Your brand is what your customers think it is, not what you think it is. So listen, engage, and if the message you want is not the message they’re repeating, alter your strategy.

If a company stays away from social media so as to avoid negative online feedback they will accomplish two things:

1. They will be unaware of problems that might have been easily resolved but when left alone may become much bigger problems.
2. They will be miss a valuable opportunity to fix minor problems and turn cranky customers into happy evangelizers.

Mashable wrote an excellent post recently sharing three terrific examples of how major brands monitored, managed and resolved (or not) some important brand missteps and criticism.

Bottom line: The conversation about you is going on with or without you. You can only influence it if you are aware of it.  Every company should be active on Facebook and Twitter, at the very least, to monitor and influence their brand reputation.  Every company should have a google alert set for their key words and get that digest daily.  Every company should search their brand name or the name of their current campaign on Twitter daily.

7 Blog Strategies for Brand Visibility

Most people do not think of themselves as brands.  They think of themselves as having a great, marketable idea or a top-notch marketing tool or a book or motivational speech, but not as a brand.  Viewing yourself, and therefore your product, as a brand will clarify the steps needed to take your idea, product or self out into the world and connect with consumers.  Here are 7 quick blogging strategies you can adopt, right now, to boost your visibility and build you brand into a sales driving machine.

7 quick blogging strategies you can adopt right now

1. Blog:

   If you’re not blogging, you’re missing an important opportunity to spell out exactly who you are and what you offer to consumers in a way that positions you as a thought leader in your area of expertise.  You can start a blog on WordPress or Blogger in minutes, and for free.  No excuses on this one.  As Nike says, “Just do it.” When I started my blog, I used my very first post to clearly share exactly what my brand stands for and to announce my presence to the waiting world.  I also used that first post to establish my brand voice; personal, intimate, transparent.

2. Guest blog:

   Take your expertise out to the world by offering to guest blog for larger websites.  In the last few months, I’ve written several blog articles for major sites such as Oprah.com.  Doing so increased my visibility and helped bring my work to a new audience. The key when blogging for other sites is to make sure that you speak to that sites audience interests while still maintaining your own brand voice.  I loved writing for Oprah.com because I was able to talk about overcoming challenges, which is just one element in developing a strongly branded platform.

3. Encourage Discussion:

   Blog posts that give step-by-step how-to information about a topic in which you are a pro will be highly viewed, encourage questions and responses and will increase your social currency as a teacher.  A recent post on the blog Social Media Examiner by Nick Shin garners more than 214 questions and comments and another 752 retweets.  That’s valuable word of mouth brand building.

4. Lists:

   Creating blog posts with lists is a spectacularly easy way to encourage other people to link to your post and provided info nuggets for a fast read. Darren Rowse of Problogger.com says lists can be short, they are pleasing to the eye and they are very likely to be passed on to others.

5. Listen:

   Check your Google analytics for some real insight into what your followers want from you.  I wrote a post on How to Add a Twitter Button to your Facebook Fan Page more than a year ago that still ranks as the #1 draw to my website, so recently I updated it to reflect Facebook’s new look and added visuals to help people understand the instructions.

6. Be Provocative:

   I wrote a piece called “Bacon and Book Marketing Strategies” to illustrate the value in keeping up on trends. This piece spoke to my audience with humor but also grabbed the attention of a wider consumer base and brought new readers to my blog.

7. Re-purpose your content:

   As new people find and follow your blog, don’t be shy about bring up older posts and introducing them as a resource to this new groups of followers. Blogging powerful, useful content is a key component in my Maximum Visibility Plan.

I invite you to post a link here to the blog post you think best illustrates one of these ideas.

Adding a Twitter Button on the wall of your Facebook Business Page–not your personal profile–allows people to easily find and follow you on Twitter.  You want people to be able to interact with you on any social platform they frequent, so adding a convenient way to connect with you on Twitter is a key visibility strategy.  I’ve blogged about this in the past, but since Facebook has changed it’s face so many times in the last year, I thought people might need these updated step-by-step instructions.  Please feel free to post a comment here if anything is fuzzy and I’ll clarify or illuminate any issues you are having.

The blue Facebook Bar contains the white search window

Step One: Install the Static FBML (Facebook Mark-up  Language) Application to your page. To find this application, enter the words “Static FBML” in the search window on the blue bar at the top of your page.

