Using digital marketing tools can help authors and publishers by-pass the network television gatekeeper and take book messages directly to the reader.  Digital tools help authors connect with potential readers wherever they spend time online, be it Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, blogs or search engines. And, it is essential to remember that nearly half of all web users are accessing the web throughout the day via their mobile devices so creating digital content that plays nicely in mobile formats is key.

I recently spoke on the topic of digital tool kits at BookExpo America 2011 on the Digital Marketing Panel with Sally Dedecker, Fauzia Burke and Kathleen Schmidt. The panel consensus was that authors and publishers need to consider utilizing a wide variety of digital strategies to reach new readers. You can view my powerpoint presentation here. But many digital tools are expensive to create and not every author or publisher has the budget to develop and implement the more complicated and costly digital strategies used by major brands.

Here’s a list of my favorite low-cost digital tools authors and publishers can their book campaigns.

Blogsite or Website with a blog

This is the author’s home base.  Readers should be able to read more about the author, find  links to the current and previous works of the author, view a personal appearance schedule and read the author’s blog.  Readers should also be able to sign up for a continued relationship with the author, perhaps through a newsletter or to receive a sample chapter of a new book.  Whatever the offer, the author needs to capture the e-mail addresses of people who express an interest in hearing from them. Authors can create a free blog using WordPress or Blogger and an e-mail management system like MailChimp is free until the author has attracted 2,000 fans.  MailChimp automatically generates the HTML code needed for an Opt-in box, which the author can place on his or her blog.  By working with the publisher to offer a sample chapter as a digital download, authors can offer a sneak peek for new books for fans who sign up for the mailing list.

Social Media

Social media amplifies the authors website and blog messages and creates a connection to help readers feel as though they’re involved in the author’s world.  Authors can share tour information, preview books, give fans special content such as original stories on their website or blog and spread the word via social media. It’s easier and faster to amass a large following on Twitter and Facebook than to acquire a large subscription base on a website because millions of people are already gathered on social media sites.  Go to where the readers are already gathered.  Bring the author’s message to those readers instead of waiting for them to stumble upon that message on a website.  It’s free to sign up for accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.  There is no cost to use them.  However, investing a few hundred dollars in design and custom tabs will allow authors to sell books directly from their Facebook Fan page, offer that sneak peek free chapter through an opt in box right from Facebook, create the look and feel of their own television channel on YouTube and give readers a sense of their personality on Twitter.  For under $500, each of the author’s social media sites can be design to promote the others and ultimately to drive fans back to the author’s blog or home base.

Opt in

The theme for an author’s digital tool kit is “make it easy for the reader to find, follow, friend and like you.”  By developing an e-mail database of readers who have expressed an interest in what an author writes, authors and publishers will be able to easily and efficiently push updates and marketing messages to potential book buyers who have already identified themselves as being interested.  This permission based digital marketing is cost effective and can have a higher ROI than nearly any other book marketing.  Adding an Opt in box and an enticing sign up offer on both the author website and their Facebook Fan page is an easy, inexpensive digital marketing strategy.

Video

We’re living in a social world where Facebook is the Wal-Mart of digital platforms.  With nearly 700 million users now conditioned to expect to see a face attached to every brand, authors who use video effectively will have a competitive advantage in reaching readers.  Readers like seeing and hearing from the artists they admire.  In the past, meeting a favorite author or even a new author, was relegated to book signings and perhaps major events.  Now authors can create short home videos and talk directly to their potential readers, sharing their tour experiences, their creative process and even concepts from their books.  Readers enjoy authors who share a bit of their personality and their time by creating short video messages.  This, too, is an easy and inexpensive digital marketing concept.

Digital Assets

Authors can now  create digital badges, original digital content like blogs or articles, downloadable author photos and bios, digital press releases, quizzes, games and contests.  All of these digital assets can be used to create visibility for the author and his or her books online.  The more interesting and compelling the digital assets are, the more likely they will be referenced, shared and valued by potential readers.  Creating 5-10 original essays or blog posts that can be used as guest blogs on sites visited by an author’s ideal reader is a free way to use these digital assets to promote an author’s books.  The topic of the posts could be related to the topic of the new book and the author by-line can reference his or her latest work.  By providing desirable content to other websites, the author extends his or her own visibility and attracts new readers.  Sharing charts, graphs, photos, videos, quizzes or other interesting and relevant content on these high traffic websites is another strategic use of an author’s digital assets. Think about what digital assets you can create to support the launch of your books and prepare those assets so they’re ready and available at launch time.

