What is Social Media?

Social Media (SM) has lately developed a lot of buzz for anyone looking either to promote something (often themselves) or to stay current on the latest news trends. The questions most often asked are: “What is Social Media”, “Where is Social Media”, and “How to use social media for Marketing”.

What is Social Media?

In a nutshell, social media is any media form that displays itself to an open public – AND – encourages interaction between the host and all observers. The key here is public participation and interaction. Any media that is a “dead end” in terms of interaction, such as newspapers, traditional websites, magazines and banner advertisements are not social because they lack this “shared conversation” format.

Businesses also refer to social media as user or consumer generated content (UGC or CGC) because, while the business may start the interaction, the value of it is what the users contribute, providing an idea with social proof. According to Wikipedia, “Social proof, also known as informational social influence, is a psychological phenomenon that occurs in ambiguous social situations when people are unable to determine the appropriate mode of behavior. Making the assumption that surrounding people possess more knowledge about the situation, they will deem the behavior of others as appropriate or better informed.” In english, that means that we’re more likely to try something we’re unsure about if we’ve seen our peers give it good reviews.

Where is Social Media?

There are a variety of social media outlets available today. Nearly all of them are internet and web based. The most common at the moment are Facebook and Twitter, which easily control the vast majority of social media throughput today. Facebook and Googlenow get almost an equal number of page hits (people visiting them) per day. Twitter, with its fast paced, almost frenzied posting of small bites (140 characters) of information, is an ideal social media to find out “whats going on right now”. However, because of its pace, its less ideal for finding out “what happened yesterday” which is Facebook’s forte. Because of this balance, these two social medias have remained locked head to head, with neither able to replace the other.

Two other big players in social media are LinkedIn, which is often considered the SM of choice for the business professional and affluent individual, and blogging. LinkedIn recently opened their technology to allow it to interface with user made tools, and with that we can expect to see a surge of traffic there in the very near future. Personal and Business blogging is another form of social media. These blogs often act as hubs, allowing for longer more sophisticated posts with graphics and video, that can then be cross-posted on other social media centers. Blogs present a very important roll in social media as long as the host works to facilitate commenting, feedback and social interaction. Any blog with comments disabled or not set up to make the experience easy is no better than a traditional website (ie: it’s not social media). Use of a professional hosted blog (such as WordPress.org) produces far more likelihood of gaining search engine ranking than any of the available free blogs (blogger.com, wordpress.com, etc). This is because free accounts are far more likely to generate spam and thus you get “bonus points” so to speak, in terms of search engine ranking, for use of a professional blog.

In addition to those big four “heavy hitters” in the social media arena, there are countless less talked about (and often less utilized) avenues: Myspace, Photobucket (now with commenting!), Flikr, Youtube, hi5, FriendFeed, Ebay & Amazon Forums, Orkut, any forum board, and to a slightly different degree any social bookmarking site (Delicious, Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit, etc). Simply put, there is social media everywhere you turn on the web today!

How to use Social Media for Marketing?

One of the biggest things to remember in Social Media is that your are talking WITH your participants, not TO your audience. The goal of social media is to encourage interaction, dialog and relationship building. Just as walking up to a stranger of trying to cold-sell them on your product would have very dismal results, attempting to sell folks using social media is a no-no if a relationship hasn’t been built first.

Another important piece of the puzzle is to make sure that your media can easily be accessed in a variety of forms. This most applies to bloggers and means having an RSS feed, having a lightweight theme for mobile users, having a professional template so text does not overrun graphics when viewed on a small screen, having strong contrast between backgrounds and text colors, etc. With RSS (real simple syndication) making up a large percentage of blog views, and mobile users (which often have trouble loading a full website due to phone limitations) making up another significant chunk, it pays to make your blog accessible.

Your community of people dialoging with you in social media is NOT your list. They did not sign up for anything other than the right to comment and are best not hard-sold to. That sounds at first like a put-off reason to avoid social media, but in fact the opposite is true. What you now have is a user base that is paying attention to and hopefully trusts you, that you can now suggest (gently!) view a squeeze page (a website designed to get their attention and provide a call to action to sign up for something you have to offer). Often the best squeeze pages for a free item that provides REAL value, so they feel like they get something from sharing with you. Once you have developed the relationship, provided them something of value, and captured their name and email, you now have a warm contacts list.