Step Two:  When you get to the Application page, click “Add to My Page” which you’ll find directly underneath the Avatar image on the upper left hand side of the page.

Step Three:  An overlay screen will pop up and list the names of any pages associated with your profile that do not already have Static FBML installed.  You’ll click the “Add to Page” button next to the page on which you wish to install this application.

Static FMBL App

Step Four:  Go back to your profile and click  “Ads and Pages” on the left hand side of the page.

Locate the newly installed FBML app

Step Five:  Click Edit under the FBML application in your list of applications on your page.

Step Six: A box will appear that can be customized.  You’ll title it “Follow Me On Twitter” or “Tweet with Me” or something that invites people to follow you there.

Name Your New Tab

Step Seven:  Enter your HTML coding into the FBML box for your custom designed Twitter button or you can use google to find a variety of sites that offer free Twitter images.  I like  Twitter Buttons where you can enter your Twitter name into the automatic code generator and they provide you with the HTML code you need to create a button.

Either way, once you’ve entered your desired code, press “Save Changes.”

Step Eight: Go back to your page and click the + sign on your tabs bar. Locate your new “Follow Me On Twitter” box and click on it.

You’ll see that the phrase “Follow Me on Twitter” has now become a custom tab on your screen.

You can either keep your image, which is now a live link, under this custom tab or you can move it to the wall going to your “Boxes” tab and clicking on the blue pencil to the right of the Twitter box until you see an option to “Move to Wall Tab.” If you want your new Twitter button to appear on your Wall, choose this option.

Here’s how your completed new Twitter Button will look.

Click on the Twitter image to double check your coding and make sure it leads you to your Twitter Page and you’re all set.  Tweet away.



Catcher in the Sky's Lisa Gordon

Lisa Gordon spent two decades at the top of her field in advertising sales for newspapers and magazines like Time, Real Simple, Prevention and Entertainment Weekly. When her industry took a particularly hard hit as the economic climate worsened, she realized that she needed to reinvent herself, add to her skill set and move forward without looking back.  Lisa’s transformation took her from old school, traditional communications to the new high tech and cutting edge world of app development.  We caught up with Lisa recently to ask her five questions about her reinvention process.

RATZLAFF:

Your background is in print advertising sales and sales management, how did you make the leap to developing mobile apps?

GORDON:

I spent more than twenty years in businesses related to ad sales. When I started
working in the 1980’s I was in a thriving field with no end in sight. I could
never have guessed what kind of atrophy would occur this many years later.
When my oldest son went to kindergarten I was experiencing a lot of personal
upheaval and was in the fortunate financial position to take some time off to be
with my kids. After three or four years I started thinking about getting back to
work. By this time, newspapers and magazines were closing all over the country.

It was clear that I could not go back to a vanishing industry.

I had had my own business for ten years so the idea of going back into business
for myself was a very attractive one. Having some time off gave me the insight I
needed to break from my rut. I contacted a former colleague and we
brainstormed ideas for more than a year. With an idea in hand, we consulted with
a dear and successful friend who gave us direction. In the end, our app has
nothing to do with any of our original business ideas.

RATZLAFF:

What do you find to be the biggest challenges in starting over in an industry that is not just new to you, but new in general?

GORDON:

Actually the easy part is starting in a new industry. I embrace the challenge of
learning something new. The difficult part is the fact that the industry is new.
There are no real experts yet. The app industry is growing at an exponential
pace. It seems like everyone is learning by trial and error and what worked last month, won’t necessarily work this month. Being part of this Wild West is fascinating to experience from the inside.

RATZLAFF:

Your apps, NameCatcher and NameCatcher Biz help people to remember names of acquaintances. What inspired you to create these apps?

GORDON:

For the most part it was born out of necessity. My partner and I both have young children and I have an aging father. Just through our kid’s activities and my dad’s caregivers, new people, acquaintances, really, come in and out of our lives regularly. These people are important to us, but sometimes it is just hard to remember all of the names and how we know them. It can be embarrassing to keep asking people to repeat their names. As a regular user of my own app, I have seen how good it makes someone feel when they are remembered.

RATZLAFF:

You and your partner both have marketing backgrounds. Can you share your thinking on how you’ll go about marketing your apps?