Online Advertising

Facebook advertising campaigns can fit any budget.  Authors and publishers can set a daily or a lifetime cap to the dollar amount of the campaign. If an author already has several thousand fans, Facebook’s sponsored stories ads display an image of the author’s fan page to friends of that author’s fans with a subtle visual that implies “Your friends like this page.  You should too.”  Authors and publishers can try different types of ads, different images and different creative messages until they find one that drives new fans to press “like.”  Facebook ads can also be created to redirect Facebook users to the author’s blog or website.  Again, even a budget of $100 to $200 can have an impact, not just in new fans or readers, but in author and book visibility.  Hundreds of thousands of impressions can be achieved for a very modest budget.  This is a digital marketing strategy that is often overlooked because publishers and authors think advertising is expensive or that it’s difficult to measure the ROI.  With Facebook advertising, daily metrics will tell the tale of these ad campaign affects.

These are just a few of the digital marketing strategies authors and publishers can implement for little or no monetary outlay.  Are you using digital marketing strategies effectively?  We’d love to hear your ideas and success stories.

Isn’t it time your brand reached out beyond your current base and joined the social mix?

1. Facebook: More than 500 million users. Enough said. You need to be here with a Profile, at the very least, and preferably with a Fan Page.
2. Twitter: Come on. It’s 120 character micro=blogging. You can find the time. Note: Each tweet can be 140 characters but keep it to 120 so others can Retweet you and help your info go viral. Set it up and commit to posting regularly to grow your social influence.
3. LinkedIn: You simply must be on LinkedIn. It’s the yellow pages of business professionals and it’s becoming more interactive and important every day. Resolve to sign up, build out your work history and information slowly and join the digital workforce.
4. Blog: Content is king and some sort of blog—be it WordPress (my favorite) or another solution—is a necessity. You need a platform to post interesting and useful information in more than 120/140 characters and in an open forum. You can link to your blog on Twitter and Facebook to drive additional interest in your content. Blogs can be short, long, written, audio or video. Whatever content delivery system fits your personality and brand is the right system.
5. Calendar: Keep a notepad of ideas that occur to you throughout your day.  These can be your posting or blogging inspirations. Whatever you do, or whatever product or service you provide will be of interest to your readers, fans, and followers.  Make an editorial calendar once a month and let this serve as your social media marketing checklist.
6. YouTube:  YouTube is the second largest search engine around. Habits are changing on line and people are flocking to YouTube with their “how-to” and “who is” questions. You don’t have to be a celebrity or even a polished professional to reap the benefits of being on YouTube.  Create slide shows, photo and message montages and video messages and house them on your own YouTube Channel to increase your social visibility.

Social media is like a megaphone to help you rapidly expand the reach of your branding and marketing message.  But you have to be there to use the power of this medium.

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.

In terms of monetizing, one way to think of social media is as publicity for your product or service. Traditionally publicity is used to create awareness and then demonstrate to new listeners the specific, compelling reasons to purchase that product or service. Publicity is judged on media impressions delivered and publicists keep track of the viewer and reader numbers to conclude the number of media impressions. The impressions delivered in social media can be astronomical. But the time it takes to effectively spread a brand message on social media can also consume a disproportionate amount of your time and keep you from creating and delivering additional products and services—which is how you actually make money.

As a single employee company and an early adopter of Twitter and an avid Facebook fan page user and blogger, I have fallen into that time trap, too. But I’ve learned some nifty time saving strategies over the years that are helping me get back to creating income and spend fewer hours spreading the message.

Here are a few of my favorite time saving strategies in hopes that they can help you, too, get back to the business of your business.

1. Hootsuite is a great way to organizer for all of my Twitter accounts and my Facebook accounts. I can schedule tweets and posts there during a short morning session.
2. Friendfeed automatically sends my posts to a wide variety of social sites every time I post to my blog.
3. I love the Networked Blogs app on Facebook and use it to automatically pull my blog posts into my Fan page.
4. I use the Selective Tweets application on my Facebook Fan page to feed out my Facebook page posts to Twitter with a link back to my page.
5. On LinkedIn my blog posts are pulled in and posted to my profile automatically using the Bloglink application.
6. I use the Power Twitter application from Mozilla which works with my Firefox browser and puts a link shortener right above the posting space on my Twitter profile. This allows me to shorten links without having to go to another site to find a shortener.