One final tip: Don’t come in and try to bend the social media to fit your non-social media advertisement campaigns. Give it the funding and the respect it deserves. Learn that particular SM formats nuances and quirks and abide by them. You want to fit in, not stick out like a sore thumb. Each and every social media site has a different culture, respecting it is one of the fastest ways to gain audience acceptance.

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Find Out When That Hot Twitter ID Becomes Available to Grab! (Free tool Does the work so you don’t have to!)

Learn When That Hot Twitter ID 

You've Been Waiting For Becomes 
Available to Grab!

In my case, while @kim was taken by someone actually using it (good for her!), other derivatives of my name or brand name were all being “squatted”. Either they were intentionally being held by someone to keep them out of play – or – they had been registered by someone that rapidly got bored with twitter. Either way, they were not in use and yet were not available!

Twitter has a policy of freeing up unused accounts after approximately 9 months of no activity. However, keeping track of these accounts and “babysitting” them until they come free can be a royal pain in the ass!

So, it was a pleasant surprise this morning to get an email from TweetClaims.comwhich is a free service I signed up for a couple months ago.

Twitter claim is a super simple signup, and they do a once-daily (free account) check on up to 10 twitter IDs you wish to be notified of when they become available. As soon as the ID is seen as not existing (meaning you could register it), they send you a brief email.

That’s all there is to it! Sign up at Tweet Claims for free, and wait to get your email!

In case you haven’t heard, I moved from @Ask_KimC to @Ask_Kim … and would like to move once more to @AskKim but that may be a while off.

Great tool, go check it out and let it babysit those squatted accounts so you don’t have too!

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How To: Change Your Twitter Name Without Losing Followers

Step 1: Change Your UserName

Go to Twitter (login) -> Settings (upper right). Click Settings and in the page that opens, in the USERNAME field, type in your desired new name. Twitter will give you feedback about the “taken” or “available” status of your desired name.

(In my case, I couldn’t get exactly what I wanted, but @Ask_KimC is pretty close!)

All follower’s are automagically updated to be following your new twitter name! How cool is that?

However…. You knew there was a gottcha, didn’t ya?

Step 2: Any client that you use to connect to Twitter with (in my case, I depend on and affiliate for 3: Hootsuite (client), Tweetspinner (management), Socialoomph (free keyword tracking and auto-DM)), needs to be logged into and have its login credentials changed.

In Hootsuite this means go into Settings -> Social Networks -> Edit (for the account you changed) -> Change and save. In Tweetspinner, log in, and in the upper right near your twitter name, under it, select “update (your) user/pass”. For SocialOomph which lacks a full edit feature, I simply deleted that old account and registered and authenticated the new one. Piece of cake.

(Also be sure to update any place you may have the old address in use such as social media buttons, cute profile buttons, listed on your facebook account, listed on your linkedin profile, etc.)

Step 3: Re-Register Your Old Twitter Name

The last thing you want is someone grabbing your old twitter name and pretending to be you. Two notes however: (1) This will require a seperate email address and (2) It can be a bit after changing your accounts name, before twitter will allow you to re-register the name, so don’t panic! (Which of course, I did, learning this the hard way!) Put a single tweet on it that says to join you at your new username, and put the same information in the accounts bio box.

Step 4: Breathe A Satisfied Sigh Of Satisfaction!

That’s all there is too it! With this method you wont lose any of your precious followers! Majority of the work is auto-updated on Twitter’s side, which is incredibly convenient! Always nice when companies make it so easy!

That’s all folks! Like it? Love it? Got Questions? Be sure to share it and drop me some feedback! I’d love to hear how it goes!

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What To Do If Your Twitter Account Is Hacked

Suddenly the phone rings and your best friend asks you why there is crazy stuff on your twitter account….

You get an email from a business partner asking when you started partnering with company XYZ to post their advertisements…

You’re twitter followers drop by 1000 in one day …

You start seeing things on your twitter wall with your name on them that you didn’t (and never would have!) wrote….