GORDON:

One very interesting thing about this app is when people see it or hear about it they
instantly know how they would fit it into their own life. And, everyone thinks they
are our demographic. The truth is, nearly everyone with an iPhone is our
demographic. As exciting as it is to have the millions of iPhone users as possible
users, such a broad audience is hard to reach. So, we have broken down the possible
users by category and are targeting them individually. So for example, we speak to
“mom” targets differently than we do to our Boomer targets. We will often break
those targets down even further so we can speak directly not generically.

RATZLAFF:

What advice would you give to someone who wants to get into the mobile app business or any new business for that matter?

GORDON:

• Start with a great idea, but be flexible as to how it can work as an app.
• Get a basic understanding of the app business and the available platforms before investing any money.
• If you are not technical, hire the right people who are. If you are not good at marketing, hire someone who is.
• Never get comfortable with the way things are because they will change.

Both NameCatcher and NameCatcher Biz are available for download at itunes and readers can find more information about the company, Catcher in the Sky, on their website.

Mrs. P's photo by Jacqueline Veissid

While businesses, public figures, celebrities and authors know the importance of adding social media to their outreach strategy in order to bring their message and brand to the more than 500 million users of various social platforms, the age limitation for participating on some social media platforms has made it challenging to use them to reach children directly.  One team understands that reaching the influencers and the parents is more important than speaking directly to children in a marketing campaign.  The creators of MrsP.com mastered the art of the conversation and are demonstrating the importance of relationships and partnerships when it comes to growing their brand and spreading their message.

The face of MrsP.com is Kathy Kinney, best known for her nearly decade long portrayal of the role of Mimi Bobeck on The Drew Carey Show.  She is well on her way to creating another iconic character in Mrs. P, the fantastically quirky ambassador of reading who shares her love of books through an engaging and interactive website for children.

A cross between Mr. Rogers and Pee Wee Herman, Kathy Kinney’s Mrs. P brings books to life as she reads classic children’s stories in a series of webisodes.

Her talking fireplace, magical bookshelves and games are designed to appeal to emergent readers up through tweens (the scary book room will particularly appeal to this age group).  Mrs. P, herself, graciously agreed to be our guest this week for “Five Questions with the Expert” and share a few of her thoughts about using social media to spread her love of reading. In fact, she was so delightful, she answered a bonus question!

RATZLAFF:

You have a fabulously interactive destination website for children. How are you using social media to reach young readers?

MRS. P:

I’m not trying to reach my young readers directly since most are under the age of 12, but rather their parents and the other adult influencers in their lives — teachers, librarians, literacy advocates and organizations. I have found blogs to be a very effective way to spread the word about Mrs. P, whether as a guest blogger or by enlisting their sites to announce events like my annual writing contest. I’ve been using Twitter to meet these bloggers and fans. But I’m not really interested in showing up Shaquille O’Neal and getting the most Twitter followers in the world, but prefer to connect with people who share my same passion for literacy. I try to have personal and meaningful conversations with my followers and love to share articles about the tremendous importance of reading to children. As much as I’m tempted, because I love to talk about myself, I try not to make it only about me. I’m also proud of the give-and-take on my website. If someone posts news about Mrs. P on their site, we will re-post their story on my site, introducing them to our audience.

RATZLAFF:

How do you separate your Mrs. P persona from the business side of running a website?

MRS. P:

I like to keep focused on my mission as Mrs. P, which is to spread the joy of books and reading. When I receive invitations for interviews, appearances, and business relationships, I ask them to contact my business partner, Dana, who handles that side of the house. She considers the validity of the inquiries and deals with the technical details so that my online presence can just be about Mrs. P’s mission – and having fun!

RATZLAFF:

Can you describe a day in the social media world for Mrs. P?

MRS. P:

I try and ensure that there is something new and fun on my Facebook site several times a week. I have a much smaller audience there than on Twitter, where I make an effort to engage with my followers every morning and evening. I also coordinate with my “elves” to make sure my website has fresh news and engaging messages on my “Did you hear…” page. I’m lucky because there seems to be so much good news lately about my site that I can share with my audience.

RATZLAFF:

Is there any one social platform that performs better than others to help you connect with the influencers who help you spread your literacy message?

MRS. P:

While Mrs. P has very active Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and You-Tube accounts, I do think that Twitter has been the most effective. For example, Everybody Wins! USA, a literacy organization for which I am an honorary board member, will occasionally build Tweet campaigns with us, and together, we grow our audiences and spread news about the importance of literacy.

RATZLAFF:

Have you incorporated video or audio into your social media strategy?

