#1: Reach your Audience

Engagement is all about connecting with your specific audience. If data tells you that most of your audience has children, then refer to that fact often to appeal to them emotionally.

#2: Leave Out The Boring Bits

A good writer leaves out the boring parts for a reason – no-one wants to read them. Only write about the exciting, the best, and the most inspirational to get your audience hooked.

#3: Have a Unique Voice

People don’t connect with bots, or bland personalities. They connect with real, dynamic people who share their concerns and problems.

#4: The Time Factor

Write for your audience as if they’re late for a meeting and only want to hear the crucial, entertaining, funny bits of the post. They scan your articles most often.

#5: Write What You Love Reading About

Passion comes across in writing, and yours needs to be in the right place. Share your passion with your community to wholly connect with them.

#6: The Headline Battle

In my experience 70% of the struggle is the headline. If you can create an excellent headline, you’re nearly there. So make yours
attract readers.

#7: Be Descriptive

Use descriptive terms, and describe things in easy and interesting ways so that people can understand them better. Leave out all of the ‘old hat’ clichés.

#8: Use The Right Tone

Tone can either draw in a reader, or keep them at arm’s length. Examine how you use tone, and work on it. Then lure them in with some quality tone!

#9: Be Real

It’s good to be your brand, but it’s also equally as important to be yourself. People want to know who you are, and why they should read you.

#10: Tell Stories

Perhaps the greatest of these social engagement steps is – tell stories. Relevance always helps people connect, so when you tell a relevant story involving a lesson that your reader needs to learn, they love it. These stories can be found everywhere, on the most successful blogs and social sites.

Add in a little anecdote mid blog-post to enhance your point, or use a story to outline why your reader is better off doing something completely different. Whatever you decide to do, always use stories to do it. That’s the mark of an emotive, logical writer.

Finally, and something of a bonus step – be transparent. People can spot fakery a mile away, and they don’t appreciate it. Be sincere, honest and friendly, and it will shine through in your writing!

Do you have a method of touching people’s hearts and minds with copy? How do you engage them? Let me know, here.

[Troll] – Defined, a troll is someone who deliberately posts a provocative or offensive message in a group, forum, comment section or on a message board – with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument.

How To Spot a Troll

It can be tough trying to identify a troll, especially when you could be horribly wrong and end up offending one of your long term readers, who has disagreed with you about something. Here’s how I spot trolls on our social media pages.

• They come out of no-where, i.e. they’ve never commented rationally before
• Sweeping statements that would outrage many people
• A complete disregard for the topic, attempts to derail rational conversation
• Absolutely no sense of humor, like they’re born combatant
• There is no or little personal information about them, i.e. no image or real name
• They use attention-seeking tricks, like making blatant claims, and huge lies
• Often poor grammar, as they could be children
• Sometimes seem plausible, but don’t stop causing arguments or trouble

Courtesy of pointsincase.com

How To Deal With These Foul Trolls

In my experience the absolute WORST thing you can do is respond to them, or fuel their argument. Trolls exist because they get a kick out of causing trouble and getting lots and lots of attention out of it. If I see an obvious troll on my blog, I delete their posts. They like nothing more than to enrage our community and cause trouble.

Step 1 is to remove their social posts if you can. If you can’t, then don’t respond to them at all. If you find other people are suddenly responding to their posts, kindly ask them not to in either private messaging or directly on the post. Try not to call them a ‘troll’ but if it comes down to it, at least your community will understand why you’re not talking to them.

Courtesy of programming4.us

Finally, if the conversation continues, accept the idea that the troll could be controlling both sides of the conversation. It’s not hard to do, and it’s a tactic I’ve seen done many times to draw other people into the conversation. Report them and ignore it. Hide, delete, remove or bury the message.

If you must, and I mean absolutely MUST respond, because they’ve insulted your fans or done something equally as awful – keep emotion out of it. A standard – please stop posting here, your IP has been reported’ will be fine.

I once had a troll that would not go away. Eventually I traced him back to his own blog! Trolls you see, love to cause trouble anonymously. If you know who they are, they will back off, as mine did when I emailed him on his blog!

Have you ever had a troll bother you on your social pages? What did they say and how did you deal with it? I’d like to know!

No surprises here – in my opinion, Facebook is still the most lucrative and savvy way to socially promote your business online. Add that fact to their recent 1 billion user tally, and their almost OCD-like need to update and evolve, and you have a pretty stable investment launching a decent Facebook business page.

