created as a place for like-minded people to communicate outside of their immediate network and never were intended for brand use. There is very little time and energy required to make one and consequently, users do not value them as much as pages. How many I-lost-my-cellphone-so-I-need-all-your-numbers-again groups have you been invited to?

Pages are for Brands. After setting up a page for your brand on Facebook, use applications to pull in content from your blog and Twitter account (you do have those too right?) to keep your page full of fresh, frequently updated information. Resist the urge to turn your page into a watered-down version of your website. Include some offers, media or conversation on Facebook that does not appear anywhere else. Retail brands like Victoria’s Secret are especially talented at this. I recommend viewing their Victoria’s Secret Pink Facebook page and see how their brand interacts with fans.” Source: On Facebook, People Have Profiles, Brands Have Pages.

Hopefully, that clears everything up from a strategy perspective. Now, a few of my favorite tactics for those who have read this far…

The phrase ‘fan page’ is a misnomer and needs to be addressed. Facebook calls them PAGES, plain and simple, but people refer to them as ‘fan pages’ because they have to ‘become a fan’ to interact with the brand — the correct terminology, however, is ‘page‘. Frequently, when working with someone who wants to become a thought leader, I’ll get a statement like “Well, I’m just a _______ [business owner, politician, teacher, etc. – insert thought leadership role here] — I don’t have any fans. My advice to you? Get over it! Why? Because if you are attempting to create any kind of thought leadership position that evokes a response from people, you have become a brand and brands have fans. When Facebook gives you the ability to build a page [which is really a free mini-website] in the middle of the biggest social media group in the universe, they’re doing you a huge favor!

I recently spoke to a LinkedIn group in Green Bay on the topic of “Facebook for Fun and Profit”. At the time, I advocated using a Facebook primarily as an outpost for your website in order to draw people in. Good strategy, yes, but here’s the part I missed: a Facebook page may be all the website an entrepreneur or organization needs in the beginning! Why? Try these reasons…

  • Facebook pages are indexed by Google so the content is searchable; group pages are also searchable, but many Facebook application such as Social RSS only work with Pages, not groups — groups are not good tools for BRANDS
  • Facebook pages are visible to non-Facebook members [they just can’t become fans or interact with the brand or other fans if they are not a member]
  • You can assign your own url to a Facebook page; see http://e1evation.org
  • Facebook page urls can be modified to something more manageable and referenceable to the outside world; see http://facebook.com/skittles. You cannot do this with groups.
  • Facebook pages are highly customizable; see http://facebook.com/victoriassecret. You cannot do this with groups.

As I read back over the five bullet points, it occurs to me that the primary value of groups is for INTERNAL communications within an organization while pages are EXTERNAL. I think that about sums it up but if you’re still confused, leave a comment or contact me and we’ll get you straightened out!

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Been laid off? Don’t despair — it may be the best thing that ever happened to you! e1evation, llc came about as the result of a layoff — a couple actually — and I’ve had some of the best years of my life since the last time that happened almost 5 years ago…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJltcT7DH7g&feature=player_embedded

If you like the movie, you can join the Facebook group. If you need help or support leave a comment or use the contact page. I may be able to offer some encouragement…

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Boasting 90 million users, LinkedIn is one of the social media titans. For business professionals, it has become an essential tool for staying connected to their business network.

But for companies, there’s been little reason to pay attention to their presence there. LinkedIn has been about individuals, not organizations. LinkedIn Companies existed, but offered little in the way of functionality. That has now changed.

In November, LinkedIn quietly introduced an upgrade to LinkedIn Companies that makes it both a critical and powerful tool for managing your company’s digital presence (especially if you market B2B).

Here’s a primer to help you plan and make the most of some of the powerful new features on LinkedIn Companies.

via mashable.com

Follow the ‘via’ link if you’d like to know more…

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“Every businessperson leads a busy life. There are marketing meetings to attend, RFPs to reply to, and client projects to finish. With so much work demanding so much attention, many of us never make the time to keep our business relationships alive, and wish we did: ‘What does he do again?’ ‘Does she still work there?’ ‘Didn’t I know someone at that company?’