MRS. P:

Video has been a key element in our social media strategy. The team at Mrs. P created a fun music video called “Listen Up, Kids” to get young people excited about reading. We made it available as a free download on iTunes. I asked our fans to post it on their blogs and Tweet about it, and in the first day, we had 25,000 downloads! We also posted it on YouTube to let people know it was free. We had a similar experience with the winning entries from my writing contest. Again, we had over 22,000 downloads the first day by using social networking to spread the word. I think if you have a strong mission and are also willing to give something meaningful away for free, it’s a powerful combination. It’s certainly worked well for Santa Clause over the years, and it’s also built a great deal of awareness for the Mrs. P brand.

RATZLAFF:

I heard a rumor that Mrs. P has plans to create mobile apps.  Any truth to that rumor?

MRS. P:

Oh, yes. The mobile world is a wave I really need to be riding! So in September I will launch a free (there’s that wonderful word again!) Reading Challenge app for the iPhone. It will be a fun and engaging way to test reading comprehension. And it’s yet one more way to bring awareness to literacy and to my website.

Parents, librarians, grandparents and teachers can find Mrs. P on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube and of course children can visit her magical library, choose a book from her shelves and have Mrs. P read them a classic.

Facebook is effectively, in addition to being a micro-blogging and communication platform, a search engine. One of the reasons an author needs to be on Facebook is to increase his or her visibility and therefore, help readers find his/her work. Facebook provides three different types of pages to choose from and each has rules, advantages and disadvantages.

Personal Profile
A personal profile is, by Facebook’s own terms of use, a page for people to list themselves by their real name and interact with friends of their choosing. People who connect to a personal profile are referred to as “Friends.” It is against Facebook’s rules to set up a personal profile for your business, your book, your dog or a dead saint. Facebook can, if it chooses, close fraudulent profiles and all the work you’ve done to create that page will be lost along with all of your friends. I recommend that you set up a personal profile, adhering to all of the rules before setting up a Facebook Fan Page (see below). Having a personal profile and setting up a Facebook page from that profile will allow authors to utilize more custom application on the Fan Page. A Fan Page can be created without first creating a personal profile, but doing so limits the customization options available. If the Facebook rules don’t convince you to do this properly, there’s another good reason. A personal profile can only accept 5,000 people as friends. At 5,001, new friends will start receiving a message from Facebook stating that you are over your friend limit and cannot accept any new friends. Trust me and set up your personal profile first.

Facebook Fan Page

Fan Pages are best option that Facebook provides for creating a branded social media presence for you the writer.

This is best option that Facebook provides for creating a branded social media presence for you the writer, for your book, and for your career. People who connect to a Facebook Fan Page must click the “Like” button in order to receive updates from the Page. Once they “Like” a page, they are still referred to by most people as Fans. Because you followed my advice and set up a personal profile first, you can now create custom tabs for your Facebook Fan Page such as “About the Book,” “More about the Author,” “Tour Schedule,” or whatever custom information you’d like to make available to fans. Facebook allows a Fan Page to have an unlimited number of Fans. This is good news for an author or speaker who is working to amass the largest possible list of followers and spread the word about a new book, appearance or project far and wide. Authors can even create an opt-in box and invite fans to subscribe to an e-newsletter, all from a Facebook Fan Page. Facebook Fan Pages are indexed by Google and therefore, they increase an author’s search engine ranking by putting out new, original content regularly.

Facebook Groups
People who join a Facebook Group are called Members. One advantage of Facebook Groups is that they can be made public or kept private. At this writing Facebook Groups are not indexed by Google and that is the single biggest reason for author’s to create a Fan Page over a Group. Unlike pages, groups allow to send out “bulk invites” so you can invite all your friends to join the group. With Pages, you’ll have to invite people individually. Groups are good for spreading a message or brand name through viral marketing, because any group member can also send bulk invites to his or her complete list of friends. But, and this is a big but, Groups are not indexed by search engines yet and that is my number one reason for recommending Pages over Groups to promote an author and his or her work.

I hope this look at Facebook options helps authors, speakers and entrepreneurs start right and maximize their promotional efforts on Facebook. I strongly recommend that all authors create profiles and pages for their work and look forward to answering any questions about the use of Facebook to promote books.