#2: Pinterest Power

Pinterest is my number 2, because it’s the most recent and most revolutionary trend in media-based sharing online. The traffic (and growing sales) doesn’t lie.

#3: Youtube or Bust

Coming in third we have ever popular Youtube. Why? Because monetizing viral video has matured to the point where you can become a millionaire, if you have a hit video here. Say what you like about Google, but Youtube has an incredible ad platform.

Courtesy of realestategab.com

#4: LinkedIn Matters

LinkedIn has made some impressive changes of late, and more are to come. For the small business, it can be a powerful networking tool.

#5: What Did You Tweet?

Twitter comes in at a sulky number 5. It’s not that it’s a lesser social platform, but it terms of financial and traffic conversion – it just not as useful to a small business. That said, it should still be part of your social strategy.

#6: The Return of MySpace

I’m so excited about this revamp, I almost put MySpace at number 1. It has a lot of proving itself to do, but it’s already making a comeback. Ebiz recently reported it as the 4th most popular social networking site, ahead of Google+. If you’re in the media, use it.

#7: Google+ Traffic

If you have an e-commerce site, then Google+ is a must-have purely for its new business functions and SEO potential. Otherwise it’s horrible as a social network.

#8: Hello Yelp

Yelp, if you don’t know, is the huge online review directory for all things product or business based. It adds a lot of weight to SEO practices and social proof, which is why it comes in at eight.

#9: Digg a Little Deeper

Digg splashes onto our list at number 9, for being the most used (and most fun) social bookmarking site. If you’re not sharing here, get to it.

Courtesy of pikomal.com

#10: DeviantArt Anyone?

DeviantArt is a social networking site for all of the creatives online. It has serious merit for small businesses as you can find all sorts of great branding stuff here, not to mention superb artistry.

There you have it! Our top 10 list of social media sites according to how valuable they are to small businesses.

Do you agree with this list, or are there some placements you would change? Tell us where and why!

#1: Engage With Them on Twitter

Say hello, and contribute to their set conversation. Comment repeatedly for a week or two and really make friends with them. THEN ask to guest post for them.

#2: Direct Post Contribution

Instead of asking to contribute a post, just send the whole darn thing. If they’re interested, they’ll read the post and accept it. Make sure it’s not published anywhere else!

#3: Become a Big Facebook Fan

Bloggers track their fans interactions, so when you start sharing and caring about their brand – they notice you. Impress them with your ability to give, and they will hear you out.

#4: Join Their LinkedIn Group

If you can join their LinkedIn group – great! Spend some time answering expert queries and making a name for yourself there. Strike up a friendship with their group members first.

#5: Include a Link From Their Blog on Yours

Bloggers track their links like crazy. If you embed a link from one of their posts on yours, they’ll usually follow this to find out where it came from. Do this a few times.

#6: Get Your Name Out There

If you don’t have a blog of your own, then become a ‘bloggers best friend’ by being a voracious commenter. Always have something great to say on their blog pages.

#7: Participate in Live Conversations

If your blogger is hosting a real time Twitter Q&A, or perhaps a live webinar, or Google Hangouts sessions, get in on it. Meet them in real time and leave an impression.

#8: Become Friends With Their Friends

If you can’t get hold of a particular blogger, become friends with people they are friends with. Then try to secure a proper introduction through these channels.

#9: Give Them Lovely Compliments

Don’t be insincere, but read up about what they’ve done and compliment them on something. I once connected with a blogger by leaving a compliment on his amazon.com book page.

#10: Throw Money at Them

If you’ve tried all of these methods, and they’ve still chosen to ignore you – then throw money at them. You can do this by buying their books, ebooks or hiring them to do some paid work for you. At the very least it will get you that introduction. Then you can strike up a working relationship. Most of the time, this won’t happen though.

Bloggers are naturally social online, so they will respond to these prompts. Just remember that you need to give them a reason to respond. How do they know you? Who are you? A good response is, ‘oh yes, he’s that guy that always shares my Facebook posts.’

Can you think of another creative way to connect with a top blogger? I’d love to hear about it here!

The Old and The New MySpace

The old MySpace was big in the early days of social media, and then flunked out when the larger, more advanced sites like Facebook and Twitter rose to take its place in the later 2000’s. The overall consensus was that MySpace couldn’t adapt to change. It became stagnant and then fell under the crushing burden of being an out-dated social site.