Rather than regretting not staying connected, pick some of the twelve ideas below and use them to start conversations with people you’ve met before and want to speak with again.”

You might want to also check out the RainToday series on LinkedIn 101.

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Leaving for Germany as I am tomorrow morning, I’m moving way too fast to do this justice, but if you’re a social media maven or online community manager [or both!], tumblr is a tool that you may have overlooked for it’s sheer simplicity. If that’s the case, look again. Here are at leas 5 reasons why I’m adding tumblr to my social media utility belt..

  1. Simple yet powerful…
  2. It can auto-publish to both Facebook profiles and fan pages making it a great community manager tool
  3. It has a great iPhone interface making it the perfect onsite reporting tool
  4. It works with Shareaholic or it’s own bookmarklet making it a perfect page sharing tool
  5. Marc LaFountain, the Community Ambassador. He’s a god amongst men in the social media space…

This is just a partial list of all the cool things that tumblr can do — you’ll want to go here to get a more complete inventory. As I head to Germany to cover the Agritechnica show for AGCO, I’ll be liveblogging the trip as well as the event. Track me on my Dashboard and see how well it works as I run it through my FriendFeed…

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How to Setup a Facebook Page for your Business, Organization or Church

via youtube.com

I’m doing a training session next week at NWTC on ‘Facebook for Fun and Profit’. Unfortunately, it’s all filled up — for those of you interested in the topic that won’t be able to make it, this may help…

Posted via web from e1evation, llc

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10 Reasons Not To Ignore Your Blog For Facebook

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Brace yourself: Facebook is trying to take over the world. Or, if not the world, at least the entire Internet. With Facebook partnering up with popular sites like Yelp, many SMB owners may feel as if their load got lighter. I mean, why waste time worrying about your building your blog or your own site when you can grow your Facebook presence instead? If Facebook’s opening up the doors so that people can take you with them, you don’t have to worry about anything else anymore, right?

Wrong!

It doesn’t matter how hot Facebook or any of the other social media sites are looking right now. You still need to be focused on using your blog to create your own authority and brand. Want to know why?

Here are ten reasons.

via smallbiztrends.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go directly to the source to get the whole story if you’d like to get the 10 reasons. #1? You don’t own Facebook…

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5 Things Every New Facebook User Should Do Immediately

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Image via CrunchBase

Facebook works.

Don’t have a Facebook account? Last time I checked, there were more than 500 million people in the world, so I know there are a few of you. If you are new to Facebook, there are some tips you should definitely do on your newly created account that take priority over everything else. In this article, I’ll show you what those things are.

via makeuseof.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like to dig a little deeper…

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How to Combine Your Facebook Profile for Both Business and Pleasure

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Despite publishing intimate details of their life, most people view Facebook as a very personal network; as a platform for pleasure not for business. But if you’re anything like me, your Facebook friends consist of people from a cross section of your life; some personal friends who you’ve known for years, some work colleagues and some contacts from your professional network. They may include anyone from your best mate to your mum to your boss to an industry peer, and that makes the humble status update a potential nightmare. Do you really want your boss to see the banter you have with your mates about the girl you pulled on your drunken night out? Do your friends really care about your industry blog posts or your work chat?

The psychology behind this dynamic leads to many people I know breaking Facebook rules and setting up two profiles; one personal profile and one professional profile. After all, you should never mix business with pleasure, isn’t that the mantra? But wouldn’t it be great if you could personalise your Facebook profile to every single one of your friends, giving each of them status updates and shared content that is specifically relevant to them and leaving out the stuff that isn’t?