What is this amazing tool?  It’s Twitter.  Within a short time of being an active Twitter user, you’ll begin to see the word “Lists” in the upper right hand corner of your Twitter profile, right next to Followers and Following.  Lists is a clickable link.  Click on it and you’ll see how your Followers have categorized you.  You’ll see their Twitter name and what they named the list to which they added your Twitter name.

The bulk of the lists I’ve been added to seem to be Authors, Marketing, Social Media, Peeps to Follow.  I’m pleased that my brand message has been consistent and clear.  If the lists had been Rockstar, Pastry Chefs, travel agents; then I’d have had some work to do in focusing my brand message to attract the following I desire.

Once you check Twitter Lists to see how your followers perceive your brand, take some time to interact with those Twitter followers who took the time to put you on a list.  Go to the profiles of two or three each day.  Read a few of their most recent posts.  Comment, add value and interact.  The chances are good that if they’re following you, then their followers might also be interested in you and you in them.

Twitter Lists are a great way to filter the noise of Twitter and find engaged, interested people who want to hear what you have to say.  Those lists are creating conversations about you!

Alisa has a gift for creating bestselling books.  She has ghostwritten and collaborated on six New York Times bestsellers. Her works have collectively sold more than 2 million copies.  A former magazine editor and newspaper reporter, Alisa has written for Better Homes & Gardens, Women’s Health and many other national magazines. The concept behind her blog, Project: Happily Ever After, won her a book deal with Running Press and her book will be published in January 2011.

Five Questions with Expert Alisa Bowman

Writer, Author, Blogger Alisa Bowman

RATZLAFF:

You have a well-read blog that you’ve been able to spin off into a book deal.  What’s different between blogging and crafting a book?

BOWMAN:

This will sound like a giant, “duh,” but a blog is the short form and a book is the long form. It’s similar to the difference between running a 5-K and running a marathon. For the former, you can probably run the race without any training. For the later, if you try to run it without training and preparation, you’ll end up in the medic tent.

But that’s what many bloggers try to do when they attempt to take the leap from blog to book. Thanks, in part, to online courses and workshops that encourage this, they mine everything from their blog, slap it all together in a logical order, and write a few transitions. Voila, they call this a book. While it might technically be a book — it has 60,000 words sandwiched between two covers — it’s not going to be a book that sells. The best books have a personality (a strong voice) and a hook. They can be summed up in one sentence (the so-called elevator pitch), and they fill a deep need in the reader. They solve a problem–whether that problem is boredom or the need for an escape (for novels and memoir) or something more physical (like diabetes), and they solve this problem in a unique, memorable way.

I have a ghost writing background, so I’ve written many more books than the one that is branded with my blog. (Notice, I said “branded” with the blog and not “based on” the blog). I’ve penned more than 30. For each one of them, I followed a similar process, and that process starts with studying the competition. When I was thinking about the Project: Happily Ever After memoir, I bought and read nearly every memoir that had ever been written. I studied them. I thought about what made some successful and others not so much. More important, I spent quite a bit of time thinking about how mine would be different. How would I tell a story about my marriage in a way that had never been told before? How would I address marriage in a new, refreshing way, one that would resonate with readers? What was the one sentence that would tie the entire book together, the one that I could say on TV, “This book tells the story of ….”? To distinguish Project: Happily Ever After from other relationship books, I wrote about topics that most people don’t write about. I wrote about how I was so unhappily married that I planned my husband’s funeral. I wrote about the fights we had over how to fold the laundry. I wrote about sex, and how I dreaded having it. More important, I wrote about embarrassing things: about the envy and jealousy I felt when my husband was unemployed, because, deep down, I wanted the opportunity to be the person on the recliner who watched TV all day long. In writing about all of that, it’s my hope that I created a book that stands out from the others on the shelf. I hope I wrote the first book that allows unhappily married people to feel normal. It’s also, as far as I know, the first relationship book that uses a true story as a parable that others can learn from, complete with tips and a marriage improvement guide at the end. Oh, and it has a happy ending. Oddly, that’s different, too. Most marriage memoirs either start or end with a divorce

RATZLAFF:

How did you grow your blog following from launch to the kind of following that was attractive to a book publisher?