After that, it took some wrong turns, essentially making things worse for itself online. It went from being a social network, to being a music social network, to being a music site with social network features, to being an advertising site with music and social features.

I don’t need to tell you how many people fled the MySpace sinking ship.

It was eventually sold to Specific Media and Justin Timberlake for a paltry $35 million dollars. That’s an astounding $545 million dollars less than what it was bought for a few years earlier!

MySpace rose to power in 2004, and attracted more than 75 million visitors at its peak in 2008. There’s no doubt – it was the first big thing in social media, aside from Friendster. But Facebook and its kin, killed the MySpace star.

Now, the strange media-celeb partnership will result in a new MySpace. What can we expect?

Courtesy of geeksugar.com

Justin MySpace

• You can expect to get started on the new Myspace (with the URL new.myspace.com!) by logging in with your Facebook or Twitter account.
• Upload a nice size image (up to 5mb), state your location and tell the world a bit about yourself (the famous subject line notorious on sites like LinkedIn, Facebook)
• Import your friends from Facebook and Twitter into MySpace.
• Bring your ‘stuff’ over from these sites, like your video and image albums.
• MySpace has more of a Pinterest-style layout now. It’s very customizable and focuses on music, video and media. It looks great!
• Innovative new ‘floating’ profile box on the left of the screen. Contains your profile, latest, mixes, connections, shop, events and music catalog.
• New trend in using ALL of the screen for image enhancement – another great innovation and well spotted by Specific Media.
• Top fans list and analytics for your music.
• Twitter-like updates for communication.

After reviewing their upcoming launch video, I have to say – I’m impressed. Before, the old MySpace was a crowded beach of old
code, poor design and tacky advertising. This new design is listening to what the people want.

They want media-focused design – they want ‘update’ features, and easier ways of sharing content in 2 seconds or less. Best of all, the people they had work on the new MySpace clearly have a firm grasp on modern social networking.

I feel strange about saying this, but I’d sooner use the new MySpace over Google+. They’ve scaled it up, toned it down and placed the right emphasis in the right places. I didn’t see any blatant advertising hanging around (yay!). I honestly think that Justin Timberlake and Specific Media have put the sexy back in MySpace.

We’ll see how the public reacts when it’s re-launched. All you music, film and media buffs however, would be wise to join. I predict MySpace will be to media, what LinkedIn is to business, and Pinterest is to images.

Check out the upcoming launch video here.

What do you like about the new MySpace? Share your insights with us below!

Courtesy of idiva.com

The Basic Social Infrastructure

Online shops have been using social media for a while, but only recently have they discovered the sheer traffic and sales potential of these platforms. Here are the must-have social buttons on your e-commerce site.

• Facebook buttons, like, share, comment
• Pinterest buttons, and each of your product images should be on Pinterest
• Twitter buttons
• Blog links

Recent stats prove that for small online shops Facebook can be a significant earner. A viral Facebook group can drive as much as 25% of the overall monthly traffic to a fairly automatic (unattended) online shop.

The potential of Pinterest is evident – take photos of your products in a social context, and see how responsive a built in audience can be. Pinterest users love to see your products in action, in how-to’s, reviews and tips images.

Twitter is a superb platform for announcing your latest sales and exclusive offers. Using tracked links to see who clicks on these specials, and figure out how you can make more people interested in your sales.

Your blog is a great place to create reviews, articles and information pieces on your products, or on topics surrounding your products. This is excellent for improving your SEO potential, which will attract more traffic to your sales website.

Using Social Apps To Enhance Your Online Shop

Forward thinking online shops are getting more involved with adding app functionality to their pages. These apps improve sales, and add specialized features to your pages that your customers appreciate. The group gifts app for example, allows your friends to buy a product at your store, by inviting a few of their friends to chip in on the price.

Through Facebook and Twitter, their social connections can login to the app on your page, and contribute money to purchase one of your products for a friend or for themselves. You’ll find interesting and enhancing apps like these all over the place.

Another app may allow users to check out third party reviews of your product, or will let them see your product close up, using a zoom plugin.

5 Must-Have Social Promotions

• Do stalk your competitors social pages to see what they’re up to
• Do promote your online shop on your core social pages: FB, Twitter, Pinterest
• Do give your social media members lots of free gifts and discounts
• Do add as much social proof to your online shop as possible
• Do gather every single customer’s email address for continued marketing

It’s easy to think of social media as an ‘extra’ for your online shop. The truth is, that with trends going the way they are – the shops that focus on social media, will get the lion’s share of sales. People want to buy from people, and know that others in their social networks have bought from you as well!