There are many more and I’ll share those in the coming weeks. As you can see, my time saving strategies help me maximize the use of any content I create by helping me share everything I write with the widest possible audience. This helps me put that saved time back to work that actually creates income.

What are your favorite time saving strategies for using social media to create conversations about you or your brand? Let’s share them here. I’d love to compile a list of everyone’s best practices all in one place so we can all benefit from each other’s experience.

1. MEDIA: Traditional media, radio and television, features, op-eds, reviews, mentions, third party endorsements
2. ONLINE: Virtual and social media: video, audio, blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Slideshare, guest posts, internet radio, internet tv
3. LIVE EVENTS: appearances, workshops, keynotes
4. ADVERTISING: Targeted use of Adsense words, Facebook ads, paid press release placement, and other modestly priced visibility opportunities
5. STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS: product or business partners that imply endorsement and provide real or in kind value to campaigns
6. SEO: Search Engine Optimization is the glue the brings all of your brand outreach and marketing programs together to give you search engine ranking that helps people find you and buy your product. Without SEO, all of your various activities exists only by themselves and do not take advantage of their combined power to create massive brand awareness. SEO is the missing ingredient in many campaigns.

By identifying a succinct set of key message points and exploiting them over all of the platforms outlined in the MVP program, your brand will reach the consciousness of your intended end user, client or consumer faster, less expensively and in a more targeted fashion than if you were to employ any combination of these outreach strategies alone. I look forward to helping you create powerful brand awareness for your business, book or ideas this year.

You voice is your message or your promise. Your visuals are the physical manifestation of your promise, the look that inspires and compliments your message and promise. Your value is what you offer and your variation is how you differentiate yourself from the all others in your area of expertise. How are you unique and what special offer do you have that causes clients or customers to choose you and your product over the competition?

However painful, an honest evaluation will set you up for success in 2010. Ask yourself “What worked for me in 2009 and will that continue to work in 2010 or do I need to evolve that strategy to a higher lever?” Then ask yourself “What underperformed or just plain didn’t work in 2009 that I’ll need to drop from my strategy in order to make room, physically and psychologically, for new and innovative strategies? What must I replace that is no longer worth additional investment of my time and money?”

For authors, this often means deciding which of the many platform building strategies are working and which are not? You might be spending a great deal of time with social media and not enough time writing your next project. You may need to bring new balance to that mix. Or you might need to rev up your platform building by spending more time developing a good mailing list in anticipation of the publication of your book.

A great exercise is to put together a month by month plan with real goals attached to it. By way of example, let’s say an author is publishing a book in June of 2010. Their plan for the first couple of months of 2010 might look like this:

January

• Set up a Twitter profile, a Facebook profile and Facebook Fan page, a LinkedIn profile and a YouTube Channel.
• Spend 15 minutes every morning finding and following people who are interested in books, publishing, reading, the arts or my area of expertise on Twitter. Follow everyone who follows me, even if they don’t seem to be a natural fit with my goals at this time. I never know who will be following them and what their interests might be. The goal with Twitter is to cast a wide net. My Twitter follower goal for January is 1,000.
• Attract 500 new fans to my Facebook Fan page by posting a combination of links to articles of interest to my desired fan base, short posts about my writing process, photos of my speaking engagements, and once a month teleseminar and/or newsletter.
• Add 500 people to my e-mail list by creating a weekly inspirational or tip oriented e-newsletter that would provide information directly related to my area of expertise and would be added value for my readers.
• Write two articles to submit to print or magazines that cover my area of expertise and that would link back to or reference my Facebook page or my website or my e-newsletter.
• Research list of speaking engagements for my summer or fall tour or for on-going promotion of my work throughout the year.

February

• Attract 500 new fans to my Facebook Fan page (see January for ideas)
• Add 1,000 people to newsletter mailing list by creating a contest and offering a desirable prize such as a Kindle, Nook or something readers might enjoy. The modest amount of money spent on the prize can pay dividends in new fans and word of mouth buzz.
• Send out first newsletter and include links to all of my social media sites, announce any upcoming speaking engagements, give readers a reason to want to hear from me again.
• Write two additional articles for magazines and syndicate January’s articles if they were not already published by any outlet. There are many syndication services such as http://ezinearticles.com who will broadcast your articles. The goal here is to create awareness of my name, book topic and to whet the appetite of readers for my upcoming book.
• Contact speaking engagements that fit into summer or tour timetable.
• Write non-time sensitive Op Ed piece and “bank it” until Spring.