Well, in actual fact, you can. Clever use of Facebook’s Lists feature means that you can keep your personal friends largely separate from your work colleagues, publishing different content to different groups on the same page while ensuring that never the twain shall meet. With Lists you can dice and splice your Facebook friends in as many different ways as you like, effectively presenting a personalised profile to each different one of your friends depending on their interests, your relationship with them and what you want them to see (and not to see). For once in your life you really can keep all of the people happy all of the time.

To get started, watch the short video clip below on how to create lists of friends in Facebook. You can create as many lists as you like, from simply one for ‘friends’ and one for ‘work’ as in my video example, to multiple lists. Importantly if you’re going to get very targeted with it, any friend can belong to more than one list.

via socialmediatoday.com

This article addresses the most critical issues of using Facebook for business in a very thorough and effect way. You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article along with the authors videos…

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Social Networks: Going Public or Keeping Private?

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Everything you do online is “putting it out there”—that is, putting yourself out there. And when it comes to using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and other social networks, everybody’s got an opinion on best practices—how far out there you should put yourself.

In my experience as a marketing strategist and owner of a full-service marketing firm, I’ve come to realize that just how much of your personality type and specific goals you reveal can make or break your networking success. The world of social media is disorderly and unpredictable, so knowing yourself—and managing your privacy settings and usage accordingly—leads not only your success but to your personal comfort level.

Social media is still in its infancy, but three types of user personality are emerging. There’s no right style when it comes to social-media participation, or a right level of privacy. But consider your goals and your personality type. Which social-media type describes you?

via getcurrency.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article…

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Your Brand On Facebook: TMI?

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Yesterday morning, I logged into Facebook (as I do each morning) and saw a post from my cousin’s wife that my cousin had suffered a major heart attack the night before and had open-heart surgery. Thankfully, he will be ok, but the shock of this happening to my cousin at such a young age was intense.

His father wasn’t too thrilled to learn this had been posted on Facebook before he had a chance to let family and friends know what was going on. He was fairly upset that another family member put it out on Facebook but concluded, due to her age, “That’s just this generation, I guess.”

We are living in a time where generations are divided about what constitutes too much information, or “TMI.” To younger generations, putting the word out about significant life events through social media is a quick way to keep friends and loved ones informed. It helps avoid the hassle of individual phone calls, text messages, or emails — and helps keep attention on the task at hand, in this case, helping care for my cousin.

Now that this situation is known, the family is less sensitive to using Facebook to stay on top of the situation. Why? First, because it’s not private anymore. Second, because the updates are relevant and important for those of us following his progress.

The question of brands over-sharing on Facebook is a bit different. The dynamics of what should and what shouldn’t be shared are very different. But there are similarities, too. Posts need to be relevant and they need to come at the right pace. Not surprisingly, there is a direct relationship between the two. The better the posts, the more often people will want to see them.

via mediapost.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like to dig a little deeper…

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From Side Project to Sustainable Business Using Social Media

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Over the last 18 months I’ve built two profitable businesses with the help of social media. One business was a sure thing; the other was a side project. My side project was a blog: womeninbusiness.com.au. All of the important numbers (subscribers, page views and profits) are growing monthly and I’ve never paid a cent to promote it.

When I decided to drop out of corporate life, my first move was to open a consultancy. I had been working online since 2001 and by 2008 was confident I’d accumulated enough skills and experience that finding work wouldn’t be a problem.

Around about this time, Twitter was the next big thing. I realized if I wanted to offer my clients the best service I could, I’d better get to know what Twitter was, and work out it was going to be any good for business.

Little did I know that the answer would be a resounding ‘yes’—and that it would help me take my side project from an idea to a sustainable business in less than two years.

via problogger.net

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like to know more…

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7 Effective Facebook Pages YOU Can Create Right Now

via marketingsavant.com

Cool! Thanks for the <3, Dana! We’re proud of the work that e1evation and Envano have done for AGCO! If you want to see the other 6 Facebook pages that Dana VanDen Heuvel thinks are effective, you can follow the ‘via’ link…

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