This is the secret of building a quality online shop! Do you know how to make your online shop more social? Add your tip below!

Courtesy of techcrunch.com

The LinkedIn Homepage Revamp

The most obvious change to come in recent days, has been the homepage design revamp, replacing the uncomfortable stark whiteness that made LinkedIn famous – with a black header and a more symmetrical layout. Better yet the functionality has been updated as well, and the site actually loads faster.

Overall LinkedIn has adopted a more modern look, following in the footsteps of Youtube, Facebook and Twitter. Gone are the older ‘open white space’ methodologies, and instead the site has embraced the traditional web 2.0 use of geometric shapes to make sense of the online space. It works, it really does.

The homepage reads like a personal business update – at the top is the news that LinkedIn recommends for you, and then comes the list of interactions and connections that your business network is making. The right hand column has morphed into a wonderfully handy set of tools. From ‘people you may know’ to ads, profile view stats, group suggestions and other plugins that you’ve added to your profile.

What To Do: Update your status daily to stay in your network feed. You can comment in groups, make new connections or answer LinkedIn questions. Whatever interaction you achieve will be published on your network’s news board.

LinkedIn has finally moved towards a more personal look and feel, with greater customizations and clear focus on interaction. It’s seems like they’ve sat back, eagerly watching the other networks and what they’ve done – and have implemented lessons based on that. The only thing to say is that it all works, very well. It’s an instant improvement.

Things You Should Be Changing

With a redesign, comes new features and enhancements. With the LinkedIn changes a few things are now more obvious. Your profile image for example, is larger and more emphasized. LinkedIn says that a great profile photo will get you clicked on 7X more than if you had no profile image at all.

Your descriptive tagline that explains who you are is also more prominent, so think of something really good to place here. The revamp brings new SEO opportunities. Perhaps it’s time you removed that old summary and replaced it with something more dynamic.

Spend time making your LinkedIn profile engaging and worth reading. It is still one of the most important pieces of information about you online. Your clients, friends, family, employees and colleagues will see your LinkedIn profile often.

If you don’t yet have any recommendations make a point of getting at least two. They enhance your page and will help you complete your profile. LinkedIn says more changes will be coming very soon – and we can’t wait! If they’re as good as this redesign, we’re in for a treat!

What do you think about the new LinkedIn changes? Do you like them or hate them – why? We want to know!

Courtesy of businessgrow.com

#1: Screenshots of Social Proof

If you have a social media strategy in place, then your Klout score can get pretty high. Klout will always assign a number to you, based on the ‘social influence’ they see you having. You can leverage this ever-changing number by snapping screenshots of it, when it’s particularly high – and then using these images in marketing materials and videos as social proof.

Tip! Post your high score on Pinterest to get comments about your brand from your fans, and from the Pinterest world at large.

#2: A Public Certification Program

If your company is in the technology field, in social media, SEO, web design or any number of other ‘modern’ industry choices,
then your Klout score will act as your badge of honor. It proves to your clients that you understand the online social landscape, and when they see who and how you influence people, they’ll feel comfortable giving their business to you.

Tip! Add a link to your Klout score on your email signature, on business cards – anywhere that will make it easy for your potential clients to see it, and check it out.

#3: Work on Improving Your Score

In the industry 50 is considered an elite Klout score, with above average coming in at 30, and 20 to be average. If you improve your Klout score, or work towards getting a really great score, you can unlock all sorts of opportunities. For example, having a high Klout score attracts media attention, and is a fast way to prove to a blogger or journalist, that you are an influencer in your niche.

Tip! Use your Klout score to land awesome interviews with bloggers and journalists to get your business more public exposure.

#4: Find Highly Engaging Influencers

Part of your social media strategy should be to invite ‘influencers’ in your niche to posts blogs and create content for your sites. Klout is a great way to find these people, as those with higher Klout scores are naturally more engaging or interactive online. It sure beats sending 50 emails to 50 different ‘experts’ and getting 3 replies.

Tip! Find 5 influencers with high Klout scores and get them to guest post on your blog. Their high scores mean that they’ll have large social networks, for more traffic!

Klout is an excellent platform to use, if it enhances your social profile online. Be careful though – if you’re going to promote your Klout score, make sure it’s always high. This means a dedicated social strategy with everyday posting and engagement.