March

• Attract 500 new fans to my Facebook Fan page
• Add 1,000 people to newsletter mailing list by creating a “refer your friends” promotion. Offer something special to current subscribers who encourage two or more friends to sign up for the newsletter.
• Send out second newsletter. Engage my newsletter readers with polls, questions about future topics they might enjoy reading from me and create a sense of community by giving them insider information about me personally, my book and a look inside my life as a writer.
• Write two additional articles for magazines and syndicate any articles that have not yet been published from the previous month.
• Install the Slideshare application on my LinkedIn profile and create a powerpoint presentation about my upcoming book, making sure that it’s not an advertisement, but actually has value to a wider audience. Give facts, figures, interesting snipets. Post the powerpoint using Slideshare.
• Write one additional non-time sensitive Op Ed piece and “bank it” for submission to newspapers in the Spring.

April

• Attract 500 new fans to my Facebook Fan page. Make sure I’ve installed the Selective Twitter application on my page so that all my Facebook posts are broadcast to my Twitter profile as well.
• Add 1,500 people to newsletter mailing list. Use my Facebook Fan page to talk about articles in my previous newsletters and invite people to sign up for the newsletter by installing an opt in box on your Facebook Fan page if I have not done so already.
• Send out third newsletter. Invite people to connect on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
• Firm up speaking engagement tour.
• Contact bookstores in those towns to arrange bookseller for back of room sales.
• Connect with a publicist who can book radio, tv and print in those towns.
• Post 4-5 short personal videos to my YouTube Channel to give potential readers a taste of my personality, book, speaking style and what they can expect if they choose to buy my book. Again, these are not commercials. These are personal windows to allow the reader to get to know me.

May

• Attract 500 new fans to Facebook Fan page.
• Add 1,500 people to newsletter mailing list.
• Send out the next newsletter with all tour dates and locations.
• Create an Event through Facebook Fan Page and alert everyone on my list to upcoming tour dates and locations.
• Create an Event on LinkedIn with the same information.
• Put all of my social media platforms to work full force in getting the word out about these live events.

June

• Launch my book with the personal appearances and ask all my friends, fans and followers to help me spread the word.
• Post, Tweet and e-mail several times per week, if not everyday, during launch month and create the impression that I am everywhere at every moment. Attract new readers to my work by giving my writing away – in small samples – through social media.

* * *

Now, of course, this is not a comprehensive marketing plan and every book marketing plan needs to be unique, but you get the idea. Put actual goals and numbers to your strategy to help you keep on track, and be realistic about what you can do yourself and when you need to bring others in to help you.

Remember, your trying to create a conversation, a massive conversation, about YOU and your brand. Do you have additional ideas for creating your brand strategy goals for 2010. Let’s share those ideas with one another here.

Take your Social Media Image Seriously

Your Facebook® profile and your Facebook® Fan Page are two key social media touch-points for connecting with potential clients. Creating your on-line funnels in a variety of social mediums helps people find you and clearly understand the service you provide. Now, the yellow pages will do the same thing but social mediums let customers engage with you first and then decide, based on your attitude, the comments they read from your friends and followers and the value you provide in your various postings, whether or not they want to take the next step and become your customer. They can literally shadow you while deciding. That’s why it’s so critical for you to take your social media image seriously.

The Key Ingredients to your Social Media Strategy

Because your potential customer might be exploring numerous social media sites, you’ll want to be on at least Twitter, Facebook, Linked In and I highly recommend that you have a blog. If you already have your own website that becomes your home base. If you don’t, you’re blog can serve that purpose.

Now the number one rule of any great marketing campaign is to make sure that every consumer touch-point is integrated with every other one. All of your social media sites should link to each other, carry a similar look and message all while speaking to the consumer in the voice most appropriate for that medium. For example, you’ll communicate in short 120 character* bits on Twitter, longer more detailed thoughts will be incorporated into your blog and your Facebook profile and fan pages might be more personal and intimate. Yet an integrated marketing strategy means that the core values and the key message points will be the same, albeit communicated differently.