BOWMAN:

In the beginning, I told all of my friends about it, and I begged them to read it. That didn’t work so well. So then got depressed. Then I obsessively checked my blog stats, as if doing so would somehow elevate them. That depressed me even more. Then I read about building a following and everything I read said the same thing: write good content and the following will come. I have to say that advice is pretty much spot on. The following doesn’t come overnight, mind you. There are some bloggers who go from zero to a million visitors in one year, and then there are the rest of us who capture a following slowly over time. But great content is definitely the most important part of the equation. You can’t write a half-assed blog (just as you can’t write a half-assed book). If you don’t put your heart and soul into it–if you are not absolutely passionate about it–potential readers will notice, and they will go elsewhere.

Other techniques that helped included:

• Hiring an SEO (search engine optimization) expert to help me make my blog more Google friendly
• Guest posting on larger blogs
• Getting quoted in the media. One quote in a CNN.com article about Jon and Kate sent 10,000 readers to my blog in just one day.
• Networking with other bloggers who have promoted my blog to their following, and I’ve done the same in return. I highly recommend blogging conferences, especially the smaller ones like Blissdom and Type A Mom. They allow you to meet other bloggers who will remember you–and who you will remember. These smaller conferences foster a true camaraderie.
• Writing somewhat viral “list” posts and promoting them through social networking

RATZLAFF:

How often do you post on your blog?

BOWMAN:

I used to try to post everyday, because I’d read somewhere that all good bloggers do that. You know what? I have a full-time freelance writing career and a family. Posting everyday did one thing: it burned me out. When you are burned out, you don’t produce good content. At least I sure don’t.

So now I try to post 2 to 3 times a week. Some weeks, I get on a roll and feel super inspired, so I post more often. But I don’t smack myself on the butt and force myself to post if I’m having a busy day or if I’m not feeling it. I give myself a break.

RATZLAFF:

What other activities do you engage in, online, to help your blog readership grow?

BOWMAN:

I have a strong Facebook presence. It could be stronger (I still don’t have a fan page!), but it has definitely allowed me to capture a secondary blog audience. I’ve friended just about everyone I’ve ever known: high school and college classmates, former co-workers, blogging buddies, fellow freelance writers, family members, friends, and people who I don’t really know but who are in the same networking groups I am. I also allow my blog readers to friend me. My blog feeds into Facebook, and this has allowed all of those contacts to stay up with my blog without going to it. It’s a softer sell than emailing my friends and asking them to check out my latest post. And now most of my friends do read my blog. More important, my fellow freelance writers generally keep me in mind when they are writing about sex and marriage, and they call me to get my take.

I’m also on Twitter, but as most people who follow me know, I’m quite sporadic about my presence there.

RATZLAFF:

What’s the #1 piece of advice you’d give to new bloggers?

BOWMAN:

I have three tips:

1. Be you. Too often people try to copy super successful blogs. This doesn’t work. You have something unique to offer the world. Find it and put it out there.
2. Be courageous: If a topic scares you, you should definitely write about it. We’re usually scared to write about our weaknesses and our failures, but other people love to read about those topics because it makes them feel stronger and more successful. If you don’t believe me, read Penelope Trunk for a while. She has a huge following, and it’s because she makes her life sound like a daily train wreck.
3. Be willing to break the rules: Be a nonconformist. No rule was made to be followed 100 percent of the time. For instance, people will tell you that blog posts should be short. You know what? My most popular post to date was 2000 words long. People will tell you that you should post every day. You know what? Tim Ferris only posts once a week and he has more than a million readers. People will tell you that you need to stick to your niche. You know what? Many successful bloggers don’t do this 100 percent of the time. Again, study Penelope Trunk. Her blog is supposed to be about career advice, but usually it’s about her screwed up relationship with this farmer she’s dating and sort of marrying but also sort of not marrying. (Yep, you’re so going over there now, aren’t you?)

I love hearing how writers are crafting a living from their talent and I hope these insights from Alisa are useful to you.  Be sure to visit Alisa on her blog, her Facebook profile, her website and her Twitter Account.  Say hi and let her know you met her here.  Alisa is a great example of a writer who knows how to Create Conversations about You!

Many business owners say they just don’t always know what to tweet about. I advise them to tweet about events they’re hosting, new products they’re launching, tips and strategies that will be useful to people in their industry and in general to talk to their customer on Twitter exactly the way they would in person. But even the most prolific among us can sometimes be at a loss for ideas. I’ve shared before that I subscribe to several great blogs and use some of those posts as tips to tweet out to my followers.