Steps To Take When Your Twitter Account is Hacked

Step 1: Don’t panic.

Seriously, I know your heart is racing and your stomach hurts when your twitter account is hacked, but generally this is an easy fix. Also assuming you’ve built a good relationship with your followers, they will understand and be on YOUR side!

Step 2:  Change Your Twitter Password

Assuming you are able to log into the account (if you can not, see below). Log in. In the upper right navigation area you have a “Settings” link. Click it. Now in the upper middle click the link the the “Password” section. If you cannot remember your password, you go to the password reset area, to have your password sent to the e-mail on your twitter account profile. once you have logged in successfully, it’s time to change your password to a secure password. A strong password is one that uses a combination of upper and lowercase letters and numbers special characters and is longer than eight characters in length. Preferably it does not include any word you may look up in the dictionary. Also, be sure not to use any password you have ever used before.

Step 3: Remove Software Connection Rights

Well this may sound tricky is actually made very straightforward by twitter. While still logged in and understanding near where you found the “Password” tab/link, there is a tab labeled “Connections”. here you find a variety of applications you have given permission to access and work with your twitter account. Many of these are very useful and you won’t want to remove all of them. However, go through this list and identify any that you don’t recognize. Underneath the application name you will find a small link that says “revoke access”.

Software bugs do happen, and if a trusted application begins posting unwanted messages it does not always indicate hacking has occurred. Sometimes software does go awry however, and need it’s permission removed until the bug is fixed.

Step 4: Update Your Password In Any Twitter Client or Softwar You Use

Any trusted application or widget that you use to access twitter, or display twitter streams, likely has a safe copy of your password. It is important to change your password in these utilities so they do not repeatedly tried to connect and cause your account to become temporarily locked.

Step 5: Breath A Sign of Relief!

You are done! You may wish to go to the profile tab in the upper navigation of your twitter account and read through the posted tweets and delete those that are spam. On your profile page, when you hover over a specific tweet, you will find a delete icon becomes visible near the right hand edge of the tweet box. Having your twitter account hacked is stressful, but with your new secure password and by avoiding dangerous connections with application you do not recognize, you will be able to stay safe and generally prevent this in the future. Some people also suggest sending a brief e-mail to twitter support (support@twitter.com) to let them know that you were hacked but have regained access to your account.

What If I Still Can’t Log Into My Account My Twitter Was Hacked?

Step 1: Request A Password Reset

Ideally you want to try to reset your password on your twitter account yourself, usingthe twitter password reset tool. If you have multiple e-mail accounts, you may need to check them all to find out which you had registered to your twitter account.

Step 2: Contact Support

Contacting support (support@twitter.com)for this purpose can only be done with the e-mail account created your twitter account from or currently have registered to that account. Even though the account may be yours they will not give you access to your twitter account from any email that is not currently in their file. (This is for your protection!) Here is an easy-to-use form they suggest you use.

Be sure to include in your request:

• Your username
• any e-mail addresses you think might be associated with your account
• the last date you have access to your account
• the phone number associated with the account (if your verified your phone number).

Having your twitter account hack can be incredibly stressful and scary thing. Hopefully these steps help you regain access to your twitter account after you’ve been hacked and also help you prevented in the future! You can find some really great tips on how to stay safe on twitter by checking out Twitters Safe Tweeting Guidelines.

If these tips helped you I hope you’ll share them with others! A Tweet, Digg or Facebook Share helps others find this information and I really appreciate it! I hope you’ll leave a comment and share your experience with Twitter with me! 

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#Blogchat – A Blogger's Hidden Twitter Resource!

If like me, your new new to twitter, it may seem strange to you to discover that beneath the surface of what appears like waves of disconnected comments, there is “threads” that act like a “old-fashioned” chat room! I had heard rumor of this exotic creature but it wasn’t until tonight that I stumbled into being able to observe it first hand!

All of this centers around hashtags, those #words, which can be used to join seemingly disjointed comments. I’m uncertain how using this as a chat room works in the traditional twitter browser page, but I did find two methods where it works very easily.