Helping Customers Find, Follow and Friend You

If you were the owner of a Deli, you wouldn’t hide the checkout counter. You’d make it very easy to find. Shoppers would never have to guess where to find you, talk with you and pay you. It’s the same with social media sites. Be user friendly. Make it easy for someone who finds and follows you on one site to find and friend you on another.

I recently installed a “Follow me on Twitter” button on my Facebook Profile and my Facebook Fan Pages. This is a nice visual addition to your profile or page and there are a lot of designers and programmers out there offering free buttons. I happen to love http://twitbuttons.com for it’s user-friendly interface. You simply enter your Twitter name in the URL box at the top of the page and all the HTML code in every Twitter Button box is changed, automatically, to customize the button for your twitter page.

So here are the instructions for adding a “Follow me on Twitter” button to your Facebook Page.

1. Log onto your Facebook Page and go to the applications link on the bottom left hand side of your screen.
2. Click “Browse applications and the find ” “Extended info” application. Add that to your profile. Then click the edit settings link to the right of the app in the list of apps you’ve downloaded. Where it says “Tab” click “add.”
3. Then go to http://twitbuttons.com and pick out your favorite button. Be sure to enter your twitter name in the black space above the buttons. This will automatically enter your correct twitter name link to the code under each twitter button image.
4. Copy the code of the button you like and go back to Facebook to the Applications list (link on bottom left of page).
5. Open the Extended info application by clicking directly on that link. A window will pop up for you to paste your code.
6. Paste the code and click the “Add to Profile” button on the upper right of that page.
7. Then click the Save changes button below the code and return to your page. You can change the look of your button at anytime by returning to these instructions and choosing a new button from the website I mentioned or another you may find. You can design your own if you’re skilled with HTML too.

Transparency is Currency in Social Media

I recommend adding your “Follow Me” button or link to all of your social media sites and using the custom options on your Twitter background to provide the URL’s for your Facebook, Linked In and Blog to your Twitter followers. You get the picture. The name of the game is to be visible. For some inspiring examples of people who are doing this well, check out these social media pros. Each one of these people are helping potential clients find them and utilizing a slightly different style. Take a look and make a plan to help yourself stand out in the crowd.

• Mari Smith: http://www.facebook.com/marismith?ref=ts#/marismith?v=app_11007063052&viewas=1048779085
• Dr. Mehmet Oz: http://www.facebook.com/droz?ref=ts#/droz?v=app_4949752878&viewas=1048779085
• Gary Vaynerchuk http://www.facebook.com/gary?ref=ts#/gary?v=wall&viewas=1048779085 (Check out his “Friend Me Up” Tab!)
• Karmen Reed at KickOff Topic: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kickoff-Topic-Marketing-Solutions-Through-Online-Visibility/56494299508#/pages/Kickoff-Topic-Marketing-Solutions-Through-Online-Visibility/56494299508?v=wall&viewas=1048779085
• The Social Latte: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tempe-AZ/The-Social-Latte-Specializing-In-Social-Media-For-Small-Businesses/80841554499?ref=ts#/pages/Tempe-AZ/The-Social-Latte-Specializing-In-Social-Media-For-Small-Businesses/80841554499?v=app_7146470109&viewas=1048779085
• Angela Albright: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Angela-Albright-Social-Media-Entrepreneur/87674098294?ref=ts#/pages/Angela-Albright-Social-Media-Entrepreneur/87674098294?v=wall&viewas=1048779085

If You Liked What You Read Here, Please Join Me

• Friend me on Facebook: http://Facebook.com/CindyRatzlaff
• Connect with me on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/CindyRatzlaff
• Follow Me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/BrandYou
• Subscribe to my Blog: http://CindyRatzlaff.wordpress.com

*Always try to keep your tweets to 120 characters so that people can Re-tweet your post. When they re-tweet, some of the character spaces are taken up with their Twitter name. At 120 characters you’ll be re-tweet-friendly.

The sheer volume of social media sites available could make a grown man or woman weep as they try to navigate the landscape and place themselves or their brand in the mix. Social Media can jumpstart awareness of your brand or it can be an enormous time waster. The key is knowing where to put your energy, how often and when to turn your time and attention elsewhere.

Here’s a quick down and dirty checklist of sites I think are worth your attention as you stake your space in the social media world.