Another great idea comes from Mana Ionescu via Twitip. Because Tweets are short, they are often very similar to article headlines so an RSS feed may be the right solution for those who want to subscribe to tweets alongside their news and blogs in a reader such as Google Reader. Twitter has an RSS solution only for your Favorites, so here is a simple way to turn any Twitter list into an RSS feed for your favorite reader.

Follow these steps for a simple and quick solution:

1. Create a list of people you want to follow closely; people who regularly put out quality content that you often share with your friends and followers. For example I follow the Forbes.com list of the Top 30 Women Entrepreneurs to Follow on Twitter. You can create your own custom list or access an existing list. If you haven’t created a list before, look in the right column of your Twitter account and click “New list.” You’ll be prompted to name the list and then add peeps to the list.
2. Copy URL of list. Once you are viewing the list, copy the URL from your browser window.
3. Go to this simple set up page aptly called Twitterlist2RSS and follow the easy two step process to generate an RSS feed URL.
4. Copy the generated RSS URL from your browser window.
   
5. Paste that RSS URL into your favorite reader to create a subscription.

You’ll be able to browse your own custom list of influential tweets along side your favorite blogs and news headlines and have an unlimited source of great information to share with your friends and followers. By passing along valuable tips and techniques, you become a trusted resource and create conversations about you.

Guest Blogger, Bob Martin

A few weeks ago, the Eastern Pennsylvania Business Journal published an article from an experienced marketing and communications professional, offering a contrarian view of the rush to incorporate social media into business communications. The gist of the argument seemed to be that incorporating these new techniques and channels into your business’s marketing efforts offers no obvious, tangible benefits over those delivered by a traditional mix of marketing communications activities and media.

I respectfully disagree – and not just because of the increasing power of younger, more social media-oriented individuals in the customer and consumer pools. As someone who’s worked in media and business communications for more than two decades, I see a compelling philosophical reason for embracing the new social media in our efforts to reach and serve our customers.

Since the beginning of mass media, business communicators have struggled to overcome the technical limitations of traditional communication channels, as we work to make our message connect more effectively with target audiences. Today’s new social media channels – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, blogs and the like – are game-changing advancements precisely because they’re breaking through those limitations, and creating a new, more effective business communications paradigm in the process.

Encouraging give and take during discussion, alternating the roles of messenger and receiver within the communication, adjusting your message on the fly based on the other party’s reactions – by enabling these actions, social media presents smart business communicators with something we’ve always wanted: a way to have an honest-to-goodness conversation with our audience.

Admittedly, this new conversation paradigm can be disorienting to traditional business communicators, because it adds a third dimension to our messaging – not brand to customer or customer to brand, but customer to customer ABOUT the brand, in which the communicator has to relinquish some measure of control over the message. For example, consumer products companies are realizing that relationships with influential bloggers can be excellent avenues to introduce new products, or emphasize features of existing ones, or just communicate their brand promise. But it comes at a cost: the power of the blogger can be directly related to their perceived independence from your influence, and you need that perception of independence to maximize the potential benefit of your relationship, so you accept the possibility of loss of some control over the message to the blogger and their audience.

Forward-thinking companies who can accept the social media conversation paradigm can use it to constantly adjust and update marketing strategies as they are executed. A social media audience is different than the total target audience, of course – but they’re different in ways that add to their value as “thought leaders”: they enter the conversation as generally knowledgeable about your company and its products, they are comfortable with the new conversation paradigm, and they relish the feeling that their opinion matters to what happens to “their brand” and so take that perceived responsibility very seriously.

To that point, a current ad campaign supporting the launch of Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating systems centers on PC users who offered feedback to Microsoft that ended up reflected in the new product – prompting each to claim that “Windows 7 was my idea.” The theme carries over to the product’s Facebook presence, which encourages groups of users to suggest, complain about or tout features of the product that others may find useful. It’s easy to see how these discussions could lead to adjustments in marketing strategy emphasis on particular features – which would in turn reinforce the umbrella theme of “Windows 7 is my idea.”

A final word of caution: by facilitating the continuation of a conversation, feedback through social media fundamentally changes the nature of any business communication effort. Establishing a presence in social media amounts to a commitment to your audience to continue that conversation. Fulfilling that commitment will cost time and money, but failing to live up to it will cost precious standing with key audiences that you won’t easily regain. Before embarking on a strategy that includes these new communications capabilities, make sure you’re prepared with the right resources and mindset to commit to a real conversation.