How do you use Klout to leverage your business? Leave a tip for the SMM community, and begin your rise to social influence!

Courtesy of charlottemagazine.com

#1: Hating Your Job

Everyone moans about their job sometimes. But regularly stating on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ how you can’t bare to be there, because you hate it so much – will lead to one thing – being fired. Your boss will free you from all the hate!

#2: Public Persecution

Saying horrible things about your boss or about one of your bosses is the fastest route to being fired. What YOU say about them, becomes part of their social profile. They won’t like that coming up when their clients, friends and family search their name in Google.

#3: Drinking and Driving

Nothing says ‘I’m glad I hired this model citizen’ like photos of you and your friends drinking while driving on a night out. Its real grounds to fire you, as it casts a dark shadow on your company. Your boss will not like it.

#4: Public Drunkenness and Hangovers

Being late for work, and lying to your boss is all fine and well – except when you’ve just updated your Facebook page stating how hungover you are from the massive party you went to last night.

#5: Relationship Trouble

You can get fired over relationship trouble! When you work for a company, remember that your actions are their actions. Don’t tell people your personal life story online!

#6: Your Great Timeline Milestones

Don’t place a relationship history on your timeline, if you switch partners often, and don’t make ‘taking my first shot of absinthe’ a milestone. It tells your story, make your story worthy of the job that you have.

#7: Steer Clear of Controversy

If you were involved in an extremist meeting, or decided to take cute photos of your kids doing something inappropriate – remember – your boss might not understand your particular brand of humor, or irony.

#8: Moonlighting

Trying to find another job while allowing everyone at your current work – access to that information, doesn’t bode well for you. If moonlighting is a no-no in your contract, it’s probably best to source jobs outside of social media.

#9: Cursing A LOT

Some people curse a lot in social media. If you nurture a clean cut, upstanding image in the workplace, and speak like a sailor online – your boss will wonder who they hired.

#10: Posting Anything Bad FROM Work

Even a semi-controversial post, done from your desk at work can cause problems. Your boss will not be happy you’re using work time to waste time. Make sure you post a lot socially, after work – not when your boss can see how little work you’ve been doing.

Can you think of any other posts that might get you fired? Add yours to the list, and share with the SMM community!

Courtesy of altimetergroup.com

The Enterprise Surprise

Perhaps Google+ has finally realized that it will never be the ‘next’ Facebook – whatever has happened, Google+ may finally be heading in the right direction.

Google+ already sparks business interest because of its ‘SEO’ potential, but now with new features like restricted posts for app customers – which gives businesses the power to control who sees their posts – more businesses are sitting up and taking notice.

The app market is growing, and competition is one the rise. Microsoft just bought Yammer for 1.2 billion dollars, so Google+ is looking to reclaim some of the market. Recently, Google has been downplaying its similarities to Facebook, instead calling itself an ‘upgrade.’

Interesting tactic, seeing as when Google+ was launched there were millions of people all over the internet who said that it was built to be a direct challenge to Facebook. You have to admire the resilience of a platform that re-invents itself after initial ‘failure.’

The ‘enterprise’ version of Google+ will be a social network for businesses. People will be able to communicate on this platform, outside of email, at work. At least, that’s the idea.

Google Apps certainly has the juice to compete with Microsoft’s ‘Yammer’ and perhaps even more established business networks like LinkedIn.

A Few Fancy New Features

• Video meetings integrated with gmail, docs and calendar
• Admin controls for business users
• Company specific viewing of certain posts
• Google+ calendar integrated directly with Hangouts

Right now, these features are free until the end of 2013, says Google. This makes me worry that someone deep in the bowels of Google is going to monetize the heck out of these features in the future. That’s one way to permanently end this social network.

Unless Google can get millions of people using Google+ compulsively at work, demanding money for their services will NEVER work. Google may be a great business platform, but it could easily be ruined by over-ambition or money-grubbing.

These features are only available to Google apps customers by the way, so it may not be ideal for the small business with 0 investment.

Time will tell whether this bold move by Google will pay off. Personally, I think it’s a nod in the right direction. Google+ is great with apps, and its SEO potential is invaluable.

On SEO alone, Google has already snagged some business platforms. Small businesses are using it, strictly for that. But as I said, this could go one of two ways. Either it’s an excellent play by Google, or another desperate attempt to make Google+ relevant before it fizzles out.

Do you like the new Google+ enterprise features, and will they make you use Google+ more often? I want to hear it from you!