1. Facebook: More than 200 million users. Enough said. You need to be here. You can create a Facebook page and begin inviting people to join you as friends and if you’re using Facebook for your business you’ll want to create Facebook Fan Page. For a very informative video and written instructions, there’s no better coach than Mari Smith. I highly recommend her “How to Create and Promote Your Facebook Fan Page video and here’s the link. http://budurl.com/z53e. Your Facebook Fan page is indexed and is searchable inside and outside of Facebook. This means that when someone googles the topic or your name, bingo: You’ve achieved virtual visibility. If you do nothing else (and you will) create a Facebook Fan Page for your business.
2. Twitter: Six to eight million U.S. users, depending on whose stats you’re viewing. Come on. It’s 120 character microblogging. You can find the time. Note: Each tweet can be 140 characters but keep it to 120 so others can Retweet you and help your info go viral. Twitter can be addictive. It’s real time conversation with the entire world. You can easily lose your focus and participate for long periods of time with this cyber cocktail party. Set a time limit (and a kitchen timer if necessary). Start with 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes at another time during the day. Share your expertise and look for others who are interested in what you have to say. Ask others about themselves. Engage, share worthwhile information, link to your website for more detailed information and stop for the day.
3. LinkedIn: You simply must be on LinkedIn. It’s the yellow pages of business professionals. LinkedIn can be a “set it and forget it” site but there’s significant value in updating regularly because every update puts you into the stream of updates on all of your colleagues with whom you are linked. It reminds them that you’re out there, doing interesting things, and keeps you and your business top of mind.
4. WordPress or Blogspot: Content is King and a blog, be it wordpress (my favorite), blogspot or another program, it is a great avenue for communicating your passion and purpose. You need to have a homebase for posting interesting and useful information in more than 120/140 characters. You can link to your blog on Twitter and Facebook to drive additional interest in your content. You’re blog can live on your website or can serve as your website, depending on your goals and the needs of your business.
5. Friendfeed: Great resource for sharing your favorite blogs and posts with all your social media sites at once. I simply love this application. You can add “Share on Friendfeed” to your toolbar and with one click post interesting information you find on the web to all of your social media site instantly. Yum! Three cheers for time saving applications.
6. Twellow and/or WeFollow: These are like the Yellow Pages of Twitter. For a minimum investment of your time, you can list yourself, free of charge, and make it easier for other people to find you. You’ll enter a few “key words” to describe your business, your service and your interests. You can also search these site for like minded people that you’ll want to follow. These are excellent resources for finding folks to follow and worth a few minutes a day as part of your twitter-follower building strategy.
7. Tweetdeck or Twhirl: For filtering the stream of noise in Twitter and making sure you don’t miss really important tweets from your peeps. Free to download and easy to learn to use, these are time saving applications that will help you take a look at your Twitterverse quickly and efficiently.
8. HootSuite: You can pre-schedule your tweets, manage multiple twitter accounts and measure your success with this wonderful Twitter toolbox. This, again, is a free application but you can choose to give a donation to help them continue to add new features. The choice is yours. Either way this will help you disseminate content, say from your blog or website, during pre-scheduled time periods throughout the day on Twitter, automatically. This is a wonderful time saver and definitely a worthy Phase One strategy.
9. Google Profile: You can now set up a google profile, similar to what you’ve already done on LinkedIn. I’ve made mine slightly less corporate and with a little more personality because I have multiple businesses and I want to engage the reader more with my personality than with my professional resume. I’ve included those links on my google profile so that information is there too. This is free, easy and indexed by google. Be there or be square. This really does seem to be a “set it and forget it” tool. If I find that it is evolving to a more social tool, I’ll visit this on a new post.
10. Technorati: If you have a blog, “claim” it on Technorati to help others find your words. Once you’re blog has passed their review standards, you’ll be indexed, an essential step toward standing out in the online universe. Technorati is also a terrific resource for finding blogs you’ll want to read and perhaps share with your Twitter and Facebook friends. This application is easy to use, takes very little time to set up, is a solid resource for content and thus makes my top ten Phase One Social Media tools list.

Now bookmark this page, shut off your computer and go outside. Here’s my challenge to you. Do one of these a day for the next 10 days and let me know how it goes. You can do all of this one step at a time and reduce your anxiety level to zero. Let me know if you have questions or suggestions for future posts. I want to write about things you want to read about. Let me hear from you.