In either Hootsuite or Tweetdeck (these are twitter utilities, see their links for more information), you can create columns and filter for words, phrases, lists etc. Well the magic happens when you filter a column for a hashtag. In Hootsuite this is (+) add tab (optional) -> (+ add column) -> then “Keyword Tracking” tab ->type #blogchat in the text box -> Click Add -> Click Create Column. (Now, if a hashtag isn’t currently active, i.e. no ones using it at the moment, you may not have anything show up for a while.) You want these kinds of infrequently used columns on a tab that doesn’t update too often, or you will run out of “API” (communication) cycles too often. When the chat is active you can always manually refresh the column more often.

Another, must more “chat room” approach is to go to TweetChat and put the hashtag in question in the # box. In our case, that takes us to:http://tweetchat.com/room/blogchat Suddenly you have what for all intents and purposes resembles a traditional chat room.

Just remember though, that in both cases, any reply you make, you must manually type #blogchat (or your particular hashtag) into the message.

One note is that sometimes, when used during a live event, for question & answer etc, these threads are known as “backchannels”. A twitter backchannel is nothing more than a hashtag discussion thread that happens at the same time a live presentation or webinar (web-based seminar/lecture) is going on. When the live presentation is absent, its just a chat!

So what is this hidden resource for bloggers? Well Every Sunday night, at 8pm CST, there is a #blogchat chat hosted by @MarkCollier for bloggers to exchange ideas. One Sunday a night its open-mic, the others are generally kept on a related topic. Even open mic was pretty much on topic although a lot of related more brief topic. It was definitely a fun crowd!

If you enjoy an active exchange of ideas with like-minded people, I highly suggest you check out #blogchat or a variety of other chats relevant to your interests! What are your favorite twitter channels and favorite twitter channel chat secrets? Let me know!

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Tribe Syndication: A Step-By-Step Guide to Success (Part 1)

Do you want to launch the success of your networking but don’t know how?

Are you baffled by all the terms and wondering what we’re talking about?

Do you wonder what Syndication Tribes are and how they can help you?

Are you looking for some step by step instructions to make your own Tribe journey work?

Do Power Hour’s Confuse You?

Are you wondering what in the world we could be doing that makes these “Tribes” thrive?

Tribe Syndication (Blogging) Alliances

Simply the hottest thing to hit social media in a long time! They can propel your business forward in a way nothing else can! They can give one individual INCREDIBLE business leverage.

I have additional coverage of Tribe Syndication (Blogging) Alliances coming soon, but with the rapid growth, I wanted to answer the influx of questions! Everyone wants to know…

How Does It Work!

The Tribe Syndication groups I run through SA  are mostly mixed groups. That makes them Tribes with Training Wheels! They’re a good place to get your bearings and to help everyone get up to speed.

Later, once you understand the simple mechanic that is a “power hour” or a “syndication hour”, you will want to get AWAY from mixed groups with individuals that are not as far along in business/organization development as you are. You want to be teaming with true peers OR mentors. You want to be driven to grow and held accountable for that growth. These “semi-permanent” tribes can also exist on the SA board, with restricted access defined by whoever starts them. I have the community up to be a resource for that and it is fairly easy to accomplish.

If you have not had any hands on involvement with a syndication power hour, you may find some pointers useful.

1. Bring a new, high-quality, fresh piece of value content (blog post) weekly to syndicate within your tribe.

2. Keep your value-post to money-post ratio very high, for example 9:1. You’re tribe mates will syndicate your money posts AFTER they've established that you are providing value to their followers. You’re blog should be doing this anyways. You’re twitter stream should be a LOT of @reply names, a LOT of RTs, a LOT of value content, and a rare (let me say that again RARE) money post. These are principles of attraction marketing and if you struggle with that, I suggest you pick up Mike Dillards “Magnetic Sponsoring” e book (which I am thrilled to be an affiliate for!).

3. The SA tribes, while more than happy to walk you through the immediate basics are not a substitute for high caliber teaching and training. There is some hand-holding but remember these people are your colleagues, not your instructors. Be sure to take personal responsibility for your growth. If you’re ready for or needing classes, I HIGHLY recommend (and affiliate for) Tribe Syndication Mastery Intensive 2.0 (launching in under 2 weeks!, to teach you how to use this powerful new tool), Profit Being You Using Social Media & WordPress (to maximize your blogging and WordPress skills) and also Traffic Formula 2.0 (due to launch in June!, for exceptional ways to create traffic for your networking efforts) by Mike Dillard, author of Magnetic Sponsoring (Speaking of Magnetic Sponsoring, if you haven’t picked up this affordable and game changing eBook and system yet, you don’t know what your missing! )

Tribe Syndication Alliance Step-by-Step Outline

Four to Six members arrive on skype and get into a group chat or chat/call together. They each post their most recent value blog post that they wish to have syndicated. Everyone is going to syndicate everyone, so the steps below are repeated for each member.

When I go to a blog…

1. Look for anything I can join (Google Friend Connect, Fan/Business Pages, Networked Blogs, Nings) and join it (not autoresponders)
2. Leave a HIGH QUALITY comment (yes its hard while we’re all talking, some folks comment later)
3. Retweet (RT) the post, preferably customizing (aka “spinning”) it and adding a comment
4. Facebook share the post, on your wall and/or page, with a good comment and a tag to the author of the post
5. Social Bookmark the page with helpful tags (onlywire if you have it up is usually quickest)
6. If there is video involved, right click the video, select view on youtube/viddler, and rate and comment there on the video (have to sign in)
7. Wash/Rinse/Repeat

Three final actions:

1. Later that day, or the next day, on Facebook, comment on all of the posts that tagged you. Often these were posted on your Tribe Mate’s fan pages and they need the activity boost to help them gain traction for their page. It massively helps your exposure as well.
2. Be sure to thank all of your @reply mentions on Twitter. You’re hopefully already doing this daily. (You’re also talking to and getting to know your followers). A Twitter client like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck make this infinitely easier.
3. Then go back and reply to all/most of the comments on your blog post. Yes I said reply. Remember this is social media, not a “talk at” stream, you need to engage your commenters and reply and dialog and BUILD RELATIONSHIPS if you wish to be able to monetize that relationship later.

Now that you have the basics under your belt, here’s some “advanced” tips to help you squeeze every last ounce of utility out of that incredible Tribe!

Bonus Points for Maximizing your 
Syndication Alliance Results

These tips will launch your Tribe into over-drive! While unlikely to be present in a Tribe with Training Wheels that rotates regularly, these keys are crucial to getting the best results when you form up a static, professional tribe.

1. During the week, Tweet and RT their material several times. Be sure that their material is getting into your tweet stream regularly during the week.
2. Maximize the new Facebook RT (via) feature by sharing neat things your Tribe Mates post on Facebook with your fan base. This doesn’t need to be their material (no need to double post), but you let their name start showing up by using the share to show “via” who originally posted it.
3. On Tribe Mates blogs, check mid-week for new posts, and to reply-to-replies on comments.
4. Brainstorm with your tribe what niche each of you has that does NOT directly overlap, something SUPER-narrow usually, and make a habit of each sharing business with the other in those micro-niches. By referring the other, you build their credibility and more importantly your own.
5. Producing products and classes and giving your Tribe Mates “SA” Super Affiliate status, so they can benefit by helping you promote! (At least to your semi-permanent tribes!) Alsoconsider discounts on services.
6. If your Tribe Mate is an affiliate for something you plan to purchase, help them out by using their affiliate links (unless some one has helped you out a ton and your using theirs as a nice way to say thank you!)

SUMMARY

I hope this helps.  I know it can feel overwhelming at first, I certainly felt that way! Feel free to ask questions, I’m more than happy to help!  These steps give you the power to get your tribes up and running!

Tribe Syndication Alliances are the tool that levels the playing field. Each of you now have the potential to compete with the “big dogs” regardless of your advertising budget (or lack of!) These tips are the icing on the cake that will create cohesion, duration and sustainability of your Tribe!

How have Tribes helped YOU have the success you want? What tricks have you learned to make the Power Hour easier? What advice would you give someone just getting started with Tribe Syndication Alliance? What questions do you have? Leave a comment and I’ll talk to you soon!

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